Partner for Love. Jessica Hart

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СКАЧАТЬ of amusement in his grey eyes. ‘I’ve already had breakfast, thank you,’ he said. ‘Four hours ago. I’ve just come in for a cup of tea.’

      With some difficulty, Darcy mentally subtracted four hours. ‘You had breakfast at five-thirty?’ she asked incredulously.

      ‘You’d better get used to it if you’re still planning to stay. Or has a good night’s sleep made you see things in a more sensible light?’

      ‘I haven’t changed my mind, if that’s what you mean,’ said Darcy, although privately she doubted that she would be able to bear any regime which meant getting up at five o’clock, and as for eating breakfast then...! She shuddered at the thought.

      Shifting from foot to foot on the cold floor, she made herself a coffee and went to sit cross-legged on a chair, tucking her feet up beneath her. ‘It’s freezing,’ she grumbled and cradled her hands around the mug. ‘I thought this was supposed to be a desert?’

      ‘It is mid-winter,’ Cooper pointed out. ‘You should be glad it’s like this.’

      ‘How do you work that one out?’ she asked, still grumpy with sleep.

      ‘If you’re going to be part-owner of a property like Bindaburra, you’re going to have to learn to pray for rain. If we don’t have rain, we don’t have feed for the cattle, and if we can’t feed our stock we’ll both be selling up.’

      Darcy stared morosely at the rain pouring off the roof of the veranda outside the kitchen window. Surely they had had enough rain in the last two days to be going on with? It was June, summer at home. Everyone would sitting outside the pubs in the sunshine, walking across the parks in bare feet, drinking Pimms in the garden. Of course, it might be raining at home, too, she admitted honestly.

      Cooper came over to the table and pulled out a chair. Darcy watched him a little warily. He looked bigger in daylight, and everything about him was more pronounced. She was very conscious suddenly of his solidity and the latent power of his body, and she thought of the French expression—being at ease in one’s skin. It described Cooper perfectly. He was quiet and controlled and somehow centred.

      He must have been outside for his face had a damp sheen and his eyelashes were still wet. Darcy found herself staring at them. They were short and thick and the rain had emphasised how their darkness contrasted with the startling lightness of his eyes. For no reason, a tiny shiver slid down her spine and she pulled her dressing-gown closer around her.

      ‘How long had you intended to stay?’ he asked abruptly.

      ‘As long as necessary,’ said Darcy, irritated by that ‘had’. She put up her chin. ‘I booked a return flight to London in a month’s time, but I can easily change it if I decide to stay longer.’ ‘I wouldn’t have thought a busy actress could afford to be away that long.’

      ‘It just so happens that I don’t have any commitments at the moment,’ said Darcy in a dignified way. She was rather sensitive about the fact that the play that had given her her first big break had turned out to be a flop, and had folded after a disastrous two weeks.

      ‘Ah,’ said Cooper with one of his disquieting gleams of humour. ‘So you’re...what’s the word...resting?’

      She gave him a cold look. ‘That’s one way of putting it, yes.’

      ‘What happens if a starring role comes up while you’re away?’

      That was about as likely as one of his cows jumping over the moon, but Darcy didn’t feel like telling Cooper that. She had spent the last six weeks sitting by the phone, but no call to instant stardom had come, and, while she was normally the most optimistic of souls, she couldn’t help thinking that a month or two away wouldn’t mean missing more than a couple of television adverts. Still, it wouldn’t do for Cooper to guess that she was something less than a household name.

      ‘Naturally, I’ll have to let my agent know how she can contact me,’ she said grandly.

      ‘I hope she knows how to use a radio,’ said Cooper in a dry voice. ‘Bill didn’t have a phone, but if it’s an emergency she can always leave a message with the Flying Doctor Service.’

      Darcy tried to imagine her perennially harassed agent coping with the Flying Doctor Service. ‘I’ll send her the details,’ she said, avoiding the sceptical glint in Cooper’s eye. ‘There’s nothing to stop me staying here as long as I want.’

      ‘So you won’t reconsider your decision not to sell?’

      ‘I didn’t decide not to sell,’ said Darcy. ‘I decided not to make a decision yet, and I have no intention of changing my mind about that!’

      To her surprise, Cooper looked resigned rather than angry. ‘I didn’t think you would,’ he said. ‘You may not have had much in common with Bill, but you seem to be just as stubborn as he was. It seems to me that the sooner I accept that the better.’

      Darcy eyed him suspiciously. Cooper Anderson hadn’t seemed to her the sort of man who gave in that easily. ‘What are you suggesting?’

      ‘A truce,’ he said. ‘I’ve just been out to check the creeks, and they’re way up. Whatever you decide to do, we’re stuck here for the next few days at least, so we may as well make the best of it. I think that means facing facts.’

      ‘What sort of facts?’ she asked cautiously.

      ‘The fact that we’re not going to agree about what Bill wanted for Bindaburra, for instance. I think—I know—that he wanted me to have it and you think he intended to leave it to you. It’s obvious that neither of us is going to change our mind.’ He paused and looked thoughtfully across at Darcy. ‘We got off to a bad start last night. You were tired, and I wasn’t expecting to have a partner thrust into my plans. Let’s say that neither of us was at our best. You didn’t like me and I didn’t like you, and we both think the other is being unreasonable.’

      He quirked an eyebrow at her, obviously waiting for her to agree. Trying to ignore an unpleasant sinking feeling at the cool way he had admitted that he didn’t like her, Darcy nodded. She didn’t like not being liked, and she wasn’t used to such brutal candour.

      ‘I suggest that we start again,’ Cooper went on. ‘You’ve said you’ve booked a flight for a month’s time, and I can’t make you leave before then. Since for reasons best known to yourself you seem determined to stay, I think we should try and forget about what Bill wanted and assume that we’re willing partners. It’il mean that we both have to make an effort, but we ought to be able to manage that if it’s just for a month.’

      ‘Why just a month?’ said Darcy.

      He met her gaze directly. ‘I think a month will be quite long enough to persuade you that you’d be better off selling your share to me.’

      ‘And if it doesn’t?’

      ‘Then we can talk again.’ He pushed his mug away from him. ‘If you agree to this, though, it’s on the understanding that we’ll treat each other as partners. That means that you do your fair share of the work. You won’t be a guest, and I won’t treat you as one—unless, of course, you decide to sell. If you stay, you work, and if you still want to stay after a month... well, I’ll admit that I was wrong.’

      Darcy swirled her coffee in her mug and СКАЧАТЬ