Read Online An Outback Affair/Runaway Wife/Outback Bridegroom/Outback Surrender/Home To Eden by Margaret Way - Free Book Online Page B

“For whatever reasons you’re fleeing your own relationship. Obviously you don’t trust your boyfriend enough to marry him. He mustn’t provide you with a sense of security. Or you don’t love him enough. Do you?” The look he aimed at her was very direct.
    Flustered, she looked away. “I thought I did. Once. He put so much into our courtship. Showered me with gifts.”
    My God, wouldn’t that be easy? Showering this beautiful creature with gifts. “Well, he wasn’t getting a bad bargain,” he gently mocked.
    â€œA beautiful, gifted wife in the making.”
    â€œHe didn’t make me feel that.”
    â€œSo why didn’t you confront him with it?” He frowned. “Why did you continue the relationship at all?”
    She clasped her ringless hands together. “I can’t find the answers.”
    â€œYou’re very young, Laura. You’re only in the process of becoming the woman you’re going to be. Why do you think people make so many mistakes when they’re young? Living is all about the getting of wisdom.”
    She took a quiet breath, nodded. “At least I’m beginning to see more clearly. I lost the protection of my father,” she added poignantly
    â€œProtection?” His head went up and a glitter invaded his dark eyes.
    â€œI haven’t been terribly clever with my life up to date, Evan. You’ve surmised that, I desperately needed good advice, but as it happened there was a lack of it. I’d like to be stronger, more able to defend myself, but it won’t happen overnight. I need time to change my world and my position in it. Most of my friends always were far more sophisticated than I. My friend Ellie used to have a little running joke about me being the Sleeping Beauty.”
    â€œEvidently you haven’t found your prince?”
    â€œAre there princes in this world?” All at once she knew there were. The woman this man loved would find a safe haven, a powerful benign presence. Solidity.
    â€œMy answer is yes, Laura. You told me you adored your father. Weren’t your parents happy?”
    â€œWonderfully happy,” she sighed. “My father was the kindest man in the world. He was marvellous.”
    â€œWhy can’t you talk to your mother?”
    â€œShe lives in New Zealand. She married a sheep farmer afew years after we lost Dad. She had one happy marriage. She wanted another. My mother can’t live without a man.”
    â€œWouldn’t most women want to be in a relationship?”
    â€œBetter to be on one’s own than unhappy.”
    â€œSo why endure a relationship that’s not working? What’s the worst thing about this boyfriend of yours? I don’t hear his name.”
    â€œI can’t talk about him yet, Evan.” Even Colin’s name made her feel in insecure.
    â€œOkay. But you’ve confided in Sarah? You need someone to talk to?”
    â€œSarah is another woman and she’s very understanding. I consider myself very lucky to have her for a friend.”
    â€œHow long have you known her?”
    She’d have liked to say for ages, but she had to tell the truth. “A year, on and off.”
    â€œAnd here I was thinking you’d known one another for ever.”
    â€œGetting to know someone in a day isn’t all that impossible.” She knew she held his dark gaze longer than she should. “You think people are going to be one thing and they turn out to be quite another.”
    â€œI assume you’re referring to me?”
    She couldn’t say she was referring to her Jekyll and Hyde husband. She evaded the answer. “How did you get to be as tough as you are?” She couldn’t find the precise word, but there was nothing remotely soft about him. He was very much the man. The man of steel.
    â€œTough?” He sounded unconvinced.
    â€œYou carry that image. I don’t mean tough as in