Adopted: Outback Baby

Nell smiled up at him, all sweetness and dimples. ‘Do you think we should try for another date?’

That moment had been his chance. He should have told her, No, not on your Nelly, and changed the course of their history, saved decades of heartache. Should have got the hell out of there.

Now, twenty years later, Jacob winced as he remembered how crazily spellbound he’d been.

‘I’ll see what I can manage,’ he’d said.

Nell studied her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Jacob would be here in five minutes and she looked a fright. The ordeal of yesterday followed by a sleepless night had left her pale and haggard, as dreary and limp as wet seaweed.

Dabbing concealer into the shadows under her eyes, she told herself that it didn’t matter what she looked like. Jacob’s regard for her had disappeared long ago, well before the turn of the twenty-first century.

Despite his controlled good manners yesterday, he’d made it painfully clear that he blamed her, probably despised her. She’d seen it in his eyes, had heard it in his voice and when he’d accused her of giving Tegan away, she’d been too stunned and numb to defend herself. Now he believed he had the high moral ground. For that reason alone she needed to gain some self control. And she needed to look OK.

Taking more than usual care, she lengthened her lashes with mascara, applied blusher to bring colour into her cheeks and selected her favourite lipstick. She ran her fingers lightly through her freshly washed hair, letting it fall loosely to her shoulders, took a step back from the mirror and drew a deep breath.

Her make-up and hair were OK and her floral top and blue skirt were cheery and feminine.

‘You’ll do,’ she told her reflection. She actually looked close to normal now.

If only she felt composed. She was no more prepared to ‘chat’ with Jacob today than she had been yesterday after the funeral. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. About Tegan. About Tegan’s baby, Sam.

Her mind buzzed like a bee in summer, darting frantically with no clear course. One minute she was drowning beneath the loss of her daughter, the next she was wildly, guiltily excited about the reappearance of Jacob after twenty years, and then she was sobered by the thought of her baby grandson and Jean Browne’s mysterious need to discuss something.

Nell had telephoned the Brownes the day after Tegan’s death. Desperately distressed, she’d needed to talk to them and she’d found comfort from being able to offer help. Bill Browne had suffered a stroke a few months earlier and poor Jean was carrying a huge burden, dealing with her grief while caring for him and the tiny baby, Sam.

Nell had done the little she could—a chicken casserole, help with finding a solicitor. She’d even minded Sam while Jean had dealt with the funeral directors. In a bonding moment over a cup of tea in the Brownes’ kitchen, she’d told Jean the circumstances of Tegan’s birth.

They’d cried together.

If Jean needed more help now, Nell knew she would be happy to lend a hand. She was less certain about Jacob.

Overnight, every forbidden memory of her youthful lover had shot to the surface—memories of the river, of the endless conversations she and Jacob had shared, of that first morning, sitting on the tree branch, falling into the water.

She and Jacob had even read poetry together. Fresh from her first year at university, she’d been mad about Yeats. She hadn’t expected a rugged cowboy to be interested in poetry, had been gobsmacked when Jacob had brought a copy of Yeats that had belonged to his father. They’d read selections to each other and she’d loved listening to Jacob’s deep voice rumbling sexily against a backdrop of chuckling water and softly piping finches.

Good grief. She shouldn’t be remembering such things after all this time. But every memory of Jacob Tucker was alive and vivid in her head—his shy, serious smile, the sexy power of his body, his gentle hands.

When she closed her eyes she could still see him lying in the shaded grass, one arm curved above his head, throwing a shadow over his beautiful face. She could see him looking at her from beneath heavy lids. Could see the thrilling intensity of his grey eyes, feel the warmth of his lips on hers.

Nell forced her eyes open again, blinked hard, shook her head. It was both fruitless and painful to revisit the past.

She and Jacob had each gone down separate paths. She’d married Robert Ruthven and Jacob had acquired a cattle kingdom. They’d grown older, richer, wiser and had become very different adults.

Yet here they were, brought back together by the very thing that had separated them in the first place.

Their daughter.

The front doorbell rang and she jumped. That will be Jacob.

She wondered what they were going to talk about till it was time to go to the Brownes’, and cast another frantic glance at the mirror.

Come on, Nell, you have to try harder than that. Chin up, back straight. Smile.

The smile was problematic, but at least her reflection looked a tad more determined as she hurried to open the door.

Jacob stood on her front doorstep. ‘Good morning,’ he said, smiling.

Nell’s insides tumbled helplessly. ‘Morning.’

Silly of her, but she’d been expecting him to look the way he had yesterday, all formal and serious and nudging forty. Today he was wearing faded jeans that clung low on his narrow hips and a navy-blue T-shirt that hugged his whipcord muscles. Apart from the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and the tiniest smattering of grey at his temples, he looked dangerously—way too dangerously—like the nineteen-year-old she’d fallen in love with.

‘How are you feeling today?’ he asked.

‘Much better, thanks.’ She almost confessed to not sleeping too well, but decided against giving too much away.

With an offhand smile, he held out a brown paper bag. ‘Some comfort food from the bakery.’

‘Oh, thank you.’ As she took the bag his fingers brushed hers and the brief contact sent a strange current shooting up her arm. Get a grip, Nell. Now wasn’t the time to become girlish and coy.

‘Take a seat in here,’ she said, indicating the cosy living room that opened off her front hallway. ‘I’ll make some tea. Or would you prefer coffee?’

‘Tea’s fine.’ Jacob ignored her instruction and followed her down the hall and into the kitchen.

Flustered, Nell rushed to fill the kettle. It felt so strange to have Jacob Tucker in here, leaning casually against her butter-yellow cupboard with his long denim legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his strapping chest.

He looked about him with absorbed interest. Or was that amused interest? Was that a smirk she detected? What was so funny? Why couldn’t he have waited in the living room, as she’d asked?

Lips compressed, Nell grabbed scarlet and yellow floral mugs from an overhead cupboard and set them on a wicker tray. She shot him a curious glance. ‘Is something amusing you?’

‘I was just revising my impressions of you. You haven’t changed as much as I thought you had. Yesterday you looked so different in that efficient suit and with your hair all pinned up, but today you’re more like the girl I used to know.’

His thoughts were so close to her own that she almost blushed. Her hand trembled as she reached for the teapot. Don’t be fooled. Remember, this isn’t a proper reunion. Jacob’s filling in time till we see Sam. Nothing more.

She turned and fetched milk from the fridge, filled a small blue jug. ‘I don’t think the girl you remember exists any more,’ she said quietly.

‘I guess looks can be deceiving.’

I should remember that, too.

Nell selected a pretty plate and arranged the biscotti he’d bought at the bakery, set it with the other things on the tray. Turning to him, she said, ‘Can you take this tray through to the living room? I’ll bring the teapot in a minute.’

‘Sure.’

As he left the kitchen, she drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Behind her the kettle came to the boil.

* * *

One look at Nell’s living room and Jacob knew that something very important was missing from Koomalong, his Outback homestead. He’d paid a great deal of money for a top Brisbane decorator to furnish his home and she’d gone to enormous trouble to give it a ‘masculine edge’.