“Why are you being so nice?”

All at once Laura’s heart was beating fast. All wrong, in the circumstances.

“You’re a woman on your own, aren’t you?” Evan said reasonably. “I’m the kind of man who likes to lend a hand.”

“Then I’m very grateful.”

“Besides, I’ve had a good time.” He looked at her and that white melting smile. “Laura Graham, you scare me.” Before he could prevent himself he had touched her cheek lightly with his finger. It had the velvety texture of a magnolia.

For a moment they stared into one another’s eyes. Laura felt oddly as if the air might explode. She felt so drawn to him, but she had no doubts that before he’d come to Koomera Crossing he’d been someone very different. She realized that Evan saw her as a vulnerable little rich girl on the run from some demanding boyfriend. She wondered what he would think if she told him the truth.

Dear Reader,

Runaway Wife is the story of a sensitive, gifted young woman who marries for love, only to find that her husband, in public a well-respected surgeon, behind closed doors is an abusive bully who uses any means at his disposal to control her and strip her of all confidence and self-respect. Violence against women is a terrible disease. It knows no boundaries of race, culture or social position.

Our heroine, Laura, finds the courage to make her escape from an intolerable situation. She flees to the Outback where, with the help of an ally, Dr. Sarah Dempsey of the Koomera Crossing Bush Hospital, she sets about taking the first steps toward rehabilitation.

In this remote Outback town her destiny becomes powerfully entwined with that of mystery man Evan Thompson. Evan, too, bears terrible scars. He has come to the Outback to heal. Together Laura and Evan forge the most vital emotional connection of all. They fall in love. But first Laura has to overcome her great battle with past fears and humiliations to lay her trust at Evan’s door. Only in doing so can she begin the process of facing up to her husband and reconstructing her life.

The first book in my KOOMERA CROSSING miniseries was the Harlequin Superromance novel Sarah’s Baby. Look for Outback Bridegroom and Outback Surrender, coming November and December 2003 in Harlequin Romance.

Runaway Wife
Margaret Way

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

SHE never felt safe any more. Not living with Colin. Though she struggled to live normally, the truth was she was frightened all the time. Laura knew all the signs. Emotional and physical exhaustion, trembling limbs, fluttery pulse, sick panic inside her.

After another of Colin’s irrational and unprovoked attacks on her the previous night, she knew she had to go somewhere he would never find her. She had to make a decision and stick with it. She had to reclaim herself, her body, her mind, her drastically fractured self-esteem. Reared gently by loving parents, she found Colin’s behaviour entirely incomprehensible.

Since their big society marriage almost a year before, reality had become a far cry from their public image of glamorous, affluent couple. The thrill of being married had died before it had ever begun. Their marriage was a nightmare. Her dream of a happy partnership, of security, children, shattered.

Her brilliant young husband, a rising star in open-heart surgery, had turned out to be dangerously unstable—though such was his public persona no one who knew him would ever have guessed. His mother, maybe? Laura had always thought Sonia Morcombe recognised her son had a dark side, but instinctively chose to ignore it. It was easier that way. After all Colin was brilliant in every other way. Respected in his profession.

But the much-admired Colin had taught his bride not to love but to fear him. Because of his unpredictable moods, his sexual demands, his never-ending put-downs and profound jealousies, he had lost her love. Most certainly he had lost her most of her friends, subtly isolating her from anyone who was smart and confident and might help her. She saw far less of everyone.

Her music was out. He had forbidden her to continue with her studies. It was his role to “take care” of her, to make all her decisions for her. Clever, manipulative, psychotic Colin. He acted as though it had been ordained from On High he would occupy the central position in her life. She would rely on him for her every want, her every need. He lived to possess her.

After every terrifying outburst of rage, while the tears rolled down her cheeks, he insisted he loved her dearly. The fault lay in her. For a while he’d had her believing she wasn’t a real woman at all. He blamed her pampered upbringing for what she was now. Pathetic. He was sick to death of hearing about her father, the special closeness they shared. It had obviously been an unhealthy fixation.

“Daddy’s little girl!”

The way he said it, so contemptuous and scathing, hurt her terribly but it could not dim her loving memories of her father. Her father, unlike Colin, had been a man who inspired love. Not Colin. He reminded her constantly he was the brilliant one, the man who saved lives. The best she could do was play the piano. What sort of a job was that?

She couldn’t hold a decent conversation. Compared to him she was relatively uneducated. An “unsophisticated nothing” before he married her. A pretty object he’d bought and paid for. If she’d acquired any polish it was through him.

“You’ll never leave me, Laura,” he assured her, his voice deadly quiet. “You wouldn’t know how to function on your own. You need me to survive.”

She knew perfectly well it was a warning. She wished she was stronger, but she wasn’t. She hadn’t had enough life experience. She felt more as if she was fragmenting into little pieces.

There were a good many ways of expressing love. Flinging her up against walls with one violent sweep of the arm wasn’t one of them. Neither was insatiable lovemaking so rough she cried out in pain.

Up until last night Colin had taken good care not to damage her face. The face he “adored”. He’d actually said that. She had a sickening image of him standing over her, expression enraged, as she huddled on the floor, her arms wrapped protectively around her body.

Colin was a slim man but very fit, an inch under six feet. She was a light-boned five-three, her body weight constantly dropping as she lost appetite. She had learned from her beautiful, gracious mother how to be a good cook, a good hostess, a good homemaker, but Colin had never been satisfied with her. There was no way she could please him. Not even in bed, which was crazy, because he couldn’t get enough of her. Sex, too, was a way of controlling her.

“Just as well you’re beautiful, Laura,” he’d taunted her, and she was too hurting, too demoralized to fight back. “Because you’re bloody useless in bed. You don’t know the first thing about pleasing a man. You need to get out a few books. You act so guilty you’re like some frigid little nun.”

She was frigid now. With him. Mentally and emotionally removing herself as much as she possibly could from the act. Was this marriage, or rape? She felt demeaned, defiled, humiliated beyond all telling, her mind bent on strategies for escape even as she lived with the underlying fear he would find her wherever she went.

Laura realized with dread she knew her strange husband better than anyone, outside his mother, who would probably defend her son to the death.

They’d met by chance. Overnight the whole tenor of her quiet, studious life had changed. He had bombarded her with attention: fine restaurants, red roses, chocolates, champagne, books he wanted her to read—he never read them himself. He was so charming, so attentive, so handsome and cultured, and their romance had flowered.

She had realized too late she was simply filling the deep void left by the premature death of her beloved father in a road accident when she was seventeen.

The stage had been set. She’d ceded him power. A virgin still, because she’d wanted to be absolutely sure she was giving herself to someone she loved and who loved her, she’d been ridiculously high-minded. She thought of herself now as having been incredibly naïve.

She’d been studying classical piano—very motivated, self-disciplined, a born musician. Her parents had always been so proud of her and her accomplishment. She’d worked hard to give something back to them.

Her father’s death had been a tremendous blow to her and her mother, striking grief into their souls. She’d been an only child, living a near idyllic existence.

She grew up overnight.

Strangely, her mother had adjusted to their loss much more quickly than she had. Her mother had confided she couldn’t face life being alone. She’d had one happy marriage, a marvellous partner. She desired another. It wasn’t a betrayal of Laura’s father. She had his memory locked away in her heart. It was a recognition of the great joys a happy marriage could bring.

Her mother had eventually found a good, caring man, a fellow guest at a wedding. Six months later her mother had married her sheep farmer and gone to settle with her new husband in the South Island of New Zealand, a most beautiful part of the world.

Laura had stayed behind, though they’d both wanted her to join them. Laura believed the marriage would develop better if her mother and her new husband were left alone. She could always visit.

She’d already graduated from the Conservatorium and started on a Doctorate of Music at the university. She’d taken private pupils as well, for experience and to supplement her income—though her father had left her and her mother well provided for. Her father had been absolutely wonderful. She’d had to struggle to survive without him. And she’d been struggling ever since.

She hadn’t taken a fine man like her father for a husband. She had taken Colin, a man with serious problems, a man who took pleasure in hurting her.

The first time she’d met him was at a concert given by a visiting piano virtuoso, a wonderfully gifted woman who really made the keyboard sound. Colin had remarked in a patronising aside that no woman pianist could ever hope to match a man. She should have told him he’d do better to stick to surgery, where he could play God. Colin, the dyed-in-the-wool chauvinist. She should have been warned then.

As chance or malign fate had it, they’d each attended the concert on their own. She and a girlfriend had had tickets, but her friend had had to cancel at the last minute through sickness. In the intermission Colin had shifted in his seat to seek her opinion, smiling with open pleasure and admiration into her eyes. He had suggested a glass of champagne in the foyer.

It was the first time ever she’d allowed herself to be “picked up”, as she thought of it, but he had seemed eminently respectable, especially when he’d told her he was a doctor from a well-known medical family.

After the performance they had gone on to have coffee at a popular night spot. There she had opened up as she’d never done before. She had been lonely. That was the reason. Still cast as the beloved, indulged only child at twenty-two. Her life, in a sense, had been cloistered.

She recognised it all now. She’d been in a very vulnerable situation, badly missing her mother and father. Colin had seemed so sympathetic. She supposed because of her father she gravitated towards older men. Also Colin loved music, which she had intended to make her profession.

She soon learned Colin had only pretended to love music. In actual fact it meant little to him. A friend had given him the ticket. At a rare loose end, he had decided to go along. He was a man of culture after all. That was the image he liked to project.

Their meeting, he told her exhaustively, had been destiny. She had been there waiting for him to come and carry her off to a new life together. She’d thought he meant they were perfectly matched. She couldn’t count the number of times he’d told her she looked beautiful. Before their marriage.

“Your long gleaming dark hair, your green eyes, white skin! The gentle haunting beauty I admire above all!”

What he had really been saying was he thought she would be not only easy to control, but exquisite to torment.

If only she’d been older. Had known more about life. If only her father had lived. If only her mother hadn’t remarried and gone away. The endless ifs.

She hadn’t been ready for commitment. She’d needed a little time. But Colin had swept her off her feet. He was already in his early thirties, which he perceived as exactly the right age for a man to marry. She was an innocent ten years his junior.

Colin had accomplished their whirlwind engagement within three months. His parents—she’d had to hide from herself the fact she couldn’t like them—seemed to recognise she was the sort of young woman their adored son wanted. Someone he could dominate. Certainly someone who would look up to him and allow herself to be moulded by his hand.

Her mother and stepfather had journeyed from New Zealand to meet Colin a scant fortnight before the wedding. Her mother had been genuinely delighted with her prospective son-in-law. Colin had gone all out to be charming. Craig hadn’t been quite so forthcoming, simply saying it was very obvious Colin was “very much in love with his lovely, gifted, fiancée.”

The wedding had been lavish. The planning having been taken out of her control by Sonia Morcombe. Their whole future had stretched ahead of them.

The abuse had started on their honeymoon, profoundly shocking her. She’d gone into a stupefied withdrawal, wondering if she was going to end up dead when all he seemed to want to do was take her to bed.

She mustn’t flirt with every man she met. She mustn’t be provocative in her conversation. She mustn’t smile and tilt her head, so. The accusations had never finished; his temper had snapped so easily. She had been overwhelmed by terror and—incredibly—remorse. Maybe she was being unconsciously provocative? Maybe she was doing what he was saying?

She knew she was attractive to men. Her looks had seen to that. Even her girlfriend, Ellie, teased her endlessly about her “certain smile”. “What a come-on, Laura!”

She, herself, was at a loss to know why.

“You’re my wife, Laura. Mine,” Colin always told her as he delivered another hard lesson. “I won’t tolerate your coy glances elsewhere.”

An hour after the abuse stopped he was cordial, composed, even tender. She could never believe it was the same man. He acted as though nothing disturbing had happened. It was simply that it was a man’s right to chastise his wife. It was the only way she would ever learn.

So, on her honeymoon her marriage had taken a giant leap backwards. Even as she had strived to please him she had despised herself for not standing up for her rights. How could he say he loved her when a lot of the time he acted as though he hated her? She hadn’t known where to turn. Her father would never have allowed this situation. But her father had gone. In truth she had felt orphaned, utterly defeated, down.

There wasn’t going to be any pitter-patter of tiny feet either. Not for a good long time.

“We’re happy just the two of us!”

From his laugh and the light in his cold grey eyes it had sounded as though he believed it.

Now she had to escape. It wouldn’t be simple, but she had thought it through. She couldn’t continue to allow Colin to abuse her. She had to reach safety.

She’d made one previous attempt, seeking the aid of a girlfriend, but Colin had quickly convinced her friend she was experiencing “problems”. He was a doctor, after all. But now she was ready.

She was frustrated by the fact she simply couldn’t move out of the house and take an apartment somewhere. She knew Colin would find her. Teach her a lesson with his clever, damaging hands. Part of her even believed he might kill her if she expressed her fervent desire to be free of him. She had to go so far away it would be difficult to trace her.

She already knew the place. Koomera Crossing in far Western Queensland. There could be nowhere more remote than the Outback. She knew the name of a woman who might help her cope with the crippling fear she’d been living with. An absolutely steady woman who’d impressed her every time they’d met. A woman not all that much older than herself. Highly intelligent, caring, a doctor now in charge of the Koomera Crossing Bush Hospital.

Her name was Sarah Dempsey. Laura had met Sarah many times at various functions she and Colin had attended in their role of “perfect” couple. Laura had formed the opinion Sarah Dempsey was a strong, supportive woman, unusually kind and sensitive. The sort of woman who might help her win back her life. Or at least provide the safety net she desperately needed until she felt strong enough to stand on her own two feet.

CHAPTER ONE

SARAH had given her a list of three rental houses that were available in the town. She could make her own choice. It was Sarah who had come along to pick out the reliable used car she was driving. She could have bought a new one from the considerable cash stash she had with her, withdrawn from her private account, but she didn’t want to draw too much attention to herself. Sarah had helped immensely by introducing her around as an “old friend”. It had instantly assured her acceptance in the town.

In the course of a few days Sarah had become her friend and confidante. A sister in arms. Laura knew from the moment she’d laid eyes on Dr Sarah at the hospital she’d made the right decision finding her way to Koomera Crossing. Simply by talking over her sad situation with someone who seemed eminently qualified to listen and offer strategies for change had made her feel so much better about herself.

Laura felt reasonably normal, though she never lost the feeling of being in jeopardy, or visualizing Colin’s angry face many times a day. She knew with a certainty Colin would have begun tracking her, most probably through some investigation agency, but she’d been surprisingly adept at getting away. How had she allowed him to make her feel so incompetent when all her life up to that point she’d been regarded as very bright? Such was the pain-inducing power of the domineering male.

Now, with Sarah’s help, she was beginning to stop blaming herself for the disastrous failure of her marriage. She was beginning to see Colin had worked so hard to instill in her a sense of worthlessness he had almost succeeded. Sarah’s opinion of Colin as a sociopath, a condition in which he considered himself beyond the normal rules, was that he was the one who truly needed counselling.

Laura was young, inexperienced, grieving for her father, lonely for her mother—ill-prepared to cope with a man like Colin Morcombe with his anger and aggressions.

As soon as she felt stronger and more confident Sarah would encourage her to do something about her situation. Liberate herself from Colin and the bonds he had forced on her. Divorce him and change her life.

It sounded simple but Laura, the victim, like all other victims of abuse, knew it wasn’t. She had suffered far too much emotional damage living with Colin, but she wasn’t beyond repair. Though Colin had tried so very hard to break her she had found the strength to make her escape.

But for how long? Colin would come after her. Hadn’t he near convinced her there was no way out?

All this Laura thought as she drove around the town, looking for the best place to live. Koomera Crossing boasted a picture-postcard town. It was very neat and clean with a lot of picturesque colonial buildings, but the majority of the houses she drove past were humble compared with what she’d been used to.

Her own family home, the house where she had grown up, now sold to family friends who had always admired it, was a gracious “Queenlander”, set in a large garden, a luxurious tropical oasis, that had been her mother’s pride and joy.

Laura and Colin had lived in a starkly modern edifice—she’d never thought of it as “home”—with a commanding view of the river and the city. An architect friend of Colin’s had designed it. There had been much talk of clean, open spaces, energy flow and creative processes—about which, for all the notice they took of her, she knew nothing. When she had attempted to say what she liked both men had shrugged her and her opinions off. The client was Colin. Not his wife. Her needs—warmth, colour, comfort—were just too “precious”. Traditional was out. What they got, to Colin’s delight, was a massive white pile. Geometric and pompous.

“Let’s keep the whole thing white,” Colin had suggested, as though she had any say in the matter. “Inside and out. You have to think modern, darling. Not that Gone With the Wind old barn you came from. Try to look happier. Most women would be very excited about living in our house. If you want a bit of colour you can get it from steel and glass. Glass has a beautiful blue-green edge.”

The houses she was driving past, cottages with tiny porches, would have fitted comfortably into their living room, with its giant sofas and huge abstract paintings—mostly black, silver or charcoal on white.

“Challenging,” Colin had said, the self-deluded art connoisseur.

“Why do we need a living room so big?” she’d been brave enough to ask.

“For entertaining, you silly goose. That’s if you ever become confident enough to try it.”

They rarely had entertained.

“You poor kid, stuck with this!” her friend, Ellie had said, giving the interior a quick, assessing look. “Gee, after what you came from you must be finding all this very different?”

“Challenging.” She’d laughed with good humour, giving an excellent imitation of Colin’s ultra-confident tones.

She knew Ellie wouldn’t have been fooled. Ellie was a very independent person, very sure of herself. She held her own with Colin. Needless to say Ellie had been one of the first to be struck from the list.

Laura wasn’t concerned where she’d be living now, as long as it was clean and safe.

Twenty minutes later she decided where she wanted to live. It was a modest dwelling, by far the smallest in the street. She supposed it had originally been a settlers’ cottage, constructed of timber and corrugated iron with a small front verandah to keep off the powerful glare of the sun and the rain. She had to wonder just how often it rained out here on the desert fringe.

The cottage was painted white, with sunshine-yellow shutters and trim. It was surrounded by a low picket fence hung with masses of Thai Gold bougainvillaea in abundant flower, giving the place a delightful welcoming look. Whoever had lived in it previously had maintained a pocket handkerchief cottage garden filled with bright yellow and white paper daisy flowers and a dazzling blanket of waxy pink flowers with sparkly silver-pale green leaves backed by tall, rather regal-looking lilies, the heraldic cream and orange blooms swaying slightly in the breeze.

There didn’t appear to be anywhere to garage the car. Indeed, the whole cottage wasn’t as big as the six-car garage Colin had insisted upon to house his collection of classic cars and her Volvo. A safe car for a “truly dreadful driver”. She’d soon stopped driving Colin anywhere because he heckled her so much. It had been equally grim in the kitchen, where he’d told her constantly she’d never make a living as a chef.

She remembered the first and the last time she had told him to shut up, and felt instantly ashamed she hadn’t left him there and then.

So what had their marriage been? Sex? For someone who found her frigid he had spent a lot of time taking her to bed.

Laura got out of the car, keys to the cottage in hand. She didn’t look closely at the houses to either side, wondering if she was under surveillance. One was a high-set colonial, far grander than the cottages, its grounds immaculate and studded with palms.

The picket gate swung cleanly without a creak. She closed it after her carefully, looking around with quiet pleasure at the small garden as though it was already hers to put to order. It was beginning to encroach on the narrow paved path up to the two weather-worn steps that led to the verandah.

The key fitted neatly into the lock. She opened the yellow-painted timber door with its old brass knocker and stepped inside, feeling a little Alice in Wonderland full of wonder with her curiosity to explore.

A hallway with a polished floor, pale golden wood with a darker grained border, ran straight through the house to the rear door. She wandered from room to room peering in. Parlour to the left, dining room, to the right. Beyond the parlour a fair-sized bedroom which led to a very quaint bathroom; behind the small dining room an equally small kitchen, somewhat modernized with a curved banquette area. Five rooms in all. No laundry. Unless there was one outside.

There was. It was attached to the cottage by a covered walkway hung with a glorious bridal veil of white bougainvillaea. Laura walked out into the sun. It was so brilliantly golden she needed her sunglasses or she’d be dazzled.

Another cottage garden, even more overgrown. It curved away to either side of a pink brick path that drew her along. Masses and masses of lavender gone wild. She picked a sprig, waved it beneath her nose. The path disappeared into a tunnel of lantana, flowering monstrously, richly blazing orange. There was even a small, charming bird bath, though the bowl was cracked.

This place is mine. It’s wonderful! Laura, who had grown up with every possible comfort, breathed aloud. A doll’s house.

She wandered back along the path to sit down on the hot stone step, lifting her arms as if in praise of the sun. She was drawing out every moment of the peace and freedom she had been denied living with Colin. The aromatic scents of the garden and the great wilderness that lay just beyond the town were balm to her wounded heart.

“Please God, help me,” she prayed. “I can’t hide for ever.”

There were no furnishings. She told herself she didn’t need much. She even felt a tingle of anticipation at the idea of making the cottage comfortable. And her own. She knew intellectually she was going to ground. Emotionally she felt if she didn’t hide away she was risking her life, and there were frightening statistics to back her fears. A wife-abuser was unpredictable and dangerous.

I’m in the middle of nowhere, she thought with a tremendous sense of relief. Who could find me here in this vast landscape, so stunningly, wonderfully primitive, as though nothing has changed for countless thousands of years?

She had fallen in love with the Outback town, a small settlement on the desert fringe. Beyond the town’s ordered perimeters lay the wild bush. What she had seen of its unique beauty had cast a compulsive spell on her. The amazing colours! The deep fiery red of the earth and the extraordinary rock formations; the breathtaking cobalt blue of the cloudless sky that contrasted so vividly with the blood-red soil; the myriad greens and silver-greens of the wild bush and the iridescent greens of the countless creeks and billabongs that criss-crossed the huge area.

There was such a feeling of space and freedom she was beginning to feel a difference in herself. She was less upset, less disturbed, less fearful. She had taken the first big step to help herself. She could take another if she kept to the fore-front of her mind that a journey of a thousand miles began with the very first step. She could be what she was meant to be—a woman who had confidence in her own ability to look after herself. A woman who cared about others. A woman who took delight in friendships and her once deeply satisfying talent.

She could start again. That meant at some point divorcing Colin, but first she would have to bring about changes in herself. She had to grow and learn, see herself as someone who could handle life’s difficulties. She had to stop for ever looking over her shoulder, as though she expected to see Colin, his arm outstretched to grab her. She had to subdue and conquer her fear of Colin.

She knew one day, perhaps sooner than she thought, she would be free.

Drawing her long hair over her shoulder, Laura walked back inside the cottage. She had already decided she would take it, and her mind was busy with thoughts of exactly how much furniture she would need. What would go where? Her enthusiasm for this little cottage in the back of beyond was infectious. In fact she felt quite jubilant. It was a long long time since she’d felt that.

Laura took a little notebook out of her shoulder bag and began to scribble in it.

CHAPTER TWO

THE sound of a car door slamming broke his concentration. Not that the book was going so well at this point. Memories always made him suffer. Writing kept him sane.

In this little Outback town of Koomera Crossing he was known as Evan Thompson. Loner. Man of mystery. He’d had an ironic laugh at those names. Evan Thompson wasn’t his true identity. It was a cover of sorts for his secret life as a wood worker. He’d had no apprenticeship in the trade. He’d learned in his youth from his diplomat father, who’d channelled his abundant natural skills into an avenue for relaxation.

His father! Christian Kellerman. Killed in a terrorist attack in the Balkans.

In another life he’d been known as Evan Kellerman, respected foreign correspondent, who had earned a reputation for putting his own life on the line to get to a big story. Everything he had written from the war zones where he’d gone searching for truthful answers had had an insider’s knowledge. With a base in Vienna, close to his father, he had covered the war in the Balkans when three ethnic groups had been at each other’s throats. Even after the Dayton Peace Agreement he had stayed on to cover the demilitarisation.

He had had a story to tell. Not the usual coverage of the war and recent political developments, but one man’s day-today existence during that violent time, when he had been plunged into a world gone mad and a journalist’s life was greatly at risk.

The terror had taken his father and an alluring but traitorous woman. Monika Reiner. Evan’s lover. So-called patriot. But Monika, unknown to him and his associates, had had an agenda of her own. Spying for the enemy.

Monika Reiner had used her beauty and her useful contacts to infiltrate the ranks of freedom fighters, leaving behind her a trail of death. All in the name of greed, money and power. And to think such a woman, responsible for passing on his father’s itinerary on that terrible day, had held the key to his heart. The sense of guilt, though irrational, had almost destroyed him.

He stood up so precipitately he sent his swivel chair flying. After a minute he retrieved it, but he couldn’t return to his desk. Restlessly he prowled, like a wild animal in a cage. From a bedroom window he caught sight of the young woman who must have slammed her car door. She was going into the cottage next door.

He shifted the curtain a fraction, looking down into the neighbouring garden. She was walking slowly, almost drifting in the breeze. His heart suddenly kicked in his chest. He sucked in his breath, momentarily overcome by paralysing shock.

From this distance she looked like Monika. Graceful in body and movement. Almost feline.

She was beautiful too, with long flowing dark hair that lifted away from her face as the breeze caught it. Like Monika’s, her hair was center-parted. She was petite, very slender. He could see her luminous white skin. He found his hands clenching and unclenching as he was gripped by the past.

“Close your eyes with holy dread.” The words of a poet sprang instantly into his mind.

He swallowed on a dry throat, turning away abruptly. A passing resemblance. Nothing more. A figure type.

He walked purposefully to the kitchen to make himself some strong black coffee. As soon as he finished his book—he was more than halfway through it—he would try to get back to a normal life. Or as normal as he could manage after the hell he’d been through.

Evan knew he could have his career back tomorrow. To this day he was being pursued by various agencies who well remembered his “meritorious service”—but he didn’t know if he could live that life again, with the sound of gunfire forever reverberating through his head. The Outback, the Timeless Land, had offered solace, a place to write and lick his wounds.

He found himself moving to the rear closed-in verandah, steaming coffee cup in hand, to check on the girl.

There she was again, turned flower child, twirling a sprig of lavender beneath her nose. He could have moved off, but the sight of her halted and held him. She looked so innocent as she walked among the blossoms, admiring the pretty petals.

He knew the cottage was up for rent. His neighbours, the Lawsons, had gone back to the UK for a year or two to be with family. Surely this young woman didn’t intend to live there? Everything about her—the lustrous hair, the trendy clothes, the graceful limbs—carried the stamp of “money”, or at the very least a comfortable background. What would she be doing looking over a modest little cottage in an Outback town?

Very odd! Even odder was the way she was taking such pleasure in the tiny backyard that had run riot since the Lawsons had left. He was disconcerted by his reaction to her beauty and her slightly fey attitude. What the hell was the matter with her? She was treading the path rather vaguely, picking wildflowers, but looking so utterly captivating she might have been modelling for a photo shoot.

I don’t need this, he thought. I definitely don’t need this. Beauty was a bait to lure. Yet he didn’t move, scarcely aware the coffee cup was burning his hand.

He couldn’t put his finger on just why he thought there was something disturbed or disturbing about this girl. Instinct again. His instincts were significant. They had saved his life time and time again—though that made him feel guilty he had survived when others so close to him had not.

Butterflies were fluttering around the lantana. A magical sight. She was looking towards it in an apparent trance of beauty. He felt an involuntary hostility well up in him. Simply because something about her had reminded him of Monika? This girl was a total stranger. She could never have witnessed an ugly sight in her life.

She strolled back along the path, taking a seat on the stone step. This wasn’t wise, watching her, but still he remained. Again she surprised him, raising her slender arms gracefully, dramatically, to the blue sky like some sort of ritual to the sun.

Bravo! A would-be ballerina! He kept his gaze focused. Perhaps she’d guessed she had an audience? She certainly couldn’t see him from where he stood.

“There’s more to this woman than meets the eye!”

He was surprised he’d spoken aloud, but the words had flowed irresistibly. He couldn’t believe he was even doing this. Spying on a perfect stranger. Normally he guarded his privacy and isolation.

With one exception. Harriet Crompton, the town school teacher and a character in her own right.

He had taken a liking to Harriet to the extent that he had agreed, after some heavy persuasion, to join the town orchestra, and then make up a surprisingly good quartet. He played cello. Harriet played viola. His mother, a concert artist, had taught him first the piano and then, when his interest had waned, the cello from an early age. He hadn’t wanted to make music his career—he had far too many interests—but that hadn’t prevented him from becoming very proficient. He guessed, as his mother always said, music ran in his blood.

These days it could make him very unhappy. He couldn’t listen to certain great artists for very long. Those who played with great passion, like the tragic Jacqueline Du Pré. It almost brought him to despair. He’d thought he had put his journalistic talents to the advancement of a downtrodden people and their cause. All it had brought about was the death of a father he had rightfully idolized and a profound mistrust of beautiful women.

Like the young woman who had disappeared back inside the cottage.

Ten minutes later and she still hadn’t come out. What was she doing?

By that stage he was back to his prowling. He knew the house was unfurnished. The Lawsons had preferred to store their furniture—a lot of genuine colonial pieces. He returned to his desk, but such was his mood he made the unprecedented decision to go next door and ask the young woman one or two questions.

He couldn’t explain the need to do so to himself beyond the fact his instincts were exceptionally finely honed. They told him she brought trouble. Or trouble was reaching out for her. One or the other.

He didn’t spend any more time thinking about it. He obeyed the powerful urge.

The brightly painted front door was open. An invitation? He gave a couple of raps. That should bring her.

Maybe, just maybe, she looked nothing like Monika beyond the white skin and the long waterfall of dark hair. He had spent a long time thinking about Monika and her treachery, which had ultimately cost his father and his father’s driver their lives.

His hand on the doorjamb was registering a faint tremor. Some things he couldn’t banish.

He’d realized at some time someone would rent the cottage. He’d hoped for a quiet couple. The sudden appearance of the girl had shocked him out of his complacency. He didn’t want her close. The wrong time. The wrong place. A random visit? Fate?

He heard her light footsteps, then she rounded the corner of the dining room, a half-smile on her face as though she expected someone. A friend? Her eyes—a beautiful iridescent green—at first radiant, suddenly flooded with something he interpreted instantly as panic. He knew all about panic. He couldn’t be fooled.

How very damned odd! Why should she look so shaken? He wasn’t that formidable, was he? Although he’d been told many times he was.

He damned nearly gave his real name—he was only trying to project reassurance. But he didn’t move an inch from the door, all at once wanting to release her from her high tension. He hadn’t considered she would have that effect on him. He had no wish to frighten her, and frighten her he had.

“Evan Thompson. I live next door,” he gestured with his hand. “The colonial.” In the space of about a minute she haunted his eyes.

“Laura…Graham.” She responded so hesitantly it immediately spun into his mind that it wasn’t her real name any more than his was Thompson.

Laura, in turn, realized within the space of a second that this was the fascinating “loner” Harriet had told her about.

“I’m sorry if I startled you.” He was aware his apology was overly clipped and formal. But he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her. The long dark hair, the white skin, the delicate bone structure and petite stature. Otherwise she was nothing like Monika.

Monika had had gold unwinking eyes, like a cat’s. Monika had never looked frightened—even when the game was up and she’d been surrounded by the comrades of the patriots she’d betrayed. Men about to pass instant judgement and there had been no way he could have stopped them.

Laura said nothing for a moment, aware she was under intense scrutiny. “I wasn’t expecting a man at my door,” she explained.

He answered dryly. “I’ll go if you prefer.”

“Oh, no!” She half raised a hand, let it drop. “I’m sorry. I must sound flustered.”

“One wonders why. I’m not that frightening, am I?”

She studied him, thinking Harriet’s description had been excellent. Late thirties. Exceptionally handsome in a dark, brooding way. Deep resonant voice. Thick dark hair. Brilliant dark eyes. Heavy sculptured head. A big man, strongly built.

She sensed he was somehow hostile to women. To her? That didn’t make sense.

Grooves ran from his nose to his mouth, bracketing it and drawing attention to its chiselled perfection. A sensuous mouth. A contradiction.

“Not at all!” She tried hard to suppress her agitation, knowing colour was running beneath her skin. “I thought it was someone else. Someone who knows I’m here, inspecting the house.”

“You like it?”

“I do.”

He regarded her lovely face, clear of that early expression of panic. “May I ask if you intend to rent it?”

“I don’t think I could if I had to get your approval,” She read his mind.

“On the contrary, I don’t care who moves in as long as they’re quiet. May I enquire too if you’ll be on your own?” He couldn’t keep the sardonic note out of his voice.

She stared back at him, trying to formulate an answer. He was formidable, but not threatening. Experienced. Tough. But never the sort of man to lift his hand in anger to a woman. Such a thing would only rouse in him revulsion. All this she saw even as she registered he would be very difficult to know. Very complex.

“It’s not a crime, is it?”

“It is if you play pop music very loudly.” Unexpectedly he smiled, sunlight from behind storm clouds.”

“I don’t know much about pop music at all,” she confessed, lulled by that smile. “I’m a classically trained pianist without a piano. I expect you’ll be grateful for that.”

“Not at all. I grew up in a house of music. My mother is a cellist.”

“Would I know of her?” she asked with genuine interest.

“Could be.” He looked away.

“I thought I might have a career as a pianist,” she found herself confiding.

“So what happened?”

“It didn’t work out.” She too changed the subject. “I’m a friend of Sarah Dempsey, by the way.” She said it as though Sarah’s name could offer safety and acceptance.

“She’s a very beautiful woman and a fine doctor. The town counts itself lucky to have her. I’ve met Dr Dempsey, most notably at her engagement party. I know her fiancé Kyall McQueen better. All in all they’re an extraordinary couple. You and Sarah were at school together? No, what made me say that? You’d be some years younger…”

“It’s not how old you are, it’s how old you feel,” she found herself saying dangerously.

“Really? And how do you feel, Miss Graham?”

“As though I’m being quietly interrogated.” She met the darkness of his eyes.

“‘Quietly’ and ‘interrogated’ are mutually exclusive.”

“You sound as if you know. Have you been in the Forces at some time? Secret Intelligence Service?” She was only half joking. Undeniably he had that sort of presence. Even standing perfectly still he give the impression he was at high alert, ready, engines running.

“I wonder how you ever thought that?” he answered smoothly, though her observation had thrown him.

“Am I right or wrong?”

“You couldn’t be more wrong.” He grimaced. “I’m a humble wood worker.”

“You surely don’t think yourself humble?” What was the matter with her? She was breaking all the rules.

“All right, then, you tell me?”

“I think you’re a casualty of battle.” My God had she said that?

He raised a large, sculpted hand. “Miss Graham, you’ve blown my cover.”

“Sometimes an emotional response can be quite unconnected to appearance or reason.”

“I just happen to agree.” Out of nowhere a complex intimacy was taking hold. “If you think you know something of me, may I ask if in coming out here to the desert you’re making a fresh start?”

His voice was deliberately bland, but it didn’t fool Laura. “I’ve made you angry.”

“You’ve thrown down a challenge. That’s different.” When she had cut through his barriers with frightening ease. Few people had ever done that. Even hardened professionals.

“I won’t bother you, Mr Thompson, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“When you’re the sort of woman who would always bother a man?” His watchful eye caught her tremble. “Forgive me. I’m quite sure we’re going to be good neighbours as long as we keep to ‘good morning’ and ‘good evening’ over the fence. That’s if you’re going to stay?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” She gave him a tiny smile.

“I’m quite sure it’s not what you’re used to.”

“No more than you, in the old colonial next door. Actually, I was making some notes about what sort of furniture I’d need when you knocked.”

“There’s a good secondhand store in the main street,” he found himself telling her. “The cottage is sound structurally. You’ll need the fireplace from time to time. Desert nights can get very cold. Is this in the nature of a breathing space? Don’t you have people who will miss you?”

“My life can wait.’ She didn’t attempt to say it lightly. He wouldn’t be fooled. “As for you? Don’t you have a story to tell?”

“I suppose I should ask are you psychic?” His voice was deliberately dry. “You have a witch’s beautiful green eyes. Surely a give-away. Then again, you could be a spoilt little rich girl on the run.”

She visibly paled. “And if I were you wouldn’t protect me?”

He was silent for a moment, her words and that spontaneous intimacy hammering away at him. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes. You need have no fear of me, Miss Graham. I don’t know who you are, but I do know you’re taking a risk.”

“Is it possible you’re psychic yourself? You know nothing whatever about me.”

“Quite possibly I’m like you.” He shrugged. “Covering my tracks. I’ll keep quiet if you will.”

She watched him, watching her. “How did this all start?” she asked genuinely taken aback. “I don’t understand how we got into this conversation at all.” For all its curious liberation.

“I do,” he said with surprising gentleness. “Sometimes it happens like that. A shortcut to discovery.”

“It strikes me as very strange, all the same.”

“Have no fears. Though when I saw you in the garden I thought fear would be alien to you. You looked so innocent, I suppose.”

“So why have you changed your mind?”

“You’re too intense, and there’s a haunting in your eyes.”

“All right, you’re a psychiatrist?” She tried to cover her confusion with a banter. “A highbrow writer? Award-winning journalist? You’re very intense too.”

“That comes with things we have to guard.”

“Then both of us have been very revealing this morning,” she said. Certainly nothing like this had ever happened to her before.

“It would seem so. I don’t often meet a young woman so disconcertingly perceptive. Also, you’re something of an enigma. You’re too young to have had much life experience? How old? Twenty-one, twenty-two?” His eyes dipped from her face to take in her slender body in cool white skirt and ruffled top, a mix of cotton and lace. Refined. Virginal.

“Can you deal with twenty-three?” He was clearly much older, with a wealth of experience behind those dark eyes.

“A baby,” he concluded.

“I don’t think so.” Her fingers clenched white. She was quite old enough to have had bad experiences.

He didn’t miss the movement of her fingers. “You know about tragedy?”

“Tragedy spills into lots of people’s lives. Maybe not on the level of what happened to you. What did happen to you?” she asked after a pause.

“Miss Graham, I’d have to know you a whole lot better before you could ever make that breakthrough,” he answered sardonically. “Besides, I’m pretty sure you’re not willing to tell your story.”

“Investigative reporter? Something tells me I should know you.” He had far too much presence to be an ordinary everyday person.

“You don’t,” he assured her briskly. “Anyway, we’re not adversaries. Are we?”

“I hope not, Mr Thompson. It’ll be a whole lot safer to be on your side.”

“You amaze me,” he offered freely. And she did.

“You amaze me,” she admitted in wry surprise. “I hadn’t bargained on more than a brief introduction. Are you always like this with strangers?”

“You’re not a stranger,” he said, with a dismissive shrug of his powerful shoulders. “I hadn’t bargained on liking you either.”

“Ah, so I wasn’t wrong. I could feel the hostility when you first arrived.”

“You assumed that,” he corrected.

“No. It’s true.”

“All right,” he shrugged. “For a few moments you reminded me of someone I used to know.”

“Someone no longer in your life?” At his expression her smile faded.

“Exactly.” The brilliant dark eyes became hooded. “Anyway, apart from a few similarities you’re not like her at all.”

“That’s good. You had me worried until you smiled.”

“That’s it? A smile?” he questioned, with a faint twist of his mouth.

“Yes,” she said simply, almost with relief. She didn’t add that as a big man he was in such possession of the space around him. Necessarily the dominant male. Colin had lacked this man’s presence, for all her husband’s arrogance and physical attributes. How she wished her life had gone otherwise.

Poignancy left its imprint on her face. Women like her always made a man protective, Evan thought. “Well, I’ve got an hour or two to kill,” he found himself saying. “Would you like some help picking out furniture?”

“You mean you accept me as your neighbour?” Her eyes lit up.

“I accept that in some way you’re very vulnerable.”

“You’re accustomed to vulnerable people?”

“I’m not a doctor. I’m not a psychiatrist or a rocket scientist either. But I know a lot about people in pain.”

“Then you know too much,” she said quietly.

That contained emotion caused him to make a further offer. “How about lunch?” He, Evan Thompson, the loner! “Then we look at furniture, if you like.”

“You’re being kind, aren’t you?” Kindness was there, behind the brooding front. People mattered to him. As they did to her.

“Kind has nothing to do with it,” he said crisply. “I’m hungry.”

“Okay, that would be very nice.” She walked towards him as he rested his powerful body against the doorjamb. “Why don’t you call me Laura?” She gave him a spontaneous smile that would have had Colin enraged. Her normal smile, or so she thought. Uncomplicated.

Evan found it captivating. “Then you must call me Evan.” He held out his hand. After a slight hesitation she took it, her hand getting lost in the size of his.

It was warm and firm, but never hurting.

“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. “You didn’t really think I was going to crack your fingers?” He turned her hand over, examining it. “Delicate, but strong. Are you any good as a pianist?”

The effect of his skin on hers was the most electrifying thing that had ever happened to her. She couldn’t pull away. It was as though she was held by a naked current. “People seemed to think so.”

“Conservatorium trained?”

“Wh-a-t?” It was so hard to concentrate when every nerve seemed to be jumping.

He released her hand. “I asked if you were Conservatorium trained?”

“I graduated. I’d begun studying for my Doctorate of Music.” She managed to speak calmly.

“So what happened?”

“Life.”

“An unhappy love affair?” Something had overwhelmed her.

“Desperately unhappy,” she admitted. “But that’s all you’re getting out of me.”

“There are worse things than unhappy love affairs,” he said.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS market day in the town. A day to be enjoyed. Street stalls sold their produce: fruit and vegetables, all sorts of pickles, home-made pies and cakes, the town’s excellent cooks vying with one another to come up with some surprises. Stall after stall featured crafts. The town’s two cheerful little coffee shops, one hung with red gingham curtains, the other with ruffled pink and white, were crowded.

“Let’s get some sandwiches and have a picnic in the park?” Evan suggested. “Would you like that?” He glanced down at her as she stood at his shoulder. No, not his shoulder. A way down from there. More like his heart. Hell, if he wanted to he could pick her up and put her in his pocket.

“Why not?” She smiled at him as if she were treasuring every moment. “Koomera Crossing is such a pretty place. I didn’t expect it to be so peaceful and picturesque. The pure air! It’s on the edge of the desert, yet lovely warm aromatic breezes are spiraling around us. It’s like a thawing of the heart.”

“Your heart needs thawing?” he asked, dipping his dark head to her.

“Well, I’m relaxed and comfortable here.” she said, looking towards the park, where small children were playing with the balloons they’d been given at the road stalls. “The bauhinia trees are lovely. They’ll protect us from the sun while we eat.”

“So shall I be mother?” Humour lit his fine eyes. “We don’t want to give people too much to talk about.” A trained observer, he already knew tongues had been set wagging at their appearance together.

“You know the town better than I do,” she conceded, happy when the passing townsfolk nodded to her and Evan in their friendly Outback fashion. “Besides, I might get you something you don’t like.”

“Would that matter?”

She was conscious of his penetrating glance on her. “Some people are very hard to please,” she said by way of explanation.

“Like the boyfriend?” After years of dodging bullets and destruction she seemed too young, too innocent, too unseasoned, to survive.

“We’ll have to agree not to talk about him.”

“Right. You stay here and soak up the healing sunlight. I’ll get the sandwiches and some coffee. Black or white?”

She considered sweetly. “Cappuccino, if they have it.”

“Look, you can have a cappuccino, a latte, a mini-cino, a Vienna, a short black, a long black—”

“Thank you. I get the message.” She smiled. It was the most incredible thing to be at peace with a man. For all his height and breadth of shoulder, the dark smoulder, he was surprisingly easy to warm to.

“Won’t be long.” He strode away, glimpsing the town sticky beak, Ruby Hall, peeking through the window of the general store.

He lifted a sardonic hand to wave, but instead of waving back she unsuctioned her nose from the glass.

Dr Sarah Dempsey had come a long way from when she was a girl helping her widowed mother run the store, he thought. After Sarah had left town, Ruby assisted Muriel part-time, inundating everyone who went into the store—which was just about the whole town—with suggestive little questions designed to translate in to hot gossip.

Ruby Hall, nosy parker, really should be stopped, he thought—not for the first time. What she didn’t know she made up.

He had attended Mrs Dempsey’s funeral—as had most of the town—and shortly after that Sarah had taken over at the hospital from its long-time resident Dr Joe Randall, who had died of cancer at Wunnamurra homestead, stronghold of the McQueen pioneering family, one of the most powerful landed families in the country.

Now Sarah was shortly to marry Kyall, the heir, as good a man as any woman was likely to get. If his new neighbour had Sarah Dempsey for a friend she had made the right connection.

They sat in rustic wooden chairs beside a bench in the shade of flowering orchid trees and a grove of ancient white gums. White gums flanked the curving banks of the creek, the iridescent green water eddying around small boulders that dotted the stream.

“The stream is the colour of your eyes,” he pointed out casually. “A sparkling green.”

What a voice he had! Deep, warm, sexy, with that interesting little cutting edge. He even had a slight foreign accent, or was she imagining it?

“It’s lovely here,” she said happily, incredibly comforted by his presence and the fête-like atmosphere of the town centre. “And to top it off these sandwiches are delicious. Fresh bread, lovely thick ham, just enough lettuce, whole-grain mustard. Perfect.” With a total stranger she felt safe.

“Don’t forget your cappuccino. It’s not terribly good, I’m afraid. I can do better.” He reached out a long arm to position it nearer her. “And there’s a couple of little cakes.”

“One each?”

“They’re for you. You seem a tad underweight.”

“No doubt because—” She stopped abruptly. She was being seduced by sun and water, the sweetly melancholy song of the magpies, the joyous shrieks of children, and most of all by this big, mesmerizing man who seemed familiar in the deep recesses of her mind.

“You weren’t having lots of fun?” He followed up with a question.

“No.” She felt a momentary chill as the past brushed up against her.

“What do you intend to do with yourself while you’re here?” he asked, his tone brisk.

“Do with myself?” Her voice was startled. “As a matter of fact I haven’t thought that far. It’s enough to be here.”

“You’ve got yourself in a state if you had to disappear.”

Her eyelashes quivered. “A breathing space. No more.”

“I see.” He exuded disbelief.

“Sarah has been marvellous to me. I’ve been staying with her until I find a place.”

“What? In the haunted house? Lucky old you!” His laugh rumbled deep in his chest.

“I’d only been in town ten seconds before I heard about it. But ghosts don’t frighten me as much as real people.”

He spun his head to stare at her, the dappled shade highlighting his broad, darkly tanned, handsome face. All he needed was a gold earring and he’d be perfect as a swash-buckling pirate. “Let’s get this straight. Your boyfriend was frightening you?”

It was evident he’d never considered for a moment she was married. Did she look so young and inexperienced when she had known such terrible turbulence? “Ye gods! I didn’t say that.”

“Ye gods?” he gently jeered. “Where did you dig that out? I haven’t heard that for years.”

“My father used to say it.” A sad expression came into her eyes. “He was killed in a car crash when I was eighteen. I adored him.”

He nodded, never very far from his own grief. “I miss my father terribly. We were very close.” He looked away to where a large flock of pink and grey galahs were busily picking over the grass seeds.

“He died?” she said gently.

“Also in a car.” He didn’t add that he had been murdered by terrorists Evan’s own lover had put in motion.

“Are you an only child?” She tried to picture him as a boy. Couldn’t. He was so adult. So big. So commanding—even in a short-sleeved blue cotton shirt and jeans, boots on his feet. He made her feel like a doll.

“Like you? Continue the inspection,” he invited dryly. “I’m used to being looked over.”

She blushed. “You mean by the women of the town?” She heard about this, and understood now she’d meet the high level of feminine interest.

“Women are always looking for a mate,” he said, a smile flitting around his handsome mouth.

“But you don’t need one.” He seemed enormously self-reliant.

He was silent a while. “Of course I need one. But I have to get my life back together before then.”

“Your experiences have affected you deeply?”

“Things I don’t want to talk about, Laura.” Killing fields. Unimaginable brutality.

“So I’ve learned a lot and yet nothing about you.”

“Same here. But you’re such a clever thing I’m surprised you can’t read my mind.”

“I’m doing my best. Do you like music?” she digressed. “Or do you merely pretend? No, you wouldn’t pretend, would you?”

“It’s never struck me to pretend about such a thing.”

“But about other things?”

“We’ve all got secrets, Laura. Some people have nightmares.”

Like me. Laura closed her eyes and knocked a hand to her breast.

“Why did you do that?” He was surprised and rather perturbed by her gesture.

“I don’t know. Reflex action. I’m not a very brave person, I’m afraid. Sometimes panic rises up inside me like a flock of birds.” As she spoke she looked towards the noisy galahs.

“You’re like me. At this point in our lives we need the vastness of the Outback to breathe in. Speaking of music, the highly persuasive Harriet Crompton—that’s the town school-teacher—”

“I know Harriet. Sarah introduced us. She’s quite a character.”

“She is.” His eyes glittered with amusement. “Dear Harriet drafted me into the town orchestra. I play cello in the string quartet as well.”

“Do you really?” She turned in her chair to stare at him.

“Why the arched brows, miss?”

“I thought you looked a little like Beethoven,” she teased. “No, seriously, I look on your playing with the orchestra as wonderful. It’s just that you seem a very physical man—as in action. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to find out you’d been a commando in your other life.”

He grunted wryly. “I can’t believe the number of guesses you’ve had. I told you I’m a wood worker. I’ll make you something, if you like. A chair. A table. A jewellery box. Did you bring your diamonds, emeralds and pearls? I bet you’ve got them.”

“Why ever would you say that?” Her voice shook slightly.

“Whatever you’ve been, Laura, you weren’t broke.”

She let her long hair slide forward to hide her profile. “It’s really weird, the way we’re talking so freely, don’t you think? We only met an hour or so ago.”

“Don’t let that bother you. The truth is people have always come to me with their troubles.”

“I’m not telling you mine.”

“Not even the first chapter? Clearly you don’t know how to choose boyfriends. Why in hell are you running anyway? Won’t he take no for an answer?”

“Be nice. Get off the subject,” she begged.

“Okay. Providing we can continue at another time. You’re not dieting, are you?”

“Good grief, no. Can’t you see? I ate the sandwiches.”

“Then eat the cakes. They cost good money and I’ve no intention of throwing them away.”

“All right, then.” She picked up one of the little home-made cup cakes. “Have you finally found your role?” She glanced mischievously at him out of the side of her green eyes.

“As in big brother?” he asked sarcastically. Far better to treat her that way. “I feel almost geriatric beside you.” She carried with her the innocence and freshness of spring.

“At thirty-seven, thirty-eight?”

“I stopped being young long ago,” he said too bluntly.

“Now, when you’re finished I think we ought to hit the Trading Post. They sell new furniture as well as old.” He raised a quizzical brow. “How do you intend to pay for it all?”

“Why?” She raised an anxious face, always worried about endangering herself, bringing Colin after her.

“So I can be sure the name on your credit card matches the name you told me. Laura Graham.”

“I can pay in cash.”

“Cash?” His deep voice slid dismally. “Surely you’re not carrying around lots of cash?”

“Hey, cash will do.”

“Don’t you have credit cards? It’s illegal for banks to give away private information.”

“Surely people can find out anything if they want to?”

He shook his head, staring into her face, past and beyond it. “Why don’t you tell me all about it on the way home?”

“No thank you, big brother,” she joked. “You mustn’t worry about me.”

“On the contrary, I might have to.” He disposed tidily of the café’s take-away boxes and paper cups. “If for no other reason than you’re going to be my next-door neighbour.”

“There’s something comforting in that,” she said, feeling safer than she had at any time since she’d lost another big, strong man radiating kindness and authority. Her father.

Picking out furniture proved to be the greatest fun. They wandered through the store, which was divided into two sections—Used and New Furniture—debating what would go where. Evan must have called in on the Lawsons, the owners of the cottage a few times, she reasoned, because he had an exact knowledge of the layout and dimensions of the various rooms.

“Yah goin’ house-huntin’, little lady?” The salesman, a lanky laconic middle-aged man, followed them around, wedging himself between Laura and every piece of furniture she particularly wanted to see.

“I’ve found it.” She smiled pleasantly.

“The young lady will be renting the Lawsons’ cottage for a while,” Evan intervened. “Don’t worry about showing us around, Zack. We’ll wander about, then get back to you when we find what we like.”

“Sure thing, Evan,” Zack said cheerily. “Listen, I got folks wanting those carved armchairs you’ve been makin’. They were real successful. You sure are a gifted guy, what with playin’ the cello and all. Me wife keeps tellin’ me it’s so romantic; I think I’ll go back to playin’ my ukelele. Might fill in a few evening’s. Reckon I could sell anything you cared to make. We’ve never had a cabinet maker anythin’ like you,” he added fervently. “Folks around here just love yah designs. Reckon yah could put the price up easily without goin’ over the top. Folks would be willin’ to pay.”

“I’ll think about it, Zack. And thanks for the nice compliments.”

“We’re partners, ain’t we? You make. I sell. Tell yah somethin’ else. Folks love yah boxes. Sold the last one to Tessy Matthews for her weddin’ chest.”

“That’s great! Had I known it was for her wedding chest she could have had it for nothing.”

“Folks don’t treasure what they get for nuthin’,” Zack maintained.

“You’re a smart, smart man, Zack.” Evan laughed, steering Laura through the archway that led to the secondhand section.

“You get along with him okay?”

“Why not? I’ve never had any trouble getting along with people. Even very difficult people.” He remembered the number of men holding guns he had interviewed. Some genuine patriots. Others a bunch of fruitcakes.

“Yet you’ve earned the reputation of being something of a loner.”

“Is that so?”

She nodded. “Difficult to sustain when the young women of the town are on a crusade to draw you out?”

“Who told you that, precisely, Laura?”

“I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” Indeed, she had noted the curiosity and interest as they moved amid the smiling sea of faces. probably they were already an item of hot gossip in the coffee shops, with a dazzle of gazes through the colonial windows. “Harriet mentioned it as well, if I’m not telling tales.”

“Harriet’s a throwback to everyone’s slightly astringent favourite aunt.” Evan grinned. “So, Harriet told you there are women anxious to enjoy my company?”

“I like being with you,” she pointed out, as though that were entirely reasonable. “You’re bracing and kindly.”

“Hell, I’m not your goddamn grandfather,” he retorted. “You seem to prize kindliness in a man above all else.”

“Every woman wants a man who will be kind to her and her children,” Laura answered, very seriously indeed.

“And you’re worried that your boyfriend isn’t a great choice for life?”

“Correct,” There was pain and sorrow in it.

“But you miss him already?”

“I’d like to ask you a few questions, Mr Thompson,” she retaliated. “If you answer truthfully my lips are sealed. Are you married?”

“Never. Not once.” He looked directly at her.

“How come?”

“For a lot of years of my life I never knew where I was going to wake up.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” She’d already sensed he was a man of adventure.

“On the move, Laura. I’ve travelled the world.”

“As a wood worker?” she queried dubiously.

“When I could find the time.”

“Don’t you miss it?”

“Miss what?” He bent to examine a small desk. A few scars. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

“Whatever you did. I’m not so totally inexperienced I can’t see you were personally acquainted with danger.”

“So much for my tight cover.” he mock-growled.

“You won’t always live here, will you?” she persisted, accepting the powerful natural attraction of him.

“No more than you. In fact I marvel at the fact you found your way out here. This is truly the Outback, the Never Never, the Back of Beyond.”

“I love it already,” Laura said, her lovely face dreamy. “The peace, the freedom, the vastness. I’ve decided I’m going to walk every inch of the Simpson Desert,” she joked. “Maybe I’ll take a pack of camels, like that wonderful woman author. I can’t remember her name at the moment, but I was fascinated by her book.”

“Robyn Davidson. The name of her book was Tracks. It’s an account of her 1700-mile journey across Australia with camels. It won her an award.”

“You’re very knowledgable.” She looked at a coffee table, thinking about where it might go.

“Yes,” he agreed.

“You’re a writer? You’re a famous author?”

His brilliant gaze told her she was way off beam. “Let’s get this whole thing cleared up. I’m a wood worker.”

She was afraid she had overstepped the mark. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry, Evan. I was just having—fun.”

“Hey!” He watched her face, saw it lose colour. That really bothered him. “I’m sorry too if I sounded a bit stern. Who hurt you, Laura?” he questioned, looking like a man who would listen. “If I don’t ask I’ll never know.”

Her eyes clouded. “Why do you want to know?”

“There’s something very endearing about you,” he said with simple truth. “Witness the way you’ve cajoled reclusive me to take you out for coffee and sandwiches. Just between the two of us I want to know enough to be on the look-out for your boyfriend, should he decide to try to track you down. Do you think he will?”

Her whole body tensed. “No, no. Everything’s okay.”

“Of course. That’s why you just trembled. I promise you I’ll keep an eye out, and you don’t have to put me on the payroll. Maybe you can invite me in for dinner some time. Can you cook?”

She smiled. Shook her head. “I thought I could. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Your self-esteem has taken a battering.”

“Why do you say that.”

“It couldn’t be clearer if it were front page news on today’s Courier Mail.”

“There you go again.” She paused in her inspection of a sofa to look across at him. “You’re a reporter. An overseas correspondent. There’s something else in your background, I think.”

“Please tell me,” he invited, deliberately using a casual tone. He continued down the aisle, thinking she was way too perceptive.

“This might be a bad time for it as you’re helping me choose my furniture.”

“Fire away.” He touched his fingers to the surface of a smallish circular table. Good red cedar. “I won’t hold it against you.”

“All right.” A curious thrill raced down Laura’s spine. “I know we only met today. And I’ve never seen you before in my life. Yet the more I look at you the more I’m convinced I know your face from somewhere. Have you ever worn a beard?”

“Good grief, Laura.” He rolled out a leather armchair on castors.

“Tell the truth.”

“Every man has a beard from time to time, even if it’s only the weekend growth.”

“I mean a full beard and moustache.”

“My dear, that would take years,” he drawled.

“All right. It’s just that I keep seeing you with a beard. Very impressive. Very formidable. As though no one could hide from you. The cover of a book, maybe?”

He exchanged a droll look with her. “You’re not even warm.” Which was far from the truth. He had put out a book on his trip to Antarctica—but the photograph had been on the back cover, beard and all. “But I’ll guarantee to give progress reports.”

“Just a woman’s curiosity.” She settled in the rich burgundy armchair he had rolled out for her attention.

“And here I was thinking you a mere babe,” he gently mocked.

“I know.” It was true she didn’t carry her scars on her face, otherwise she would look awful.

He couldn’t help smiling at the picture she made, curled up in the oversized but very comfortable chair.

“But very bright. When you’re older and more sure of yourself you’ll be positively dangerous.” He turned to look around him. “We’ve walked all the aisles. What do you think?”

“The armchair, definitely,” she decided. “It’s very cosy. I liked the circular table you were looking at. Good wood. Is it red cedar?”

“It is. It’ll come up nicely.”

“You mean you’re going to work on it?” she asked, sliding her long hair back behind her ear.

“When I have the time. What else?”

“The most expensive thing will be the new bedroom suite,” she said. “We can use the cedar table for when I invite you in. I’m not fussed on the chairs. They’re too—functional. Clean lines.” Her smile was strained.

“You and the boyfriend got to discussing furnishings?” Instantly he picked up on her wavelength.

“How do you know I’m not married?” She looked straight at him, loving his attention and the dazzling complexity of it, but somehow hoping he would guess her secret.

“I don’t know,” he replied, studying her with his brilliant dark eyes. “You’d say, wouldn’t you? Then again I can’t remember when I last met a young woman who somehow struck me as being such an innocent abroad.”

“I’m not. Maybe I’m playing at a character.”

He didn’t speak for a few moments, considering what she’d just said. “I don’t think so. I think you’re a young woman who’s been cherished all your life and now you find yourself in a situation you can’t handle. Yet you’re someone who wants desperately to stand on your own two feet. You’re even prepared to take a risk to do it. Is the boyfriend someone who wants to dominate you?”

“Very much so.” She couldn’t keep the quiver out of her voice.

“Then it’s clear you can’t be happy together. Probably that’s why you’re comfortable with me. You are, aren’t you?”

She flushed. “Yes.”

He nodded. “You’re drawn to older men. No doubt because you deeply loved your father.”

“Yes, again. Isn’t it a mercy that as well as being comfortable—which you’re not, strictly—you’re charming, obliging, with a good sense of humour, and investigative enough to be interesting? Shall I go on? You shouldn’t be worried I’ll take advantage of your kindness. I half hope we’ll be friends?”

“Why half hope?” He lifted a quizzical brow.

“I can’t expect more.”

“You can as far as I’m concerned. The decision has been made. I’m big brother. You’re Laura next door. We’re well on our way towards becoming good friends. To put the whole thing simply, we’ve bonded. Both of us are living defensively and so forth. As for chairs—I have two at home that will do you nicely.”

“Did you make them?” She looked up at him with open delight.

“I did.”

“Then I’m honoured. I heard you don’t charge a lot either.”

“Laura they’re a house-warming present,” he said gently.

“Oh I can’t—” she started, broke off, overwhelmed by his kindness and generosity.

“Yes, you can. Now, there are a few other things you can have sent. That coffee table, for one. Cash cover it?” he asked in a laconic voice.

“It does, and I like it.”

“Those few little nicks can be ironed out. No problem at all to bring it back to its former glory. What about that coat-stand for the hall? I don’t think it will crowd it. I expect you’ll wear a lot of hats. You’ll need them to protect your skin. You won’t be needing a raincoat, however. I can’t even remember when it last rained. When do you think you will move in?”

A smile curved her lips. “If it can be organised, why not tomorrow?”

“I’m sure it can. I’ll be on hand to help out.”

“Why are you being so nice?” All at once her heart was beating fast. All wrong, in the circumstances.

“You’re a woman on your own, aren’t you?” he said reasonably. “I’m the kind of man who likes to lend a hand.”

“Then I’m very grateful.”

“Besides, I’ve had a good time.” He looked at her and gave that white melting smile that sat so piquantly with his dark, brooding good looks. “I was getting terribly dull. Terribly set in my ways.”

“I wonder how long it will be before you’re ever that.”

“Laura Graham, you scare me.” Before he could help himself he had touched her cheek lightly with his finger. It had the velvety texture of a magnolia.

For a moment they stared into one another’s eyes. Laura felt oddly as if the air might explode.

“Well, come on,” he said, making a brisk return to the role of big brother. “We really should visit the general store. You’ll be needing a few pots and pans, though you don’t look like you eat a whole lot.”

“Don’t go thinking I have eating problems,” she chided him.

“So why the feather weight?”

He spoke lightly, but she couldn’t help herself going tense. “I don’t know really. It’s not easy to eat sometimes.”

“When you’re unhappy and you’re sleeping badly?” His dark eyes rested on her for a second.

“I’m going to deal with it.”

“Good girl,” he said quietly.

Together they began to walk back along the aisle. Laura felt so drawn to him, but she had no doubts that before he’d come to Koomera Crossing he’d been someone very different. He’d lived a high-powered life, running on adrenaline. Perhaps even in personal danger.

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