Page 46 of Return of the Outback Billionaire

Pretty words and possibly true, but there was a pile of his family jewels sitting on the table and he couldn’t quite let that go. ‘What kind of a reckoning?’

‘A long overdue one, according to my libido. Sit, eat.’ She leaned forward and lit a candelabra full of candles and snared him twice over with her beauty. He’d gained a lot of knowledge these past few weeks, months, plenty of it to do with his neighbour, friend and false fiancée, Bridie. She was resourceful and smart. Playful. Sneaky, even. Her father was still not home and she’d taken control of Devil’s Kiss station with a sure and steady hand.

No doubt about it, Bridie Starr was an extraordinarily capable woman when on her home turf, and especially when she had a camera in her hand.

Time to pay attention.

‘What do you want?’ He asked more plainly. ‘Because if you’re looking for permission to show the pictures you took of me the other day, the answer is no. Hell no.’ He’d been cleaning out a water trough for the cattle with his hat, and he’d taken his shirt off because why get that soaked too, and somehow he’d broken the water stopper while he was at it, which meant he was in there, boots and all with a fix, and by the end of it, he’d just laid back and closed his eyes and let the damn trough fill with him in it, his arms trailing over the edges and his wet hat back on his head.

‘No,’ he’d said when he’d heard her camera start clicking, but he hadn’t really meant it and he’d been too content to move.

‘But, Judah, Man in Bath,’ she’d muttered and somehow managed to capitalise every word, and then she’d started positioning him.

He’d given her plenty of warning to put the camera down before dragging her in with him.

‘I would never again put any of the pictures I take of you out in the world for public viewing. Lesson learnt.’ Her hand over her heart only served to highlight the necklace snugged against the gentle swell of her breasts. His necklace, the one he’d pressured her into accepting. He hadn’t seen it on her since they’d left Sydney. What was it the sales guy had said? Not a daily wearer.

What use was it if she couldn’t wear it whenever she wanted to?

His gaze slid to the sparkling little pile on the table and then away again. He reached for the champagne and at her nod filled her glass and then his. ‘So what is it you want?’

‘First, you owe your brother a new coat. You neglected to tell me it was his clothes we were burning last night.’

‘Spur-of-the-moment decision. I’ll buy him a new one. A better one.’ Not green.

‘He has a green woollen jumper. Your mother knitted it. He’s very attached to it. Leave it alone.’

This time shame licked at him. ‘I will.’

‘Reid also wasn’t impressed with your solo decision to bring a complete stranger into the home paddock, so to speak.’

‘He’s okay with it now, though.’ Bridie gave him the look, one he’d recently interpreted to mean he needed to do more explaining. ‘Bubbly, outgoing, down-to-earth girl.’

‘Is that why you chose her? You’ve met her before?’

‘Once or twice.’

‘Don’t make me beat more information out of you, Judah. Because I will.’

Her bluffing needed so much more work. ‘She’s the daughter of a guy I used to bunk with. I said I’d look her up when I got out and when I found her she was chipping cotton twelve hours a day, six days a week, doing the bookwork for a childcare centre in the evenings in exchange for childcare, and two weeks behind on her rent.’

‘She has a kid?’

‘A boy. He’s nearly two. Last I saw, he’d fallen asleep on Reid’s shoulder as Reid came out of the linen cupboard with a handful of baby blankets that used to be his.’

‘Judah, Reid’s a baby himself, especially in the world of relationships. What are you doing?’

‘I’m bringing people into our lives because we need help and they might need a break, and we’re building things. There’s another woman heading this way next week. She’s a sixty-seven-year-old bookkeeper I met on a ferry in Sydney, and if I don’t trust my instincts now I never will. You willing to trust me, Bridie? They’re both women. I wouldn’t invite a man out here to stay before running it by you.’

‘Then why not run the bringing of women out here past me too?’

‘Because they’re not as much of a threat to you? Being women and all?’

‘Says who? Okay, I agree, it’s unlikely they’d truss me up and stick me in a car boot, but there are other ways to pose a threat. They might not even know they’re being threatening.’

‘Threatening how?’ He truly didn’t get it.

Bridie squeezed lemon over her oysters and reached for the caviar spoon. ‘You are so...so...irritating! And secretive. All I’m saying is would it kill you to share your plans before they hit me and Reid like a freight train?’

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