Her Happy-Ever-After Family: The Cattleman's Ready-Made Family / Miracle in Bellaroo Creek / Patchwork Family in the Outback

He leapt up, a familiar bitterness coating his tongue and the blackness of betrayal settling over him like a straitjacket. For the first time in his life he understood his father’s retreat from the world. He recognised the same impulse in himself now. He gritted his teeth. He would not give into it.

Blasting out a breath, he glanced at his watch. 3:30 p.m. The woman had said she’d arrive somewhere between two and three o’clock. He slashed a hand through the air. Lucky she wasn’t an employee.

Lucky for her, that was. He could fire an employee. He wrenched his gaze from the forty hectares of lovingly improved land that stretched out behind the farmhouse. Land he’d spent the last two years painstakingly improving—turning the soil, digging out rocks, fertilising…backbreaking work. And now…

He seized the contract he’d tossed onto the bench, rolled it up and slapped it against his legs. Once it was signed he could shake the dust of Bellaroo Creek from his feet for good. After that, his mother could deal with the new tenants.

And good luck to them.

He paced some more. He threw himself back to the bench and kept his gaze firmly fixed on the road and not on those contentious forty hectares. Finally a car appeared at the end of the gravel road, moving slowly—a big, solid station wagon.

Cam didn’t move from his spot in the shade, not even stirring when the breeze sent a light branch dancing across his hair, but every muscle in his body tightened. He dragged in a breath and counselled patience. He would explain the inadvertent mix-up to Tess Laing. He would patiently explain that a mistake had somehow seen his forty hectares included in her lease on the house. He would get her signature to turn those forty hectares back over to him. End of story.

If the mix-up had been inadvertent—an honest mistake. Bile burned his throat. Honesty and his family didn’t necessarily go hand in hand. He expected betrayal from Lance. His nostrils flared and his lips thinned. He would never underestimate his little brother’s treacherous resentment again. He would never again trust a word that spilled from Lance’s forked tongue. But his mother, had she…?

An invisible hand tried to squeeze the air out of his lungs, but he ignored it to thrust out his jaw. Mistake or not, he needed that land. And he would get it back. He’d talk this woman out of whatever ridiculous hobby farm idea she’d come out here with. He’d offer her a fair price to lease the land back. He’d make whatever bargain he needed to. His hand curled around the contract. Once he had her signature, Kurrajong Station’s obligations would be met. And he’d be free to head off for the far horizons of Africa.

Lance, Fiona and his mother could sink or swim on their own.

The car finally reached the farmhouse and pulled to a halt. He rested his elbows on his knees, eyes narrowed. Would she be some hard-nosed business type or a free-spirited hippy?

Three car doors were flung open and three passengers shot out from the car’s interior like bottled fizzy water that had been shaken and then opened—a woman and two children. All of them raced around to the front of the car and bounced from one foot to the other as if they’d been cooped up for too long.

He studied the woman. She didn’t look like a hard-nosed businesswoman. She didn’t look like a nature-loving hippy either. She looked…

In her red-and-black tartan skirt, thick black tights and black Doc Martens she reminded him of a ladybird. Her movements, though, were pure willy wagtail—light, graceful…cheeky. In fact, she looked like a university student. He sat up straighter. She couldn’t be old enough to have two kids!

He turned his attention to the children—a boy of around seven and a girl a year or two younger. He had a vague recollection of his mother mentioning their ages as being a real coup for the school. It was the main reason the committee had chosen this family from the flood of applicants.

A frown built inside him. They might be a coup for the school, but right now they were a disaster for him.

Finally he allowed himself a grim smile as the woman shook out her arms and legs as if she’d spent too many hours in the car—granted it was a bit of a hike from Sydney to Bellaroo Creek—and then moved to rest her hands on the front fence, a child standing either side of her. Her dark hair shone in the autumn sun. It made him realise how brightly the sun shone in the soft autumn stillness of the afternoon.

The boy glanced up at her, indecision flitting across his face. ‘What do you think?’ He glanced back at the cottage. ‘Did you know it would look like this?’

Cam pursed his lips at the edge of disappointment lacing the boy’s words. The little girl moved closer to the woman as if seeking reassurance. Cam straightened. If they hated the place they’d happily sign the whole kit and caboodle back over to him! That’d solve everything.

‘I had no idea what it’d look like.’

Her voice sounded like music.

She beamed down at the children and then clasped her hands beneath her chin. ‘Oh, but I think it’s perfect!’ She knelt on the ground, heedless of the danger to her tights, to put an arm about each of them.

The little girl pressed in against her. ‘Really?’

‘You do?’ The little boy leaned against her too.

‘Oh, yes!’

Cam wondered where she came by such confidence and enthusiasm. She was from the city. What did she know about country living?

Unless she’d known about those forty hectares before times and knew of their value. Unless Lance had already got to her, somehow. Unless—

‘Look at the size of the yard. Just think how perfect it’ll be once we’ve mown the lawn and trimmed back that hedge of…’ She gestured with her head because it was obvious she didn’t want to let go of either child.

‘You don’t know what it is,’ the boy accused.

‘I have no idea,’ she agreed with one of the widest grins Cam had ever seen.

Plumbago. He could’ve told her, but something hard and heavy had settled in his stomach. He could’ve at least mown the lawn for them, couldn’t he? He might’ve been flat out with organising the cattle station, the wheat crop and mustering sheep, but he should’ve found the time to manage at least that much. He mightn’t want these new tenants—his mother had manipulated him superbly on that front—but that wasn’t this woman’s fault, or her children’s.

‘But won’t it be fun finding out?’

‘I guess.’

‘And just imagine how pretty the cottage will look once we’ve painted it.’

She was going to paint his cottage?

‘Pink!’

‘Blue!’

‘Cream!’ She grinned back at the kids. ‘We’ll draw straws.’

He hoped she rigged that one.

The little girl started to jump up and down. ‘We can have chickens!’

‘And a dog!’ The little boy started to jump too.

‘And a lemon tree and pretty curtains at the window.’ The woman laughed, bouncing back upright. ‘And…?’

‘And we’ll all live happily ever after,’ they hollered together in a chorus, and Cam found he couldn’t drag his eyes from them.

It was just a house on an average acre block. But it hit him then what this property represented. A new start. And he knew exactly what that meant.

With everything in his soul.

The woman clapped her hands, claiming his attention once more. ‘I think we should sing our song to our new perfect home.’

And they started to sing. The children held a wobbly melody and the woman harmonised, and they so loved their song and grinned so madly at each other that Cam found his lips lifting upwards.

‘The house loves us now,’ the little girl whispered.

‘I believe you’re right.’

‘I love a veranda,’ the little boy said and Cam knew it was his way of saying he approved of the house…of their new start.