Outback Boss, City Bride

And it hadn’t just been Hal’s body. All her senses had been sharper there. She had been more aware of everything: of the smell of dried gum leaves in the creek, the sound of all those boots clattering up the steps to supper, the taste of billy tea, the feel of Hal’s shirt brushing against her bare skin…

What if that was the real Meredith after all? Think about yourself, Hal had told her. What do you want? The trouble was that there were two answers. Her practical brain wanted to forget Wirrindago and get on with her life in London. It wanted to go back to the way she had been before-calm, content, not yearning for something more.

But her heart didn’t want that. It wanted to feel that joyous sense of rightness again. It wanted to feel complete. It wanted to go home.

Doing the sensible thing would be safe. Following her heart would be a risk. A big risk. Three weeks later, Meredith stared down from her bedroom window at the busy road, picturing a dry creek bed and a homestead with a lemon tree in the garden, seeing the galahs wheeling in the sky and a man in a hat walking up the veranda steps.

She knew what she wanted. Now the only question was whether she was brave enough to reach out and take it for herself.

‘Wirrindago.’ It was unmistakably Kevin’s voice, and Meredith, who had been screwing up her courage for this moment for the past two weeks, didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. She had deliberately waited until lunchtime before ringing, but she had expected Hal himself to answer the phone.

‘Hi, Kevin, it’s Meredith,’ she said, clearing her throat.

‘Meredith!’ Kevin exclaimed in surprise. ‘We thought you’d gone back to the UK.’

‘I did but…well, I’m back in Whyman’s Creek. I’m ringing from the pub.’

‘I hope you’re coming back,’ said Kevin. ‘We haven’t had a cook since you’ve been gone.’

‘Who’s been doing the cooking?’ she asked.

‘Hal, usually, but we’re taking it in turns while he’s away.’

‘He’s away?’ Meredith stared at the phone in her hand. How could he not be there? Hal was always there. ‘Where is he?’

‘In Sydney.’

Sydney? It was the last thing Meredith had expected. In all the possible scenarios she had played out in her head, Hal being in Sydney simply hadn’t occurred to her.

‘He’s gone to see his sister and the kids-hold on.’ There was a murmured consultation in the background, then he obviously turned back to the phone. ‘Ted says he’s due back tomorrow. Do you want one of the guys here to come and fetch you this afternoon?’ he asked hopefully.

‘No, thanks, Kevin,’ said Meredith slowly. ‘I think I’ll wait until tomorrow and see Hal here.’

Less embarrassing then if Hal said no to her proposition, she reasoned. Less awkward to catch the next plane back to Darwin and let her brain tell her heart I told you so.

But another twenty four hours to wonder if she was mad. What if he had just been saying that he loved her? What if he had met someone else? What if he was horrified to see her? What if…what if…?

Meredith paced restlessly around Whyman’s Creek. It felt different this time, she thought, remembering how dismissive she had been of the little town. OK, it was no buzzing metropolis, but she liked the camaraderie in the shop, and she was happy to sit on the pub’s veranda and watch the light and listen to the crows and think about Hal.

Bill was disappointed when she asked him if he would drive her out to the airport in time to meet the plane from Sydney the next day. His face fell. ‘You’re not going already?’

‘One way or another,’ she told him. She would be going somewhere, she just didn’t know where yet.

Hal’s little plane was parked where she had last seen it and Meredith waited for the Sydney flight to arrive in the shade of its wing. Sitting on her case, she was sick and shaky with nerves, torn between the longing to see Hal again and terror in case the greatest risk she had ever taken turned out to be the greatest mistake she had ever made.

With each minute that crawled past, the knot of anxiety inside her tightened and by the time the plane appeared Meredith had lost her nerve completely.

But she couldn’t go back now. She had already jumped. It was too late to change her mind now.

She saw Hal as soon as he ducked out of the cabin and came down the steps and her heart, which had been thumping and thudding deafeningly ever since the plane had touched down, seemed to stop altogether. He only had hand luggage, so merely lifted a hand in greeting to the official waiting by the terminal and headed straight for his plane.

For her.

Slowly, Meredith stood up, ducking underneath the wing so that he would see her. When he did, he stopped dead, just like her heart had done.

‘Hi,’ she said in a high, cracked voice.

Hal took a breath and looked deliberately away from her, across the tarmac to the heat haze on the horizon, and then back. She was still there.

‘Meredith…’ he said, coming closer. He put down his case when they were face to face, his eyes never leaving her face, devouring her with his eyes. ‘Meredith,’ he said again, unable to find the words for the turmoil of emotion that he felt at the sight of her. ‘It’s you.’

‘Yes.’ She couldn’t tear her gaze from his. It was as if they were having two conversations, and the one with their eyes was the only one that made sense.

Hal half shook his head, as if still not entirely convinced that he wasn’t imagining things. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I…um…I was hoping you’d give me a job,’ she said. ‘I understand you need a cook. Kevin sounds quite fed up.’

‘You want to come back to Wirrindago?’ Hal couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

At last a question that she could answer with complete certainty. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s what I want.’

‘Meredith…are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ she said again, and drew a deep breath. ‘You told me once that I was afraid, Hal. You said I was afraid to reach out for what I wanted, but I’m reaching out now.’

Her eyes never left his. ‘I know what I want,’ she said. ‘I want to be with you. I know you don’t do forever, and I’m not asking for any commitment. I just need to be near you, for as long as I can.’

‘But Meredith…’ Hal felt uncharacteristically helpless. ‘You can’t give up your life in London.’

‘I can,’ she said. ‘I have given it up.’

He was startled out of his numb sense of disbelief. ‘You’ve done what?’

‘I’ve given up that life. I’ve put my house on the market and I’ve applied to emigrate. I know you don’t want to get married, Hal, and I can’t be leaving every time my visa runs out.’

‘But your friends…your career…’ he said incredulously. Had she really done that? His sensible, practical Meredith?

‘I’ve brought my career with me,’ she said. It was the only safety net she had. ‘I can work as well at Wirrindago as anywhere else. My friends can come and see me. And yes,’ she said, ‘maybe there will be times when I’ll get bored. Maybe there will be times when I think I’d like to go and see a film or a concert or eat in a restaurant with white tablecloths and food I haven’t cooked myself, but there’s no reason why I can’t take a trip to the city now and then, is there?’

‘No,’ Hal agreed.

‘Well, then.’

A smile was dawning in Hal’s eyes, warming them, spreading slowly over his face. He knew this Meredith, hiding her nervousness beneath that brisk veneer. She didn’t fool him, though.

They still hadn’t touched. ‘And you’ve done all this without knowing what I would say?’ he asked, and she nodded defiantly.

‘I jumped. You were the one who taught me that I could,’ she reminded him.

Hal took a step closer. ‘This is a bigger risk than jumping off a rock.’