‘Of course not,’ Tilly said. ‘It’ll be next week at the earliest. Luke, this is my mum, Elaine.’

They shook hands. ‘Nice to see you here,’ he said. ‘Tilly’s been looking forward to you coming. We all have. She told us you were a wonderful cook.’ The last was said hopefully.

Tilly rolled her eyes at him. ‘What he means, Mum, is that when you’ve eaten some of the meals he makes, you might want to take over the task.’

‘But isn’t that your job?’ Elaine looked puzzled.

‘We share the cooking now, Elaine,’ Sophie explained. ‘Didn’t Tilly tell you that she’s training to be a ranger?’

‘Oh, yes, but I thought that was just studying that she did of an evening.’

‘On-the-job training,’ Luke said, ‘and our stomachs suffer for it.’

‘Well, of course I’m happy to help out. I love cooking.’ Elaine smiled.

‘You’re on holiday, Mum,’ Tilly protested. ‘I want you to see more of the place than just the kitchen. It’s really beautiful – there’s the beach and the river walks. We could take you out to Sandstone too, that’s a spring at the foot of the escarpment . . .’

‘I’m sure that with a bit of organisation we could fit that in,’ Elaine said. She cast a judicious glance around. ‘You seem to have quite a good set-up and plenty of freezer space. Does the plane bring your fresh provisions in? I didn’t see anything unloaded today.’

Sophie shook her head. ‘Too expensive. We have hens, the station supplies our meat and we grow fresh vegies. Well, Tilly does mostly. Before she came, we lived on tinned stuff and a bit of bush tucker. Luke’s our fossicker.’

‘Oh.’ Elaine looked doubtfully at the young man, visualising who knew what, Tilly thought. She turned to ask the silent Matt, ‘And you’re a ranger too?’

He met her gaze only long enough to shake his ginger head. ‘Nope. Handyman, that’s me.’

‘He keeps things running, and grades the roads.’ Tilly grasped the opportunity to speak of, if not to, him. ‘We couldn’t operate without Matt.’

‘That’s a fact,’ Sophie agreed. ‘And like Luke and me, he has no particular talent with the pots and pans, so if you’d like to help out in that department, Elaine, we’d all really appreciate it. And I’ll see to it that you have time to get around the place as well. And what’s more’—she sent a minatory glance around her co-workers—‘we’ll do the washing up. All of it, guys. Least we can do.’