Barbara Hannay

The Bridesmaid’s Best Man

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

AS DUSK settled over the mustering camp, Mark Winchester stepped away from the circle of stockmen crouched around the open fire. He turned his back on them and stood very straight and still, staring across the plains of pale Mitchell grass to the distant red hills.

The men shrugged laconically and let him be. After all, Mark was the boss, the owner of Coolabah Waters, and everyone knew he was a man who kept his troubles to himself.

But as Mark shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans he was grateful the men couldn’t guess that his thoughts were centred on a woman. He couldn’t quite believe it himself. It didn’t seem possible that he was out here, in the middle of the first big muster on this newly acquired cattle property, and still haunted by memories of a girl he’d met in London six weeks ago.

The focus of his life was here—caring for his stock and his land, building an Outback empire. Until now, women had only ever been a pleasant diversion at parties or race meetings, or during occasional trips to the city. But, no matter how hard he’d tried to forget Sophie Felsham, she had stayed in Mark’s head for six long weeks.

Even now, at the end of a hard day’s muster, he was staring at the fading sky, at the copper-tinted plains and burnt-ochre hills, but he was seeing Sophie as he’d seen her first in London. He could see her coming down the aisle in a floaty, pale pink bridesmaid’s gown, her arms full of pink flowers, her grey eyes sparkling and her lips curved in an impossibly pretty smile. Her skin clear and pale as the moon. So soft.

The crazy thing was, they’d only spent one night together. When they’d parted, they’d agreed that was the end of it. And to Mark’s eternal surprise he’d managed to sound as casual about that as Sophie had—as if one night of amazing passion with a beautiful stranger was nothing out of the ordinary.

The next day he’d flown back to Australia. There’d been no fond farewells, no promises to keep in touch. They’d both agreed there wasn’t much sense.

Which was exactly how it should have been. It made no sense at all that he’d been tormented and restless ever since.

‘Hey, boss!’

Mark swung around, jerked into the present by the excited cry of a young jackaroo, a newly apprenticed stockman.

‘There’s a long-distance phone call for you,’ the boy shouted, waving the satellite phone above his head. ‘It’s a woman! And she’s got an English accent!’

A jolt streaked through Mark like a bullet from an unseen sniper. A stir rippled through the entire camp. The quiet chatter of the men around the fire stopped, and the ringer mending his saddle paused, his long iron needle suspended above the leather. Everyone’s amused and curious glances swung to Mark.

He knew exactly what the men were thinking: why would an English woman be ringing the boss way out here?

He was asking himself the same question.

And he was struggling to breathe. He only had to hear the words ‘English’ and ‘woman’ in the same sentence and an avalanche of adrenaline flooded his body.

But this phone call couldn’t possibly be from Sophie. The only person in England who knew the number of his sat phone was his mate Tim—and Tim knew that only very urgent calls should be made to this remote outpost.

If a woman with an English accent needed to contact him very urgently, she had to be Tim’s new bride, Emma. Mark had flown to England to be best man at their wedding, and only last week he’d received an email from the happy couple reporting that they were home from their honeymoon and settling into wedded bliss with great enthusiasm. So what had gone wrong?

Keeping his face impassive, Mark hoped the men couldn’t sense the alarm snaking through him as he watched the grinning jackaroo run from the horse truck, waving the phone high like an Olympic torch.

He knew that Emma would only ring him out here if something serious had happened, and his stomach pitched as he was handed the phone.

The boy’s eyebrows waggled cheekily, and he muttered out of the side of his mouth, ‘She’s got a very pretty voice. A bit posh, though.’

A cold glance silenced him and Mark swept an equally stern glare over the knowing smirks on the faces around the fire. Then he turned his back on them again, looked out instead over the holding pens of crowded and dusty cattle, still restless after the day’s muster.

An unearthly quiet settled over the camp. The only sounds were the lowing and snorting of the cattle, and the distant trumpets of the brolga cranes dancing out on the plain.

Holding the phone to his ear, Mark heard the line crackle. He swallowed, tasted the acid that always came with the anticipation of bad news, and squared his shoulders. ‘Hello? Mark Winchester speaking.’

‘Hello?’

The woman on the other end sounded nervous. And the line was bad. Was the blasted battery low?

‘Is that Mark Winchester?’

‘Yes, it’s Mark here.’ He fixed his gaze on the red backs of the cattle and lifted his voice. ‘Is that you, Emma?’

‘No, it’s not Emma.’

He frowned.

‘It’s Sophie, Mark. Sophie Felsham.’

Mark almost dropped the phone.

He swallowed again, which did little to help the sudden tightness in his throat, the flare of excitement leaping in the centre of his chest.

‘I don’t suppose you expected to hear from me,’ she said, still sounding very nervous.

He threw a wary glance over his shoulder, and the men around the campfire quickly averted their eyes, but he knew damned well that their pesky ears were straining to catch every word. Gossip was scarce on an Outback mustering camp.

Fighting an urge to leap on a horse and take off for the distant hills, he strolled away from the camp. Small stones crunched beneath his riding boots, but the crackling on the line eased. He cleared his throat. Cautiously, he said, ‘This is a nice surprise, Sophie.’ And then, because she’d sounded so nervous, ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Not exactly.’

A vice-like clamp tightened around Mark’s chest as he kept walking. ‘Nothing’s happened to Emma and Tim? They’re all right, aren’t they?’

‘Oh, yes, they’re fine. Fabulous, actually. But I’m afraid I have some rather bad news, Mark. At least, I don’t think you’ll like it.’

A fresh burst of alarm stirred his insides. How could Sophie’s bad news involve him?

On the far horizon, the sun was melting behind the hills in a pool of tangerine. He pictured Sophie on the other side of the world, her pretty heart-shaped face framed by a glossy tangle of black curls, her clear, grey eyes uncharacteristically troubled, her determined little chin beginning to tremble as her slim, pale fingers tightly gripped the telephone receiver.

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I’m going to have a baby.’

He came to an abrupt halt. Went cold all over.

This wasn’t real.

‘Mark, I’m so sorry.’ There were tears in her voice.

He dragged in a desperate breath, tried to stem the rising cloud of dismay. He couldn’t think what to say.

Behind him the cook yelled, ‘Dinner’s up!’ The ringers began to move about. Chatter resumed. Boots shuffled, and cutlery clinked against enamel plates. Someone laughed a deep belly chuckle.

Around Mark, the red and gold plains of the Outback stretched all the way to the semicircle of the blazing sun fast slipping out of sight. A rogue breeze stirred the grass and rattled the tin roof on the cook’s shelter. A flock of white cockatoos flapped heavy wings as they headed for home.

The rest of the world continued on its merry way, while a girl in England began to cry, and Mark felt as if he’d stepped into an alternate reality.

‘I—I don’t understand,’ he said, and then, hurrying further from the camp, he lowered his voice. ‘We took precautions.’

‘I know.’ Sophie sniffed. ‘But it—something mustn’t have worked.’

He closed his eyes.

The very thought that he and the gorgeous English bridesmaid had created a new life sent him into a tailspin. He couldn’t take it in, was too stunned to think.

‘You’re absolutely certain? There’s no chance of a mistake?’

‘I’m dead certain, Mark. I went to a doctor yesterday.’

He wanted to ask Sophie how he could be sure that this baby was his, but couldn’t bring himself to be so blunt when she sounded so very upset.

‘How are you?’ he asked instead. ‘I mean, are—are you keeping well?’

‘Fair to middling.’

‘Have you had a chance to—’ The line began to break up again, the crackling louder than before.

Sophie was saying something, but the words were impossible to make out.

‘I’m sorry. I can’t hear you.’

Again, another burst of static. He walked further away, fiddled with the setting and caught her in mid-sentence.

‘…I was thinking that maybe I should come and see you. To talk.’

‘Well…yes.’ Mark looked about him again, dazed. Had he heard correctly? Sophie wanted to come here, to the Outback?

He raised his voice. ‘I’m stuck out here, mustering for another week. But as soon as I get back to the homestead I’ll ring you on a landline. We can make arrangements then.’

There was more static, and he wondered if she’d heard him. And then the line went dead.

Mark cursed. Who the hell had let the damned battery get flat? He felt rotten. Would Sophie think he was deliberately trying to wriggle out of this conversation?

It was almost dark.

A chorus of cicadas began to buzz in the trees down by the creek. The temperature dropped, as it always did with the coming of night in the Outback, but that wasn’t why Mark shivered.

A baby.

He was going to be a father.

Again he saw pretty, flirtatious Sophie in her pink dress, remembered the flash of fun in her eyes, the sweet curve of her smile, the whiteness of her skin. The breathtaking eagerness of her kisses.

She was going to be a mother. It was the last thing she wanted, he was sure.

It’s the bullet you don’t hear that kills you.

He gave a helpless shake of his head, kicked at a stone and sent it spinning across the parched earth. Being haunted by memories of a lovely girl on the other side of the world was one thing, but discovering that he’d made her pregnant felt like a bad joke.

Was she really planning to come out here?

Sophie, the elegant daughter of Sir Kenneth and Lady Eliza Felsham of London, and a rough-riding cattleman from Coolabah Waters, via Wandabilla in Outback Australia were going to be parents? It was crazy. Impossible.

Sophie hugged a glass of warming champagne and hoped no one at her mother’s soirée noticed that she wasn’t drinking. She couldn’t face questions tonight.

She couldn’t allow herself to think about her parents’ reaction when they learned that their grandchild was on the way. No grandchild of Sir Kenneth and Lady Eliza should have the temerity to be born out of wedlock. And it was so much worse that the baby’s father was a man their daughter barely knew, a man who lived with a few thousand cattle at the bottom of the world.

Sophie shuddered as she pictured her parents’ faces.

Some time soon they would have to know the worst, but not tonight. It was too soon. She was feeling too fragile.

Fortunately, her father was busy in the far corner, deep in animated conversation with a Viennese conductor. Her mother was equally occupied, relaxed on a sofa, surrounded by a gaggle of young opera hopefuls listening in wide-eyed awe as she recounted highly coloured stories of life backstage at Covent Garden and La Scala.

All around Sophie, corks popped and glasses clinked, and well-bred voices made clever remarks while others laughed. The large room was awash with elegant, brilliant musicians in party mode, and Sophie wished wholeheartedly that she hadn’t come.

But her mother had insisted. ‘It will be so good for your business, darling. You know you always get a rash of new clients after one of my soirées.’

Sophie couldn’t deny that. Besides, this week had been dire enough without getting her mother offside. So she’d come. But already she was regretting her decision.

She was feeling ill and tired, and more than a tad miserable, and Freddie Halverson, a dead bore, was heading her way. Without question, it was time to make a hasty exit.

Slipping out of the room, Sophie hurried up the darkened back stairs to the second floor, and then down the passage to the far end of the house to the little room that had been her bedroom until she was nineteen.

She set the champagne flute on a dresser and flopped onto the window seat, pressed her flushed cheek against the cool pane, and looked out at the faint silhouettes of the rooftops of London, and at the street below that glistened with rain. For the hundredth time, she tried to imagine where Mark Winchester had been when she’d telephoned him this morning.

What was a mustering camp, anyway? Cowboy films had never been her thing.

Twelve long hours had passed since her phone call, but she still felt wiped out and exhausted. Their conversation had been so very unsatisfactory, even though she’d been reassured to hear Mark’s voice.

She’d almost forgotten how deep and warm and rumbly it was. It had reverberated inside her, resounding so deeply she could almost imagine it reaching his baby, curled like a tiny bean in her womb.

But then static had got in the way just when they’d reached the important part, and she’d started to blub! How pathetic. After she’d got off the phone, she’d wept solidly for ten minutes, and had washed her face three times.

Now Sophie turned from the window and threw her shoulders back, determined there would be no more crying. She wasn’t the first woman in history to find herself in this dilemma.

Problem was, she didn’t only feel sorry for herself, she felt sorry for landing this shock on Mark. And she felt sorry for the baby, too. Poor little dot. It hadn’t asked to be conceived by a dizzy, reckless girl and a rugged, long-legged stranger with a slow, charming smile. It wouldn’t want parents who lived worlds apart, who could never offer it the snug, secure family it deserved.

Just the same, she couldn’t contemplate an abortion. She had wanted to explain that to Mark, and would have felt better if she’d been able to—but in the end the phone call hadn’t helped at all. She felt worse than before she’d picked up the receiver.

Ever since, she’d been wondering if she’d expected too much of Mark Winchester. After all, they hardly knew each other, and they’d said their goodbyes six weeks ago, had gone their separate ways. She’d tried to forget him, and it had almost worked.

Liar.

Sophie hugged her knees and sighed into the darkness. She could still picture Mark in perfect detail, could see his eyes—dark, rich brown and curiously penetrating. She remembered exactly how tall and broad-shouldered he was, could picture his bronzed skin, the sheen on his dark-brown hair, his slightly crooked nose, the no-nonsense squareness of his jaw.

She remembered the way he’d looked at her when they’d been dancing at the wedding, the quiet hunger that had sent fierce chills chasing through her.

And, of course, she remembered everything that had happened later…the warm touch of his fingers, the heady magic of his lips on her bare skin. She felt a flash of heat flooding her, trembled all over, inside and out—just as she had on that fateful night when they’d been best man and bridesmaid.

There was a soft knock outside. ‘Are you in there, Sophie?’

Her best friend’s slim silhouette appeared at the doorway.

‘Oh, Emma, thank goodness it’s you.’

Emma was the only other person she’d told about the baby. Jumping to her feet, Sophie kissed her. ‘I didn’t expect you to come here tonight. Haven’t you and Tim got better things to do?’

‘Not when my best friend’s in trouble,’ Emma said, giving her a hug.

Sophie turned on a lamp, and its glow illuminated the neat orderliness of the room, so different now that it was a guest room. Luckily none of the guests downstairs was using it this evening, and she closed the door.

Cautiously, Emma asked, ‘Have you called Mark?’

‘Yes.’ Sophie let out a sigh. ‘But it was pretty disappointing. The line was bad, and we didn’t really get to discuss anything important.’

‘But how did he take the news?’

‘I’m not really sure. He was rather stunned, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Emma agreed with a small smile. She sat on the edge of the single bed, kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs up, just as she had when they’d been children. ‘It would have been a bolt from the blue, poor man.’

‘Yes.’ Sophie slumped back into the window seat, reliving her dog-awful shock yesterday when the doctor had told her that the tightness in her breasts and the tiredness that had haunted her for the past fortnight had been caused by pregnancy. She’d known she’d missed a period, but she’d been so sure there had to be another explanation, and had been embarrassed beyond belief.

In the twenty-first century, an educated girl was expected to avoid this kind of pitfall. She cringed inwardly, could hear her father’s lecture already.

Oh, help.

‘Cheer up, Sox.’

Hearing her childhood nickname, Sophie smiled and quickly shoved thoughts of her parents aside. She would deal with them later. Much later.

She sighed again, heavily. ‘I suppose I was crazy to insist on talking to Mark while he’s out in the middle of nowhere, and now I’m going to have to wait another whole week until he gets home and I can speak to him. But I can’t think, can’t work out what to do about…about anything until I’ve had a chance to talk to him properly.’

‘What are you hoping for?’

Unable to give a straight answer, Sophie twisted the locket Emma had given her as a bridesmaid’s present.

‘That he’ll ask you to marry him?’ Emma suggested gently.

‘Good heavens, no.’ She might have been silly enough to get pregnant, but she wasn’t so naïve that she believed in fairy tales.

‘It’s not the easiest option, is it?’

‘To marry a man I’ve known for less than twenty-four hours?’ Sophie regarded her friend with a sharply raised eyebrow. ‘It wouldn’t be very smart, would it?’ She gave an annoyed little shrug, and tried to ignore a stab of jealousy. Emma was newly married and blissfully happy with Tim, and not pregnant.

‘Just the same,’ she added quickly. ‘I need to know how Mark feels about—well—about everything.’ Her lower lip trembled as she remembered just how deeply she’d been smitten by him that night. Stop it.

‘For example,’ she said quickly, ‘if Mark’s going to demand visitation rights there’ll be steep air-fares to negotiate.’

Emma slipped from the bed and squeezed onto the window seat, wrapping an arm around Sophie’s hunched shoulders. ‘It’ll work out. You’ll feel better once you’re able to have a proper talk with Mark, when he gets back from this—’ She frowned. ‘What did you say he was doing exactly?’

Sophie rolled her eyes. ‘Rounding up cattle. But apparently they call it “mustering” in Australia. He seems to be way out in the very centre of the Outback somewhere.’

Emma’s upper lip curled with poorly restrained amusement. ‘It’s hard to imagine Mark Winchester doing the whole cowboy thing in all that heat and dust, isn’t it? I mean, he was so wonderfully dashing when he was best man at the wedding. Even I managed to drag my eyes away from Tim long enough to notice how tall, dark and handsome Mark was. And beautifully groomed.’

‘Yes,’ Sophie agreed with another sigh. ‘That was the problem. He was far too dashing and handsome. He had such a presence. I wouldn’t be in this pickle now if he hadn’t been quite so eye-catching.’

‘Or if Oliver wasn’t such a pig,’ Emma added darkly.

Sophie’s jaw dropped as she stared at her friend. ‘Did you guess?’

‘That you started flirting madly with Mark to show Oliver Pembleton that he hadn’t hurt you?’

Miserably, Sophie nodded.

‘It wasn’t hard to figure out, Sox. I know you’re not normally a flirt. But I can’t blame you for giving it a go at the wedding. Mark was attractive enough to make any girl flutter her eyelashes. And the way Oliver pranced around in front of you with his ghastly new fiancée was insufferable.’

Sophie nodded and felt a momentary sense of comfort that a good friend like Emma understood just how humiliated she’d felt when Oliver had turned up, with his glamorous heiress wearing the sapphire-and-diamond ring originally intended for her.

Practically everyone at the wedding had known she was Oliver’s reject. Most had tried not to look sorry for her, but she’d felt their sympathy. It had been smothering. Suffocating. Had sent her a little crazy.

Her good friend let out a huff of annoyance. ‘I’m still furious with my mother for letting Oliver come to the wedding. When he broke off with you he should have been axed from the invitation list, but somehow he wangled his way in, plus a fresh invite for her, as well.’

‘The thing is,’ said Sophie, not wanting to dwell on what might have been, ‘getting back at Oliver isn’t exactly a suitable excuse for getting pregnant. I mean, it’s not something I can explain to my parents, is it? Or to my child in the future, for that matter.’

She wasn’t sure she could explain to anyone exactly how getting back at Oliver had morphed into getting pregnant with Mark.

But, deep inside, she knew. Her heart could pinpoint the precise moment she’d looked into Mark Winchester’s dark eyes and the chatter in her head about Oliver had stopped, and she’d been drawn radically into the present. She’d been suddenly and completely captivated by the magnetic allure of the tall, rangy Australian. It had been like coming out of a deep sleep to find her senses truly awakened for the very first time.

As she’d danced with Mark, her entire body had tensed with an excitement beyond anything she’d ever experienced. Her fingers had longed to touch the suntanned skin on his jaw and, as they’d danced, she’d kept thinking about how his lips would feel on hers.

‘So you’re definitely going to keep the baby?’ asked Emma.

Sophie blinked, then nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘That’s wonderful.’

Was it? Sophie wished she could feel more excited about the fact that she was going to be a mother. It was still so hard to believe.

A heavy sigh escaped her. ‘I think I did something silly when I was talking to Mark. I suggested I might come out to see him, so we could talk through what we’re going to do about the baby.’

‘But that’s a fabulous idea. It’s exactly what I was hoping you’d do. I told Tim last night—’

‘You told Tim about it?’

‘Sophie, he’s my husband, and he’s your friend as well as Mark’s best mate. He’s worried about both of you. You’re so far apart, it’s almost like being on another planet. He said last night that if only you two could get together again you’d be able to sort this all out. And I agree.’

‘So you think I should go?’

‘Absolutely. It’s going to be horrendous to try to talk about everything from the opposite ends of the earth.’

That was true. But it would be horrendously extravagant to go all that way for a conversation she could have over the phone.

Except…she would see Mark again. And she might feel stronger about facing her family after she’d spoken to Mark.

And there was always a chance—a tiny, tiny chance admittedly—that when she and Mark got together again, they might…

Be careful, Sophie. Remember what happened with Oliver. Don’t get carried away dreaming of a happy-ever-after with Mark.

‘Sophie,’ insisted Emma. ‘It’s your future that’s at stake. And the baby’s and Mark’s. This is a big deal. It’s not something you can do long-distance.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Sophie said. ‘I’ll think about it.’

Emma wriggled off the seat, slipped her feet back into her black and silver sandals, then patted the top of Sophie’s head. ‘Listen to Aunt Emma, darling. If there’s a single event when a man and a woman need to sit down and look into each other’s eyes while they talk something through, it’s a shared pregnancy.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘I know Marion Bradley’s on the lookout for work. She’d take care of your agency for a week or two. Actually, Marion would probably take your business over if she had half a chance.’

‘I’ll bear her in mind.’

‘It’ll all work out beautifully.’ Emma looked at her watch. ‘I promised Tim I’d only be five minutes.’

‘You’d better go and rescue him. Thanks so much for coming.’

‘I’ll be in touch.’

CHAPTER TWO

THE three-quarter moon drifted out from behind a patch of cloud and cast a cool, white glow over the mustering camp. Mark tried to take comfort from his surroundings.

He saw the silvered silhouettes of the sleeping ringers, the last of the tough breed of Outback cowboys who still worked in the saddle, and who were essential help on big musters like this. He stared above at the night sky, at the familiar stars and constellations he’d known all his life. Everything was in the right place, just as it was at this time every year…the saucepan-shaped Orion…the Southern Cross with its two bright pointers…the dusty spill of the Milky Way…

A long sigh escaped him. He’d had twenty-four hours to digest Sophie’s news, but he still looked about him with a sense of bewilderment, still felt as if the whole world should have changed to match the sudden turmoil inside him.

He’d made her pregnant.

It was impossible. Astonishing.

He felt so damn guilty.

What the hell was he going to do about it? And what did Sophie intend to do? He didn’t even know if she wanted to keep the baby.

It would be her decision, of course, but he hoped that she would keep it. He would support her, would do the right thing.

He sighed heavily. If only they could have finished their conversation. He blamed himself that the phone’s battery had run down. He hadn’t realised that the cook he’d hired had a gambling problem. The damn fellow had been using the phone on the sly to place bets with his bookmaker in Melbourne and hadn’t bothered to recharge it.

Now, lying in his sleeping swag on the hard, red earth, Mark couldn’t stop thinking about Sophie. Kept remembering her gut-punching loveliness. Everything about her had set him on fire—the happy sparkle in her eyes, the musical laughter in her voice, the astonishing smoothness and whiteness of her skin, the seductive tease of her slender body brushing against him as they’d danced.

And then in bed…

He rolled uneasily in his swag. What was the point in tormenting himself with such memories? Sophie wasn’t happy now. He’d seduced her and wrecked her life.

When he got back, he would have to bite the bullet and make her understand that there was no point in her coming all the way down here.

Under other circumstances, it would have been different—fantastic, actually—if she’d been coming here. He could think of nothing better than having Sophie arrive for a brief holiday, so that they could take up where they left off. But if she was pregnant? Hell! She might be thinking of something more permanent, and that would be crazy.

His lifestyle was too hard, his world too alien and remote for a pregnant city girl from England. He had a property to run, which meant he was away from the homestead for long stretches. And Sophie would hate it here on her own. Apart from the heat and the dust, everything else was so far away—doctors, hospitals, shops, restaurants. There were no other women handy for girly chats.

It would be much more sensible if they simply worked everything out over the phone. He could send her money and arrange to see the child from time to time.

When he or she was old enough, they would be able to come out here for holidays.

That was the only way to handle this. He would do everything he could to support her, but Sophie shouldn’t leave London.

The coffee table in Sophie’s lounge was strewn with travel brochures, flight schedules and maps of Australia, as well as flyers advertising her sisters’ next concerts.

Sophie stared at an elegant black and white head-shot of her eldest sister, Alicia, and sighed. Both her sisters were musically gifted, like their parents, and both had launched brilliant careers. Neither of them would have landed in a mess like Sophie’s.

As the youngest Felsham daughter, Sophie had often been told she was pretty, but she’d been too given to daydreaming and too impulsive to ever be called brilliant. She’d never been able to stick at music practice the way Alicia and Elspeth had, had never felt driven to be a high achiever like her famous parents.

Emma had suggested once that Sophie had stopped competing with her sisters because she was afraid of failure, and Emma was probably right, but Sophie figured she’d failed often enough to justify her choice.

Oliver’s rejection—her most recent and spectacular failure—had been one too many.

Now her unplanned pregnancy would cement her position as the family’s very, very black lamb.

Sophie shook her head to clear her mind of that thought. Somehow she had to turn this latest negative into a shining positive. She owed it to her baby.

Of course, she was scared—she’d never had much to do with babies—but she was strangely excited, too. She wanted to be really good at motherhood, was determined to be a perfect mum. Her own mother had always been so terribly busy, especially by the time her third daughter had arrived.

Sophie would be loving and patient, happy to let her baby grow into a little individual, free from the pressures of great expectations.

And for the first time in her life Sophie would be doing something that Alicia and Elspeth hadn’t done already and done better than she ever could. She would care for her baby so brilliantly that no one in her family would dare to utter a single ‘tut tut’.

Cheered by that thought, she picked up a brochure about the Australian Outback. Her instincts had urged her to go straight to Mark as soon as she’d found out about the baby.

OK, OK, so maybe her instincts had also nudged her clear away from her parents. But, family aside, surely she owed Mark a visit?

Or was she crazy to even think of going all the way Down Under, to face the possibility of being rejected and hurt yet again?

Closing her eyes, she pictured Mark—remembered his hard, lean body, the tan of his skin, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, his unhurried smile—and she felt a sudden, thudding catch in her heart. In every way, Mark was very different from Oliver.

Her fingers traced a light circle over her tummy, and she couldn’t help smiling. She was carrying a little boy or girl who might look like its daddy, who might walk like him, or smile like him. A whole little person whose future happiness rested in her hands.

And Mark’s.

Was Emma right? Did she owe it to her baby to go to Australia, to find Mark in the Outback? But, if she did, what then? What if she fell deeply in love with Mark, only to have him reject her and send her packing? It would be like Oliver all over again only a hundred—no, a thousand—times worse.

Sophie doubted she was brave enough to sacrifice her dignity on that particular altar. But would she be any safer if she stayed here in London to endure the dismayed gaze of her family while she grew fat with this pregnancy?

Wouldn’t it be better to take a gamble on Mark?

CHAPTER THREE

THERE was nobody home.

Sophie stared in consternation at the peeling paint and tarnished brass knocker on the front door of the sprawling timber homestead. She read the name plate again: Coolabah Waters. This was definitely Mark Winchester’s home.

But no one answered her knock. Where was he?

It had never occurred to her that Mark wouldn’t be here. He’d said he would be back before now. Would phone. When she’d called his caretaker to tell him of her plan to fly out here, he had confirmed that Mark was due home any day. But now there was no sign of either of them.

She knocked again, called anxiously, ‘Hello!’ and ‘Anybody home?’

She waited.

There was no answer, no sound from within the big house. All she could hear was the buzz of insects in the grass and the distant call of a lone crow.

She sent a desperate glance behind her, squinting in the harsh Outback sunlight. The mail truck that had brought her from Wandabilla was already a cloud of dust on the distant horizon. Even if she ran after it, jumping and waving madly, the driver wouldn’t see her.

She was alone. Alone in the middle of Australia, surrounded by nothing but miles and miles and miles of treeless plains and bare, rocky ridges.

Why wasn’t Mark here?

She’d thought about him constantly through the long, long flight from England, another flight halfway across Australia to Mount Isa, and then a scary journey in a light aircraft no bigger than a paper plane over endless flat, dry grassland to Wandabilla, near the Northern Territory border. Finally, after getting advice from a helpful woman in the Wandabilla Post Office, she’d cadged a lift to Coolabah Waters on the mail truck.

Now she didn’t know what to do. She was exhausted to the point of dropping, and her decision to come all this way to talk to Mark felt like a really, really bad idea—even crazier than inviting him back to her flat on the night of the wedding.

It had been Tim, Emma’s husband, who had finally convinced her that she must make the trip Down Under.

‘Of course you need to talk to Mark face to face,’ he’d insisted. ‘He’s that kind of guy. A straight shooter. He won’t muck you about. And you’ll love it in Australia. There’s no place like it in the world.’

Well, that was certainly true, Sophie thought dispiritedly, looking about her. But she didn’t think she could share Tim’s enthusiasm for endless dry and dusty spaces.

She hadn’t expected Mark’s home to be so very isolated. She’d understood that the Australian Outback would be vast and scantily populated, but she’d thought there’d be some kind of a village nearby at least.

Fighting down the nausea that had been troubling her more frequently over the past fortnight, she tiptoed to a window and tried to peer inside the house. But the glass was covered by an ageing lace curtain, and she could only make out the shape of an armchair.

The window was the sash kind that had to be lifted up. Feeling like a criminal, Sophie tried it, but it wouldn’t budge.

Another glance at the road behind her showed that the mail truck had completely disappeared. She was surrounded by absolute stillness, no background noise at all. No comforting hum of traffic, no aircraft, no voices. Nothing.

If she wasn’t careful, the silence would rattle her completely.

I mustn’t panic.

Sophie sat on her suitcase and tried to think.

Was this her biggest mistake yet?

The family failure strikes again?

Mark could be anywhere on this vast property. She knew there’d been a muster, but she had no idea what other kinds of work cattlemen did. She supposed they kept busy doing something. They couldn’t simply lounge about the house all day with their feet up, while their cattle ate grass and grew fat.

But, if Mark was off working somewhere on his vast cattle station, where was his caretaker? When she’d spoken to him on the phone, he’d sounded rather nice, with a warm Scottish brogue that had made her feel very welcome.

The abandoned house, however, didn’t look particularly welcoming. The veranda was swept, but the floorboards were unpainted and faded to a silvery grey, and the ferns in the big pottery urns were brown-tipped and drooping. The house in general needed a coat of paint, and the garden—well, you couldn’t really call it a garden—was a mere strip of straggling vegetation around the house, full of weeds and dried clumps of grass.

Sophie looked at her watch and sighed. It was only ten in the morning, and Mark might be away all day. It was midnight at home. No wonder she felt so exhausted and ill.

Leaving her bags near the front door, she went down the front steps and tottered over the uneven, stubbly grass in her high heels.

Back in London, high heels and a two-piece suit had seemed like a smart idea. She’d wanted to impress Mark. Huh! Now, twenty-six hours and twelve thousand miles later, she felt positively ridiculous. No wonder the fellow in the mail truck had looked amused. She’d probably been his week’s entertainment.

She reached the back of the house and found a huge shed with tractors, but no sign of anyone. The house had a back veranda with a partly enclosed laundry at one end. A large glass panel in the back door offered her a view down a long central passage, and an uncurtained window revealed a big, old-fashioned kitchen with an ancient dresser and an enormous scrubbed pine table set squarely in the middle. It was all very neat and tidy, if a bit drab and Spartan.

A large brown teapot on the dresser had a piece of paper propped against it, and Sophie could see that there was a handwritten note on it. A message?

She chewed her lip. She felt wretchedly hot and nauseous. If she didn’t get inside soon, she might faint.

She rattled the back-door knob and shoved at it with her hip, but it held firm.

Desperate, she pulled out her mobile phone and stared at it, thinking. The only person she knew in Australia was Mark, but his satellite phone wasn’t being answered. If she’d had a phone book, she could have rung the helpful woman in the Post Office in Wandabilla. If only she’d thought to take down her number.

She tried Mark’s phone again, with little hope, and of course there was no answer.

She was stuck here, on the outside of this enormous, old shambles of a house, and her stomach warned her that she was going to be ill very soon.

There was only one option, really. She would have to find a way to break in, and she would simply have to explain to Mark later—if he turned up.

The louvres beside the back door were promising. She studied them for about five seconds, and then carefully pulled at one. To her utter amazement, it slid out, leaving her a gap to slip her hand through. Straining, with her body pressed hard against the wall, she could just reach the key on the other side of the door. It turned easily, and the door opened.

As Sophie stepped inside, she felt a twinge of guilt and then dismissed it. At least now she could make a cup of tea and find somewhere to lie down. And hope that Mark would understand.

Sundown.

Low rays of the setting sun lit the pink feathery tops of the grass as Mark’s stock horse galloped towards the home paddock, with two blue-heeler cattle dogs loping close behind.

Man, horse and dogs were tired to the bone, glad to be home.

At last.

The past fortnight had been damned frustrating, and quite possibly the worst weeks of Mark’s life. He’d been preoccupied and worried the whole time, and desperate to get back early, but then the young jackaroo had thrown a spanner in the works.

A week ago, on a pitch-black, still night before the moon was up, the boy had been standing near the cattle in the holding yard when he’d lit a cigarette. The fool hadn’t covered the flare of the match with his hat, and the cleanskins had panicked. In no time their fear had spread through the herd. Six hundred head of cattle had broken away, following the wild bulls back into the scrub, into rough gullies and ravines, the worst country on Coolabah.

It had taken almost a week to retrieve them—time Mark hadn’t really been able to spare—but with the bank breathing down his neck for the first repayment on this property he’d needed to get those cattle trucked away.

During the whole exasperating process, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Sophie and about his promise to ring her. Hadn’t been able to hide his frustration, and had been too hard on the men, which was why he’d encouraged the mustering team and plant to travel straight on to Wandabilla now. The men had earned the right to a few nights in town before they headed off to their next job.

Mark had left them at the crossroads because he needed the solitude. Thinking time.

And, now he was almost home, his guts clenched. He had an important phone call to make, possibly the most important phone call of his life.

At last he saw his homestead, crouched low against the red and khaki landscape. It was good to be back. After almost three weeks in the saddle, sleeping in swags on the hard ground, showering beneath a bucket and hose nozzle tied to a tree branch, bathing and washing clothes in rocky creeks, he was looking forward to one thing.

Make that three things—a long, hot soak in a tub, clean clothes and clean sheets. Oh, yeah, and a mattress.

Luxury.

But he attended to his hard working, loyal animals first, washing the dust from them and rubbing his horse down, giving the dogs and the horse water to drink, and food.

He entered the homestead by the back, pulling off his elastic-sided riding boots and leaving them on the top step. He dumped his pack on the laundry floor beside the washing machine, drew off his dusty shirt and tossed it into one of the concrete tubs. Looking down, he saw the dried mud caked around the bottom of his jeans, and decided his clothes were so dirty he’d be better to strip off here and head straight for the bathroom.

He smiled as he anticipated the hot, sudsy bath-water lapping over him, easing his tired muscles. After a good long soak, he’d find his elderly caretaker, irreverently nicknamed Haggis. The two of them would crack open a couple of cold beers and sit on the veranda, while Mark told Haggis about the muster.

After dinner, he would ring Sophie.

His insides jumped again at the thought. He’d gone over what he had to say a thousand times in his head, but no amount of rehearsing had made the task any easier.

The worst of it was, he would have to ring Tim first to get Sophie’s number, and he could just imagine Emma’s curiosity.

Hell.

Mark reached the bathroom, and frowned. The door was locked.

Splashing sounds came from inside.

Who in the name of fortune…?

‘Is that you in there, Haggis?’ he called through the door. ‘You’d better hurry up, man.’

He heard a startled exclamation and a loud splash, followed by coughing and spluttering. The person inside shouted something, but the words were indistinct. One thing was certain though—the voice was not Haggis’s. It was distinctly, unmistakably feminine.

‘Who is it?’ Mark shouted, his voice extra loud with shock. ‘Who’s in there?’

Sophie spluttered and gasped as she struggled out of the slippery bath, her shocked heart pounding so wildly she feared it might collapse with fright.

She’d been asleep for most of the day, had woken feeling much better, and hadn’t been able to resist the chance to relax in warm water scented with the lavender oil that she’d found in the bottom of the bathroom cupboard. But now her relief that it was Mark Winchester’s deep voice booming through the door, and not some stranger’s, was short lived. Mark sounded so angry.

She grabbed at a big yellow towel on the rail behind the door. ‘It’s me, Mark! Sophie Felsham.’

‘Sophie?’

She could hear the stunned disbelief in his voice.

‘When did you get here?’ he cried.

Oh, help. He was annoyed. And he sounded impatient.

So many times she’d pictured her first meeting with Mark in Australia, and she’d been wrong on every occasion!

With frantic fingers, she wrapped the towel around her and managed a fumbling knot. ‘I’m so sorry, Mark! There was no one home, and I didn’t know what to do.’

When there was no response from the other side of the door, she called again, hoping desperately that he would understand. ‘I’ve come out here to see you. So we can talk.’

Then, because it was ridiculous to communicate through a locked door, she opened it.

Oh, gosh.

Bad idea.

Her heart stopped beating.

Mark was…

Totally, totally naked.

Her face burst into flames. ‘I—I’m s-sorry,’ she stammered. ‘I d-didn’t realise.’

Mark didn’t flinch. There was something almost godlike in the way he stood very still, and with unmistakable dignity, but his silence and his very stillness betrayed his shock. And then a dark stain flooded his cheekbones.

An anguished, apologetic cry burst from Sophie and she slammed the door shut again.

Sagging against it, she covered her hot face with her hands. She hadn’t seen a skerrick of warmth in Mark’s eyes.

Could she blame him? She wished she could drop through a hole and arrive back in London on the other side of the globe.

She’d never been so embarrassed.

And yet, as Sophie cringed, a part of her heart marvelled at how fabulous Mark had looked. In those scant, brief seconds, her senses had taken in particulars of his tall, dark, handsome gorgeousness—the hard planes of his chest, the breathtaking breadth of his shoulders, the powerful muscles in his thighs.

Although she’d tried to keep her eyes averted, she hadn’t been able to avoid seeing the rest of him—and how very male Mark was.

But alien, too, with his dark, stubbled jaw, and suntanned limbs, with the red dust of the Outback clinging to him.

Mark cursed and his heart thundered as he flung open wardrobe doors, grabbed clean clothes and dragged them over his dusty body. It would be some time before he recovered from the sight of Sophie Felsham, in his bathroom, wearing nothing but a towel—and the equal shock of standing in front of her like a dumbstruck fool. Stark naked.

Then again, Sophie Felsham wearing anything at Coolabah Waters would have stunned Mark.

He swallowed. He’d never dreamed she would arrive here before they’d had a chance to talk.

Why had she come? What did she expect from him?

Leaving his shirt unbuttoned and hanging loose over his jeans, he hurried barefoot down the passage to the kitchen, expecting to find Haggis peeling spuds at the sink, or slicing onions.

He was going to demand answers.

But the kitchen was empty.

It smelled great, however. There was something cooking in the oven—beef and mushrooms, if Mark wasn’t mistaken.

And then he saw a piece of paper propped against the teapot. Frowning, he snatched it up.

Mark,

My only sister, Deirdre, is seriously ill in Adelaide and I need to visit her. I’ve tried to call you, but the sat phone doesn’t seem to be working. Sorry, mate, but I know you’ll understand. I’ve left frozen meals for you and I’ve left Deirdre’s number beside the phone.

Apologies for the haste,

Angus.

P.S. A young English woman called. She’s coming to visit you. Good luck with that one.

The note was dated four days ago. Mark scratched the back of his neck and wondered when the surprises would stop. He crushed the sheet of paper and tossed it back onto the dresser. He was still trying to come to terms with the twist of fate that had allowed Haggis’s trip south to coincide with Sophie’s arrival when he heard light footsteps behind him.

‘The bathroom’s free.’

He swung around, and there was Sophie again. He inhaled sharply.

Her hair was still damp, as if she’d dried it hastily with a towel. Wispy, dark curls clung to her forehead and her soft, pale cheeks. She was dressed in a simple white T-shirt, a slim red skirt, and she wore sandals covered in white daisies.

‘Hello again, Mark,’ she said shyly.

She hadn’t used any make-up, and she looked pale and wide eyed. Incredibly pretty. Impossibly young. Her figure was so slender it didn’t seem feasible that it would expand and swell with pregnancy. With his baby.

Something hard and sharp jammed in Mark’s throat, and he swallowed fiercely.

‘I—I’m really sorry about—’ Sophie’s mouth twisted into an embarrassed pout, and her eyes widened as she flapped her hands helplessly out to her sides. ‘You know—the bathroom and everything.’

‘Forget it.’ He spoke more gruffly than he meant to, and the back of his neck began to burn.

How should he handle this? Should he greet her formally with a handshake? Ask her if she was feeling well? Throw his arms around her? That would be smart, given the filthy state of him.

Stepping forward quickly, he dropped a quick peck on her soft cheek. She smelled sweet and clean, of shampoo and soap, with a hint of something else. Lavender? ‘It’s good to see you.’

Super-conscious of his open shirt and unwashed state, he stepped back again. He felt so uncertain. There were so many questions he should ask. How was your journey? How are you keeping?

Why have you come?

‘I feel terrible about turning up like this,’ she said. ‘Moving into your home when you weren’t even here. I—I thought you said you’d be back last week.’

He nodded slowly. ‘I should have been back, but we ran into a spot of trouble.’

‘Oh?’

‘A big mob of cattle broke away. Took off for the most inaccessible country. Gave us no end of a headache.’

A little huff escaped her, and her shoulders relaxed. ‘That sounds like hard work.’

‘It was.’ He picked up the crumpled note from Haggis. ‘I’m sorry my caretaker wasn’t here to greet you. He had to go away.’

‘Yes, I couldn’t help seeing that note.’

It suddenly occurred to Mark that she might have been here for days. ‘When did you get here?’

‘This morning. I came on the mail truck.’

‘The mail truck?’ His mouth tilted into an incredulous smile as he tried to imagine Sophie Felsham from London arriving in the dusty township of Wandabilla and asking for directions to Coolabah Waters.

‘I hope you don’t mind that I used your bathroom. I know there’s another one.’

‘No. No, of course not.’ Mark avoided the unexpected shyness in her eyes. ‘You’re welcome to it. That’s fine.’ He ran his fingers through his dusty hair, and remembered that he was still in urgent need of a bath.

Sophie twisted a small, gold locket at her throat. ‘I don’t make a habit of breaking into people’s houses.’

He managed a grin. ‘No, you’ve got the wrong colour hair.’ When she looked puzzled, he added, ‘You’re not Goldilocks.’

Her smile lit up her face, and she looked so incredibly pretty that Mark fought an urge to close his eyes in self-protection.

Sophie pointed to the stove. ‘I took the liberty of putting one of your housekeeper’s frozen meals in the oven.’

‘Good thinking.’

There was an awkward pause while he wondered if he should demand that she explain her presence here. What did she want from him—his support to have an abortion? Money? Marriage?

‘Look,’ he said, and then he had to stop and take a breath. ‘If—if you’ll excuse me, I’ll make use of the bathroom before I try to be sociable.’ He offered her the briefest shadow of a smile. ‘I’ve got half the Outback’s dirt and dust on me.’

‘Of course,’ she said with a dismissive little wave, but her eyes were worried and her cheeks had turned bright pink.

CHAPTER FOUR

SHE shouldn’t have come.

As Mark disappeared back down the passage to the bathroom, Sophie felt completely out of her depth.

In England Mark had been so different—so smooth, and almost passing for a city-dweller in his dark, formal suit—more familiar, less intimidating.

It seemed so silly now, but before she’d left London she’d imagined she would be able to book into a hotel or a motel in a village near Mark’s place. She’d planned to call him from there, arrange to meet for a meal in a country tavern, have a nice, long talk. Take it from there…

What an idiot she’d been. She should have quizzed Tim more closely. He could have told her what to expect in the Australian Outback. But the sad truth was, she hadn’t really wanted to know too much. She’d been pretty certain a heavy dose of reality would have frightened her off.

Which mightn’t have been a bad thing.

But she was here now, so she couldn’t back down just yet.

She looked about her, and decided she might as well make herself useful. Perhaps she could set the table for dinner. She crossed the kitchen to the ancient pine dresser to hunt for tablecloths and napkins, then wondered if Mark used the dining room for his evening meal.

It was directly across the passage from the kitchen and, like most of the rooms in this house, had French doors opening onto a timber veranda. This arrangement, Sophie had already discovered, was good for catching breezes and channelling them into the house.

The dining room, like all the other rooms, was a very generous size, but it was also ugly, with tongue-and-groove timber walls painted in a faded, murky green and without a single attractive, decorative touch. In fact, Mark’s entire house was as plain and austere as a monk’s cell.

It could do with a jolly good makeover—new paint, bright cushions, flowers, pretty fabrics, artwork.

A woman’s touch.

Sophie’s mind skidded away from that thought. Not this woman’s touch. She knew for a fact that she couldn’t live here.

She opened a door in the sideboard and found a pile of tablecloths—clean but un-ironed, and all of them ancient. Dull and boring. Depressing.

In a drawer, she found red tartan place mats with matching napkins and decided to use them. At least they were colourful. And the silver was clean and shining.

But despite the bright tartan the two place-settings looked rather austere on the huge dining table. She hunted about for a vase or candlesticks, anything to fill in the expanse of bare table-top.

There was nothing.

Showered and shaved, and neatly dressed in clean clothes, Mark stood in the middle of his bedroom and regarded his reflection in the mirror. He looked ridiculously nervous.

What did Sophie expect from him? Was she hoping for marriage? Surely not.

He’d never considered himself a family man, had more or less decided he was a habitual bachelor. His life was hard, and he worked long hours and took few holidays. He’d never really thought much about marriage, had never found a woman who would make a suitable wife—someone he really admired, who could take the hard life in the Outback.

Now, the irony was that just about any of the Australian girls he’d dated and parted with over the past decade would have fitted the bill better than this woman, with her milk-white English skin and high-flying, London-girl lifestyle.

Except…none of those other girls had been carrying his baby.

Mark glanced again at his reflection, saw concern and confusion, the downward slant of his mouth, and turned abruptly and marched from the room.

When Mark came into the kitchen wearing a crisp white shirt and casual chinos, with his jaw cleanly shaved, he looked so breathtaking that Sophie quickly became very busy, thrusting her hands into oven mitts and heading for the stove.

‘This smells wonderful,’ she said over her shoulder as she lifted out a pottery casserole dish. ‘Your housekeeper must be a good cook.’

‘He’s a darn sight better than the fellow we had on the mustering camp.’ Mark looked down at the bare kitchen table. ‘I’ll grab some cutlery.’

‘No need. I’ve set the table in the dining room.’

His eyebrows lifted with momentary surprise.

‘Would you rather eat in the kitchen?’

‘The dining room’s fine.’ He gave her a slow smile. ‘I wouldn’t have expected anything less from the daughter of Sir Kenneth Felsham.’

She gave a flustered little shrug.

‘Perhaps I should open a bottle of wine and make it a proper occasion,’ Mark suggested as he followed her, carrying the warmed plates through to the other room.

Sophie set the casserole dish down. ‘I’m sure wine would be nice, but I’m afraid I can’t join you.’

His eyes widened with surprise, and she pointed to her stomach. ‘It’s not good for the baby.’

‘Oh, yes, of course. Sorry. I—I don’t really care for wine anyway.’

She looked up quickly to see if Mark was joking, but suddenly it didn’t matter if he was speaking the truth or lying through his teeth. Their gazes met and he smiled again, and his smile seemed to reach deep inside her. She had to sit down before her knees gave way.

Goodness. Surely she wasn’t going to be all breathless and girly—just as she’d been at the wedding?

Mark sat, too, and indicated that she should help herself to the food. Her hand trembled ever so slightly as she lifted the serving spoon, and she was sure he noticed.

‘You must be feeling rather jet-lagged,’ he suggested.

She nodded, glad to hide behind this excuse, spooned beef and mushrooms onto her plate, and hoped Mark was the kind of man who liked to fill his stomach before he tackled difficult discussions. But when she looked up she found his dark eyes regarding her thoughtfully.

She pointed to the food. ‘I’m sure you must be ravenous. Don’t let this lovely dinner get cold.’

Without comment, he helped himself to the food and began to eat with some enthusiasm, but it wasn’t long before he put his fork down. His throat worked, and he lifted his napkin from his lap and set it on the table.

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