Something within Jenna’s heart formed and grew.

It grew so fast that it threatened to overwhelm her. What was it? Need? Desire?

Whatever it was, her overwhelming compulsion was to lay her head against this man’s chest and claim it as her home. The home she’d never had was suddenly right here.

Right here in this man’s heart.

Only it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. This man had nothing to do with her. He was a stranger. He was an Australian dust farmer of whom she knew nothing, except that he lived in the most barren place on earth and he wanted nothing to do with any woman.

But he was holding her. And she was feeling…what? What was this sensation that was swelling beneath her breast, so much that she thought she must surely burst? Or cry. Or do something even more stupid, like falling against him and holding him hard against her and raising her face to his and….

No!

Marion Lennox is a country girl, born on a southeast Australian dairy farm. She moved on—mostly because the cows just weren’t interested in her stories! Married to a “very special doctor”, Marion also writes hugely popular Harlequin® Medical Romances™. In her other life she cares for kids, cats, dogs, chooks and goldfish, she travels, she fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost!)—oh, and she teaches statistics and computing to undergraduates at her local university. Marion has won major awards for her romance writing in both North America and Australia.

Author’s note:

The Indian Pacific Railway is a wonderful train ride from the east coast of Australia to the far west. It takes three days from coast to coast, and it leaves daily. For the purpose of this book I’ve played with the timetable and the train runs only twice a week.

RESCUED BY A MILLIONAIRE
Marion Lennox

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PROLOGUE

HIS overwhelming sensation was relief.

Wasn’t he supposed to feel fury? Desolation? Bitterness? That was what he’d felt in the past when people he loved had walked away. As Riley Jackson loaded the last of his lovely wife’s possessions into his best friend’s Lear jet he expected at least an echo of that pain.

It didn’t happen. The plane was now a sliver on the horizon and he felt no desolation at all.

Maybe he was cured of this love business. He obviously didn’t have what it took to hold a relationship together and he no longer cared.

‘What do you reckon, boy?’ he asked his dog, and Bustle nosed his hand in gentle query. Bustle wouldn’t miss Lisa either. Lisa had no time for dogs.

‘We’re on our own now, mate,’ Riley told him as he turned to walk back to the house. The old dog limped beside him. Unlike his wife, Bustle would be loyal to the end.

Losing Bustle would be real heartache, Riley thought. That would be the real end of loving.

Bustle nosed his fingers again, and Riley stooped to give his ancient collie a gentle hug.

‘I know. I don’t have you for much longer, boy, and I’ll miss you like crazy. But I’ll miss nobody else. No one is going to get close to me, ever again.’

CHAPTER ONE

MISTAKE. Major mistake. On a mistake scale of one to ten, this ranked at about a thousand.

For as far as Jenna could see there was red dust and railway track. A few low-growing saltbushes grew along the line. In the distance, the train was fading into shimmering heat.

There was nothing else.

Jenna stood motionless, trying to take in the enormity of what she’d done.

When the announcement had been made that the train would stop at Barinya Downs, Jenna had assumed it was some sort of town. She’d glanced out the window and half a dozen trucks had been pulled up at the platform. Staff from the train had been unloading goods, and wide-hatted, farming-type men and women had been tossing the unloaded goods into the backs of their trucks.

It had to be a settlement at least, she’d decided, which was infinitely preferable to two more days on the train watching Brian humiliate his little daughter.

But she hadn’t checked. She’d been so angry that she’d hurled their suitcases from the train and told Karli they were getting off. They’d stepped out onto the platform just as the train had started to move.

So where were they?

Barinya Downs.

The name meant nothing.

Worse. The trucks she’d seen a few minutes ago had now disappeared in a cloud of red dust.

There was nothing here at all.

She stared about her in horror, taking in her surroundings with sickening disbelief. What had she done? Where had she landed them? They were a day and a half’s train journey from Sydney and two days from Perth.

They were nowhere.

‘Where are we?’ Karli asked, in the scared little voice that was all she ever used within Brian’s hearing. It was the only tone Jenna had heard for the last two days.

‘We’re at Barinya Downs,’ she said, speaking loudly into the hot wind, as if naming the place with gusto would give it substance.

It didn’t. Barinya Downs seemed to consist of a concrete platform and a tin roof. That was it. There wasn’t a tree. There wasn’t a telephone. Nothing.

And Karli was standing by her side, waiting for her to tell her what to do.

Good grief, Jenna, you’ve really done it now, she whispered to herself. You king-sized twit. Dad always said you were stupid and he’s been proved right.

But what her father thought no longer mattered. Charles Svenson was in America.

Maybe her father was even acting in collusion with Brian.

The thought was unbelievable, but it was certainly possible. She and Karli shared a mother, but their different fathers—Brian and Charles—had to be the most unscrupulous men she knew.

So Charles was no help, and Brian was on the train that was drawing further away by the minute.

Jenna closed her eyes, remembering Brian’s face as she’d prepared to alight.

‘Get off, then,’ he snarled. ‘See if I care. I’ve won.’ His expression as she and her little half-sister stepped off the train was pure triumph.

Had he realised what this place was? Jenna’s breath caught in horror as the thought struck home. Had Brian realised what she was doing? Had he known that Barinya Downs was nothing?

Surely even Brian wouldn’t wish his daughter to be so desperately stranded.

Surely nothing. She sat down on her suitcase and tried to fight panic. She’d been so stupid. Five-year-old Karli was looking at her in concern, and she tugged the little girl down onto her knee and hugged her hard.

Calm down, she told herself. Make yourself think.

‘Will someone come and get us?’ Karli asked, her tone totally trusting, and Jenna struggled to find an answer.

‘Maybe,’ she told her. ‘I need to figure things out.’

Karli obediently subsided into silence—a feat she was all too good at. Karli had spent her whole five and three-quarter years being seen and not heard. Jenna was determined her silence had to end, but for now she was grateful for Karli’s silence. She had to think what to do.

Which was hard.

As well as being panic-stricken, Jenna was almost unbearably hot. They’d emerged from an air-conditioned train into an outside world so scorching it could almost bake bread. It was the middle of the day in the Australian Outback.

Forget the heat. Think, she told herself.

When would the next train come through?

She forced herself to remember the timetable she’d studied back in England. Brian’s suggestion that they take the long train journey across the centre of Australia had been a surprise, and she’d looked the train’s route and timetable up on the internet.

Think, she told herself desperately once more. I must be wrong.

She wasn’t. She was sure she wasn’t. The train ran across the continent only twice a week. As well as unloading goods, the stop at Barinya Downs had been to allow the train running in the opposite direction to pass them. It had rumbled through ten minutes ago.

There’d be no more trains for three days, she thought. This was Thursday. There was no train until next Monday.

Feeling sicker by the minute, Jenna hauled her cell phone from her bag and stared at the screen.

No host.

She was out of range of any of the communication carriers. Of course. What did she expect?

But she’d seen those guys in the trucks. They have to live somewhere, she told herself. She put Karli gently aside and walked to the edge of the platform. That was another mistake. The force of the midday sun hit her like a blast from a furnace. She recoiled into the shade, and Karli snuggled back against her, finding security in the curves of her body.

Great security she was.

‘We’ll be fine, Karli,’ she whispered. She narrowed her eyes against the glare, gazing around in a three-sixty-degree sweep. Surely somewhere there had to be something.

There were rough tracks leading in half a dozen directions from the siding. Nothing else.

No. Something.

There was definitely something, she thought as she came to the end of her sweep. Buildings? She wasn’t sure. It was too far to see.

She stared down at her half-sister in indecision. What to do?

There was little choice. They could stay on this platform with nothing to eat, and—worse—nothing to drink, and wait for the next train. That was the stuff of nightmares. Or they could walk to whatever it was on the horizon.

She thought back to literature she’d read when they were preparing for this trip. ‘In the case of breakdown in the Outback stay with your car,’ was the advice. ‘Tell people where you’re going. Your friends will send out a search party and they’ll find a car. They may well not find someone wandering in the desert.’

That was fine as far as advice went, she thought bitterly. But the only person who knew they were stuck here was Brian.

The vision of Brian’s face floated before her. She’d never seen such malice.

He’d do nothing. They’d walked into his con brilliantly. She knew he’d do nothing and the thought made her feel ill.

How could she ever have trusted him?

Let it go, she told herself. Don’t even think about it. We’re going to have to look after ourselves.

So what was new?

We need to wait, she told herself. She glanced at her watch. One o’clock. The heat was at its peak. ‘We’ll change into something sensible,’ she told Karli. ‘Then in a few hours we can head over and see whether that’s a house. If it’s not we can always come back. We can always…’

Always what?

Good question.

‘What will we do while we wait?’ Karli asked.

That was another good question. They had to do something. The alternative was thinking and who wanted to think?

‘We could make dust-castles,’ she suggested, and Karli looked doubtful.

‘You don’t make dust-castles. You make sandcastles.’

‘Yes, but that’s according to the rules,’ Jenna told her and she finally managed a smile. ‘We’re in unchartered territory now, sweetheart, and rules need to be stood on their head. Dust-castles it is.’

Riley walked in the back door and dumped the last of the supplies on the kitchen floor. Then he stood back and stared down in distaste. He’d hoped to be out of here by now, and even though the supplies Maggie had sent were necessary he didn’t have to like them.

Baked beans. More baked beans.

Beer.

Another week, he told himself, and then he’d be back in civilisation. Back to Munyering, with his lovely house, Maggie’s great food and a swimming pool. All the things that made life in this heat bearable.

Why hadn’t he sent one of his men to do this job?

Because they wouldn’t come, he told himself, and he even managed a wry grin. There was bound to be something in the union rules about existing on baked beans and dust.

But he was wasting time, talking to himself in this dump of a kitchen, and time was something he didn’t have. So… Priorities.

He unloaded the beer into the fridge, packing it in until the door barely shut.

‘That’s my housekeeping,’ he told himself and then he gave another rueful grin. Damn, wasn’t talking to himself the first sign of madness? Maybe he should get another dog.

Maybe he shouldn’t.

It was just after one o’clock. He had seven hours of daylight left. That was at least one more bore that could be mended.

What do they say about mad dogs and Englishmen? he demanded of himself, but he already knew the answer. Working in the midday sun might well lead to madness, but the bores were blocked and the survival of his cattle depended on him getting them unblocked. If he rested, maybe another thirty head of stock would be dead before nightfall.

‘Okay, mate,’ he told himself, looking at the beer with real longing. ‘That’ll wait. It has to. Get yourself back to work.’

As sunsets went this one was amazing. The sun was a ball of fire low on the horizon, and the blaze of light across the desert would, in normal circumstances, have taken Jenna’s breath away.

Not now. Karli was starting to stumble. The buildings had looked a mile or so away when she’d judged distance from the railway siding, but it’d ended up being closer to three or four miles. They’d abandoned their luggage back at the siding and were wearing only light pants, shirts and casual shoes, but even then it had been a long, hot walk. The sand was burning and their shoes were far too thin.

And now… The closer they grew to the buildings, the more Jenna’s heart sank.

The homestead looked abandoned. It consisted of ancient, unpainted weatherboards, and its rusty iron roof looked none too weatherproof. There were no fences or marked garden—just more red dust. All around the house were tumbledown sheds. The house itself looked intact, but only just. Broken windows and missing weatherboards told Jenna that no one had been at home here for a long time.

But it was no longer the house that interested Jenna. No matter how ramshackle it was, it could be a shelter until the next train came through. What she’d focussed on for the last half-mile was the water tank behind the house. It looked as if it might tumble down at any minute, but it still looked workable.

‘Please,’ she was whispering as she led Karli past the first of the shacks. ‘Please…’

And then she stopped dead.

Behind the house, at the end of a crude airstrip, was an aeroplane. Small. Expensive. New.

It wasn’t the sort of plane anyone in their right mind would abandon.

‘There must be someone here,’ Jenna told Karli, and she crouched in the dust and gave her little half-sister a hug. ‘Oh, well done. You’ve walked really bravely, and now we’re safe. Someone’s here.’

‘I need a drink,’ Karli said cautiously and Jenna collected herself. A drink.

She turned and stared at the house, willing someone to appear. No one did.

‘Let’s knock,’ she told Karli.

Who’d live in a dump like this?

She led her sister over to the house and she felt about as old as Karli was—and maybe even more scared.

She knocked.

No one answered.

They waited. Karli stood trustingly by Jenna’s side and Jenna’s sense of responsibility grew by the minute.

Come on. Answer.

Nothing. The only sound was the wind, blasting around the corners of the house.

‘Knock again,’ Karli whispered, and Jenna tried again, louder.

The door sagged inward.

A couple of loose sheets of roofing iron crashed down and down again in the wind.

Nothing.

‘I’m really thirsty,’ Karli told her, and Jenna’s grip on her hand tightened. This wasn’t London. Surely anyone who lived here would understand their need to break in. And…they didn’t need to break. The door was falling in anyway.

‘Let’s go inside,’ she whispered.

‘Why are we whispering?’ Karli asked.

‘Because it’s creepy. Hold my hand tight.’

‘You think there might be ghosts?’

‘If there are, I hope they can fly aeroplanes.’

Karli giggled. It was a great sound. There hadn’t been enough giggling in Karli’s short life, Jenna thought. There’d been none at all on the train with her father, and for the first time Jenna decided that maybe it hadn’t been such a disaster to get off.

If there was water. If the pilot of the aeroplane wasn’t an axe murderer.

Axe murderer? She was going nuts here. She didn’t have time to indulge in axe-murderer fantasies.

No one was going to answer the door.

She adjusted her grip on Karli’s hand to very, very tight. For Karli, Jenna told herself hastily. To reassure Karli. Not to reassure herself.

They tiptoed inside.

Through the back door the place looked much like the outside—as if it had been deserted for years. There was thick dust coating every surface. But…there were footprints in the dust. The prints looked as if they were made by a man’s boots, and they seemed relatively fresh.

Holding Karli’s hand as if it were infinitely important that she didn’t let go, Jenna led her across the bare wooden floorboards of the entrance porch. Their shoes left much smaller footprints beside the big ones.

The next door led to the kitchen.

Here there were definitely signs of life. There were boxes of canned food, a kerosene fridge, a lamp and a pile of newspapers strewn over a big wooden table. While Karli gazed around her with interest Jenna picked up the top newspaper. It was dated two days ago.

Someone was definitely using the house.

And—even better—there was a sink. Above the sink was a tap. Hardly daring to breathe, Jenna released Karli’s hand and twisted the tap. Out ran a stream of pure, clear water. She lowered her head and drank and nothing had ever tasted so good.

‘We’re fine, Karli,’ she said, a trifle unsteadily, and she lifted the little girl so that she, too, could drink. ‘We’re safe. There’s food and there’s drink. We can stay here for as long as we need.’

‘The hell you can.’

She twisted, still holding Karli to the tap. There was a man in the doorway.

For a moment there was absolute silence. Karli was still drinking and Jenna was shocked past speaking.

The man was large. He was well over six feet tall, and he filled the doorway with his broad shoulders and his strongly muscled frame. His build indicated a life of hard, physical work.

So did the rest of him. The man’s hair was sun-bleached, from dark brown at the roots to almost gold at the tips, and his skin was a deep lined bronze. The harsh contours of his strongly boned face were softened by deep, grey eyes that creased at the corners, maybe in accustomed defence against the sun’s glare. The man’s clothes—his hands, his face—were ingrained by layer upon layer of dust.

He had to be a farmer. The man’s whole appearance labelled him as such. He wore moleskin trousers and a khaki shirt, and in his hand he held a wide Akubra hat. This was an outfit Jenna recognised as almost a uniform among Australian men who worked the land.

Was he a farmer here? It didn’t make sense.

She had to speak. She had to say something.

‘H…hi.’ Not so good. Her voice came out as a squeak, and the man’s eyes widened.

‘Hi, yourself.’ Unlike Jenna’s, the man’s voice was deep, resonant and sure, laced with a broad Australian accent. His eyes were calmly watchful, as if at any minute he expected the apparition in his kitchen to vanish.

Jenna was still holding Karli to the tap. Now Karli finished drinking and pulled away. She lowered her to the ground; Karli stared distrustfully up at the stranger and then shrank against Jenna’s leg.

‘I… Is this your house?’ Jenna managed, holding tight to Karli.

‘It’s my house.’ The man was staring down at Karli as if he was certain he was seeing things. Karli didn’t look at him. She shrank behind Jenna’s legs and stayed there.

Silence. For the life of her, Jenna couldn’t think of what else to say.

Eventually, apparently recovering from the shock of finding strangers in his kitchen, the big man tossed his Akubra onto the table and walked across to the fridge. He opened the door and snagged a beer. Raising his eyebrows quizzically—for heaven’s sake, was the guy laughing?—he lifted the can towards Jenna. ‘I don’t know who on earth you are or how you got here,’ he said, ‘but can I offer you a beer?’

‘N…no. Thank you.’

‘There’s not much else,’ the man told her, pulling the ring from the top of the can and taking a long, long swallow. He didn’t lower the can until he’d almost emptied it. ‘Apart from water,’ he added then. ‘Which you seem to have found all by yourselves.’

Karli ventured a peek at him then from behind Jenna’s legs. Amazingly he gave the little girl a wink—which had her ducking back behind her sister.

‘We did find your water.’ Jenna took a deep breath, searching for composure. She didn’t find it. ‘I’m sorry. I guess…the thing is that we seem to be in a bit of trouble.’

‘You know, I guessed that,’ the man agreed gravely. ‘Either that or you’re a pair of very enthusiastic encyclopaedia salesmen.’ The man smiled at her across his beer, and when he smiled it was all Jenna could do not to gasp. The smile lit his whole face, making him seem years younger. She’d guessed his age at somewhere around forty, but when he smiled she knew he was closer to thirty. And, as well as younger, his smile made him seem incredibly…incredibly…

Male. Gorgeous. Sexy. The adjectives suddenly crowded into her head, and instinctively her hands fell to hold Karli tighter.

She gave herself a sharp mental swipe. She was being ridiculous. She didn’t react to men like this. She didn’t.

So why was this man so…mesmeric?

‘We’re not salesmen,’ she managed, striving for lightness. ‘The doors are a bit far apart out here to do door-to-door selling.’

She had her reward. The laughter deepened behind his eyes at her pathetic attempt at humour.

‘That’s a pity,’ he told her, his smile staying right where it was. He motioned to the pile of newspapers. ‘This is about all I have in the way of reading matter. An encyclopaedia would have its uses.’ Then his smile faded as he searched her eyes. The expression on his face softened, as though he sensed her fear. His gaze dropped again to Karli, peeping out from behind Jenna’s legs, and his expression softened still further.

‘So if you’re not salesmen, maybe you could tell me who you are?’

‘I don’t think…’ Jenna paused, the enormity of trying to explain their situation to this man almost overwhelming her in its degree of difficulty. ‘You won’t believe…’

‘Try me.’

‘But I don’t even know who you are,’ she burst out, and his gorgeous smile came flooding back.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘You don’t. You know, I figured since you’re in my kitchen and you came in uninvited, that maybe it was up to you to introduce yourselves first. But maybe I’ve been remiss.’ He hauled his hat from the table and shoved it back on his head, then raised it a few inches in a gesture of salutation. ‘I’m Riley Jackson.’ His dark eyes twinkled down at Karli, who was still clinging as hard as she could cling to Jenna’s leg. ‘Have a seat, ladies. Make yourselves at home.’

Then he readdressed his beer. Duty done.

Jenna stared at him in confusion. She was way out of her depth, she acknowledged. If it weren’t for Karli she’d walk out of here—take her chances on the railway platform.

Who was she kidding? No, she wouldn’t. She had no choice but to keep on talking.

‘I’m Jenna Svenson,’ she told him. ‘This is Karli.’

‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Jenna and Karli,’ he said gravely. ‘Welcome to my farm.’

His farm. She stared around her at the layer upon layer of dust. She turned to stare out the cracked and grimed window at the dusty paddocks beyond. ‘This isn’t a working farm?’ she managed. ‘Surely. I mean…you don’t live here?’

‘Don’t you like my décor?’ Riley demanded, as if he were wounded to the core, and she blinked. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘It’s really dusty,’ Karli volunteered and that shocked Jenna, too. For Karli to speak in the presence of a stranger was amazing. ‘You don’t wash your table,’ the little girl said, and there was even a note of reproof in her tone.

‘Hey, I would have dusted if I’d known you were coming.’ Riley smiled straight down at the little girl, with what was almost a conspiratorial grin. ‘I would have got out the best china and made a cake. Or put some more beer in the fridge. Speaking of which.’ He hauled open the fridge to snag another beer and Jenna bit her lip at the sight of it. Her fears had started to recede, but now they resurfaced with a vengeance. They were so alone. He might not be an axe murderer, but if he were to get drunk…

He saw her look. He stood with his hand on the refrigerator door and his eyebrows rose in a query. ‘Does this worry you?’ He raised his beer can.

‘I…no.’

‘It shouldn’t,’ he told her, and went straight to the heart of her fear. ‘It’s low-alcohol beer. I’d have to drink a bathful to get tight. And, lady, even if I was drinking full-strength beer, I’ve been working in the sun for the past twelve hours and after effort like that, alcohol hardly hits the sides.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You sound English. Are you?’

‘Y…yes.’

‘Australian girls don’t start getting nervous until their men down a dozen or more.’ He pulled the ring on his new can and took a long drink. ‘Now, having reassured you that I’m not about to get rolling drunk on my second light beer, I figure it’s your turn. Maybe I’m being picky but I would like to know what the hell—’ his eyes fell to Karli and he corrected himself ‘—what on earth you guys are doing in my kitchen, criticising my housekeeping and counting my beers. It’s not that I’m unappreciative. It’s always nice when guests drop in. I’m just not sure where you dropped from.’

She swallowed. He had the right. ‘From the train,’ she started and he nodded.

‘I guess it had to be the train. But I was over there picking up supplies. I didn’t see you.’

‘We got off just as the train left.’

‘You weren’t expecting to be collected, then?’

‘No.’

‘I see.’ He thought about it, his eyes not leaving hers. ‘So you thought you might indulge in a little sightseeing?’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,’ Jenna snapped. ‘We didn’t choose to get off.’

‘You’re saying someone threw you off?’ That amazing smile flashed out then. ‘What, for being drunk and disorderly?’ As she didn’t reply, he settled onto a chair with the air of a man about to enjoy a good book. ‘Well, well. Jenna Svenson. And Karli. Sit down and tell me all. Please.’

She owed him that much, she thought. She needed him. She had to tell him.

She sat and hoisted Karli onto the chair beside her. Their chairs were touching and Karli was still in contact with her, but strangely the little girl seemed to be relaxing.

What was it about this man?

Jenna wasn’t relaxing. She sat gingerly on the edge of her chair. The chair gave a distinct wobble, and the wobble made her feel even more precarious. It was as if her world were tilting and she wasn’t at all sure that she wasn’t about to slide right off.

‘We had a disagreement with someone on the train,’ she managed. ‘We…we got angry and we got off.’

‘You had a disagreement.’ His thoughtful eyes glinted again, humour seemingly just below the surface. His eyes searched her face, then dropped to take her all in. His eyes ran over her dust-stained pants and blouse—they’d once been white—over her wind-tumbled curls where the red dust was blending with her burnt-red hair, down to her slim arms resting on the table before her. To her bare fingers.

His eyes went again to Karli. To study her dusty red curls and her big green eyes that were a mirror image of Jenna’s.

‘Who was your disagreement with?’

‘With Karli’s father,’ she told him. ‘Brian.’

His eyes flashed again to her fingers but there was no ring-mark there. That was what he was searching for, she knew. Damn him, she thought with anger. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘You’ve left the third part of your happy family on the train.’

‘There’s no third part,’ she snapped. ‘And, believe me, it’s no happy family.’

‘Obviously.’

She flushed. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. How to explain within Karli’s earshot?

And how to justify her stupidity? Her stupid, almost criminal idiocy.

‘You know, what you did wasn’t all that bright,’ he told her, his voice gentle and his eyes resting thoughtfully on her flushed face.

‘I know that. But when I looked out there were people on the platform. It looked like a busy little country siding. I thought there’d be somewhere where we could stay until the next train came through. It wasn’t until we got off and everyone had disappeared that I remembered trains only come through twice a week.’

‘You did that with a child?’ he said, and there was suddenly a flash of anger behind the gentleness. She bit her lip. Okay, he was angry and maybe she deserved that. She was angry with herself. But if he’d seen the way Brian had treated Karli—the way she’d cringed….

‘I had my reasons,’ she said, in a tight little voice in which weariness was starting to show. ‘Believe me. I was dumb but I had no choice.’ She hesitated. This wasn’t easy. To ask a complete stranger for such a favour… ‘But you have a plane,’ she said. ‘We saw it when we came round the side of the house. We…’ She hesitated because the blaze of anger was still there, but she had to ask. ‘Could…is it possible that you’d fly us out?’ Then, as the anger deepened she went on fast. ‘I’d pay you, of course.’ Somehow she’d pay. ‘I’m not asking favours.’ When had she ever asked a favour of anyone?

He gazed at her, his eyes expressionless. ‘You want me to drop everything and fly you out of here. To where?’

‘Adelaide?’

‘Adelaide?’ he demanded, incredulous.

‘Please.’ Her hold on Karli tightened. Dear heaven, she’d got them in such a mess. She’d believed Brian. Why on earth had she ever believed Brian?

She’d wanted to believe him. For Karli’s sake.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she confessed. ‘We can’t stay here.’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘You can’t.’

‘If not Adelaide…’ she shrugged ‘…just anywhere with a hotel and a telephone and some way of getting back to the outside world.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘The nearest place with those sort of facilities is Adelaide,’ he said flatly. ‘That’s several hours’ flight in my small plane. It’d take me a day to get you there and get back here, and I don’t have a day free. I’m sorry to be disobliging, but I’m on a deadline.’

‘A deadline?’ She stared around in incredulity. ‘What sort of deadline can you have in a place like this?’

Riley’s expression became absolutely still. ‘Careful,’ he said softly. ‘Not so much of the disdain, if you please. This is my farm we’re talking of.’

‘But…’ Jenna closed her eyes for a fraction of a moment, to give herself space. She’d never felt so foreign or alone or out of control in her life—and she’d been alone for ever.

‘I’m sorry,’ she managed, and she fought for the courage to open her eyes again and face him. ‘I guess… Look, I don’t understand Australian farms. This is the first one I’ve been on. For all I know—’ she searched desperately for a smile ‘—this could be luxury accommodation.’

‘It isn’t,’ he said flatly. ‘But I have a roof over my head and a refrigerator full of beer. What more could I want?’

Anything, she thought. Anything.

‘The other people at the siding,’ she asked. ‘I don’t suppose…if they’re on farms, would one of them be able to fly us out?’

‘Those other farms are half a day’s drive to get to,’ he told her. ‘My nearest neighbour is over a hundred miles north over rough, unmade tracks. They came to the siding to get supplies from the train and they probably won’t be back at the siding for another couple of weeks. Today was the main supply run.’

Dear God.

‘We’re stuck here,’ she whispered.

‘Unless I kick you out, yes.’

Karli looked up at Riley then, with what, for the child, was an almost superhuman amount of courage. ‘Will you make us go back and sit on the train platform by ourselves until the next train comes?’ she whispered.

Jenna opened her mouth, and then thought better of it. Shut up, she told herself. Just shut up. She couldn’t ask that question any better than Karli just had.

Riley was staring at them with exasperation. ‘Your mother’s a dope,’ Riley told the little girl.

It was the wrong thing to say. Jenna flinched, and within her arms she felt Karli flinch as well.

‘My mother’s dead,’ Karli whispered. ‘She died yesterday.’

CHAPTER TWO

THERE was no way of softening the awfulness.

Riley knew Karli was speaking the truth. Jenna watched his face, knowing that he’d heard the shock and the raw pain in Karli’s voice.

He’d heard the despair of abandonment.

‘I’m sorry,’ Riley said at last. He set his beer on the table—very carefully, as if it might break. He looked from Karli to Jenna and back again. ‘I assumed you two were mother and daughter.’ He compressed his mouth and focussed on Karli. ‘Who’s this lady, then?’

‘Jenna’s my big sister,’ Karli whispered. ‘Sort of.’

‘Sort of?’

‘We’re half-sisters,’ Jenna told him. ‘Nicole, our mother—we’re the product of two of her marriages.’

‘Two—?’

‘Look, this isn’t getting anything sorted,’ Jenna said, and she was starting to sound as desperate as she felt. Karli was wilting against her. The shock and horror of the last few hours were taking their toll and it was amazing the little girl was still upright. She pulled her up to sit on her lap. ‘So you can’t take us anywhere?’

He hesitated, but then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he told her and there was even regret in his voice. ‘I’m sorry, but my labour’s not for sale. I have blocked bores and my cattle are dying because they can’t get anything to drink. If I leave before the bores are operational then I’ll lose cattle by the hundred, and their deaths won’t be pretty. I’m not being disobliging for the sake of it. I have urgent priorities.’

She bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry.’ This was getting harder by the minute. He was a man in a hurry and the last thing he needed was to be saddled with a woman and a child. ‘I was really stupid to get off the train.’

‘You were.’

‘But it’s done now,’ she said with a flash of anger. She sounded like a wimp, she decided, and a wimp was the last way she’d have described herself. She’d been looking after herself since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. It was men who’d got her into this mess and this guy was of the same species.

‘Can you at least put us up here until the next train comes through?’ Then, at the look on his face, she went on in a hurry. ‘Please. We’ll be no trouble.’ She had to persuade him. What choice did she have?

What choice did he have?

‘I don’t have any choice,’ he muttered, echoing her own thoughts. Then he looked again at Karli and he relented. He even smiled again. ‘It’s a pretty funny place to stay and I bet it’s not what you’re used to, but you’re very welcome.’

He smiled across at Karli, and the child stared at him for a long moment and then tried to smile back.

‘You’re nice,’ she whispered. She nestled closer to Jenna. ‘He’s nicer than my daddy.’

‘Yeah, well, that’d be hard,’ Jenna said with some asperity, but she fondled the little girl’s curls and looked across at Riley.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘If there’s really no choice…’

‘You know, we could always contact the flying doctor and ask them to collect you,’ he said, suddenly helpful. ‘We could say you were psychiatrically unhinged.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘It might work. They have a psychiatric service.’

‘You’re being very helpful!’

‘Well, I think I am,’ he told her, but his eyes were still resting on Karli with concern. He was making light of it for Karli’s sake, she realised. ‘I’ve let you drink my water and sit at my kitchen table and if you decide to take up my very generous offer of accommodation I’ll even let you share my baked beans. Then I’ll offer you both a spare bed and keep you fed and watered until the next train comes through.’ He hesitated. ‘You realise just how much danger you put yourselves in? This man you were with. Brian. Will he realise and send a search party?’

‘No,’ Jenna said flatly. ‘He won’t.’

‘You don’t want to contact the police?’

That was a thought. But…contact the police and say what? That they’d been conned? She could get a message to her father, but she wasn’t at all sure that her father wasn’t in cahoots with Brian. There was no guarantee that he’d help.

They were two like pieces of low-life. Her father and Jenna’s father.

And their mother was dead.

‘We’re on our own,’ she said, with what she hoped was an attempt at cheerfulness. ‘Just Karli and me. But if you could put us up we’d be very, very appreciative.’

‘As opposed to very, very dead if I threw you out into the heat.’

‘Like your cattle,’ she agreed bluntly. ‘Yes. We’ll try not to be any trouble.’

‘I can’t afford you to be any trouble,’ he told her. He pushed back his chair and rose. The decision had been made and he obviously needed to move on. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he told her. ‘I’m hot and filthy and exhausted and I’m having difficulty making my head work. I need to dip myself under cold water before I play host.’

Once more he smiled down at Karli. His smile was warm and strong and caring—but it didn’t include Jenna.

‘We’ll discuss food and beds when I’m clean,’ he told her. ‘But I’m carrying too much dust to be sociable. Don’t go away. Or if you do, make sure you fill a few water bottles first. It’s a good four days’ walk to my nearest neighbour and as far as I know no one’s ever walked it. No one would be mad enough to try.’

And he walked out of the kitchen and left Jenna to her confusion.

The first thing she needed to concentrate on was Karli. The little girl’s eyes were closing and her body was slumping.

Jenna thought again of Brian and her anger rose to almost overwhelm her.

Damn him, damn him, damn him, she muttered to herself. Damn them. Because suddenly it was a group. Jenna’s father. Her father. Her mother. And Riley was there too. All rolled up into one ball of fury.

Which was illogical, she told herself. Riley wasn’t to blame. He was stuck.

He had a lovely, gleaming aeroplane that could transport her to a comfortable hotel somewhere near an airport and…

And his cattle would die. She had no doubt he was telling the truth. He looked exhausted. He looked like a man who was working far harder than a man should. The way he’d left to have a shower seemed almost an act of desperation. It spoke of a man past the limits of exhaustion, trying to clear his head and see things straight.

No. She couldn’t blame him.

And the rest?

Her mother was dead.

She thought of Nicole, and tried to dredge up a feeling of sadness, but all she felt was bitterness. Bitterness at how she herself had been treated, but, worse, bitterness at what had happened to Karli.

Nicole was dead. Of course. It wasn’t the least surprising. What was surprising was that, leading the life she had, their mother had survived so long.

It’s all about surviving, she told herself drearily. That was what she had to do now. Survive.

Karli’s eyes were now completely closed. Jenna rose, carrying her with her. At almost six years old, Karli should be too big to lift, but the child was seriously underweight. She carried her across to the cracked window and gazed out into the fading light. The land was disappearing into the dusk, but she could still make out the horizon—long and endlessly flat.

There was nothing here. Where were these cattle Riley talked about? Figments of his imagination? What on earth was the man doing, working a useless, barren piece of land?

Surely he can’t make a living off this place, she thought, but then she thought of his aeroplane and her confusion grew. The plane was obviously expensive. How could this farm generate enough income to provide such a thing?

‘Well, at least he’s not a drug baron growing cash crops of opium,’ she told the sleeping Karli. ‘There’s hardly a lush crop of poppies in this backyard. If he’s making money from this place he must have found a market for bottled dust.’

She turned back to the kitchen. It was littered with crates and cardboard boxes, with everything covered in dust. There was a small gas stove and a kerosene fridge and little else. Ugh.

What of the rest of the house? She hadn’t been invited to look—but she couldn’t keep holding Karli for ever. She had to find somewhere she could lay her down.

The kitchen door led to a sitting room—of sorts. It held a few chairs and an old settee. In the corner was an ancient gramophone. But one of the window-panes was smashed, and dust was everywhere.

What next? There were two rooms leading off the sitting room. Jenna pushed the doors wide and reacted again with horror. These must be the bedrooms. Iron bedsteads stood as islands in the dust, with lumpy mattresses on sagging springs. Both rooms had broken windows, and once again they were thick with dust.

Surely Riley didn’t sleep here? Neither room looked as if it had seen a human for years. She retreated in haste, Karli growing heavier by the minute.

Riley must sleep somewhere. Where was he now?

She returned to the sitting room and stared out. Beyond the filthy windows was a veranda, and a door opened out to it. This must be the formal front door.

Did anyone ever come here?

She shoved the door open and walked outside, wary of broken floorboards, but there was no need for caution. In the lee of the house, the veranda was out of the wind and thus protected from the all-pervading dust.

In the fading light, Jenna could see a big bed at each end of the veranda, one made up with sheets and what looked like comfortable pillows. This, then, must be where Riley slept.

Riley’s bed or not, it was the most inviting place in the house. She laid Karli down with care, and watched as the little girl snuggled contentedly into the pillows. Karli had no cares to stop her sleeping. Jenna would take care of her.

Would she? Could she?

What had she got them both into?

This was such a mess, she thought ruefully. How had it happened? Jenna had taken such care to be independent, but Karli had been catapulted into her life with a vengeance, and how could she walk away?

She ran a finger down Karli’s dust-stained face, aching with tenderness for a child she was starting to love in a way she’d never thought possible. Where to go from here? How could she cope with this situation? With Riley Jackson? With her future?

One step at a time, she thought. Just live in the moment, otherwise you’ll go mad.

She turned and stared at the other bed at the far end of the veranda. It had a mattress and a couple of pillows. It looked almost comfortable.

It was too close to Riley’s bed.

The alternative was the railway siding, she told herself, and grimaced. It wasn’t an alternative at all. But to share sleeping quarters with that man…

The door opened at the end of the veranda—and that man was right in front of her.

Naked.

He’d obviously just emerged from the shower. His hair was still dripping. His towel was draped over his shoulder—but it wasn’t covering what needed to be covered.

She was a nurse, she told herself desperately. She was used to naked men.

She wasn’t used to this one.

There was no mistaking the magnificence of Riley’s body. He was built like a Rodin sculpture, she decided as she bit back an exclamation of dismay and moved swiftly to block the line of sight between Riley and the sleeping child. Then, with her complexion fast changing colour, she made herself look at his face—which was a better place to focus on than where her eyes were automatically drawn.

Her colour deepened further. The man was laughing!

‘Whoops,’ he said as he slung his towel around his waist to make himself respectable. Almost respectable. ‘I’m not used to visitors. Um…welcome to my bedroom.’

Which made Jenna’s flushing face turn to beetroot. She was in his bedroom. What else did she expect?

‘I…I’m sorry,’ she muttered. She motioned back to Karli who was thankfully still soundly asleep. ‘I needed… She needed…’

He followed her gaze and his face softened with understanding. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. I should have thought of that before I showered.’

‘I’ll move her.’

‘There’s no need.’ He snagged his clothes from the bedside chair, then caught his towel as it started to slip. ‘I’ll dress in the wash house. Meet you in the kitchen in five minutes.’

He disappeared and she had a fleeting thought that suddenly he was as discomposed as she was.

Was that possible?

Five minutes later when they met again back in the kitchen, her colour still hadn’t subsided. The gathering dusk helped, but then Riley produced a kerosene lantern and turned the little kitchen’s darkness to light. Her colour rose all over again.

He was respectable now, but only just. He was wearing faded jeans and nothing else. When he’d been covered in grimed clothes and dust, Jenna had thought the man was seriously good-looking, but now he was naked from the waist up, his broad chest was tanned and rippled, and his strongly boned face was rid of its dusty coating. The whole package meant Jenna had to fight not to gasp.

That and the memory of what she’d just seen…

She wasn’t interested in men, she told herself desperately. She’d never been interested in men. She’d seen what so-called romance did to women’s lives and she wanted no part of it. She’d been independent for ever and she intended to stay that way.

But the sight of Riley…

You can appreciate a good body without wanting it, she told herself fiercely, but still her face burned. She was way out of her comfort zone here. She was half a world out of her comfort zone.

Where was a magic carpet when she needed one?

‘I’m sorry we went into your bedroom,’ she managed and he smiled, a gentle, quizzical smile that was strangely at odds with the image she had of him as a man’s man. A threatening specimen of the male species. His smile was almost tender.

‘You hadn’t thought I might come out starkers.’ He took in her burning colour and grinned. ‘My apologies. I’m not used to women in my house. I’ll see that I stay respectable in the future.’

In future. Help. Jenna’s breath caught in panic as she stared across at this large, disconcerting male. She was stuck here for three days.

‘Can I interest you in baked beans?’

It was a thoughtful drawl from Riley and she looked up at his face, sharply suspicious. It was as if he could read her thoughts. She didn’t like the sensation.

Food. Concentrate on food. In truth, she must be hungry. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She needed to wake Karli and persuade her to eat as well. But baked beans? Karli hardly ate anything and to persuade her to eat beans seemed impossible.

Once more her thoughts must have shown on her face, because Riley’s dark eyes creased into laughter.

‘This place is not a five-star restaurant, lady,’ he told her.

‘No.’ Trying to get her face in order, she knelt by the crate that seemed to hold all the food cans. ‘Do you have nothing but beans? You’ll get scurvy.’

‘Yeah, but I’ll die happy.’ He was standing above her, disconcertingly male. Disconcertingly big. ‘I like beans.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Lady…’

‘And neither does Karli,’ she said, unconscious of the fact that he was staring down at her with a very strange expression on his face. ‘I need to make her eat. Surely you don’t just exist on baked beans. No one could.’

‘I’m tough.’

‘Yeah, but surely not stupid. Or not that stupid.’ She was lifting cans out and inspecting their labels. Spaghetti. Baked beans. Spaghetti. Baked beans. But at the bottom were a few different labels, tossed in as if the packer hadn’t expected them to be used but had put them in as if to satisfy a conscience. They were cans of interesting things like water chestnuts, snow peas and capsicum. There were a few packets of herbs and spices. A few withered onions lay ignored underneath, and there was also a large packet of rice.

‘Can I use these?’ she asked, and Riley stooped beside her to take a look. His bare chest brushed her arm. He was so close. She edged away and almost toppled over. His hand came out and steadied her—which didn’t steady her in the least.

‘I opened a can of those water chestnut things once,’ he told her as if he was totally unaware of how aware of his closeness she was. ‘I tipped them over spaghetti. They tasted like—’

‘I can imagine how they tasted,’ Jenna said faintly. ‘Why did you pack them if you don’t like them?’

‘I didn’t pack them. Maggie packs for me. I make her put in the beans and spaghetti, but she always shoves in a few of those foreign jobs.’ He grinned and held up his hands as if in surrender. ‘You and Maggie would get along fine. You have a common interest in scurvy. Maggie says at the first sign of bandy legs or bleeding gums I’m to open them and eat them, regardless.’

‘Sensible woman.’ She sorted through the cans some more, still achingly aware of his body. ‘So who’s Maggie? Your wife?’

‘A wife?’ Was she imagining it or was there suddenly a trace of bitterness in his words. ‘No, ma’am. Maggie is…well, Maggie is my resident scurvy defence.’

‘She’s not resident here.’

‘Very acute, Miss Svenson. No, Maggie is not here. This place was my woman-free zone until you and Karli arrived, and I hope it will be again very soon.’

‘You don’t like women, then?’ It was a stupid question, she conceded. She had no business asking, but it just came out of left field. Then she had to concentrate on her cans as Riley stared at her and disconcerted her all over again.

There was a long silence. Finally he spoke again, and when he did Jenna knew she’d been right when she’d thought she detected bitterness. She’d hit a nerve and the nerve was still raw.

‘It’s not that I don’t like women,’ he told her. ‘It’s just that I don’t have time for them.’

‘Except for Maggie.’

‘As you say.’ He smiled at that. ‘Yep. Hooray for Maggie.’ He lifted a can of beans. ‘Let’s get these heated. I need to go to bed.’

‘Let me cook,’ she told him, rising with her hands full of the smaller cans. ‘Give me ten minutes and I’ll throw together something that’s edible.’

‘Beans are edible.’ He sounded hurt.

‘Not in my book,’ she retorted. Then at the look on his face—for heaven’s sake, he looked like a pup who’d just been kicked!—she relented. ‘Tell you what. You try what I cook, and if you don’t like it you can heat your beans. How’s that for a deal?’

‘Very generous—seeing it’s my food.’

Jenna grinned. ‘Noble’s my middle name. Why don’t you go away and I’ll call you when it’s ready?’

‘What, sit in the parlour and watch television on my chaise longue?’ Riley settled his long body onto a chair and placed his bare feet on the table. He leaned back, tilting his chair at a precarious angle and crossing his arms with the air of a man settling down to watch a show. ‘No way, Miss Svenson. For one thing, televisions and chaises longues are thin on the ground around here. For another, if you’re cooking my food then it’s my job to supervise. I can see that it’s my duty and I’m not a man to shirk my duty—especially if I can do it with a can of cold beer in my hand.’

‘Fine, then.’ Jenna swallowed the qualms she was feeling about being supervised by such a disconcerting male and she even managed a smile. She plonked two onions on the table, turned to the sink to collect a knife, and then faced him square on. ‘There is just one decision to be made.’

‘Which is?’ Riley was watching her with sudden caution. Which might have something to do with the very large knife she was now holding.

‘You have a choice,’ she told him. ‘The menu at the moment is stir-fried vegetables and rice, Chinese style. But unless those feet are removed, Riley Jackson, I’m adding fresh meat. Stir-fried toes, to be precise.’

She raised her knife.

There was a moment’s startled silence. He stared at the knife. He stared at his toes.

He stared at her.

His face changed.

It was as if he thought she meant her threat, she thought incredulously. Or maybe…maybe she was threatening something else. Something he didn’t want threatened.

The silence went on and on. Finally, still staring straight at her, he removed the offending toes.

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he drawled and it was as if his drawl was to hide some deeper emotion. He sat back and steadied his chair. ‘My toes aren’t on anyone’s menu.’

‘Just as well,’ she managed, lowering her knife and looking at the man before her with a slight frown. It was as if there were an electric charge underlying this light-hearted banter and she didn’t understand it one bit. ‘It’s my bet any toes of yours would be as tough as old boots.’

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