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.