Outback Angel

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” she pronounced philosophically. “I insist now we hold to our agreement. From all accounts you need me.”

“What do you mean?” For a moment hostility held sway. Had she heard some unkind comments about Stacy’s lack of organisational skills?

“No need to bite my head off. I’m only saying, there’s very little time to find my replacement even if I’d allow it. And I do have your initial cheque. Banked,” she stressed.

“Is there any possibility you might accept it as compensation?” His expression hardened while he waited for her answer.

“None whatever. I’ve come, Mr. McCord, and I’m going to stay,” she announced, exuding determination. “What’s more, you’ll find no fault with me. I intend to work as hard as I know how.”

“Better yet you might think of a uniform.” He glanced meaningfully at her well-endowed body, fighting down those unwelcome flares of excitement. “Keep it simple. Nothing revealing.”

“You’re very timid around women, aren’t you?” She glanced at him sidelong. The man had sex appeal coming out of his ears. “Possibly you’ve had a bad experience?”

“One, but it was a long time ago. A femme fatale like you,” he countered suavely, not allowing her to take a rise out of him. “You must understand your staying depends on true-blue behaviour, Miss De Campo.”

“Angelica, please,” she begged. “Angelica. Angie. I get both. But I’m not sure I know what true-blue behaviour is.” She widened her beautiful eyes.

“It’s not playing around,” he explained. “Excuse the expression.” To his consternation he found he was unable to look away from her luscious mouth.

Surprise flickered into her eyes. “You know you’ve got it all wrong.” She gazed back with considerable appeal. “Huntley grabbed me,” she told him simply. “I was such an idiot to go with him.”

“Were you attracted to him?” It seemed both monstrous and bizarre.

“Lord, no!” She shuddered, making the clingy little top climb higher around her golden midriff. “Men like that I don’t give the time of day.”

“Really?” He’d heard something like this before. “Forgive me if I have to wonder why you were allowing him to maul you?”

“He was, wasn’t he?” she agreed dismally. “All that grappling. I still remember the tumble on the couch. It wasn’t my fault, I swear. But the way you were looking at me made me feel quite worthless. Odd to be innocent but found guilty.” She pushed back tight little damp curls, marvelling at the heat. “He found an excuse to get me into the study. I was working with a colleague that night doing the catering.”

“Did he send you a little note?”

“He spoke to me. He was the host. He was a big burly man who’d been tossing drinks down.”

“I wouldn’t call you little.” Extravagantly beautiful, maybe.

“Mr. McCord, I’ve been insulted about my height all my life,” she groaned.

“I don’t believe that at all.” She had to be fishing for compliments.

“Everyone called me Shorty at school. I know they were only joking but it hurt at the time.”

“I suppose being so beautiful you needed the odd remark.” The heat of the day wasn’t bothering him, he was used to it, but he indicated they should move further under the shade of the trees. God help him if he actually touched her. She was dynamite. “Miss McCord, I don’t feel in the least sorry for you,” he told her briskly. “You’re gorgeous. Have no doubts. One reason why I’m extremely anxious about taking you out to Coori.”

“So when do we get started?” she asked with a surge of hope, absent-mindedly crumbling a dry eucalyptus leaf between her fingers, so she could enjoy the sharp nostalgic scent.

“The plane is over there.” He pointed back through the trees to the light aircraft strip. It just so happened his was the only one there.

“My goodness! Unreal!” She gave a little gasp of admiration. “Your own private jet.”

“It’s not a jet, as you very well know. It’s a Beech Baron.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said, absolutely fascinated.

“Thank you.” A shower of dry gum leaves suddenly fell from the trees, but he resisted the powerful impulse to brush them from her hair.

She shook her head, dislodging the burnished leaves herself. “Pardon my asking, but you don’t have a lady friend to pull this off?”

“What off?” he retaliated sharply.

“Why, your functions, of course,” she answered mildly. “I understand your stepmother and your sister, Gillian, are a little nervous about handling something so big?”

“Nice of Isobel to tell you.” So they’d discussed it. Why not?

“She had to tell me,” she answered with mild reasonableness, obviously a sunny-natured woman. “Not every woman wants to plunge into lots of catering activities. Fortunately for you, it so happens I love it.”

“So I can point the finger at Isobel for telling you about my so-called lady friend?” He unleashed a certain toughness.

“Don’t get cross,” she coaxed. “You probably have no idea how ferocious you can look.”

That rocked him. “I’ve hardly said a word.” He imagined a situation where he could simply pick her up and carry her off, caveman-style.

“You obviously don’t mind getting personal?” She came a step further, strangely appealing in her tallness.

“I fail to see what’s personal about that.”

“Talking about the length of my skirt was. Your lady friend is a fellow rancher, I understand?”

He marvelled at her cheek, giving her a cool stare. “You’re not getting paid to ask questions like that, Miss De Campo. As it happens, I’m a committed bachelor.”

She didn’t know if he was telling the truth or having her on. Not the time, really, to tell him he could very well be the man of her dreams. That would come later. Now she settled for, “You don’t look like one.” Indeed he looked like the hero of some big-budget adventure movie. The sort who kept a woman’s eyes glued to the screen.

He didn’t appear to be taking her seriously. In fact he moved off abruptly in the direction of his lovely plane, causing her to utilise some of what she thought of as her beanstalk height to catch up.

Equally abruptly, he turned back, smiling so tigerishly, he surprised her into slamming into him. Multiple little shocks like a charge of electricity rippled through her; a little sound suspiciously like excitement escaped her. The big cat’s eyes swished over her.

“And you know them all?”

Angelica felt his condemnation like an actual burden. She didn’t care how long it took, she’d convince him there’d been absolutely nothing between herself and Trevor Huntley, no matter what his eyes had deceived him into thinking. Things weren’t always what they seemed yet he’d already brought in a verdict. It was awful to be accused of a crime like indecent exposure when one was perfectly innocent.

“So what about my luggage?” she prompted, although she’d just remembered it herself. Some measure of proof her customary aplomb had collapsed. “Surely you don’t intend taking off without it?”

He laughed, a sexual sardonic sound. Something he was good at. “If all your clothes are as brief as what you’re wearing,” he observed, “I’m surprised you’re not carrying it over your shoulder.”

Good-natured as she was, she couldn’t contain a flicker of temper. “Obviously you don’t realise what’s going on in women’s fashions. I expect it comes with the landscape. You’re a very long way from the big city.”

“Which doesn’t mean I don’t get there part of the time to catch up.” He hesitated a moment, his gleaming gaze speculative. “Any chance you’ve packed a few things a couple of inches longer?”

She responded sweetly though sparks were crackling between them. “To bring all this off successfully, and I so want to, Mr. McCord, perhaps I could arrange a showing of my wardrobe for you. You could tell me what you like and what you don’t. The kind of thing a nice girl wears. We could talk about it.”

His amber eyes sparkled with half malice, half amusement. “Which calls for time I don’t have. You are the same woman I spoke to on the phone?”

“You have doubts?” She seemed to be gravitating towards him, drawn by his powerful magnetism.

“It is a concern,” he mocked. “You don’t seem like my initial choice.”

“I’m me, I can vouch for it.”

The handsomely defined mouth compressed. “In that case, you’d better come along. Your luggage, unless it’s been stolen, should be beside the plane by now. I know the guy who drives the van.”

“Let’s hope he’s not a cross-dresser,” she joked.

“I beg your pardon.” He paused to look down at her, eyes narrowed.

“I said—”

“I know what you said.” Despite himself he had to laugh. Whatever else the ravishingly wanton Miss De Campo might prove to be—and he just knew she was going to be an extravagant handful—she wouldn’t be dull. That’s what he had liked about her in the first place.

CHAPTER THREE

FROM the air, Coori homestead, surrounded by its satellite buildings, resembled a settlement constructed on the site of an oasis. The vast areas around it, thousands upon thousands of square miles, in comparison, was practically the far side of planet Mercury. The burning, mirage-stalked earth was coloured a brilliant red, scattered densely with golden bushes like great mounds. Angelica guessed before McCord told her it was spinifex. Spinifex and sand. Out here the two went together.

“The cattle will eat it if nothing else is available,” he told her casually, secretly pleased she’d been such a good passenger. She was fearless—they’d hit a few thermals—she showed great interest in her latest adventure, and she asked intelligent questions. “But spinifex has little food value for the stock. The seeds on the other hand we use to fatten horses to prime condition.”

“From here it looks rather like wheat,” she observed, fascinated by the spectacle, the sheer size and emptiness of a giant primitive landscape that was crisscrossed by maze after maze of water channels—swamps, lagoons, billabongs, desert streams—that appeared to be running near dry.

He nodded. “Especially at this time of year. The interior of the bushes, strangely enough, is quite cool. For that reason the lizards make their home there, but the wax content is so high the bushes can burn fiercely. When they do, they send up great clouds of black smoke for days.”

“It doesn’t look like you’ve had any rain,” she said quietly, thinking drought must be really terrible to the man on the land.

His laugh was ironic. “Not for a year. Not a drop during winter-spring. Not a single shower, but we’ve seen great displays of storm-clouds like a Wagnerian set that got wheeled away. We’re hoping the Wet season up north will be a good one. But not too good. We can do without the floods. Just enough to flush out every water channel. When the eastern river system comes down in flood, the waterbirds fly in in their millions. The Channel Country is a major breeding ground for nomadic waterbirds. Great colonies of Ibis nest in our lignum swamps. They do us a big favour by feasting on the destructive flocks of grasshoppers that strip the grass and herbage for the stock. Then there are all sorts of ducks in their countless thousands—herons, shags, spoonbills, waterhens, egrets.”

“So where do they come from?” she asked, turning to admire his handsome profile. He was a marvellous-looking man.

“Good question. No one seems to know. It’s one of those great mysteries of the Outback. One day there’s not a sign of them, but then a sudden storm, the billabongs fill and they’re there literally overnight. Most other birds take days to arrive, when they sense water. Pelicans—I love the pelicans. I used to try to find their nests as a boy—turn up in favoured years to breed in our more remote swamps. Those are just the waterbirds. What will dazzle you here is the great flights of budgerigar, a phenomenon of the Outback, like the crimson chats and the finches. The hawks and the falcons prey on them. The largest bird is the wedge-tailed eagle. You’ll identity it easily in flight from the wingspan. At least seven foot. The wingtips curve up. Wedge-tails can take a fair-size kangaroo.”

“Goodness.” She tried to visualise it. “Swooping on a medium-size kangaroo must take some doing?”

“They don’t have a problem. There are plenty of predators around.” He shrugged. “The huge flocks of white birds you’ll see are the corellas. They cover the coolabahs so densely you can scarcely see a leaf. Or a branch. And the noise when they take off is deafening. All our beautiful parrots prefer the scrub. Not that you’ll have much time for sight-seeing, Miss De Campo. You’re here to work.”

“I’ll get up very early,” she murmured. “What a truly extraordinary place you live in.” It had to have moulded him, made him special. “You must feel like a desert chieftain?”

He glanced at her with those amazing exotic eyes. Everything about him said, “Don’t go trying to fascinate me.” What a challenge! He confirmed it by saying, “Don’t go getting any romantic notions. I’m a hardworking cattleman. I haven’t the energy to ravish females.”

“I guess desert chieftains don’t have to be mad rapists,” she joked.

“Have you been raped?” he asked very seriously indeed, giving her a direct stare. Huntley, brute that he was, was probably capable of it. That, he couldn’t bear.

“No such terrible thing has happened to me, the Lord be praised.” She shuddered. “No woman knows for certain if she’s going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s woman’s universal fear. I have a guardian angel I pray to to look after me. A father who adores me. A brother who thinks a lot of me. He’s built like a commando and he has a black belt.”

“Whereas all you’ve got is a cupboard full of basketball trophies.”

“I’m sorry I told you that,” she said.

“You also told me you were frequently asked, ‘How’s the weather up there?’”

“My favourite was how did I cope with altitude sickness. People are cruel. The plainer they are, the crueller they get.”

“Whereas you’re a most beautiful woman.”

“Am I?” she asked with a small degree of surprise. She’d had plenty of compliments in her time but she hadn’t been expecting too many from him. Not after that flinty-eyed reception.

“Miss De Campo, I have no intention of going soft on you,” he assured her, as though he found her mind easy to read. “I hope you believe it, though I’m sure your successes have been legion. I’ll be watching your every move. You may have won the battle but not the war.”

“Why should there be war between us? A war would get us nowhere. I’m looking for your co-operation.”

“And you’ll get it providing you don’t take it into your head to send the senses of the male population reeling.”

“As though I’d be capable of such a thing,” she answered breezily. “Are we coming in to land?”

“We are,” he confirmed crisply, thinking he was coming off second best with this woman. “So you can tighten your seat belt.”

“Aye, aye, Captain!” She laughed as excitement set in. “Or is it ‘Roger?’ I have to catch up on the terminology. Anyway, I can’t wait.” She looked down, trying to gather in her kaleidoscope of thoughts and impressions. “Obviously it’s all paid off, being a desert chieftain,” she enthused. “The homestead looks huge!” And the setting was fantastic! “Who would ever have thought of building a mansion in the middle of the Never-Never?”

“We are a way out of town,” he agreed dryly. “Do you think you can possibly sit quietly?”

“Just watch me.” She gave him a cheerful smile, proceeding to sit as solidly as an Easter Island statue. Honey caught more flies than vinegar. Hadn’t her mother told her?

They were greeted by a station hand the moment they arrived. When the young man was introduced to Angelica he muttered a, “Pleased to meet you,” without lifting his head. Indeed he seemed dead-set on digging the toe of his riding boot into the baked earth.

“Shy,” Angelica commented kindly when she and McCord had disposed themselves in the waiting Jeep.

“Why not?” McCord gave her a sidelong glance. “Noah was brought up in the bush. He’s never seen a woman like you in his life.”

“Aw shucks!” she pretended to simper. “You’ll be telling me you had me pegged for a high-class callgirl in two ticks.”

“You have to admit we started badly.”

“You being so judgmental. The fact of the matter is you owe me an apology.” She lifted her chin as she spoke. It had a shallow dimple he really loved. Not that he was about to tell her that.

“I’ll apologise if I have to when I know the true story,” he assured her. “Huntley had several girlfriends and a mistress at the time. Carly knew for a fact at least one was a very glamorous brunette. That doesn’t exactly clear you.”

“It doesn’t condemn me, either,” she said tartly. “I don’t want to insult you but you sound a real prude.”

“Your opinion, Miss De Campo, doesn’t concern me at all. I know what I saw in that study. People were milling about. You could have screamed. You could have appealed to me for help. Had you needed it. I would have enjoyed knocking dear Trevor flat.”

“I regret to say I was too ashamed and mortified,” Angelica confessed, appalled to hear her excuse sound so weak. “Seconds elapsed from the moment he got me into that study to when he all but threw me on the sofa.”

He made no attempt to hide a snort of derision. “You’re not exactly a featherweight. Come to think of it, my recollection of you is a lot of woman.”

“A lot?” she burst out wrathfully. “Don’t be ridiculous. I was a comfortable size twelve.”

“Are you sure?” He did his best to look sceptical. “Not that I know much about women’s dress sizes, but being in the cattle business I’m a good judge of weight. I’d say you were a good stone heavier then.”

“Well, perhaps,” she conceded, pulling a face. How did he know so much when he’d only see her for such a short time? “These days I go to the gym. And I watch my diet. I’ve actually worked out quite a care program. Especially now I’m on the TV. I know I’m a big girl.”

“Big is beautiful,” he returned, a sardonic gleam in his amber gold-speckled eyes. “There’s hardly a thing to choose between you and a supermodel.”

When they stepped into the splendid entrance hall of Coori homestead a cute young woman around five-two, with fair hair and sky-blue eyes, dressed in cotton jeans and a T-shirt, rushed down the central staircase to greet them. “Oh, you’re here! That’s lovely!” she cried enthusiastically, directly addressing Angelica and waggling her fingers at her half brother as though he’d pulled off a great coup. “Isobel didn’t exaggerate. You’re beautiful!”

It sure beat her half brother’s reception, Angelica thought, immediately warming to Gillian. This girl fitted Isobel’s description. Gillian was just possibly half a foot, maybe more, shorter, but what the heck! Angelica was comforted by such a welcome. “How nice of you to say so.” She held out her hand, returning the beaming smile.

McCord’s young half sister was a mixture of shyness and appealing vulnerability. She bore no resemblance whatsoever to her half brother. “You’re Gillian, of course.”

“Gilly, please.” Gillian took the hand extended to her, staring up at Angelica with the kind of heroine worship one usually saw reserved for school captain. “Mum will be here in a moment,” she explained. “This is the second time she’s changed her dress. Isobel told us you’ve got great style.”

“You should have seen some of my fashion disasters,” Angelica confided, refusing to look in McCord’s direction, in case he was still critically examining her denim mini.

“I’m sure you’d look wonderful in anything,” Gillian said so sincerely Angelica wanted to hug her.

“Listen, why don’t we let Miss De Campo settle in,” McCord suggested, his tone an unexpected combination of gentleness and wry impatience.

Gillian blushed. “Sorry, Jake.”

“No worries, Gilly.” He lightly touched her shoulder. “Has anything happened while I’ve been gone? Any messages?”

“Oh.” Gilly made an apologetic little sound. “I nearly forgot. The vet can make it this afternoon, after all. He’ll be here around three-thirty. He’s cadged a ride with Brodie. Brodie brings the mail and supplies,” she explained to Angelica in an aside.

“A bit of good news. Anything else?” McCord prompted patiently. Angelica got the feeling he did that often.

“Dinah rang.” Gillian started to gnaw at one of her fingernails. “She’s flying over Friday afternoon. She thought she might stay the weekend. Invited herself really.” She slumped as though the high-handed Dinah was already there. “She says she can’t wait to meet Angelica.”

“And Dinah is?” Angelica neatly questioned, more than halfway to knowing she was one of McCord’s girlfriends. No revelation a man like that would have a huge following and she couldn’t now overlook herself.

“Friend of the family,” he clipped off, obviously not wanting to be pushed into any discussion. “Now I’ve a few things to do before I show you around, Angelica.” He gave her a smile of such lazy sensuality Angelica almost swooned. “Meanwhile, Gilly can help you settle in. Your luggage will be at your door. The day will be over before I get out there but I’m leaving you in good hands.”

“Thanks, Jake!” Gillian smiled happily.

“See you in about an hour.” He gave Angelica another one of those looks that sizzled.

She had a mad desire to call after him, “Have fun now,” but wisely thought better of it. McCord was obviously a man to be reckoned with. He probably spent all his days giving orders and being obeyed. It was too bad about this Dinah. Then again, she reminded herself, he wasn’t engaged. Not surprising when he had described himself as a committed bachelor, but she had the feeling that was a big hint for her. Not exactly a propitious beginning for both of them, but she refused to allow it to dampen her buoyant spirits. She had only set foot on Coori and already she was in love with its wild beauty, its history and romance. All right! The master of Coori wasn’t too bad, either.

The mistress of that great station—one of the shyest people Angel had met, even more startling considering the power and influence of the family—gazed at Angelica a minute or two, then gave her an unreserved welcome that was as warm and informal as that of her daughter’s.

“Oh, I’m so glad it’s you,” she confided sometime later, as they relaxed over iced tea. “Isobel is a dear woman—she’s been very kind to me—but she’s so confident in every way she makes me feel a desperate failure. You and I are going to get on well.”

That shook Angelica a little. She took the frosted mint-scented glass from her mouth. “You think I’m going to make lots of mistakes?”

“Oh, no, dear, I’m sure you won’t.” Stacy was astonished at Angelica’s quite logical interpretation. “You have that unmistakable touch of class, and laughter in your eyes. An ease of manner I find very soothing. I know you won’t make me feel nervous. Beautiful women have made me nervous all my life.”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed I’m oversize.” Angelica smiled.

“That’s the surprising thing,” Stacy said artlessly. “It looks just right on you. I, on the other hand, have always struggled to attain any sort of stature.” She looked vaguely around the lovely sitting room furnished with a mixture of contemporary and antique pieces. “I was never right as mistress of Coori station, for instance. I’m sure you’ve already heard that from Isobel. Why Clive picked on humble little me remains a puzzle in the McCord family. He should have kept looking. Jake is very tolerant of my lack of organisational skills. He’s been my champion since he was a little boy. Not that it did him any good. Clive couldn’t tolerate the way Jake stood up to him. I think he found it threatening, even allowing for the hard man that he was. Jake can be tough when he has to be, but he has heart. My late husband was a heartless perfectionist.”

Angelica had heard that, as well, but still felt shocked. “That must have been hard to live up to?”