Free Ran From Him by Jenny Schwartz Page A

responded to his teasing. Then, less certainly. “If you want to celebrate, don’t feel you have to stay in and have dinner with me.”
    “Oh no, Cinderella. You don’t get rid of me so easily.” He caught a curl that had escaped her tidy ponytail and tugged it, winding it round his finger so her face came closer and closer. “I intend to enjoy exactly what I want.” His tongue darted out and captured a cake crumb at the corner of her mouth. “Which is more chocolate cake.”
    Cate found herself released and breathless.
    He stood. “But first I need a shower.” He strode off, whistling.
    She collapsed back against the sofa. In his present exhilarated mood, Daniel was irresistible. If she were smart, she’d hightail it to a hotel. But she wouldn’t. She would just remember that despite his interest in her, he wasn’t about to start an affair with a woman he saw as his future brother-in-law’s sister. He might enjoy teasing her, but he’d drawn a line in the sand.
    “And I won’t cross it,” she promised herself. The closest relationship they could have was friendship. “Which suits me fine,” she lied. Maybe in a hundred years, her body could learn not to respond to him.
     
     
    Cate took a quick shower to remove the smell of cooking, and dressed in the stretch pants and soft angora top she’d bought that afternoon. She hesitated over shoes, and with a feeling of freedom, decided to go barefoot.
    “Pretty in pink.” Daniel was appreciative of the picture she made. He was barefoot, too, in old jeans and a casual shirt, standing at the bar. “What would you like to drink?”
    “Mineral water.”
    He grinned at her fervour, but refrained from further comment. He handed her a glass and raised his own beer in a toast. “To the future.”
    “To the future,” she echoed, bewildered by his meaning, but willing to go along.
    “And may all our dreams come true.”
    She drank before asking curiously. “Do you dream?”
    His mouth quirked. “You mean, I look too tough to indulge in wishful thinking?”
    “Well, yes.”
    “You’re right. But I do dream. I just call them plans. I don’t think any well-balanced person can live without dreams, even if it’s simply a wish for current happiness to continue. Dreams are an expression of hope, and they challenge us to be true to ourselves, and to grow.”
    Cate forgot to drink. She stared at him. “You’re a philosopher.”
    “No.” He shrugged away the label. “But I’m old enough to have thought about life and what I want from it.”
    “What do you want? What will you do with your freedom from the company?”
    “Go bush,” he said promptly. “Western Australia is huge and we’ve barely scraped the surface of its mineral wealth. It’s not just metals like gold and iron ore, there are nickel and lead, diamonds and beryllium. We mightn’t have expensive deposits of ruby and emeralds, but lower grade beryllium is used in the manufacture of space materials, and there’ll be a growing need for it. I want to be one of the people who further opens up our State’s potential.
    “Besides, I like the outback. The peace, the space, the feeling that you can touch the stars and sink your feet into the red dirt.”
    She nodded. “Africa has the same sense of space. You can feel that it’s an ancient continent, but at the same time the future is waiting. We just have to find the key to open the door.”
    “Exactly.”
    They looked at each other in mutual approval and understanding.
    She glanced at the clock. “Time to stir the casserole and add the rice.”
    “Need a hand?”
    “No, thanks.”
    But he followed her into the kitchen and leaned against a bench, watching. “I have other plans, too.”
    “Oh?” She looked up from stirring the casserole.
    “Amie is about to become Rob’s problem.”
    “That’s not a nice thing to say about your sister.”
    “You’ve forgotten what she’s like. Didn’t last night remind you? Fortunately, Rob seems