Page 5 of Return of the Outback Billionaire

‘No. He turned even more bitter and twice as uncaring.’

‘So who else did you tell? Does Bridie know you pulled that trigger?’

‘No one. No one else knows what happened that night. I—after that I thought about it, but—no.’

Why not? He was itching for a fight and he didn’t know why. Why did his father get burdened with the truth and not Bridie as well? She was an adult now, wasn’t she? No longer that terrified broken child.

‘Protect Bridie,’ the older man offered weakly. ‘She’d take it hard if she knew.’

Protect Bridie. It was the reason he’d shouldered the blame in the first place, all the way to lockup. He’d arrogantly thought his sentence wouldn’t be a long one. He’d had the best lawyers money could buy and virtue on his side. He’d never dreamed he’d spend years imprisoned for his supposed sins or that both his parents would be dead before he got out. More fool him.

Protect the innocent children.

How could that be wrong?

‘My father had hardly any money left when he died. He’d sold off land. You were his friend—or tried to be. What happened?’

‘He started playing poker. It was something to do other than stew, I guess. He tried to get me interested, but I’m a lousy poker player and the buy-in was out of my league. Turns out your father wasn’t much of a poker player either. I bailed him out of debt a couple of times. I took out a mortgage, but in the end I didn’t have any more to give without losing Devil’s Kiss. I know he got more money from somewhere, but it wasn’t from me.’

There was a ring of truth to the older man’s words. ‘How much did you give him?’

‘None of your business, lad. Give means give. I’m not asking for it back.’

‘And you have no idea why your daughter’s name is on some of the title deeds for Jeddah Creek station?’

Silence greeted him. A depth of shock that couldn’t be feigned. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

Interesting.

‘Look, I can’t say how Bridie got her name on those deeds,’ said Tom. ‘But at a guess, I’d say she bought them off your father because he had gambling debts to pay that he didn’t want your mother to know about. Bridie’s not worldly. She doesn’t crave power or money or fame, but she does—or did—have money saved from her modelling days and inheritance money from her mother. She doesn’t have friends, but she has a good heart, and she owes you, we both do, so please, when you ask her why she holds those deeds hear her out.’

‘I would if she’d return my calls.’ Hard to believe Tom didn’t know about those.

‘I know you’ve left messages for her. I urged her to answer you, but Bridie can take a while to commit to doing things. Fear can paralyse her. And I know people think I mollycoddle her, and maybe I do, but she didn’t come back from that night ride whole, Judah, none of us did, and it’s been a long road back to even halfway normal for her. She’s doing her best here tonight, and she’s doing it for you, so don’t—'

‘Don’t what? Turn on her? Take my anger out on her? Why would I do that when I’ve spent more than seven years helping you protect her?’

‘I was going to say judge,’ the older man said wearily. ‘You’re angry because helping us—protecting her—has cost you too much, and I get that. God knows I can never repay you. But don’t judge my daughter the way you have every right to judge me.’ The other man met his gaze dead on. ‘She doesn’t have a deceitful bone in her body. You’ll see.’

Bridie couldn’t seem to stop her hands from shaking. She’d clasped them behind her back in an effort to stop the tremors, but that move exposed the boyish contours of her chest to the gaze of others and she didn’t like that either. She’d tried folding her arms in front of her and wrapping her fingers around her upper arms, but that came off as utterly defensive, she knew, and that simply wouldn’t do. Holding a drink of any kind was out of the question. Holding someone else’s hand might have grounded her but she hadn’t done that since her early childhood when she’d held her father’s hand or her aunt’s hand, or Gert’s.

The couple standing next to her started up a conversation about the country they’d flown over to get here, and Bridie joined in, sharing a little local knowledge, and learning in turn that they were from Sydney and the parents of one of Reid’s friends. She was then able to talk about Reid’s flying lessons and pilot’s licence and how they occasionally mustered stock these days using drones rather than helicopters. Reid could fly those too, and so could she.

In ten minutes, she made more small talk than she’d made in six months, but her hands had stopped shaking and her stance didn’t feel quite so rigid. She felt almost relaxed. As if she really could mix in with an unknown group of people and do it well.

And then the string group started up and Judah took to the dance floor with a woman old enough to be his grandmother and wealthy enough to wear rings on every finger and pearls at her neck and not give a toss about whether it looked overdone.

The couple beside her took their leave and headed for the dance floor too, such courtly manners for the middle of nowhere, and she wondered whether Reid was up for making a welcome home speech to his brother and whether she’d be called on to say something too. Was that the kind of welcome home she should be considering? Some grand public gesture to cement her allegiance to the man who’d saved her life?

There was no water on the drinks tray a waiter dangled in front of her so she took a champagne and wet her lips and tried not to look like a wallflower in her Givenchy dress and Jimmy Choo shoes, both of them dragged from the bowels of her wardrobe. She’d worn her hair long and had cut bangs into it just before she’d come. Bangs to frame her face and shield her eyes. Eyes she could feel widening as Judah returned his dance partner to the side of an elderly gentleman and locked gazes with her.

His lips tilted into a half-smile as he headed towards her and there was nowhere to run. He didn’t ask to take the glass from her hand, he just took it and set it on a nearby table and held out his hand.

‘Dance with me.’

It wasn’t a question.

She took his hand, hers cold, his warm, and pretended she was back on the catwalks of Paris with all eyes upon her, assessing the clothes and the vision of a celebrated designer. She’d liked modelling beautiful clothes once upon a time. She’d loved strutting her stuff on the catwalk, fluid and assured, pretending she was a dancer or Audrey Hepburn or Coco Chanel. Pretending she was someone special. That particular flight of fantasy got her to the dance floor, small mercies, only now she had another problem as Judah turned towards her and put his palm to her waist.

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