A Wedding At Windaroo

But now he seemed reluctant to drop the subject. His deep voice penetrated the night. “Piper, you’re not afraid of intimacy, are you?”

Without warning, her blood began to pound through her veins, making her ears hum and her heart beat wildly. “I—I don’t think so.” But she couldn’t be sure.

She sensed him moving toward her, and the next moment his fingertips were touching her cheek ever so gently. She heard the rasp of his breathing and felt his thumb travel slowly down her cheek, over her chin and back again. She was amazed how good it felt. Hardly believing her daring, she dipped her head slightly and pressed her lips to his thumb.

Gabe’s husky voice sounded close to her ear. “I think you know a lot more about touching than you’re letting on….”

Barbara Hannay was born in Sydney, educated in Brisbane and has spent most of her adult life living in tropical north Queensland, where she and her husband have raised four children. While she has enjoyed many happy times camping and canoeing in the bush, she also delights in an urban lifestyle—chamber music, contemporary dance, movies and dining out. An English teacher, she has always loved writing, and now, by having her stories published, she is living her most cherished fantasy.

You can find out more about Barbara at her Web site, www.barbarahannay.com

Books by Barbara Hannay

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3718—THEIR DOORSTEP BABY

3770—A PARISIAN PROPOSITION

3786—A BRIDE AT BIRRALEE

A Wedding at Windaroo

Barbara Hannay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

THREE weeks past her twelfth birthday, Piper O’Malley spent almost an entire afternoon huddled behind the tractor shed crying. And the stupid thing was she hated crying! Crying was for girls and today she didn’t want to be a girl.

By the time Gabe Rivers found her she’d reduced her sobs to the occasional sniffle, but she knew her eyes were still red and swollen.

‘Hey, cheer up, tree frog,’ he said, crouching beside her and throwing a strong, comforting arm around her skinny shoulders. ‘Nothing’s ever as bad as it seems.’

She swiped her eyes with her shirt-tail. ‘It is today. This is the worst day of my life.’

He looked so surprised she made a hasty amendment. After all, Gabe was eighteen—and like all adults he had a way of knowing when you weren’t telling the exact truth. ‘I suppose the very worst day of my life must have been when Mum and Dad died, but I was too little to remember.’

‘But this is the second worst day?’ he asked. ‘Sounds bad. What’s the problem?’

She burrowed her face against his big shoulder. ‘I can’t tell you. It’s too awful.’

‘Course you can. I’m unshockable.’

Peeping up at him she found his green eyes regarding her so tenderly she felt her heart swell. ‘Periods,’ she whispered.

‘I see,’ he said after a beat. ‘Well…yeah…that’s tough, I guess.’

She half expected Gabe to leap away from her, to tell her that now he’d finished helping her grandfather with branding and ear-tagging calves he needed to hurry home to Edenvale. But he stayed right beside her. They sat for ages with their backs against the corrugated iron wall of the tractor shed, chewing fresh, sweet stalks of grass and watching the daylight soften as the afternoon slipped away.

‘You’ll get used to the idea after a while,’ he told her.

‘I won’t, Gabe. I know I won’t ever. Why do I have to be a girl? I wish I was a boy. I want to be like you.’

He grinned. ‘And what’s so good about being like me?’

‘Everything,’ she cried with the wholehearted sincerity of a true hero-worshipper. ‘You’re bigger and stronger than Grandad, and he never tries to stop you from doing anything. And you can be whatever you want to be. When I grow up I’m going to have to have babies and wash some man’s smelly old socks and underpants.’

Gabe laughed. ‘Wait till you go to boarding school next term. Your teachers will tell you that girls have the same chance to be anything they want to these days.’

‘But I want to be a cattleman. Bet you never heard anyone talk about a cattlewoman, have you?’

He chuckled playfully and pulled her akubra down over her eyes. When she knocked the broad-brimmed hat back into place she was surprised to see the laughter in his eyes die. Suddenly he was looking sad and serious.

‘What’s the matter?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing you need worry about, mouse.’

‘Come on, Gabe. I told you my horrible secret and I haven’t even told Miriam, my best girlfriend. If you tell me, I won’t tell anyone else.’

He smiled at her—as if he was seeing right inside her and really liked what he found. ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘guys can have their own problems, you know.’

‘Like having to shave?’

He grinned. ‘That’s one of them. But it gets worse.’

‘Going bald?’

‘I’m not talking about that kind of stuff. I mean it’s not always that easy for us blokes to do just whatever we want. My dad expects me to stay on Edenvale for ever.’

‘Of course.’ She frowned at him. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

He grimaced. ‘This will probably shock you, but I don’t want to be a cattleman.’

‘You’re kidding.’ She was shocked. Shocked to the soles of her riding boots. Her belly, which was already feeling sore, bunched into a nervous knot. How could anyone reject the wonderful life of a cattleman? If Gabe didn’t want to run cattle, what on earth could he want? And where did he want to go? The possibility that he might not stay right next door on Edenvale for ever scared her.

‘What do you want to do?’

‘That!’ he said, pointing to a giant wedgetail eagle circling high above them. Piper watched it with him and admired the strength of its dark V-shaped wings as it climbed higher and higher into the fading blue of the afternoon sky. Eventually, the slow, steady wings stopped moving altogether as the bird worked the thermals, gliding free. Then it was still in the air, hovering in one place.

Gabe’s face was alight with excitement. ‘Isn’t that fantastic? I’d give anything to learn to fly like that, to soar or hover with that much freedom. That much power and control. I’m sick of being tied to the ground with a mob of dusty, dumb cattle.’

It was a side to Gabe that she’d never seen before, never guessed. ‘Where could you learn to fly?’

‘An army recruitment fellow was in Mullinjim last week.’ His glowing face was still fixed on the eagle, watching it grow smaller and smaller as it climbed away again. ‘They’ll sign me up and train me to fly helicopters—Black Hawks.’

He stared after the bird with such an intense longing that even at her tender age Piper could see the finality of his choice. She knew instinctively that although it was the kind of dream that would take him away, probably for ever, it was the kind of dream Gabe had to follow.

The knot of fear in the pit of her stomach tightened. She wished she was older and less afraid, and hoped he couldn’t see that she was falling apart at the thought of his going away.

‘So what’s the problem?’ she asked in a shaky, not-quite-brave voice. ‘Won’t your family let you leave?’

His face twisted into a grimace of pain. ‘They’re not at all happy about the idea, but I’m going, Piper. I’m quite settled in my mind about that.’

She did her very best to smile.

CHAPTER ONE

Eleven years later…

IT SHOULD have been a perfect night.

Piper loved to be out in the bush after dark, when the hard sun retreated, the clean, sharp scent of eucalyptus lingered on the cooling air and the slender gum trees stretched silver-white limbs up to the moon.

And tonight Gabe was back.

So everything would have been perfect if she hadn’t been stressed to the eyeballs. But tension had been building inside her all evening and now the strain was unbearable.

She’d been practising in her head what she needed to ask Gabe, and no matter which words she chose they all sounded pathetic. But she had to get them out, had to speak now before she chickened out again.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, then released it in a rush. ‘Gabe, I need your help. I need to find a husband.’

Oh, blast! Her request sounded even more ridiculous out loud than it had when she’d been practising. But it was too late to take the words back. All she could do now was wait for his response.

Wait…

And wait some more…while she crouched beside him in the dark and watched the surrounding paddocks for the first signs of cattle thieves.

If only she could see his face! But the moonlight couldn’t reach their hiding place behind a huge granite boulder.

‘Gabe?’ she whispered.

Maybe he thought her question was just too silly to warrant an answer. She should drop the whole crazy subject now. After all, he had only come home a few days ago and already she’d asked him to help her catch cattle duffers. She could hardly blame the man if he balked at solving her personal dilemmas as well.

His riding boots crunched small stones as he shifted his weight slightly, and then his voice came rumbling through the dark. ‘Since when have you had an urge to find a husband?’

She winced when she heard the mocking edge to his tone. If only she could check out his hard, handsome face. Was he laughing at her?

‘Just—recently.’ As recently as last night—after her grandfather had told her his shocking news.

Again Gabe didn’t answer. Instead he stood up and stretched cramped limbs. He walked a few paces away, moving into the bright light cast by the full moon, and she saw his grimace as he flexed his right knee.

Anyone who didn’t know about his accident would see a ruggedly athletic man—tall, lean-hipped and strong shouldered, with short, military-style black hair and a hard jaw shadowed by overnight stubble.

The stiffness in his right leg was the only sign that his tough and rugged exterior had taken a battering. It was easy to forget that he was recovering from a car crash that had forced him out of the army and almost taken his life.

Snagging a stalk of pale Mitchell grass, he rolled it between his fingers, stepped closer again and tickled her nose with it. ‘What’s this about looking for a husband? You’re not old enough to get married.’

‘Rubbish. I’m twenty-three.’

He looked startled. ‘Are you really?’

‘Sure am.’

Seconds ticked by while he frowned at a nearby brigalow bush, as if he needed to digest this news. She wondered why he seemed so surprised. He’d been six years old when she was born. And he was quite good at arithmetic.

‘Why the rush?’ he asked at last.

‘Marriage is my only solution, Gabe.’

‘Solution to what?’ He sounded understandably puzzled.

‘Last night—Grandad told me—’ Her voice broke as the tears she’d been battling over the past twenty-four hours rushed to fill her eyes and throat. She’d been trying to hold back this news, but it was only fair that she explain. ‘The doctors have told him that another heart attack will almost certainly be one—one too many.’

The immense sadness she’d been shouldering all day sent her lurching towards him. And good old Gabe tossed the grass stalk aside and held out his arms to her.

It seemed perfectly natural to hurl herself into the open arms of her oldest friend—absolutely right for him to draw her head onto his big, bulky shoulder. He was wearing an old woollen jumper that made him feel soft and huge and comforting, just what she needed right now.

‘Are they saying they’ve done all they can?’ he asked gently.

She nodded against his shoulder. ‘He’s had three operations in the last five years, and test after test…’

Gabe sighed. ‘I’m surprised they put it to him so bluntly.’

‘You know what Grandad’s like. He would have forced them to give him the truth with no frills attached.’

‘And I guess he wants to prepare you now. You know how much he loves you.’

‘I know,’ she sobbed. ‘And he doesn’t want me to worry about him or make a fuss.’ Her nose emitted a loud, unladylike snort as she fought off another onslaught of tears. She lifted her head. ‘But the other bad news is that he doesn’t think I can manage Windaroo on my own. He’s planning to sell this place.’

Again Gabe took ages to speak. ‘I guess Michael would worry if he left you trying to carry on here by yourself.’

‘But I can’t believe he wants to sell this property! It’s bad enough knowing that I’m going to lose him, but I can’t bear the thought of losing Windaroo as well.’ She drew a shuddering breath. ‘I’ve worked so hard to keep this place going and I love it.’

And that was the understatement of the century. She’d always felt that she shared Windaroo’s life blood.

Through tear-blurred eyes she looked over Gabe’s shoulder to the fat white moon and the wide, star-stippled outback sky. She was trusting her old friend to understand how devastated she felt, but maybe she was asking too much of him. After all, he’d been away in the army for ten long years, and he’d had his own problems during twelve months in and out of hospital.

He loosened his hold on her and leaned back so that he could read her face. ‘So you think that if you find a bloke to marry you Michael will change his mind about selling Windaroo?’

She sighed and stepped away from him. If she wanted Gabe’s help she needed to explain this very clearly. ‘It’s the only solution I can think of. Men of Grandad’s generation can’t come to terms with the idea of leaving a girl in charge of a cattle station. A husband would make all the difference.’

‘I guess you’re right.’ He looked at her sharply again. ‘I suppose marriage could be a solution. But it’s a mighty big step.’

‘I know. That’s why I could do with some help.’

‘But Piper, for Pete’s sake—’ Gabe shook his head. ‘Why the blue blazes would you need my help to catch a man?’

She gulped and looked away. Time to swallow her pride and make a painful confession. ‘’Cause the guys around here don’t seem to have noticed I’m female.’

He had the bad grace to chuckle. Loudly—and for far longer than was necessary.

Piper slapped his arm. ‘I’m serious. Your brother Jonno and the rest of them—they just don’t think of me as a woman.’

‘Oh, Piper,’ Gabe wheezed between chuckles. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Why would I make up something like that? Honestly, the fellows around here just see me as one of them, and I’m sick of it.’

‘But no one could think you were a bloke. You’re so—so—little. Besides, we all know you’re a girl.’ Thumbs loosely hooked in the belt loops at his hips, he stared at her. ‘You’re not joking, are you?’

She almost stamped her foot. ‘Of course not!’

‘Well, I think you’re wrong.’

‘How would you know, Gabe? When was the last time you came to a party out this way? You wouldn’t have a clue. The problem is that because I can muster with the men, and I can leg-rope a bullock or turn a baby bull into a steer, they forget I’m a girl. They don’t even try to crack on to me. I have buddy status and that’s all. I’m just good mates with them—the way I am with you.’

Gabe’s smirk faded and he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Well…you have to remember that blokes like to be able to impress a woman. Maybe your problem is that you can do everything they can—and you do it too damn well.’

‘I hope you’re not suggesting I become weak and useless.’

His gaze ran over her and he grinned. ‘Heaven forbid.’ Then he turned and cast a long, searching look over his shoulder at the surrounding paddocks before glancing at his watch.

Piper sighed. They’d been out here for four hours and there’d been no hint of cattle duffers. Gabe was probably thinking that her request for help to stake them out had simply been a ruse to get him on his own so she could regale him with her problems about the opposite sex.

‘I can’t promise the duffers will show up tonight,’ she said. ‘But they usually strike at full moon, when it’s easier for them to work.’

On the last full moon Windaroo cattle had been taken from a holding yard near a bore on the southern boundary, and a similar thing had happened to a block in the east the previous month.

The duffers had been following a familiar pattern—moving into a remote area and doing a quick muster, then trucking the beasts out of the valley along back roads.

Tonight Piper and Gabe were watching a paddock on the western boundary. She’d seen the tracks of trail bikes there a few days ago, and suspected that someone was casing the area.

‘At least we can make ourselves more comfortable,’ she said, thinking of his bad leg, which was probably much more painful than he let on. ‘We can spread our swags out here and I can bribe you with soup.’

Together they found flat ground, flicked stones away and unrolled their canvas swags and bedding. Piper rummaged in her backpack, extracted a Thermos and filled two mugs with hot, fragrant, homemade tomato soup.

‘Sorry to dump my hassles on you,’ she said, after she’d taken her first warming sip.

‘No need to apologise.’ Gabe grinned. ‘I’m used to it.’

And wasn’t that the truth? Just sitting here with Gabe, having him home again, made her remember all the times she’d come to him with her problems. And how desperately lonely she’d felt when he left. She’d never really understood Gabe’s urge to get away, but she knew that somehow it had reinforced in her an even stronger desire to stay on Windaroo—as if she’d needed to prove to him and to herself that life out here was worthwhile, worth fighting for.

‘That’s a long face,’ he said, pulling her sharply back from her thoughts.

She smiled and shrugged. ‘I’ve got a lot to think about.’

He set his soup mug on the ground and his gaze held hers. He wasn’t in shadow any more, and in the moonlight his eyes were dark and brooding rather than the lively green she knew them to be. ‘You don’t need to worry about finding a husband, Piper.’

She groaned. ‘Don’t tell me you think I should give in and let Grandad sell Windaroo?’

‘Under certain circumstances it could be a good idea.’

‘What kind of circumstances?’

‘What if…what if I were to buy Windaroo? Michael would sell it to me.’

Surprise sent such a savage jolt through her that she almost dropped her mug. She had a blinding, instantaneous vision of herself and Gabe living for ever on Windaroo, running the property—working partners and steadfast friends way into their old age. Now that was a dream she could live with! ‘Would you really want to do that?’ she asked in a hushed, awe-filled whisper.

‘Well, it’s a possibility. I know Jonno’s interested in buying out my shares in the Edenvale property, and I’ve a substantial payout from the army. I’m looking for an investment. I could buy Windaroo and hire some extra hands, appoint you as manager, and you could go on living here and running the place for as long as you want to.’

She frowned. ‘But what about you? What would you do?’

He shrugged and she saw a shadowy bitterness tighten his features. ‘I’m not sure. I haven’t decided what I want to do with the rest of my life yet. I can’t fly Black Hawks any more, but I could train helicopter pilots for cattle mustering, or I could set up my own chopper mustering business. Or there’s always the city. I still have quite a few options up my sleeve.’

Cradling her cooling mug in both hands, she drew circles in the dust with the heel of her riding boot and tried to shake off a crazy sense of disappointment. Of course Gabe didn’t want to settle down and live here. He’d left the bush because he craved adventure.

Why would he want to live on this rundown property with her when there was an enticing world beyond the Mullinjim Valley? A world of excitement, adventure and sophisticated, sexy women.

How could she have let herself forget that Gabriel Rivers was a cool, tough Black Hawk hero and a knock-em-dead lady-killer?

She swallowed the lump of pain in her throat. ‘Your offer is very generous, Gabe, but I don’t really like the idea. I—I don’t want to be a tenant on my family’s land. It would feel all wrong. Can you see that?’

‘But I thought you wanted to stay here no matter what.’

‘I do, but it would be best if I could find a husband. Then Grandad wouldn’t need to sell the property and it would still be mine. Well…mine and the husband’s, I guess, but at least it would still be in the family.’

He stared at something way off in the distance. ‘It was just a thought.’

‘That’s why I was hoping you could give me some sure-fire hints about how to catch a guy.’

Slowly his gaze swung back to her, and now he stared at her for ages. For far too long. ‘I’m the wrong man for that job, Piper.’

She let out a disbelieving little laugh. ‘Oh, come on, Gabe. You’re an expert. I’m expecting a master class from you. Everyone out here knows what a hit you made with the women in the big smoke. We got sick of hearing about your big city reputation as a babe magnet.’

‘A babe magnet?’ With a toss of his head he released a wry sound that she guessed was a laugh.

‘The stories were flying thick and fast about how those city girls took one look at your country boy swagger and were panting all over you.’

‘You shouldn’t listen to gossip.’

‘I didn’t need to. I saw with my own eyes what happened every time you came home on leave. Remember the “babe pack”? That gang of city girls who followed you out here just to take a look at you doing your cowboy act?’

With a sigh of irritation at the distasteful memory, she picked up the empty mugs and stacked them next to her backpack.

As Gabe watched he asked, ‘You haven’t seen any girls following me this time, have you?’

‘No,’ she admitted softly, and she bit her lip, wondering if she’d touched a sore point. Whenever she and her grandfather had travelled to the city to visit Gabe in hospital she’d never seen any of the trendy city girlfriends. As far as she could tell, not one of Gabe’s ‘babe pack’ had shown the staying power necessary to see him through the long, painful months of recovery and rehabilitation after the accident.

‘You know,’ she said, searching for a change of subject, ‘Grandad reckons it’s his fault I’ve turned into a tomboy. He says he never got around to putting the right finishing touches on me.’

‘What kind of finishing touches does he want?’

‘He thinks he should have sent me off to the city when I left school instead to letting me come straight back here to start work as a jillaroo. Says I should have gone to university, or overseas on one of those exchanges—some place where I could mix with other young people. He thinks I should have broadened my horizons—the way you have.’

Gabe nodded. ‘Maybe it’s not too late. You could do it now. If you’re determined to find a husband there are millions of blokes to choose from in cities all along the coast.’