Page 54 of Return of the Outback Billionaire

‘He did.’ Her father’s eyes were darkly shadowed. ‘He asked me for your hand in marriage. He’s old-fashioned that way.’

‘Did you give him your blessing?’

‘We talked.’

Bridie’s blood ran cold. Never in a million years had she thought her father would hold Judah’s past against him. ‘He’s a good man, Dad. The best. And I am so...so in love with him.’

‘He puts me to shame.’ Her father looked away, out over the home paddock and on to the horizon. He took a deep breath. ‘What do you remember about the night that bastard took you?’

She shook her head. She hated remembering any of it. ‘Laurence came to the door and I let him in. Offered him a coffee. He’d come all this way to clear the air between us, he said, and no one else was here.’

‘After that,’ her father ordered gruffly.

‘I told him I wasn’t going back to modelling. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He grabbed me. I struggled. He hit me. I passed out. I remember coming to, bound and gagged in the boot of a car. I remember you and Judah rescuing me and Levit bleeding out in the dirt.’

Her father nodded. ‘And on the surface that’s exactly what happened. Never forget, Bridie girl, that I love you. That I did everything in my power to protect you. And that Judah went way beyond what could be expected of any man to protect you too.’

‘I know this already.’

But her father shook his head, leaned forward and brought the rocker to a halt. He stared at the weathered wooden floorboards as if they were the most fascinating things he’d ever seen. ‘No, you don’t. Not everything. We kept something from you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Judah didn’t kill the bastard who kidnapped you, Bridie. I did.’

Don’t do anything rash. Bridie used the words as a mantra during her drive to Jeddah Creek homestead. Don’t act out. Listen to what Judah had to say. And all the while, with every red dust kilometre, the foundations of her world crumbled. Her father was a killer and a liar who’d sold his soul to protect her. And Judah...not a killer, but still a liar who’d paid a huge price for his deception. How could he have chosen to do that for her and her father? She didn’t understand.

Bridie checked her speed as she approached the main house. There was a child living in the shearer’s quarters these days and other new people about and it wouldn’t do to run over them. She parked next to Gert’s truck and took the stairs two at a time, only to almost bump into Reid, who looked to be on his way out.

‘Whoa, steady Freddie.’ He sidestepped her just in time.

‘Judah around?’

‘In his office.’ Judah had turned the sitting room next to the library into his office. It had French doors leading onto the veranda and Bridie didn’t bother going through the house to get there.

Judah looked up from his seat behind the desk as she entered, a smile crinkling his eyes. ‘Just in time,’ he said. ‘The cabin plans are in.’

But she didn’t want to pour over building plans with him. ‘I’ve just been speaking with my father.’

‘Gert said he was back.’ He lifted an eyebrow. ‘Bearing opals.’

Bridie didn’t want to talk about little coloured stones. ‘He said you’d asked for his permission to marry me.’

‘I did.’

Judah sat back in his chair, everything about him easy and welcoming, except for those watchful, wary eyes.

‘You want to know what else he told me?’ She couldn’t keep the rage out of her voice and it seemed useless to even try.

‘That he refused to give it?’

She hadn’t known that. Apparently she didn’t know a lot of things that happened around here. ‘He told me what happened that night, Judah. What really happened.’

She’d never seen a person shut down so fast. Any openness in his beautiful strong face disappeared like spilt water in a sandy desert. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What do you think I mean?’ she cried. ‘Did my father kill Laurence Levit, or did you? Because my father just told me he did it!’

Not by a blink did Judah betray any discomfort. ‘I’ve said all I’m ever going to say about that. I was convicted and I’ve done my time. Move on.’

---