Rescued By A Millionaire

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘JENNA, Mr Jackson’s hammering.’

Jenna surfaced with reluctance. It had been hours before she’d slept the night before, finally falling into uneasy slumber some time before dawn, but Karli was bouncing beside her, big with news.

‘He’s working and working and we should be up and helping him.’

Jenna groaned. Karli was immediately concerned.

‘Are you sick?’

‘No. I’m tired.’

‘How can you be tired? We’ve slept for hours.’

‘Hours.’ She rolled over to check her watch and she landed on a rock. ‘Ouch!’

‘My fossil. Don’t bend my starfish.’

‘Your starfish bent me.’

There was no sympathy from Karli. ‘We should get up and help Mr Jackson.’

‘You help Mr Jackson.’

‘I will,’ Karli announced. ‘You look after my starfish.’

It wasn’t yet seven o’clock. By rights Jenna should disappear back into sleep. But the hammering continued. She heard it pause as Karli obviously approached. There was an intense conversation, a few giggles and then the hammering resumed. Only now there were two hammers.

Hammering before seven o’clock was surely against union rules. Where was a union when she needed one?

But sleeping with a rocky starfish was losing its attraction. If she only had two more days with Riley Jackson…well, she was darned if she was wasting them by sleeping with a rock.

They were outside. All she had to do was follow the sound of the childish questions, the low, gruff answers and the rhythmic hammering. He had her intrigued. He was so good to Karli. She slowed as she approached, listening in.

‘Will we fly in your aeroplane?’

‘Yes.’

‘To your other house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is your other house as horrible as this one?’

Jenna winced, but Riley chuckled.

‘It’s different.’

‘Does it have as much dust?’

‘We have much nicer dust at Munyering. And Maggie is a dust fixer, just like Jenna is a dust fixer. They’re very similar women.’

‘Is Maggie nice?’

‘She’s very nice.’

‘Jenna’s nice, too. Do you think Jenna’s nice?’

Did she imagine it or was there a moment’s hesitation. And then a certain amount of wariness. ‘She’s very nice.’

‘She’s not always dusty.’

‘I can see that.’ The laughter was back in Riley’s voice.

Enough. Eavesdroppers heard no good of themselves and she was playing with fire. She ducked under a makeshift clothesline where six shirts and assorted socks and jocks were flapping in the wind. They were already dry. Laundry day on the farm?

They didn’t see her approach and for a moment Jenna stood among the laundry and watched them. Riley had ceased hammering. He was sawing ancient weatherboards to size. Karli was sitting in the dust in her nightgown, banging a board onto the house with a nail as big as her hand and a hammer that was huge. She was concentrating absolutely and the nail was going in true.

And Riley was stripped to the waist, his broad chest was glistening with sweat as he sawed, and he looked…he looked…

Like the sort of guy you should run a mile from, she thought. An outback hero in a romance novel of the bodice-ripper variety. Toe-curlingly gorgeous.

Her toes were definitely curling.

He looked up from his work, he saw her and he grinned.

‘Well, well. Sleeping Beauty rises. Karli and I decided you may well snooze for another hundred years.’

‘There’s something not very companionable about a rock,’ she told him. ‘Which is all Karli left me to sleep with. And might I remind you that it’s not yet seven o’clock. Aren’t there rules about industrial noise in residential areas before seven?’

‘Is it almost seven?’ he demanded. ‘Heck. Almost lunch time.’

‘What time did you wake?’

‘Five.’

‘So you’ve done your laundry.’

‘Well noticed.’

‘Won’t Maggie do it for you?’

‘Yep, but I’m fresh out of clean shirts and I need to keep myself nice for Miss Karli here.’

‘They’re hardly whiter than white,’ she said, eying them with caution. ‘Don’t they dry hard in this water?’

‘We outback men are tough,’ he told her and grinned-and the bodice-ripper image intensified. So did the toe-curling.

Drat the man.

Riley handed a weatherboard to Karli, then squatted down and helped her fit it. Together they nailed. He was treating the child as if she were really a help, Jenna thought, and, damn, here came that stupid lump in her throat that was never far away when this man was close. Why?

She knew why.

With the weatherboard fitted, Riley rose and surveyed his handiwork. ‘Enough,’ he told Karli. ‘It’s time for lunch.’

‘We haven’t had breakfast yet.’

‘How about brunch as an alternative?’ He grinned. ‘Seeing I’ve declared this as a day of domesticity I’ve even managed time to cook. I lay in my cot last night and thought: these two visitors from the old country have obviously categorised me as a rotten housekeeper so the best thing I can do is to show them I’m not a total wuss.’

Which was so far from what Jenna was thinking of him that she blinked.

‘You mean you’ve actually managed to heat your baked beans?’ she managed, and his smile widened.

‘Nope. At great personal sacrifice I’m forgoing baked beans this morning. It’s pancakes. I’ve already made the batter. Let’s go.’ He took Karli’s hand and they started walking toward the back door. Jenna was left with no choice but to follow them, which she did, feeling like a small, obedient pup. A stunned pup.

‘What do you mean, pancakes?’ she asked his retreating back.

‘Don’t they have pancakes in England? Surely it’s not all black pudding and spotted dick?’

‘Well, yes. But…’

‘Trust me, lady.’ Riley ushered Karli through the back door, and then stood aside for Jenna to precede him. She walked past and her skin brushed his. She was wearing a halter top and shorts. Not enough of her skin was covered. Not enough of his skin was covered.

Did he have any idea of the effect he had on her? Trust him? He had to be joking.

Luckily Riley didn’t notice her discomposure-or if he did he ignored it. Jenna had time to find her composure, sit herself down at the table with Karli and school her features into something akin to polite interest.

Polite interest, she told herself desperately. That was all she was allowed to feel.

Impossible ask.

‘I like pancakes,’ Karli announced. ‘Can you really cook them?’

‘You’d better believe it.’

They had no choice but to believe. While they watched in wonder, Riley poured batter into a hot pan, swirled, flipped and then flicked the finished product onto waiting plates.

‘You’ve done this hundreds of times,’ Jenna accused, and if her voice wasn’t quite normal it was close enough. She hoped.

‘Just as well for you guys,’ Riley admitted. ‘I make them with powdered milk, so they’re one of the few foods that cooks up well out here. Mind, I had to scrape my first attempts off the ceiling.’ He grinned. ‘I got a bit ambitious with my flipping to start with. Okay. Hop in. There’s a tin of jam in the crate behind you.’

‘A tin?’

‘You were expecting home-cooked preserves?’ Another pancake flipped onto the pile and he sat down, cooking finished. ‘The only thing to preserve here would be saltbush, and I don’t fancy saltbush jam.’

‘Ugh.’

‘My sentiments exactly.’

‘How can you make pancakes without egg?’ Jenna was glaring as though suspecting him of some conjuring act.

‘Powdered egg,’ he told her briefly. He gave her a smug smile. ‘It works better for pancakes than for chocolate cake-but you have to be a very experienced cook to know that. Now stop asking questions and eat.’

Jenna glared again, but Riley was ignoring her and concentrating on the important things in life. Pancakes. So was Karli. There was nothing for Jenna to do but concentrate as well.

The pancakes didn’t just look delicious. They were delicious. Or maybe it was just the sensation of sitting at the table with this enigmatic man of whom Jenna knew nothing.

She did know nothing, she reminded herself desperately. It was silly to feel as she was feeling.

But as he teased Karli, as they discussed how much jam one pancake could hold, as they giggled like two five-year-olds and Karli blossomed into the laughing, happy little girl Jenna knew she could be, all she knew was that she was falling deeper in love by the minute.

That was what could be described as delicious, she acknowledged. Delicious, exhilarating-and altogether too stupid for words!

‘Who taught you to cook pancakes?’ Jenna asked as she surfaced for air three pancakes later. Karli had disappeared back to her hammer and nails-her newfound love of carpentry was far too important to be delayed by something as dull as food.

Jenna had been intent on scraping up a last morsel of jam as she asked. There was no immediate answer. She looked up and found Riley’s face was suddenly grim. ‘I said no more questions.’

‘Until I ate my pancakes. If I eat one more I’ll pop. So tell me. Your mum?’

‘Not likely.’

The words were said harshly, and Jenna looked curiously across the table at Riley.

‘That sounds like your childhood might have shades of mine,’ she told him. ‘Did it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean.’ She hesitated-but then, what had she to lose? Riley’s good opinion? In a few days she’d be nothing but a memory to this man, she thought. She might as well be a pesky memory.

‘The nurses I work with… The patients I care for…’ she continued, watching his face. ‘I can usually tell who’s come from a happy background. I used to be incredibly jealous of kids whose parents loved them, so much so that it got to be a bit of a masochistic habit-choosing the people with a happy family.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m willing to bet your parents weren’t into happy families.’

‘That’s none of your business.’

Jenna shrugged and started clearing. ‘It’s just…you seem to know so much about us and I know next to nothing about you.’

‘Maybe that’s the way I like it.’

This was like hammering bricks with a feather. Useless. Still, Jenna wasn’t a girl who gave up. Not when she really wanted to know. She’d gained a reputation in nursing circles for helping even the most recalcitrant patients confide their troubles-and trouble was behind this man, Jenna knew for sure. Trouble with a capital T.

Maybe laughter would work. ‘Is it dark, brooding and mysterious you’re being, Mr Jackson?’ she teased. She faced him full on, and with an effort she even made her eyes twinkle. ‘Do you yearn to play Heathcliff?’

‘To your Cathy?’ There was no answering smile. Riley was still and watchful-as though he couldn’t make Jenna out, and he didn’t trust her one inch. What on earth was the man expecting her to do? she thought ruefully. Bite him?

Jump him?

Ha.

‘You have to be kidding,’ Jenna managed. ‘Heathcliff’s Cathy? I have better things to do with my life than pine for lost love and die in childbirth.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ All of a sudden Riley’s voice was strained to the point of breaking. ‘But I’d prefer a bit less of the curiosity, if you don’t mind.’

‘You think I’m nosy?’

‘You and Maggie.’

‘I like Maggie,’ she told him. ‘I don’t even know who she is and I’ll bet you’re not going to tell me.’

‘There’s no need to tell you. Why are women so damned curious?’

‘We’re taught it in girl school,’ she flashed. ‘Where we’re taught that girls like ironing and men like taking out the garbage, but men are otherwise useless. However, at great personal sacrifice, I’ll concede that in certain situations men do have their uses. Therefore if I wash, you can wipe. Only I’d prefer you to keep your distance as you do, Mr Jackson. Let’s keep our compartments separate.’

‘Suits me.’

His voice was light but Jenna flashed him a doubtful glance-and realised he was serious.

Jenna’s accusation of categorisation had been made flippantly, but she was astute enough to realise that, for Riley, those categories held truth. Something in Riley’s face said he was stretched tight with the strain of having her close. More. She looked at his face and knew that he didn’t want her here. Badly.

She swallowed.

‘Riley, would you prefer if Karli and I stayed out of your way today?’

She was right. She knew by the way his eyes flashed to hers that she was right.

But it was stupid and he knew it. He gave her a rueful smile. ‘Who’s going to tell Karli that she can’t hammer?’

‘It’s me you don’t want close, then?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You didn’t have to.’

Their eyes locked. He knew what she was saying. They both knew what was the underlying problem here. But there was no future in their attraction, and Karli was here and the whole thing was impossible.

‘Okay.’ He appeared to regroup and Jenna eyed him with suspicion. Suddenly there was laughter lurking behind his dark eyes. The man was like a chameleon, changing moods on the instant.

‘If I keep you here, how about you do the bedrooms while I do the outside work?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘If I seal them on the outside, will you clean them on the inside?’

If he could pretend this thing between them wasn’t happening, so could she. ‘More dust! And I’m almost clean!’

‘Didn’t you pack overalls?’ he demanded, and sighed as Jenna shook her head. ‘Honestly. What tourists pack for this place is hopeless.’

‘This place didn’t come with a tourist brochure,’ Jenna said with dignity. ‘I was hoping for something more like a five-star hotel with swimming pool.’

‘There’s a dam three miles north of here where you can swim.’

‘Yeah, right. With sun lounges and fluffy towels and someone serving pina coladas?’

‘I could supply a beer.’

Jenna suddenly focussed. He was serious. ‘You mean you really can swim there?’

A swim. Water all over her without having to pump like crazy. It sounded…irresistible. ‘Are you serious? If we work all day, is there somewhere we can swim tonight?’

‘If you don’t mind sharing a waterhole with a few cattle,’ Riley told her, startled. ‘And the odd kangaroo and any other form of wildlife who depend on it. It’s not what you might call appealing.’

‘If I can swim, then it’s definitely appealing.’ She eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Let’s make a deal. Karli and I will work for you all day-I’ll even get my shorts dirty in the cause-as long as you take us for a swim tonight.’

‘I…’

‘It’s a great deal,’ she said hurriedly, aware that Riley’s instinct was to refuse. And she knew why he should refuse. For exactly the same reason she shouldn’t ask in the first place.

But there was something within-something growing by the moment-a nagging urgency, saying: Manipulate every second you can to be with this man. This man is important to you. You hardly know why, but your body is giving you all sorts of messages you’d be a fool to ignore.

To go calmly back to England without finding out what those messages could mean-without finding out what could happen-was unthinkable.

So she stood and watched his face and waited and didn’t let him off the hook.

‘It’s not exactly your tiled backyard swimming pool,’ he said uneasily. ‘We’re talking mud.’

‘With swimmable water in the middle of mud?’

‘Yeah, but…’

‘I like mud.’

‘You won’t.’

‘Do you want me to work or not?’ Jenna glared. ‘I really want a swim, Mr Jackson, and I’m willing to work to get one. I’ll forgo luxury towels and the pina colada. But the rest… All you have to do is say yes.’

Their eyes locked-and the message between them was a challenge on Jenna’s part, and something she couldn’t fathom on Riley’s. And finally, inevitably, Riley relented.

‘All right, Miss Svenson,’ he said slowly. ‘You win.’ He hesitated, as though already regretting his agreement. ‘Mind, I expect hard labour for the luxury of sun, mud and surf.’

‘Surf?’

‘The water snakes make the surf,’ Riley said in a voice that was mock serious. ‘When they writhe in unison as they attack your toes, you can almost hang ten in the foam they churn. Are you still sure you want a swim?’

She fixed him with a look. ‘Are they poisonous?’

He opened his mouth to say yes, but her look was a challenge and he relented. ‘No. But they bite.’

‘Have you ever been bitten?’

‘No, but I might have been.’

‘You mean they’re more afraid of us than we are of them.’

‘They might be.’

She grinned. She was right to trust this man, she thought. He couldn’t lie to save himself.

‘We’ll swim fast,’ Jenna retorted. ‘Karli can swim like a fish and so can I. If they do bite us, then we’ll die happy, and you wouldn’t have said a swim was possible if it wasn’t.’

Riley stared at her, baffled. The corners of his mouth were twitching as if he was trying not to laugh, but there was still that deep caution embedded in his eyes. He was like a big cat, Jenna thought, wary of everything, but, deep down, downright dangerous.

‘All right, then, Miss Svenson,’ he said at last. ‘If that’s the way you want it, then you’ll get your mud-bath. If you work for it.’

Jenna had enjoyed her two days’ work with Karli. She enjoyed the work even more now. The steady sound of Riley’s carpentry and the interested hum of Karli’s gossip was great. It made her feel…at peace? It was weird and inexplicable, but it was a feeling Jenna hadn’t experienced before and she was savouring it.

The bedrooms were disgusting. Once more Jenna tied up her hair and attacked the dust with a shovel. Riley came in to help her drag the furniture clear so she could clean without hindrance, and then he disappeared fast. You’ll do your work by yourself and I’ll do mine, his body language said. We’re separate.

Separate was fine by Jenna, she decided. But not very separate. Karli was staunchly with Riley, her allegiance to this wonderful man unswerving, and it was as if by having Karli by Riley’s side a little bit of Jenna was there as well.

In the breaks between Karli’s questions, Riley whistled a fractured rendition of ‘Misty’, and Jenna started humming along in her head. The tune stayed there, a comfort all on its own. All morning, down on her hands and knees, scrubbing, she hummed right along.

Towards midday she heaved a bucket of water outside, tripped on the doorstep and her bucket of water poured down her bare legs onto her toes.

She stared down at her dust-and-water-sloshed toes and made a discovery. She was happier doing this than she’d ever been before. What she was doing here was pure fun.

She giggled.

She looked up from her toe contemplation-and found Riley watching her with bemusement.

‘You’re nuts,’ he told her.

‘Yep.’ She grinned.

‘Is your sister always nuts?’ he asked Karli, and Karli considered.

‘She’s funny.’

‘She’s got really funny toes,’ Riley conceded.

Karli followed Riley’s gaze to stare down at Jenna’s toes. ‘Yuk.’

‘Yuk’s right,’ Jenna told them. ‘I’m dirtier than you guys. That means I’ve been working harder so I get to swim the longest.’

‘Will you go back to nursing when you leave here?’ Riley asked. The question was unexpected and Jenna’s smile faded.

‘Of course. What else could I do?’

‘I bet your patients think you’re terrific.’

‘Yeah, they love me to bits,’ she said dryly. ‘I walk toward them with a syringe or an enema and they fall into my arms. Such devotion.’

He grinned, but that quizzical look was back. As if he didn’t have a clue what to make of her.

Good. She liked it that he was off balance. He surely had her off balance and that made them quits. She met his look with a trace of defiance.

‘Anyway, that’s another world,’ she told him. ‘Another time. What’s more important now is that you’re shirking work, Riley Jackson. We have a date with a swim this evening. So let’s get on with it.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

She had courage.

All day as he worked Riley kept turning Jenna’s situation over in his mind. It was none of his business, but he couldn’t make his head ignore it. The tilt of her chin, her defiance where other women would have wept, and her capacity for sheer hard work-they combined to make this slip of a girl stand apart.

As she’d stood apart all her life, he conceded, and he found himself growing angry on her behalf.

She didn’t seem angry or bitter, though. It seemed Jenna had no wish to punish those who’d made her childhood miserable or who’d put her into this mess.

Riley wanted them punished, though. The more he thought about it, the angrier he grew.

Where the hell was her father? What was this Brian creep doing inheriting money that could make Jenna’s life easier?

Riley thumped another weatherboard home with so much force the one above loosened and fell. He wanted to swear, but Karli was sitting in the shade not two yards away, ready to absorb any new and interesting word he might let drop.

A child like this would be such a responsibility, he thought, yet Jenna had taken her on without a thought as to how it could affect her future.

This was nothing to do with him. Butt out of what doesn’t concern you, he told himself for the hundredth time. Get this place patched up and get out of here. Get the girl back to England before you go mad. Before you end up where you were before you learned sense.

They worked on, stopping only briefly for lunch. Karli snoozed for a while with her rock, but Riley and Jenna didn’t rest. It was as if they were driving each other.

Finally, as the sun lost the worst of its heat even Riley had to admit he was exhausted.

‘Okay, Karli,’ he told his right-hand man. ‘It’s swim time.’ He walked over to Jenna’s side of the house and called. She stuck her head out of the one functional bedroom window and raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘Enough,’ he ordered. ‘I’m beat.’

‘Wimp,’ she teased.

Riley stared at her for a long moment. Did she have any idea how beautiful she looked?

Beautiful? How could she be described as beautiful? Covered in dust, her head tied up in rags and framed by a crooked window surround…

Yes, she was beautiful. There was no denying it. Jenna Svenson was lovely.

Hell!

‘If you want a swim we have to stop now,’ he said and his voice was rougher than he’d intended. ‘Anyway, I worked for two hours before you even woke up this morning.’

‘More fool you. Come inside and see what I’ve done.’

He did and was suitably impressed. It was great. It was nearly clean.

‘There’s a red line around the walls,’ Riley told her. ‘Is this English fashion? Beige to head height and red above?’

‘It’s as high as I can scrub,’ Jenna said with dignity. ‘If you want higher scrubbing, you need to find a higher slave.’

‘Hmm.’ Riley appeared to check Jenna’s diminutive figure-and Jenna flushed under his scrutiny. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he agreed thoughtfully. ‘I do seem to have structural problems with this model.’ He managed a twisted grin. ‘I wonder how much you’d bring as a trade-in. You’re more a sports coupé when I need something like a Ford Bronco.’

Mistake. At Jenna’s side was her bucket of water, red with dust. She swooped like lightning, retrieved the rag she’d been using and threw it straight at him. He fielded it like an expert, but water sloshed across his dust-streaked face.

He wiped his eyes with a sleeve-then stood, rag in hand. Considering.

Jenna backed.

‘Don’t you dare.’

Riley looked again down at his hand, and then across to the dusty figure in front of him. He drew back his hand. Jenna backed some more…

He couldn’t do it. He wanted to, but there was a challenge lurking in her lovely eyes that had him retreating.

‘Okay, Miss Svenson,’ he said softly. Battles were dangerous territory. Battles with Jenna… Yeah, really dangerous. ‘I’ll let you off the hook just this once.’ He paused for a moment, then tossed the cloth back into the bucket. ‘There’s a spare ladder in the Land Rover.’

‘For tomorrow?’

‘For tomorrow,’ he said firmly. ‘We’ve done more than enough for today. If you have a bathing costume get it on fast. I’ll meet you at the Land Rover in two minutes.’

He walked out and left her to it, and only Riley knew just how close a call it had been. Because, instead of hurling sopping rags at the girl before him, it had been the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life to walk away. When all he’d wanted-all his body had screamed at him to do-was to walk over and gather Jenna Svenson to his heart.

The dam was three miles over bumpy track north of the house. The only sign of it as they approached was a decrepit windmill, moving lazily in the hot north wind. It was so late the sun had lost most of its heat, but even so it was hot enough to make a swim seem the most desirable thing in the world. Jenna sat beside Riley in his open Land Rover and her tongue was practically hanging out at the thought.

Same with Karli.

‘We’re going swimming. We’re going swimming,’ Karli chortled and her enthusiasm was appreciated by all of them. It eased the awkward silence-the tension that seemed to be building by the moment.

‘How come you have a truck here?’ Jenna asked, more to break the silence than anything.

‘It came with the farm. I spent the first day here getting it back into working order,’ he told her.

‘So you have a better truck at Munyering?’

‘Of course.’

Munyering. What was it like?

What was this man like?

Then they arrived and the questions stopped dead as Jenna gazed out in bewilderment.

This was certainly no luxury swimming pool. Here at last were the cattle Riley had talked about. The beasts stood in a forlorn-looking ring on the edge of the muddy water. There were a hundred or so head of cattle by the look of it-and that was just about all they were. Heads. Skin and bone and not much else. Jenna had never seen such pathetic-looking animals in her life.

‘Riley, they’re…’ Jenna fell silent, aghast. She looked out at the sad-looking animals and her heart lurched within her. Surely these beasts couldn’t live here?

Karli had stilled beside her and she knew the child shared her horror.

‘I know.’ Riley glanced over at Jenna and his look told her he understood what she was feeling. ‘They look terrible, and these are dreadful conditions for cattle. But they won’t be here much longer.’

‘What do you mean? You don’t mean…they’re dying?’

‘They were.’ Riley pulled up beside the dam. The cows nearest the truck made a desultory move away-but not too far. It was as if the herd as a whole had simply run out of energy. ‘Believe it or not, Jenna, these cattle are on the road to recovery.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Believe it,’ Riley said and his voice was suddenly grim. His face tightened. ‘I don’t want you thinking I caused this. I’ve only just bought this place. The man who owned it deserves to be shot. He walked off the place, abandoning it with a couple of thousand head of cattle still dependent on him for maintaining their water supply. He went bankrupt-he couldn’t afford the fees to transport his cattle to market, so he just left them to rot. When I heard the place was on the market I flew over and found dead and dying cattle everywhere.’

‘But how long-?’

‘That was three weeks ago.’ Riley’s voice was still grim.

‘I bought the place on the spot-in fact settlement’s not until next week, but I’ve spent the last weeks here getting the water going again. Mending pumps so the bores are flowing. This dam’s fed by an underground spring and mostly it’s higher than this, but the drought’s meant the spring’s dried and the water has to be pumped. This dam’s fine again, but others further out still need attention. That’s why I couldn’t leave until now. I’ve been getting the bores going again and making sure the dams and troughs are full. Some of the cattle were in such bad condition when I found them I had to put them down.’

‘But they don’t have anything to eat,’ Jenna whispered.

‘There’s forage enough. These cattle are tough. They’ll survive here as long as they have water.’ Then he managed a smile. ‘It’s not quite as intensive farming as back home in your Oxfordshire fields, though. If we run one head of cattle per square mile we reckon we’re doing well.’

Jenna took a deep breath. One cow per square mile? ‘So…so how big is this farm, then?’

‘About three thousand square miles.’

‘And yours? What did you call it? Munyering?’

‘Ten.’

‘Ten? Ten what?’

‘Ten thousand square miles.’

‘Ten thousand square miles!’ Jenna did some fast retrieval of schoolgirl maths. ‘That’s about three hundred miles across by three hundred miles wide.’

‘Something like that. It’s a bit splodgy at the edges.’

She subsided into staggered silence, the enormity of Riley’s landholding leaving her speechless. Yet…if it was all like this, was it worth anything? The man who’d owned this farm had walked off, and who could blame him?

‘I told you,’ Riley said gently, watching her face and seemingly guessing her thoughts. ‘My farm is better.’

It’d want to be, Jenna thought grimly, but she didn’t say it. Instead she looked out again at the cattle. Karli was gazing at a cow with interest and the cow was gazing back, her big brown eyes seeming almost mournful. ‘You said these cattle won’t be here much longer,’ she whispered. She glanced at Karli’s cow and then glanced away. ‘What did you mean?’

‘We’ll truck them out,’ Riley told her. ‘They can survive here but they won’t thrive. As soon as the house is habitable I’ll send men in to base themselves here while they work. They’ll bring trucks, they’ll build holding yards and they’ll muster this lot. Then they’ll bring them back to Munyering where they can recover. There’s feed enough on Munyering to make these beasts think all their Christmases have come at once. Munyering is south of here and we’re not drought-affected. I said it’s better, Jenna. Believe me.’

‘But this place is awful. How could it ever have been a farm?’

‘It’s in drought, Jenna,’ Riley told her. He’d drawn to a halt before the muddy bank, a sheet of hoof-marked mud leading to deep water. ‘This place isn’t always so awful. When the rains come I’ll bring cattle back here again. I won’t depend on this place for permanent pasture, though. The last owner did that. It worked for five years, but then he lost the gamble. If you gamble with nature you’ll always lose. If I can just use it in the good times, though, it makes a decent little addition to my own property.’

A decent little addition. Three thousand square miles. Jenna was trying hard to do some adjusting in her head, but all she could do was boggle.

Karli was trying to outstare the cow. Jenna was doing arithmetic. Riley climbed out of the truck and he grinned at them both.

‘Are you guys intending to sit in the truck all evening and commune with nature, or are you serious about that swim?’

Jenna stared out at the cows. The cows stared straight back.

‘I’m not sure I can swim with an audience,’ she said nervously and Riley chuckled.

‘Don’t mind them. They’ll love it. I bet they’ve never seen anything like you guys in their lives.’

‘This one likes me,’ Karli announced.

Jenna still had some qualms.

‘Won’t we stir up the water? Make it too muddy for drinking?’

‘You have to be kidding!’ Riley shook his head. ‘Lady, until two weeks ago this place was a muddy puddle. The pump had packed up completely and if I’d arrived three days later all these cattle would be dead. What they’re drinking now is cattle nectar. Mud and all.’

‘I’m not sure I want to swim in cattle nectar.’

‘Hey, I’ve driven three miles in the heat to give you a swim,’ Riley retorted, exasperated. ‘Now, are you going to get out of this truck and go for a swim or are you not? If not, then stay here while Karli and I swim. Karli, do you want to swim?’

‘Will I have to walk through the mud to reach the water?’ Karli asked.

‘Yes. It’ll ooze through your toes.’

‘Ooh,’ Karli gasped, and bounced out of the truck, heading for oozing mud.

‘What about it, Miss Svenson?’

‘I’m…I’m swimming.’

‘Then do it,’ Riley told her. ‘Before our audience starts slow-clapping in impatience.’

Going for a swim here wasn’t quite as easy as it sounded. Nor was the mud as inviting to Jenna as it was to Karli.

Jenna had her costume on-until now demurely hidden under shorts and shirt. She slipped off her outer garments, took two steps from the truck-and stepped right into a cow pat mixed with mud.

Jenna yelped.

‘Lesson one,’ Riley said, strolling round the truck to investigate and grinning in appreciation of her problem. ‘You’re in cattle country now, ma’am. Expect a little dung.’

Jenna stared down at her toes.

‘I think,’ she said carefully, ‘that I’d like to go home now, Mr Jackson.’

‘What, back to the house?’

‘I mean back to England.’

‘Oh, dear.’ Riley’s laughter was not so subtly hidden behind the concern. ‘But now you need a swim more than ever.’ He hauled off his shirt and tossed it into the back of the truck. Then his boots. And then his jeans.

It was as much as Jenna could do not to yelp again.

Riley paused. ‘Is there something else wrong?’ he asked blandly.

‘Y…yes.’ Jenna swallowed. ‘I would have thought…well, you’re not exactly decent!’

‘I’m wearing shorts.’

‘Yeah, but…’

‘But what? These are as respectable as swim gear.’

They were too. They were aged boxers. They shouldn’t be enough to make her gasp.

Every time she saw this man’s body she wanted to gasp.

‘When I packed to come here, I thought any possible audience would be cows,’ Riley told her. ‘If I’d known you were coming maybe I’d have packed my neck-to-knees. But I didn’t know, so I didn’t bring them.’ His eyes ran over her body in its not-so-demure one-piece and his smile deepened. ‘And I’m almost as decent as you are. Not as noticeably eye-candy, but almost as decent.’

Then as her colour started to mount he grinned down to Karli who, in her own cute pink bathing costume, was tentatively exploring the mud with one small toe. ‘Karli’s not shocked. My cows aren’t shocked.’ He turned again, his gaze cruising from Jenna’s toes to her face, his eyes so warm that she felt her blush extend from the toes up. ‘I’m not even shocked at what you’re wearing,’ he told her. ‘Just deeply appreciative. May I remind you, you have seen me in less. Get over it.’

Oh, great. She really needed reminding of how much of him she had seen. She was the colour of beetroot. He turned away then, thankfully, so she could get her face together again. But…

She risked another peek.

He was magnificent. His body…

Will you stop thinking like this? she told herself desperately. You’re in dangerous territory. You have to walk away from this man.

You shouldn’t have come swimming. She was talking to herself.

Of course you shouldn’t have come swimming. You shouldn’t have even come to Australia. What on earth are you doing, swimming with an almost-naked man in the middle of the Australian Outback-watched by a hundred or more cows?

She had no answer.

There was no answer.

‘Come on, Karli. Let’s leave your sister to tut-tut over my lack of dress in private.’ Riley and Karli were already at the water’s edge. Riley was holding Karli’s hand, with Karli gasping in delight as mud oozed to their ankles. The mud was surrendering each foot with a delicious slurp as the pair moved forward.

But beyond the mud there was deep water.

She was in deep water already, Jenna thought desperately. Deeper water than she’d ever been in in her life. So…

So Jenna Svenson took a deep breath. She threw caution to the wind and squelched across to the water’s edge.

The mud was disgusting, but suddenly she didn’t care at all. The water was cool and delicious. She waded in to waist-deep. It was just plain wonderful.

Who needed swimming pools?

Forget how she was feeling, she told herself. Forget Riley.

Her body knifed forward into deep water as caution was thrown away on the hot north wind.

She’d enjoy her swim. She’d block him out somehow.

And if she couldn’t?

Whatever.