A Parisian Proposition

She was so busy fighting her panic by composing more tributes to her bravery and courage that it was some time before it finally sank in that the animals were trotting past without paying her any particular attention. The man on horseback acknowledged her with a brief nod as he went by, then turned his mob into another lane.

Camille sagged against the pen as her breath escaped. She was still alive. She hadn’t spooked the cattle. The guy on the horse had given her a casual nod as if she had every right to be here.

How about that? Her coat and boots must have done the trick. She looked as if she belonged. She felt inordinately pleased with herself.

Something nudged her elbow and she whipped around to discover a large, damp and very bovine nose sniffing her sleeve. Oh, God! The pen she’d been leaning against was full of another lot of cattle! She suppressed the urge to panic again. It was OK. These four-footed fellows were securely inside the pen. Nothing to worry about here. A snap.

She allowed a few minutes for her heartbeats to steady and her breathing to settle and realised that the pen she’d chosen to lean against was becoming a matter of some interest. Half a dozen or more cattlemen were joining her to stare over the fence at the beasts.

But the men hardly gave Camille a second glance.

Wow! This confirmation that she looked like a country girl gave her fresh confidence. Now she could track down Jonno Rivers through any amount of mud.

There was a rising babble of voices around her and the excited chanting of an auctioneer calling cattle prices. ‘One-forty, one-forty! Hup! One-forty-five!’

She paid little attention. She was scanning the metal walkways above the pens for signs of Jonno and she thought she glimpsed him. This time she wouldn’t let him go till she got what she’d come for.

Her view was blocked by the press of men around the pen and she stood on the bottom rung of the fence to get a better view. Above her, a promising set of shoulders and a slow, almost insolent stride came into her line of sight. Yes, it was Jonno.

‘One-fifty-five!’ the auctioneer’s voice shouted.

She had no idea how to get up to that suspended walkway. If she could at least get Jonno’s attention…Standing on tiptoes, she waved.

‘Hup! One-sixty!’

Jonno was looking at a point just beyond her. She waved again.

‘One-sixty twice!’

Camille glanced briefly in the direction of the strident voice. The auctioneer was standing on the same walkway as Jonno but directly above her, pointing straight at her. All around her, men were moving away from the pen, heading off down the lane.

A ghastly suspicion sent shivers chasing down her back and arms. No, he couldn’t think that she—

‘One-sixty!’ the auctioneer shouted, staring straight at her. ‘Hup! I’ve got one-sixty! Going for one-sixty. Sold!’

‘Congratulations,’ said a voice at her side.

She whirled around to find the ruddy-faced man who’d fetched Jonno for her.

‘Oh, good grief!’ She gulped. ‘You’re not congratulating me, are you?’

His beaming, slice-of-watermelon smile widened. ‘Sure am. You’ve bought a fine pen of weaner steers.’

‘I have not!’ She gasped. ‘I can’t have. Tell me you’re joking.’

The man slapped his hand on the top rail of the pen. ‘This mob of little beauties here. All yours.’

‘But I was waving to Jonno Rivers. I…’ She flashed a frantic glance back to the auctioneer, but he simply gave a curt salute to the man at her side, then headed towards another pen. ‘It can’t happen like that,’ she spluttered. ‘I’m not a genuine buyer. How—how on earth could he have thought I wanted a pen of cattle?’

‘You were standing next to me.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘I’m a stock and station agent. Brian must have assumed you were one of my clients.’

‘Oh, my God!’ She pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. ‘You’ll go and tell him it’s a mistake, won’t you?’

‘You don’t want these steers?’

‘Of course I don’t want them.’ She sent a scathing glance over the pen of cattle and let out a laughing groan. ‘What on earth would I do with them? I live in a one-bedroom flat in Kings Cross. My courtyard is smaller than this pen.’

‘You could put them out on agistment.’

A deep voice sounded at her back. ‘Is this woman hassling you, Andy?’

Camille spun around to find a scowling Jonno Rivers close behind her. His suspicious gaze was cold enough to freeze an ocean. Two oceans.

‘Jonno,’ greeted the ever cheerful Andy. ‘You’re just the man we need.’

Camille wasn’t so sure. She’d had about as much as she could take of this pesky cattleman and his sulky silence and his stinking cattle. Her fists curled against her thighs and she felt an overwhelming urge to thump him on the nose.

‘This young lady seems to have a little problem,’ the agent explained calmly. ‘But I’m sure you can help her, mate.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Sorry, Jonno, I’ve got to see a man about a bull. Catch you later.’ With a brief salute, he hurried away.

Camille’s stomach and head were spinning as she gaped after him. She felt exhausted as she turned back to Jonno. ‘At least you’ve had the guts to show up,’ she muttered. ‘This is all your fault, so you’ll have to do something about it.’

CHAPTER TWO

JONNO took ages to respond.

He stood with his long legs planted wide and his arms folded over his broad chest and he looked down at Camille without any sign of sympathy. ‘Before you get too carried away with accusations,’ he said at last, ‘could you please explain what’s going on?’

‘I was simply waving at you,’ she said. ‘And…’ She ran nervous fingers through her curls, annoyed by his air of remoteness.

‘And?’

‘And apparently I bought these cows.’

He glanced at the pen beside her. ‘They’re steers.’

‘Cows, steers, whatever. They have four legs and they say “moo” and I don’t want them.’

A muscle in his cheek twitched and he looked away, then heaved a deep sigh as he stared at something in the distance. ‘I knew you were going to be more trouble than the others.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

He swung his gaze back to settle coldly over her. ‘Did you reckon I’d find you more attractive if you threw in a pen of steers as a bribe?’

Camille gaped at him. ‘You think I bought them as some kind of…of bait—like a dowry? To make myself more appealing to you?’