and I thought you'd be glad to find that I'd gone.'
Mal turned at that. 'You thought I'd be glad to come home and find that my wife had walked out on me?'
'But I wasn't ever really your wife, was I, Mal?' said Copper. 'Oh, I know we went through a ceremony, and said all the right words in the right places, but it takes more than that to be married. I was only ever a housekeeper as far as you were concerned, and I knew you'd replaced plenty of those before. You didn't even have to go to the trouble of ringing up the agency when you had Georgia there, on the spot, ready to take my place. Why don't you try and blackmail her into marrying you? She'd be a far better wife than I ever was!'
Mal half smiled. 'She's certainly ideal-' he began, but Copper couldn't bear to hear any more. She jumped out of the car, blinded by tears, and began to stumble towards the beach. But Mal was cutting her off from the other side.
'Don't you walk away from me again!' he shouted. 'Why do you think I came down here to find you?'
'I don't know!' She tried to brush the tears angrily from her eyes but they kept spilling over. 'I suppose you're going to try waving that contract at me. What are you going to do, sue me for breach of promise?'
'No.' Mal pulled it from his pocket. 'I did bring the contract with me, though. Look, here it is,' he said, and then, very deliberately, he tore it into tiny pieces. The lightest of breezes lifting off the sea caught them and they fluttered away, to be pounced on by a seagull who carried it away, screeching in triumph.
Copper stared blankly across the bonnet, her tears forgotten. 'That was the contract!' she said stupidly.
'Not any more.'
'But…don't you want it?'
'I never wanted it,' he said.
'But you insisted on it! You only ever opened your mouth to quote it at me! Why would you do that if you didn't want it?'
'God, wasn't it obvious?' cried Mal in sudden despair. 'I did it because it was the only way I could make you stay!'
The words rang between them, echoing in the sudden silence. Copper couldn't move. She could only gaze at Mal in disbelief as he walked round the front of the car to take her very gently by the elbows.
'I never wanted the contract, Copper,' he said. 'I only ever wanted you.'
'Y-you wanted a housekeeper,' she corrected him. She was trembling, terrified of facing the bitterness of disillusion again but incapable of ignoring the hope that was flickering into life against all the odds.
'I told myself that, but it was only an excuse. I'd been looking for one ever since I looked across the yard and saw you sitting on the steps next to Megan.' His thumbs moved tantalisingly over her inner arms, caressing the soft skin. 'It was like a miracle, to find you again after seven years.'
'I didn't think you even remembered me,' said Copper unsteadily. 'You can't tell me that you'd been waiting for me all that time!'
'I hadn't been waiting, no,' said Mal, 'but I had been regretting. I'd accepted that I would never see you again, and then I met Lisa. I wanted her to make me feel the way you had done, but she could never be you and the marriage was a disaster from the start. I can't tell you how many times I'd find myself thinking about you, about the way you smiled, the way you closed your eyes when I kissed you, the way you felt in my arms.'
He paused, looking down into Copper's face, and the expression in his eyes made her heart beat faster. 'I used to wonder what my life would have been like if my father hadn't died just then, or if you'd been in when I called, but I knew there was no point in wishing that things had been different, so I tried my best to forget you. And then, just when I thought I'd managed to push you to the back of my mind, suddenly there you were.'
'Why didn't you tell me this then?' she asked uncertainly, and Mal's fingers tightened around her arms.
'I wasn't sure that the time we'd spent together in Turkey had meant the same thing to you. You'd obviously got on with enjoying your life and you didn't seem to have any regrets.' His mouth twisted. 'And Lisa taught me to be wary. It was a blow to realise that you were so determined about your business, but I thought that if I could just get you to stay a little longer we'd have a chance to get to know each other again. When you offered to stay on as housekeeper it seemed too good to be true, but it wasn't long before I realised that wasn't going to be enough. You'd made it clear that your business was your priority, and I knew you wouldn't stay just because I asked you.'
'So you thought you'd try a spot of blackmail?' said Copper, with the beginnings of a smile.
Mal grimaced. 'It was all I could think of, but it just made things worse. I felt guilty at having forced you into a marriage that you didn't want, and the very fact that you'd agreed made it obvious that your business meant far more to you than I ever could.'
Could he really have been so blind? 'Did it seem like I was thinking of business on our wedding night?' she asked, and he slid his hands slowly up her arms.
'I wasn't sure,' he confessed. 'When I made love to you, I was sure that you had to feel the same, but I'd watched you with Glyn at the wedding, and I remembered what you'd said about still loving him. I was afraid you'd just been trying to forget him, and when I woke up the next morning and saw the contracts I realised what an impossible situation I'd put us both in. I knew that I'd no right to touch you unless you asked, because that's what I'd agreed, but you've no idea how hard it was to lie next to you night after night.'
'Don't I?'
She smiled at him as she spoke and Mal gripped her shoulders. 'Copper,' he said with sudden urgency. 'I've said a lot of stupid things about love. I pretended that I didn't want anything more to do with it after Lisa, when all the time I was just afraid to tell you how much I loved you. I came down because I knew I had to apologise for the way I treated you, but all I really want is to ask you to come back.'
He hesitated, and Copper marvelled at the uncertainty in his expression. 'I've got no right to ask you, I know, but Birraminda isn't the same without you. It isn't like before. You're not just a special memory any more. I need you now, and Megan needs you too.' He gestured at the scattered pieces of paper. 'The contract doesn't exist any more. I want you to come back because you want to, not because some lawyer says you have to.'
His hands cupped her face lovingly and his voice was very low. 'Will you come back, Copper? Not as a housekeeper, not as a wife-not as anything but yourself?'
Copper slipped her arms around his waist and smiled up at him with shining eyes. 'It depends how long you want me to stay this time.'
'Nothing less than for ever will do,' said Mal.
'For ever it is, then,' she said, and melted joyously into his kiss. He crushed her against him, kissing her with a deep, desperate hunger, and Copper clung to him, dizzy with pleasure and almost aching with the happiness of knowing that he loved her.
'Are you sure you want me back?' she asked much later, struck by sudden doubt as they walked slowly along the beach together. 'I'm so hopeless at everything. I can't do any of the things your wife should be able to do. You need someone who knows what they're doing and-'
Mal stopped her with another long kiss before she could say any more. 'I need you,' he said against her mouth. 'Only you.'
Deeply satisfied, Copper wound her arms around his neck and nibbled tiny, tantalising kisses along his jaw. 'But I thought Georgia was your ideal wife,' she murmured provocatively into his ear.
'If you'd let me finish,' said Mal, 'you'd have heard me say that Georgia was the ideal wife for Brett.' He pretended to sound stern, but she could feel his cheek crease into a smile beneath her lips. 'You were right about that too, which just goes to show how useful you're going to be.'
'Georgia and Brett are getting married?' Copper pulled back at the news, delighted. 'When did that happen?'
'After you left. Trying to cope with me brought them together-I think it made them realise how they'd feel if one of them left.'
'I knew Brett was in love, but I didn't realise Georgia felt anything for him!' Copper tucked herself into Mal's side as they resumed their walk.
'I don't think she wanted to be just another girl for him, so she held off as long as she could,' Mal told her. 'She's certainly the only girl Brett's ever taken seriously, and I think she'll be good for him. He's steadier already. I've been so taken up with running around after you that he's had to take over a lot of the work on the station, and it's done him the world of good. There's a nice property up for sale not too far away, and together they should make a success of it.' He smiled down at Copper. 'They're just waiting for you to come back so that they can get
