‘Are you sure?’ Hal made himself ask, pulling her back hard against him. ‘It can be a hard life.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to work at it.’

‘It’ll be boring sometimes,’ he warned.

‘Maybe it will,’ agreed Meredith, ‘but I’m going to carry on my business, and there’ll be the house to run and the chickens to feed and you to love, so I don’t see that I’ll have that much time to be bored. But if I am, I’ll tell you, and we’ll have a break together somewhere. I might miss being able to pop out for a cappuccino sometimes, but I can bear to miss it,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear to miss you.’

‘Meredith…’ Hal kissed her, hoping that his kiss could tell her everything that words couldn’t. ‘You haven’t said you’ll marry me,’ he said when he lifted his head at last.

‘You haven’t asked me,’ she pointed out with a smile. ‘Not properly.’

‘Shall I go down on one knee?’

‘No,’ said Meredith. ‘Just ask me.’

Hal smiled. ‘I love you, Meredith. Will you marry me?’

‘I love you too,’ she said, tilting her face up to his, ‘and yes, I will.

‘This is all very nice,’ she teased, emerging from his kiss some time later, ‘but it’s time somebody started being sensible round here. It’s getting late.’

‘That’s true,’ said Hal, tossing their cases up into the plane. ‘We’ve missed your cooking, and I don’t know if anyone’s done anything about supper tonight.’

‘In that case, you’d better take me home,’ said Meredith and he cocked an eyebrow at her, smiling in a way that made her heart turn over.

‘Home?’

‘To Wirrindago,’ she said and smiled. ‘Home.’

Jessica Hart

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