Barbara Hannay - The Cattleman's English Rose

Kane’s voice reached her through her shame. ‘Don’t worry, sweet Charity. It was wild.’

‘Go away!’

‘You were fabulous—sensational.’

Her head shot above the sheet. ‘Stop it! You’re despicable.’ She hated him.

But she was also beginning to suspect that he was lying. Surely he was teasing her?

Emboldened by the thought, she lowered her gaze…and saw…

…that she was fully dressed.

Every bit of clothing was still in its proper place, except for her shoes. Thank heavens.

She spun sideways to check the other side of the room and winced because the movement made her head hurt. There was another bed beneath the window, a twin of hers, and its rumpled sheets indicated that Kane had slept there.

He’d definitely been teasing her…which made him even more despicable, because she was left feeling foolish for leaping to assumptions.

‘If that’s Australian humour, I don’t think much of it,’ she snapped.

‘Come on, take these,’ he said again, pressing the tablets into her hand.

She had little choice but to sit up and accept the tablets and glass of water and to swallow obediently, but she wouldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to see that mocking amusement in his eyes.

He said, ‘I’ve brought your bags up, so be a good girl and hop into the shower. Then you need a big recovery breakfast before you leave.’

‘But I don’t plan to leave.’ She couldn’t let this embarrassing situation throw her. No doubt Kane McKinnon was still trying to scare her away, but she had to remember her mission—why she was here. Tim was still out there in all that terrible outback. Still missing.

‘Of course you’re leaving,’ he said. ‘You should have left yesterday when I told you to.’

Running frantic fingers through her hair, she tried to tame its tousled disarray. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Mr McKinnon. I mean it. I have no plans to leave Mirrabrook. I’m here to find my brother and I’m not taking orders from anyone, especially from you.’ She remembered something she’d learned during her conversation with Marsha. ‘I understand you have a brother and a sister, so if you won’t help me I’ll talk to them. That’s what I plan to do next.’

‘Do you indeed?’

‘Yes, I do indeed. I assume Tim had dealings with them as well as you?’

He shrugged. ‘Not really and Annie’s away in the city at the moment, so she won’t be able to help you.’

She was determined not to be put off. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not leaving.’ Throwing off the sheet, she gripped the bedside table for support while she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood carefully. ‘I have a strong feeling that I’m going to get the answers I need right here in Mirrabrook. I’m not budging until I get to the bottom of all this.’

The phone rang, cheating her of the opportunity to hear Kane’s reaction to her brave little statement.

He snatched it up. ‘McKinnon speaking…Oh, hello, Reid…Yeah, I’m still in town…No, I didn’t have any luck, mate…There’s no one available. Yeah, of course, I really tried.’

Over his shoulder, he scowled at Charity and she hurried to her suitcase, grabbed the first items of clothing she found and disappeared into the bathroom.

As she closed the door behind her, she heard Kane snap into the phone, ‘What choice do we have? You and I will just have to manage on our own, won’t we? We’ll have to become New Age types and discover our feminine sides.’

In the privacy of the shower, Charity rested her aching forehead against the cool ceramic tiles and let warm water pour over her.

What was she going to do now? It was all very well to toss off some grand sounding words to Kane about her plans to stay in the Mirrabrook district to search for Tim, but who would help her and where was she going to stay?

She wondered how much a cabin like this one would cost her. She didn’t have much money and had been hoping to clear the problem up quickly.

When she emerged from the bathroom with her hair wrapped in a huge white towel, she was dressed rather inappropriately in the first clothes she’d grabbed—her best cream trousers and pale blue silk blouse. Kane had hidden his muscles beneath a cotton shirt and he was sitting on the edge of his bed, his expression morose.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

‘Just a stubborn brother.’ He looked up at her and stared hard at the towel on her head.

She felt frozen by the sudden intense spark in his eyes.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I was wondering what colour your hair is when it’s wet.’

Surprised and flustered, she said, ‘I don’t know. It’s just red, I think.’

He stood and seemed to tower over her. ‘No, not red, Charity. Your hair could never be just red.’

For a moment she thought he was going to reach out and unwind the towel. But he didn’t. He just stood there and the intense way he looked at her caused a shivery pang—an empty hollow, deep inside her.

‘I came out to find my hairbrush,’ she said, sounding more panicky than she meant to. No man had ever looked at her with such unsmiling, focused attention. At home in Hollydean she’d had a few boyfriends—some unimpressive, others a little more serious. There’d even been a marriage proposal. But none of those men had made her feel so—so aware.

She dashed to her handbag, grabbed her hairbrush and hurried back into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her again.

Safely inside, she used the electric hair-dryer to blow her hair dry. At home she usually let her hair dry naturally, encouraging it to fall into soft waves, but today she didn’t care if it went as straight as sticks as long as it stopped Kane McKinnon from looking at her that way.

The intensity in his eyes had awoken a strange longing deep inside her—a need so acute that it left her with the fear that it might never be eased.

Shocked by her reaction, she wound her flamboyant hair into a prim knot and secured it with several pins before she ventured back into the bedroom.

‘Now you look like a Sunday school teacher,’ he said, and she was relieved to see that his eyes were less intense.

‘Perhaps that’s because I am a Sunday school teacher,’ she replied with necessary dignity.

‘Fair dinkum?’

‘Yes. I’m a genuine Sunday school teacher.’

He cocked his head to one side and studied her. ‘What else do you do?’

What else did she do? Annoyed by the underlying taunt in his manner, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin to an even more dignified angle. If only she could offer this man an impressive answer. If only she could manage to lie without feeling guilty.

What else she did was less than impressive.

While most of her school chums had gone away to travel, or to university, or to jobs in London, she’d stayed behind in Hollydean to help her father and Tim. Whenever her friends came home, they took pains to point out that she’d been living in a time warp since she left school.

She knew Kane McKinnon wouldn’t be impressed by the news that she played a vital role in the parish—taking care of the rectory household, accompanying the choir practice, teaching at Sunday school, visiting the elderly and the sick…

And it was of no use to point out to him that she was so indispensable to the running of the parish that the ladies in the Mothers’ Union had organised themselves into a roster to take over her tasks while she was away.

Nevertheless, her green eyes flashed and she cast him a look ablaze with haughty pride. ‘I am an excellent housekeeper,’ she said.

His lips pursed as he released a low whistle. ‘Are you now? That’s very interesting…’