Margaret Way - Outback Wives Wanted!

“Well under four minutes!” Thommo congratulated her, well pleased.

He took a closer look. She had freed the wool cleanly in one piece, nice and close to the loose kinky skin. He threw her a clean towel and she moved forward to catch it. Sweat was running down the side of her face from her temples, trickling into her cleavage. She was positively glowing.

Guy gave no indication of it, but he was deeply rattled. This wasn’t the Alana he had seen a few weeks back, at the party for the Hartmanns. She had been so beautiful then, in her golden-green dress, hair and make-up immaculate. This was the tomboy Alana Callaghan Guy remembered from only a handful of years before, but the luminosity she had inherited from her mother was a thousand times more potent. She didn’t seem at all uncomfortable, yet the tight yellow singlet drew attention to her small, beautifully shaped breasts, her taut midriff, tiny waist, and the slender strength of her arms. Her lovely, glossier-than-satin skin was dewed with sweat, the ponytail at her nape a damp honey-gold tangle. She looked incredibly erotic.

Guy felt a hard knot tightening in his chest. He felt a powerful impulse to strip off his own shirt and cover her up. His eyes whipped around the shed. Most of the men he knew. They were regulars on the circuit. One fellow he didn’t: young, heavy build, heavy wrists and shoulders, good-looking in a rough sort of way, dark overnight growth on his face. His response to Alana was showing only too starkly.

Guy found himself jamming his hands so they came together like fists. He loathed violence. He’d never had to employ it—he knew he commanded a lot of respect that precluded it—but he had a driving urge to run the shearer not only out of the shed but off a property that wasn’t even his. He had to force himself to calm. If he had his way, Alana would be barred from the shed.

His sister Alex had been treated like a princess from birth. Alex had never been allowed to wander at will around the shearing sheds when the men were there working. She certainly didn’t know how to shear a sheep and class the wool, much less work energetic sheep dogs. Alex’s place had been at the homestead with their mother. She had gone on to university, after which, armed with an arts degree majoring in Fine Art, she had been offered a job at arguably the best art gallery in the country, owned and run by a family friend. A smooth ride—as Alex would be the first one to admit.

Alana too had had her chance at university, but when her mother had been killed there had been nothing else for it but for her to come home. For the past three years she had been a full-time, hard-working farm girl, coping valiantly with a guilt-ridden father with a potentially fatal drinking problem. No easy life for a twenty-two-year-old girl. It came to Guy, not for the first time, that he was powerfully protective of her.

The shearers’cook, a wiry little Chinese man, entered a side door, calling out, “Smoko!” to the men. Morning tea was ready, which meant a mountain of sandwiches, fresh dampers with butter, golden honey or strawberry jam, and a gallon of billy tea.

As she towelled herself off, Alana caught sight of the two men in the main doorway. Their tall, lean figures, wide in the shoulders, narrow in the hips, were silhouetted against the brilliant sunlight.

Guy! He had only to appear and she came unstuck. Settle down, her inner voice advised. She shouldn’t let him do this to her, but so much of life just happened.

Totally unselfconscious only a few minutes before, now she threw the towel down and made a hasty grab for her shirt, pulling it on but letting it hang loose.

“Hey, Lana—want to organise some morning tea for us?” Kieran called to her in a cajoling voice. “I’ll have a few words with Thommo, then I’ll join you both back at the house. Don’t worry about Dad. He and Buddy are flat out at the Second Paddock.”

“Fine. I’ll wash up first.” She walked towards Guy, while Kieran followed the shearers outside into the sunlit courtyard.

“Morning, Guy,” she managed brightly, although her throat had gone bone-dry. “This is a surprise.” She led him off on the shortest route to the house.

Brilliantly enamelled parrots squawked overhead; and a fresh gust of wind sent spent petals flying from the seductive smelling flowers.

“I wanted to have a word with your father.”

“Oh?” She looked up at him quickly, trying to decipher what lay behind those fathomless dark eyes. He sounded very distant for Guy. Indeed, he looked daunting. His eyes were clouded—but with what? Some strong feeling, that was for sure. It unnerved her. Was it anger that overwhelmed him? If so, about what? She kept her head tilted towards him, feeling enormously heated—and it wasn’t just from her recent physical activity. Emotions were running dangerously high. She had never seen Guy this way. She tried to cover her inner agitation with whatever veneer she could muster. “What about?”

“We want to keep it to ourselves.” His expression lightened, but it still troubled her.

“Now you’ve got me really interested.”

“While keeping you out of the loop?” He gave her a faint sideways smile. “No, it’s just private stuff, Alana. Nothing to worry or concern you.” His glance swept her, increasing her jitters.

She was wearing some light gloss that made her heart-shaped mouth look moist and luscious, Guy thought. He knew there were many young men in the Valley in love with her, his own cousin included, but she wasn’t looking to get rescued from the farm. She loved Briar’s Ridge. She was a true country girl, but just too damned desirable to work with the men.

“Shearing is gruelling work,” he said, hearing it come out a lot more tersely than he’d intended.

“You mean you don’t approve of my taking part?” She stared up at him with a little questioning frown. His attitude had taken her by surprise.

He was silent a moment. “Actually, I don’t. There’s a new fellow on the team. What’s his name?”

She gave a little laugh. “Gosh, you worked that out pretty fast. He’s a New Zealander, and he’s good. Great co-ordination. I can’t remember his name. I think it’s Dean.”

“Then Dean had better keep his eyes off you.”

It was preposterous. He was jealous. “I never thought you so arrogant, Guy Radcliffe!”

His mouth compressed. “It’s not that I’m arrogant. To put it simply, I’m older and wiser than you.”

“Oh, yes! You’re my superior in every way.”

“At various times I might be. You should consider keeping your shirt on around the men.”

She made a sound of intense irritation. “What a sensible suggestion! You’re really jealous, huh?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “No, just concerned. Your father and Kieran can’t keep their eye on you all the time.”

Alana could feel her temper go from simmer to boil. “Gee, Guy, it’s so nice you called in. Don’t you think I can look after myself?”

“Sorry, Alana. You can—better than most. But I wouldn’t like to see anyone bothering you.”

“What would you do?” she challenged, thinking that the elegant Guy Radcliffe, who never raised his voice, wouldn’t be the man to cross. At that very moment the Lord of the Valley looked mighty tough.

He held a bougainvillaea bough freighted with hot pink blossom away from her head. “You’ve seen me cracking a whip haven’t you?” he asked. Whips were used by stockmen to assist in the mustering process. Alana knew better than most that it wasn’t anywhere as easy as it looked. Guy was wonderful to watch.

“I’ve got a big brother, Guy,” she pointed out sweetly.