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‘Let’s make it a week,’ he said. ‘Seven days.’

‘I don’t think that counts as a compromise.’

‘Let me finish,’ he reminded her.

She pulled her lips to the side, but said nothing.

‘We’ll spend that week getting to know each other, to the point you’re happy to do this.’ But the way he said it was like pulling teeth. It was clearly not how he wanted to spend the week ahead.

‘And if I’m not?’

His eyes narrowed, his lips flattening in his face. She held her breath, wondering if he’d make the same threats he’d hinted at earlier, his insistence that he’d fight her to raise their child here. ‘You will be, Sarah. The alternative just doesn’t work, for either of us.’

* * *

There was no way on earth he was letting her walk around the station on her own. Not yet, anyway. Christ. The woman who’d been stranded in a much-hyped weather event, with no mobile-phone battery, no food supplies and wearing sandals had the survival skills of a newborn, and there was no way he was letting her go wandering off. Particularly not with his baby in the picture.

Still.

Spending the late afternoon watching Sarah Anderson’s perfect rear in those snug-fitting shorts was driving pretty much every rational thought out of his mind. Which was to say nothing for the enormous, billowing shirt she wore, which hid way too much of her body from his hungry gaze, so his hands tingled with a need to reach out and ball the excess fabric away from her, so he could not just see, but touch, too.

‘How big did you say this place is?’

‘Just under a million acres.’

Her surprise was obvious when she glanced up at him. ‘I literally can’t even conceptualise that, but it sounds huge.’

He nodded once. ‘It’s our primary station.’

‘You have more?’

‘Several.’

She let out a low whistle. ‘Do you run those, too?’

‘Each station has a manager, staff to support it, but yes. I oversee this side of our business.’

‘You have a brother and sister, right?’

He nodded, putting a hand in the small of her back to guide her to a path that veered left. She fell into step beside him, and he was glad—glad that she didn’t argue, for once. Gladder still to have had an excuse to touch her.

‘Rex and Willa.’

‘Older, younger?’

‘Rex is older, Willa’s younger. By a mile,’ he tacked on.

‘Oh?’

‘Well, she’s twenty-one,’ he amended.

‘And they don’t work here?’

‘Rex and I work together, but there’s a clear delineation in our responsibilities. He deals with the corporate interests; I’m the cattle.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s a good fit, for both of us.’