Partner for Love. Jessica Hart

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      ‘It never occurred to me that you would want to do anything other than sell,’ he snapped. ‘I certainly didn’t think you would drop everything and hotfoot it out from England to see exactly what the old man had left you!’

      ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Darcy protested, stung.

      ‘It looks like that from where I’m standing. You and your family ignored Bill for forty years. It was only when he went over to England and looked you up that you suddenly discovered that he owned a cattle station and you started making a fuss of him. Oh, there have been plenty of letters since then but it’s funny how you’ve only kept in touch since you thought you might get something out of him—as you have.’

      Darcy banged her mug down on the table so hard that tea slopped over the edge. ‘I’ve told you, I had no idea that Bindaburra was worth anything!’

      ‘So you say. I’ve only got your word for that.’

      ‘Well, you’ll just have to take it, then, won’t you?’

      ‘I will if you’ll take my word that Bill intended to leave Bindaburra to me,’ said Cooper in a hard voice.

      There was a hostile silence as they glared stubbornly at each other. It was Darcy who spoke first. ‘It sounds as if you’ve got other properties. Why do I have to sell up just so that you can have another one?’

      He hesitated. ‘Bindaburra’s special,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ve waited for this property a long time. I want all of Bindaburra, and I don’t care what I have to do to get it. If that means paying you a fair and generous price for something that’s rightfully mine, then that’s what I’ll have to do, but I’m not prepared to play silly games with you about it.’

      ‘I’ve got no intention of playing games,’ said Darcy, angrily shaking back her dark hair. ‘What makes Bindaburra rightfully yours? If Uncle Bill had wanted you to have Bindaburra, then he would have left it to you, but he didn’t. I came out here not because I wanted to see what I’d “got out of him”, as you put it, but because I felt I owed it to Uncle Bill to come. If he left Bindaburra to me, it’s because he wanted me to have it, not you, and I’m not going to casually hand it over on your say-so, no matter how fair and generous you think your offer is!’

      Cooper crunched his empty beer can in his hand with an angry exclamation. ‘Fine words, but why don’t you face facts? A cattle station is no place for someone like you. It’s a hard, uncomfortable life, and you wouldn’t last five minutes out here on your own.’

      ‘Perhaps, but I’m still not going to be bullied into selling,’ said Darcy, draining her tea and pushing back her chair to stand up. ‘You’ve made it very plain that you don’t want me here, but you’re not going to get rid of me that easily. I may well decide to sell, but I’ll make up my own mind in my own time, and until I do I’m going to stay, so you’ll just have to lump it, won’t you?’

      

      In spite of her brave words, Darcy lay awake wondering what on earth she had got herself into. It was wet and miserable, the house was cold and dingy and she was stuck in the middle of nowhere with a man who apparently both disliked and distrusted her. If she had any sense, she would take whatever Cooper Anderson was offering and head back for civilisation as soon as she could.

      No, Darcy corrected herself gloomily. If she had any sense she wouldn’t have come at all.

      Cooper was right—there was nothing for her here. She was an actress—she needed lights, music, people, an audience. Cooper was very unsatisfactory. He wasn’t in the least bit sympathetic, and showed no inclination to admire or applaud. Darcy longed to ring up half a dozen friends and ask their opinion; she was already getting withdrawal symptoms from not having a phone. It would be easy to describe her arrival at Bindaburra, more difficult to explain what Cooper was like.

      Drawing the blankets up round her chin, Darcy rolled over on to her side and stared into the darkness. At first sight he seemed a typical outback type, with that lean, rangy body and the air of unhurried deliberation, but there was nothing typical about those penetrating eyes or that mouth...

      Darcy clamped down firmly on thoughts of Cooper’s mouth and threw herself on to her other side with much readjustment of blankets. Much better to think about how arrogant and disagreeable he was. She frowned as she remembered how contemptuous he had been about her relationship with her great-uncle. It was true that the family had ignored him for forty years, but that was because they hadn’t known that he was still alive. Bill had left for Australia in 1924 after a bitter row with Darcy’s grandfather, and nothing had been heard from him since their mother had died just after the war. Until two years ago, that was, when Bill had turned up at the house that Darcy’s parents still lived in. They had been surprised, but delighted to welcome him back into the family. When Darcy had met him, she had been amazed that this stocky, pugnaciously colourful Australian could possibly be related to her grandfather, whom she dimly remembered as a stiff and punctiliously correct figure.

      Both her parents had been occupied with other things that summer, so it had been Darcy who had spent the most time with her great-uncle. They could hardly have been more different, but each had struck a chord in the other, and much to everyone’s surprise, not least their own, they had enjoyed each other’s company. Darcy had swept her great-uncle off to parties and introduced him to all her friends with a complete lack of inhibition, and Bill had been in turns alarmed, astounded, suspicious and finally charmed.

      Remembering her uncle made Darcy glad she had come. He had always wanted her to see Bindaburra, and see it she would, Cooper Anderson or no Cooper Anderson! She knew perfectly well that she wasn’t capable of running the property by herself, but she was damned if she was tamely going to hand everything over to Cooper. She would have to sell in the end, she supposed, but in the meantime she had a perfect right to be here, and it wouldn’t do him any harm to sweat a little!

      It was still raining the next morning. Darcy had finally fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep which left her feeling jaded and disorientated and she rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand as she wandered down the corridor to the kitchen, pulling her dressing-gown about her. It was an old one of her father’s, a dark red Paisley-pattern silk that had become a little worn over the years but which was still Darcy’s favourite. She hadn’t thought to bring any slippers, though, and her feet were cold on the polished wooden floor.

      It was so dark that Cooper had the light on in the kitchen. He was standing looking out at the rain as he drank a mug of tea, but he turned as Darcy came yawning into the kitchen. She was never at her best in the morning. Her blue eyes were still smudgy with sleep and the thick dark hair tumbled wildly about her face.

      An unreadable expression flickered over Cooper’s face as he watched her pad over to the kettle, but his voice was as astringent as Darcy remembered. ‘You’ll have to get up earlier than this if you’re planning to run the property,’ he said, looking pointedly at his watch.

      ‘It’s only half-past nine,’ said Darcy, squinting at her own watch.

      ‘It’s quarter to ten.’

      ‘Oh, well, that’s more or less half-past nine.’ Oblivious to Cooper’s stare, she peered into a cupboard. ‘Is there any fresh coffee?’

      ‘I doubt it very much,’ said Cooper. ‘Bill lived a very frugal existence. If you’re looking for luxuries, you’ve come to the wrong place. You’ll find some instant in the cupboard below,’ he added. ‘Do you want some breakfast?’

      Darcy СКАЧАТЬ