Free Beneath Outback Skies by Alissa Callen Page A

towards the distant roofline. He had no idea what he’d find at the homestead but it had to be better than the misery and degradation he’d left behind.
    Connor’s eyelids flickered as images of his childhood shouldered through his memories. His last days on English soil, eating with silver cutlery in the grand country house where all the ‘lucky orphans’ had assembled before their new life in Australia. But the promises of riding a horse to school and of picking oranges in the sunshine soon imploded into a decade of mistreatment for the child migrants. As soon as he’d turned sixteen, he’d left Somerdale Farm to work on the railway. He’d then drifted further and further west where wide open spaces guaranteed anonymity and peace.
    The driveway seemed to have gone on forever until, light-headed with thirst, he’d reached the spot where the road curved in front of the sprawling house. He’d stopped, lowered his swag and wiped the sweat from his brow. When he’d focused again he’d seen a slender, dark-haired young woman in a white dress standing on the verandah. Molly.
    Connor’s lids lifted. He rolled his chair to the edge of the verandah and swallowed past the sadness that remained as raw as it had been on the day he’d buried his wife. A whisper of red dust waved on the horizon. He ignored the lump in his throat and checked his watch again. Tait and his V12 engine had made very good time. He tracked the growing dust cloud. He should have known better than to indulge his memories. No good ever came of thinkingabout the past. It was the future he had to look towards, as well as protect. A future in which he had to make certain Paige would be free to pick oranges in the sunshine.

Chapter Six
    She’d done it.
    Paige buckled herself into the farm ute and released the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. She’d finally managed to leave Tait at the homestead. When he’d been up before her this morning and insisted that he help feed the cattle, she’d been certain he’d shadow her all day. But lucky for her, Tait was a connoisseur of old cars as much as he was of coffee, and he’d again joined her father in his shed.
    Every so often she considered the empty seat beside her as she guided the ute along an uneven track. For some reason it felt strange not having Tait with her. She was sure if she breathed deeply enough she could catch a hint of his aftershave from the passenger seatbelt. She looked sideways again but this time at the mobile that lay in the basket on the floor. Shiny and new it gleamed like a diamond among the ute’s dilapidation and dust. The contrast between her world and Tait’s world couldn’t be any more obvious.
    She slowed as she spied a mob of kangaroos beneath a group of shady trees close to the track. The trouble was it was getting harder to stop the lines blurring between her and Tait’s worlds. The more Tait stepped across the divide and helped her, the more her instincts urged her to push him back. She’d let down her defences once before for a man who’d promised to always be there, and then when she’d needed him she’d realised she’d been on the bottomrung of his priority ladder.
    The worn-out gearbox grumbled as she changed gears. If she were honest, Tait’s concern about her not having a mobile phone touched something deep inside. Something she’d thought forever buried. She couldn’t let the whispers of her yearning to have someone to share her life with get any louder. So what if by lifting all the hay and grain this morning he’d lightened her physical load? So what if he’d not only planted a punnet of mint and basil, but also some pretty pink dianthus flowers in the pots at the kitchen back door? And so what if by his amicable arguing with Connor over who made the best V8 supercar driver, he’d returned a twinkle to her father’s eyes? She simply couldn’t get used to having him around. Tait would soon return to his city life and with him