Outback Bride

CHAPTER TEN

The silence was so complete that Copper heard the crunch of changing gears long before she saw Mal's four-wheel drive, but the light was rapidly fading before the vehicle swung into the clearing, its headlights raking across Copper's useless car. By then she was too stiff and weary to move, and she could only sit helplessly as Mal leapt out and looked anxiously around him.

'We're here,' she tried to call, but her mouth was so dry that it came out as no more than a whisper. It was enough, though, for Mal to swing round and see them huddled beneath their rock.

After that everything was a blur for Copper, interspersed with sudden flashes of terrible clarity-like the look on Megan's face when she saw her father or the way Mal's arms tightened round his daughter with a sort of desperation. Too clear was the whiteness of fear around his mouth, the stony expression in his eyes when he looked at Copper and the terrible silence as he drove them home.

"The explanations can wait,' he said curtly, when she tried to tell him what had happened.

Back at the homestead, Georgia was waiting to help them inside. It was Georgia who knew about first aid and could bandage Megan's ankle properly, Georgia who helped Mal to soothe her and wash her and put her to bed. Copper was left to limp stiffly along to the bedroom, too sick at heart to do anything but sit numbly on the side of the bed with the remnants of her shirt in her hands. It was all her fault. She should never have taken Megan out there, should never have taken her eyes off her.

Her sense of guilt was so great that Copper didn't even try and defend herself when Mal came into the room, shutting the door behind him with an ominous click. 'You realise you could have killed my daughter this afternoon?' he said, dangerously quiet.

Copper flinched as if from a blow, but all she could do was turn her head away. She felt Mal's eyes boring into her as he moved into the room. 'You put her in a car that's not fit to drive outside a city and took her out to the most dangerous part of the property,' he said. He didn't raise his voice, but every word was like a lash from a whip. 'And then you let her wander off on her own and hurt herself badly falling off a rock. You might as well have pushed her off yourself!'

'I'm sorry,' whispered Copper, linking her hands together to stop them shaking.

'Sorry? What's the use of being sorry?' Mal was white with fury. 'How dared you take a risk like that with my daughter's life? You didn't even think to leave a note to say where you were going! If Georgia hadn't come back early and found you missing, you could have been out there all night. If she hadn't radioed me straight away it would have been too late for me to get back to a car. As it was she only just spotted you in time. We could all have spent the night driving around in the dark looking for you!'

'I didn't know the car was going to break down,' said Copper painfully.

'It wasn't broken down,' he said with withering con-tempt. 'Brett's brought it back already. Anyone with the most basic knowledge of mechanics could have fixed it.'

'I don't know anything about mechanics,' she muttered, looking down at her hands.

'Of course you don't!' She could hear Mal striding savagely around the room. 'You don't know about anything useful and you haven't made any attempt to learn. All you've done is push bits of paper around and make a fool out of me!'

Stung out of her guilt and misery, Copper looked up at last. 'That's not true!'

'Isn't it?' Mal's mouth twisted with distaste. 'God, you'd think I'd have learnt my lesson about unsuitable women, wouldn't you? Lisa was just as useless as you, but even she didn't behave as irresponsibly. She might not have spent much time with Megan, but at least she never exposed her to the kind of danger you did today!'

'Why do you keep marrying unsuitable women, then?' Copper leapt to her feet and flung the torn shirt aside, too hurt and bitter to keep still any longer. 'Have you ever thought that when things go wrong it might be something to do with you? No, of course you haven't!' She answered her own question.

'You'll never find a woman who satisfies you, Mal, because you think marriage is something that can be organised by some stupid contract. You accuse me of being obsessed with business, but you're the one who looks at everything in terms of a deal. You always think about what you're going to get out of a marriage and never about what you're going to share. You never give anything of yourself, do you?' She was shaking as she swept on, green eyes blazing with the injustice of his remarks. 'I used to think that it was because you'd been hurt by Lisa, but now I think it's because you've got nothing to give-and even if you had, it wouldn't be worth having!'

Mal took a sharp step towards her, and for a moment she thought he was actually going to hit her, but then he had turned on his heel and was at the door. At the last moment he glanced back at Copper with eyes like ice and a voice that dripped with contempt. 'The reason I don't give anything to you, Copper, is that there's nothing I want from you in return.' And he went out, pulling the door behind him with a final, terrible click.

'Copper, you look awful!' Georgia exclaimed in concern when she saw Copper the next morning. Her face was pinched with exhaustion and the green eyes were blank with misery.

'I'm all right.' Copper managed a wavering smile in spite of the fact that there was an agonising pounding behind her eyes and her heart felt as if it was gripped by talons of ice.

She had spent the night curled in a foetal position on the bed, staring numbly at the wall and too despairing even to cry while Mal's words jeered and echoed remorselessly in her brain. Useless. Irresponsible. Worse than Lisa. She hadn't seen him since he had walked out of the room, but she didn't need to. She knew now exactly what he thought of her, and her belief that they would be able to resolve all their differences in bed seemed hopelessly naive.

Mal would never forgive her for endangering Megan, and the more Copper thought about it the more she thought he was right. She was useless here at Birraminda. She didn't belong and she never would. Mal needed a wife like Georgia, who was everything Copper wasn't. The realisation turned Copper's heart to stone, but she knew what she had to do.

She tried to ignore the other girl's worried look. 'How's Megan?'

'She seems fine apart from her ankle,' said Georgia. 'Children are pretty resilient, but we thought she ought to spend the day in bed, anyway, in case there were any after effects from that bump on the head.'

Copper flinched at that 'we'. She knew that it was unintentional, but Georgia's calm good sense only seemed to reinforce her own uselessness. 'I'll go and see her,' she said dully.

Megan was propped up against a pile of pillows, looking more bored than ill, but her face brightened when she saw Copper, and she was anxious to show off her bandaged foot. 'I've got a sprained ankle,' she said proudly, and then, barely pausing for breath, 'Can you read me a story?'

'Not today, sweetheart.' Copper sat down on the edge of the bed, her throat so tight that it was painful to swallow. 'I've got to go to Adelaide.'

'Can I come?' said Megan eagerly.

She shook her head. 'You've got to stay and look after Dad.'

'When are you coming back?'

Copper hesitated. She had been going to tell Megan that she would only be away a week or so, but wasn't that more cruel than telling her the truth? 'I-I'm not coming back, Megan.' It was one of the hardest things she had ever had to say.

Megan stared at her, blue eyes huge as understanding dawned painfully through her confusion. 'You can't go.'

Copper had dreaded this moment, but the look in the child's eyes was worse than anything she could have imagined. 'Dad said you'd stay.' Her voice rose to a wail and then broke as she began to cry.

'Oh, Megan…' Copper pulled the sobbing child into her arms and rocked her, her own tears pouring down her face and into the soft curls buried into her throat. 'I'm so sorry,' she whispered, knowing that for a little girl like Megan being sorry was not enough. 'But Georgia's here to look after you now, and you like her, don't you?'

'I don't want Georgia,' wept Megan. 'I want you! You said you'd stay for ever!'

'Megan, I-' She broke off, her voice suspended in tears. 'I don't want to go.' She tried again. 'I wish I could stay with you for always.'

'Then why are you going?'

How could she explain to a child of four? 'Megan, you love Dad, don't you?' The dark head nodded mutely and Copper struggled to go on. 'So do I, but he doesn't love me.'

'He does! He does!'

Copper tried to close her ears to the anguish in the child's voice. 'Sometimes, when you love someone, you want them to be happy even if it makes you unhappy, and that's what it's like for me. I think Dad would be happier if I went away.'

'No!' sobbed Megan. 'He wants you to stay!'

Copper held her tightly, kissing the dark curls. 'I don't belong here, Megan,' she said brokenly through her tears. 'But I want you to know that I love you very much. I always will.' She swallowed painfully. 'You'll be a good girl for Dad, won't you?'

Megan didn't answer, only clung to her in desperation as Copper tried to lay her back down in the bed, and in the end Copper had to sit there, crooning softly, until she was so worn out by crying that she fell asleep.

Gently Copper covered Megan with a sheet and smoothed the curls away from the flushed, tearstained little face. She stood looking down at her for a long time while her heart splintered inside her, and then she walked quietly away and closed the door behind her.

'You can't go!' Georgia was aghast when Copper told her she was leaving. 'You're in no state to drive anywhere.'

'I have to.' Copper's face felt numb and she was moving stiffly, like an old woman.

Georgia was obviously distressed. 'Copper, I know you and Mal had an argument last night,' she said awkwardly. 'I saw him come out of your room, and he looked as if the world had just ended. But it was such an awful day, and you were both upset. I'm sure if you could just talk about it you'd be able to work everything out.'

'Mal and I have done enough talking,' said Copper. She felt very weary, although it wasn't yet nine o'clock. 'I don't belong here, Georgia. I can't ride a horse or fix a car or strap up an ankle, and after yesterday it's obvious that I'm not even any good at looking after Megan.'

'None of those things matter,' said Georgia urgently. 'The only thing that matters is that you and Mal love each other. Please stay and talk to him tonight!'

'I can't.' Copper's face was ravaged by tears. She couldn't stand to see the disgust in Mal's eyes again. 'I just can't!'

'But what will I tell Mal when he asks why you've gone?'

Copper picked up her case. She had torn her copy of the contract into two and left the pieces on her pillow. 'You won't need to tell him anything. He'll know why I've gone.'

Georgia was crying as she followed her out to the car. 'I wish you wouldn't go,' she wept as Copper turned to hug her goodbye.

'It'll be better for everyone this way.' Copper choked back her own tears. 'Look after Megan for me, Georgia, and tell Mal…tell him I'm sorry…about everything.'

'I'll put a brochure in the post tonight.' Copper put down the phone and rubbed her aching neck. Had she really used to love working in an office?

Over the last ten days she had struggled to pick up the threads of her old life, but she felt trapped in a dull sense of unreality where only the pain inside her seemed less than a blur. Every day seemed interminable, and when she got to the end of each one, like now, there was only the evening stretching bleakly ahead. In the past Copper had thrived on a frenetic lifestyle, but now she hated everything about the city. She hated the tarmac roads and the smell of cars. She hated the endlessly ringing phone and the hours spent making bookings or stuffing brochures into envelopes.

Copper lifted a pile of booking forms and then dropped them listlessly back onto her desk. All she was doing was pushing pieces of paper around, just as Mal had said. Once the very sound of exotic destinations like Quito or Kampala or Rangoon had been enough to thrill her, but now there was only one place she wanted to be.

Birraminda. Copper wanted the empty outback sky, the sharp light and the space and the scent of dust and dry leaves along the creek. She wanted the cockatoos squawking and screeching in the trees and the horses grazing peacefully in the paddock. She wanted the clatter of the screen door and the glare of the sun on the corrugated iron roof and Megan snuggling into her side for a story.

And Mal.

Copper ached with the need to hear his footsteps on the verandah, to watch him settle his hat on his head. She craved the lean, muscled grace of his body and his slow, sure hands on her skin. Most of all she wanted him to fold her in his arms and tell her that he loved her, to melt the ice around her heart and let her live again.

It had taken some time to persuade her parents that she really had left Mal. 'But we were so sure that you were right for each other,' her mother had said, bewildered when Copper had arrived, grey with misery and exhaustion.

'It was all just a pretence,' said Copper bitterly. 'We were just acting.'

Dan Copley snorted. 'If that was acting, you should both be in Hollywood!'

In the end, she had to tell them about the deal she had made with Mal. Her father's face darkened as he heard her story, and Copper felt crushed by guilt at the knowledge that she had thrown his dream away.

'I'm sorry, Dad,' she stammered. 'I know how much you wanted the project at Birraminda, but I'm sure I'll be able to find somewhere else if I-'

'The project!' Dan dismissed his dream with an angry gesture. 'What does the project matter? All I care about is you! I've a good mind to ring that Mal up right now and give him a piece of my mind! How could he have blackmailed my daughter!'

Seeing that he was working himself up into a state, Copper clutched at his arm and tried to calm him before he put too much strain on his heart. 'Dad, don't! It wasn't blackmail. I chose to marry Mal.'

'He must have forced you. How could you have chosen to marry a man you were only pretending to love?'

Copper's face twisted. 'But I wasn't pretending, Dad. That was the trouble.'

Although still doubtful, her parents had eventually accepted her decision to come home and Copper had thrown herself into work at the office. Anything was better than sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring, or for a knock at the door that would mean Mal had come to find her. He must realise that she had gone back to her parents, but he had made no effort to get in touch with her. This time he had no excuse for not knowing where to find her.

If Mal had loved her, he would have come straight down to Adelaide to fetch her back. At the very least he would have rung to check that she was safe and hadn't broken down again in the middle of the outback. But there had been no word from him at all. That meant that Copper was just going to have to learn to live without him. She had got over Mal once before, she tried to tell herself, and she would again.

With a sigh, Copper pushed back her chair. Six o'clock. Her father would be here any minute. Her car was in for a service and he had promised to come and pick her up. Dully, she switched on the answering ma-chine and straightened the papers on her desk before running her hands wearily through her hair. The vitality that had always been so much a part of her had been drained by despair, and she didn't need to look in the mirror to know that her terrible sense of desolation could be read in her thin face and the green eyes that were smudged with exhaustion.

Outside the window, Copper saw her father's car slide to a halt and she raised a hand in acknowledgement. Locking the door behind her, she went over and got into the car, summoning a smile as she turned to thank her father.

But he wasn't there.

Mal was.

Copper's heart stopped and all the air went whooshing from her lungs as the world tilted alarmingly around her. Mal was there, quiet and contained and unbelievably real. He was wearing his moleskin trousers and a dark green shirt open at the throat, and there was an expression in his eyes that Copper had never seen there before. She might even have thought that it was anxiety if her gaze hadn't dropped to the piece of paper sticking out of his shirt pocket.

Copper recognised that paper all too well, and cold, cruel reality wiped out that first dazzling moment of joy with a brutality that clutched agonisingly at her throat. Mal had brought the contract with him and was going to try and force her to its terms.

Bitterness closed around her. There had been times when she had thought that it would be enough just to see him again, but she hadn't wanted it to be like this. 'What are you doing in Dad's car?' she asked him through stiff lips. It was the first thing that came into her head, and even as she asked the question she thought how irrelevant it was.

'He lent it to me.' Calmly, Mal put on his indicator, glanced over his shoulder and pulled out into the traffic. 'Did you think I had stolen it?'

'You've been to see my parents?'

He was concentrating on driving, not looking at her. 'I got here earlier this afternoon. I had to endure an unpleasant session with your father, but once I'd had a chance to explain what I was doing here he gave me the car and told me to come and pick you up myself.'

'And what are you doing here?' Copper cast a bitter glance at the contract. 'As if I don't know!'

'I would have thought it would be obvious, yes,' said Mal. 'We need to talk.'

She looked out of the window. How could he sit there, coolly manoeuvring through the traffic, when her world was reeling? 'We've said everything we had to say,' she said bleakly.

'I haven't,' he said.

'Well, I have!'

'That's all right,' said Mal. 'You can listen.'

He drove her to the beach and parked the car facing the sea. Copper felt curiously detached, too shaken by Mal's unexpected appearance even to wonder how he knew the way. It had been a sunny day, but not particularly warm for late summer, and the beach was almost empty-except for an occasional jogger and a few seagulls squabbling over scraps, their cries drifting on the sea breeze.

For a while they sat there without speaking, watching the waves rippling against the sand. Mal seemed to have forgotten that he wanted to talk to her. He was staring through the windscreen, his hands resting on the steering wheel and his shoulders tense.

'Well?' said Copper eventually. 'What is it that you want to say?'

'I wanted to know why you left without saying goodbye.'

'You must know why I left,' she said bitterly. 'You made it very clear what you thought of me the night before and I thought you'd be glad to find that I'd gone.'

Mal turned at that. 'You thought I'd be glad to come home and find that my wife had walked out on me?'

'But I wasn't ever really your wife, was I, Mal?' said Copper. 'Oh, I know we went through a ceremony, and said all the right words in the right places, but it takes more than that to be married. I was only ever a housekeeper as far as you were concerned, and I knew you'd replaced plenty of those before. You didn't even have to go to the trouble of ringing up the agency when you had Georgia there, on the spot, ready to take my place. Why don't you try and blackmail her into marrying you? She'd be a far better wife than I ever was!'

Mal half smiled. 'She's certainly ideal-' he began, but Copper couldn't bear to hear any more. She jumped out of the car, blinded by tears, and began to stumble towards the beach. But Mal was cutting her off from the other side.

'Don't you walk away from me again!' he shouted. 'Why do you think I came down here to find you?'

'I don't know!' She tried to brush the tears angrily from her eyes but they kept spilling over. 'I suppose you're going to try waving that contract at me. What are you going to do, sue me for breach of promise?'

'No.' Mal pulled it from his pocket. 'I did bring the contract with me, though. Look, here it is,' he said, and then, very deliberately, he tore it into tiny pieces. The lightest of breezes lifting off the sea caught them and they fluttered away, to be pounced on by a seagull who carried it away, screeching in triumph.

Copper stared blankly across the bonnet, her tears forgotten. 'That was the contract!' she said stupidly.

'Not any more.'

'But…don't you want it?'

'I never wanted it,' he said.

'But you insisted on it! You only ever opened your mouth to quote it at me! Why would you do that if you didn't want it?'

'God, wasn't it obvious?' cried Mal in sudden despair. 'I did it because it was the only way I could make you stay!'

The words rang between them, echoing in the sudden silence. Copper couldn't move. She could only gaze at Mal in disbelief as he walked round the front of the car to take her very gently by the elbows.

'I never wanted the contract, Copper,' he said. 'I only ever wanted you.'

'Y-you wanted a housekeeper,' she corrected him. She was trembling, terrified of facing the bitterness of disillusion again but incapable of ignoring the hope that was flickering into life against all the odds.

'I told myself that, but it was only an excuse. I'd been looking for one ever since I looked across the yard and saw you sitting on the steps next to Megan.' His thumbs moved tantalisingly over her inner arms, caressing the soft skin. 'It was like a miracle, to find you again after seven years.'

'I didn't think you even remembered me,' said Copper unsteadily. 'You can't tell me that you'd been waiting for me all that time!'

'I hadn't been waiting, no,' said Mal, 'but I had been regretting. I'd accepted that I would never see you again, and then I met Lisa. I wanted her to make me feel the way you had done, but she could never be you and the marriage was a disaster from the start. I can't tell you how many times I'd find myself thinking about you, about the way you smiled, the way you closed your eyes when I kissed you, the way you felt in my arms.'

He paused, looking down into Copper's face, and the expression in his eyes made her heart beat faster. 'I used to wonder what my life would have been like if my father hadn't died just then, or if you'd been in when I called, but I knew there was no point in wishing that things had been different, so I tried my best to forget you. And then, just when I thought I'd managed to push you to the back of my mind, suddenly there you were.'

'Why didn't you tell me this then?' she asked uncertainly, and Mal's fingers tightened around her arms.

'I wasn't sure that the time we'd spent together in Turkey had meant the same thing to you. You'd obviously got on with enjoying your life and you didn't seem to have any regrets.' His mouth twisted. 'And Lisa taught me to be wary. It was a blow to realise that you were so determined about your business, but I thought that if I could just get you to stay a little longer we'd have a chance to get to know each other again. When you offered to stay on as housekeeper it seemed too good to be true, but it wasn't long before I realised that wasn't going to be enough. You'd made it clear that your business was your priority, and I knew you wouldn't stay just because I asked you.'

'So you thought you'd try a spot of blackmail?' said Copper, with the beginnings of a smile.

Mal grimaced. 'It was all I could think of, but it just made things worse. I felt guilty at having forced you into a marriage that you didn't want, and the very fact that you'd agreed made it obvious that your business meant far more to you than I ever could.'

Could he really have been so blind? 'Did it seem like I was thinking of business on our wedding night?' she asked, and he slid his hands slowly up her arms.

'I wasn't sure,' he confessed. 'When I made love to you, I was sure that you had to feel the same, but I'd watched you with Glyn at the wedding, and I remembered what you'd said about still loving him. I was afraid you'd just been trying to forget him, and when I woke up the next morning and saw the contracts I realised what an impossible situation I'd put us both in. I knew that I'd no right to touch you unless you asked, because that's what I'd agreed, but you've no idea how hard it was to lie next to you night after night.'

'Don't I?'

She smiled at him as she spoke and Mal gripped her shoulders. 'Copper,' he said with sudden urgency. 'I've said a lot of stupid things about love. I pretended that I didn't want anything more to do with it after Lisa, when all the time I was just afraid to tell you how much I loved you. I came down because I knew I had to apologise for the way I treated you, but all I really want is to ask you to come back.'

He hesitated, and Copper marvelled at the uncertainty in his expression. 'I've got no right to ask you, I know, but Birraminda isn't the same without you. It isn't like before. You're not just a special memory any more. I need you now, and Megan needs you too.' He gestured at the scattered pieces of paper. 'The contract doesn't exist any more. I want you to come back because you want to, not because some lawyer says you have to.'

His hands cupped her face lovingly and his voice was very low. 'Will you come back, Copper? Not as a housekeeper, not as a wife-not as anything but yourself?'

Copper slipped her arms around his waist and smiled up at him with shining eyes. 'It depends how long you want me to stay this time.'

'Nothing less than for ever will do,' said Mal.

'For ever it is, then,' she said, and melted joyously into his kiss. He crushed her against him, kissing her with a deep, desperate hunger, and Copper clung to him, dizzy with pleasure and almost aching with the happiness of knowing that he loved her.

'Are you sure you want me back?' she asked much later, struck by sudden doubt as they walked slowly along the beach together. 'I'm so hopeless at everything. I can't do any of the things your wife should be able to do. You need someone who knows what they're doing and-'

Mal stopped her with another long kiss before she could say any more. 'I need you,' he said against her mouth. 'Only you.'

Deeply satisfied, Copper wound her arms around his neck and nibbled tiny, tantalising kisses along his jaw. 'But I thought Georgia was your ideal wife,' she murmured provocatively into his ear.

'If you'd let me finish,' said Mal, 'you'd have heard me say that Georgia was the ideal wife for Brett.' He pretended to sound stern, but she could feel his cheek crease into a smile beneath her lips. 'You were right about that too, which just goes to show how useful you're going to be.'

'Georgia and Brett are getting married?' Copper pulled back at the news, delighted. 'When did that happen?'

'After you left. Trying to cope with me brought them together-I think it made them realise how they'd feel if one of them left.'

'I knew Brett was in love, but I didn't realise Georgia felt anything for him!' Copper tucked herself into Mal's side as they resumed their walk.

'I don't think she wanted to be just another girl for him, so she held off as long as she could,' Mal told her. 'She's certainly the only girl Brett's ever taken seriously, and I think she'll be good for him. He's steadier already. I've been so taken up with running around after you that he's had to take over a lot of the work on the station, and it's done him the world of good. There's a nice property up for sale not too far away, and together they should make a success of it.' He smiled down at Copper. 'They're just waiting for you to come back so that they can get married.'

Copper flashed him a demure look from beneath her lashes. 'So you're not jealous of Brett any more?'

'Not now,' said Mal with a rueful smile. 'I was, though. But not nearly as jealous as I was of Glyn. I kept thinking about the things you'd said about him- how he was kind and honest and a good friend-and I was terrified that you'd decide to go back to him. And later, when I thought about the things I'd said to you, I didn't think I could blame you.'

His arms tightened. 'I said some unforgivable things to you that last night, Copper,' he confessed. 'I've never been as scared as I was when I heard that you and Megan were missing, but I was still angry after that argument the night before and I took it all out on you. It didn't help, though, and I felt so bad the next day that I turned back halfway out to the muster. I was going to tell you that I was sorry, and hadn't meant what I'd said, but when I got back Georgia had to tell me you'd gone.'

The memory made Mal crush her so hard against him that she could hardly breathe, but Copper didn't mind. 'It was the worst moment of my life,' he said. 'Georgia was crying, Megan was inconsolable, Brett kept telling me what a bloody fool I'd been-but all I could think was that you'd decided to try and work things out with Glyn after all. I remembered what you'd said about it not being too late now that Ellie was back with her husband, and I was so desperate and angry at first that I refused to go after you. I've spent the last ten days in hell, imagining you with him, and this morning I couldn't stand it any longer. I flew down and went straight to your parents', but you weren't there. Your father tore a strip off me for making you so unhappy, but when I told him that my life just wasn't going to be worth living unless I could persuade you to come back and try again, he took pity on me and tossed me the car keys!'

'Mal?' Copper held herself slightly away from him so that she could look deep into his eyes. 'Have I told you that I love you?'

He smiled at her in a way that made her heart sing. 'Now that you come to mention it, I don't think you have,' he said.

'I do,' said Copper, and kissed him-a long, warm,inexpressibly sweet kiss that thrilled with the promise of the years to come.

Later, much later, they took off their shoes and walked barefoot along the sand. It was cool and soft between Copper's toes and reminded her of the beach they had walked along seven years ago, hand in hand as now but knowing nothing then of the long road that would bring them back together again.

'We don't have to get married again now that we've torn up our contracts, do we?' she murmured, nuzzling Mal's throat as they halted for yet another kiss.

'We don't need another wedding, but I think we "might have another honeymoon, don't you?' said Mal. 'Why don't we tell your parents that the project's on again, and then take ourselves back to that hotel in the hills? We could have a real honeymoon now that we don't need to pretend any more.' His lips drifted along Copper's jaw to linger at her mouth. 'How does that sound?'

Copper heaved an ecstatic sigh as they turned towards the car. 'It sounds like heaven!'

Three days later, the little plane flew over the creek and touched down at Birraminda. 'Welcome home,' said Mal, leaning over to kiss Copper as they came to a bumpy halt.

Brett and Georgia were waiting together on the edge of the landing strip, restraining an impatient Megan with difficulty until the propeller had spun to a stop. But as Mal lifted Copper down, his hands hard and possessive at her waist, she came flying over the dust towards them.

'Copper, Copper!' she called, and flung herself into Copper's waiting arms. 'You came home!'

Copper lifted her up in a tight hug, and the green eyes that met Mal's over the small head shone with love., 'Yes,' she said. 'I'm home now.'