In Her Husband's Image

Before she turned to face him, his gaze drank in the sexy curve of her hips, her suntanned slenderness, the single golden braid snaking down her back. He wanted to tear it free and feel the silky strands slide through his fingers.

He curbed the urge and damped down other more-basic urges that had plagued him since his arrival. “Coffee smells good. Mind if I join you?”

She swung round, her lips parting. No lipstick, he noted, but her mouth was pink and lush enough without it. No makeup of any kind, nothing to hide the faint shadows under her blue eyes, as if she hadn’t slept well or long enough. Had she been lying awake worrying about the problems she faced at Yarrah Downs?

Or had she been thinking about him, and cursing his return, because it brought back the humiliation of five years ago?

He wondered what else it brought back, if anything. That was what he had to find out.

But right now wasn’t the time. “Another hot day coming up.” He glanced out the window. “Still no sign of rain, unfortunately.”

“No.” She seemed distracted. “Here.” She handed him a cup of coffee and poured another for herself, turning her back on him to do it. “I wasn’t expecting you up this early. We normally have breakfast later, after I’ve done a few chores and everyone’s gone off for the day. But a coffee first up is a must. Can I get you something to eat before I go out? Or will you get it yourself?”

She was talking too quickly, sounding breathless. He affected her all right. But he still wasn’t sure if it was in the way he hoped.

“Just the coffee, thanks. I want to leave for Brisbane early, so I can be back in time to put that drainage system in—assuming the stuff I ordered gets delivered today, as promised. Mind if I take your pickup to Bushy Hill this afternoon? Your ute, I should say. Guess I’ve been away from Australia too long.”

Her eyes flickered for the briefest second. “No problem. I’ll get Danny to help you,” she added, as if to reassert her authority. “They should have the cattle rounded up by then.” She took a sip of her coffee, then dashed some milk into it—maybe to cool it down so she could drink it more quickly and rush off, away from him.

“I’m going to Roma to do some shopping, dropping Mikey off at a friend’s place on the way,” she said. “My friend Amy’s married to a doctor in Roma and has a son Mikey’s age.”

“You go all the way down to Roma for your supplies? You don’t use the general store at Booroora? It’s much closer.”

“I want to buy some things you can’t find at Booroora.” She didn’t look at him, rushing on as if afraid he was going to quiz her further. “Amy’s invited me to lunch afterward, so I might not be home when you get back from Brisbane. I’ll leave some lunch for you.”

“Thanks.” He gave her a smile—a bland smile, carefully devoid of any roguishness—wondering why she was so much on edge. Was it him? Because he was outstaying his welcome? Because she felt things for him she didn’t want to feel?

“Danny and I might be late back tonight,” he said, taking a long sip of his coffee, “so you go ahead and have dinner. I’ll grab something when I get back if I need it. I’m used to fending for myself.”

“I know.” She gulped down the rest of her coffee and made a beeline for the door, as if she couldn’t get away from him fast enough. “I must catch Vince and Danny before they go. See you when I see you, Zac.”

“See you, Rachel. Uh, Mikey’s still in bed, is he?”

She paused at the door. “Mikey? No, he’s always up early. I said he could run on ahead with Buster and watch Vince and the others saddling up the horses. Sorry, I must fly. They’ll be ready to go.”

Zac plunked down his coffee mug. “I’ll come, too, and say g’day before I fly out.” But she was gone.

He followed regardless.

Rachel heard Zac behind her but didn’t wait for him to catch up. She didn’t want to be alone with him. She’d had a really rotten night and simply didn’t feel up to it.

She’d come to no real solution during the night, despite hours of tossing, agonizing about what to do. In the end, in sheer exhaustion, she’d given up, deciding to play it by ear and just see what happened. Zac might not want to know, even if he had suspicions about Mikey. He might even assume she didn’t know the truth herself, since as far as he knew, both he and his brother had made love to her at around the same time.

Made love? She almost tripped over her own feet, her lip curling in hot-cheeked rejection. There’d been no love involved in that frenzied, impassioned tumble on the veranda.

And yet…and yet…

She almost groaned aloud, remembering how she’d cried out her love for the man she’d thought was her husband in the final cataclysmic moment of release, and how she’d felt more real soul-wrenching love in those mind-shattering few seconds than she’d ever felt before—or, to her endless shame, since.

I love you. I love you with all my heart, she remembered crying out, and in the months and years since, whenever she’d made love to her husband, it had always been the memory of Zac and that one unforgettable night that had fired her responses and haunted her dreams, possibly because her husband’s clumsy, rushed lovemaking—always in the dark and always in bed, never on a moonlit veranda floor—had become less frequent as time went on, leaving her frustrated and dissatisfied.

But she had disappointed Adrian, too, by not having another child. Unless he’d known in his heart that the problem was his and had let it eat into him, making him feel worthless and impotent.

“Uncle Zac!”

Her son’s screech of joy brought her back to earth with a sickening thud. When had Mikey ever greeted Adrian like that? As the boy hurled himself at Zac, she could only watch in despair. It was as if Mikey loved Zac already, as she had loved him, too, on that one memorable occasion, when her heart and soul had soared to heights never reached before or since.

Was this to be her punishment? Knowing that the love she’d felt for Zac that night, before she’d realized her shameful mistake, could never come to anything, because it had never really existed?

Late that afternoon, as she swung her Land Cruiser into the dusty road winding back to the homestead through the parched paddocks of Yarrah Downs, she saw that Zac’s plane was back. There was no sign of her old utility truck—her ute, as he’d remembered to call it—when she reached the yard, so he and Danny must be still up at Bushy Hill.

Buster bowled up to greet them as she brought the big four-wheel-drive to a halt behind the house. She gave Mikey a bag of provisions to carry in and picked up some shiny black plastic bags herself. She’d bought Mikey’s birthday presents in Roma while he was out of the way with his young playmate Josh, and she wanted to sneak them into the house without him seeing what she’d bought.

Through necessity they were modest gifts—a dinosaur picture book, a new shirt and knee-length shorts, a toy racing car in his favorite red and a bright yellow water pistol, which had seemed less blood-thirsty than a toy gun.

She’d also secretly made Mikey a monster mask out of papier-mâché, painting it in vivid colors at night while he was asleep. Monsters and dinosaurs were his latest craze.

She wondered if she would ever be able to afford to give her son a playground slide or a fancy two-wheeler bike or anything more ambitious. His grandfather had given him a shiny new tricycle for his last birthday, but Mikey had just about outgrown it.

At the thought of her father her mouth drooped. In two days’ time he would be flying up here for Mikey’s birthday and no doubt would give his grandson another lavish gift to show up her own failings in that area.

He’d be sure to point out that both she and Mikey could have whatever their hearts desired if only they’d come back to Sydney. And he’d probably say it in front of Zac, who’d no doubt support her father and urge her to sell in favor of an easier, more comfortable life back in the city.

She’d have no one on her side but Mikey, who loved it here and relished the open, free-and-easy outback life, despite the heat and the dust and the flies. But Mikey, as her father would remind her, had never known life in the city. There were plenty of attractions there that her son was missing out on—movie theatres, science museums, sporting arenas, playgrounds, zoos—attractions that a young boy, he’d argue, ought to be exposed to.

He’d often begged her to let Mikey go and stay with him in Sydney, or for her to come, too, for a short break, but so far she’d resisted, using the excuse that her son was too young and that she was too busy. Her father was a powerful man, and she was half-afraid that once he had them back in town, he would find some way to keep them there.

Since Adrian’s death, her father had been more single-minded than ever about her coming back home and reclaiming her heritage—Barrington’s—and helping him run it, as he’d trained her to do. Having lost her mother last year—the one person who had seemed to understand her need for independence and a different kind of life—her father now had no one to curb his burning ambition for his only daughter and grandson.

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