his voice. ‘I’m sending you to bed.’
He strode on with her speechless, rigid in his grasp.
Finally he reached the bed on the veranda. Karli was sound asleep on one side, barely taking up any room at all. Riley stood, looked down at the sleeping little girl in the moonlight and his face twisted.
‘You’re nothing but trouble,’ he told Jenna. ‘The two of you.’
He held her out over her side of the bed and let her drop. She landed with an ignominious bounce.
He lifted a spare towel from the pile of linen beside the bed and he dropped it onto her head.
‘If I were you, I’d towel myself dry, then get into bed and stay there,’ he told her. ‘And if I catch you wasting rainwater again, then I will personally place you in the Land Rover and take you to the railway siding and leave you there until the next train comes through.’ He glanced across at Karli and once again his mouth twisted. His expression was one that almost might have been pain.
‘I should do it now,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t, of course, but I should.’
He stood for a moment, still staring down, only now he was staring at Jenna, as if he was expecting her to defy him.
She didn’t. She couldn’t. She lay staring up at him in the moonlight and she was absolutely speechless.
And Riley’s mouth quirked into a rueful smile.
‘Goodnight, then, Miss Svenson,’ he said softly. His hand came down and he touched her face-fleetingly, in a gesture that was as unexpected as it was comforting. ‘Sleep well. Don’t let the traffic keep you awake.’
And he was gone, striding purposefully back to his own bed as if rid of a pest. To her fury, as she heard him lower himself onto his bed she heard a low, throaty chuckle.
Angry or not, Riley Jackson had just enjoyed himself.
Toad!
For ten minutes she lay still, her face burning with mortification. She was also trying to block out the knowledge that Riley was in bed not fifteen feet away from her.
She sat up and towelled her hair, turned her pillow to the dry side, then lay and stared in the opposite direction to Riley, out into the night sky.
Facing away from him didn’t help a bit.
She was a fool. What must he think of her? From the moment she’d left the train she’d been nothing but a twit, and she should have guessed about the water.
‘Let it go,’ Riley growled and she almost jumped sky-high.
‘I’ll get over it and so will you,’ he told her, his voice weirdly intimate in the night. They were lying in the same bedroom like two lovers and his words were so soft that she almost might have been dreaming.
‘I…thank you,’ she whispered and once again she heard the chuckle.
‘You’re welcome. Go to sleep.’
Sleep. How could she sleep? She wriggled down between the sheets and lay rigid. Karli slept on beside her, calmly oblivious of the turmoil her big sister was experiencing.
It’d be great to be five years old, Jenna thought bitterly, and then she thought of what she’d gone through from that age until now and thought, no. No, it wouldn’t.
She put out her hand and took Karli’s in hers. The little girl’s fingers curled around hers, trusting even in sleep.
She’d do whatever it took, Jenna thought. Whatever…
Damn Brian.
Men!
She’d never sleep.
She wriggled down further into the bed. Amazingly, the mattress and pillows were comfortable. ‘Not that it’ll make a scrap of difference,’ she told herself. ‘There’s no way I can sleep here.’
Her damp curls sank deeper into the pillow. The warm night air caressed her tired body, soothing her fears. Beyond the veranda, the stars were brilliant in the outback sky.
Karli held her hand, and Riley was asleep close by.
‘There’s no way I can sleep here,’ she repeated, but the words grew slower as she thought them. ‘There’s no way.’
The world was still.
Her eyes closed.
She slept.
CHAPTER FOUR
HE LEFT at dawn.
Riley had work crowding in on him from all sides. He was desperate to be gone, but first he turned his battered truck towards the railway siding. They’d need their abandoned baggage and he didn’t want them trying to get it themselves.
He slowed as he reached the siding. He pulled up on the south side, where there was a little shade from a sun that already had a sting to it. What on earth was this?
He climbed from the truck and stared.
Sandcastles? Dust-castles? What?
The edifices were amazing. They-Jenna and Karli, for who else could have done this?-had built an entire little town. There were scores of little dust houses, made of packed-together dirt, adorned with twigs from the saltbush to form windows and doors and chimneys. There were roads in their little village and a scooped-out something that might be meant to resemble a pond. There were a couple of little twiggy things in the middle of the pond and he stooped to see.
Ducks. They’d fashioned ducks in the desert. He shook his head in stunned amazement.
He’d imagined them sitting bereft on the platform until it was cool enough to try and walk to the house.
He’d imagined wrong.
Jenna wasn’t a lady who’d take kindly to the label
Stop thinking of Jenna, he told himself, and suddenly the voice inside his head was harsh. Get on with what needs to be done.
But harsh command or not, he turned from the ducks with reluctance.
Who else would sit in the dust and make ducks?
Ridiculous.
Their gear was right where they’d left it, a mute testament to their desperation in leaving the train. There was one designer suitcase-that was what he’d expected-a gorgeous affair in pink leather with Karli’s name embossed on the side.
The other suitcase, however, had him intrigued all over again. The ancient box of a thing looked as if it was barely holding together.
So this was why Jenna had reacted with grim humour when he’d suggested she had designer baggage. He loaded the cases into the truck and drove back to the house, trying to figure things out.
Jenna was Nicole Razor’s daughter. Charles Svenson was her father. He’d heard of Nicole and of Charles.
Until her death Nicole had been depicted in the media as a wasted, ageing rock star. The tabloids said she spent half of her life out of it on drugs.
Charles Svenson had the same high media profile, but as far as Riley knew the man was still healthy, wealthy and in the public eye. He’d been an incredibly successful Formula One driver.
Once, a long time ago, Riley’s father had taken a small Riley to a Grand Prix race. Charles Svenson had stood on the winner’s podium, and Riley’s father had grimaced in disgust. ‘I can’t applaud him,’ he’d told his son. ‘Svenson’s a fine driver but his morals would put a sewer rat to shame.’
The eight-year-old Riley had been shocked. Riley’s father hadn’t spoken ill of anyone unless really pushed, so for him that had been quite an indictment. His comment had stuck. As a small boy, Riley had plastered his room
