Joan Kilby - The Cattleman's Bride

He listened to Abby’s excuses— “Low on petrol, the station’s closed for the night, tried to call you earlier.” She was unapologetic, unrepentant, plausible. He wanted to rant and rave and tell her how worried he’d been, but that would be overreacting.

“Okay. Okay,” he said, reassuring himself rather than her. “I’ll pick Becka up tomorrow.” He wasn’t taking any chances on more excuses.

He found Sarah on the side veranda, watching the corellas perform acrobatics in the branches, swinging upside down and cracking gum nuts between their strong hooked beaks as they squabbled among themselves. Luke’s attention, though, was drawn to the curve of Sarah’s neck, lengthened by her upturned face and repeated in her wide smile as she turned her delighted gaze upon him. “Aren’t they gorgeous!”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Want something to eat?”

“Yes, please.” She followed him back inside. “Did you get hold of Abby?”

Luke smoothed his face into an expressionless mask. “Becka’s staying overnight. I’ll pick her up tomorrow.”

Sarah’s green eyes probed his. “Are you all right with that?”

No, he was not “all right” with that. He’d barely had his daughter with him a week before she was back at Abby’s. What really rankled was that he’d had no choice but to let Becka stay, unless he wanted to make the long trip back into Murrum. Abby must have known he’d be reluctant to do that on Sarah’s first night. He felt bamboozled by Abby and oddly uneasy about leaving Becka.

“She’ll be okay,” he assured Sarah, but the catchall phrase was meaningless in the present context. “Come and have some tucker. Hope you like steak and potatoes.”

“Steak! I haven’t had a steak since 1989.”

“We eat the odd one around here. You a vegetarian?” He was amused that the owner of a cattle station might not like beef.

“No, I just don’t usually eat big chunks of meat.”

“I reckon we can find you a knife.” But first he opened the bottle of cabernet sauvignon he’d been saving for a special occasion. He twisted the cork off, not even wanting to think about what was prompting him to serve his best wine.

“That’s an interesting corkscrew,” Sarah said, examining the implement. The handle was fashioned out of a cow’s horn, with a large nail driven through and twisted into a tight spiral.

“My grandfather made it. He made or grew just about everything he owned and used. He was so self-sufficient he even made his own coffin and dug his own grave.”

She grinned. “And this is something you aspire to?”

“Self-sufficiency, yes, but I’m not turning the sod just yet.” His answering smile felt rusty through disuse. He hadn’t exactly wanted her to come here, but at least she was taking his mind off Abby and Becka.

After dinner they carried their coffee out to the side veranda. Luke settled into a creaking slung canvas squatter’s chair. Before Sarah’s arrival he’d wondered what kind of a person she would be and what arguments he could use to convince her to sell him her half of the station. It had never occurred to him that he might find himself attracted to her. He propped his booted feet high against the pillar and tried not to dwell on it. She wasn’t even that pretty, he told himself. Her nose had a slight bump and her jaw was a touch strong….

Sarah remained standing, her hands wrapped around her cup. “It sure is quiet.”

“You think so? Sounds pretty noisy to me, what with the cicadas down by the creek and the possums crashing around in the gums….”

“Doesn’t it get lonely out here all by yourselves?”

Only at night, going to a solitary bed.

“There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely,” he said. “Anyway, we get plenty of visitors passing through. I catch up with friends at race meetings or dances.”

Luke rubbed a thumb around the rim of his cup. Compared with town, it was isolated. He was used to it, but Becka wasn’t. If only she were an outdoor sort of kid she might be happier at spending time with him out on the cattle run. Abby had turned her into a townie.

He glanced up to see Sarah sip her coffee and grimace. “Coffee okay?”

“Fine.” She smiled brightly. “Just fine.”

Like hell, he thought, but it was the best he had. Suddenly he wished he had something better to offer. But she was a townie; probably nothing would seem good enough. “What do you do back in Seattle?”

“I’m a computer programmer. I design educational software for a large company. Are you on the Internet?”

Luke snorted. “I’d rather cross the Simpson Desert than venture into cyberspace.”

“Really?” Sarah paced down the veranda. “I don’t know how you stand all this emptiness.”

“It’s not empty. It’s full of life if you know where to look. I’d go off my nut cooped up in a city.”

She wandered back and leaned against a pillar, gazing down at him. “What did you do before you came to Burrinbilli?”

“I was a stockman in far north Queensland on a station owned by a large pastoral company.”

“And before that?”

“Did some traveling. Before that I was a jackaroo on my uncle’s station near Hughenden. That’s where I grew up.” In the deep dusk of the gum trees a kookaburra made its laughing call. Another chimed in, and another. You don’t hear that in the city. “I had a friend as a kid, an aboriginal from the local community. He and I would go out in the desert. His grandfather taught him how to track and find water and hunt. And he taught me.”

Her eyes widened. “Did you, like, eat grubs and things?”

“That’s right.” He couldn’t resist teasing her. “Moreton Bay bugs are my favorite. We’ll have them sometime while you’re here.” He smiled, knowing it was too dark for her to see the twinkle in his eyes.

She shuddered. “Ugh. I guess I’d eat bugs if I were starving, but only then.”

He laughed. Then drained his coffee and got to his feet. “Reckon I’ll turn in. Sunrise comes pretty early.” He paused at the doorway. “You planning on staying up awhile?”

“Well…”

“Because if you go for a stroll at night, mind you take a torch. Brown snakes usually go to sleep at sundown, but death adders and mulgas are out and about.”

“Death adders? Mulgas? Those are poisonous, right?”

“Most snakes in Australia are.”

Sarah scrambled to her feet. “Actually, I’m feeling pretty tired after my long trip.”

“Thought you might be.”

As she went past him into the house the overhead light illuminated her bare freckled shoulder and the scent of her warm skin reached his nostrils, reminding him it had been a long time since he’d held a woman in his arms.

It would be a while longer, he thought, sliding the door shut behind him.

And it wouldn’t be this woman, tempting though she was.

Pity.

LATE THE FOLLOWING afternoon Sarah was in her room, going over the list of items she wanted to buy for the house. Now that she was part owner she ought to do her bit to take care of the place—if Luke let her. Real money needed to go toward machinery or a bull, but fresh paint and new fabric could make a big difference for relatively little expense. She’d found an old sewing machine on the floor of the linen closet and although she was no seamstress she could manage curtains and cushion covers.

She heard the sliding door to the kitchen open and checked her watch. Five o’clock. Luke was in from the cattle run to go and get Becka. He’d asked Sarah this morning if she wanted to go with him and look over the property. Maybe tomorrow, she’d answered, not meeting his eye.

Sarah went down the hall and paused in the kitchen doorway. Luke had stripped off his shirt and was bent over the kitchen sink, sluicing hot soapy water over his head and arms. She’d never been one for westerns, and the popular appeal of cowboys escaped her, but the sheer physicality of his broad shoulders, lean muscled back and strong arms left her blinking like a cursor on a blank screen.