Inherited: Twins

She could hardly tell Nat Masterman that, though, could she?

‘…I want to belong,’ she finished instead. She turned to Nat, and he was very aware of the intense, silver-grey gaze on his face. ‘Do you think that’s possible?’

Nat kept his eyes firmly on the track ahead. ‘Why not?’

‘Ross doesn’t think it is.’ Prue dropped her eyes and concentrated on unfolding the shopping list. ‘He thinks you have to be born here to belong. I’ve been trying so hard to prove him wrong, and now I’ve gone and made a fool of myself all over again by forgetting to check the fuel in the car! If you hadn’t come along, it would have looked as if I couldn’t even manage to go into town and pick up a few groceries without them having to come out and rescue me. I know they wouldn’t have been angry, but they’re all so busy at the moment and it would have been a real nuisance…’

She trailed off, imagining the scene if Ross or one of the stockmen had been sent out to find her, and her eyes lifted to Nat’s calm profile once more. ‘That’s why I said you’d saved my life,’ she told him.

‘You know, you’re worried about nothing,’ said Nat. ‘The Grangers like you. They’ve told me so, and they’re not the kind of people who pretend. You’re fun for them to have around and, more importantly, you’re a good cook. They’ve got stockmen to help them outside. What they really want is someone to produce meals for everyone on time, and you can do that. If they don’t want you to be different, why should you?’

‘Because Ross wants me to be different.’ The words were out before Prue could stop them and she bit her lip, turning her head away and letting her hair swing forward so that when Nat glanced at her he could see only the curve of her jaw and the long line of her throat.

‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked dryly after a moment. ‘When I saw the two of you together at Ellie Walker’s wedding, it looked as if he liked you just the way you were.’

Surprise brought Prue’s head round. ‘You were at the wedding?’ She frowned slightly. ‘I didn’t notice you.’

There had been no reason for her to have noticed him, Nat thought without resentment. He didn’t have Ross Granger’s famous looks or charm. He had only noticed her because of the way her eyes had shone that night. It was as if a light had been switched on inside her. She’d seemed to be literally glowing with happiness. Nat remembered wondering what it would be like to have a girl look at him the way Prue had looked at Ross.

‘I got the impression you didn’t notice anyone except Ross,’ he said with a wry sideways look.

It was true. Prue had had eyes only for Ross that night. The other guests, even the bride and groom, had been no more than a background blur to the wonderful, glorious fact that she was with him. It had been a perfect evening. Ross had ignored all the other girls there. He had flirted only with her, danced only with her, and then he had driven her back to Cowen Creek and kissed her in the car outside the homestead.

Prue had been so certain that that night was to prove the beginning of the rest of her life. Ross was everything she’d ever wanted, and for a while she had floated dreamily through the days, imagining how happy they would be together, writing home to tell her family that she had at last found the love of her life.

And she had. It was just that Ross didn’t seem to think that he had found his.

She smoothed the shopping list in her lap. ‘I’m in love with Ross,’ she said in a low voice, unable to resist the urge to talk about him, not quite sure why she had chosen Nat to confide in other than the fact that he seemed so solid and dependable. There was something steady about him, something strong and sure about his hands on the steering wheel.

She had been longing for someone to talk to. The only other woman at Cowen Creek was Ross’s mother, who was very kind but not the sort you could pour your heart out to, and although the jackaroos were more or less her own age, Prue’s mind boggled at the idea of trying to discuss emotions with them. Nat might not be the ideal confidant, but he wouldn’t sigh or sneer or roll his eyes the way the others would. And he wouldn’t gossip. You could tell just by looking at him that gossip, like haste, was an alien concept.

‘I’ve never felt like this about anyone before,’ she went on without looking at him, and now that she had started talking she couldn’t stop. ‘I fell in love with him the moment I saw him, just like in all the books. He was waiting to pick me up when I got off the bus from Alice Springs, and that was it. He’s like a dream come true.’

Prue looked out at the heat shimmering over the saltbush, but she was seeing Ross as he had been that day, with his dancing blue eyes and his devastating smile and that body…

She swallowed at the very thought of him. ‘It’s not just the way he looks,’ she said. ‘He’s funny and he’s charming, but he’s down to earth at the same time…oh, I can’t explain,’ she confessed helplessly, the tumbling words slowing at last. ‘He’s just…the only man I’ll ever want.’

Nat’s gaze flickered to Prue’s face and then back to the track. What was it about Ross? he wondered. He was a good-looking bloke, of course, but there must be something else to reduce a girl like Prue to this kind of state. She was obviously besotted, the way every other girl in the district under the age of thirty seemed to have been besotted with him at one stage or another.

‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

Prue was taken aback by the sudden question. Thinking about Ross, she had almost forgotten that she was talking to Nat. ‘Problem?’

‘I guess you wouldn’t be telling me this if Ross felt the same way.’

‘No.’ Her shoulders slumped and she sighed. ‘He likes me, I suppose, but he doesn’t love me. As far as Ross is concerned, our relationship will only last as long as my visa. The Grangers get a girl in to cook during the dry season every year, and Ross probably flirts with all of them.’ It was hard to keep the bitterness out of her voice. ‘I’m just the current model.’

Knowing Ross, and the succession of girls who had worked at Cowen Creek, Nat thought it was more than likely, but he didn’t think that Prue would want to hear that.

‘Ross is all right,’ he said uncomfortably. ‘He’s just young.’

‘He’s twenty-seven, two years older than me. It’s not that young.’

‘It’s not that old either. There’s plenty of time before Ross needs to think about settling down.’

‘And when he does, he’s going to pick a good outback girl who’ll make him a practical wife,’ said Prue miserably.

Nat thought that was more than likely, too. For all his charm of manner, Ross had always struck him as having a hard head on his shoulders. ‘Is that what he says?’ he asked, deciding to stay neutral.

‘He doesn’t have to.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘He’s made it very clear that he doesn’t think I can cope with life on a station like Cowen Creek. I’m just someone else he can have a good time with, not someone he would ever think about spending his life with.’

Her voice wobbled slightly, but she was determined not to give in to tears the way she had done when the car had first spluttered to a halt and left her stranded with only the thought of how much her stupidity just seemed to prove Ross’s point. She stiffened her lip. ‘I don’t belong,’ she finished bleakly, ‘and Ross thinks I never will.’

‘You can’t blame him for thinking about how you would manage,’ said Nat cautiously. He had the nasty feeling that he was getting out of his depth. ‘It’s a hard life out here, if you’re not used to it.’

‘All I want is the chance to get used to it,’ said Prue with another sigh.

To Nat’s relief, they were approaching the turn-off onto the sealed road, where the track was marked by an old tractor tyre on which ‘Cowen Creek’ had been painted. He changed gear, wishing that it were as easy to disengage a conversation.

‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t,’ he said as he looked up and down the long, straight, empty stretch of road before pulling out. ‘By the end of the season you’ll be carrying on like you were born here, and who’s to say Ross won’t change his mind? You just need to give him time.’

‘But I haven’t got time,’ Prue protested. ‘That’s just it. I’ve got to go home in three weeks.’

He shot her a look of surprise. ‘Has your visa run out already?’

‘No, my sister’s getting married.’ Prue’s tone didn’t suggest she found it much cause for celebration. ‘Originally they were going to have an autumn wedding, but then Cleo decided it would be much nicer for everyone if they had it in summer instead, so I’ve got to cut short my trip. I promised I’d be there, and I can’t let her down.’

She stared disconsolately out of the window, imagining London with its grey streets and its grey buildings and its grey clouds. Here the sky was an intense, glaring blue and the air was diamond-bright and the heat shimmered over the red earth and wavered along the vast, distant horizon. And somewhere out there Ross was riding his horse, sitting easily in the saddle, smiling that smile of his…

‘I wish I could stay,’ she sighed. ‘It’s not just because of Ross. I love it here. I suppose I always had a pretty romantic idea of the outback, and I didn’t really know what to expect. When I heard about the job at Cowen Creek I was half afraid that I would be disappointed, but the moment I arrived I fell in love with the place.

‘It was like coming home,’ she said slowly, the grey eyes dreamy and unfocused as she remembered how she had felt. ‘It was as if I’d always known the light and the stillness and the silence. I love the birds and the trees along the creeks, and the way the screen door bangs.’

She glanced at Nat, half-defiant, half shame-faced. ‘That’s why it bothers me so much that I don’t belong, why I wish so much that I could. Does that sound stupid?’

‘No, it doesn’t sound stupid.’ He turned his head and smiled at her, a warm smile that illuminated his quiet face and left Prue oddly startled, even breathless, at the transformation.

‘It doesn’t sound stupid at all,’ he said again. ‘That’s the way I feel about the outback, too.’

‘Really?’

Slewing round as far as she could in her seat-belt, Prue studied Nat with new interest. She had never taken much notice of him before, beyond registering his air of unhurried calm, but now she looked at him properly and was surprised at what she saw.

It wasn’t that he was handsome, at least not in the way Ross was handsome. His hair was an indeterminate shade of brown, his eyes were brown—in fact, everything about him seemed to be brown. Brown skin, brown watch, strong brown hands on the wheel. He was even wearing a brown shirt.

But still, there was something about him. It was more to do with his air of quiet self-assurance than any particular arrangement of his features, Prue decided. If he wasn’t so understated, he might even be quite attractive. His colouring might not be very obvious, but there was nothing indeterminate about that lean jaw, or the angles of his face, or the cool, firm mouth that had smiled with such astonishing effect.

Prue’s eyes rested on it speculatively. It was a pity Nat didn’t smile more often, she thought, remembering how white his teeth were, the way his eyes had crinkled at the corners and the creases had deepened in his cheeks, and for some reason a tiny, almost imperceptible tingle tiptoed down her spine and made her shiver.