The Australians' Brides: The Runaway and the Cattleman

“Wake up, little mate,” Pete said. “Dinner’s up.”

“You staying for it, Pete?” Callan asked him, as Lockie opened bleary eyes.

The older man shook his head. “Headin’ home.”

“Come in for a bit.”

“Do that, I won’t get goin’ again. Have to stay all night.”

“I already told you to do that.”

Pete shook his head again. “Gettin’ home. Got some things to check up on.”

“Well, bring your gear tomorrow and stay tomorrow night.”

“Maybe.” He was already heading for his car, with around two hours of nighttime driving still ahead of him, and the return trip first thing in the morning. He was a tough one.

Lockie had woken up. “I’m starving!”

“Let’s see what’s cooking.”

Pippa and Flick followed them onto the veranda and found the fresh food and water Callan’s mother had already put out for them.

Inside the house, there was a fabulous aroma coming from the kitchen, but no sign of food on the table, which surprised Callan a little. Mum would have heard the truck. She would have known how ready they’d be for the meal. Josh and Carly had had baths and were prowling around in their nightwear, looking almost as hungry as Callan felt. His mother appeared with bathwater damp on her shirt and he asked, “Should I set the table?”

“I’m getting worried, Callan. Jacinda’s not back.”

“Not back?” His heart did another of those weird lurches that risked becoming a habit. “Where did she go?”

“For a walk, two and a half hours ago. Longer.”

“What did she take? How long was she planning to be gone? It’s almost dark out there!”

“I know. I thought she’d be gone half an hour. I’m not even sure she had water with her.”

“Feed the kids,” he said, energy surging back into him and hunger forgotten. “I’ll get the dogs, and we’ll head to the creek on foot to look for her. I’m not going to treat this as a crisis just yet.”

“I’ll do that for you!” his mother answered. “I like Jacinda a lot, and she’s no fool ….” She touched his arm, as if it was important that he know how she felt about Jacinda.

“No, she’s not,” he agreed.

And I’ve lived here all my life. I’m not going to panic because a grown woman is an hour late back to the house.

“But, Callan, she has no idea what this country can do to people who make mistakes.”

“I know. Listen, if I’m not back in half an hour, get Moss saddled for me.”

In the space of two minutes, he’d packed water and a couple of snacks into a backpack, as well as the jacket he’d found hanging in her room. He’d also packed the first-aid kit and a long roll of bandage.

Watching as he dropped it into the backpack, little pajama-clad Carly got a stricken look on her face. On top of hunger, fatigue and his own lurking fear, her frightened reaction didn’t help.

“Where is Mommy? Why isn’t she back?” she said.

Chapter Eight

The barbed wire had pierced and torn the skin on Jacinda’s palm in four places. It stung and throbbed, and the remaining half mile to the homestead felt like ten times that distance as she thought about taking each cautious step in the dark. She didn’t want to trip again. She needed better shoes. Proper hiking boots or something. And she shouldn’t have stayed out so long, even though she’d needed all that time to think.

I’ll try e-mailing Andy and Tom tonight, on Callan’s computer, she decided as she started walking again. She then spent the next five minutes of carefully trod distance trying to work out when she’d last done so. Could it really be more than two years?

The dogs started barking when she still had two hundred yards of fence to follow. They sounded overexcited and ready for action, but surely they didn’t think she was a stranger?

Someone must have let them through the gate because they came at her out of the darkness with a speed that frightened her, still letting out high, urgent sounds. She saw a circle of light behind them, bouncing in time to someone’s stride, then heard Callan’s voice.

“Jac, is that you?” He raised the flashlight in her direction.

“Yes, and please tell Pippa and Flick that I’m friendly!”

He whistled at the dogs as he came closer and they ran to heel beside him, panting and turning their faces up to him as if they expected a reward. “Yes, guys, well done, you found her,” he told them.

“Found me?” Jac reached them, while Callan was still bending down to the dogs.

“Please don’t scare us like that again, okay?” He pointed the flashlight beam away from her and toward the ground, but it had already shone into her face and dazzled her vision and she had spots before her eyes.

“Scare you?” She blinked, covered her closed eyes with her hand for a moment, but her vision was slow to clear and, when she opened them again, she could still barely see him. She could sense him, though. That big body, that aura of dust and hard work. “Callan, I wasn’t lost or anything.” She peered at him. It was the first time they’d talked all day. “Were you worried?”

Stupid question. He didn’t look worried, she saw at last as the spots faded. He looked angry, slapping the flashlight in a slow rhythm against his hard, denim-clad thigh and narrowing his eyes. “How much water did you have with you?” he demanded.

“I had a big drink before I left.”

“And did you take a jacket? Even a cotton sweater?”

“I only went for a quick breath of fresh air.” She began to guess that these weren’t adequate answers.

“And you were gone nearly three hours.”

“I know. I was thinking about a few things. Time got away from me a bit, and I didn’t turn back along the creek as soon as I should have. I was a bit shocked to see that the light was going.” Instinctively, she touched the sunglasses on top of her head, useless now. She had her baseball cap folded and stuffed into the back pocket of her jeans, equally useless once the sun went.

“Sunglasses aren’t a survival kit.”

He poked at them with a rigid finger, pushing them farther back into her hair—a gesture that could have been tender in other circumstances, but wasn’t this time. It brought him closer, though, and she remembered with every sense and every nerve ending how she’d felt in his arms last night.

“If you’d twisted your ankle on a tree root and had to sit there all night until we found you,” he went on, “you would have been happy in short sleeves without a drop to drink or a morsel of food, with the temperature dropping into the forties, is that right?”

“Well …”

“People who get lost or hurt out here … people who don’t have the right gear … people whose engines break down and they go looking for help instead of staying with their vehicle … they die, Jacinda, and it doesn’t take that long, either.” His voice rasped and dropped deeper. “This country doesn’t forgive mistakes.”

“Shoot, I didn’t think, did I?” she realized aloud.