LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

racked by memories. His heart wasn’t booming in his ears at the thought of what they had once shared. He was just standing there with that inscrutable look on his face, waiting for a flustered stranger to answer his question.

      ‘Nothing,’ said Copper. Realising that she was still clinging to the verandah post, she let it go hurriedly. ‘I mean, I...I was expecting an older man, that’s all.’

      ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’ Was that an undercurrent of amusement in his voice? ‘If it’s any comfort, you’re not exactly what I was expecting either.’

      His face didn’t change, there wasn’t even a suspicion of a smile about his mouth, but somehow Copper got the feeling that he was laughing at her. Confused, uncertain whether to feel hurt or relieved that Mal didn’t remember her, she stuck her chin out. ‘Oh?’ she said almost belligerently. ‘What were you expecting me to be like?’

      Mal studied her with a disconcerting lack of haste, from her flushed face, tense and vivid beneath her sunglasses, down over the slender figure in the crumpled suit, down slim, brown legs to the leather sandals which showed off deep red toenails. Still standing nervously at the top of the steps, Copper managed to look tired and vibrant and completely out of place.

      ‘Let’s say that I was expecting someone a little more...practical,’ he said at last.

      ‘I’m very practical,’ snapped Copper, burningly aware of his scrutiny.

      Mal said nothing, but his eyes rested on her toenails and she had to resist the urge to curl up her feet. He obviously thought she was just a city girl who had no idea about life in the outback. City girl she might be, but impractical she wasn’t. She was a professional businesswoman and it was about time she behaved like one, instead of stuttering and stammering like a schoolgirl just because she had come face to face with a man she had met briefly more than seven years ago. It was a surprise, a coincidence, but no more than that.

      Mal’s unspoken disbelief helped Copper pull herself together. ‘I realise I don’t look quite as efficient as I usually do,’ she said coldly, ‘but it was a longer drive than I anticipated, and your track is in very poor condition.’

      ‘You should have come in the bus,’ said Mal, with a disparaging glance across to where her car sat, looking as citified and inappropriate as she did. ‘I’d have sent someone to pick you up.’

      Copper eyed him in some puzzlement. Her father had written to say that his daughter would be coming to Birraminda to negotiate the deal in his stead, but she certainly hadn’t had the impression that Matthew Standish had been so enthusiastic about their plan that he would go to the trouble of collecting her. Still, perhaps her father had misjudged his interest?

      ‘I thought it would be better for me to be independent,’ she said loftily, unprepared for the look of distaste that swept across Mal’s face.

      ‘We’ve had enough independent types at Birraminda,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘And it’s not as if you’re going to need a car while you’re here.’ His mouth twisted with sudden bitterness. ‘I’m reliably informed that there’s nowhere to go.’

      Looking out at the empty horizon, Copper could believe it. ‘Well, no,’ she agreed. ‘But I wasn’t planning on staying for ever!’

      An odd look flickered in Mal’s eyes and then was gone. ‘I realise that,’ he said expressionlessly. He looked down at the child leaning trustfully against his leg, and rested his hand on the small head. ‘I can’t say I’m not glad to see you, anyway,’ he added as if he had just reminded himself of something. ‘Megan, run along and tell Uncle Brett to finish off without me, will you?’

      Megan nodded importantly and scampered off. Mal looked after her, his expression unguarded for a moment, and, watching him. Copper felt something twist inside her. He had looked at her like that once. She suppressed a sigh as he turned back to her, his face closed once more. She might as well forget all about their brief affair right now. Mal obviously had.

      ‘You’d better come inside,’ he said, climbing up the steps towards her and Copper found herself taking a quick step back in case he brushed against her.

      Her instinctive movement didn’t go unnoticed by Mal. He made no comment, and his eyes were as inscrutable as ever, but Copper was convinced there was subtle mockery in the way he held the screen door open for her, as if he knew just how confused she was, how terrified that his slightest touch would bring back an avalanche of memories.

      Head held high, she walked past him into the house. Inside, all was dim and cool and quiet. The homestead was much bigger than Copper had imagined from outside, with several corridors leading off from the long entrance hall, and it had a kind of dusty charm that she had somehow not expected to find this far from any kind of civilisation.

      Mal led the way along to a very large, very untidy kitchen with a door onto the back verandah. Through the window, Copper could see a dusty yard shaded by a gnarled old gum and surrounded by a collection of outbuildings, a tall windmill and two enormous iron water tanks. To one side lay the creek, where cockatoos wheeled out of the trees and galahs darted over the water, turning in flashes of pink and grey, and in the distance an irrigated paddock looked extraordinarily green and lush compared to the expanse of bare holding yards that stretched out of sight. Copper could just make out some cattle milling around in the pens, lifting clouds of red dust with their hooves.

      Tossing his hat onto the table, Mal crossed over to the sink and filled up the kettle. ‘Tea?’

      ‘Er...yes...thank you.’ Copper took off her sunglasses and sank down into a chair. She felt very odd.

      At times, perhaps more often than she wanted to admit, she had dreamt about meeting Mal again. Her fantasies had usually involved them catching sight of each other unexpectedly, their faces lighting up with instant recognition. Sometimes she had pictured him shouldering his way through crowds towards her, reaching for her hands, surrendering to the same electric attraction that had brought them together the first night they met. Or she had let herself imagine him looking deep into her eyes and explaining how he had lost her address and spent the last seven years scouring England and Australia to find her again.

      What she hadn’t imagined was that he would behave as if he had never seen her before in his life and calmly offer her a cup of tea!

      Copper sighed inwardly. Perhaps it was just as well. She mustn’t forget that she was here to set up a vital deal, and trying to negotiate with a man who remembered the past as clearly as she did would have been more than a little awkward.

      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

Скачать книгу