Captivated By The Single Dad. Barbara Hannay
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been.
Holly hated to think what it must have been like to try to drive through it.
‘I thought you had an airstrip at Jabiru,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t you have flown instead of driving?’
Gray shook his head. ‘The ground was too boggy for a normal plane to land—and all the choppers were needed for emergency rescues. I waited for the water to go down a little, then took my chances.’
How scary. Holly shuddered, as she tried to imagine pushing a vehicle through a raging flood.
‘And that was when you broke your ankle?’ she asked.
‘I was testing the bottom before I drove across. Foot went down into a crevice.’
‘You weren’t on your own, were you?’
‘Sure.’
‘You mean you had to rescue yourself?’
‘It was either that or—’ He flicked a glance over his shoulder and dropped his voice. ‘Or this pair would have been orphans.’
Holly shivered, chastened to remember how she’d rolled her eyes and complained loudly when Gray had telephoned to say he was held up in Australia by floods and a broken ankle. Now that she was here, and could see where the accident had happened, she was appalled.
No wonder Gray gave off an aura of hidden toughness and competence.
As they cleared the creek and continued over flat land again, squawks from the back seat reminded Holly of her duties. Anna and Josh were pinching each other and poking out tongues. Clear signs of boredom. Very soon they’d start, Are we there yet?
She rummaged in her bag and produced a CD. ‘This might keep them entertained,’ she said, waving it at Gray.
‘Good idea. What is it?’
‘Winnie-the-Pooh.’
His brow wrinkled. ‘Never heard of them. Are they a new band?’
She laughed. ‘Oh, that’s a good one.’
He turned, sending her a puzzled grin. ‘Seriously, who are they?’
Her mouth dropped open. How could he ask? ‘You know Winnie-the-Pooh—the children’s story. You must have read it when you were little. The bear who loves honey.’
He pulled a face and shrugged. ‘Whatever. We’ve got about three-quarters of an hour to go, so if you think it will keep the kids happy, bung it on.’
Bemused, she slipped the CD into the player and soon the cabin was filled with the storyteller’s beautifully modulated English voice. The children stopped squabbling and listened. Gray seemed to listen attentively, too, and he actually chuckled at the antics of the famous characters as if the funny bits were a brand new experience for him.
How curious.
The CD hadn’t finished when they turned in at big metal gates beneath an overhead sign with Jabiru Creek painted in white.
‘We’re here!’ Anna cried enthusiastically. ‘This is your place, isn’t it, Daddy?’
‘That’s right, pumpkin, but we’re not at the homestead yet. It’s about another fifteen minutes.’
Resigned, the children slumped back in their seats.
‘I’ll get the gates,’ Holly announced, opening her passenger door.
Gray’s eyebrows shot high. ‘You don’t have to.’
‘It’s fine,’ she called over her shoulder as she jumped down from the vehicle. ‘I’m a farm girl.’
She turned, saw the surprise in his blue eyes.
‘When were you on a farm?’
‘I grew up on a farm in Vermont.’
Through the dusty windscreen she saw his smile and a new light in his eyes—keen interest, extra warmth. She blushed and felt flustered. Idiot. Abruptly, she turned and paid studious attention to the gates.
By the time the gates were shut once more and she’d climbed back in the cabin, Gray was closing his satellite phone. ‘I let them know at the homestead that we’re nearly home. Almost time to put the kettle on.’
Anna leaned forward as far as her seatbelt would allow. ‘Will we see the puppies? Are they borned yet, Daddy?’
‘Sorry, I forgot to ask.’ Gray grinned back at his daughter. ‘You’ll soon find out.’
They drove on and the CD resumed, preventing conversation or questions about Holly’s life on the farm. But Holly couldn’t stop thinking about the surprised delight in Gray’s eyes. Why should it matter where she’d grown up?
The bush was thicker now, and the gum trees threw shadows across the narrow wheel ruts that formed the rough track. Several times, Gray had to brake suddenly as a kangaroo appeared on the edge of the road, bounding unannounced from a shadowy clump of trees.
Each kangaroo sighting was a source of huge excitement for Holly and the children, but Holly could tell that the animals’ sudden arrival on the track was dangerous. In the fading light they were hard to see. She switched off the CD so Gray could concentrate.
‘That wasn’t a bad story,’ he said. Then he called over his shoulder, ‘Hey, kids, what do you reckon? Is that Pooh bear almost as good as Hector Owl and Timothy Mouse?’
‘Nah. Winnie-the-Pooh’s for babies,’ Josh replied, even though he’d spent the best part of an hour listening to the CD quite happily. ‘Hector Owl’s much better. Hector Owl’s awesome. He killed the Bad Bush Rat.’
Holly smiled. How could poor Winnie compete with a murderous owl?
But it still puzzled her that Gray spoke as if he’d never heard of Winnie-the-Pooh. How could that be? Surely almost every child in the US and Australia was familiar with the honey-loving bear.
Should she be dreading what lay ahead? Would Gray’s house be as stark and unappealing as that lonely homestead on the back of the playing cards he’d bought?
She was about to find out.
Ahead of them, the track rounded a corner and they emerged into open country once more. Holly saw tall corrals and stockyards, home paddocks fenced with timber instead of the barbed wire she’d seen everywhere else. Then, ahead, more buildings began to appear—machinery sheds, silos, bunk houses, barns, even an aircraft hangar—it was almost a small village.
Clearly Jabiru Creek Station was a much bigger concern than the farms she was used to.
‘Which one is your house, Daddy?’ Anna wanted to know.
‘That place straight ahead with the silver roof.’ Gray pointed to a long, low, white timber building surrounded by surprisingly green lawns.
To Holly’s relief, Gray’s home looked inviting. It was a simple homestead, but it was large and rimmed by verandas. Across the front of the house a deep shady veranda was fringed with hanging baskets filled with ferns, while the verandas on either side were enclosed from floor to ceiling with white timber louvres.
The lawns in front of the house were divided by a gravel path and on either side stood massive shade trees with deep glossy foliage.
‘I can see a swing,’ Anna shouted, pointing to a rubber tyre hanging by thick ropes from the branch of one of the trees.
‘It’s waiting for you,’ Holly told her, and already she was picturing Anna and Josh playing on this smooth sweep of lawn, swinging in the tyre, riding bikes, throwing balls, chasing puppies…
The front door opened and a woman came out with a beaming smile, wiping her hands on an apron. She was aged somewhere beyond sixty and was dressed in a floral cotton dress, with wisps of grey hair escaping from a haphazard knot on top of her head.
‘My