The Rancher's Adopted Family Read Online Free PDF Page A

big debts hanging over her, but she knew she would have to return to work soon.
    Just the same, she certainly hadn’t come looking for Bella’s father because she needed his financial help. Caring for Bella might require a few sacrifices, but Amy knew she would manage.
    Eventually, they stopped at a gate and Seth got out to open it.
    ‘Are we almost there?’ Amy asked hopefully when he got back into the car. Bella was grizzling more loudly now. ‘Is this Serenity?’
    ‘This is one of the boundary gates,’ he said as he steered the vehicle between timber fence posts. ‘I’m afraid it’ll be another half-hour before we reach the homestead.’
    Another half-hour …It was already dusk, and growing dark quickly because of the rain. Amy found it hard to imagine owning so much land that you could drive across it for such a long time.
    Seth got out again to shut the gate, and when he came back he said, ‘Would you like to let Bella out for a bit, to stretch her legs?’
    ‘I’m sure she’d love that, but it’s raining.’
    ‘You have raincoats, don’t you?’
    ‘Well, yes.’
    Seth shrugged. ‘This is the tropics, after all. The rain’s not cold.’
    ‘You’re right.’ In a matter of moments, Amy found their raincoats, which she’d packed in an outside pocket of her suitcase, and she was buttoning Bella into hers. She glanced at Seth, who was standing alone…looking…not lonely, surely?
    A sudden instinct prompted her to ask, ‘Are you coming to walk with us?’
    For the first time, Seth lost his air of cool certainty. His bright eyes rested on Bella’s eager face peering up at him from beneath the yellow hood of her raincoat. The lines of his face softened, then broke into a smile.
    Wow! Amy felt the impact of his smile deep in the pit of her stomach.
    ‘Why not?’ he said and he snagged a dark oilskin coat from the back of the vehicle.
    Amy’s chest felt weirdly tight, but moments later they set off together along the red dirt track between straggling gumtrees and pandanus palms.
    Bella was thrilled to be allowed out in the rain, skipping between the two adults. She insisted on holding their hands, but every so often she would let go and dash off to splash in a puddle, then she would turn and grin at them ecstatically and Amy’s heart would leap into her throat.
    Surely Seth must see how closely the little girl’s smile resembled his?
    But apart from that anxiety, Amy enjoyed the little outing much more than she should have. There was something about being out in the rain in the middle of a journey through nowhere, just for fun, that felt impossibly rash and carefree. Seth was smiling almost the whole time and their gazes kept meeting. Every time his blue eyes met hers she felt a knife-edgy thrill zap through her.
    It was inappropriate and foolish, but she couldn’t help it. A strange, shiver-sweet happiness seemed to have gripped her and she felt as if she could have walked along the darkening, rain swept track for ever.
    But at last she had to be sensible and to suggest that it was time to head back to the ute.
    As they went on Seth had to get out to open and close gates at least another six times. Each time he got back into the car, he brought the smell of damp earth and a fine spray of rain.
    ‘I should be looking after the gates,’ Amy protested after the third stop.
    ‘Outback gates are notoriously tricky.’ He frowned as he looked at her more closely. ‘Are you OK? You’re looking pale.’
    ‘Bit tired. That’s all. I’m fine, thanks.’ Truth was, she was feeling ill and scared, scared of the shivers of awareness this man caused. It was ridiculous to feel so hung up about him. He was Rachel’s ex, and Bella’s father, and once she revealed her real reason for coming here he might hate her.
    ‘We’re almost there,’ he said, sounding surprisingly gentle.
    Ahead of them, Amy saw lights winking through the rain, and then at last they pulled up at the bottom of a short flight of