Читать книгу Baby At Bushman's Creek - Jessica Hart - Страница 8

THE hotel was the only two-storey building in town, but its refinements went no further than a serviceable flight of stairs. There was certainly no truck with any namby-pamby nonsense like lifts or porters. Clare dragged her heavy case along the corridor and paused for breath at the top of the stairs, looking down at the scene in the entrance hall below.

Alice was looking quite at home in Gray Henderson’s arms, and he was managing to carry on a conversation with the hotel manager while she explored his face with fascination, testing the texture of his skin and hair, patting his cheek and pulling at his lips.

Clare was conscious of a faint twinge of envy as she watched. It must be nice to be Alice, to be able to relax against a shoulder as firm as Gray’s and to feel his hands holding her safe and secure. What would it be like to run her fingers over his face, as Alice was doing, to lean against that lean, hard body?

A slow shiver snaked its way down Clare’s spine at the thought, and she swallowed, disconcerted by her own reaction. How odd, she found herself thinking, that the first man she should feel even a twinge of awareness for since Mark should be someone so completely different. Mark had been dark and intense and passionate. Gray didn’t look as if he even knew what passion meant!

Except…Clare’s gaze rested for a moment on his mouth. She was going to spend the next few weeks alone with this man, she realised, as if for the first time, and the shivery feeling intensified into a tight knot at the base of her spine.

Hastily, she bent to pick up the case. She was being ridiculous. There was no question of being physically attracted to Gray Henderson! Any amateur psychologist would tell her that his appeal was obvious. She was tired and vulnerable with the strain of coping alone for so long, and there was something very reassuring about his air of quiet strength. He might not have the looks to set her pulse racing, as Mark had, but right now the sense that he could deal calmly and competently with any situation that might arise was more appealing than any handsome face!

The hotel manager gave them a lift out to the airport in his truck. Clare was taken aback to see her things tossed unceremoniously into the back, while she was expected to squeeze into the front seat with Alice between the two men. ‘How far are we going?’ she asked nervously, remembering Pippa’s stories about long, bumpy drives across the outback.

‘Only to the airport,’ said Gray, resting his arm along the back of the seat behind her head. ‘It’s quicker to fly than to drive, and there’s usually someone around to give me a lift in to town from there.’

‘Oh.’ Clare was pleased to discover that she wasn’t going to have to spend the next two or three hours trying not to notice the strength of his thigh pressed against hers. Not that Gray seemed to find the situation at all uncomfortable. He was talking easily across her, and Clare might as well have been a bag of shopping on the seat between them for all the notice he took of her.

It was a relief when they reached the airport and she could move away from him, although she was not impressed by the single runway set for some reason in the middle of nowhere. Clare could turn around completely and see nothing but flat brown scrub stretching off to the horizon in every direction. It was like a toy airport, she thought disparagingly, with a windsock hanging limply in the midday heat and the ‘terminal’ no more than a hut offering shelter from the sun.

Gray seemed to know everybody. Even as they drove along the road, she had noticed the two men lifting fingers in greeting to the passing cars, and now, having exchanged words with the few passengers waiting for an incoming flight, he led the way across the tarmac to where a tiny plane with a propeller on its nose was parked.

‘We’re not going in that?’ said Clare involuntarily.

‘We certainly are.’ Gray patted the plane affectionately. ‘This old girl’s more reliable than any car over this kind of country, and she’s done this flight so often she could practically take herself home.’

Clare wasn’t sure that the great age and experience of the plane was that reassuring, and in spite of her belief in Gray’s competence she couldn’t help closing her eyes as they sped along the airstrip, propeller blurring, and lifted lightly off the ground. She felt the plane bank and continue climbing until after a couple of minutes they levelled off.

‘You can open your eyes now,’ said Gray in a dry voice.

Very cautiously, Clare unscrewed her eyes. ‘I’ve never been in such a small plane before,’ she confessed. She touched the door as if afraid it would fall off. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much keeping us up here.’

‘You’re safe as houses,’ he said. ‘Relax and enjoy the view.’

What view? Clare wanted to ask. Spread out below them, the land stretched out to the distant horizon, as flat and featureless as a piece of sandpaper, and almost exactly the same rusty-brown colour. The sky was a huge blue glare, arching over a vast expanse of nothingness. Clare looked down at it and wondered what on earth Pippa had found to love in such barren, intimidating country.

‘Is it all this…’ she searched for a tactful word ‘…this empty?’

‘It’s not empty at all,’ said Gray. ‘It just looks that way from up here. You’d be surprised how different things are when you’re on the ground. There’s lots to see—you just have to learn to look at it in the right way.’

‘Oh, yes?’

Her voice dripped polite disbelief, but Gray was unperturbed. ‘You can tell you’ve never been outback before,’ he said.

‘No,’ Clare sighed in agreement. This wasn’t her kind of place at all. ‘Municipal parks are the wildest places I usually see.’

‘Not an outdoor girl, then?’

‘Absolutely not,’ she said, smiling faintly at the very idea. ‘I’ve always been a city girl. Pippa was different. She couldn’t wait to bump along dusty tracks and pit herself against the elements, but I never saw the appeal. Cities seem much more interesting places to me. There’s always something happening, something to do, something to see.’

Gray glanced at her. ‘That’s what I feel about the bush.’

‘It’s not the same,’ objected Clare. ‘When you finish work, you can’t go out for a meal, or a glass of wine with friends. You can’t go to the theatre or a concert or an art gallery. You can’t wander around the streets watching people and seeing how different they all are.’

‘Is that what you do?’

She pushed her hair behind her ears with a sigh. ‘It’s what I used to do. I’ve had to put my life on hold for a bit.’

‘Because of the baby?’

‘Yes. She’s more important at the moment.’ Clare shrugged. ‘I’m lucky. I’ve got good friends, a great flat, a job I love and a wonderful boss who’s keeping my job open for me until I can go home. They’ll all still be there when I get back.’

There was a defensive, almost defiant undercurrent to her voice, as though she were trying to convince herself rather than Gray. He made no comment, asking only what she did as his eyes moved steadily between the instrument panel and the horizon and the ground below them.

‘I work for an agency that represents singers and musicians,’ she told him. ‘I’m not musical myself—I wish I were—but I am good at organisation, so I deal with the administrative side of things. I love working with creative people…’

She trailed off, assailed by a rush of nostalgia. If only she were there now, in the clean, familiar office, with the gossip and the jokes and the constant, exciting buzz of activity! She was the sensible, practical one in the office, and she wondered if anyone at work would be able to imagine her now, suspended above an alien landscape in this tiny plane with a man whose stillness made her look edgy and frivolous in comparison.

‘It sounds like being housekeeper on a cattle station is going to be a shock for you,’ said Gray, and Clare pushed her hair wearily away from her face.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, too tired and homesick to make the effort to sound enthusiastic at the prospect.

‘I can see why you’re anxious to contact Jack,’ Gray went on with something of an edge. ‘The sooner you can hand over the baby, the sooner you can get back to your job.’

Clare cast him a resentful look. ‘You make it sound like I can’t wait to get rid of her!’

‘Can you?’

Clare looked down at Alice on her lap. She was heavy with sleep, utterly relaxed as she lay in the curve of Clare’s arm, the ridiculously long baby lashes fanned over her round cheeks and her mouth working occasionally, as if she were dreaming about food. Clare could feel her breathing, and her heart ached with love for her.

‘I always thought I didn’t want children,’ she said slowly. ‘I thought a baby would be too messy, too demanding, too difficult to adapt to my job. And Alice is messy, and she’s exhausting and all the things I was afraid she would be, but…somehow none of that matters when you’ve got a baby to look after. I can’t imagine my life without her now.’

‘If you feel like that about her, why didn’t you keep her in England?’ asked Gray.

‘Because Pippa made me promise that I would take her to her father,’ said Clare, turning in her seat to look at him. ‘And because, deep down, I think it would be better for Alice to be here with him. I couldn’t afford the childcare which I’d need if I wanted to look after her the way Pippa would want and continue to do my job.’

‘You could give up your job,’ he suggested with a cool look.

‘And live on what? Pippa never had a chance to make any financial provision for Alice, and I’ve used up all the savings I had. I love my flat, but it’s tiny. It’s OK for a baby, but it would be hopeless for a toddler, and there’s no garden, and I don’t see how I could afford to move unless I kept my job, which takes me back to square one.’

Clare sighed. ‘Believe me, I have thought about it! It’s going to break my heart to say goodbye to Alice,’ she said, stroking the sleeping baby’s head, ‘but I have to think about what’s best for her. I wouldn’t have brought her all the way out here unless I thought that the best thing for her was to be with her father.’

‘And if Jack doesn’t accept that she’s his daughter?’

‘Then I’ll think again,’ said Clare. ‘But I think he will, and so do you.’

Gray’s brown eyes rested briefly on her face. ‘Do I?’

‘I don’t believe you would have agreed to let us come anywhere near Bushman’s Creek if you didn’t think that Jack was Alice’s father,’ she told him. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

Gray didn’t answer immediately. His gaze dropped to Alice, and then returned to the instrument panel. ‘She looks like Jack,’ he admitted after a moment. ‘She’s got the same eyes, the same sort of look about her.

‘I was away the time you said your sister was working at Bushman’s Creek, so it could have happened the way you said,’ he went on, as if justifying his instinct to himself. ‘And Jack’s been different since then. He always used to be very laid-back, but if he felt strongly about your sister and she left, that might explain why he’s been moody and restless for the last year or so.’

‘Didn’t you ever try asking him what was wrong?’ asked Clare.

‘Jack’s a grown man, not a kid,’ said Gray repressively. ‘If he had wanted to tell me what the matter was, he would have.’

Exasperated at the typically male response to any suggestion that they might discuss anything even vaguely connected to emotions, Clare rolled her eyes. ‘He might just have needed you to show some interest!’

At least she had the satisfaction of provoking a reaction from Gray. His mouth tightened and the glance he gave her was distinctly unfriendly. ‘I know Jack a whole lot better than you do,’ he said in a curt voice. ‘I would have expected him to have at least mentioned your sister when I came back, and the fact that he didn’t means that I’m not prepared to make any commitment on his behalf. As far as I’m concerned, Alice is your niece, and not mine, and until such time as Jack comes home and can decide for himself, you are just a housekeeper. Is that understood?’

Clare put up her chin. ‘Perfectly,’ she said.

The propeller droned remorselessly on, but inside the cabin there was a tense silence. At least, Clare felt tense. Gray looked exactly the same. He was relaxed in his seat, his hands steady on the joystick, and she eyed him resentfully.

Just a housekeeper. She wasn’t sure why the comment had ruffled her. If she had to spend weeks stuck out in the middle of nowhere, she would much rather have something to do, even if it was just cooking and cleaning. Still, there was no need for Gray to make it quite so clear that he thought that was all she was good for, was there?

Why did he need a housekeeper, anyway? He obviously wasn’t a romantic type, and she would have thought he would have married long ago, if only to sort out his domestic arrangements. He must be nearly forty, Clare decided, studying him from under her lashes. Surely he could have found someone to marry him? It wasn’t as if he was bad-looking either, if you liked the rugged, outdoor type. His features were too irregular to be handsome, but his skin was weathered brown by the sun, and his eyes were very creased at the corners, as if he had spent long years squinting at a far horizon.

Clare’s gaze travelled speculatively over the planes of his face to rest on his mouth. Nothing particularly special about his mouth either, she told herself, but then she remembered how he had looked when he had smiled, and something stirred strangely inside her, and she jerked her eyes away to stare out of the side window, as if fascinated after all by the view.

To her annoyance, the image of Gray smiling seemed to be burnt on her vision, shimmering between her and the aching blueness of the sky no matter how hard she tried to blink it away. She might as well have been staring straight at him, Clare thought crossly.

By the time she had managed to focus on the land below, she saw that the flat expanse of scrub had given way to a range of rocky hills. The little plane climbed over them and dropped down the other side.

‘Are we almost there?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Not yet, but we’re over Bushman’s Creek land now.’

To Clare’s consternation, Gray dipped the nose and let the plane drop until it was barely skimming the top of the spindly gum trees. ‘What are you doing?’ she squeaked, clutching at Alice.

‘Just having a look,’ he said casually, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to take a nose-dive into the bush.

‘What on earth for?’ said Clare, annoyed to find that her voice was still high and squeaky with alarm.

‘I want to see how many cattle are up here. There are always a few that get away from the mob when we muster.’

‘Oh, we’re looking for cows?’ she muttered sarcastically. ‘Great!’

Gray ignored her, banking the plane and swooping low over the trees. His hands were completely steady, and he seemed so in control that insensibly Clare began to relax and look around her.

At this level the featureless brown expanse resolved itself into dry, reddish earth out of which grew tussocks of grass, scrubby silver-barked gums and the occasional boab tree with its odd swollen trunk. Every now and then, a small group of cattle would blunder away at the sound of the plane, leaving clouds of dust to settle behind them, and Clare spotted several wallabies bounding effortlessly between the trees and the towering termite mounds.

‘See how much more there is to see down here?’ Gray asked as they dipped down over a spectacular rocky outcrop.

Clare was unimpressed. ‘It’s still not exactly teeming with excitement, is it?’

‘I guess that depends what you find exciting,’ he said. There was a faint undercurrent of amusement in his voice, and Clare looked at him suspiciously. ‘What does it take to excite you?’ he added with a sidelong glance.

His face was perfectly straight, but she was sure that he was laughing at her. Lifting her chin in an unconsciously haughty gesture, she met his eyes defiantly.

‘More than a few lost cows and a couple of kangaroos,’ she said in a tart voice. ‘Is that the best Bushman’s Creek has to offer?’

‘That depends what you’re looking for,’ countered Gray, and this time she definitely saw one corner of his mouth curl upwards before he looked away.

They flew on and on, until Clare began to wonder if they were ever going to get there, but at length Gray pointed out a line of trees snaking across the landscape, their leaves notably greener than the others. ‘That’s the homestead creek,’ he told Clare. ‘Even when it’s dry like it is at the moment you can still find a few waterholes. And that’s the homestead down there.’

Clare peered out of the window, but she couldn’t make out more than a jumble of tin roofs flashing in the harsh sunlight and shaded by a cluster of green plants and trees that looked a surprisingly lush set against the bare brown paddocks that surrounded them.

The plane dipped down over the nearby yards, where what seemed to Clare an enormous number of cattle were corralled. She could make out a couple of men who waved a greeting as the plane flew over and touched down at last, about half a mile from the homestead, bumping to a halt on the rough airstrip.

‘Welcome to Bushman’s Creek,’ said Gray.

Having slept peacefully through the noise and vibration of the flight, Alice woke up the moment they lifted her out of the plane. She was fractious as they got into the inevitable ute that had been left standing in the shade of a boab tree, and cried all the way back along the rough track to the homestead.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ asked Gray, eyeing the screaming baby uneasily.

‘There’s nothing wrong with her,’ snapped Clare, her nerves frayed by Alice’s distress. ‘She’s hungry and she needs her nappy changed, that’s all.’

She was so concerned to make Alice more comfortable that she had little time to take in much of the homestead. ‘You’d better use my room,’ said Gray, carrying the case into the welcome coolness of the house. ‘It’s the only one that’s been used for a while. At least you won’t have to sweep the dust away before you can find somewhere to put her down.’

His room was dim and cool and plainly furnished. There was a wide bed with a cover loosely thrown across it, a chest of drawers and a sturdy chair. The effect was one of uncluttered masculinity, quiet, comfortable and practical. Not unlike Gray himself, Clare couldn’t help thinking as she laid Alice down on the bed and changed her nappy. She wished she could lie down herself, but she knew that once she did she would fall asleep. The excitement of the flight had somehow kept exhaustion at bay for a while, but now that they had finally arrived Clare felt it sweep back with a vengeance.

Bracing herself against it, Clare tucked Alice back into her clothes and picked her up. Alice’s sobs had subsided slightly, but she was still grizzly, and Clare kissed her and patted her back as she carried her in search of the kitchen. ‘I know, I know, you’re hungry. I’ll get you some lunch.’ Somehow she was going to have to get through until Alice’s bedtime, she realised wearily. There was no way she could sleep while Alice needed her.

Finding herself in a large, open living area, Clare slowed and looked about her. The homestead wasn’t at all as she had imagined it. It was newer than she had thought it would be, and had an improvised air, as if rooms had been added onto this central area as and when they were needed, but the atmosphere was surprisingly cool, thanks to the deep verandah that went right around the homestead and kept out any direct sunlight. Every door and window was fitted with a fine mesh screen to keep out insects but to let any breeze into the house.

Clare hadn’t expected to find it such a restful house, but Gray had been right about one thing. It was badly in need of a clean. Dust lay thickly on every surface, and when she turned round she could see her own footsteps clearly marked on the floor.

‘I did say it was dirty,’ said Gray, appearing with the last of Clare’s bags and reading her expression without any difficulty.

‘I know,’ said Clare. ‘I just didn’t realise quite how dirty you meant! Don’t you possess a broom?’

‘I’m hoping that you’ll find it,’ said Gray dryly.

‘I think I’d better!’ She clicked her tongue as she looked around her in dismay. ‘How could you let it get into this state?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s a question of priorities. I only use the homestead to sleep at the moment. I’m out all day, I eat in the cookhouse with the stockmen, and if I do sit down it’ll be in the office or on the verandah, never in here.’

Alice was still grizzling, and Clare cast her a harried glance. ‘I’ll have to worry about the cleaning later,’ she told him. ‘I need to feed Alice first. Where’s the kitchen?’

‘In here,’ said Gray, leading the way. ‘I’m not sure there’s much to eat in here, though.’

‘That’s all right. I’ve got some jars of food for her. All I need is to be able to boil some water at the moment, and later I’ll have to set up the steriliser.’

‘I expect we can manage that,’ he said, opening a door into a large room complete with fitted units, an enormous cooker and an array of steel fridges. ‘That’s where the beer’s kept,’ said Gray, seeing Clare’s eyes follow a trail of footprints through the dust to the fridge at the end. He didn’t actually smile, but the creases on either side of his mouth deepened in a way that made something shift inside Clare, and she turned away, suddenly brisk.

‘Where would I find a kettle?’

‘What about you?’ Gray asked as she opened a jar. ‘I could find you something to eat in the cookhouse,’ he offered, but she shook her head.

‘I’m not really hungry. A cup of tea will be fine.’

Alice was a messy eater, even by the standards of most babies, and Clare wasn’t surprised when Gray left them to it after seeing what she did with the first few mouthfuls. He said that he would go and see how the men were getting on in the yards.

Clare didn’t expect to see him again that afternoon, but she was just removing Alice’s bib when he came back into the kitchen. ‘I think there might be an old highchair somewhere,’ he said, watching as Clare lifted Alice out of the backpack.

Clare’s face lit up. ‘Oh, that would be wonderful!’ she said eagerly, and smiled at him, surprising a strange expression in the brown eyes before they were quickly veiled. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a cot, too, is there?’

‘There might be. As far as I’m aware, my mother never threw anything away, and all the stuff she used when Jack and I were small just got dumped in the unused quarters. I’ll get one of the men to look them out tomorrow.’

Having taken Alice out of the backpack, Clare realised that there was nowhere to put her down. ‘I think you’d better stay there until I find that brush,’ she said to the baby, settling her back into the seat. Alice looked puzzled to find herself back where she had started, but she made no objection, merely sticking her fingers in her mouth and sucking them as she regarded Clare thoughtfully.

Gray was watching Clare too. She was straightening her shoulders in a gesture of unconscious weariness, and he frowned. ‘You’re not going to start cleaning now?’ he asked sharply.

‘That’s what I’m here for,’ she said, with a smile that somehow turned into a yawn.

‘You can clean tomorrow,’ said Gray in a brusque voice, looking at the smudges of exhaustion beneath her eyes. ‘Right now you need some sleep,’ he added bluntly.

‘I can’t.’ Clare tucked her hair behind her ears and wished Gray hadn’t even mentioned the word sleep. ‘Alice slept in the plane. She’ll be wide awake for hours now.’

‘I’ll look after her.’

Clare had the feeling that Gray had taken himself by surprise as much as her. ‘You?’ she said blankly.

‘Why not?’

‘I thought you were busy?’

‘Things seem to be going all right at the yards. I’ll need to go and check how they’re getting on, but there’s no reason why she shouldn’t come with me, and in the meantime I’ve got plenty of paperwork to catch up on. She can be in the office with me.’

‘But…that wasn’t the arrangement,’ stammered Clare. ‘You don’t want to be bothered with a baby.’

‘I don’t want to cope with her when you’ve collapsed with exhaustion either,’ said Gray roughly. ‘You’re no use to me as a housekeeper if you’re so tired you can hardly stand upright.’

Clare tried to push aside the tantalising prospect of being able to lie down and close her eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, worried. ‘Alice can be difficult…’

‘I manage four thousand square kilometres out there,’ said Gray, nodding his head in the direction of the window. ‘Are you telling me I can’t manage a baby?’

‘One baby takes just as much attention as a cattle station,’ Clare pointed out. ‘If not more! You can’t just prop her on a fence and forget about her while you get on and do whatever you do to all those cows! You won’t be able to take your eyes off her for an instant.’

‘You’ll have to trust me,’ he said, putting an end to argument by calmly lifting Alice out of her seat once more. Then, when Clare just stood irresolutely chewing her lip, he took her arm in a firm grip with his free hand. ‘Come with me.’

Clare found herself propelled back across the living area to his bedroom. ‘Maybe just for an hour,’ she mumbled, succumbing to temptation and the force of his will. She had held out against the exhaustion for so long that no sooner had her resistance cracked than she was overwhelmed by a great, crashing wave of tiredness, so that she stumbled and would have fallen if Gray hadn’t held her up.

Beyond thinking up any more objections, or even thinking at all, she let him pull back the cover and sit her down on the bed before he carried Alice over to the window to pull the blinds.

‘Get some sleep,’ he said gruffly, but when he turned to close the door behind him, Clare was still sitting there, watching him in a daze, too tired even to lie down.

Gray hesitated, then went back and set Alice down on the bed beside her. He bent and took off Clare’s sandals before easing her back onto the pillow and lifting her legs up onto the bed. Covering Clare with the sheet, he picked up Alice once more and for a moment they looked down at her as she lay there like a child, looking back at them with great, blurry grey eyes.

Dimly, Clare knew that she ought to thank him, but all she could manage was a wavering smile, and by the time Gray and Alice had reached the door she was asleep.

When Clare woke, several hours later, it was to find herself lying in a strange room and a strange bed. Disorientated, she lay for a while, blinking at the unfamiliar ceiling and trying to disentangle dreams from reality in the swirl of unconnected images in her head. She was in Australia, she remembered eventually. She was at Bushman’s Creek, in Gray Henderson’s bed.

Gray…It was disconcerting to discover just how clearly she could picture a man she had only met for the first time that morning. Clare turned her head on the pillow as if to dislodge the memory of the creases around his eyes, the brown, competent hands, the way his uncompromising mouth had relaxed into such an unexpected smile. She had a nasty feeling Gray’s smile had played an overlarge part in her dreams.

Frowning slightly as reality returned, Clare pulled herself up on the pillows. Gray hadn’t wanted her to come, but he had accepted Alice in the end. He had even been kind, offering to let her sleep, closing the blinds, even taking off her shoes.

She had a vague memory of smiling up at him and seeing the oddest expression in his eyes, but that was probably a dream, she decided. Gray wouldn’t have been looking down at her with a mixture of tenderness and desire. No one would look at a housekeeper like that, and a housekeeper was all she was and all she would ever be as far as Gray was concerned.

As far as I’m concerned too, said Clare firmly to herself as she pushed back the sheet and swung her legs to the floor. She wasn’t here to wonder about Gray Henderson and how he would look at a woman he really wanted to be lying in his bed. She was here for Alice, and if that meant being a housekeeper, that was what she would be.