The Bridesmaid's Best Man

He threw a wary glance over his shoulder, and the men around the campfire quickly averted their eyes, but he knew damned well that their pesky ears were straining to catch every word. Gossip was scarce on an Outback mustering camp.

Fighting an urge to leap on a horse and take off for the distant hills, he strolled away from the camp. Small stones crunched beneath his riding boots, but the crackling on the line eased. He cleared his throat. Cautiously, he said, ‘This is a nice surprise, Sophie.’ And then, because she’d sounded so nervous, ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Not exactly.’

A vice-like clamp tightened around Mark’s chest as he kept walking. ‘Nothing’s happened to Emma and Tim? They’re all right, aren’t they?’

‘Oh, yes, they’re fine. Fabulous, actually. But I’m afraid I have some rather bad news, Mark. At least, I don’t think you’ll like it.’

A fresh burst of alarm stirred his insides. How could Sophie’s bad news involve him?

On the far horizon, the sun was melting behind the hills in a pool of tangerine. He pictured Sophie on the other side of the world, her pretty heart-shaped face framed by a glossy tangle of black curls, her clear, grey eyes uncharacteristically troubled, her determined little chin beginning to tremble as her slim, pale fingers tightly gripped the telephone receiver.

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I’m going to have a baby.’

He came to an abrupt halt. Went cold all over.

This wasn’t real.

‘Mark, I’m so sorry.’ There were tears in her voice.

He dragged in a desperate breath, tried to stem the rising cloud of dismay. He couldn’t think what to say.

Behind him the cook yelled, ‘Dinner’s up!’ The ringers began to move about. Chatter resumed. Boots shuffled, and cutlery clinked against enamel plates. Someone laughed a deep belly chuckle.

Around Mark, the red and gold plains of the Outback stretched all the way to the semicircle of the blazing sun fast slipping out of sight. A rogue breeze stirred the grass and rattled the tin roof on the cook’s shelter. A flock of white cockatoos flapped heavy wings as they headed for home.

The rest of the world continued on its merry way, while a girl in England began to cry, and Mark felt as if he’d stepped into an alternate reality.

‘I—I don’t understand,’ he said, and then, hurrying further from the camp, he lowered his voice. ‘We took precautions.’

‘I know.’ Sophie sniffed. ‘But it—something mustn’t have worked.’

He closed his eyes.

The very thought that he and the gorgeous English bridesmaid had created a new life sent him into a tailspin. He couldn’t take it in, was too stunned to think.

‘You’re absolutely certain? There’s no chance of a mistake?’

‘I’m dead certain, Mark. I went to a doctor yesterday.’

He wanted to ask Sophie how he could be sure that this baby was his, but couldn’t bring himself to be so blunt when she sounded so very upset.

‘How are you?’ he asked instead. ‘I mean, are—are you keeping well?’

‘Fair to middling.’

‘Have you had a chance to—’ The line began to break up again, the crackling louder than before.

Sophie was saying something, but the words were impossible to make out.

‘I’m sorry. I can’t hear you.’

Again, another burst of static. He walked further away, fiddled with the setting and caught her in mid-sentence.

‘…I was thinking that maybe I should come and see you. To talk.’

‘Well…yes.’ Mark looked about him again, dazed. Had he heard correctly? Sophie wanted to come here, to the Outback?

He raised his voice. ‘I’m stuck out here, mustering for another week. But as soon as I get back to the homestead I’ll ring you on a landline. We can make arrangements then.’

There was more static, and he wondered if she’d heard him. And then the line went dead.

Mark cursed. Who the hell had let the damned battery get flat? He felt rotten. Would Sophie think he was deliberately trying to wriggle out of this conversation?

It was almost dark.

A chorus of cicadas began to buzz in the trees down by the creek. The temperature dropped, as it always did with the coming of night in the Outback, but that wasn’t why Mark shivered.

A baby.

He was going to be a father.

Again he saw pretty, flirtatious Sophie in her pink dress, remembered the flash of fun in her eyes, the sweet curve of her smile, the whiteness of her skin. The breathtaking eagerness of her kisses.

She was going to be a mother. It was the last thing she wanted, he was sure.

It’s the bullet you don’t hear that kills you.

He gave a helpless shake of his head, kicked at a stone and sent it spinning across the parched earth. Being haunted by memories of a lovely girl on the other side of the world was one thing, but discovering that he’d made her pregnant felt like a bad joke.

Was she really planning to come out here?

Sophie, the elegant daughter of Sir Kenneth and Lady Eliza Felsham of London, and a rough-riding cattleman from Coolabah Waters, via Wandabilla in Outback Australia were going to be parents? It was crazy. Impossible.

Sophie hugged a glass of warming champagne and hoped no one at her mother’s soirеe noticed that she wasn’t drinking. She couldn’t face questions tonight.

She couldn’t allow herself to think about her parents’ reaction when they learned that their grandchild was on the way. No grandchild of Sir Kenneth and Lady Eliza should have the temerity to be born out of wedlock. And it was so much worse that the baby’s father was a man their daughter barely knew, a man who lived with a few thousand cattle at the bottom of the world.

Sophie shuddered as she pictured her parents’ faces.

Some time soon they would have to know the worst, but not tonight. It was too soon. She was feeling too fragile.

Fortunately, her father was busy in the far corner, deep in animated conversation with a Viennese conductor. Her mother was equally occupied, relaxed on a sofa, surrounded by a gaggle of young opera hopefuls listening in wide-eyed awe as she recounted highly coloured stories of life backstage at Covent Garden and La Scala.

All around Sophie, corks popped and glasses clinked, and well-bred voices made clever remarks while others laughed. The large room was awash with elegant, brilliant musicians in party mode, and Sophie wished wholeheartedly that she hadn’t come.