Only by Chance. Betty Neels

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      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘MUMMY, someone’s coming!’

      Wiping her hands on her apron, Juliet came out of the kitchen and shaded her eyes against the glare as she watched the tell-tale column of red dust that signalled a vehicle speeding towards them along the dusty track.

      ‘Who is it?’ asked Kit, secure in a three-year-old’s belief that his mother would know everything.

      Andrew looked up at that. ‘It’s a car,’ he said scornfully, and returned to the toy digger that he was pushing through the dust at the bottom of the verandah steps. Like his twin, he was a sturdy little boy, with Hugo’s angelic blond hair and her own dark blue eyes, but Juliet knew that the identical looks concealed quite different personalities. Andrew was single-minded, stubborn, happy to play the same game for hours while quicksilver Kit was easily distracted, always asking questions and much more inclined to lead his twin into trouble.

      ‘It is,’ Juliet agreed as Kit opened his mouth to object, ‘but there’s someone in it, so Kit’s right too.’ She watched the dust cloud moving closer, a slight frown between her brows. ‘Perhaps it’s the new manager,’ she said slowly.

      ‘What’s a manager?’ That was Kit again, of course, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.

      ‘He’s going to help us run the station.’

      If there was one thing she needed, it was help, but Juliet couldn’t help wondering if she had made the right decision. On the face of it, Cal Jamieson had sounded ideal. ‘Cal?’ the owner of the neighbouring station had said, when she had rung to ask him for a reference. ‘You won’t find anyone who knows more about running a property like yours. He’s a good man.’

      Cal Jamieson might know what he was doing, but whenever Juliet remembered their telephone conversation she was conscious of a faint feeling of disquiet. He had heard that she was looking for a manager, he had said, and he was looking for a job. What was there in that to make her uneasy?

      He had sounded brusque, but Juliet had learned not to expect outback men to ooze charm, and in any case Hugo had made her wary of superficial charisma. No, it was something about the way he had taken charge of the conversation. Of course, she had wanted to know that he was competent, but surely it had been up to her to suggest that he came out for a trial period? And there had been something more than competence in that deep Australian voice. Looking back, Juliet couldn’t pick on any one thing, but she had been left with the uncomfortable feeling that there was a hostile undercurrent to everything he had said.

      It was probably just her imagination, Juliet tried to reassure herself. She had never met the man, so what reason could he possibly have to dislike her?

      Her eyes rested on the two little boys playing in the dust below her, and, as always, she was conscious of a surge of love so intense that it tightened her throat. Her boys. They were worth every aching bone, every day fighting tears of sheer exhaustion, every sleepless night spent worrying about their future. Wilparilla was their СКАЧАТЬ