around her and tell her that everything would work out all right? How could he just stand there and look like that when all she wanted was to take two steps and burrow into his hard strength?
'Come on,' said Mal, suddenly brusque. He took off his hat, ran his fingers through his hair and then put it back on. 'There's no point in standing here all evening.'
They turned and began walking along the track in the direction of the homestead, keeping a careful distance between them. Mal walked with a kind of loose-jointed ease, so tall and strong that the impulse to scuttle over and clamp herself to his side like iron to a magnet was almost irresistible. Copper felt as if she was having to lean away from him in order to walk upright at all.
'When shall we get married?' she asked with a brittle smile, as much to distract herself as anything else.
'The sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned,' said Mal. 'You don't want to make a fuss about the wedding, do you?'
'I wouldn't if it was up to me, but I'm going to have to convince my parents that we're marrying for love, and I think a proper wedding would help. We can keep it small, of course, but they would think it looked suspicious if I didn't get married from home.'
'I suppose it would be more convincing,' he admitted without enthusiasm. 'You're not thinking of long white dresses and veils or anything like that, are you?'
'Of course not.' Copper gritted her teeth at his lack of interest. 'I'm sure I'll be able to find something appropriate to wear. Megan might like to be a bridesmaid, too. I'm just talking about going through the motions, that's all.'
'Well, I'll leave that side of it up to you,' said Mal casually. 'Just tell me when and where I have to turn up.'
'It's nice to know that our wedding is going to mean so much to you,' she said with heavy sarcasm. 'Nobody's going to think that our marriage is genuine if that's going to be your attitude!'
'Oh, don't worry, I'll be suitably loving when required,' he promised.
Copper glanced at him and then away. The sky was flushed with an unearthly pink light as the sun dropped behind the ghost gums lining the creek. 'Do you think anyone will believe that we're really getting married?' she asked abruptly, as if the words had been forced out of her.
'Why shouldn't they?'
'Well…I've only been up here two weeks. It might all seem a bit sudden.'
'We'll just have to persuade them that we fell in love at first sight, then, won't we?'
We did before. Mal didn't actually say it, but the words hung unspoken in the air between them. They seemed to whisper down Copper's spine and echo in her brain, and in spite of herself a slow, hot flush seeped upwards from her toes.
'Brett's not going to believe that,' she said, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the sunset. 'He's been with us all the time and he must know quite well that we haven't fallen in love. I even told him so the other night.'
'I remember,' said Mal in a dry voice. 'But he didn't believe you. He told me that you were protesting too much.'
Copper stopped dead in the middle of the track. 'Oh, did he?' she said wrathfully.
'Judging by the remarks he was dropping after we'd spent so long in the office that evening, I'd say that he's almost expecting it,' Mal went on calmly. 'All you need to do is go in now looking as if you've just been thoroughly kissed.'
'And how am I supposed to do that?' demanded Copper, distinctly ruffled. 'It's not that easy!'
'Oh, I don't know.' Mal's eyes lit with a sudden speculative gleam and he reached out with one hand, letting his fingers drift tantalisingly down her cheek to curve below her jaw and slide beneath her soft hair. 'I don't think it should be that difficult.'
Copper's heart stilled and she forgot to breathe. She had emptied of awkwardness, of anger, of any feeling at all except the deep, low thrill that went through her in response to his touch, so that instead of stepping back, or pushing his hand away, she could only stand, her eyes wide and unfocused with a terrible longing. And when Mal put out his other hand to draw her slowly towards him, she went, unresisting.
'In my experience, the simplest solution is usually the best,' he murmured. 'And the simplest way to look kissed is to be kissed,' he added very softly, and then, bending his head, he kissed her at last.
At the first touch of his mouth, a tiny sigh of release escaped Copper, and her lips parted as past and present arrowed into a piercing recognition that this was what she had thought about ever since Mal had walked around the woolshed and back into her life. It was like coming home. His tongue was so enticing, his lips as warm and persuasive as she remembered, but this time the unbearable sweetness that had lingered in her memory for seven long years was swamped almost at once by a great, rolling wave of explosive excitement that caught her unprepared and swept her up into a turbulent tide of desire.
Helpless against it, almost panic-stricken by the sheer force of her response, Copper clutched at Mal's shirt as if trying to anchor herself to the solid security of his body. The dust and the light, the very earth beneath her feet had vanished, leaving her weightless, adrift in a world.where nothing existed but Mal-the taste of his mouth, the touch of his hands and the searing intensity of his kiss.
Her body was pounding, her head whirling, and when Mal let go of her face to gather her more closely into his arms she didn't even think to protest. Instead her fingers released their frantic grip on his shirt and crept around his waist, spreading over his back as if impelled by a force of their own.
Their kisses were deep, breathless, almost desperate as the doubts and confusion of the last two weeks swirled away, and all that mattered was the feel of Mal's hands, hard and possessive against her, and his taut male strength, gloriously real again after so many years of mere memories. Copper was lost, but she didn't care. She cared only that his arms were around her and that he was kissing her and that she never wanted him to let her go.
CHAPTER SIX
'Mal? Are you-?' Brett's voice broke through the dizzying pleasure that had them in its thrall. It stopped abruptly as he took in the scene. 'Uh-oh!' he said, and, even lost in a different world as she was, Copper could hear him grinning.
Mal didn't even tense. Without haste, he lifted his head and looked at his brother. 'What is it?' he asked, with not so much as a tremor in his voice.
Copper, dazed and shaken, almost fell as he made to release her, and if he hadn't tightened one arm around her once more she was sure that she would simply have collapsed in a heap on the track. Her legs were trembling uncontrollably and her cheeks burned. She couldn't have spoken if she had tried.
'I was coming to see if you were ready for a beer,' said Brett, still grinning broadly. 'But I can see that you're busy!'
'We were until you interrupted us,' said Mal. How could he sound so normal? Copper's heart was pounding, her head spinning, her body aroused and gasping for air, and he wasn't even out of breath!
Brett refused to take the hint. 'I thought it was my job to kiss the housekeepers,' he said, pretending to sound aggrieved.
'Not this housekeeper.' Mal glanced down at Copper, who was still struggling to adjust to the abrupt return to reality. 'This one's mine.'
He looked back at his brother and his voice held a distinct note of warning. 'Copper's going to marry me, so you'll just have to count her as the one that got away.'
'I knew it!' Brett gave a shout of laughter and bounded forward to slap his brother on the shoulder and sweep Copper into an exuberant hug. 'I knew it! Mal thinks I can't read that poker face of his, but I could tell how he felt about you right from the start!'
'Really?' she croaked. When he set her back down on the ground, her knees were so weak that she clutched instinctively at Mal, who drew her back against the hard security of his body.
'I didn't realise you were so observant, Brett,' he said, and Copper wondered if the sarcastic edge was as obvious to Brett as it was to her.
