NICOLA craned to take in as much of the view as she could from the Cessna’s window as they landed on an airstrip that was nothing more than red dirt, bordered here and there with spiky grass and mulga scrub. When the pilot cut the engine the sudden silence engulfed her.
He turned to her. ‘Here we are then.’
‘Right.’ She swallowed and gave a curt nod. Here was the Waminda Downs cattle station in the far west of Queensland—the Outback, the Never-Never, beyond the Black Stump—and about as far from civilisation as a body could get. She glanced out of the window again and something in her chest started to lift. This place was the polar opposite to her native Melbourne. The total polar opposite.
‘May I get out now?’
‘Well, as this is your destination, love, I believe that’s the plan.’
He let the steps down, she stuck her head outside and the first thing to hit her was the heat—hard, enveloping and intense. The second, when her feet found firm ground again, was the scent—hot, dry earth and sun-baked grasses. The lonely desolation thrust itself upon her consciousness with an insistence that refused to be ignored, greater than the heat that beat down on her uncovered head and greater than the alien sights and scents. A person could get lost out here and never be found.
She surveyed the endless expanse of pale brown grass, interspersed here and there with mulga scrub and saltbush, and at all the red dirt beneath it, and for the first time in three months she felt like her heart started to beat at the right pace again. Out here she wouldn’t encounter acquaintances who would glance at her and then just as quickly glance away again to whisper behind their hands. Or friends who would rush up to grip her hands and ask her how she was doing. Or those people who just plain enjoyed others’ misfortunes and would smirk at her.
She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sky. ‘This is perfect.’
‘Perfect for what?’
That voice didn’t belong to Jerry the pilot.
Her eyes sprang open. She spun around to find a man hauling her suitcase from the plane’s cargo hold. He set it on the ground and then straightened. He was tall and broad. He gave off an impression of strength. He gave off an even bigger impression of no-nonsense efficiency.
She blinked. ‘Where did you come from?’ So much for thinking she and the pilot were alone in this wilderness.
He pointed back behind him and in the harsh glare of the sun she caught the glint from a car’s windscreen. ‘You’re from the station?’
One corner of his mouth hooked up. It wasn’t precisely a smile, but she had a feeling it was meant to be friendly. ‘I’m Cade Hindmarsh.’
Her boss.
He must be about thirty and he was tanned. Really tanned. He had deep lines fanning out from his eyes. Probably from all the habitual squinting into the sun one must do out here. A habit Nicola found herself mimicking already. He tipped his Akubra back from his head and she found herself staring into the bluest pair of eyes she’d ever seen. The sun might’ve faded everything else out here, but it hadn’t faded them.
His gaze was direct. The longer she looked at him, the lighter she started to feel, a burden of weight slipping free from her shoulders and sinking into the dry earth at her feet. He didn’t know her. He’d never met her before in his life. Nobody out here knew her. He wouldn’t think her pitiful, stupid or a failure. Unless she did something to give him reason to.
She had absolutely no intention of letting that happen.
‘Nicola McGillroy,’ she said, recalling her manners and introducing herself. Cool, poised and businesslike, she lectured. That was the impression she wanted to give. And the antithesis of a pitiful doormat.
He strode over and extended his hand. She placed hers inside it and found it so comprehensively grasped it made her eyes widen. He grimaced and loosened his hold. ‘Sorry. I’m always being told not to grip so hard.’
She swallowed. ‘No need to apologise; you didn’t hurt me.’
Cade shook hands the way she’d always thought men should shake hands. The reality, like so many other realities, had disappointed her. Cade didn’t disappoint. His grip was firm, dependable. Strong. Men who shook hands like that didn’t get pushed around. She wanted to learn to shake hands like that.
From beneath the brim of his Akubra those blue eyes twinkled for a moment. Her lips lifted in response, and then with a start she realised her hand was still held in his. She gently detached it.
Her employer tipped his head back and stared at her for several long, pulse-inducing moments. She lifted her chin and met his gaze square-on. She didn’t kid herself that his survey was anything other than what it was—a sizing up … a summing up. For the next two months she would have charge of his two young daughters. She wouldn’t respect any man who merely took her at face value, who went only by her résumé and a telephone interview. Even if that telephone interview had been gruelling.
‘Will I do?’ she finally asked, the suspense sawing on her nerves. She didn’t doubt for one moment that if his answer was no he’d put her back on that plane and send her home to Melbourne.
The thought made her throat dry and her heart falter for a couple of beats before it surged against her ribs again with renewed force. She couldn’t go back to Melbourne. Not yet!
Melbourne … December … with their joint reminders of the wedding she should’ve been planning. She didn’t think she could stand it.
‘Why is this place perfect?’
Perfect? Nicola Ann, you can’t be serious!
Her mother’s voice sounded in her head. Nicola resolutely ignored it. ‘All of this—’ she gestured to the landscape ‘—is so different to what I’m used to, but it’s exactly what I imagined.’
‘And that’s good?’
‘I think so.’ It was very good.
He planted his feet. ‘A lot of people who come out here are running away from something.’
She refused to let her chin drop. ‘Is that why you’re out here?’
Off to one side Jerry snorted, reminding her that she and her employer weren’t alone. ‘Love, generations of the Hindmarshes have been born and bred out here.’
She raised an eyebrow at Cade Hindmarsh. ‘Is that a no, then?’
Those blue eyes twinkled again. ‘That’s a no.’
‘Some people—’ she chose her words carefully ‘—not only want to see what they can of the country, but to experience it as well.’
‘And that’s why you’re here?’
‘I know if you were born and bred out here that you’re familiar with this kind of life and landscape, but being here is an adventure for me.’ It was also a timeout from her real life, a much needed break from Melbourne with all its reminders of her short-sighted stupidity and her cringe-inducing ignorance. She didn’t say that out loud though. He might interpret that as running away.
It will all still be here when you get home, you know, Nicola Ann.
And her mother might be right.
Though, in two months’ time, hopefully she’d have found the strength to face it all again. She hoped that in two months’ time she’d have changed, become a different person—someone stronger, tougher. Someone who didn’t get taken advantage of, lied to or cheated on.
Finally Cade smiled. ‘Welcome to Waminda Downs, Nicola.’
A pent-up breath whooshed out of her. ‘Thank you.’ She grinned. She couldn’t help it. She wanted to high-five someone for having passed Cade’s assessment. Jerry’s chuckle told her that her excitement was visible for all to see.
Cade’s smile broadened into a grin that made her blink and just like that she could practically feel Diane’s elbow in her ribs and her whisper of, Hot, gorgeous hunk at her ear. The thought of her best friend pulled Nicola up short. It made her pull back, compose her features and press her hands together at her waist.
Cade’s eyes narrowed and his grin faded too until it had vanished completely. Something inside her protested at that, but she stamped it out. She was here to change. Not to gush. Not to be eager to approve of everything and everyone she met without considered judgement first. And not to be patted on the head and treated like a child.
She strode around him to seize her suitcase. ‘I’m really looking forward to meeting Ella and Holly.’
Cade remained silent. Nicola bit her tongue to stop from prompting further. She wasn’t here to make friends. She wasn’t here to win approval—not from Cade, not from anyone. She was here to do a job … and to get her head screwed on straight again. She’d do both those things to the best of her ability.
‘Brought that generator you ordered.’
The men unloaded the generator. Beneath his work shirt Cade’s arm muscles bulged. Despite the generator’s bulk and weight, he didn’t so much as break out into a sweat as he carried it to the car. With a wave to Jerry, she set off after him, admiring the broad sweep of his shoulders and the depth of his chest. The man was a veritable Atlas. He stowed the generator into the tray of his ute with ease and then took her suitcase. She told herself the only reason she let him take it was because he’d know how to load the tray to best effect.
It wasn’t because it was too heavy and she had pitiful upper body strength.
Her lip curled. Oh, who was she trying to kid? But getting fit was on her to-do list while she was out here. In two months’ time she’d be tossing that suitcase around as if it weighed nothing at all. The way Cade did.
She found her eyes drawn too easily to him so, setting her teeth, she did what he did—shaded her eyes and watched as the Cessna took off. And then, to stop from staring at him again, she completed a slow three hundred and sixty degree turn to survey the landscape. Finally she shrugged. ‘Okay, it beats me. The land looks flat for as far as the eye can see. At least until that ridge way over there.’ She gestured to her right. ‘But I can’t see a homestead.’
‘The land is deceptive.’ He opened the car door for her, and his unwavering scrutiny made her clumsy. She knocked both an elbow and a knee as she climbed into her seat.
Oh, Nicola Ann, you are such a klutz.
He didn’t say anything, but she swore those blue eyes of his twinkled before he closed the door.
Without another word he climbed into the driver’s seat and they set off along what Nicola could only loosely describe as a track.
‘Is it far to the homestead?’
‘About five kilometres.’
She waited. He didn’t say anything more. On the rough track the car couldn’t go much faster than thirty kilometres an hour and the silence pressed in on her. Cade’s tall, broad bulk dominated the interior cab and, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, that made her nervous.
‘Is the land near the homestead unsuitable for an airstrip?’
He flicked a glance in her direction. She doubted much got past those eyes of his. She could imagine them filling with that soul-destroying combination of derision and pity she’d seen in her friends’ eyes during the last few months.
Yes, she could imagine it all too clearly and it made bile rise in her throat.
‘Fire,’ he said.
She blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The reason the airstrip is away from the house is in case there’s an accident that could start a bushfire.’
Oh. It made perfect sense when she thought about it.
At that moment they topped a rise and Cade pulled the car to a halt. She stared at the vista spread before her and her ‘wow’ breathed out of her before she could help it, before she could remind herself about tempering her enthusiasm and keeping things businesslike.
She shook herself and swallowed. ‘Very impressive, Mr Hindmarsh.’
‘Cade,’ he corrected. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony out here, Nicola.’ He gestured out of the front windscreen. ‘As you can see, this is the station complex.’
It was much larger than anything she’d imagined. On the side nearest them was a sprawling homestead with two wings that spread out in a V shape from the main structure. The weatherboards were painted a crisp white and the corrugated iron roof a cool deep green. A veranda wrapped around it all, but it wasn’t the homestead’s size that stole her breath. It was the garden that surrounded it. Even from this distance she could make out the fronds of the two magnificent tree ferns that stood at the end of each wing, as well as the breadth of the date palms that dotted the lawn. ‘I can’t believe you have a garden. It’s like an oasis.’
‘Bore water,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t stop here so you could admire the view. I need you to understand some basic facts so you can stay out of trouble while you’re here.’
She frowned.
‘You might think coming out here for two months is an adventure, but the land is unforgiving. Underestimate it at your own peril.’
She tried to suppress a shiver. ‘Okay.’ And then she realised how weak and pathetic her voice sounded. She lifted her chin and made her voice stronger. ‘What do I need to know?’
‘The land is deceptive to the eye. It undulates. You think you know where you are and then you turn around and can’t see the homestead or any familiar landmarks. It’s that easy—’ he clicked his fingers ‘—to get lost. You’re not to go wandering about on your own.’
Her heart sank. There went her plan of jogging her way to fitness and thinness.
Damn it! She’d sworn to return to Melbourne toned and tanned. It would signal to Diane, Brad and all her other friends that she was getting on with her life. It would prove that she had confidence and chutzpah and was no longer an object of pity. She gripped her hands together. And the next time a guy dumped her she wanted to make sure it wasn’t because she was half a stone overweight.
‘Waminda Downs covers three million acres. That’s twelve thousand square kilometres.’
She pulled her mind back.
‘That’s a lot of ground to cover if someone goes missing.’
She read the subtext. If a person went missing out here they might never be found.
‘See that perimeter fence? It’s painted white.’
‘Yes.’
‘That encloses the four acres of the home paddock, including the homestead and outbuildings. You can wander freely within that, but do not cross that boundary unaccompanied.’
Four acres would be plenty! ‘Roger.’
‘And I’d like you and the girls to stay away from the cattle yards.’ He pointed to a series of yards on the side furthest away from them. They were separated from the homestead by a number of outbuildings. He proceeded to name the buildings. ‘That’s the machinery shed.’ It was huge. ‘Barn and stables.’ He pointed. ‘Next to them is the jackaroo and jillaroo quarters. Those smaller cottages at the far end are for the stockmen and their families.’
She blinked. Waminda Downs, it seemed, was its own thriving community.
‘Why are the cattle yards out of bounds?’ She wanted to understand every hazard in her new environment so she could head off any potential disasters.
‘We corralled a herd of brumby in there the week before last and we’re going to start breaking them in. It’s dangerous work.’
‘Okay.’ She nodded once, hard. ‘Anything else I need to know?’
‘If you do go exploring within the home paddock you always take a water bottle with you, and wear a hat and sunscreen. It’s only four acres, but it’s summer and at the height of the day the sun is merciless.’
‘Don’t worry, Mr Hindmarsh. I won’t be letting the girls outside between eleven a.m. and three p.m.’
‘The garden is surprisingly cool.’
She’d make her own judgement about that. Located two hours by plane from the nearest hospital, she had no intention of risking sunstroke in her charges.
‘And there’s just one final thing.’
Something in his tone made her turn. ‘Yes?’
His blue eyes flashed. ‘The name’s Cade—try it.’
She’d never had a problem calling any of her previous employers by their first name, but it suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t want to be on a first name basis with this man. She swallowed. He was too … too confident, too gorgeous … too everything that she wasn’t. He brought home to her all the things she lacked with a realness that made her want to turn her face away.
Coward.
For heaven’s sake, she was his children’s nanny. First names could not be avoided. She lifted her chin. She would be cool and poised. She would be competent and clever. She would be respected. She moistened her lips. His eyes followed the action. ‘Cade,’ she said. His name scraped out of her throat with an appalling huskiness and none of the poised cool she’d tried so hard to carry off.
He cocked an eyebrow. ‘See? Wasn’t so hard, was it?’
Before she could answer he started the engine again and they set off towards the homestead. This time she curbed any impulse to fill the silence. She focused instead on the homestead and garden, and tried to make out what it was that glittered on the trunks of the date palms and to see what the shapes were that littered the lawn.
And as they drew closer her jaw started to drop. The glitter … it was tinsel. The shapes on the lawn …
Oh. My. God. The shapes were Christmas-themed wooden cut-outs painted in the brightest colours imaginable. On one side of the lawn a Santa sleigh squatted along with four merry reindeer. On the other stood a wooden Santa in all his holiday merriment, a sack of toys at his feet. Gold and silver snowflakes hung from the veranda ceiling, alternating with green and red stars. Tinsel in every colour twined around the veranda posts.
She flinched. Christmas. Oh, she’d known she wouldn’t be able to avoid it completely—Cade had two young daughters after all—but …
She’d thought that out here in the Never-Never it’d be small-scale, low-key … restrained.
It hit her then that she’d been counting on it. Her chest cramped.
The car stopped at the edge of a path lined with oversized candy canes that she knew would light up at night. At the end of the path four broad steps led to the veranda and the front door of the homestead. It was a testament to the door’s solidity that it didn’t buckle beneath the weight of its enormous wreath. Three wooden angels graced the roof of the veranda, their trumpets raised heavenward as if heralding the arrival of the silly season.
She bit her tongue to stop from blurting out something unpoised and stupid. Her hands fisted and she blinked hard to counter the stinging in her eyes. All this Christmas-ness was a too-vivid reminder of the merriment and festivity she’d known herself incapable of taking part in back home. It reminded her of the wedding she should’ve been planning. It taunted her with all she’d lost and how nothing—nothing—could ever replace it.
It was only the first week of December. She’d taken a month’s leave from her job as a teacher and her four weeks of Christmas holidays, because Christmas and wedding preparations had become synonymous in her mind. But Christmas with all its gaudy festivity now stared her in the face. The joke was on her. She swallowed and tried to ignore the ache that spread through her chest.
‘Now I’ll warrant this isn’t what you were expecting.’
Beside her, Cade chuckled. She couldn’t open her mouth to either agree or disagree.
‘What do you think?’
She hated it! The truth, though, would not endear her to him. Of that she was certain. And while she told herself she didn’t give two hoots what her employer thought of her—other than that she did her job well—deliberate rudeness was not in her nature. Nor was it poised, elegant or dignified. She tried to think of something coolly elegant to say … or even something bland and inoffensive.
She turned to Cade, she racked her brain and then realised she needn’t have bothered. One glance at his face told her he’d perceived her true feelings on the matter. His eyes narrowed and while there was no denying that he was broad, big and strong, for the first time he looked formidable too.
She swallowed. She couldn’t find a smile, but she struggled for light. ‘To think I’d left all this behind in the city.’
His lips tightened. ‘So that’s what you’re running from.’
‘I’m not running from anything.’ Taking a timeout wasn’t running.
He leaned back, but his eyes remained flint hard. Blue flint in a landscape of khaki and brown. The pulse in her throat swelled and pounded. ‘That generator I just unloaded, it’s to run all the coloured fairy lights I’m planning on hanging from the house and around the garden in the next week or two.’
The homestead would look like some tacky fairy tale palace. She sucked in a breath. Or an overdecorated wedding cake.
‘We’re doing Christmas big out here this year, Ms McGillroy. If that’s going to be a problem for you then it’s not too late for me to radio Jerry to come back and fly you out of here.’
So she could face all this insubstantial, bubble-popping, fake merriment in Melbourne? No, thank you very much! She could put on a happy face and do Christmas. The people at Waminda Downs didn’t know her. They wouldn’t murmur, There, there, the holiday season can be tough sometimes, can’t it? She might not be through with gritting her teeth yet, but she was absolutely positively done with pity.
‘I thought we’d agreed on first names, Cade.’
Very slowly, the tension eased out of him.
She turned back to stare at all the over-the-top Christmasness. ‘My mother would find all this the height of tackiness.’
There was no denying that thought cheered her up.
‘You repeat that to Ella and Holly and I’ll throttle you.’
The words came out on a lazy breath but she didn’t doubt their veracity. She stared down her nose at him. ‘I’m the nanny, not the evil witch.’
‘Just make sure you stay in character.’
She frowned and turned more fully to face him. ‘You don’t exactly strike me as the Santa Claus type yourself, you know?’ And he didn’t. Competent, calm in a crisis, perceptive, she’d peg him as all those things, but joyful and jocund? She shook her head.
‘Just goes to show what you know, then.’
But he shifted on his seat and she remembered he was a father—a single father—and his first priority was making sure his daughters were looked after and happy. ‘I would never ruin the magic of Christmas for any child,’ she assured him.
He surveyed her again and then nodded. ‘Glad that’s settled.’
He still didn’t strike her as Father Christmas material, but there was no questioning his devotion to his daughters. It warmed something inside her that she didn’t want warmed. It made her draw back inside herself. ‘When can I meet Ella and Holly?’
He eyed her thoughtfully, but eventually nodded in the direction of her car window. ‘Right about now, I’d say.’
Nicola turned … and fell in love.
Four-year-old Ella and eighteen-month-old Holly wore the biggest smiles and had the most mischievous faces Nicola had ever seen, and they were dancing down the front steps of the homestead and along the path towards her in matching red and green frocks.
Good Lord! She gulped. She hadn’t factored this in when she’d plotted to keep her distance and maintain her reserve as she implemented her self-improvement scheme.
She pushed out of the car, a smile spreading through her. Children, she made an amendment to her earlier plan, didn’t count. Children didn’t lie and cheat. Children didn’t pretend to be your friend and then steal your fiancé.
She didn’t need to guard her heart around children.
Cade watched Nicola greet Ella and Holly and win them over in two seconds flat.
It wasn’t a difficult feat. He refused to give their perplexing nanny any credit for that. Despite all they’d been through, Ella and Holly were remarkably trusting. They’d have shown as much delight if he’d presented Jerry, the pilot, as their nanny.
But as he watched them, especially Ella, delight in Nicola’s undeniably female presence, his heart started to burn. It should be their mother here. Not a nanny. And no amount of Christmas cheer could ever make that up to his children.
His hands clenched. It wasn’t going to stop him from giving them the best Christmas possible, though.
He pushed out of the car in time to hear Ella ask, ‘Can I call you Nikki?’
Nicola shook her head very solemnly. ‘No, but you can call me Nic. All of my friends call me Nic.’
Ella clapped her hands, but at the mention of friends a shadow passed across Nicola’s face. And just as he had back at the airstrip, Cade found that he wanted to chase that shadow away.
He didn’t know why. His children’s nanny wasn’t particularly winning. She was of ordinary height and weight, perhaps veering a little more on the solid side.When she’d first emerged from the plane and had gazed around with a smile curving her lips, he’d been satisfied. When he’d shaken her hand, he’d been more than satisfied.
And then she’d become stiff and prickly and he hadn’t been able to work out why yet. He was pretty sure he hadn’t frightened her—given his size and the remoteness of the station he’d have understood her apprehension. He was even more certain that she hadn’t wanted to turn around and go back home.
She leant her hands on her knees to talk to his daughters—ordinary hair a nondescript brown and an ordinary face. Ordinary clothes—baggy three-quarter length trousers and an oversized shirt, neither of which did anything much for her. But those eyes—there was nothing ordinary about them. Or their shadows.
Christmas wasn’t the time for shadows. And Waminda Downs, this year, was not the place for them.
He hooked a thumb into the pocket of his jeans. Despite what she said, she was running from something. He was certain of it. All the background checks he’d had completed assured him that whatever it was, it wasn’t criminal. The way she smiled at his daughters, her easy manner with them, told him she could be trusted with them, that his instincts hadn’t let him down there.
But could she be trusted to keep her word and not create a cloud over Christmas? Ella and Holly had suffered enough. They deserved all the fun and festivity he could crowd into their days this Christmas season.
Guilt for last Christmas chafed at him, filling his mouth with bile. They hadn’t had a Christmas last year. His lip curled. He should’ve made an effort, but he hadn’t. His hands clenched. Last year he hadn’t been able to pull himself out from under the cloud of Fran leaving … of her almost total abandonment of their daughters … of his failure to keep his family together. He’d let his bitterness, his anger and his despair blight last Christmas.
But not this year. This year no effort would be spared.
As he watched, Ella took one of Nicola’s hands and Holly the other and they led her across to Santa’s sleigh and he thought back to the expression on her face when she’d first surveyed the Christmas decorations—a kind of appalled horror.
Then, unbidden, he recalled a portion of their phone interview last month. ‘Mr Hindmarsh, are you widowed, separated or divorced? I know that’s a personal question and that it’s none of my business, but it can have an impact on the children and I need to know about anything that may affect them.’
He’d told her the truth—that he was divorced. But …
None of the other applicants had asked that question. Nicola had been evidently reluctant to, but she’d screwed up the courage to ask it all the same. His children’s best interests were more important to her than her own personal comfort. That was one of the reasons why he’d chosen her.
Nicola threw her head back now and laughed at something Ella said, and Ella laughed and Holly laughed and all three of them fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Nicola’s face lit up as if from the inside as she gathered his children close to her and the impact slugged him in the gut, making the ground beneath his feet rock.
Blinking, he took a physical step away from the trio.
‘The kids have met the new nanny then?’
He glanced down at his housekeeper, Martha Harrison—Harry for short—as she joined him. ‘Yep.’
‘And they seem to have hit it off.’
Nicola climbed back to her feet, looking perfectly ordinary again as she glanced towards him, her reserve well and truly back in place, and the world righted itself.
He introduced the two women. Harry nodded her approval. It should set his mind at ease. But as Nicola hugged her reserve about her all the more tightly, his unease grew.
He trailed behind as Harry led the way into the house. He waited in the kitchen as Harry and the girls showed Nicola to her quarters. ‘What’s eating you?’ Harry asked, when she returned alone.
‘Where are Ella and Holly?’
The older woman chuckled. ‘Helping Nicola unpack.’
He huffed out a breath. ‘Do you find her a bit … stiff?’
‘She appears to be no-nonsense and low maintenance; that’s good enough for me.’ She shot him a glance as she put the kettle on to boil. ‘Don’t forget she’s a long way from home and this is a lot to adjust to.’
All of those things were true, but …
Cade drew in a breath. He’d let Ella and Holly down enough these last sixteen months. His hands balled to fists. Christmas—bells and whistles … the works—that was what Waminda Downs was getting this year. And he meant to enlist Nicola’s help to ensure it all went as smoothly and superbly as he’d planned.