A Parisian Proposition. Barbara Hannay

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      ‘Exactly.’

      Her thoughts flew to Edith. Girl Talk’s editor would have kittens if she heard that Jonathan Rivers was no longer part of the project. Then she thought of Paris. And of seeing her father. And of keeping her savings intact. ‘How could you help me?’ she asked, feeling her cheeks warm with growing excitement.

      The smile lingered in his eyes. ‘If I take your cattle out to my property at Edenvale, I could raise them for the next few months and then sell them on when the price is right and we can split the profits.’

      ‘Profits?’ The last thing she’d expected was to profit from his suggestion. ‘You mean I could actually make some money from my little cows—I mean steers?’

      ‘That’s what we do to survive out here.’

      ‘Could I make more than if I left my savings in the bank?’

      ‘It’s always an educated gamble, but we’ve had good summer rain and follow-up rain in late autumn. There’s plenty of pasture in this district at the moment and, as long as the export prices continue to rise, we could make a tidy profit from your cattle.’

      Her cattle. How weird that sounded. And yet Camille felt a little tremble of excitement, too, as if she was about to take the first tentative step towards a mysterious new adventure.

      ‘But of course,’ Jonno added, ‘you’d have to promise to drop me out of your magazine.’

      ‘Yes.’ She bit her lip as she thought of the battle she would face when she got back to Sydney. Edith would probably rupture something. And Camille would have to find a way to soothe her. But she sensed that Jonno had valid reasons for wanting to be dropped from the bachelor project, and finding an excuse to cover for him would be a darn sight easier than finding someone else to look after her cattle. ‘It’s a deal,’ she said, smiling back at him. ‘Can we shake on that?’

      For a moment he didn’t respond. He sat staring at the tabletop, his expression deadly serious. ‘Sure,’ he said at last.

      His strong hand gripped hers and their eyes met. And there was something so suddenly fiery and disturbing in his glance that it stole her breath. Her stomach seemed to fall from a great height.

      Jonno quickly dropped his gaze and crumpled the greaseproof paper that had wrapped his sandwiches. ‘OK. I’d better go and take care of the paperwork and I’ll have a word with one of the truckies about getting that pen run out to Edenvale this afternoon.’

      He stood and she realised that this was the end of their conversation.

      Feeling absurdly disappointed, she reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a business card. ‘You’ll need this if you want to contact me directly—about the cattle or…or anything.’

      He frowned at the small card as he held it in his big hands, and he seemed to take ages as he scrutinised every item of her contact details. ‘So you’re heading back to Sydney?’

      ‘I guess so,’ she said, jumping to her feet. ‘Although I probably won’t make it to Townsville before dark tonight.’

      He tapped the card against the tabletop. ‘You should make it to Charters Towers. The road’s pretty good and at least it’s stopped raining. Then you could be in Townsville and catching a plane to Sydney by tomorrow morning.’

      She nodded and hitched the strap of her bag over her shoulder. ‘Thanks for lunch.’

      ‘Pleasure.’ He reached inside his coat, unbuttoned a little flap on his shirt pocket and slipped her card inside. There was an awkward, shades-of-high-school moment while they stood staring at each other without speaking. While she remembered that look in his eyes. Oh, crumbs, he was gorgeous.

      He had to be one of the hunkiest guys she’d ever met, and that was an opinion shared by half the women in Australia. But, putting all that aside, now that she was on the point of departure, the spectre of her editor-in-chief’s wrath loomed larger.

      ‘Was there something else you wanted to discuss?’ he asked when she didn’t walk away. ‘You’re not having second thoughts, are you?’

      She sighed. ‘I can’t help feeling I’m letting you wriggle out of this too easily.’

      With a shake of his head, he released a scoffing, disbelieving laugh. ‘How can you say that?’

      ‘Well…all you have to do is put those calves into a paddock and then you can relax with your feet up while they eat grass and grow fat and make easy money. Meanwhile, I have to face my boss and try to explain how I lost you from the project!’

      To her surprise, he flushed dark red. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides and he looked mad enough to grab her and shake her.

      But he didn’t move. He stood rock still, while his face slowly regained its natural colour and set into hard lines. His cheekbones looked more chiselled than ever and his eyes grew cold as marble. ‘We struck a deal,’ he said quietly. ‘We shook hands. Maybe city folk haven’t heard of a gentleman’s agreement? But, sorry, there’s no going back on it now.’

      ‘I was afraid of that,’ she said.

      ‘How you keep up your end of the bargain is your problem.’

      He marched out of the canteen without waiting for her response and without looking back.

      Mullinjim was too remote for Camille’s mobile phone to pick up the network, so she called Sydney from a phone box in the sale yard’s car park.

      ‘Oh, my God!’ Edith shrieked. ‘It’s so good to hear from you, Camille. I’ve been fretting that we’d lost you in the outback! Did you make it to Mulla-what’s-its-name?’

      ‘Yes, I’m in Mullinjim, and I’ve been talking to Jonathan Rivers.’

      ‘You little star! I knew you’d pull us out of this.’

      Camille grimaced. ‘Yeah—well—’

      ‘I’ve been so stressed about our reluctant cowboy. He’s the key to the whole project.’

      ‘Edith, I’ve got to tell you it hasn’t been easy. I’m afraid I’ve had to strike a kind of a—a deal with him.’

      ‘OK, OK. We’ll do whatever we’ve got to as long as we secure his story.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘No rampant cheque-book journalism, mind you. Don’t go overboard, Camille. If he wants big money, he’ll have to deal directly with me. Let me do the negotiating.’

      Camille heard the faint click of a cigarette lighter on the other end of the line. Edith scorned rules about smoking in the office and Camille could picture her boss’s long white fingers with their bright red nails lifting a cigarette to her painted lips.

      ‘Edith, you don’t understand. It’s nothing to do with money.’

      ‘Oh, my God, he wants to sleep with you?’

      ‘No!’ Camille sank against the side of the phone box and pressed СКАЧАТЬ