'Kim does.'

The housekeeper? 'Where's Kim now?' she asked.

'She's gone.'

'Gone?' echoed Copper, taken aback. What was this place, the Marie Celeste? 'Gone where?'

'I don't know,' Megan admitted. 'But Dad was cross with Uncle Brett because now there's no one to look after me.'

Copper's heart was wrung as she looked down at the oddly self-possessed little girl beside her. Poor little mite! Had she been abandoned entirely? She opened her mouth to ask the child if there was anyone who knew where she was when a voice called Megan's name, and the next moment a man came round the corner of the homestead from the direction of the old woolshed.

He was tall and lean, that much Copper could see, but in his stockman's hat, checked shirt, jeans and dusty boots he looked, at a distance, just like any other outback man. And yet there was something about him, something about the easy, unhurried way he moved, that clutched at Copper's throat. For a heart-stopping moment he reminded her so vividly of Mal that she felt quite breathless, and could only stare across the yard to where he had checked at the sight of her.

It couldn't be Mal, she told herself as she struggled to breathe normally. She was being ridiculous. Mal belonged to the past, to Turkey and a few star-shot nights. It was just the outback playing tricks with her mind. She had been thinking about him so much over the last few days that now she was going to imagine that every man she met was him. This man just happened to have the same air of quiet strength. It didn't mean he was Mal.

And then he moved out of the shadow of the house and came towards the steps to stand looking up at where she sat next to Megan, and Copper found herself getting shakily to her feet, her heart drumming in disbelief.