Outback Boss, City Bride

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know it isn’t sensible, but I don’t want to be sensible any more, Hal. I’ve changed,’ she told him with a tremulous smile. ‘I’m a risk taker now!’

‘And you’ll take a risk on me?’

The dark blue eyes steadied. ‘On loving you, yes.’

‘Even knowing that I’ve changed too?’

A chill ran through Meredith and she bit her lip. Was this the moment she had dreaded? Was Hal trying to tell her that he didn’t love her the way he’d said he did before? Perhaps she had taken too much for granted. Perhaps she had jumped too far.

Swallowing, she put up her chin and made herself smile. ‘If you’ve changed, you can say no and I’ll go,’ she said, knowing that he must be able to hear the tremor in her voice.

‘Oh, no,’ said Hal, and the smile reached his mouth as he pulled her into his arms at last. He didn’t kiss her at first; he just held her tightly against him and felt her arms go round him, and they stood, hardly daring to believe that the waiting was over and they were holding each other again.

‘I’m not going to say no,’ he said against her hair. ‘I’m not letting you leave me again. You’re not the only one who’s changed, Meredith. I’m going to be the sensible one from now on, and the sensible thing to do when you find the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with is to hold on to her, isn’t it?’

Tipping her face up to his, he smiled down into her blue, beautiful eyes. ‘In fact, the really sensible thing to do is to marry her.’

Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘You don’t want to get married!’

‘I do now,’ said Hal. ‘I used to think that marriage had to be the marriage my parents had. But then I started to think it didn’t have to be like that. It could be being with you every day, holding you every night and waking up with you every morning. And I realised that was the marriage I wanted,’ he told her. ‘I wanted a marriage where you would always be there.’

His hands came up to cup her face and with one thumb he tenderly traced the line of her mouth. ‘I missed you, Meredith,’ he said, his voice deep and low. ‘After you’d gone, I realised what a fool I’d been. The homestead was echoing without you. I couldn’t go anywhere without expecting to see you, and then I’d remember you weren’t there and I’d feel…bereft. I had a lot to say about how afraid you were, didn’t I, but I was the one that was afraid. I was too afraid of losing you to let myself love you properly.’

They had both been afraid, thought Meredith. Her heart was so full she could hardly speak. ‘Hal…’ she said lovingly. She pulled him closer, her hands tightening possessively around him, giddy with relief that he was warm and solid and there. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

‘I’m not now,’ said Hal. ‘Not now you’re here.’

He kissed her then, and they clung together, craving the reassurance of touch and taste. They couldn’t hold each other close enough, kiss each other long enough, deeply enough, sweetly enough, and as the last shreds of uncertainty dissolved in the intoxicating rush, Meredith was filled with a deep gladness, fiercer than happiness, that burned up from the very core of her and told her that this time she had made the right decision and she was exactly where she was meant to be-in Hal’s arms.

They smiled at each other when they broke apart at last, and Meredith rested her face into his throat with a sigh of sheer bliss. ‘What made you change your mind?’ she asked as his arms closed around her.

Hal kissed her hair. ‘Missing you,’ he replied. ‘I kept going round in circles. I’d let myself imagine living at Wirrindago with you, having a family, you always being there…and then I thought about how it would feel if you left me the way my mother left and I knew I couldn’t endure it, but I couldn’t endure life without you either. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to do something. That’s why I went to Sydney.’

‘To see Lydia?’

‘No, to see my mother.’

Startled, Meredith pulled back to look into his face. ‘Your mother…?’ Her eyes darkened with concern. ‘That must have been difficult for you.’ For both of them, she thought.

‘It wasn’t the easiest afternoon of my life,’ Hal admitted. ‘I kept wishing that you were there with me, but maybe it was something I had to do on my own. I should have done it before. When Lydia heard that I’d let you go back to London, she told me that I’d used our mother to justify my own fears for too long, and she was right.’

‘What was it like, seeing your mother again after so long?’ asked Meredith curiously.

‘It was like meeting a stranger,’ he told her. ‘I thought I would be bitter and angry, but when I looked at her I just saw a woman who had made a mistake. She married someone she shouldn’t have done and when she realised that she couldn’t deal with it any longer, she left in the only way she could. Jack wouldn’t have died if she hadn’t gone, but it wasn’t her fault. Or it was just as much my father’s fault for not realising how unhappy he was,’ he amended.

‘It wasn’t anybody’s fault,’ said Meredith, resting her head back against his shoulder. ‘Not your mother’s, not your father’s, not yours. It was something terrible that happened.’

Hal nodded, marvelling at how much better he felt just holding her in his arms. ‘Anyway, I’ve realised that my mother is just one woman who has lived her life her own way, and that not all women are going to be like her. Lydia’s not like her, you’re not like her. You’re Meredith, and I believe in you because of the person you are, and because I love you, and because I know that, whatever else might happen, you won’t suddenly turn into my mother.’

Meredith tilted her face so that she could kiss the corner of his mouth with a smile. ‘I’m glad.’

‘Not as glad as I am to see you,’ said Hal, his voice lightening. ‘You’ve just saved me a lot of money.’

‘I have?’

Not wanting to let her go, Hal kept one arm firmly around her and pulled a ticket out of his shirt pocket awkwardly with his free hand. ‘I bought this in Sydney,’ he said, ‘but I should be able to get a refund now.’

Meredith opened it. ‘It’s to London!’ She lifted her eyes to his and her smile was dazzling. ‘You were going to come and get me?’

‘I was going to try and persuade you to come back. I didn’t know if you’d be with Richard or not, but I knew that I had to try, I had to tell you how much I needed you, and that I was prepared to take a chance on the future if you were. Of course, that was before I knew how reckless you were,’ he teased. ‘I think I need a rather more sensible wife!’

Meredith smiled as she tucked the ticket back into his pocket. ‘I expect I can still manage to be quite sensible about the little things,’ she said. ‘We just need to be brave about the things that matter, like trusting each other and loving each other,’ she added with a soft kiss. ‘Especially loving each other.’

‘Are you sure?’ Hal made himself ask, pulling her back hard against him. ‘It can be a hard life.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to work at it.’

‘It’ll be boring sometimes,’ he warned.

‘Maybe it will,’ agreed Meredith, ‘but I’m going to carry on my business, and there’ll be the house to run and the chickens to feed and you to love, so I don’t see that I’ll have that much time to be bored. But if I am, I’ll tell you, and we’ll have a break together somewhere. I might miss being able to pop out for a cappuccino sometimes, but I can bear to miss it,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear to miss you.’

‘Meredith…’ Hal kissed her, hoping that his kiss could tell her everything that words couldn’t. ‘You haven’t said you’ll marry me,’ he said when he lifted his head at last.

‘You haven’t asked me,’ she pointed out with a smile. ‘Not properly.’

‘Shall I go down on one knee?’

‘No,’ said Meredith. ‘Just ask me.’

Hal smiled. ‘I love you, Meredith. Will you marry me?’

‘I love you too,’ she said, tilting her face up to his, ‘and yes, I will.

‘This is all very nice,’ she teased, emerging from his kiss some time later, ‘but it’s time somebody started being sensible round here. It’s getting late.’

‘That’s true,’ said Hal, tossing their cases up into the plane. ‘We’ve missed your cooking, and I don’t know if anyone’s done anything about supper tonight.’

‘In that case, you’d better take me home,’ said Meredith and he cocked an eyebrow at her, smiling in a way that made her heart turn over.

‘Home?’