Southern Star: Destiny Romance (28 page)

Big Red was a couple of kilometres down the road, almost within sight of Casey’s heifers, and it took some serious urging to turn him around. Finally, the old bull gave in and headed for home but he wasn’t happy. Neither, for that matter, was Adam. He found no peace in these hills tonight, drew no comfort from the small, familiar things. He barely registered the setting of the sun other than to think that
she’d
be watching it from the verandah and that she’d find it stunning.

As he had found her.

Rousing him effortlessly, first to anger and then to desire and the hot, ferocious need for a woman beneath him. Taking an axe to his hard-earned solitude. Making him worry for her safety and that of the boy.

Adam had seen a king brown snake, deadly and aggressive, up by the cottage not two weeks back as he’d cleared out the garden bed, and he wondered if the woman,
Billie
, was as scared of snakes as Caroline had been or whether she’d know how to deal with one. He wondered what she’d do if the power went out, because it did on occasion. Wondered how she’d deal with a landscape of darkness.

And then there was the boy …

Dusk lay firmly upon the land by the time Adam and Blue manoeuvred Big Red through the gate and back onto Kincaid land. He found the break in the fence and added it to tomorrow’s job list. Big Red would need to go in the back paddock tonight, which meant adding another hour at least onto an already long day.

The front door of the cottage stood wide open, throwing light out onto the verandah, but woman and boy were nowhere to be seen. He should have put a screen door on that doorway years ago.

‘Go on, Blue.’ He motioned the dog towards the house. ‘Get on up to the house and stay.’ Blue dog, who knew what to do with a king brown or a red-bellied black snake or any one of a dozen other threats Adam could name.

The dog took a few steps towards the house, hesitated, and looked back at him.

‘Go,’ he ordered gruffly. ‘I’ll be back for you tomorrow.’

When they were gone.