The Cattle Baron's Virgin Wife. Lindsay Armstrong

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СКАЧАТЬ minutes later she put down the phone and hugged herself distraughtly.

      Her mother had given her to understand that it would break Dakota’s heart if she didn’t attend the wedding, not to mention her parents’ hearts.

      What about my heart? Sienna asked herself. What about the fact that I’d fully expected to be married now and maybe starting a family with a man I—I thought I was head over heels in love with?

      On the other hand, why do I feel so bad about refusing to go to this wedding? About using a trumped-up excuse—I have no intention of burying myself on a cattle station with Finn McLeod, do I?

      Her phone rang again. She snatched it up and was about to turn it off when she saw the number—her boss, the senior partner of the consultancy she worked for, Peter Bannister.

      Well, she wanted to talk to him, didn’t she? ‘Hello, Peter,’ she said rather crisply. ‘What can I do for you?’

      ‘Sienna, how are you? Look—’ he didn’t wait for a reply ‘—I would really take it as a favour if you agreed to go to Waterford with Finn McLeod…’

      Five minutes later Sienna ended the call and stared at the phone with an inclination to scream with frustration.

      Peter Bannister, it turned out, was a friend of the McLeod family. He’d been away on extended leave, otherwise he would have taken on Finn’s rehabilitation himself. By the time he’d returned, he’d reassured himself that Sienna was coping admirably so he’d decided to let things stand. But now, he’d said, he could sense that Finn was really frustrated—it often happened even though the end might be in sight—and he needed a change of scene.

      Peter had then gone on to enumerate the virtues of Waterford. Don’t expect a tin shack, it’s anything but, it even has a nine hole golf course—did you know Finn was a keen golfer before the accident?

      Yes, she did, they’d often talked golf.

      Well, then, Peter had continued, the Augathella Hospital could use her temporary services, he could arrange a locum situation and those outback areas were often crying out for health professionals.

      Then he’d added what he obviously thought was a humorous little bit about how suited she was to do this—no hubby, no kids, no bedridden mums or dads, no pets so far as he knew, only pot-plants and they could be looked after—and that there was no one else in the practice as equally unencumbered. She was the only one who could do it, in other words.

      Sienna, at the end of it, had swallowed several times and refused to allow herself to burst into tears. There was no way Peter could know the dreadful irony of what he’d said at this precise moment in her life.

      Then she’d opened her mouth to say that she detected the heavy hand of Finn McLeod at work, which actually annoyed the life out of her, but she hadn’t said it.

      She’d promised to think it over.

      This time she sat back exhaustedly as she put the phone down—and tried to think it over.

      Peter Bannister was far too ethical to hold it against her if she didn’t go. But he’d been very good to her in lots of ways. He’d been happy to be available when she’d needed professional advice. Come to that his wife, Melissa, had found her this apartment and they’d both taken her under their wing while she found her feet in Brisbane. For Peter’s sake, she’d like to do it but…

      Of course, she could always do both, she thought suddenly. Surely there could be no objection to her taking a weekend off to go to her sister’s wedding?

      It just so happens I don’t want to do either, she thought miserably. Yes, I like Finn, as much as I know him—how well do I know him?

      Not a lot, really, she conceded.

      Because just as much as she’d kept certain barriers up, kept things professional between them, she’d been helped by the fact that he’d had his own barriers.

      Yes, they’d talked golf, they’d talked about all sorts of things in the hours she’d worked with him and encouraged him, but it had all been surface stuff. She had not run into this kind of brick wall side of him. This determination to get his own way.

      Perhaps I should have guessed it, though, she reflected with a grimace. His progress has been little short of amazing. Maybe I should have realized what kind of personality lay behind that tremendous will-power?

      As for her sister’s wedding, surely she’d killed all hope stone-dead that it was going to blow over and James would come back to her?

      She wouldn’t have him back, anyway.

      But—she closed her eyes and put her knuckles to her mouth—had her mother and her sister no conception of what it would be like to appear at the wedding amongst a lot of people who, no doubt, knew the background? To be the recipient of curious glances, to have to pretend that she didn’t care, she was over it, she wished them happy.

      Do they think it will bring me closure? she wondered. Do they think we are a family—we used to be a really happy family—and that’s paramount? Do they even think I need a catalyst of some kind to help me put it all behind me? Heaven alone knows, they could be right!

      But, on top of all that, and this is really trivial, but it’s still a barb I can’t ignore, do they understand how hard it will be to do while I’m still single and unattached? On the shelf, in other words.

      She rubbed her face and thought with a tinge of black humour—maybe I could hire an escort? But where does one find a truly impressive escort? Otherwise it could be worse than being alone…

      The name that sprang to mind caused her mouth to drop open and her eyes almost to stand out on stalks.

      No, she thought immediately. Oh, no—she even laughed a little and told herself not to be stupid as she knocked the idea stone-cold.

      The next morning, however, when it popped up again, she told herself she’d been press-ganged and goaded enough into making her own terms without even stopping to think how it could backfire on her. And that was the only reason she’d allowed it see the light of day.

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