Barbara Hannay - A Wedding At Windaroo

But now he seemed reluctant to drop the subject. His deep voice penetrated the night. “Piper, you’re not afraid of intimacy, are you?”

Without warning, her blood began to pound through her veins, making her ears hum and her heart beat wildly. “I—I don’t think so.” But she couldn’t be sure.

She sensed him moving toward her, and the next moment his fingertips were touching her cheek ever so gently. She heard the rasp of his breathing and felt his thumb travel slowly down her cheek, over her chin and back again. She was amazed how good it felt. Hardly believing her daring, she dipped her head slightly and pressed her lips to his thumb.

Gabe’s husky voice sounded close to her ear. “I think you know a lot more about touching than you’re letting on….”

Barbara Hannay was born in Sydney, educated in Brisbane and has spent most of her adult life living in tropical north Queensland, where she and her husband have raised four children. While she has enjoyed many happy times camping and canoeing in the bush, she also delights in an urban lifestyle—chamber music, contemporary dance, movies and dining out. An English teacher, she has always loved writing, and now, by having her stories published, she is living her most cherished fantasy.

You can find out more about Barbara at her Web site, www.barbarahannay.com

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3718—THEIR DOORSTEP BABY

3770—A PARISIAN PROPOSITION

3786—A BRIDE AT BIRRALEE

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PROLOGUE

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

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

THREE weeks past her twelfth birthday, Piper O’Malley spent almost an entire afternoon huddled behind the tractor shed crying. And the stupid thing was she hated crying! Crying was for girls and today she didn’t want to be a girl.

By the time Gabe Rivers found her she’d reduced her sobs to the occasional sniffle, but she knew her eyes were still red and swollen.

‘Hey, cheer up, tree frog,’ he said, crouching beside her and throwing a strong, comforting arm around her skinny shoulders. ‘Nothing’s ever as bad as it seems.’

She swiped her eyes with her shirt-tail. ‘It is today. This is the worst day of my life.’

He looked so surprised she made a hasty amendment. After all, Gabe was eighteen—and like all adults he had a way of knowing when you weren’t telling the exact truth. ‘I suppose the very worst day of my life must have been when Mum and Dad died, but I was too little to remember.’

‘But this is the second worst day?’ he asked. ‘Sounds bad. What’s the problem?’

She burrowed her face against his big shoulder. ‘I can’t tell you. It’s too awful.’

‘Course you can. I’m unshockable.’

Peeping up at him she found his green eyes regarding her so tenderly she felt her heart swell. ‘Periods,’ she whispered.

‘I see,’ he said after a beat. ‘Well…yeah…that’s tough, I guess.’

She half expected Gabe to leap away from her, to tell her that now he’d finished helping her grandfather with branding and ear-tagging calves he needed to hurry home to Edenvale. But he stayed right beside her. They sat for ages with their backs against the corrugated iron wall of the tractor shed, chewing fresh, sweet stalks of grass and watching the daylight soften as the afternoon slipped away.

‘You’ll get used to the idea after a while,’ he told her.

‘I won’t, Gabe. I know I won’t ever. Why do I have to be a girl? I wish I was a boy. I want to be like you.’

He grinned. ‘And what’s so good about being like me?’

‘Everything,’ she cried with the wholehearted sincerity of a true hero-worshipper. ‘You’re bigger and stronger than Grandad, and he never tries to stop you from doing anything. And you can be whatever you want to be. When I grow up I’m going to have to have babies and wash some man’s smelly old socks and underpants.’

Gabe laughed. ‘Wait till you go to boarding school next term. Your teachers will tell you that girls have the same chance to be anything they want to these days.’

‘But I want to be a cattleman. Bet you never heard anyone talk about a cattlewoman, have you?’

He chuckled playfully and pulled her akubra down over her eyes. When she knocked the broad-brimmed hat back into place she was surprised to see the laughter in his eyes die. Suddenly he was looking sad and serious.

‘What’s the matter?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing you need worry about, mouse.’

‘Come on, Gabe. I told you my horrible secret and I haven’t even told Miriam, my best girlfriend. If you tell me, I won’t tell anyone else.’

He smiled at her—as if he was seeing right inside her and really liked what he found. ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘guys can have their own problems, you know.’

‘Like having to shave?’

He grinned. ‘That’s one of them. But it gets worse.’

‘Going bald?’

‘I’m not talking about that kind of stuff. I mean it’s not always that easy for us blokes to do just whatever we want. My dad expects me to stay on Edenvale for ever.’

‘Of course.’ She frowned at him. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

He grimaced. ‘This will probably shock you, but I don’t want to be a cattleman.’

‘You’re kidding.’ She was shocked. Shocked to the soles of her riding boots. Her belly, which was already feeling sore, bunched into a nervous knot. How could anyone reject the wonderful life of a cattleman? If Gabe didn’t want to run cattle, what on earth could he want? And where did he want to go? The possibility that he might not stay right next door on Edenvale for ever scared her.

‘What do you want to do?’

‘That!’ he said, pointing to a giant wedgetail eagle circling high above them. Piper watched it with him and admired the strength of its dark V-shaped wings as it climbed higher and higher into the fading blue of the afternoon sky. Eventually, the slow, steady wings stopped moving altogether as the bird worked the thermals, gliding free. Then it was still in the air, hovering in one place.

Gabe’s face was alight with excitement. ‘Isn’t that fantastic? I’d give anything to learn to fly like that, to soar or hover with that much freedom. That much power and control. I’m sick of being tied to the ground with a mob of dusty, dumb cattle.’

It was a side to Gabe that she’d never seen before, never guessed. ‘Where could you learn to fly?’

‘An army recruitment fellow was in Mullinjim last week.’ His glowing face was still fixed on the eagle, watching it grow smaller and smaller as it climbed away again. ‘They’ll sign me up and train me to fly helicopters—Black Hawks.’