She crouched down and held her hand over the embers of the fire. They were still warm and a billy hung from a metal spike over the fire pit, but of the man himself she could see no evidence.

She stood up and looked up and down stream. If he’d gone prospecting further along the creek, he could be gone all day.

Adelaide scrabbled up the steep, rocky slope beside the adit to see if she could find a vantage point to get a better view of the creek. Balancing precariously, she put her hands to her mouth. ‘Cooee!’

The bushman’s summons echoed through the valley, causing a flock of birds to rise, startled and indignant, into the air.

She called again and this time she saw movement about a hundred yards down the creek. Caleb must have been working the gold pan but now he stood, searching the hills for the source of the call. She waved her hat and he raised his hand in acknowledgement. He stooped and threw his shirt over one shoulder as he turned for the encampment.

Adelaide slithered down the slope and sat on the log beside the campfire to wait for him. He came into view, still limping from his recent injury. He could never be described as a big man, not like Amos Burrell, but his height gave a lie to his strength and well-defined muscles rippled beneath the sun-darkened skin. A whitened, puckered scar marred the definition of his left bicep, a legacy, she supposed, of the American conflict.

He pulled the shirt over his head as he approached her and ran a hand through his dusty hair. ‘Adelaide, what brings you out here?’

Adelaide crossed one trousered leg over the other, swinging her booted foot.

‘I am a postmistress and I am delivering your mail.’ She unbuckled her satchel and held out the letter from Alfred Bowen.

He took it without looking at it. With his other hand he made an extravagant gesture from the crown of her favourite wide-brimmed felt hat to the toe of her riding boots. ‘And this fetching ensemble?’

Adelaide made a show of straightening the waistcoat she wore over the man’s shirt. ‘Sadly, my riding habit is being mended,’ she said in a tone heavily laced with irony. ‘I find this a more practical outfit for riding in the Australian bush.’

His eyebrow quirked and the slow, familiar smile tugged at his mouth. ‘I think it becomes you,’ he said.

She ignored this remark.

He looked down at the letter in his hand. ‘I thought Mick delivered your mail?’

‘Call this one a special delivery,’ she replied. ‘I wanted to see you.’

The smile vanished and he looked up at her. ‘Adelaide, I—’

‘I am just curious as to why you felt it necessary to run away? Were you running from me or the consequences of letting me see a glimpse of the real Caleb Hunt?’