controls, Brett was sullen and Megan fractious, and Copper just wanted to shut herself in a dark room and be left alone to enjoy a good cry.
When they touched down on the rough landing strip it was nearly dark, and they still had to pack the fruit and vegetables and everything else Copper had brought with her into the pick-up truck and then out again at the homestead. Megan had to be fed and bathed and put to bed, but she was over-tired and over-excited after all the attention of the last couple of weeks and the whole process culminated in a shattering tantrum. Copper just wished that she could do the same. Her head was aching and her eyes felt gritty with unshed tears.
By the time she and Mal were able to go to bed, the night before seemed like a lifetime ago and Copper was too tired even to think about the plans she had made to rediscover the sense of magic they had shared. 'I'm exhausted!' she sighed, sinking down onto the edge of the bed as Mal closed the door.
'There's no need to start dropping hints,' he snarled, and she stared at him, surprised out of her lethargy.
'What do you mean?'
Irritably, Mal began to strip off his shirt. 'I mean you don't have to think up an excuse every night to avoid sleeping with me. You made yourself clear enough last night.'
'But…but I wasn't hinting,' stammered Copper. 'I was just saying that I was tired!'
'Fine,' said Mal, chucking his shirt onto the back of a chair and reaching for a towel. 'You're tired, I'm tired, so let's just get some sleep.'
When he came back from the bathroom, Copper was lying stiffly under the sheet with her back turned to the light. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was pretending to be asleep, but she was vibrating with awareness. She could sense Mal moving around the room, hear the clunk of his boots hitting the floor and the sound of the zip as he undid his trousers, and she could picture him so clearly that she might as well have had her eyes wide open.
Then he clicked off the light and the bed dipped as he got in beside her. Copper held her breath in the sudden darkness. If he turned to her now, if he spoke, everything might still be all right. She would meet him halfway and burrow into the comfort of his arms and they would laugh together over the tensions and misunderstandings of the day.
But Mal didn't turn. He didn't even say goodnight. He simply settled himself down and went calmly to sleep.
Aching with disappointment, Copper edged onto her back. Had he just been indulging her the night before? The thought made her burn with humiliation. If Mal thought she was going to beg him to make love to her every night, he had another think coming. She had asked once, and she was damned if she was going to ask again! He could make the first move next time.
In the dark hours of the morning Copper came to a decision. It was easy to make angry resolutions, but it didn't change the fact that she still loved him. Somehow she was just going to have to make him fall in love with her as well. If Mal wanted a practical, unromantic wife, that was the kind of wife she would be. She would play her part and she wouldn't ask anything of him, and perhaps, in time, he would realise that she was nothing like Lisa and decide that he wanted a wife who loved him after all.
Over the next few weeks, Copper worked really hard at being what Mal wanted her to be. Most of her time she spent with Megan, starting her on elementary lessons with the books that she had bought in Adelaide. She gave Megan the security of knowing that she would be firmly disciplined if she was naughty, comforted if she was hurt and loved whatever happened.
When she wasn't with Megan, Copper cleaned and tidied and scrubbed and polished, and gradually the homestead lost the faintly neglected air it had worn when she arrived. She sorted out the storerooms and reorganised the office and even offered to help Mal with all the paperwork. There was the camp site to be established too. Copper threw herself into the project, setting aside time every day to study tenders for the construction work or redraft their plans in the light of everything that she was learning about real life in the outback.
She was so busy that it was easy to get through the days, but the nights were much harder. It wasn't too difficult to talk normally together during the day, but every night when they went to bed they lay carefully apart and didn't talk at all. Copper made no demands on Mal, but as it became obvious that her careful strategy wasn't working she became increasingly crotchety and frustrated.
She was trying her best to be a good outback wife but it obviously wasn't enough. She couldn't brand a cow or ride a horse very well, and nothing else seemed to count with Mal. She got no credit for keeping the house or noticing that one of the jackaroos wasn't feeling well or discovering that Naomi was deeply unhappy. What thanks did she get for caring for his daughter and ensuring that they all got three square meals a day? None!
The more Copper brooded, the more her resentment grew-until she had almost convinced herself that she wasn't really in love with Mal at all. How could she be in love with a man who barely acknowledged her existence?
As the weeks passed, so the tension grew, until it shimmered like the heat haze over the scrub and the air between them twanged and whined, and finally snapped.
She was in the office one day, working on some figures, when Mal strode in and informed her that the men would need sandwiches for lunch as he was sending them out to check the fences.
Copper laid down her pen, a dangerous look in her green eyes. 'Why didn't you tell me this at breakfast?'
'I didn't know at breakfast,' said Mal, with a touch of impatience. 'I thought it would take them most of the day to finish off what they started yesterday, but they've made good time and it's worth them making a start on those fences this morning.'
'If they're making such good time, they can make their own sandwiches,' said Copper, and picked up her pen again.
There was an ominous silence. 'Why can't you make them?' asked Mal in a glacial voice.
'Because I'm busy,' she snapped, and her lip curled dismissively.
'You're not busy; you're just playing around with that precious project of yours!'
Copper looked up furiously. 'I am not playing around! I'm working out the cheapest way to bring in supplies for the tour groups and how we can calculate that into our costs. I think that's a bit more important than making a few sandwiches that you are all more than capable of making yourselves!'
'Of course, you would think that was more important,' said Mal contemptuously. 'You're obsessed with your business. You're always in here, fussing over your files. The rest of Birraminda could fall to pieces as far as you're concerned, as long as your camp site survives to keep your business going!'
'Do you want to know what I've done so far this morning, Mal?' said Copper, hanging onto the shreds of her temper with difficulty. 'I've cooked breakfast for you and your men, I've washed your dishes afterwards and put everything away, and I've swept your floor and cleaned your units. I've made your bed and washed your clothes and scrubbed out your shower.
'And in the middle of it all,' she swept on, without giving Mal a chance to speak, 'I've fed your dogs and your hens and made a meatloaf for your lunch and two apple pies for your dinner, not to mention some icecream for the freezer. I've washed and dressed your daughter and kept her entertained, and now that I've got a few minutes to myself, I'm working out how to run a profitable business that will bring some much needed cash into your property, judging by your accounts- which I have also kept up to date. And you dare to suggest that I don't do anything for Birraminda!'
'I'm not accusing you of sitting around all day,' said Mal, unmoved by her tirade. 'But you're only doing what any housekeeper would do, and you knew exactly what you were taking on when you signed that contract.'
'I didn't realise that I was signing up to three years' slavery!' she said bitterly.
'If you've got so much to do, why did you take over the evening cooking for the men?' he demanded. 'Naomi was perfectly happy doing it.'
'Naomi was not happy doing it!' Copper flared. 'If you had eyes to see anything beyond your stupid cows, you'd know that.' Pushing back her chair, she walked edgily over to the window, clutching her arms together defensively. 'I found Naomi in tears one day,' she said, swinging round to face Mal accusingly once more. 'She's got two small children and another one on the way, Bill's out all day, and she can't cope with the cooking on top of everything else. When I spoke to her she was so miserable that she was ready to take the children and go back to her mother in Brisbane. If I hadn't listened to her and tried to make her life a little easier, by taking over the cooking and looking after the children when I can, she'd be there now.'
