Page 13 of Cinderella and the Outback Billionaire

He could hear the truth in her quiet words, even if he couldn’t see it in her eyes. His remaining senses seemed so much more acute. ‘I couldn’t have done it without them. I’m eternally in their debt.’ He reached out towards her and she wove her fingers through his and held his hand.

‘Touchy-feely guy.’

‘Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain as an emotional desert.’

‘Your secret is safe with me.’

Her hands weren’t soft. Her nails felt a little ragged and she had calluses at the base of her thumb and fingers. He had the sudden urge to bring her hand to his lips and test the ridges of her knuckles with his tongue. Would she wrest her hand from his?

Or would she acknowledge a deep feeling of familiarity similar to his?

He contented himself with rubbing the pad of his thumb up and down her thumb instead. ‘Where were we?’

‘Ordering breakfast at the diner. On your best day ever.’

Right. ‘I ordered two big breakfast combos, coffee with milk on the side, a banana smoothie each, apple pie, hot chips, tomato sauce, salt and vinegar, and a brownie each. Oh, and a couple of bottles of that blue-coloured sports drink. I had the station credit card in my back pocket and I likely would have kept right on ordering if the woman behind the counter hadn’t said, “Son, I think that’s enough.”’

‘Dead straight.’

He smiled, never mind his aching face. ‘I dug in like a heathen when the food came and it took me a minute to realise Judah wasn’t eating. I thought he wasn’t hungry. I figured myself for a fool and started to apologise until he said stop. I told him I just wanted to make a good impression and I was sorry and again he said stop, so I stopped. I thought he was going to get up and walk out.’

‘And this is your best day ever?’

‘It gets better,’ he defended. ‘Judah had the biggest case of PTSD I’ve ever seen but he looked at me and somehow he decided to trust me. He said, “Reid, I’m hungry but this is a lot and I haven’t made a decision for myself in seven and a half years. I’m gonna need your help.”

‘“Start with the smoothie and the banana bread,” I said, and he laughed, but he did it, and I knew at that moment that he wanted me to stick around and that everything was going to be fine. Sometimes families fracture. I was scared that was going to happen to mine, and then what?’

‘I get it. Trust me, I know that playbook by heart.’

Her voice held a wealth of sadness, bedrocked by maturity. He wondered how old she was and whether he’d already asked her that. Was he way off in thinking her a few years younger than him because she was still a student studying for exams? Didn’t exactly matter. She understood, and that was enough to crack him wide open.

‘The thing about the Blake family set-up is that the firstborn takes all,’ he told her gruffly. ‘The British barony, all the land. Nothing on Jeddah Creek station or back in the UK was mine. And some time between the banana bread and the bacon and eggs I asked him outright if he wanted me to stick around. Almost lost my breakfast after I’d said it, although that may have had something to do with the way I’d bolted my food.’

‘Maybe.’ She had the driest laugh. He could listen to it for ever. And she was a good listener too, even if he had almost run out of steam for storytelling. His brain hurt. Everything hurt. ‘So did he ask you to stay?’

‘Mm-huh. Said there was no way he was walking through this world without me at his side. Best day ever.’

‘I like it. Means he’ll be coming for you sooner rather than later.’

He liked the way she thought. ‘Now you,’ he murmured. ‘Share.’

‘Ack, I don’t have any memories like that. My world is small.’

‘Tell me anyway.’

‘Seeing the coastline for the first time was pretty spectacular. Water all the way to the end of the earth.’

‘How old were you?’

‘I dunno. About six? Seeing a man-made waterfall and swimming pool in someone’s backyard also blew my mind. I would have been in my early teens then. Watching the rain come down out here, looking at the patterns the water makes as it finds its way along.’

He was sensing a water theme. ‘Have you ever seen the Bay of Islands in Vietnam? Or the Weeping Wall on Mount Waialeale in Hawaii?’

‘Never.’

‘I’ll take you when we get out of here.’

‘Sure you will.’ She sounded indulgent.

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