The Rancher's Adopted Family (12 page)

Amy let this pass. ‘I thought the descriptions were fabulous. The landscape seemed so real.’

Seth nodded. ‘Rachel certainly had a gift.’

She drew a quick breath. All week she’d been talking intelligently to strangers about the book, but now, with Seth, it was suddenly difficult.

She tried again. ‘Most people I know have loved the ending.’

As soon as she said this she winced. How crass could she get? The book’s ending was wonderfully happy and romantic. Why had she mentioned it to
this
man?

She was shaking.

Seth was looking directly into her eyes. ‘The ending’s perfect,’ he said.

The warmth in his smile melted every bone in Amy’s body and she was in danger of dissolving into a puddle
on the bookstore’s carpet, but she was saved by a loud tap-tap-tap on the microphone.

‘Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. Can I have your attention, please?’

It was time for the formal speeches, and the buzz in the room died.

Amy found a place to set her drink down and she took several deep, steadying breaths, bracing herself for the bittersweet emotions that always came when tributes were paid to her friend.

As Rachel’s talent was praised in glowing terms Amy was grateful for Seth’s tall, strong presence beside her. After the first speech, Rachel’s literary agent, her publisher, the bookstore owner, and a librarian all wanted their five minutes in the spotlight, and although Amy tried,
really
tried to concentrate on every word, her mind buzzed back to her unanswered questions.

Why had Seth come?
Really?
Why was he smiling at her so—so warmly?

As soon as the speeches were over, he jumped in with questions of his own.

‘What are your commitments here, Amy? Do you have to stay till the bitter end? Do you need to help with stacking things away?’

Dazed, she shook her head. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I was hoping we could slip away.’

Her heart did a backwards somersault.

‘I’d like to talk, Amy.’ His smile wavered.

‘Talk?’

As she watched him his face changed. His smile slipped away and his features grew tight and serious. For a moment, his eyes had that shadowy, hopeless look that she’d seen on that final morning at Serenity,
and it scared her, because she didn’t know how to make it go away.

‘I’d like to talk about us,’ he said. ‘Unless I’ve frightened you off completely, and you’d rather not.’

She pressed a hand to the leaping pulse in her throat and told herself that she mustn’t read too much into this. ‘I—I think it would be OK to leave now. I just need to say goodbye to a couple of people.’

Rachel’s agent accepted Amy’s apology with a knowing wink. ‘I can’t blame you for wanting to run away with that man.’

Amy pretended she hadn’t a clue what she meant.

The other woman smiled. ‘Off you go, honey. Run, before someone else nabs him. He’s frighteningly gorgeous.’

Amy went.

Outside in Bourke Street the air had quite a nip and she drew her shimmering silver pashmina around her.

Seth eyed it with concern. ‘Will those cobwebs keep you warm?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she assured him. ‘This is cashmere.’ As she said this she realised that a shrewder woman might have been less honest, so that Seth felt compelled to put his arm around her.

Then again, how could she be sure that Seth wanted to put his arm around her? He’d made it very clear that he wasn’t looking for romance. Not with her, at any rate.

But he wanted to
talk
and she was almost sick with worry. What if he didn’t plan to tell her any of the things she needed him to say? What if she was misreading his sudden appearance in Melbourne completely? She so wanted him to tell her that he’d missed her, but she was equally scared she’d make a fool of herself.

His gaze flashed down to her high-heeled silver sandals. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll want to walk too far in those glass slippers.’

She gave a shaky laugh. ‘They’re not too bad, actually. I can manage a couple of blocks.’ After all, she thought, it might help her to calm down if they walked while they talked. ‘Would you like to go down to the Yarra River?’

‘Yes. Good idea.’

Together they set off, with Amy’s high heels clicking on the concrete, while Seth measured his steps to match hers.

‘How long will you be staying in Melbourne?’ she asked.

He sent her a tense smile. ‘For as long as it takes.’

She stumbled and his hand gripped her elbow. ‘Careful, there.’

For as long as
what
took? She was too nervous to ask.

‘How have you been, Amy?’ His voice sounded strangled and tight.

‘I’ve been very well, thanks. Life has been good.’

Seth shot her a sharp glance. ‘Is that an honest answer?’

In spite of her warm wrap, Amy shivered. ‘I’m not sure you’d want honesty.’

‘But I do.’ His eyes were deadly serious. ‘I want to know exactly how you feel.’

Exactly
…

The fierceness in Seth’s eyes told her that this was important.

Oh, boy
. Amy took a deep breath. If she was going to be exact, she would tell Seth that she’d missed him every minute of the past six weeks. She would tell him that she’d almost been flattened by heartache. But she’d
exposed her feelings to this man before, and he’d rejected her soundly.

If she sacrificed her pride again she feared she might not recover.

She also knew, however, that if she tried to lie, her face would give her away.

‘Well, if you must know,’ she began bravely, ‘I’ve been trying very hard to get over you.’

‘Have you been successful?’

‘I thought I was making reasonable progress.’

In the light cast by an overhead lamp she saw the jerky movement of Seth’s throat, and wondered if he felt as she did: as if he were walking along a knife edge.

‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘Why have you come here, Seth?’

‘I had to see you, to see if you were OK now.’

‘Do you mean you wanted to reassure yourself that I like being back in Melbourne? Were you expecting me to be relieved now that I’m safely away from you and Serenity?’

He stopped walking. Amy stopped, too, and they stood facing each other.

A group of young people went past, couples arm in arm.

‘Don’t you like being back in Melbourne?’ Seth asked.

‘Not especially.’

His intense blue eyes searched Amy’s face, but he didn’t speak and that maddened her. She knew there were very good reasons why he doubted her—his mother’s defection, Jennifer’s rejection, Rachel’s denial of his uncle. But why couldn’t he believe she was different from those other women?

Amy might have set him straight, might have told him that Melbourne wasn’t much fun when she was
pining to be somewhere else, but to confess that was like launching off a cliff into thin air. How could she be sure Seth was ready to catch her?

Tears burned her eyes.

‘Amy,’ Seth said softly. ‘Can’t you guess?’

She blinked. ‘Guess what?’

‘How much I’ve missed you.’

He took another step towards her and his eyes shimmered. ‘Saying goodbye to you at the airport was the most painful experience of my life. The minute you’d gone, I knew I’d done the wrong thing.’

He gave her a sad, lopsided smile. ‘I thought going away on the cattle muster would help. It would give me some distance and I could get my head straight. But each night, as soon as the work stopped, all I could think about was you.’

Amy felt her mouth wobble, as if she was trying to smile, but she was still too scared, too terrified that she might be dreaming this.

‘I wanted to rush down here and sweep you off your feet,’ Seth said, ‘but I knew it wouldn’t be fair to you.’

‘Because I might have already lost interest in you?’

‘Yes,’ he admitted unhappily. ‘But then I realised I had no choice. I had to come and look you in the eyes and ask—’

The entire city seemed to stop as the air solidified around Amy.

‘I wanted to ask how you feel now about—’ Seth swallowed ‘—about everything.’

‘Everything?’

‘Me. Serenity.’

‘Oh.’ A fat tear spilled onto her cheek. ‘You’re an impossible man.’

Seth stood very still, eyes too shiny, throat working, then he smiled shakily and held out his arms to her.

Next breath, they were together, clasping each other tightly. ‘Amy, Amy…Amy.’

She was laughing and crying.

Seth kissed her cheek and then her eyelids and he wiped away her tears with his thumbs. He drew her into the alcove of a shopfront so he could kiss her properly.

Oh, man
.

When they’d been at Serenity, Seth had told her that he couldn’t risk another kiss, but now he was kissing her as if his life depended on it, and Amy knew, deep in her heart she could tell…

He was risking all that he had.

Later, much later, they pulled apart, but only a little apart.

‘So…’ Seth looked happy as he touched her cheek. ‘Where’s this river of yours?’

‘Oh, it’s just another block away.’

‘Let’s go there.’

Linking arms, they began to walk on, past shops with beautifully lit window displays, which Amy couldn’t normally resist, but this evening blissfully ignored. She still wondered if her feet were actually on the ground. She was sure she must have been visibly glowing.

At the pedestrian crossing they waited impatiently for the lights to change, and ahead of them lay the Yarra River, dark and silent, gleaming like an unrolled bolt of black satin.

‘This is more like it,’ Seth said when they reached the bridge.

It made perfect sense, she thought, that even in the
middle of a big city like Melbourne Seth sought out a river, the one natural element amidst all the concrete and steel and glass. They stood together, forearms resting on the bridge’s smooth stone balustrade, watching the way the lights from the buildings on the Southbank made fat yellow stripes on the dark, silky water.

Amy remembered another time when they’d stood together, looking out at the sparkling Coral Sea while they shared heartbreaking confessions. It was the morning she’d decided that she loved this man, and in that moment her love had felt like a beautiful gift, something bright and wonderful resurrected out of tragedy.

For the past six weeks she’d tried to tell herself that she’d been wrong—foolishly so—but now Seth was here, miraculously, beside her in Melbourne.

She had to ask. ‘You said you’re here for as long as it takes. What do you mean? As long as
what
takes?’

He gave her a tender smile and touched the frangipani behind her ear. ‘As long as it takes to fix the damage.’

‘Damage?’

He traced the curve of her cheek. ‘I hurt you, Amy. I know I did.’

She couldn’t respond without crying, so she bit her lip.

Seth said, ‘I was holding back from you, because I didn’t want to start something, only to end up hurting you. But then I watched you walk onto that damn plane, and I knew that I’d hurt you anyway. So I’m here to make amends, to try again.’

A cool breeze rippled the water’s surface, bringing a faint smell of mud, and breaking up the stripes of light on the water. The wind played with Amy’s hair.

Seth leaned a little closer. ‘I mean it, Amy. I don’t think you’ve any idea how much I’ve missed you.’

He looked serious and scared, and Amy loved him for it.

‘Probably not as much as I’ve missed you,’ she said.

He reached for her hand, enfolding it in his warmth.

‘If it’s OK with you, I’m not planning to hurry away.’

‘That’s very OK,’ she assured him. ‘How long can you stay?’

Seth shrugged. ‘I’ve left Barney in charge at Serenity. He’s breaking his neck to have a crack at running the place.’ His face broke into a grin. ‘I should be honest and tell you that everyone’s missed you and Bella—Ming, Hans, Barney, Celia and the kids.’

He chuckled softly. ‘As soon as I got back from the muster, they were pestering me blind to know when you’re coming back to Serenity.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘That I was going to Melbourne to ask you that very question.’ Seth drew her into his arms and his warm lips grazed her jaw.

A delicious shiver scampered over her skin.

‘You’re cold,’ he said.

‘Just a little.’

‘Let me take you somewhere warmer.’

Amy said softly, ‘Perhaps you could take me home.’ A bright blush flared in her cheeks. ‘So you could see Bella,’ she added, ‘although she’s sound asleep.’

She watched the slow unravelling of his smile.

‘I’d love to see Bella,’ he said.

And just like that, holding hands and laughing, they ran as fast as Amy’s high heels would allow to the nearest taxi rank.

From the tiny front porch of Amy’s flat, they watched the young babysitter safely negotiate the footpath and turn in at her gate two doors away.

Amy had to pinch herself. She still couldn’t quite believe that Seth was here in her flat—all six feet plus of him, looking gorgeous in his dark suit, and quite possibly planning to stay the night.

‘Bella’s this way,’ she whispered.

Light from the hallway spilled into the small bedroom, illuminating the sleeping child. Seth stood behind Amy and they both looked down at Bella’s dark ringlets, at her eyelashes curling like black little commas against her flushed pink cheeks, at the familiar fat pig clutched in her chubby hand.

‘My uncle would have loved her,’ Seth whispered, and his voice was rough around the edges.

Amy swiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands as Seth followed her outside into the hallway.

Reaching for her wrists, he drew her close enough to kiss her damp cheeks. ‘The thing to remember is that Bella’s a very lucky little girl to have you, Amy.’

Gently, his hands cradled her face and he smiled into her teary eyes. ‘Let me tell you something a very wise woman once told me.’

‘What’s that?’ she sniffled.

‘You and I are the ones who still have lives to live.’

Her heart seemed to swell inside her as Seth’s lips traced a dreamy path over her jaw. ‘Do remember telling me that?’