Cattle Baron: Nanny Needed by Margaret Way

It was pulsing away like a silvery fire amid the green line of trees.
    “They haven’t all gone,” he assured her. “So buck up. Jingala will fulfil its promise, Ms Wyatt. You won’t be starved for the sight of birds. There’s still plenty of water around. We’ve had more glorious rain than we’ve had in a very long time. The most prolific display of wildflowers is over. You would have loved it, but there are still areas covered in paper daisies and a lot of beautiful little spider lilies near the banks of the billabongs. The water lilies flower all the time. They’re quite magnificent. Oddly enough, some of the most exquisite little flowers bloom in the arid soil and the rocky pockets of the hill country. I’ll show you another day. The hardiest plant, virtually indestructible, is the spinifex, which you see growing all around us. The reason the spinifex survives is because the root system is always shaded from the sun. See all the long vertical spikes?”
    Amber looked out with interest at the great golden clumps that formed a thick three hundred and sixty degree circle. “Yes.”
    “They have a waxy coating to prevent moisture loss. Even a scorching sun is thrown off by the pointed tips, while the roots are protected.’
    “So the spinifex is perfectly adapted to this incredible environment. What I’m finding so unusual are the endless chains of billabongs. It’s the desert but not the desert. It’s like magic.”
    “It’s a riverine desert,” he corrected. “When the big floods are on and the water is brought down from the monsoonal tropical North through our inland river system, the Diamantina, the Georgina and Cooper’s Creek, those same billabongs we’re heading for can run fifty miles across.”
    “Good grief!” She tried to visualize such a scene. “Now that’s downright scary. Have you ever been marooned?”
    He turned his head to look squarely into the golden lakes of her eyes. “Of course. It’s drought or flood, Amber. We have to live with both. Many have died in the struggle. Every one of us, right from the first days of settlement, have had to make huge sacrifices. I love my country—this country around us—with a passion. I love it—I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else—but the one thing you couldn’t call it is safe . There are always huge hazards, danger all around you. So don’t go getting too carried away.”
    “Is that a warning?” she asked, her eyes on a solitary conical shaped rock formation standing like a beacon amid the spinifex.
    His eyes glittered. “I’m just putting you straight. How would a woman with apricot hair and exquisite creamy skin stand up to this harsh environment?’
    Under his intent scrutiny she flushed. “Obviously, you don’t think it can be done, or not without consequences. What about your mother?”
    “What about her?”
    A definite snap. “Not a good subject, right?”
    “Sorry,” he said. “But my mother, a beautiful woman, by the way—she got all the looks in the Erskine family—had to be the world’s worst mother. No, hang on,” he said as though seriously considering, “maybe Jan.”
    She turned her head to face his handsome, hard-edged profile, more than ready to take him to task. “Now that’s unkind. Very unkind.”
    “I never claimed to be kind ,” he said and gave her a slight smile. A sexy smile, damn him, but he wasn’t getting off the hook.
    “Yet you’ve been kind to me,” she pointed out crisply. “Amazingly kind.”
    “Perhaps I have an ulterior motive?”
    “Aah!” She let her bright head fall back. “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted an unpaid nanny?”
    He let his impatience show. “Surely you’re getting free board?” He let his challenging tone hang between them for a second or two. “Don’t be ridiculous. I invited you here to enjoy yourself, see our Outback, maybe derive inspiration for your forthcoming blockbuster, and don’t you forget it.”
    “I was only joking.”
    He took