Adopted: Outback Baby

But what had happened next was one of those unbelievably zany moments that should only have happened in B grade movies. Nell was leading her horse when she saw him and stopped. And instead of exchanging polite hellos, they’d stood there, open-mouthed, staring at each other, while Jacob’s blood had rushed and roared and his heart had become a sledgehammer.

Looking back, he guessed they must have spoken, but the rest of that afternoon was a blur to him now. Much clearer was their meeting the next morning.

He’d gone to the stables just after dawn and noticed immediately that Mistral was missing. He’d guessed that Nell had taken her for an early morning ride and within a dozen heartbeats he’d mounted another horse and taken off.

Half Moon was a huge property and he had no idea where Nell was, but he’d been quite sure at the outset that he would find her, that she’d wanted him to find her. Perhaps the mysterious sixth sense that the gods bestowed on destined lovers had whispered that she would be waiting for him.

It wasn’t long before he’d found her horse tied to a tree beside the river where white mist lifted in curling, wispy trails from the smooth, glassy surface of the water.

‘Hey there, Jacob.’

Nell’s voice seemed to come from a paperbark tree and when he peered through the weeping canopy he saw her sitting on a branch overhanging the water. She was wearing a blue checked shirt and ordinary blue jeans this morning, and dusty, elastic-sided boots. Apart from the golden gleam of her hair, she looked more like the everyday Outback girls Jacob was used to.

‘G’day,’ he called up to her as he tied his horse’s reins to a sapling. ‘Looks like you’ve found a good perch.’

‘It’s gorgeous out here. Come and see for yourself.’

He laughed and shook his head. ‘I don’t think that branch would hold the two of us.’

She bounced lightly. ‘Oh, it’s strong enough. Come on, the river looks so pretty at this time of the morning and I can see right around the bend from here.’

Talk about spellbound. There was no way he could have resisted Nell’s invitation.

Knot-holes in the tree’s trunk made it easy for Jacob to climb to her branch. He stepped on to it gingerly, pausing to test that it could take his weight. So far, so good, but the branch narrowed quickly.

Nell smiled, her blue eyes dancing with merriment, her white teeth flashing. ‘Dare you to come right out.’

She was flirting with him.

And he loved it.

Arms extended for balance, he made his way along the branch. His extra weight sent the leaves at Nell’s end dipping into the tea-coloured water, but she only laughed.

‘No fancy jodhpurs this morning?’ he asked as he got closer.

She screwed up her nose. ‘They were a birthday present from my parents. I only wore them yesterday to please them, but they made me feel such a poser.’

‘You looked terrific,’ he insisted, taking another step closer. ‘You’ll wear them to the picnic races, won’t—’

A loud crack sounded and the branch exploded beneath them, sent them plummeting into the river.

It was summer so the water wasn’t very cold. Jacob fought his way to the surface, looked about for Nell and panicked when he couldn’t see her. Heart thrashing, he dived again into the murky green depths. Where was she? He prayed that she hadn’t been hit by the falling tree branch.

Lungs bursting, he broke the surface again. Still no sign of Nell. Was she pinned to the river bed?

Once more Jacob dived, groped in the grass and the submerged branches at the bottom, desperate to find her, but again he was forced back to the surface, empty-handed.

‘Jacob!’

Thank goodness. He turned to see her breast-stroking towards him.

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ she said. ‘I was worried that you’d drowned.’

‘I thought you’d drowned. I was looking for you.’

They swam to the bank. Jacob reached it first and, because it was steep and bare, he offered his hand to help her out. She accepted gratefully and they began to climb.

The bank quickly turned slippery beneath their wet boots and they had quite a scramble. As they neared the top, Jacob grabbed at a sapling for an anchor and pulled Nell towards him.

She came faster than he expected, bumped into him, in fact, and suddenly they were clinging together, her soft curves pressing in to him through their wet clothes. Her clear eyes and parted lips were mere inches from his and, despite the wet hair plastered to her skull, she was beautiful. Breathtakingly so.

She smiled. ‘Now this is a new way of breaking the ice. My college social club would be impressed.’

He wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but he understood very well the invitation in her eyes. And so he kissed her.

It wasn’t a long kiss and it shouldn’t have been a sexy kiss. Their lips were cold from the river and Jacob was clinging to the sapling’s trunk with one hand while he held Nell to prevent her from falling.

But it was a kiss Jacob would never, to the end of his days, forget. From the moment their lips met, he adored the feel and the taste of Nell, loved her response—so feminine, so…right.

Too soon their wonderfully intimate hello was over and he boosted Nell up over the rim of the bank and came after her, tumbling on to the grass.

He might have kissed her again, but they were apart now and he lost his nerve, remembered that she was the boss’s daughter and he was the cook’s son.

Instead, they lay in the grass at the top of the bank and let the morning sun stream over them, and Jacob contented himself with admiring her breasts, gorgeously outlined by her wet shirt.

‘So tell me about your college social club,’ he said.

‘Oh, they’re always coming up with new ways to get everyone to mix.’ Nell sat up and lifted her wet hair from the back of her neck. ‘They’ve run a series of cocktail parties where girls and guys can meet, but we’re only allowed eight minutes or so to chat with each person and to tell them about ourselves—just enough time to figure out whether people click.’

‘Sounds…racy.’

Nell grinned coyly, leant sideways and squeezed water from her hair into the grass. ‘Not really. It’s only chatting, after all.’

Considering that he’d just kissed her, he supposed she had a point.

‘So when you were at one of these parties,’ he said, ‘you would have said something like—I’m Nell Harrington, I’m nineteen and I’m studying Arts. I like horse riding, apple crumble with cream and sitting in trees.’

Her blue eyes widened. ‘How did you know about the apple crumble?’

‘My mum was asked to make it especially for your homecoming.’

‘Oh, yes, of course. I like Maggie. My mother says she’s the best cook we’ve ever had.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

Suddenly the stupidity of this meeting hit Jacob like a smart bomb. What in blue blazes was he doing here chatting with Nell Harrington? Her father would have him neutered if he ever found out.

He jumped to his feet, grabbed his horse’s reins. ‘I have to get to work.’ With luck, the sun and a fast ride would dry his clothes and no one would be any the wiser.