The Australian - Diana Palmer Mills & Boon M&B

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her body. She shook herself. More likely, he’d pat the snake on the head and make a pet of it.

      She wandered lazily back to the house and walked slowly up the steps to the cool front porch where she liked to sit and hope that John would ride by. In the distance were the softly rolling paddocks where John’s Hereford cattle and big Merino sheep grazed peacefully.

      Her eyes grew sad as she realized that she would soon be far away from this dear, familiar scene. College. Several years of college in Hawaii—out of sight and sound and touch of John Sterling. And he didn’t even seem to mind. Not one bit.

      Renée Johnson looked up as her daughter came into the house. She smiled a little as she bent her silver head again to her embroidery. She was in her late forties, but traces of beauty were still evident in her patrician face.

      “Hello, darling; back already?” she teased.

      “John was busy,” Priss sighed. She plopped down into a chair with a rueful smile. “He’s glad I’m leaving, you know.”

      “Oh, I don’t think he is, really,” Renée said carelessly. “Friendship can survive a few absences, dear.”

      Friendship. Priss almost wailed. She was dying of love for him!

      “Dad should be back now, shouldn’t he?” she asked.

      “He had to stop in Providence to pick up his new suit on the way back from Brisbane,” she reminded her daughter. “And Brisbane is a good drive from here.”

      “All for a student he hardly knows,” Priss remarked. “Just because he needed a way to the airport. Dad’s all heart, isn’t he?”

      “Yes, he is,” her mother agreed warmly. “That’s why I married him, you know.”

      Priss got up and paced the room. “I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. Hawaii’s so far away...”

      “The university there is one of the best,” she was reminded. “And your aunt will love having you close by. She’s your father’s favorite sister, you know.”

      “Yes.” Priss stared out the window at the distant white cloud of moving sheep. John had cattle, too, but his primary interest was his big Merino sheep. She loved watching the jackeroos move them from paddock to paddock. She loved the sheepdogs, so deft and quick. But most of all she loved John. John!

      “Set the table, dear, would you?” Renée asked. “I’ll be dishing up supper any minute.”

      Chapter Three

      Adam Johnson glanced curiously at his daughter over the dinner table. It wasn’t like Priscilla to pick at her food.

      “Aren’t you hungry, darling?” he asked.

      She lifted her face with a plaintive smile. “I’m just homesick already,” she confessed.

      “Homesick? Don’t be silly, Hawaii’s not that far away,” he chuckled. “You can come home on holidays and vacation.”

      She pushed her fork into her potatoes and stared at them. “I suppose so.”

      Adam turned his head toward Renée, who was shaking her head.

      “It’s just...well, do you suppose John really will miss me?” she asked her father, all eyes.

      He laughed, misreading the situation. “Now, darling, I doubt that,” he chuckled as he concentrated on his food. “You do wear him out, you know.”

      Priss got up from the table in tears and ran for her room. Her mother glared at her father.

      “You animal,” she accused. “How could you do that to her? Don’t you realize she’s horribly infatuated with John?”

      His eyebrows arched. “With John? But, my God, he’s ten years older than she is. And she’s just a child!”

      “She’s eighteen,” she reminded him. “Not a child at all.”

      “Well, John’s too experienced for her by far,” he said firmly. “Don’t get me wrong—I think the world of him. But she needs boys her own age. And you know how relentlessly she chases the poor man, Renée. I wonder that he tolerates it. You can see he isn’t interested in kids like Priss.”

      “Yes, I know. But she’s so young, darling,” Renée said softly. “Don’t you remember how we felt at her age?”

      His dark eyes softened. “Yes,” he said reluctantly, and sighed. “With everybody around telling us how young we were...poor Priss.”

      “She’ll get over him,” Renée promised. “Once she’s with boys her own age, she’ll get over him.”

      Priss, standing frozen in the hall, heard every word. It all came rushing at her like a tidal wave. Had she hounded John? Did he realize how desperately infatuated she was?

      Her face flamed. She leaned back against the cool wall, almost shaking. Of course he did. Ten years, her father had said. John wouldn’t want a child like herself. She closed her eyes. It was far worse than she’d realized. And the worst thing of all was that she hadn’t realized how very noticeable her infatuation was. But it didn’t feel like infatuation. She loved John!

      She turned and went back into her room, closing the door quietly. She felt more alone than she ever had in her life. Poor John. Poor her. Her father had said John was too experienced to want a teenager, and he was surely right. If John had felt anything for her, he wouldn’t have been able to hide it. She would have known. People always said you knew when love happened.

      She tumbled onto her bed and slowly pulled out the crumpled photo of him that she kept in her wallet. She stared at it for a long time, at the rugged face, the bushy blond and brown eyebrows and hair, at the sensuous mouth and dimpled chin, at the pastel blue eyes. No, he wouldn’t miss her, she thought miserably.

      “Well, you don’t know what you’re losing, John Sterling,” she told the photograph. “I’m going to be a force to behold in a few years, and you’ll be sorry you didn’t want me. I’ll show you!” She put the photograph in her trash can in a temper and flounced over to the window, glaring out at the big gum tree casting its shade over the ground. She leaned her face on her hands and sighed. “I’ll come back as finished as a princess,” she told the gum tree. “I’ll be wearing an elegant gown, with my hairdo impeccable, and I’ll be poised and ever so serene. And every man will want to dance with me, and John will be wild to, and I’ll just brush past him and ignore him completely.”

      She smiled as she pictured it. What a proper revenge it would be! But then she realized how impossible it was going to be, living through those years without him. And where would she get the money for an elegant gown and hairdo? And what if John got married in her absence?

      She felt sick. With a scowl, she fished his photo out of the trash can and put it carefully back into her wallet. She had too much time to think, that was her trouble. So she went to the kitchen and began clearing the table for her mother, trying to ignore the curious looks her parents were giving her.

      “Could we all go into Providence Saturday and have lunch together?” she asked with a forced smile. “I have to leave for Hawaii Monday, you know.”

      Her father gave a relieved sigh. “Yes, of course we can. That’s a date.”

      “I’ll enjoy it, too, dear.” Her mother smiled. “Now, suppose I help you with the dishes and then we’ll go sit on the porch.”

      “Fine,” Priss said brightly. Perhaps the pretense of being happy would lighten her spirits, she thought. Perhaps it would dull her hurt. Why, oh, why did she have to pick a man like John Sterling to fall in love with, and at such a youthful age? He was going to be a ghost, hanging over every relationship she tried to have with other men. She knew that no one would be able to match or top him in her loving eyes.

      She avoided him during the next few days. For

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