quite good at filling awkward silences, Sally was suddenly too shaken and surprised to utter a single syllable.
‘I assume you’re still interested?’ Janet eventually enquired.
‘Oh, yes,’ Sally managed at last. ‘I’m very interested. It’s fantastic news. I’m thrilled.’
Stunned would be a better word, but somehow she was able to listen carefully while Janet explained about her starting salary and details like superannuation and staff induction. She returned to the lunch table in a daze.
‘Have you had bad news?’ Anna asked.
‘No, on the contrary.’ Sally gave a shaky laugh. ‘I’ve got a job.’
‘Really? That’s wonderful. I hadn’t even realised you’d applied for one.’
Sally grinned. ‘It’s with Blackcorp.’
‘Blackcorp? Wow! They’re from the big end of town. When did all this happen?’
‘I had the interview yesterday.’
Anna’s eyes widened. ‘But you were minding Rose yesterday.’
‘I know.’ Sally suppressed a strange urge to giggle. ‘Amazing, isn’t it? They couldn’t change my appointment, so they let me take Rose with me. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I don’t mind. I trust you to look after my little sweetheart.’ Anna gave her daughter a proud motherly pat. ‘She must have been very well behaved.’
‘She was…quiet as a mouse,’ Sally assured her truthfully.
CHAPTER THREE
SALLY started work at Blackcorp on the following Monday morning and by lunch time she knew she was going to love it. Most of the employees were very friendly and many of them stopped at her desk to say hello and to introduce themselves before continuing on through the security doors.
The switchboard was modern, simple and efficient to operate, with a computer list of staff that was easy to access and connect. After the first few calls, Sally began to feel some of the initial stress leave her.
Logan Black strode in, briefcase in one hand, mobile phone in the other, all clean-cut and drop-dead handsome. He almost ignored her, but then he turned abruptly and stared at her with a puzzled frown. Sally wished her throat didn’t feel so dry.
For rather longer than was necessary, her boss’s gaze settled on her. To Sally’s surprise, his frown melted and an unguarded light flared in his eyes, the beginnings of warmth and the promise of a smile—an exceptionally gorgeous smile, she suspected. She feared her legs might give way.
But the reckless moment was over in a flash and Logan Black quickly recovered. His frown returned, he gave her a curt nod and said, ‘Morning, Miss Sparrow.’ And he kept walking.
Miss Sparrow?
Sally opened her mouth to remind her employer, ever so politely, that her name was Finch. But she remembered her new resolution to be more circumspect, so she swallowed her pride, lifted her chin and smiled warmly as she offered a cheery, ‘Good morning, Mr Black.’
He’d already passed her and she was speaking to his back.
How annoying to feel so flustered by the brief encounter. Get control, girl. You’ll be seeing him every day.
Her work kept her busy and there was no chance to be bored. There seemed to be an endless stream of deliveries. All shapes and sizes of boxes were wheeled in on trolleys and important-looking express courier packets arrived, as well as bags of mail. When Sally wasn’t relaying these to various departments, she was answering phone calls, fielding general enquiries and connecting callers to the correct extensions.
By the middle of her first week she’d made firm friends with Kim, a young Chinese-Australian girl who worked in the accounting department, and Maeve, a bubbly redheaded environmental field officer, who’d once worked out west and knew the country around Tarra-Binya.
There were moments when Sally missed home, when she felt nostalgic for the smell of gum trees…the chorus of early morning bird calls…the low throaty growl of her dad’s tractor starting up…
But the homesickness didn’t last long, especially as there was a park close to the office. She soon made a habit of walking through the park every morning and afternoon en route between the train station and the Blackcorp offices. In the middle of the park, the rumble of the traffic became muted and she could enjoy the gentle splashing of the fountain in the pond, the cooing of a hundred pigeons.
There were no Keep off the grass signs, thank heavens, and by the third afternoon she felt confident enough to take off her shoes so she could feel the soft, velvety lawn beneath her bare feet.
There were other people enjoying this green haven in the heart of the city too. Lovers, lost in each other’s eyes. A hunched old man feeding crusts to the pigeons. Two fresh-faced schoolboys kicking a football.
The boys were playing with a man, their father perhaps, or an uncle. His clothes suggested that he worked in the city. He’d removed his jacket and tie, however, as well as his socks and shoes, and he’d rolled up the bottom of his trousers. Sally could see his discarded clothing, left rather nonchalantly on the ground beneath a shady tree, next to the boys’ school bags.
The three males were having such fun, lunging spectacularly to take difficult catches, laughing and yelling instructions and showing off madly. They reminded Sally of her brothers playing in the garden with her dad, except…
Except…
Oh, good grief. The man was Logan Black.
She hadn’t recognised him immediately because he looked so different without his jacket and tie and with that deliriously carefree grin on his face. He looked wonderful now, moving swiftly across the grass with the same spare, easy athleticism of an Outback horseman.
And then Logan Black saw Sally.
One of the boys had just sent him a high arching kick and he was running backwards, eyes up, on the ball, when his gaze flashed towards her.
He seemed to freeze as his gaze met hers. His eyes widened as he recognised her. But then his attention quickly snapped back to the ball.
The small distraction, however, had cost him precious seconds and now he had to tear backwards, arms stretched back behind his head, to catch the football.
Reaching back…reaching…
Sally recognised the danger at the same moment as the boys cried, ‘Uncle! Look out!’
‘Watch the water!’
Their warnings were too late.
Just as Logan’s fingers gripped the ball, he overbalanced, toppling backwards into the pond.
Sally didn’t hesitate. She raced forward, her mind throwing up scary memories of her brothers’ close calls in the creek at Tarra-Binya. Logan Black could hit his head on a submerged rock. He might become entangled in weed. Worst of all, he might not be able to swim.
By the time she reached the edge of the pond, however, Logan was already struggling to his feet. The water was only knee-deep and he hadn’t dropped the football. Despite his dripping state, he held it triumphantly aloft, as if catching it were the most important thing in the world and ruining expensive Italian trousers counted for nothing.
Men!
Sally wanted to feel anger, was dismayed by the mad thumping of her heart, so different from the reaction of the boys, who rushed up beside her and immediately doubled over with helpless laughter. She had to admit it was an amazing sight—her boss standing knee-deep in water and drenched from head to toe.
But soon she was painfully aware of Logan’s wet business shirt, rendered transparent by the water and now plastered against