Marion Lennox - Taming the Brooding Cattleman

Now …

He’d left a pitcher and basin in her bedroom and she’d obviously made use of it. She’d washed—the tendrils of blond curls around her face were damp—and her face was shiny clean with no hint of make-up. She was wearing jeans and an oversize sweater. Her curls hung free to her shoulders.

She was wearing thick, pink socks.

The résumé she’d sent said she was twenty-five years old. Right now she looked about sixteen. Pretty. Really pretty. Also … scared?

Daniel in the lion’s den.

Or woman in Werarra.

Same thing, only he wasn’t a lion. But she couldn’t stay here.

‘Sit down and wrap yourself round something to eat,’ he said roughly, trying to hold to anger.

‘Thank you.’ She sidled into a chair on the far side of the table to him, still looking scared.

‘Three sausages?’

‘One.’

‘Suit yourself.’ He put one sausage onto a chipped plate, added a pile of mash and a heap of peas and put it in front of her. He ladled himself more.

He sat and started eating.

She sat and stared at her plate.

‘What?’ he said.

‘I didn’t lie,’ she said in a small voice.

‘I have the documentation,’ he said, pointing to the pile of papers he’d left on the end of the table. ‘ My son. That would be a male.’

‘Nothing in any of my emails to you said I was a guy.’

‘They didn’t have to. I already knew. Your father’s letter. The visa application. My son, the letter said. Plus Alexander. It’s a guy’s name.’

‘Yes,’ she said, and shoved her plate back. ‘It is.’

‘So?’

‘My father doesn’t get on with my older brother.’ She was speaking calmly, in a strangely dull voice, like she’d reached some point and gone past. ‘I’ve never figured why, but there’s nothing anyone can do to fix it. I have two older sisters, and by the time I arrived Dad was desperate for a male heir other than Matt. He was sure I’d be the longed-for son. He planned on calling me Alexander, after his dad, only of course I ended up being Alexandra. So Dad filled in the birth certificate. Maybe he’d had a few drinks. Maybe it was just a slip, or maybe it was anger that I wasn’t what he wanted. I don’t know, but officially I’m Alexander. My family calls me Alexandra but on official stuff, I need to use Dad’s spelling.’ She tilted her chin and tried to glare at him. ‘So … does it matter?’

‘Yes,’ he said flatly. ‘It does. Your father said you were his son. I want to know why he lied.’

‘He made a mistake.’

‘Fathers don’t make that sort of mistake.’

‘They do if they always wanted their daughter to be a boy,’ she said dully. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists. ‘They do if they have Alzheimer’s.’

Silence.

Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t that. The word hung. She hadn’t wanted to say it, he thought. Admitting your dad was ill … It hurt, he thought. It hurt a lot.

Anger faded. He felt … cruel. Like he’d damaged something.

‘So why does it matter?’ she demanded, hauling herself together with a visible effort. ‘What have you got against women?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I applied for jobs after graduating,’ she said. ‘I want horse work. To work with horses, not ponies, not pets. You try and get a job on a horse ranch when you’re twenty-five and blonde and cute.’

And she said the word cute with such loathing he almost smiled.

‘I can imagine …’

‘No, you can’t,’ she snapped. ‘You’re six feet tall, built like a tank and you’re male. You know nothing at all about what it’s like to want to handle yourself with horses. This job … six months at Werarra Stud … is supposed to give me credibility with the ranchers back home, but you’re just the same as every redneck cowboy know-all who ever told me I can’t do it because I’m a girl.’

‘So you’re prepared to put up with an outhouse for six months?’ he demanded, bemused.

‘Not if it comes with an arrogant, chauvinistic oaf of an employer. And not if I have to eat grease.’ And she shoved her plate across the table at him with force.

He caught it. He piled the sausage and mash absently onto his plate. He thought cute was a really good description.

Don’t go there. This was a mistake he had to get rid of. He did not want to think any woman was cute.

‘So you’ll go home tomorrow,’ he said, and she looked around and he thought if she had another plateful she might just possibly throw it at him.

‘Why should I? I didn’t lie about this job. You did.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Liar.’

‘I told you it’d be rough.’

‘I assumed you meant no shops. Living in the outback. The house … On the website it looks gorgeous.’

‘That picture was taken eighty years ago. Romantic old homestead.’

‘It’s false advertising.’

‘I’m not advertising my house,’ he said evenly. ‘I’m advertising my horses. I wanted the website to show a sense of history, that Werarra workhorses are part of what this country is.’

‘Show the picture of your outhouse, then,’ she snapped. ‘Very historic.’

‘You’ll starve if you don’t eat.’

‘I couldn’t eat sausages if you paid me.’

‘Don’t tell me—you’re vegan.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Then why …’

‘Because I’ve travelled for three days straight,’ she snapped. ‘Because I’m jet-lagged and overtired and overwrought. Because if you must know, my stomach is tied in knots and I’d like a dainty cucumber sandwich and a cup of weak tea with honey. Not a half-ton of grease. But if I have to go to bed with nothing, I will.’ She shoved back her chair and stood. ‘Good night.’

‘Alex …’

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘Sit down.’

‘I don’t want—’

‘You don’t want sausages,’ he said and sighed, and opened the oven door of the great, old-fashioned fire stove that took up half the kitchen wall. He shoved his plate in there. ‘I’ll keep mine hot while I make you something you can eat.’

‘Cucumber sandwiches?’

He had to smile. She sounded almost hopeful.

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘I clean forgot cucumber on my shopping list. But sit down, shut up, and we’ll see if we can find an alternative.’

She sat.

She looked up at him, half distrustful, half hopeful, and he felt something inside him twist.

Sophie, bleak as death, stirring her food with disinterest. ‘I can’t eat, Jack….’

Sophie.

Do not think this woman is cute. Do not think this woman is anything other than a mistake you need to get rid of.

But for tonight … Yeah, she was needy. The explanation for the mix-up … it had hurt her to tell him about her dad; he could see that it hurt. And she was right, it shouldn’t matter that she was a woman.

It wasn’t her fault that it did. That the thought of a woman sitting on the far side of the table, a woman who even looked a little like Sophie, stirred something inside him that hurt. A lot.

She wasn’t saying anything. He poured boiling water over a tea bag, and ladled in honey. He handed her the mug and watched her cradle it as if she needed its comfort.

The stove was putting out gentle warmth. This room was the only place in the house that bore the least semblance to cosy.

She didn’t look cosy. She looked way out of her depth.

He was being cruel. If she was leaving in the morning, it wouldn’t hurt to look after her.

He eyed her silently for a moment while she cradled her mug and stared at the battered wood of the ancient kitchen table.

It wouldn’t hurt.

She was so spaced, so disoriented, that if she’d crashed down on the surface of the table she wouldn’t be surprised. She felt light-headed, weird. When had she last eaten? On the plane this morning? Last night? When was last night and this morning? They were one and the same thing.