Page 56 of Cinderella and the Outback Billionaire

The ground beneath the tubs was some kind of smooth concrete mix set with tumbled stones and pebbles from a riverbed. They’d been laid out in snakelike curves, and he remembered from her notes that the idea was for people to walk on them barefoot and massage their feet while their bath was filling up.

Reid turned on the taps to one of the tubs and let the warm, clear water run through his fingers as he stared at the outline of his favourite river redgum in the distance. He could smell eucalyptus and a fainter scent of something sweeter. He heard the buzz of insects nearby, but they seemed to have other things to do than bother him.

The water reticulation overhaul Ari and her team had given this place was genius, cobbled from a research paper outlining ways in which the Israeli desert had been turned over to food production, and a regional zoo’s schematics for a closed water system that grew endangered turtle species.

The whole set-up for growing plants and redefining habitat here was ambitious, possibly foolhardy, and he anticipated no shortage of scientific minds wanting to track the system’s progress for years to come.

He didn’t notice her presence at first.

He hadn’t heard her approach over the splash of the water into the bathtub. But he sensed something, maybe just the stirring of the air, and when he turned, there she was, leaning against the wall, silently watching him. She wore cut-off shorts, a short-sleeved yellow top, and work boots and she looked relaxed and not at all surprised to see him.

He, on the other hand, was extremely surprised to see her. Glad too, if the sudden leap of his heart before it settled into rapid drumming was any indication. He wished, more than anything, that he could see her face and the expression in her eyes. Then again, if he could still do that, he wouldn’t have turned her away in the first place. He would have still had enough to offer her. ‘This is unexpected.’

‘Bridie told me you were on your way here, and I was in the neighbourhood so here I am.’

‘Trespassing.’

She put her hands in the pockets of her shorts and nodded agreeably. ‘Again.’

He loved the sound of her voice and the ease with which she navigated uncertainty. He relished her dry wit and sheer practicality when it came to traversing this Outback landscape. She belonged here, more than anyone he’d ever met.

Her spirit called to his.

He’d never been so tongue-tied or so fanciful.

‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘I have a morning tour, a midday tour and a sunset tour all planned out.’

‘It’s half past five.’

‘I know,’ she replied dryly. ‘You will be difficult and turn up in the in between. But even if you don’t want the tour I can stand here and tell you that I planted the area around this bathing ledge with tea trees with antiseptic properties, and wattle that helps with aches and pains, and she oaks whose cones are said to help with rheumatism. In times to come you’ll be able to pick a posy and add it to your bathwater. The aloe in the pot over there is good for sunburn, you probably know that already. Gert has a recipe for a cream. I thought it might be fun to make up a batch and leave it in the cabins, along with the recipe, but that’s overstepping my brief by a few hundred kilometres or more. That sweet smell is brown boronia. I found a guy who’d been grafting it onto different root stocks, so I went a bit mad and planted hundreds of them.’

He could listen to her talk about plants until the end of time. Maybe he’d imprinted on that particular pastime in the tent. ‘Will they live?’

‘So far so good.’

‘I had my workshop engineers read your water schematics out loud to me. They added supersized whiteboard visuals and that helped. They’re fans of your work now. So am I.’

‘Thank you. I’ve been tweaking the water reticulation systems all the way along but this was the first time I had a permanent water supply to dip into. I think it went to my head.’

‘The results speak for themselves.’

‘I’d really love a maintenance contract that covered an entire year, but I guess putting something together and then handing it over to others to care for is all part of the business.’

‘It’s going well? The business?’ So stilted and formal, but he didn’t know how to be anything else without reaching for her.

‘Very well. I’ve been getting more enquiries than I know what to do with. I feel like I’m on a runaway road train. I’m sure as hell not the one driving it.’

He’d felt that way too, early on in his career. Of course, he hadn’t admitted it quite as readily. She would need good people around her for guidance and support. He could—

No.

He could step back and let her soar.

‘Been slaying any demons lately?’ she asked lightly, but it wasn’t a careless question. She was signalling a move from business conversation to the personal.

‘None. You?’

‘I’m employing my younger brother as a full-time labourer—he’s a hard worker, it’s going well. And I’ve been to a barbecue at my father’s place with all his family present. They were all terrifyingly friendly, even the pregnant dachshund. I may have said yes to one of the puppies. I’m not entirely sure what I said, to be honest. Fear of rejection brings on the crazy talk in me. Like now, for example.’

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