Marion Lennox - Stranded With The Secret Billionaire

‘I’ll boil a couple of slabs of beef for lunch.’

The thought of it was almost overwhelming but who else would do it? Ron and Harv could be depended on to keep the sheep coming in and clear the pens but their cooking skills were zero. Donald was eighty-seven. That was his pool of workers.

He could imagine the reaction of the shearers if he went over there now and said: Hey, do any of you cook? Care to swap jobs?

But he was eyeing the woman at the table with caution. She’d known how to cook an egg. That was about twenty per cent of his cooking skill. Maybe...

But she drove a pink car. She had a poodle. She came from one of the richest families in Australia.

Ask.

‘I employ a shearers’ cook,’ he told her. ‘The best. Pete sent me lists. I have everything I need—except Pete. He’s stuck on the far side of the floodwater.’ He hesitated. ‘So I’m stuck with cooking. But any help you could give me...’

‘I’ll cook.’

Silence.

I’ll cook.

Two magic words.

‘You can cook?’

‘Don’t sound so shocked. Why do you think I was heading for Malley’s Corner?’

‘You were going to Malley’s to cook?’ He couldn’t keep the incredulity from his voice.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ She glared. ‘Just because my family’s...’

‘The richest family in Australia?’

‘We’re not. There are mining magnates richer than us.’

‘Of course there are.’

‘Don’t be sarcastic. Besides, this has nothing to do with money. Though...’ she considered ‘...I’m stuck here so I might as well make myself useful. Consider it payment for board.’

‘Do you have any idea how hard it is to cook for a shearers’ team?’

‘You were going to do it.’

‘Now you sound sarcastic.’

And she grinned. ‘I do,’ she conceded. ‘But I can do better than sandwiches.’

‘We have a team of twenty shearers, classers and roustabouts. Do you have any idea how much they eat?’

‘I’ve cooked for hundreds.’

‘You...’

‘You say that like I’m some sort of amoebic slug,’ she said carefully. ‘Why shouldn’t I cook? Why do you think Malley hired me?’

‘Malley would employ anyone with a pulse. Come to think of it, rumour was that his last cook didn’t have one.’

‘Then he’s about to be surprised. I even have qualifications.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Only a basic apprenticeship,’ she admitted. ‘But I’ve done lots of cooking classes in amazing places. Mum and Dad approved of those.’

‘I just read an article online,’ he told her. A man had to be careful but he might as well say it. Not that he had a recruitment pool of hundreds but he needed to know what he was getting into. ‘It described you as a PR assistant in your family corporation. It also said you were nursing a bruised ego and a broken heart.’

She froze. ‘You checked up on me.’

‘I did. About the broken heart bit. Your sister... I’m sorry...’

And all of a sudden the apologetic, polite blonde was transformed by temper.

‘Don’t you dare go there,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t want sorry. Every one of my so-called friends are sorry, but not sorry enough to refuse an invitation to the massive wedding my parents are organizing right now. My father says a big function’s important to show there’s no family rift. So there’s no family rift. Business as usual.’

He winced. ‘That must hurt. Every major tabloid...’

‘Is enjoying it very much.’ She cut him off bitterly. ‘But that’s important how? Right now I’m offering to cook for you. Isn’t there a Discrimination Act somewhere that says asking employees about their past appalling taste in men is illegal?’

‘Are you applying for a job?’

‘I might be,’ she snapped. ‘As long as you don’t rake up my family. I’ve left them in Sydney and that’s where they’re staying. I like the fact that half of Australia is flooding between here and there. Do you like the fact that I can cook?’

There was no arguing with that. ‘Yes.’

‘So let’s move on. Your shearers like sandwiches? Are you any better at making them than frying eggs?’

‘Mine would be pretty basic sandwiches,’ he admitted.

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed eight. He should be gone, he thought. There was so much to do before dark.

But he had the offer of a cook.

She intrigued him. She was half perky, half defensive.

It sounded as if her family had cut her a raw deal and he’d seen enough of the tabloids to realize how widely her humiliation must have spread. She must be hurting a lot under her pink bravado.

What he wanted was to probe deeper into what was behind her blind run to Malley’s. But then...this was personal and hadn’t he learned a long time ago not to get personal with women? The last thing he needed was a wealthy blonde socialite sobbing on his chest while she spilt all.

And she was right. Her past had no bearing on her ability to cook.

She could probably only do fancy, he thought. Soufflés and caviar and truffles. But she had cooked a mean egg, which was more than he could do. And how could her cooking be worse than his efforts?

‘If you really could...’

‘I could try,’ she told him, her glare fading. She looked as if she was sensing his train of thought. ‘You can sack me if it doesn’t work.’ She smiled suddenly, and he thought she had a great smile. It lit her face.

It lit the room.

‘Tell me what you need,’ she said and he had to force himself to focus on something that wasn’t that smile.

‘Morning smoko, dinner and arvo tea. The shearers make their own breakfast and evening meal, but our dinner’s midday, when we need a full, hot meal to keep going. You have no idea how many calories a gun shearer burns. Are you really serious about helping?’

‘I’m serious.’

‘Okay.’ He took a deep breath, seeing clear air where from the time he’d had the call from Pete he’d only seen fog. ‘At ten you’d provide smoko—morning tea. You’d bring the food over to the shed. I’ll come and help you carry it. Then at twelve-thirty they all come here for a buffet dinner and take it onto the veranda to eat. At three it’s time for arvo tea and you take that to the shed as well. It saves time. You’d be expected to cook a couple of extra roasts and leave them in the shearer’s quarters so they can use that as a base for their evening meal.’

‘Wow,’ she said and looked at the big stove. ‘No wonder you have three ovens. Is there an instruction manual?’

‘On the Internet.’

‘You have Internet?’

‘Yep. Satellite. I’ll give you the password.’

She stood up and her smile widened until the defensiveness of moments ago disappeared entirely.

‘You have no idea how good that makes me feel,’ she told him. ‘Half an hour ago I was trapped in the middle of nowhere feeling useless. Now I have a job and Internet and there’s nothing more I need in the world. Right. You’d better put those chooks to bed and gather those sheep or whatever you have to do. Leave me be, Matt. I’m about to get busy.’

He’d been dismissed.

* * *

She was needed! She stood in the great kitchen and, for the first time since that appalling night when Brett and Felicity had appeared at the family dinner table hand in hand and smugly announced the new order of things, she felt as if she was standing on firm ground again.

A shearing team of twenty. Two weeks’ hard work, she thought with satisfaction. Two weeks when she could put her head down and forget that every tabloid in the country was running articles pitying her.

She’d be working for Matt.

Matt...

And suddenly her thoughts went off at a tangent. Matt. The way he’d said he was sorry. He’d said it...as if he understood. How was that possible? It had been a throwaway line, a platitude, something that had been said to her over and over before her family and her friends had moved on to the new normal.