The Unexpected Husband

‘I’m not admitting to…’ She bit her lip and suffered a moment of dread that she would blush again, but she didn’t. ‘I am not interested in you, Mr Jordan. Let’s put it like that.’ She stared at him defiantly.

‘I would have said your first assertion was more truthful, Lydia. The one about not admitting things. But let’s not get ourselves all tied up here and now. Pete’s got your gear off the plane. Would you allow me to drive you up to the homestead? Sarah has lunch waiting.’

Lydia was sorely tempted to press her point, if not to find some way of driving it home with a sledgehammer, but she contained herself and only looked supremely frustrated.

Joe Jordan watched her for a moment, then said, ‘Good. I wouldn’t have believed you anyway, and it’s hot enough without getting oneself unnecessarily hot and bothered. After you, ma’am!’ He walked round the ute and opened the passenger door for her.

She did say stiffly as they drove away, ‘It is hot, for the middle of winter.’

‘Ah, but the nights are deliciously cool at this time of year, in comparison. Ever been up this way before, Lydia?’

‘No.’

‘Then you’re in for a delightful surprise. The country is superb at the moment. We had a good wet season, everything’s still flourishing, you can get about easily—do you ride?’

‘Of course!’ She looked at him scathingly, then looked out of the window.

‘Excellent. Unless, that is, you intend to converse with me only in monosyllables for the next six weeks?’

She turned back to him wide-eyed. ‘You’re not going to be here for six whole weeks, are you?’

He shrugged. ‘More or less.’

‘But why? Surely you don’t usually spend so much time up here!’

‘How would you know?’ he countered.

‘I…well, I assumed you lived most of your life in Sydney,’ she offered—a shade feebly, she couldn’t help thinking.

‘As in making generalisations about people from the same family, one shouldn’t make assumptions based on very little knowledge of the facts, Lydia,’ he reproved gravely.

They were driving along a rocky dirt road towards a stand of tall trees and between them she could see a large tin roof with ‘Katerina’ painted in big black letters on the silver surface: the roof they’d flown over.

Lydia blinked several times and said tersely, ‘I was told you didn’t live here.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Pete, the pilot. I had no idea, of course, that he was talking about you!’

‘Sprung,’ Joe Jordan remarked with a charming smile as he wrestled the gear lever and they bounced over a large rock. ‘Must get this road fixed, by the way. Uh—no, I don’t actually live here, although I spend quite a bit of time up here.’

Lydia waited, then said pointedly, ‘So?’

‘Several things have happened, that’s all. Rolf and Sarah need a bit of a break. Modern technology means that I can still pursue my chosen career from up here, and—well, the other thing that happened may not recommend itself to you, so I might wait.’

‘Tell me!’ Lydia ordered through her teeth.

He brought the utility to a halt outside a low white pole fence surrounding a lush acre of garden that in turn surrounded the homestead. There were colourful parrots swooping amongst the trees, there was a carpet of thick green grass, the house was old and sprawling, but well maintained, there was a riot of purple, pink and white bougainvillea smothering the tank stands, and a woman standing on the front steps was waving to them.

‘All right.’ Joe Jordan cut the motor and turned to look at her fully.

He didn’t start to speak immediately, however, and, much as she would have wished otherwise, Lydia felt an erratic little frisson run through her at the proximity of this man. Nor was it so hard to define his attractiveness suddenly. It was all there in the lines and angles of his face, the well-cut mouth, those broad shoulders and lean hips, the pair of strong hands, those intelligent hazel eyes, and in the distinct feeling that not only might he be exciting to know, he was also a connoisseur of women.

And he waited until their gazes clashed before he said, ‘I’ve been plagued by the curious yet nevertheless powerful desire to see you without your clothes, Ms Kelso. And the way you walk has taken to invading my thoughts. I do apologise for putting it so plainly, but it is the truth and you did command me to tell you.’

Lydia washed her hands in the bathroom attached to her bedroom and brushed her hair vigorously.

She’d been welcomed warmly by Sarah Simpson, shown her room and asked if she’d like to brush up before lunch. She hadn’t responded to Joe Jordan’s statement, beyond bestowing upon him the fieriest of blue glances before she’d jumped out of the utility. It hadn’t abashed him in the slightest as he’d introduced her to his sister and brother-in-law.

How on earth she was going to face him over a lunch table and for the next six weeks she had no idea, she mused savagely as she flung her brush down and stood with her hands on her hips. And there was Daisy to think about. Daisy, putting her own advice into practice, unless she was much mistaken.

‘Rolf and I have to take a little while off, although it’s such a busy time of the year,’ Sarah said over lunch.

She was in her early thirties, Lydia judged, with the same colouring as her brother. She was also what one would call ‘horsey’ but in a not unattractive way. Horses were never far from her conversation, and the verandah room, closed in with glass louvres, where lunch was set out, was decked with ribbons and trophies she’d won for dressage and show jumping, and she wore jodhpurs with a pink blouse.

Another clue to Sarah’s preoccupation with horses was that, from what Lydia had seen of the house, and while it was comfortable enough, the furnishings were old-fashioned, and it didn’t give off the glow of a dedicated homemaker being in residence.

Sarah had also been boarding-school-educated, and there were photos on the wall depicting a young Sarah Jordan as school captain. She had a rather bracing, authoritative air, as if she were a school captain born and bred. One thing she wasn’t, by her own admission, was much of a cook.

Lunch, while plentiful, was plain. Cold meat and salad, a fruit bowl and cheese.

‘Do, do make free use of the kitchen, Lydia,’ she invited. ‘I only do the basics, I’m afraid.’

‘Watch it,’ Joe advised Lydia. ‘You could find yourself not only the resident vet but head chef.’

‘Just because you got my share of the cooking genes, Joe, there is no need to be smug. We’re twins,’ Sarah confided to Lydia. ‘I sometimes think things got a bit muddled up. I should have got the artistic bent, one feels, but…’ She shrugged.

‘Hang on, beloved,’ Joe advised his sister this time, ‘you could be giving the wrong impression here.’

Sarah blinked her hazel eyes at her brother. ‘Darling,’ she murmured, ‘one only has to count the trail of broken hearts you’ve left amongst the female population of the Territory alone to know otherwise.’

Joe Jordan looked hurt and outraged at the same time. ‘Now you’ve really done it, Sarah!’

‘Done what?’ She eyed him innocently.

‘Lydia already classes me with Casanova!’

Sarah transferred her gaze to Lydia with some interest. ‘Joe mentioned that you two know each other. I didn’t realise it was in that way.’

‘It’s not,’ Lydia replied coolly. ‘It’s my sister he knows in “that way”.’

Rolf Simpson, a man of few words so far—in fact to Lydia he epitomised the fair dinkum cattleman: tall, lean, sparse of speech and with far-seeing blue eyes—said, ‘It’s never a good idea to come between sisters, mate.’

Lydia flashed a triumphant look at the main shareholder of Katerina Station, then turned her attention to her lunch and the dodging of some uncooked pieces of potato in the salad of the same name.

‘I’m suitably chastened; however—’ Joe took a draught of his beer ‘—I didn’t seek out either of the Kelso sisters.’

‘Gosh!’ Sarah enthused. ‘We could be in for some interesting times, by the sound of it. I’m almost tempted to put our little holiday off, Rolf. She turned to Lydia. ‘I must tell you, if what I think is going on between you two, is going on between you two, I should be delighted to have a vet for a sister-in-law. Just think how handy it would be for my horses, let alone Katerina.’

This time it was Joe Jordan who flashed Lydia a look that, while not exactly triumphant, spoke volumes.

‘When, exactly, do you plan to take your holiday?’ Lydia enquired of Sarah.

‘In a fortnight,’ Sarah replied. ‘We’ll be taking three weeks. But Joe’ll be here, so it’s not as if we’re abandoning you!’

‘I imagine,’ Joe Jordan commented, ‘that Lydia doesn’t quite see it that way.’

‘Why ever not?’ Sarah looked perplexed.

‘She’ll probably tell you herself; she’s a plain speaker, our Lydia.’

‘Joe, I wish you’d stop talking in riddles,’ Sarah protested, then turned her attention to Lydia with a smile. ‘You do look awfully young to be a fully qualified vet.’

‘Twenty-six, although I agree she looks younger,’ her brother commented. ‘But I can assure you she’s very strong.’

‘Ignore him,’ Sarah said to Lydia. ‘He can be impossible.’

But it was Rolf who changed the subject. ‘We are Brucellosis and TB free in the Territory now, Lydia—did you know?’

‘I…yes!’ Lydia murmured, wresting her mind from his brother-in-law, who was sitting back in his chair with the most devilish little glint in his hazel eyes.

‘What do you want now?’ Lydia asked arctically, much later in the day.

It was after dinner, and she’d spent the rest of the day with Rolf and Joe, doing a tour of the main yards and the vet station, and she’d even been able to practise her science on a lame stock horse. She’d found a nail in its hoof and been able to extract it.

Neither man had said much during the operation, but she’d known they were watching keenly. After the nail had come out, and she’d injected the horse with an antibiotic and a tetanus needle, Rolf had remarked that no one else had been able to come up with the cause of the horse’s lameness. It had been a way of saying well done, she gathered.

But instead of going to bed after dinner, despite yawning several times, she’d pulled on a dark green pullover, moved a comfortable cane lounger from the verandah onto the lawn and sunk down in it to watch the millions of stars overhead. That was how Joe Jordan had found her.

‘Nothing. I thought you’d retired.’ He went away and came back in moments with another chair. ‘Mind if I join you?’

She glanced at him sardonically and shrugged.

‘Thank you,’ he returned politely. ‘Hang on again; I’ll be right back.’

This time he was away for five minutes, and he came back with a pottery wine cooler supporting a frosted bottle and two glasses. ‘Thought you might appreciate some kind of a nightcap. Because Sarah doesn’t drink, she forgets others do. And most people drink wine.’

Meg had followed him, and she put her muzzle in Lydia’s lap for a pat before lying down at her master’s feet.

‘I have no intention of drinking half a bottle of wine.’

He pulled the cork from the pocket of his jeans and showed it to her. ‘We can drink as much or as little as we like. It’s quite a sight, isn’t it?’ He gestured sky-wards.

Lydia hesitated, then accepted the glass he’d poured for her and laid her head back. ‘You’re not wrong.’

‘There’s only one better way, and that’s to be camped out. No tent, just a swag beside a small fire, the horses hobbled not far away.’

‘That’s the kind of stuff my father writes about,’ she said dreamily. ‘He was a jackeroo as a young man. He always says it got into his blood.’

‘I’ve read some of his work. It’s good. I’m surprised he didn’t take you outback.’

‘Oh, he did. Just not to the Northern Territory. Cooper Creek, the Barcoo, Lake Eyre—I’ve seen those.’

There was a long silence; Lydia sipped her wine and made no attempt to break it.

It was Joe who finally said, ‘Why are you so mad at me?’

Surprise held her further silent for a moment, then she said wearily, ‘I’m not.’

‘You could have fooled me, but if we discount Daisy as a possible reason—what’s left?’

It was no good trying to study his expression, it was too dark, despite the Milky Way seeming to hang just above their heads, but she had the feeling he was serious.

‘You don’t really hold being a cartoonist against me?’ he queried. ‘As you see, it’s not the only thing I can do.’

‘No…’ She sighed.

‘And you shouldn’t believe Sarah’s stories about a trail of broken hearts—’

‘Why not?’

He paused. ‘Because it’s not true. I… Lydia, are you laughing at me, by any chance?’ he asked ominously.

She sat up chuckling. ‘Yes. Heaven alone knows why, Mr Jordan, but I’m quite sure it is true, or was when you were a young man in these parts.’

‘What tells you this?’

‘You’d probably have to be a woman to understand.’

‘It’s funny you should say that—I read a quote the other day that intrigued me. On the subject of women.’

‘Do tell me,’ she invited.

“‘Any man smart enough to understand women is also smart enough to keep quiet about it.’”

Lydia smiled. ‘Do you?’

‘Understand women? I would have thought so,’ he murmured thoughtfully. ‘Until I met you.’

‘Oh, come now. This is only the second time we’ve met, and I’ve got an early start tomorrow, so…’ She drained her glass and handed it to him.

But he merely reached for the bottle on the grass beside him and refilled it. ‘One more won’t hurt, surely? Besides, I got the feeling it was loosening you up, Ms Kelso.’ He put the glass back into her hands.

‘Is that how you do it? Ply them with alcohol?’

‘Not at all,’ he denied. ‘But I thought you were uptight, feeling less than restful, and it might help.’

Lydia hesitated, then settled back. ‘If you hadn’t been the first person I bumped into on Katerina I might be feeling a lot more restful. If I didn’t think my sister Daisy was—’ She broke off.

‘I told you what happened.’

‘I know. You also told me you had this curious desire to see me without my clothes. As if I might be some sort of circus freak.’ As soon as she’d said it Lydia regretted the words, and was amazed to discover that she had subconsciously taken umbrage at that particular word.

‘Ah.’ Joe Jordan drained his glass and refilled it. ‘That wasn’t what I meant at all, but I apologise for phrasing things awkwardly. What I meant was, if I’d thought you were some sort of circus freak, the last thing I’d want is to see you undressed. Do you perceive the difference, Lydia?’

‘I perceive that you’re getting yourself tangled up in technicalities, Joe! But, no, you don’t have to explain further. I know exactly what you meant.’

‘You do? Would you be so kind as to tell me what I meant?’ he asked, with some chagrin.

Lydia grinned fleetingly. ‘That at first you didn’t find me feminine and to your taste, especially compared to my sister Daisy. You know, I would have had to be particularly dense not to have got that message loud and clear, Joe.’

She could see enough to see him flinch, and had to laugh softly. ‘Look, don’t let it come between you and your sleep,’ she advised. ‘I grew up in Daisy’s shadow; I’m quite used to it.’

‘And once again I’m speechless.’

‘Good,’ she said unfeelingly. ‘Because I’m getting tired of this conversation and I am going to bed.’

‘Mind you, I’m relieved it’s not because of some of the things Sarah said—the other things about mixed up genes and being able to cook,’ he said humorously.

‘I wouldn’t hold that against a man,’ Lydia replied. ‘My husband was a fantastic cook, although disastrously messy.’

Joe Jordan stared down at the wine glass cradled in his hands, and said at last, ‘Is that it, Lydia?’

She stood up in one lithe movement. ‘Yes, Joe, that’s it. You see, it was so wonderful I…can’t forget him or believe it could ever happen that way for me again.’

He stood up, and Meg rose like a wraith in the dark to stand patiently beside him. ‘Then Daisy is not part of it?’

‘Daisy is part of it,’ she contradicted. ‘If…’ She paused and chose her words with care. ‘You are at all serious about an interest in me, then you’ve run into a double whammy, so to speak. My memories of Brad and the impossibility of having anything to do with a man my sister may love. Goodnight.’

This time she took her glass with her as she walked inside.

Joe Jordan sat down again after a moment and took his dog’s face into his hands. ‘My dear Meg,’ he murmured, ‘who would have believed I could have been such a fool? Not that I was to know—all sorts of things—but I’ve been about as heavy-handed as a bull in a china shop—if you’ll forgive my mixed metaphors. However, it would be fair to say I’m all the more intrigued. You do like her, don’t you?’

Meg gazed lovingly up at him and wagged her tail.

‘Good. As they say, tomorrow is another day. And another strategy is obviously called for. We shall see!’

About a week later, Lydia got up at the crack of dawn, then remembered it was a Sunday, so she got back into bed and fell asleep until ten o’clock.

There seemed to be no one about as she padded into the kitchen then and made herself some tea and toast. She took it back to her bedroom and spent the next hour leisurely engaged in doing the things she’d hadn’t had much time for over the previous week.

She washed her hair, left the conditioner on and wrapped her head in a towel. She attended to her nails and smoothed moisturiser all over herself at the same time as she checked herself for bruises and saddle sores; there were no sores but a few colourful bruises. She paused to wonder whether her skin and hair would ever be the same again, despite this treatment, and sat down to write a long letter home.

Finally, she unwound the towel, rinsed her hair and dressed in a pair of cool pink linen shorts with a pink and white floral cotton blouse, luxuriating as she did so in clothes that were not khaki or definitely working clothes, and slid a pair of light sandals on.

She wondered again why the homestead was so silent, then shrugged. A week at Katerina had been long enough to discover that one day was very much like another, although she’d been told firmly to take Sundays off. Sarah would most likely be with her horses, and Rolf and Joe, if they weren’t working on the road or the cattle yards or the airstrip or the maintenance of some vehicle or another, could still find a hundred other tasks.

She went out onto the verandah and pulled a chair into the sunlight so she could dry her hair, and ran a mental review of the week as she closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun.

A faint smile curved her lips at the memory of how stiff she’d been for the first few days, and was still stiff at times. This was despite begging a friend in Sydney, as soon as she’d decided to come to Katerina, to let her exercise his polo ponies every day to get herself fit for what was to come. Although she’d ridden since she was six, and although horses were by no means the only way to get around Katerina, she’d done more riding in a week than she’d done in the past year. But it had been exhilarating and more.

She’d read respect in the eyes of the Simpsons when she’d refused to complain about her aching muscles or to take to the ‘bull buggy’, an open four-wheel drive vehicle suitable for getting around rough terrain with fearsome bars on the front capable of repelling charging bulls.

But Joe Jordan had surprised her. There had been no more overtures of a personal nature. In fact he’d treated her exactly as he treated his sister.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.