“Just going to do it now.”

A frown furrowed Dan’s brow.

“My fault,” she said. “I held him up chatting.”

“We’ve got sheep to move this afternoon and field bins to clean out,” Dan said. “You may as well have your lunch now, Tom, and I’ll meet you at Rowena’s in half an hour.”

Paula was uncomfortable with the gruffness in Dan’s voice. Tom looked down and walked on through the gate.

“We probably will come to the premiership dinner, Tom,” she called after him. “You should invite that new girl from the bank. I’d like to meet her.”

Tom paused, then continued on. He didn’t look back.

Paula bit at her bottom lip with her teeth. Why had she said that? She was pulling words from the air and it was the first thing that came into her head.

“That would be all we’d need,” Dan muttered as he walked past her. “A lovesick working man.”

Paula looked after him in disbelief. What was going on? He wasn’t the kind of person to be angry with Tom for one late start. Dan had been a bit touchy lately. She knew he was watching the weather more closely than usual and he was edgy about the sheep sale coming up.

He stuck his head back around the door and smiled. “Any chance of some lunch, Sweet Pea? I’m starving.”

Paula sighed. Perhaps she was imagining things. The flash of Dan’s smile made everything right.

Chapter 7

CHAPTER

7

“Paula.” Dan’s voice echoed through the house to the baby’s room where she was sorting through the last of the boxes she had brought from Sydney.

“I’m coming,” she called back and stepped out into the passage. The new carpet runner absorbed the sound of her footsteps as she walked. Dara had helped her find the right pattern and colours to match the leadlight at the front door. It had been just after Paula had done up the office. She’d bought the rug in there from Dara and had been lamenting the need for another for the passage. Dara had shown her a variety of suppliers she had access to and over a glass or two, wine for Dara and mineral water for Paula, they’d found the perfect design. The walls were still a dull white and the floor beneath needed a polish but Paula would get to all that eventually. In the meantime the runner helped keep the place a little warmer and dulled the echoes made by footsteps on bare floorboards.

She pushed open the heavy swinging door that led into the middle of the house. Dan was standing in the enclosed verandah looking through the door at her.

“Tom’s had to go off to some team meeting. I need to move the spray unit to the Harvey place. Can you drive the vehicle back?”