‘The bathroom’s free.’

He swung around, and there was Sophie again. He inhaled sharply.

Her hair was still damp, as if she’d dried it hastily with a towel. Wispy, dark curls clung to her forehead and her soft, pale cheeks. She was dressed in a simple white T-shirt, a slim red skirt, and she wore sandals covered in white daisies.

‘Hello again, Mark,’ she said shyly.

She hadn’t used any make-up, and she looked pale and wide eyed. Incredibly pretty. Impossibly young. Her figure was so slender it didn’t seem feasible that it would expand and swell with pregnancy. With his baby.

Something hard and sharp jammed in Mark’s throat, and he swallowed fiercely.

‘I—I’m really sorry about—’ Sophie’s mouth twisted into an embarrassed pout, and her eyes widened as she flapped her hands helplessly out to her sides. ‘You know—the bathroom and everything.’

‘Forget it.’ He spoke more gruffly than he meant to, and the back of his neck began to burn.

How should he handle this? Should he greet her formally with a handshake? Ask her if she was feeling well? Throw his arms around her? That would be smart, given the filthy state of him.

Stepping forward quickly, he dropped a quick peck on her soft cheek. She smelled sweet and clean, of shampoo and soap, with a hint of something else. Lavender? ‘It’s good to see you.’

Super-conscious of his open shirt and unwashed state, he stepped back again. He felt so uncertain. There were so many questions he should ask. How was your journey? How are you keeping?

Why have you come?

‘I feel terrible about turning up like this,’ she said. ‘Moving into your home when you weren’t even here. I—I thought you said you’d be back last week.’

He nodded slowly. ‘I should have been back, but we ran into a spot of trouble.’

‘Oh?’

‘A big mob of cattle broke away. Took off for the most inaccessible country. Gave us no end of a headache.’

A little huff escaped her, and her shoulders relaxed. ‘That sounds like hard work.’

‘It was.’ He picked up the crumpled note from Haggis. ‘I’m sorry my caretaker wasn’t here to greet you. He had to go away.’

‘Yes, I couldn’t help seeing that note.’

It suddenly occurred to Mark that she might have been here for days. ‘When did you get here?’

‘This morning. I came on the mail truck.’

‘The mail truck?’ His mouth tilted into an incredulous smile as he tried to imagine Sophie Felsham from London arriving in the dusty township of Wandabilla and asking for directions to Coolabah Waters.

‘I hope you don’t mind that I used your bathroom. I know there’s another one.’

‘No. No, of course not.’ Mark avoided the unexpected shyness in her eyes. ‘You’re welcome to it. That’s fine.’ He ran his fingers through his dusty hair, and remembered that he was still in urgent need of a bath.

Sophie twisted a small, gold locket at her throat. ‘I don’t make a habit of breaking into people’s houses.’

He managed a grin. ‘No, you’ve got the wrong colour hair.’ When she looked puzzled, he added, ‘You’re not Goldilocks.’

Her smile lit up her face, and she looked so incredibly pretty that Mark fought an urge to close his eyes in self-protection.

Sophie pointed to the stove. ‘I took the liberty of putting one of your housekeeper’s frozen meals in the oven.’

‘Good thinking.’

There was an awkward pause while he wondered if he should demand that she explain her presence here. What did she want from him—his support to have an abortion? Money? Marriage?

‘Look,’ he said, and then he had to stop and take a breath. ‘If—if you’ll excuse me, I’ll make use of the bathroom before I try to be sociable.’ He offered her the briefest shadow of a smile. ‘I’ve got half the Outback’s dirt and dust on me.’

‘Of course,’ she said with a dismissive little wave, but her eyes were worried and her cheeks had turned bright pink.

SHE shouldn’t have come.

As Mark disappeared back down the passage to the bathroom, Sophie felt completely out of her depth.

In England Mark had been so different—so smooth, and almost passing for a city-dweller in his dark, formal suit—more familiar, less intimidating.

It seemed so silly now, but before she’d left London she’d imagined she would be able to book into a hotel or a motel in a village near Mark’s place. She’d planned to call him from there, arrange to meet for a meal in a country tavern, have a nice, long talk. Take it from there…

What an idiot she’d been. She should have quizzed Tim more closely. He could have told her what to expect in the Australian Outback. But the sad truth was, she hadn’t really wanted to know too much. She’d been pretty certain a heavy dose of reality would have frightened her off.

Which mightn’t have been a bad thing.

But she was here now, so she couldn’t back down just yet.

She looked about her, and decided she might as well make herself useful. Perhaps she could set the table for dinner. She crossed the kitchen to the ancient pine dresser to hunt for tablecloths and napkins, then wondered if Mark used the dining room for his evening meal.

It was directly across the passage from the kitchen and, like most of the rooms in this house, had French doors opening onto a timber veranda. This arrangement, Sophie had already discovered, was good for catching breezes and channelling them into the house.

The dining room, like all the other rooms, was a very generous size, but it was also ugly, with tongue-and-groove timber walls painted in a faded, murky green and without a single attractive, decorative touch. In fact, Mark’s entire house was as plain and austere as a monk’s cell.

It could do with a jolly good makeover—new paint, bright cushions, flowers, pretty fabrics, artwork.

A woman’s touch.

Sophie’s mind skidded away from that thought. Not this woman’s touch. She knew for a fact that she couldn’t live here.

She opened a door in the sideboard and found a pile of tablecloths—clean but un-ironed, and all of them ancient. Dull and boring. Depressing.

In a drawer, she found red tartan place mats with matching napkins and decided to use them. At least they were colourful. And the silver was clean and shining.

But despite the bright tartan the two place-settings looked rather austere on the huge dining table. She hunted about for a vase or candlesticks, anything to fill in the expanse of bare table-top.

There was nothing.

Showered and shaved, and neatly dressed in clean clothes, Mark stood in the middle of his bedroom and regarded his reflection in the mirror. He looked ridiculously nervous.

What did Sophie expect from him? Was she hoping for marriage? Surely not.

He’d never considered himself a family man, had more or less decided he was a habitual bachelor. His life was hard, and he worked long hours and took few holidays. He’d never really thought much about marriage, had never found a woman who would make a suitable wife—someone he really admired, who could take the hard life in the Outback.

Now, the irony was that just about any of the Australian girls he’d dated and parted with over the past decade would have fitted the bill better than this woman, with her milk-white English skin and high-flying, London-girl lifestyle.

Except…none of those other girls had been carrying his baby.

Mark glanced again at his reflection, saw concern and confusion, the downward slant of his mouth, and turned abruptly and marched from the room.

When Mark came into the kitchen wearing a crisp white shirt and casual chinos, with his jaw cleanly shaved, he looked so breathtaking that Sophie quickly became very busy, thrusting her hands into oven mitts and heading for the stove.

‘This smells wonderful,’ she said over her shoulder as she lifted out a pottery casserole dish. ‘Your housekeeper must be a good cook.’