Outback bride - Hart Jessica (читать книги без регистрации полные TXT) 📗

‘You mean you wouldn’t expect any payment?’ Mal raised his brows in disbelief.

‘All I’d ask is a chance to see a bit more of Birraminda. There are still a lot of practical details we have to sort out and I really need to see the sites my father chose for myself.’

There was a pause. Mal picked up his beer again and took a pull, his eyes on the crackling blue light. ‘This eagerness to stay wouldn’t be anything to do with my brother, would it?’ he asked at last.

‘With Brett?’ Copper stared at him. ‘What would it have to do with him?’

Mal shrugged. ‘He can be very charming.’

‘I realise that, but if you think I’d be prepared to spend my days cooking and cleaning just to be near him, you must be out of your mind!’

‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen as many girls make fools of themselves over him as I have.’ Mal rubbed a weary hand over his face. ‘Brett, as you’ve probably gathered, is physically incapable of being in the same room as a woman without flirting with her. He doesn’t take it seriously-Brett doesn’t take anything seriously-but the agency keeps sending us girls who think they’re the only one he’s ever kissed. They fall madly in love with him, he gets bored after a week or so, and it all ends in tears. The next thing I know, they’re on the bus back to Brisbane. Once the passionate affair is over, there isn’t any way of avoiding each other out here,’ he added in a dry voice.

Was that some kind of hint? Copper looked at him sharply. She had the best of reasons for knowing that it was true, but did Mal realise? Not for the first time, she cursed the impossibility of ever knowing just what he was thinking.

‘I can imagine it’s rather difficult,’ she said after a moment. Her voice held a slight chill. If Mal remembered their own passionate affair, he could come right out and say so. She certainly wasn’t going to mention it! ‘Why don’t you ask the agency to send an older woman?’

‘Do you think I haven’t thought of that?’ Mal sighed. ‘It isn’t that easy. There aren’t many middle-aged women who are prepared to give up comfortable lives to come and live somewhere like this. It’s not exactly a career opportunity. Even the younger girls will only come out on short contracts. There isn’t anything for them to do and they get bored, so none of them are going to stay permanently, but they might stay a bit longer if it wasn’t for Brett.’

‘Can’t you ask him to leave them alone?’

Mal smiled but there was no humour in it. ‘Sure-and I could ask him to stop breathing while I’m at it!’

‘It must make it very difficult for Megan with all these girls coming and going,’ said Copper, and he frowned.

‘I know, but what can I do?’

‘If Brett won’t stop flirting, you could always tell him to leave,’ she suggested.

‘And go where?’ Mal got irritably to his feet and walked over to lean against the rail. ‘Brett grew up at Birraminda and it’s part of his inheritance. Oh, I know he can be absolutely infuriating at times, but I can’t just turn him off. He’s my brother.’

‘Doesn’t he realise how difficult he’s making things for you?’ asked Copper curiously.

At the rail, Mal shrugged. ‘He’s always sorry when I explain why yet another housekeeper has left, but you’ve seen what he’s like. Criticism just runs off his back, and somehow it’s impossible to stay cross with him for very long. He’s nearly ten years younger than me, so he was always the baby of the family. That’s probably why he’s never learnt any responsibility.’

Turning round to face Copper once more, he leant back against the rail and crossed his ankles. ‘It doesn’t help that I run things here at Birraminda. Brett would soon learn responsibility if he had his own property to run, but property doesn’t come cheap, and we’ve been working flat out to make enough to invest in more land. That’s one of the reasons I was prepared to listen to your father when he was here. I’d hoped that there might be some money for us in his project, but once I heard what he was planning I soon gave that idea up!’

‘Well, maybe I’ll be able to change your mind about that,’ said Copper with a tight smile. ‘I won’t try and persuade you now, though. I’ll wait until you let me have that hour-if you accept my offer, of course.’ She lifted her chin at him. ‘I think I can safely promise you that I won’t fall in love with Brett!’

‘You seem very sure of that,’ said Mal, eyeing her speculatively.

‘I am. I like your brother very much, but he’s really not my type. Besides,’ she hurried on, before Mal decided to ask her just what her type was, ‘I happen to already be in love with someone else.’

Mal didn’t move, and his expression didn’t change,but Copper had the feeling that the air had tightened somehow. ‘Someone in Adelaide?’ he said, without any inflection in his voice at all.

‘Yes.’ Mentally she crossed her fingers, thinking of Glyn who had been her boyfriend until a month ago. They had had some good times together, and in spite of the way it had ended Copper knew that she would always be fond of him. She wasn’t in love with him now, but there was no need to tell Mal that. All Mal needed to know was that she was serious about staying at Birraminda until she had had a chance to convince him that Copley Travel meant business.

‘I see,’ said Mal.

‘So, do we have a deal?’ she asked with forced brightness.

‘It’ll be hard work,’ he warned. ‘This won’t be like working in an office. You and your father seem to have some romantic ideas about the outback, but it’s a tough life. The days are long and hot and dusty, and at the end of them there’s nowhere to go and no one else to see. You’ll have the most boring jobs to do and no one to help you. It won’t be at all romantic’

‘I’m not in the slightest bit romantic,’ said Copper icily.

It was true. Copper liked life as it was, and didn’t believe in dreaming about the way things might be. Her friends would fall about with laughter if they knew she had been accused of being romantic, but then, she hadn’t told any of them about the three days she had spent with Mal in Turkey. That had been stepping out of time and out of character. For Copper, it had been too special to share with anyone else. Mal had been her secret, her aberration, her one brief encounter with romance.

‘That must be very disappointing for your boyfriend,’ said Mal, with something of a sneer.

Looking back, Copper thought that it probably had been disappointing for Glyn, but she had no intention of admitting as much to Mal.

‘It depends what you mean by romantic, doesn’t it?’ she challenged him. ‘I prefer to get on with things rather than mope around wishing they were different.’

Oh, yes? said an inner voice. So why did you never quite manage to forget about Mal, no matter how hard you tried? Why were you so hurt when he didn’t remember you?

‘Anyway,’ Copper went on, firmly squashing the voice, ‘all you need to know is that I’ll work hard and I won’t waste my time dreaming about your brother. As far as I’m concerned Birraminda is business, and I’m not interested in anything else up here.’

Mal studied her in silence for a moment. Copper would have given anything to know what he was thinking, but as usual he kept his reactions to himself. ‘OK,’ he said at last, straightening from the rail. ‘You can stay on as housekeeper-but only until the girl from the agency turns up. She should be here any day.’

“That’s all right,’ said Copper, getting to her feet in relief at having passed the first hurdle. At least she wouldn’t have to drive back to Adelaide tomorrow! ‘And you will give me an opportunity to show you our proposal?’

‘As long as you don’t mention it the rest of the time,’ said Mal stringently. ‘I don’t want you nagging at me. You can bring out your financial plan and your proposals, but you’re only getting one chance to talk me round.’

Copper smiled. ‘One will be enough,’ she said.