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  ‘Just sit back and enjoy it,’ he said as he belted himself in. ‘I’ve told Buster not to worry. He’s agreed. If Buster has courage, so should you.’

  * * *

  They flew for an hour, across some of the wildest country Amy had ever seen. ‘This is the Kimberley,’ Hugo told her as they followed great chasms of riverbeds, where water tumbled across rock formations that left her awed to silence.

  ‘It’s the end of an amazing wet season,’ he told her. ‘The country’s at its best.’

  The chopper was sweeping into the gullies, along riverbeds, over vast crags, plateaus, places she’d never dreamed could exist.

  In one of the few moments she could spare from the scenery she glanced dubiously at the silk dress she was wearing—and the stilettos. Somewhere here...a resort?

  What sort of resort was out here?

  Where was he taking her?

  And then the chopper started descending. Hugo was heading for a rocky plateau at the head of the most magnificent waterfall she’d ever seen. Three rivers merged to tumble from one plateau to the next, forming one vast wall of water.

  On the plateau were three clearly delineated flows. The rest was low foliage, flat rocks and a myriad of waterholes. Sunlight was glistening on the water, crystal-clear.

  ‘Did I tell you to bring your swimmers?’ Hugo asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Really,’ he said and grinned. ‘That’s a problem. Maybe you should just paddle.’

  She looked down at the glistening water and thought: in your dreams I’ll paddle.

  ‘I brought my pyjamas,’ she said stoutly. ‘I’ll wear them.’

  ‘Then what’ll you sleep in?’

  Silence. His smile widened.

  The chopper was growing closer to the plateau. There was something white...

  A canopy. A table. Chairs.

  A dog basket?

  They dropped lower. She saw a bed under the canopy.

  The table was set with white linen and silver cutlery.

  Dinner in the wilderness?

  ‘I...I thought you wanted me to dress up,’ she breathed. ‘And you’ve worn your dinner suit...’

  ‘You think this setting doesn’t deserve our best?’

  ‘I...’

  ‘It deserves my best,’ Hugo said softly. ‘You deserve my best.’

  ‘We...’ She was having trouble getting her voice to work. ‘We could have just gone out to dinner in Darwin.’

  ‘But we couldn’t go swimming in Darwin,’ Hugo said. ‘Beware crocodiles.’

  ‘There aren’t crocodiles here?’

  ‘Too high,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Too far from the sea. And you need native permission to come in here, and no crocodile’s been given permission. No one’s been given permission—except us.’

  She didn’t speak. She couldn’t speak. They landed. He led her to the table and seated her.

  ‘Dinner is served, my love,’ he said, and it was.

  He said he’d done a practice run but it must have been more than simple practice. He had coolers of everything they could possibly want. More.

  He produced tiny bread rolls with butter curls, salad, oysters and crayfish and a lemon mayonnaise that made the cray taste as if she must surely have died and gone to heaven. The chocolate mousse that followed made her sure of it. Cherries, strawberries, the best champagne...

  Fillet steak for Buster, who’d pretty much decided this was where he wanted to stay for the rest of his life.

  ‘If you’re trying to seduce me,’ she said cautiously as she polished off the last strawberry, ‘I might as well tell you now that you’ve succeeded.’

  ‘There’s more to come,’ he said but she rose and backed away from the table. This was over the top. Fabulous, amazing—scary.

  ‘I...I’d like a swim,’ she managed.

  ‘In your pyjamas?’

  ‘Maybe not,’ she managed. ‘Maybe I’ll need them tonight.’

  She turned her back on him and headed for the nearest waterhole—vast, deep, as big as a council pool. She slipped off her dress and dived in.

  The water was cool and clear. She put her head down and swam, needing the cool and the clear, needing space to make herself think this was real.

  He was how many stars?

  This wasn’t her world.

  For the last couple of days she’d known Hugo loved her. The world knew Hugo loved her. She hadn’t got her head around it—that he wanted her. And now...this night, this setting, made it more dreamlike.

  More impossible to be real.

  She swam.

  Hugo swam as well, but he swam well away from her. Maybe he’d sensed her need for space.

  It was antisocial, she conceded, the type of swimming she was doing, but the alternative...getting out and taking the next step...

  This was a vast, expensive, glorious set-up. She should sink into it like a movie star. Bring on the paparazzi—this should be in the magazines.

  It wasn’t her.

  She was scared. She shouldn’t be. She loved this man but yet... Yes, she was scared. She blocked Hugo out of her mind as best she could, and she swam.

  * * *

  Hugo was done with swimming first. Dressed again in his dinner suit, he brought towels to the water’s edge for her.

  ‘Enough,’ he said gently. ‘I’ve frightened you.’

  ‘You haven’t,’ she lied. She reached the edge and he tugged her up. He kissed her gently on the nose, then towelled her dry.

  The sensation was incredible. Gentle, strong, warm. Sexier than anything she’d ever known.

  She shivered and his arms came around her.

  ‘Do you want to go home?’

  After all this set-up...he’d take her home?

  ‘N...no.’

  He smiled and held out her dress.

  ‘Respectability, my love.’

  ‘Hugo, I don’t belong here.’

  ‘Neither of us do,’ he said. ‘Even if there’s no crocodiles, it gets pretty inhospitable up here.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. It’s just...’

  ‘Knowing where you belong? I have that problem, too. It’s just...tonight I needed to have you all on my own. I wanted somewhere special, away from cameras, and this seemed perfect. Amy, I have a suggestion. You want to get dressed and see?’

  She did. She still felt as if she was in some dream world where the lights would suddenly go on and the movie would be over, but Hugo was waiting to zip her dress. He stood looking like a hunk and a half, arms full of towels, Buster sniffing his feet.

  He was real.

  ‘Come and see,’ he said softly, and he led her across to the canopy. Here was the bed—crisp linen sheets, fleecy blankets, mounds of pillows. No rough swag this.

  ‘How did you get this stuff here?’ she demanded and he grinned.

  ‘I needed the chopper practice.’

  ‘And if I hadn’t said I’d come with you?’

  ‘I’d have brought Harold and Margaret,’ he said and she choked.

  ‘For romance...’

  ‘Ah, but you don’t know if it is romance,’ he said softly. ‘You think you do. I can tell. You’re looking at this and any minute now you expect to see a plane fly over dragging a great big sign saying, “Amy, will you marry me?”’

  It was so much what she was thinking that she gasped.

  ‘I’m not that corny,’ he said softly and then
glanced at the linen and silverware and grinned. ‘I admit I’m pretty corny but not that corny. Amy, you have three gifts to unwrap.’

  He stooped and felt under the mattress, hauling out three packages.

  Three book-sized packages, wrapped in green tissue and white ribbon. Nary a diamond in sight, she thought, and was, stupidly, relieved.

  ‘The first time I saw you, you were reading a book,’ he said. ‘Here are more.’

  ‘I know everything I ever wanted to know about granite already,’ she managed and he grinned.

  ‘Are you sure? Open them.’

  So she sat on the amazing bed, under the canopy, in one of the most amazing places in the world. And she opened her gifts.

  Yes, they were books. She opened the first, and her grandmother’s name was embossed on the front cover.

  She gasped. What...?

  ‘Look inside.’

  She looked.

  It was her grandmother’s story. Her grandmother’s people. The Arrernte.

  It wasn’t a story of here, of now, or even of her grandmother’s time. It was the dream time story of the Arrernte, the native people who’d lived forever around the place Bess had called home. It was the stories of the great shadows of Uluru and Kata Tjuta. It was the stories that had been passed from generation to generation, of the land and the spirits. It was the story of a people.

  She flicked the pages and her grandmother’s words, the stories she’d passed down to Amy and to Rachel all those years before, sprang to life. Here they were, set down on pages and grown into more than Bess had ever told them, a story of dreaming and land and of life.

  Amy looked up in wonder. ‘Oh, my... Where did you...?’

  ‘One of the men I worked with last week is of the Arrernte. He knew where I could find this.’ He smiled. ‘I’d have liked to have found the same for your spud farmer relatives, but that’s a bit harder to come by.’

  She flashed him a look of wonder, managed an awed smile and went back to reading. ‘Grandma would have loved this,’ she breathed.

  And then she paused, thinking: no. Bess hadn’t needed it. Bess had had it inside her. The things in this book—they’d belonged to her. She’d tried to pass it on, but she’d run out of time.

  Amy had it in her hands.

  These stories belonged to her.

  ‘This is written by men and women of the Arrernte,’ Hugo said softly. ‘It’s been told by story for thousands of years, but now they’ve put it in print, for you and for Rachel and for all those like you who need to reconnect. But your story is more.’

  And he handed her the second book.

  She opened it soundlessly.

  It had the same cover, but this time her name and Rachel’s were on the cover. And Buster’s.

  She flicked it open.

  Here was her photograph as a baby. And Rachel’s. Photograph after photograph. There were things like school sports certificates, photographed and set into the pages. School prizes. Tae Kwon Do awards.

  The funeral notice for her grandmother. A picture of a grave.

  She flicked on. Foster parents. Pictures. Names. Faces. Graduation pictures. Ballet...

  ‘Rachel...’ she started, trying to get her breath back. Trying to figure how he’d done this thing.

  ‘Has helped,’ he admitted. ‘It’s lucky she hasn’t started work yet. I told her working on this was the cost of her fare on the boat. We had three days and we made a copy for her, too.’

  ‘But how...?’

  ‘We worked hard,’ he said and tried to look modest.

  She felt like laughing, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. ‘Oh, Hugo...’

  ‘This is you and Rachel belonging,’ he said. ‘Your story and Rachel’s story. But there’s more. At least, I hope there’s more.’

  One more package. She looked wonderingly into his face—and opened it.

  The same type of cover.

  Two names.

  Amy and Hugo. No family names. Nothing but Amy and Hugo.

  She flicked the book open to the first page. Here was the first photograph that had been taken of them together. The picture of them on the train.

  A man about to kiss a woman.

  There was something bulky between the next two pages.

  She’d forgotten about breathing. Breathing wasn’t important. There was only here. Only now. Only what lay between these pages.

  She turned the page over and there it was, taped to the blank page, as all the rest of the pages were blank.

  A ring.

  She stared down at it. She’d thought... she’d thought...

  No, she hadn’t thought. She hadn’t believed this could be real.

  He’d taped it in place. Now he untaped it and held it out to her.

  ‘Apart from that one kiss, our book’s empty,’ he said softly. ‘Our story’s untold. But I believe we belong. I believe this story is our place in the world. If you accept this ring, we might write it together?’

  She was having trouble seeing.

  She didn’t cry. She never cried. He held out the ring and she swiped back tears and made herself look.

  A band of white gold. A single diamond. Tiny pink crystals set into the band and slightly larger ones set on either side of the diamond.

  ‘They’re pink felspar crystals,’ he said, and unbelievably her warrior was sounding nervous. ‘It’s not...not the most expensive of rocks but...it seems...sort of ours? If you’ll wear it.’

  Ours.

  She looked back down at the book. Amy and Hugo.

  She gazed at the ring and then she gazed up at him.

  He looked...scared she’d say no?

  And gently, wondrously, magically, things fell into place.

  No matter that he’d brought her to this over the top place to propose. No matter that he commanded a fortune, that he was a warrior who walked alone, that where this man walked the attention of the world went, too. This was Hugo. The Hugo of the book, Amy and Hugo.

  Her Hugo. The man who’d share the rest of her life.

  Her home.

  He took her hands in his. He drew her to him and he kissed her.

  ‘Amy Cotton,’ he said, and the nerves had suddenly gone. Maybe he, too, sensed the inevitability of this moment, for his voice was steady, strong and loving. ‘I know you don’t wear tweeds,’ he said. ‘You haven’t a moustache and as far as I know, you’ve never grown a turnip. Yet, despite all those drawbacks... Amy, I love you with all my heart. Will you marry me?’

  And what was a girl to say to that?

  There was no choice. This was her Hugo. Her life and her love.

  She took his face in her hands, she drew him to her and she kissed him. She claimed him. Her man.

  Would she marry him? How could she not?

  From this moment forth, she was already married.

  ‘Why, yes, Major Hugo Thurston,’ she whispered. ‘Why, yes, my dearest love, I believe I will.’ She took a deep breath and she faced her future with conviction and with joy. ‘I believe our story’s waiting to be written. I believe we belong.’

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from The Cowboy Comes Home by Patricia Thayer!

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  CHAPTER ONE

  WILLIE NELSON’S “On the Road Again” poured out of the open windows of Johnny Jameson’s truck as he drove along the country road. It was January in Texas, but he was energized by the cold air, knowing the temperature would rise to triple digits soon enough come spring. No matter what the weather, he’d much rather be outside than cooped up indoors.

  He always liked to keep on the move. Never felt the need to stay at any one place too long. More times than he could count, he had lived out of his vehicle.

  He’d been lucky lately. The jobs came to him, and he could pick and choose what he wanted to take on. That was the reason he was coming to Larkville. He’d been intrigued when he’d heard the job description. Also because Clay Calhoun and his prize quarter horses were legendary in Texas. But before he got too excited, he wanted to assess the situation before he made any promises to the man, or to the job. If there still was a job, since the offer had been made months ago.

  He’d been delayed by a stubborn colt, but after he’d finished training it, the thoroughbred was worth what the owner had paid. When he’d called Calhoun to let him know he’d be delayed with previous commitments, he’d ended up talking to Clay’s son Holt, who’d explained that his father was ill, but assured him that the job would be there whenever he arrived at the ranch. Johnny had said to expect him around the first of the year.

  As it turned out it was the first of the year, and he was finally headed for the Double Bar C Ranch. He glanced in the rearview mirror at his trailer, and his precious cargo, Risky Business, his three-year-old roan stallion.

  His attention focused back ahead and on the southeast Texas landscape of rolling hills and pastures that had the yellow hue of winter. He looked toward a group of bare trees and a cattle water trough nestled at the base. There was also a visitor, one beautiful black stallion. The animal reared up, fighting to get loose from his lead rope that seemed to be caught on something.