Rescued by a Millionaire

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘You don’t. You know, I figured since you’re in my kitchen and you came in uninvited, that maybe it was up to you to introduce yourselves first. But maybe I’ve been remiss.’ He hauled his hat from the table and shoved it back on his head, then raised it a few inches in a gesture of salutation. ‘I’m Riley Jackson.’ His dark eyes twinkled down at Karli, who was still clinging as hard as she could cling to Jenna’s leg. ‘Have a seat, ladies. Make yourselves at home.’

Then he readdressed his beer. Duty done.

Jenna stared at him in confusion. She was way out of her depth, she acknowledged. If it weren’t for Karli she’d walk out of here—take her chances on the railway platform.

Who was she kidding? No, she wouldn’t. She had no choice but to keep on talking.

‘I’m Jenna Svenson,’ she told him. ‘This is Karli.’

‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Jenna and Karli,’ he said gravely. ‘Welcome to my farm.’

His farm. She stared around her at the layer upon layer of dust. She turned to stare out the cracked and grimed window at the dusty paddocks beyond. ‘This isn’t a working farm?’ she managed. ‘Surely. I mean…you don’t live here?’

‘Don’t you like my décor?’ Riley demanded, as if he were wounded to the core, and she blinked. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘It’s really dusty,’ Karli volunteered and that shocked Jenna, too. For Karli to speak in the presence of a stranger was amazing. ‘You don’t wash your table,’ the little girl said, and there was even a note of reproof in her tone.

‘Hey, I would have dusted if I’d known you were coming.’ Riley smiled straight down at the little girl, with what was almost a conspiratorial grin. ‘I would have got out the best china and made a cake. Or put some more beer in the fridge. Speaking of which.’ He hauled open the fridge to snag another beer and Jenna bit her lip at the sight of it. Her fears had started to recede, but now they resurfaced with a vengeance. They were so alone. He might not be an axe murderer, but if he were to get drunk…

He saw her look. He stood with his hand on the refrigerator door and his eyebrows rose in a query. ‘Does this worry you?’ He raised his beer can.

‘I…no.’

‘It shouldn’t,’ he told her, and went straight to the heart of her fear. ‘It’s low-alcohol beer. I’d have to drink a bathful to get tight. And, lady, even if I was drinking full-strength beer, I’ve been working in the sun for the past twelve hours and after effort like that, alcohol hardly hits the sides.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You sound English. Are you?’

‘Y…yes.’

‘Australian girls don’t start getting nervous until their men down a dozen or more.’ He pulled the ring on his new can and took a long drink. ‘Now, having reassured you that I’m not about to get rolling drunk on my second light beer, I figure it’s your turn. Maybe I’m being picky but I would like to know what the hell—’ his eyes fell to Karli and he corrected himself ‘—what on earth you guys are doing in my kitchen, criticising my housekeeping and counting my beers. It’s not that I’m unappreciative. It’s always nice when guests drop in. I’m just not sure where you dropped from.’

She swallowed. He had the right. ‘From the train,’ she started and he nodded.

‘I guess it had to be the train. But I was over there picking up supplies. I didn’t see you.’

‘We got off just as the train left.’

‘You weren’t expecting to be collected, then?’

‘No.’

‘I see.’ He thought about it, his eyes not leaving hers. ‘So you thought you might indulge in a little sightseeing?’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,’ Jenna snapped. ‘We didn’t choose to get off.’

‘You’re saying someone threw you off?’ That amazing smile flashed out then. ‘What, for being drunk and disorderly?’ As she didn’t reply, he settled onto a chair with the air of a man about to enjoy a good book. ‘Well, well. Jenna Svenson. And Karli. Sit down and tell me all. Please.’

She owed him that much, she thought. She needed him. She had to tell him.

She sat and hoisted Karli onto the chair beside her. Their chairs were touching and Karli was still in contact with her, but strangely the little girl seemed to be relaxing.

What was it about this man?

Jenna wasn’t relaxing. She sat gingerly on the edge of her chair. The chair gave a distinct wobble, and the wobble made her feel even more precarious. It was as if her world were tilting and she wasn’t at all sure that she wasn’t about to slide right off.

‘We had a disagreement with someone on the train,’ she managed. ‘We…we got angry and we got off.’

‘You had a disagreement.’ His thoughtful eyes glinted again, humour seemingly just below the surface. His eyes searched her face, then dropped to take her all in. His eyes ran over her dust-stained pants and blouse—they’d once been white—over her wind-tumbled curls where the red dust was blending with her burnt-red hair, down to her slim arms resting on the table before her. To her bare fingers.

His eyes went again to Karli. To study her dusty red curls and her big green eyes that were a mirror image of Jenna’s.

‘Who was your disagreement with?’

‘With Karli’s father,’ she told him. ‘Brian.’

His eyes flashed again to her fingers but there was no ring-mark there. That was what he was searching for, she knew. Damn him, she thought with anger. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘You’ve left the third part of your happy family on the train.’

‘There’s no third part,’ she snapped. ‘And, believe me, it’s no happy family.’

‘Obviously.’

She flushed. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. How to explain within Karli’s earshot?

And how to justify her stupidity? Her stupid, almost criminal idiocy.

‘You know, what you did wasn’t all that bright,’ he told her, his voice gentle and his eyes resting thoughtfully on her flushed face.

‘I know that. But when I looked out there were people on the platform. It looked like a busy little country siding. I thought there’d be somewhere where we could stay until the next train came through. It wasn’t until we got off and everyone had disappeared that I remembered trains only come through twice a week.’

‘You did that with a child?’ he said, and there was suddenly a flash of anger behind the gentleness. She bit her lip. Okay, he was angry and maybe she deserved that. She was angry with herself. But if he’d seen the way Brian had treated Karli—the way she’d cringed….

‘I had my reasons,’ she said, in a tight little voice in which weariness was starting to show. ‘Believe me. I was dumb but I had no choice.’ She hesitated. This wasn’t easy. To ask a complete stranger for such a favour… ‘But you have a plane,’ she said. ‘We saw it when we came round the side of the house. We…’ She hesitated because the blaze of anger was still there, but she had to ask. ‘Could…is it possible that you’d fly us out?’ Then, as the anger deepened she went on fast. ‘I’d pay you, of course.’ Somehow she’d pay. ‘I’m not asking favours.’ When had she ever asked a favour of anyone?

He gazed at her, his eyes expressionless. ‘You want me to drop everything and fly you out of here. To where?’

‘Adelaide?’

‘Adelaide?’ he demanded, incredulous.

‘Please.’ Her hold on Karli tightened. Dear heaven, she’d got them in such a mess. She’d believed Brian. Why on earth had she ever believed Brian?

She’d wanted to believe him. For Karli’s sake.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she confessed. ‘We can’t stay here.’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘You can’t.’

‘If not Adelaide…’ she shrugged ‘…just anywhere with a hotel and a telephone and some way of getting back to the outside world.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘The nearest place with those sort of facilities is Adelaide,’ he said flatly. ‘That’s several hours’ flight in my small plane. It’d take me a day to get you there and get back here, and I don’t have a day free. I’m sorry to be disobliging, but I’m on a deadline.’

‘A deadline?’ She stared around in incredulity. ‘What sort of deadline can you have in a place like this?’

Riley’s expression became absolutely still. ‘Careful,’ he said softly. ‘Not so much of the disdain, if you please. This is my farm we’re talking of.’

‘But…’ Jenna closed her eyes for a fraction of a moment, to give herself space. She’d never felt so foreign or alone or out of control in her life—and she’d been alone for ever.

‘I’m sorry,’ she managed, and she fought for the courage to open her eyes again and face him. ‘I guess… Look, I don’t understand Australian farms. This is the first one I’ve been on. For all I know—’ she searched desperately for a smile ‘—this could be luxury accommodation.’

‘It isn’t,’ he said flatly. ‘But I have a roof over my head and a refrigerator full of beer. What more could I want?’

Anything, she thought. Anything.

‘The other people at the siding,’ she asked. ‘I don’t suppose…if they’re on farms, would one of them be able to fly us out?’

‘Those other farms are half a day’s drive to get to,’ he told her. ‘My nearest neighbour is over a hundred miles north over rough, unmade tracks. They came to the siding to get supplies from the train and they probably won’t be back at the siding for another couple of weeks. Today was the main supply run.’

Dear God.

‘We’re stuck here,’ she whispered.

‘Unless I kick you out, yes.’

Karli looked up at Riley then, with what, for the child, was an almost superhuman amount of courage. ‘Will you make us go back and sit on the train platform by ourselves until the next train comes?’ she whispered.

Jenna opened her mouth, and then thought better of it. Shut up, she told herself. Just shut up. She couldn’t ask that question any better than Karli just had.

Riley was staring at them with exasperation. ‘Your mother’s a dope,’ Riley told the little girl.

It was the wrong thing to say. Jenna flinched, and within her arms she felt Karli flinch as well.

‘My mother’s dead,’ Karli whispered. ‘She died yesterday.’

CHAPTER TWO

THERE was no way of softening the awfulness.

Riley knew Karli was speaking the truth. Jenna watched his face, knowing that he’d heard the shock and the raw pain in Karli’s voice.

He’d heard the despair of abandonment.

‘I’m sorry,’ Riley said at last. He set his beer on the table—very carefully, as if it might break. He looked from Karli to Jenna and back again. ‘I assumed you two were mother and daughter.’ He compressed his mouth and focussed on Karli. ‘Who’s this lady, then?’

‘Jenna’s my big sister,’ Karli whispered. ‘Sort of.’

‘Sort of?’

‘We’re half-sisters,’ Jenna told him. ‘Nicole, our mother—we’re the product of two of her marriages.’

‘Two—?’

‘Look, this isn’t getting anything sorted,’ Jenna said, and she was starting to sound as desperate as she felt. Karli was wilting against her. The shock and horror of the last few hours were taking their toll and it was amazing the little girl was still upright. She pulled her up to sit on her lap. ‘So you can’t take us anywhere?’

He hesitated, but then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he told her and there was even regret in his voice. ‘I’m sorry, but my labour’s not for sale. I have blocked bores and my cattle are dying because they can’t get anything to drink. If I leave before the bores are operational then I’ll lose cattle by the hundred, and their deaths won’t be pretty. I’m not being disobliging for the sake of it. I have urgent priorities.’

She bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry.’ This was getting harder by the minute. He was a man in a hurry and the last thing he needed was to be saddled with a woman and a child. ‘I was really stupid to get off the train.’

‘You were.’

‘But it’s done now,’ she said with a flash of anger. She sounded like a wimp, she decided, and a wimp was the last way she’d have described herself. She’d been looking after herself since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. It was men who’d got her into this mess and this guy was of the same species.

‘Can you at least put us up here until the next train comes through?’ Then, at the look on his face, she went on in a hurry. ‘Please. We’ll be no trouble.’ She had to persuade him. What choice did she have?

What choice did he have?

‘I don’t have any choice,’ he muttered, echoing her own thoughts. Then he looked again at Karli and he relented. He even smiled again. ‘It’s a pretty funny place to stay and I bet it’s not what you’re used to, but you’re very welcome.’

He smiled across at Karli, and the child stared at him for a long moment and then tried to smile back.

‘You’re nice,’ she whispered. She nestled closer to Jenna. ‘He’s nicer than my daddy.’

‘Yeah, well, that’d be hard,’ Jenna said with some asperity, but she fondled the little girl’s curls and looked across at Riley.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘If there’s really no choice…’

‘You know, we could always contact the flying doctor and ask them to collect you,’ he said, suddenly helpful. ‘We could say you were psychiatrically unhinged.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘It might work. They have a psychiatric service.’

‘You’re being very helpful!’

‘Well, I think I am,’ he told her, but his eyes were still resting on Karli with concern. He was making light of it for Karli’s sake, she realised. ‘I’ve let you drink my water and sit at my kitchen table and if you decide to take up my very generous offer of accommodation I’ll even let you share my baked beans. Then I’ll offer you both a spare bed and keep you fed and watered until the next train comes through.’ He hesitated. ‘You realise just how much danger you put yourselves in? This man you were with. Brian. Will he realise and send a search party?’

‘No,’ Jenna said flatly. ‘He won’t.’

‘You don’t want to contact the police?’

That was a thought. But…contact the police and say what? That they’d been conned? She could get a message to her father, but she wasn’t at all sure that her father wasn’t in cahoots with Brian. There was no guarantee that he’d help.

They were two like pieces of low-life. Her father and Jenna’s father.

And their mother was dead.

‘We’re on our own,’ she said, with what she hoped was an attempt at cheerfulness. ‘Just Karli and me. But if you could put us up we’d be very, very appreciative.’

‘As opposed to very, very dead if I threw you out into the heat.’

‘Like your cattle,’ she agreed bluntly. ‘Yes. We’ll try not to be any trouble.’

‘I can’t afford you to be any trouble,’ he told her. He pushed back his chair and rose. The decision had been made and he obviously needed to move on. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he told her. ‘I’m hot and filthy and exhausted and I’m having difficulty making my head work. I need to dip myself under cold water before I play host.’

Once more he smiled down at Karli. His smile was warm and strong and caring—but it didn’t include Jenna.

‘We’ll discuss food and beds when I’m clean,’ he told her. ‘But I’m carrying too much dust to be sociable. Don’t go away. Or if you do, make sure you fill a few water bottles first. It’s a good four days’ walk to my nearest neighbour and as far as I know no one’s ever walked it. No one would be mad enough to try.’

And he walked out of the kitchen and left Jenna to her confusion.

The first thing she needed to concentrate on was Karli. The little girl’s eyes were closing and her body was slumping.

Jenna thought again of Brian and her anger rose to almost overwhelm her.

Damn him, damn him, damn him, she muttered to herself. Damn them. Because suddenly it was a group. Jenna’s father. Her father. Her mother. And Riley was there too. All rolled up into one ball of fury.

Which was illogical, she told herself. Riley wasn’t to blame. He was stuck.

He had a lovely, gleaming aeroplane that could transport her to a comfortable hotel somewhere near an airport and…

And his cattle would die. She had no doubt he was telling the truth. He looked exhausted. He looked like a man who was working far harder than a man should. The way he’d left to have a shower seemed almost an act of desperation. It spoke of a man past the limits of exhaustion, trying to clear his head and see things straight.

No. She couldn’t blame him.

And the rest?

Her mother was dead.

She thought of Nicole, and tried to dredge up a feeling of sadness, but all she felt was bitterness. Bitterness at how she herself had been treated, but, worse, bitterness at what had happened to Karli.

Nicole was dead. Of course. It wasn’t the least surprising. What was surprising was that, leading the life she had, their mother had survived so long.

It’s all about surviving, she told herself drearily. That was what she had to do now. Survive.

Karli’s eyes were now completely closed. Jenna rose, carrying her with her. At almost six years old, Karli should be too big to lift, but the child was seriously underweight. She carried her across to the cracked window and gazed out into the fading light. The land was disappearing into the dusk, but she could still make out the horizon—long and endlessly flat.

There was nothing here. Where were these cattle Riley talked about? Figments of his imagination? What on earth was the man doing, working a useless, barren piece of land?

Surely he can’t make a living off this place, she thought, but then she thought of his aeroplane and her confusion grew. The plane was obviously expensive. How could this farm generate enough income to provide such a thing?

‘Well, at least he’s not a drug baron growing cash crops of opium,’ she told the sleeping Karli. ‘There’s hardly a lush crop of poppies in this backyard. If he’s making money from this place he must have found a market for bottled dust.’

She turned back to the kitchen. It was littered with crates and cardboard boxes, with everything covered in dust. There was a small gas stove and a kerosene fridge and little else. Ugh.

What of the rest of the house? She hadn’t been invited to look—but she couldn’t keep holding Karli for ever. She had to find somewhere she could lay her down.

The kitchen door led to a sitting room—of sorts. It held a few chairs and an old settee. In the corner was an ancient gramophone. But one of the window-panes was smashed, and dust was everywhere.

What next? There were two rooms leading off the sitting room. Jenna pushed the doors wide and reacted again with horror. These must be the bedrooms. Iron bedsteads stood as islands in the dust, with lumpy mattresses on sagging springs. Both rooms had broken windows, and once again they were thick with dust.

Surely Riley didn’t sleep here? Neither room looked as if it had seen a human for years. She retreated in haste, Karli growing heavier by the minute.

Riley must sleep somewhere. Where was he now?

She returned to the sitting room and stared out. Beyond the filthy windows was a veranda, and a door opened out to it. This must be the formal front door.

Did anyone ever come here?

She shoved the door open and walked outside, wary of broken floorboards, but there was no need for caution. In the lee of the house, the veranda was out of the wind and thus protected from the all-pervading dust.

In the fading light, Jenna could see a big bed at each end of the veranda, one made up with sheets and what looked like comfortable pillows. This, then, must be where Riley slept.

Riley’s bed or not, it was the most inviting place in the house. She laid Karli down with care, and watched as the little girl snuggled contentedly into the pillows. Karli had no cares to stop her sleeping. Jenna would take care of her.

Would she? Could she?

What had she got them both into?

This was such a mess, she thought ruefully. How had it happened? Jenna had taken such care to be independent, but Karli had been catapulted into her life with a vengeance, and how could she walk away?

She ran a finger down Karli’s dust-stained face, aching with tenderness for a child she was starting to love in a way she’d never thought possible. Where to go from here? How could she cope with this situation? With Riley Jackson? With her future?

One step at a time, she thought. Just live in the moment, otherwise you’ll go mad.

She turned and stared at the other bed at the far end of the veranda. It had a mattress and a couple of pillows. It looked almost comfortable.

It was too close to Riley’s bed.

The alternative was the railway siding, she told herself, and grimaced. It wasn’t an alternative at all. But to share sleeping quarters with that man…

The door opened at the end of the veranda—and that man was right in front of her.

Naked.

He’d obviously just emerged from the shower. His hair was still dripping. His towel was draped over his shoulder—but it wasn’t covering what needed to be covered.

She was a nurse, she told herself desperately. She was used to naked men.

She wasn’t used to this one.

There was no mistaking the magnificence of Riley’s body. He was built like a Rodin sculpture, she decided as she bit back an exclamation of dismay and moved swiftly to block the line of sight between Riley and the sleeping child. Then, with her complexion fast changing colour, she made herself look at his face—which was a better place to focus on than where her eyes were automatically drawn.

Her colour deepened further. The man was laughing!

‘Whoops,’ he said as he slung his towel around his waist to make himself respectable. Almost respectable. ‘I’m not used to visitors. Um…welcome to my bedroom.’

Which made Jenna’s flushing face turn to beetroot. She was in his bedroom. What else did she expect?

‘I…I’m sorry,’ she muttered. She motioned back to Karli who was thankfully still soundly asleep. ‘I needed… She needed…’

He followed her gaze and his face softened with understanding. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. I should have thought of that before I showered.’

‘I’ll move her.’

‘There’s no need.’ He snagged his clothes from the bedside chair, then caught his towel as it started to slip. ‘I’ll dress in the wash house. Meet you in the kitchen in five minutes.’

He disappeared and she had a fleeting thought that suddenly he was as discomposed as she was.

Was that possible?

Five minutes later when they met again back in the kitchen, her colour still hadn’t subsided. The gathering dusk helped, but then Riley produced a kerosene lantern and turned the little kitchen’s darkness to light. Her colour rose all over again.

He was respectable now, but only just. He was wearing faded jeans and nothing else. When he’d been covered in grimed clothes and dust, Jenna had thought the man was seriously good-looking, but now he was naked from the waist up, his broad chest was tanned and rippled, and his strongly boned face was rid of its dusty coating. The whole package meant Jenna had to fight not to gasp.

That and the memory of what she’d just seen…

She wasn’t interested in men, she told herself desperately. She’d never been interested in men. She’d seen what so-called romance did to women’s lives and she wanted no part of it. She’d been independent for ever and she intended to stay that way.

But the sight of Riley…

You can appreciate a good body without wanting it, she told herself fiercely, but still her face burned. She was way out of her comfort zone here. She was half a world out of her comfort zone.

Where was a magic carpet when she needed one?

‘I’m sorry we went into your bedroom,’ she managed and he smiled, a gentle, quizzical smile that was strangely at odds with the image she had of him as a man’s man. A threatening specimen of the male species. His smile was almost tender.

‘You hadn’t thought I might come out starkers.’ He took in her burning colour and grinned. ‘My apologies. I’m not used to women in my house. I’ll see that I stay respectable in the future.’