Outback Bride

Her clear green eyes rested on Mal’s back as he made tea in a battered enamel pot. The sureness of his every gesture tugged at her heart. Her gaze drifted from the broad shoulders down to lean hips, and she was suddenly swamped with the memory of how it had felt to run her hands over him. It was as if she could still feel the texture of his skin beneath her fingers, still trace the outline of his spine and feel his muscles flex in response to her touch.

Memory pulsated like pain in her fingertips, and Copper drew a sharp breath and squeezed her eyes shut. She opened them just as Mal turned round, and across the kitchen their gazes locked.

Copper wanted to look away, to make a light comment and laugh, but she couldn’t move. She was riveted by the current of awareness that leapt to life between them, held by those deep, deep brown eyes while her heart began to boom and thud in her ears. Why had she taken her sunglasses off? She felt naked and vulnerable without them. Her eyes had always been embarrassingly transparent. One look into them and Mal would know that her hands were still tingling with the memory of his body, that all those years, when he had forgotten her, his kisses had continued to haunt her dreams.

Then Mal moved forward and set the teapot down on the table, and Copper jerked her eyes away with a tiny gasp. He looked at her narrowly. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ said Copper, horribly conscious of how high and tight her voice sounded. She could feel the telltale colour blotching her throat and willed it to fade. ‘I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.’

Mal pulled out a chair and sat down opposite her. ‘You wouldn’t be tired if you’d taken the bus,’ he said, pouring the tea into two mugs.

Copper sat up straighter at the implied criticism. She had, in fact, looked into doing the journey on the bus in case they wanted to offer it as option to their clients, but it would have taken forty-eight hours just to get to the nearest town—hardly a recipe for arriving fresh as a daisy! ‘Oh, wouldn’t I?’ she retorted. ‘How long is it since you’ve been on a bus?’

‘Not for years.’ An intriguing half-smile dented the corners of Mal’s mouth as he acknowledged her point. ‘Now you come to mention it, I don’t think I’ve been on a bus since I was travelling in Europe—a long time ago now.’

Seven years. For one awful moment, Copper thought she had spoken aloud, but a covert look at Mal showed that he was calmly drinking his tea. He looked cool and self-contained, a little watchful, perhaps, but certainly not like a man who had suddenly been brought face to face with embarrassment from the past. What would he say if she told him that she knew exactly when he had been in Europe? Oh, yes, she could have said. I remember you then. We spent three days making love on a beach.

Great way to impress him with her professionalism.

‘Oh,’ she said weakly instead.

She risked another glance at Mal, who was looking thoughtfully down into his tea, dark brows drawn together as if pondering an insuperable problem. Copper could see the lines of strain around his eyes and she wondered how long ago his wife had died. What had she been like, the woman who had shared his life and borne his child? All at once Copper was ashamed of herself for worrying about the past and whether Mal remembered her or not. He had more important things to think about than a girl he had met on a beach seven years ago.

And, really, wasn’t that all it had been? A chance encounter, ships passing in the night? It had felt much more than that at the time, but it was all so long ago and they were different people now. Mal had changed and so had she. All she had to do was forget about that brief, magical interlude and pretend that he was a complete stranger.

Easy.

It didn’t stop her heart lurching when Mal looked up suddenly from his tea and found her watching him, but at least this time she was able to look away. ‘What... what a nice kitchen.’ she said brightly. It was the first thing that came into her head, but when she looked at it, it was a nice kitchen, cool and spacious and beautifully designed, although most of the equipment was hidden beneath a clutter of packets and jars, papers and unwashed dishes.

‘I’m sorry about the mess,’ said Mal, as if he had read her mind. He looked ruefully around him. ‘This is a busy time on the station and everything’s got out of control in the house since Kim left We really need a good housekeeper to sort everything out.’

‘I can see that,’ said Copper with feeling, averting her eyes from the dirty dishes piled high in the sink. She wasn’t obsessively tidy herself, but her business brain deplored the inefficiency.

‘Have you spent any time in the outback before?’ asked Mal abruptly, and Copper set down her mug. She had a feeling that some kind of interview was just beginning.

‘Not really,’ she said cautiously. Her father had warned her that Mal had been unimpressed by the idea of a city firm setting up luxury camping trips, so it would be up to her to convince him that they knew what they were doing. ‘A couple of camping trips in the Flinders Ranges, that’s all.’

Mal sighed. ‘In other words, you don’t have any relevant experience?’

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Copper rather coldly. There was no need for him to write her off just yet! She had been organising tours for more than five years and it wasn’t as if she was going to be leading the groups herself. Her role was strictly administrative. ‘I don’t need to be Crocodile Dundee, do I?’ she added with a challenging look. ‘I’ve got more than enough experience to do my job, and it’s not as if I’m going to be roping bulls or doing any of that kind of stuff myself!’

‘True,’ said Mal. ‘But you do need to have some understanding of what we do, or you’ll just get in the way.’

‘I realise that,’ she said a little stiffly. ‘It’s one of the reasons I’m here, after all. I want to learn as much as I can about how things work out here.’

There was a flicker of surprise in Mal’s eyes. ‘You may find it pretty boring,’ he warned.

‘I’m never bored,’ said Copper firmly.

It wasn’t strictly true. She was a believer in living life to the full, and crammed as much as possible into every day, but on the few occasions when she found herself with nothing to do, her zest quickly degenerated into restlessness and she would end up inventing jobs for herself.

‘I hope you’re right,’ said Mal, but not as if he believed it very much.

‘I am.’ Copper decided it was time to start steering the conversation towards business. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing as much of Birraminda as I can,’ she said, rather pleased with her brisk tone. Now that she had got over the initial shock, it was easy to treat him as a stranger—a colleague, perhaps, or just someone to do business with.

‘I’ll see what we can do,’ he said, but he was looking at her so strangely that Copper rubbed a surreptitious finger under her eyes in case her mascara had smudged. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘you’re here now, so we’ll just have to make the best of it. If you’re prepared to put up with the state of things, then I’m sure we can work something out.’

It didn’t sound that encouraging, but at least he hadn’t refused to have anything to do with her, and Copper refused to be disheartened. ‘That’s fine by me,’ she said heartily.

Mal stared at her for a moment, his expression quite impenetrable, and then all at once he seemed to relax. ‘Good,’ he said, and then, just when she was least expecting it, he smiled and Copper’s heart flipped over.

It was only a smile, she told herself desperately, trying not to notice how the creases deepened at the corners of his mouth and eyes, how the cool, watchful look dissolved into warmth and devastating charm, how white his teeth were against his tan. Trying not to notice the way his smile reverberated the length of her spine and tingled down to her toes.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t been very welcoming,’ he was saying. ‘We’ve had so many girls who come for a few weeks and then rush home because they can’t cope with the life out here that I’ve got too cynical, but if you really do want to get to know Birraminda, and aren’t afraid of hard work, then we’re glad to have you.’ He looked across at Copper and something stirred in the depths of his eyes. ‘Very glad,’ he amended softly, and held out his hand.

Copper wasn’t listening. She was still concentrating on breathing, in and out, very carefully. This was business, remember? she castigated herself. She would never convince Mal that she was a professional if she went to pieces every time he smiled. It was only two lips curving, a mere twitch of the facial muscles; it was absolutely stupid to let it affect her like this, especially when she had just decided to put her memories of Mal in a mental locker firmly marked ‘Forgotten’. She was being worse than stupid; she was being pathetic.

Her gaze focused suddenly on Mal, who was watching her, one eyebrow lifted in faint surprise at her expression, and her heart sank as her eyes dropped belatedly to the hand stretched out to her across the table. She could hardly ignore it. Now she would have to cope with touching him as well! That was all she needed!

Bracing herself, Copper seized his hand before she had a chance to lose her nerve. This is a business contact, she chanted inwardly through gritted teeth. Business, business, business.

Mal’s long brown fingers closed around hers in a firm clasp, and in spite of all her efforts to resist Copper felt her senses magically sharpen. It was a sort of magic, she thought incoherently. How else could she be so excruciatingly aware of everything? She could feel each line on his palm, each crease in his fingers, and his face was lit with a new clarity so that she could see every tiny detail: the thickness of his lashes, the way his hair grew, the faint scar just above his jaw. Copper could remember tracing its line with her fingers, could remember Mal telling her how it had happened, could remember exactly how it had felt to touch her lips to the warm, male-rough skin and tickle the pale line with her tongue...

CHAPTER TWO

‘AHA! Holding hands already!’

So much for her senses being heightened! Copper hadn’t even heard the clatter of boots on the verandah steps, and when the kitchen door burst open she jerked her hand out of Mal’s as if she had been caught in the most passionate of clinches, her cheeks burning.

One of the most handsome men she had ever seen stood in the doorway. He was as tall as Mal, but much fairer, with sun-streaked hair, merry blue eyes and an air of almost tangible charm. Laughing, he tossed Megan up in his arms.

‘You see what happens when you leave your father alone with a pretty girl!’

‘Brett!’ An expression of weary resignation and something else Copper couldn’t quite identify swept across Mal’s face. ‘Have you finished those cattle?’

‘The boys can finish them,’ said Brett carelessly, apparently oblivious to Mal’s frown. ‘When Megan told me Dad had got a beautiful girl all to himself, I had to come and see for myself.’ The dancing blue eyes studied Copper approvingly as he let his niece down, and his gaiety was so infectious that she found herself smiling back at him.

‘This is my brother, Brett,’ said Mal. His face was wiped of all expression, but there was a rigid set to his jaw and a muscle jumped in his cheek. ‘Brett, this is Copper—’ He stopped, obviously trying to remember her surname.

‘Copley,’ she said helpfully. ‘I know it sounds silly, but there was another Caroline at school so I used to get called by my surname. Somehow Copley became Copper, and then I was stuck with it. Nobody calls me Caroline now, except my family, and I think some of my friends don’t even realise that Copper’s not my real name.’

‘Sounds like Mal,’ said Brett, ignoring Mal’s warning look and pulling out the chair next to Copper’s. ‘He was lumbered with three names—Matthew Anthony Langland Standish—so we always shortened it to Mal when we were kids, and now only business people call him Matthew.’

‘Perhaps I’d better call you Matthew, then,’ said Copper, turning to Mal. It seemed like a good opportunity to establish the appropriate relations.

Mal frowned slightly. ‘I hardly think that’s necessary,’ he said. ‘If you’re going to be living here as a member of the family, there’s no need to be formal.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Brett agreed, running a lazily appreciative eye over Copper as he shook her hand with mock solemnity. ‘We’re going to use your nickname, so we can all be informal together. Copper suits you,’ he added, reaching out a hand to touch her hair. ‘Beautiful name...it sounds warm and burnished, like your hair.’