The Australian by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

never told him about John. She couldn’t talk to anyone about John, not even Aunt Margaret.
    “Bad experience?”
    “Nothing like that,” she laughed softly. “I was madly infatuated and chased him, that’s all. I’m still a little embarrassed about it.”
    “How did he feel?”
    “Sorry for me.”
    “Oh.” He reached out and caught her hand. “I had the same thing happen, actually,” he confided. “She doesn’t know I’m alive.”
    “Have you considered putting a notice in the paper?” she asked, tongue in cheek.
    He burst out laughing. “I don’t think it would work. She doesn’t read the paper.” He wrinkled his eyebrows. “Confidentially, old girl, I’m not sure she can read. But, my, what a figure!”
    “Poor old thing.”
    “I’ll survive,” he replied. He sighed, watching the whitecaps pound against the white sand. “People always love the wrong people.”
    “Yes, I know.” She squeezed his hand. “But it’s nice to have friends to console you.”
    He smiled. “Still sure you don’t want to have a blazing affair with me?”
    “Sorry. I’m just not one for blazing affairs. But I need all the friends I can get.”
    “Actually,” he reflected, winking down at her, “I was going to say the same thing. It’s nice having a female to talk to about other females. I wouldn’t dare rock the boat!”
    “You’re a nice bloke,” she said. “Does that sound Australian?” she added, all eyes. “I’m practicing.”
    “I say, jolly good!” he grinned. He frowned. “Does that sound British? I have to keep in practice, too, you know.”
    She laughed and tossed her hair in the breeze. The whole world smelled of salt sea air and tropical flowers, and she held on to his hand as they walked. It was lovely having him for a friend. If only she could forget about John and put him completely out of her mind. The thought of Janie Weeks wrapping her thin arms around the big Australian made Priss ill. What in the world did John see in that horrible man-eater? Priss’s face fell. Probably someone as experienced as himself. He’d made a lot of remarks about Priss’s age.
    She stared at the gorgeous sunset with misty eyes. “Paradise,” she said softly. “As much as I love it, sometimes I’d trade it all for a Queensland drought. Except for the rainy season in summer, we go dry most of the year.”
    “You mentioned it had been a dry summer back home,” Ronald recalled.
    “Yes, a lot of the station owners had setbacks. My parents told me John Sterling lost a lot of sheep and cattle. But I don’t suppose it would bother him, with the numbers of animals he has.”
    “He’d be the man, I presume?” Ronald asked softly.
    “Yes.” She tossed back her hair. “The Sterling Run is enormous. But it was never the property that interested me. It was the man.”
    “Ever thought of telling him how you feel?”
    She laughed shortly. “He knows how I feel. He’s always known. He just doesn’t care. He said he wasn’t much good at writing letters, that he’d have his mother do it for him.” She sighed bitterly. “Besides, he’s been seen around the district with the local wild woman.”
    “So that’s how it is.”
    “That’s how it is.” She tried to blot out the memory of that last day at home, but, as always, it haunted her.
    “Poor kid,” he comforted, and tightened his fingers.
    “I’ll get over him,” she said. “All I need is a little time.”
    But as she lay in bed that night back at Aunt Margaret’s house, she wondered if she was ever going to forget him. None of the boys at college, even Ronald, did a thing for her in any physical or emotional way. She was a one-man woman, and John was the one man. All the bravado in the world wasn’t going to change that.
    She tossed and turned, hearing over and over again her mother’s voice telling her how lonely John seemed. Well, if he was lonely, why wouldn’t he write?
    Somewhere in the distance a phone rang, and minutes later