The first thing she needed to concentrate on was Karli. The little girl’s eyes were closing and her body was slumping.
Jenna thought again of Brian and her anger rose to almost overwhelm her.
Damn him, damn him, damn him, she muttered to herself. Damn them. Because suddenly it was a group. Jenna’s father. Her father. Her mother. And Riley was there too. All rolled up into one ball of fury.
Which was illogical, she told herself. Riley wasn’t to blame. He was stuck.
He had a lovely, gleaming aeroplane that could transport her to a comfortable hotel somewhere near an airport and…
And his cattle would die. She had no doubt he was telling the truth. He looked exhausted. He looked like a man who was working far harder than a man should. The way he’d left to have a shower seemed almost an act of desperation. It spoke of a man past the limits of exhaustion, trying to clear his head and see things straight.
No. She couldn’t blame him.
And the rest?
Her mother was dead.
She thought of Nicole, and tried to dredge up a feeling of sadness, but all she felt was bitterness. Bitterness at how she herself had been treated, but, worse, bitterness at what had happened to Karli.
Nicole was dead. Of course. It wasn’t the least surprising. What was surprising was that, leading the life she had, their mother had survived so long.
It’s all about surviving, she told herself drearily. That was what she had to do now. Survive.
Karli’s eyes were now completely closed. Jenna rose, carrying her with her. At almost six years old, Karli should be too big to lift, but the child was seriously underweight. She carried her across to the cracked window and gazed out into the fading light. The land was disappearing into the dusk, but she could still make out the horizon-long and endlessly flat.
There was nothing here. Where were these cattle Riley talked about? Figments of his imagination? What on earth was the man doing, working a useless, barren piece of land?
Surely he can’t make a living off this place, she thought, but then she thought of his aeroplane and her confusion grew. The plane was obviously expensive. How could this farm generate enough income to provide such a thing?
‘Well, at least he’s not a drug baron growing cash crops of opium,’ she told the sleeping Karli. ‘There’s hardly a lush crop of poppies in this backyard. If he’s making money from this place he must have found a market for bottled dust.’
She turned back to the kitchen. It was littered with crates and cardboard boxes, with everything covered in dust. There was a small gas stove and a kerosene fridge and little else. Ugh.
What of the rest of the house? She hadn’t been invited to look-but she couldn’t keep holding Karli for ever. She had to find somewhere she could lay her down.
The kitchen door led to a sitting room-of sorts. It held a few chairs and an old settee. In the corner was an ancient gramophone. But one of the window-panes was smashed, and dust was everywhere.
What next? There were two rooms leading off the sitting room. Jenna pushed the doors wide and reacted again with horror. These must be the bedrooms. Iron bedsteads stood as islands in the dust, with lumpy mattresses on sagging springs. Both rooms had broken windows, and once again they were thick with dust.
Surely Riley didn’t sleep here? Neither room looked as if it had seen a human for years. She retreated in haste, Karli growing heavier by the minute.
Riley must sleep somewhere. Where was he now?
She returned to the sitting room and stared out. Beyond the filthy windows was a veranda, and a door opened out to it. This must be the formal front door.
Did anyone ever come here?
She shoved the door open and walked outside, wary of broken floorboards, but there was no need for caution. In the lee of the house, the veranda was out of the wind and thus protected from the all-pervading dust.
In the fading light, Jenna could see a big bed at each end of the veranda, one made up with sheets and what looked like comfortable pillows. This, then, must be where Riley slept.
Riley’s bed or not, it was the most inviting place in the house. She laid Karli down with care, and watched as the little girl snuggled contentedly into the pillows. Karli had no cares to stop her sleeping. Jenna would take care of her.
Would she? Could she?
What had she got them both into?
This was such a mess, she thought ruefully. How had it happened? Jenna had taken such care to be independent, but Karli had been catapulted into her life with a vengeance, and how could she walk away?
She ran a finger down Karli’s dust-stained face, aching with tenderness for a child she was starting to love in a way she’d never thought possible. Where to go from here? How could she cope with this situation? With Riley Jackson? With her future?
One step at a time, she thought. Just live in the moment, otherwise you’ll go mad.
She turned and stared at the other bed at the far end of the veranda. It had a mattress and a couple of pillows. It looked almost comfortable.
It was too close to Riley’s bed.
The alternative was the railway siding, she told herself, and grimaced. It wasn’t an alternative at all. But to share sleeping quarters with that man…
The door opened at the end of the veranda-and that man was right in front of her.
Naked.
He’d obviously just emerged from the shower. His hair was still dripping. His towel was draped over his shoulder-but it wasn’t covering what needed to be covered.
She was a nurse, she told herself desperately. She was used to naked men.
She wasn’t used to this one.
There was no mistaking the magnificence of Riley’s body. He was built like a Rodin sculpture, she decided as she bit back an exclamation of dismay and moved swiftly to block the line of sight between Riley and the sleeping child. Then, with her complexion fast changing colour, she made herself look at his face-which was a better place to focus on than where her eyes were automatically drawn.
Her colour deepened further. The man was laughing!
‘Whoops,’ he said as he slung his towel around his waist to make himself respectable. Almost respectable. ‘I’m not used to visitors. Um…welcome to my bedroom.’
Which made Jenna’s flushing face turn to beetroot. She was in his bedroom. What else did she expect?
‘I…I’m sorry,’ she muttered. She motioned back to Karli who was thankfully still soundly asleep. ‘I needed… She needed…’
He followed her gaze and his face softened with understanding. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. I should have thought of that before I showered.’
‘I’ll move her.’
‘There’s no need.’ He snagged his clothes from the bedside chair, then caught his towel as it started to slip. ‘I’ll dress in the wash house. Meet you in the kitchen in five minutes.’
He disappeared and she had a fleeting thought that suddenly he was as discomposed as she was.
Was that possible?
Five minutes later when they met again back in the kitchen, her colour still hadn’t subsided. The gathering dusk helped, but then Riley produced a kerosene lantern and turned the little kitchen’s darkness to light. Her colour rose all over again.
He was respectable now, but only just. He was wearing faded jeans and nothing else. When he’d been covered in grimed clothes and dust, Jenna had thought the man was seriously good-looking, but now he was naked from the waist up, his broad chest was tanned and rippled, and his strongly boned face was rid of its dusty coating. The whole package meant Jenna had to fight not to gasp.
That and the memory of what she’d just seen…
She wasn’t interested in men, she told herself desperately. She’d never been interested in men. She’d seen
