Michelle Douglas - The Cattleman, The Baby and Me

In a beautiful but isolated landscape, three sisters follow three very different routes to parenthood against all odds and find love with brooding men…

Discover the soft side of three rugged Outback cattlemen as they win over these feisty women and a handful of adorable babies!

Your journey through the tears and triumphs began last month:

ONE SMALL MIRACLEMelissa James

The pitter-patter of tiny feet continues this month with:

THE CATTLEMAN, THE BABY AND MEMichelle Douglas

And next month there’s a motherhood miracle in:

THEIR NEWBORN GIFTNikki Logan

By

www.millsandboon.co.uk

At the age of eight, Michelle Douglaswas asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. She answered, ‘A writer.’ Years later she read an article about romance-writing and thought, Ooh, that’ll be fun. She was right. When she’s not writing she can usually be found with her nose buried in a book. She is currently enrolled in an English Master’s programme for the sole purpose of indulging her reading and writing habits further. She lives in a leafy suburb of Newcastle, on Australia’s east coast, with her own romantic hero—husband Greg, who is the inspiration behind all her happy endings. Michelle would love you to visit her at her website www.michelle-douglas.com

Recent titles by this author:

BACHELOR DAD ON HER DOORSTEP

THE ARISTOCRAT AND THE SINGLE MUM

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To Mum, with love.

Cover Page

Excerpt OUTBACK BABY TALES Newborns, new arrivals, newlyweds In a beautiful but isolated landscape, three sisters follow three very different routes to parenthood against all odds and find love with brooding men… Discover the soft side of three rugged Outback cattlemen as they win over these feisty women and a handful of adorable babies! Your journey through the tears and triumphs began last month: ONE SMALL MIRACLEMelissa James The pitter-patter of tiny feet continues this month with: THE CATTLEMAN, THE BABY AND MEMichelle Douglas And next month there’s a motherhood miracle in: THEIR NEWBORN GIFTNikki Logan

Title Page The Cattleman, The Baby and Me By

About the Author At the age of eight, Michelle Douglas was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. She answered, ‘A writer.’ Years later she read an article about romance-writing and thought, Ooh, that’ll be fun. She was right. When she’s not writing she can usually be found with her nose buried in a book. She is currently enrolled in an English Master’s programme for the sole purpose of indulging her reading and writing habits further. She lives in a leafy suburb of Newcastle, on Australia’s east coast, with her own romantic hero—husband Greg, who is the inspiration behind all her happy endings. Michelle would love you to visit her at her website www.michelle-douglas.com Recent titles by this author: BACHELOR DAD ON HER DOORSTEP THE ARISTOCRAT AND THE SINGLE MUM

Dedication To Mum, with love.

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

Epilogue

Copyright

‘THAT’S the Jarndirri out station down there.’

At the pilot’s words Sapphie Thomas turned from the baby sleeping beside her to stare out of the mail plane’s window. Anna and Lea Curran—her best friends—had grown up on Jarndirri. Sapphie had spent a lot of time there herself. She’d deftly fed that piece of information to Sid, the pilot, earlier. Sapphie didn’t get into small planes with strange men without them knowing she had friends in high places—friends who could come to her aid in a flash if the need arose.

She stared down at the out station and longing and pain hit her in equal measure. Her chest tightened. ‘You’re not going to land, are you?’

Her chest tightened even more. She didn’t want Sid to land. She didn’t want to step foot on Jarndirri at the moment. For lots of reasons—not least being the letter she’d received two days ago.

She pushed that thought away. She didn’t have time to dwell on it. Instead, she thought how a landing might wake Harry, and she didn’t want that. Her twelve-month old nephew, it seemed, hated flying. He hated landings and take-offs. He hated the dust and the heat and the flies. He hated the glare of the sun in its cloudless sky, and hated Sapphie trying to change his nappy in the close confines of the plane. He hated it all—with a capital H—and he had the lungs to prove it. Sapphie had wanted to wail right alongside him.

She’d wanted to wail because Harry hated her too.

During the long, hot five hours they’d so far endured on the plane he’d only stopped crying when she’d given him his bottle—most of the contents of which he had then thrown up all over her shirt. Finally, through sheer exhaustion, he’d fallen asleep. She didn’t want him woken for any reason whatsoever. So not landing at Jarndirri would suit her perfectly. She waited for Sid’s answer.

‘Nah,’ Sid drawled. ‘They radioed through earlier. They don’t have anything for me to collect. And as I don’t have anything for them…’

Sapphie gulped back a sigh of relief. In the next instant her shoulders went all tight again. ‘What about the main Jarndirri station? Will you be landing there?’ The Jarndirri homestead was several hundred kilometres northeast of the out station, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t on Sid’s mail route.

Don’t be an idiot, she chided herself. You’re not going to accidentally bump into Anna or Lea out here. Neither was currently in residence at Jarndirri. Anna was in Broome with Jared, and Lea was at Yurraji—the property in the far north that her grandfather had left her.

And Bryce had died six years ago. She wasn’t going to run into him.

The plane bounced as it hit a pocket of turbulence. Sapphie’s stomach churned and bile rose up to burn her throat. Normally she was a good flyer.

Normally? Ha! Normally she wouldn’t be flying over the northwestern corner of the Australian continent—one of the most remote regions in the world—without any form of invitation. And if she did it would be to see Anna or Lea, not to track down some man she’d never met in her life before.

There was nothing normal about the turn her life had taken in the last two days.

‘The main Jarndirri station is on a different mail run,’ Sid said. ‘Mail delivery to this part of the Kimberley’s on a Thursday. Mail delivery to that part of the Kimberley’s on a Tuesday.’

Sapphie closed her eyes for a moment, beyond grateful that she’d arrived in Broome yesterday. If she’d left it another day then she would have had to wait an entire week to catch the mail plane to Newarra. Broome was small. Anna would have heard that Sapphie was in town, and…