The One Who Kisses: A Heartwarming Australian Outback Romance by Lucy Walker

Author:Lucy Walker [Walker, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: australian author, small town and rural, outback romance, australian rural novels, australian romance, clean romance, clean and wholesome, autstralian rural romance
Publisher: Wyndham Books (Small Town & Rural Romance)
Published: 2019-11-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

Kate had more shocks in store for her. She had been brought up to believe in chivalry. Certainly she had had it to-day … of a magnificent kind … from Bellew and Rick Benallen. But she had not had it from the one from whom she should most expect it.

She supposed Hal had not seen her. But if he had … what would, what should he have done? He had to save one and she did not begrudge Beatrix that. She honoured Hal for placing his sister first. But why had he not turned back for her? Perhaps he had seen Bellew and had known that Bellew would finish off the job. But why hadn’t he come back to see if Bellew had been successful? Perhaps he just knew that Bellew couldn’t be anything else …!

Mrs. Benallen insisted on the sal volatile and later a light dinner. Kate had taken off her riding clothes and was sitting comfortably in an old armchair in the corner of the vast kitchen. She wore a knitted jumper and skirt of Mrs. Benallen’s. Mrs. Benallen had been lavish with her use of safety pins in making the garments fit.

‘I didn’t know I was so big …’ she said.

‘You’re not. You’d look wretched any thinner,’ Kate said. ‘At my age one has to stay gaunt … that’s the fashionable figure.’

‘You’re not gaunt, my dear. You’re lovely. Really lovely.’ She looked at Kate and sighed. ‘I wish you were my girl. Or Rick’s girl … or something. Even the cook. Just so I’d have something as young and fresh around me all day.’

‘You’re too kind. And very flattering.’

‘Blow flattering. It’s the truth. Why do you suppose Rick brought you home? He knew I liked you.’

‘He’s like a big brother.’

Mrs. Benallen snorted.

‘That’s just the trouble.’

She finished the job with the safety pins and looked Kate over critically.

‘Wrapped round you like an Egyptian mummy. Oh well, go and sit in that chair, my dear. You’ll have a rest and nobody will see how ill-fitting those clothes are.’

Kate sat in the chair meaning to get up presently and offer to help in getting the meal. She watched Mrs. Benallen moving between the kitchen and the living-room. She went on thinking about Hal.

‘Why hasn’t Hal come for me?’ she asked.

Mrs. Benallen paused and looked at the girl. Behind her blue eyes Kate was a little miserable.

‘Listen, my dear. You stop worrying about Hal. He knows you’re all right. If you weren’t he’d have heard from the men. As it was they knew Rick and Bellew were up on the gully end with you. They’ve told him.’

‘But why …?’

‘That’s Hal. He leaves undone those little acts that would bring pleasure to people. If you stay in Blackwood long enough you’ll get used to it. Everyone else is used to it. No one minds … no one holds it against him … It’s just Hal.’

‘But …?’

‘But you’re engaged to him? And that’s different? I wish you weren’t engaged to him. And nobody’s different with Hal.

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