She nodded. ‘I actually think I would. A small, gentle one, that is. I watch you and think it must be an incredible feeling, to be in a partnership with the horse you’re riding.’

  ‘I could teach you,’ he said. ‘After the—’

  ‘Baby is born,’ she finished for him. ‘Maybe.’

  She wasn’t going to commit to anything. He paused, cautious about where he wanted to take the conversation. ‘Why do you dislike the country so much?’

  She paused. ‘You know, I’ve started to wonder that myself? I think it’s because I’ve never actually spent time in the country. It’s the unknown and...and I’m frightened of the unknown.’

  Ned remembered how when Wil had first come here, he hadn’t been able to sleep because it was so quiet and dark and he’d found the sounds of animals scary. Wil’s aim had been to hitch a ride on a truck and run far away to live life on his own at age thirteen. He’d been a bird with broken wings too. Until Five and a Half Mile Creek and the love of his adoptive family had worked their magic on him. Ned wanted that magic for Freya too.

  ‘Could it be that you fear the unknown because you were thrust into unknown territory every time you were placed with a new home? That must have been very scary for a child.’

  ‘It was. So when I finally took charge of my life, I clung to the familiar. You know Richmond is next door to Abbotsford, where I lived with my grandparents? I haven’t strayed far. Any time I want to, I can go there and see the house I lived in when they were alive and I had a family. The house is different now, of course, but it’s still standing.’

  ‘Could be a kind of security, not necessarily a bad thing. Like a little kid has a blankie. Wil’s little Nina has one.’

  Freya laughed. ‘I’m too old for a blankie.’

  But not for kindness and security. Everyone needed those, no matter how old they were. And he ached to give them to her.

  ‘What about you?’ she said. ‘Why did you hate the city so much?’

  ‘I think it goes back to my childhood.’ Though now he realised the disaster of his relationship with Leanne had a lot to do with it too.

  ‘You said you felt like you were in exile when you had to live in Brunswick, which, by the way, is a very cool place.’

  He snorted. ‘I certainly didn’t think so. I felt like a caged animal. I was utterly miserable away from here. I... I think, deep down, I saw being sent to the city as a punishment.’

  She frowned. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Even when I was little, I was aware of the tensions between my parents and I’d do my best to try and make it better.’

  ‘The peacemaker, even then.’

  He shrugged. ‘It didn’t work though, did it? I failed. It was my fault Mum and Dad didn’t want to stay together. Or that’s how it seemed from my childish perspective. I was punished for my failure by being sent to the city. And yet, as my parents saw it, they were passionate people who just needed to sort out their differences—oblivious to the effect it was having on me. I must have been very difficult. I remember poor Hugh and Gordon trying to take me to fun things in town and I wouldn’t have a bar of it.’

  ‘You were stubborn even then.’

  ‘Am I stubborn now?’

  ‘Yes. Very.’ She paused. ‘I think we both are. Neither of us has budged on the barriers we think make a relationship between us impossible.’

  ‘Except for the no-kids thing.’

  ‘By accident, not design,’ she reminded him.

  ‘A happy accident.’

  She smiled at that but then sobered again. ‘We haven’t considered any compromise. But, the way I see it, that compromise would be one-sided. You won’t budge from your country life, I’d have to be the one to move here.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that.’

  Her brows rose. ‘Really?’

  ‘That surprises you?’

  ‘Frankly, it does. That condition seemed non-negotiable.’

  He turned in his chair so he faced her directly. ‘You said something, that last visit, about how you were worried you wouldn’t make a good mother because you had been neglected by your own mother.’

  ‘I remember. Since then I’ve thought about that a lot. Now that I’m actually going to be a mother myself, I realise I did have a mother’s love. Only it was from my grandmother. Also, I’m a very different person from my mother. I’m twenty-eight, not seventeen. I’ve got a career. Savings. And—’

  ‘And, don’t forget, the baby has a fantastic father who wants to be part of its life.’

  ‘I was coming to that.’ She smiled, her eyes sparkling. ‘Our baby does indeed have a fantastic father.’ She had been studiously avoiding his touch, but when he took her hand, encased now in a fine-knitted purple wool glove, she held it tight as if she didn’t want to let him go.

  ‘And a fantastic mother. I have no doubt about that.’

  She looked down to her lap, didn’t meet his gaze. ‘I’m sorry about...about the way I handled the pregnancy. I should have told you as soon as I knew. It was just such a shock. Then I got so ill. And we’d parted so finally and I thought—’

  ‘I know what you thought and we’ve sorted that now. But there’s something I still have to sort. Let me get back to what I started to say. You were worried about the influence on you of your rather tragic young mother. Now think about my parents.’

  She looked up. ‘Well, I don’t actually know them so I can’t—’

  ‘Why didn’t I see it before? A creative young woman with a successful career comes out here to work her design magic on the house. Falls for the farmer who owns the place. She gives up her life in the city to move out to a place she thinks is—’

  ‘Too far from civilisation,’ Freya said.

  ‘See the parallels?’

  ‘I’m beginning to,’ she said slowly.

  ‘The wife is miserable. Her husband is out on the land all day. She misses her career, the stimulus of the city. They don’t get the big family she’d hoped for, just one little boy. But her husband refuses to spend more time than he absolutely has to in Melbourne. Even though they own a mansion in Toorak and he’s wealthy enough to employ a manager. He finally makes a compromise but not before he nearly loses his wife and son.’

  ‘Replace interior designer with photographer. History repeats itself.’

  He shook his head slowly to emphasise his point. ‘Only you didn’t let it. You called it quits and went back. The city girl with the purple hair saw sense, while the practical, steady farmer stayed blind to it.’

  ‘True. But the irony is, the more I’m here, the more I love it. I’m beginning to think I could be happy living in the country. Not all the time, but some of the time.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Surprisingly, yes. Your cousin Erin called in yesterday afternoon. From the sound of it, people out here have quite an active social life. I had no idea.’

  ‘They do. We have to make our own fun but country life can be very social. Being able to ride a horse helps.’

  ‘So Erin said. I liked her a lot, by the way. We’re already friends.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me she was here?’

  ‘She asked me not to.’

  He frowned. ‘And why would that be? I love her, but my cousin has a habit of putting her oar in where it’s not wanted.’

  ‘Well...’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She told me to put you out of your misery and marry you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s more. She said you obviously adore me and you’ll be the world’s best father.’

  ‘How did she—? Did you tell her—?’

  ‘She told me she breeds horses and she can always tell when a mare is in foal. And that she was clearly looking at a woman in the early stages of pregnancy.’

  Ned fumed. Erin had better not have said anything to Freya about him having been five times a groomsman and never a groom. ‘I’ll have words with her.’

  ‘Actually it was quite funny. She compared me to a brood mare—she actually used that term—you compared me to a sheep. What is it with you country folk?’

  ‘We’re well meaning,’ he said. ‘But maybe we need to get to the city more.’

  ‘It might help,’ she said with a laugh.

  ‘Freya, I say that in jest but I mean it. Why do we have to be city girl and country boy? Why can’t we each be both city and country?’

  * * *

  Freya stared at him. Her heart started to pound so loudly she was sure Ned must hear it. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  He pushed his chair back but kept his gaze on her. ‘I didn’t expect to inherit Five and a Half Mile Creek for quite a few years more. Perhaps because I’ve come to the management of the property sooner rather than later, I’ve felt I had to prove myself. I’ve put it ahead of anything else, certainly ahead of my personal life.’

  ‘Understandable,’ she said. ‘It’s an immense responsibility.’

  What was he trying to say?

  ‘Then you tootled up the driveway in that little purple van, like something out of a story book, and—wham—turned my life upside down.’

  ‘Did I?’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘You know you did.’ He reached out and brushed his fingers through her hair, sending shivers of awareness through her.

  The first time he’d touched her since she’d been back.

  ‘By the way, what’s happened to your purple stripe? It’s fading.’

  ‘I’m being really careful what I eat and what I put in my body, and that includes hair-dye chemicals.’

  ‘Pity. I like it. Promise you’ll dye it again after the baby is born?’

  ‘I... I promise.’ She would do it for herself, not because it pleased him, she told herself. Heck, she’d do it for him if he found it pleasing. ‘So you were saying about the city and country thing?’

  ‘I’m not genetically completely country,’ he said. ‘As I’ve told you, there are things I like about city life too. Music in particular—jazz, classical concerts, rock concerts. Seeing your great little apartment made me remember how much fun I’d had there.’ He frowned with concentration as he worked his way through his thoughts.

  She leaned closer. ‘What exactly are you trying to say, Ned?’

  ‘That my life doesn’t have to be strictly in the country. Neither does yours.’

  ‘You mean it could be both?’

  ‘We could live between here and the Toorak apartment. You liked it, didn’t you?’

  ‘It’s fabulous. Although I would like to see it more warm and welcoming—a home, not a showcase.’

  ‘You could keep up your career.’

  ‘Your mother going off to Melbourne didn’t work for your parents.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m not talking about that kind of arrangement where you go back to the city by yourself for weeks on end. We’d go together. No separations.’

  ‘But your work?’

  ‘A lot of my work is behind a desk anyway and could be done as well in Toorak as it is here. My managers already do most of the hands-on work so I don’t really need to do as much as I do.’

  ‘But you do it because you like it. Wouldn’t you miss it?’

  ‘I’d miss you more,’ he said slowly.

  She squeezed his hand tightly, almost too overcome to speak. ‘Th...thank you.’

  ‘We could cut down on the travelling time by flying. You’ve seen how easy it is to fly by helicopter. We have a light plane too. You could get your pilot’s licence if you wanted.’

  Her, a pilot? Why not? ‘You’ve really thought about this.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘I’ve had a lot of time on my own to think.’

  Ned.

  She hated to think of him being on his own. She put the hand he wasn’t holding on his cheek and, for a long, still moment, looked into his eyes. What she saw there made her heart turn over.

  She let her hand drop. ‘It makes sense,’ she said, excitement starting to fizz and spark.

  ‘One more thing. I didn’t like boarding school. As I suspect we’re both family folk at heart, our child might not like it either.’

  She shuddered at her ever-present memories of her disrupted childhood. ‘You could be right about that.’ No way would her child ever be treated as she had been.

  ‘Our schedules might be determined by term time as well as by seasonal farming events. Elementary school at our nearest town, Hilltop—’

  ‘You’d send your child to a state school?’ That surprised her.

  ‘I went there—my parents thought it important. It’s where you form friendships that are important out here where families are far-flung. But there isn’t a high school, so that would be a private school in Melbourne. What do you think?’

  ‘It sounds rather wonderful, a perfect compromise, in fact. But I—’

  He put up his hand again. ‘You don’t have to say anything. I’ve dumped a lot on you. I just want you to think that the compromise doesn’t have to be one-sided. And that I really want to be a good father to our child.’

  Freya was so tightly wrapped in the rug, that she struggled to get out of her chair. Ned laughed and pulled her to her feet. Then she was in his arms, and they were kissing as if it hadn’t been more than two months since their last kiss. How she’d missed his kisses, his hugs, him.

  She felt instantly aroused and wondered if the hay stacked in the barn would make a good spot to make love. But no, that would be too scandalous. Later, perhaps, when there was no one else around, it could be fun though.

  ‘Ned, you’re right. We do need to think about this. But the way my thoughts are going, I... I suggest you ask me again to marry you fairly soon.’

  ‘Or you could ask me.’

  ‘I find myself feeling surprisingly traditional about this. It has to be you doing the proposing.’

  ‘I’ll come up with something special,’ he said with his endearing grin.

  ‘In the meantime, I have a complaint about the guest room.’

  ‘I’ll get onto Marian, I—’

  She put her finger across his lips. ‘It’s not something Marian can fix. You see, the bed is too big and too lonely without you...’

  He placed his hand on her tummy for the first time, and she thrilled to the protective gesture. ‘Is it okay to, uh...you know...when you’re pregnant?’

  ‘Please don’t tell me what the situation is with brood mares. But my doctor says it’s perfectly okay to make love. I say, the sooner the better.’

  ‘You don’t hear me complaining,’ he said as he put his arm around her and walked her towards the house.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  NEXT MORNING, WORKING on her laptop, Freya scrolled through the photos of Ned riding Hero she had taken the day before. They were good, really good. She had captured the speed, agility and power of the man on horseback but also the intensity of the communication between man and animal.

  That both Ned and his very valuable horse were extremely good-looking did help. But it was the spirit of the images that made her catch her breath. She loved her work as a commercial photographer but had always wanted to work artistically too, perhaps towards an exhibition. Maybe this change in her life marked more exciting new directions than she had imagined.

  She lingered on one image where Ned was looking straight at the camera and grinning at her. It wasn’t the most artistic of the shots but she loved it.

  She loved him.

  She had fought hard against falling in love with Ned, but it had been a losing battle. In another parallel with his parents’ story, she had fallen for the boss of Five and a Half Mile Creek. She wouldn’t go so far as to say love at first sight, although she couldn’t actually pinpoint the moment. Ned with his kindness and strength and—yes—hotness had breached the barriers around her heart.

  Today, Ned was going to propose again, and this time she would accept without hesitation. There was no reason not to. She loved him and she was pregnant with his baby. A baby who she would make sure had a much better childhood than she’d had. Not in terms of material wealth, although there appeared to be that in spades. But to be born to happily married parents was a great gift. Parents who loved each other.

  Ned hadn’t actually said he loved her but then she hadn’t told him how she felt either. Not with words, anyway. Yesterday, she’d been surprised when he hadn’t responded when she’d told him his cousin Erin had said he adored her—either to confirm or deny it. But she didn’t doubt that she loved him and she would let him know that in both words and actions.

  She was working in the room that had originally been Ned’s mother’s design studio. As soon as he’d brought her here last week, Ned had allocated it to her as her personal space. His study was next door. She loved this room as much as she loved his study. The light was perfect, and it opened out onto one of her favourite parts of the garden.

  The winter garden had its own stark beauty. Although many of the shrubs and trees had lost their leaves, there were big, fat red rosehips on most of the roses. Pansies and hellebores gave patches of subtle colour in mauves and pinks and purples. She would like to document every season in this garden. Perhaps she could even get interested in gardening. Possibly it was something she could bond over with her future mother-in-law.

  Last night, after Ned had gone to sleep—the joy of knowing she would sleep in his arms every night of their lives!—she had thought about the wider implications of marrying Ned. She would gain a new family. Her baby would be born into a family of loving parents, grandparents, numerous cousins and an uncle and aunt. When she finally reunited with Wil and met Georgia it would be as their sister-in-law. How wonderfully that had turned out.

  Before she settled back to her screen, she patted Molly on the head where she lay at her feet. It had been unnerving—and at first a little frightening—the way Ned’s dog had attached herself to Freya on her return to Five and a Half Mile Creek.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17