Apparently not. Brett was nodding vigorously. 'I notice more than you think. You pretended to ignore each other but I could tell by the way you watched each other when you thought the other wasn't looking that it was real love!'
'What would you know about real love?' asked Mal, not even bothering to hide the edge to his voice this time.
'Not much,' his brother admitted. 'But I can recognise it when I see it all right, and I think you're both lucky.' The blue eyes sobered briefly. 'Very lucky,' he added seriously, and then grinned. 'Come on, let's celebrate!'
'I-' Copper was appalled to hear the squeak that came out when she opened her mouth, and cleared her throat in a desperate attempt to pull herself together. She couldn't stand here clutching Mal for ever. 'I'd better go and fetch Megan.' She tried again, not that she sounded much better second time around. But how could she be expected to sound normal when the world was still rocking around her and that wonderful, glorious, heart-stopping kiss was still strumming over her skin?
'I'll come with you,' said Mal easily.
'I'll go and make sure the beer's cold,' Brett offered. 'Don't be too long.'
'Let's hope everyone's as easy to convince as he is,' muttered Mal as his brother strode off towards the homestead. He looked down at Copper, who was leaning against him and trying to work up the determination to move away. 'Are you all right now?'
The concern in his voice snapped her upright. The last thing she wanted was for Mal to think that that kiss had meant any more to her than it had to him! 'I'm fine,' she said sharply, pushing her hair defensively behind her ears.
She set off down the track at a cracking pace, but as Mal refused to hurry, and she could hardly walk the whole way with him a ridiculous ten paces behind, she was forced to stop until he caught up and then carry on more slowly. The silence was agonising.
'Fancy Brett thinking we were in love all along!' said Copper at last, with a nervous laugh.
'Fancy,' Mal agreed expressionlessly, and she wished that she had kept her mouth shut.
The evening deepened as they walked back to the homestead with Megan. She skipped along between them, full of how naughty one of Naomi's toddlers had been and delighted to have been able to look down on his behaviour from the lofty heights of four and a half years. Copper was very aware of Mal, bending his head to listen gravely to his daughter's chatter. His gentleness with the little girl, somehow unexpected in such a strong, silent man, always wrenched at her heart. He must love
Megan very much if he was prepared to marry a woman he didn't love just for her sake.
The thought steadied Copper's nerves. The future might be an unknown quantity, her own feelings for Mal confused and uncertain, but for now it was enough to walk beside him through the hush of evening and smell the dryness of the gums drifting up from the creek.
Megan released their hands to run ahead, legs and arms completely uncoordinated. Stampeding up the steps, she disappeared into the kitchen and let the screen door clatter behind her.
'Are you going to tell her tonight?' Copper asked, worry beginning to seep back. Megan was used to having her father to herself; what if she was jealous?
'I may as well,' said Mal.
At the bottom of the verandah steps Copper faltered. The brief moment of serenity had dissolved, leaving her once more with all her doubts and uncertainties about the marriage and what it would mean. Once they had told Megan there would be no going back. They were going to walk up these steps and into a new life. For the next three years they would both be playing a part, deceiving everyone except each other.
'Do you really think we can carry it off?' she asked, abruptly apprehensive.
Mal had stopped beside her, and he turned now to look down into her troubled eyes. 'Of course we can,' he said, taking both her hands in a compelling clasp. 'I'll remember Megan and you remember your project, and we'll make it work together.' Strength seemed to flow through his hands, and Copper's fingers curled instinctively around his as she felt herself steadied.
They stood like that in the dusk, and the air between them shortened with a new intensity. Mal's grip on her hands tightened. 'It will be all right,' he promised quietly and slowly, very slowly, he bent his head and touched his lips to hers. The giddy excitement of before dissolved into tenderness and warmth and infinite reassurance, and Copper relaxed, leaning into his kiss for one enticing moment before Mal lifted his head.
Fingers entwined, they looked at each other in silence, as if dazzled by that unexpected glimpse of sweetness, and then Brett was banging through the screen door and calling to them to hurry up.
'Hey, break it up!' he ordered after one look at the tableau below him. 'You're not alone and the beer's getting warm!'
Inside, the kitchen seemed very bright, and Copper avoided Mal's eyes. She didn't know what to do with her hands. They felt very conspicuous, as if branded with the imprint of his fingers, and her lips tingled still with that brief, sweet kiss. Had he meant to kiss her? Had he been caught unawares, as she had, or had he just been trying to reassure her? Or had he heard Brett coming out from the kitchen and forced himself into his new role?
Megan was puzzled by the atmosphere until Mal took her on his knee and explained that he and Copper were going to be married so that Copper could stay with them all at Birraminda. 'Would you like that?'
Megan wasn't prepared to commit herself yet. 'How long will she stay?'
'A long time.'
The big blue eyes looked at Copper with unnerving directness. 'For ever?' she insisted, and Copper's smile went a little awry. Her eyes met Mal's for a fleeting moment over the small head.
'I hope so, Megan,' she said. By the time she left Megan would be seven, nearly eight. That would seem like for ever to a child of four.
Megan seemed to take that as the end of the discussion. Copper had somehow envisioned the child rushing into her open arms, but Megan had seen too many strangers come and go to put her trust in anyone immediately. She simply slid off her father's knee and carried on with what she had been doing before, but when she was tucked up in bed, and Copper bent down to kiss her goodnight, two small arms shot up to cling around her neck.
'I love you,' said Megan fervently, and Copper's eyes stung with tears.
'I love you too, sweetheart.'
'I'm glad you're going to marry Dad,' she confided in a small voice.
'So am I,' whispered Copper, only to look up and see Mal watching them from the doorway.
'So is Dad,' he said.
'I can see him!' Megan tugged at Copper's hand, dancing up and down with excitement as she spotted Mal's lean, rangy figure appear through a door at the other side of the terminal, Brett close behind him. They paused for a moment, searching the crowd with their eyes.
Copper saw Mal at the same moment as Megan. Two weeks she and the child had been in Adelaide and now suddenly he was here, looking as quiet and as cool and as self-contained as ever, and all the careful composure that she had practised had crumbled at the mere sight of him. She wished she could be like Megan, running towards her father, confident in the knowledge that he would reach for her and smile and catch her up in his arms.
Pride forced Copper to follow more decorously, although her heart was hammering and her breathing uneven. 'Hello,' she said with a wavering smile as she reached them, and Mal stilled as he saw her at last.
She was wearing a summer dress in a faded yellow print, with a scoop neck and a soft swirl of skirt, and she was carrying a simple straw hat in her hands. Mal drew a long breath. 'Copper,' he said, and then stopped as if uncertain how to go on. His voice sounded odd, almost strained as they looked at each other.
Then he shifted Megan into one arm and reached slowly for Copper with the other, drawing her into his side, and she found herself lifting her face quite naturally for his kiss, her own arm creeping instinctively around his waist so that she could cling to him for the reassurance she hadn't even known she craved until then.
The touch of his mouth was electrifyingly brief. 'I've missed you,' he said as he raised his head.
Did he mean it, or was it just an act for Brett, who was watching them indulgently? 'I've missed you too,' she said huskily.
In her case it was true. She had brought Megan down to Adelaide over two weeks ago, and she had missed Mal more than she had thought possible. She had got used to him being there, used to the way he'd smile when he came in every evening. There had been times when she had almost forgotten that it was all a pretence.
Sometimes, when Mal had taken her riding along the creek, or when they'd sat on the verandah and watched
