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And with that, he was gone.

* * *

‘Jesus Christ. You proposed?’ Rex Carrigan’s voice boomed down the phone. Tate stood, feet planted wide in the red dust, one hand on his hip as he surveyed the hard ridge that formed a natural boundary to this land. The ironbark gums stood tall like sentries, just as they always had.

‘What choice did I have?’

Silence fell between them.

‘None.’

They both knew why; they’d both been shaped by their father, their childhood, the choices he’d made. They’d both sworn they’d always do the opposite to Hunt Carrigan, and this was the first true test of that for Tate.

‘What’s she like?’

Tate closed his eyes as an image of Sarah entered his mind, unbidden. Sarah as she’d been the afternoon they’d met, with that dress plastered to her body, looking like both a stranger to this land and completely a part of it. ‘English.’

Rex laughed. ‘That’s…biographical.’

‘I hardly know her,’ he muttered. ‘This was not supposed to happen.’

‘Clearly.’ Silence throbbed between the brothers. ‘Listen, Tate, I know how you feel about it, but, given who you are, a paternity test is a good idea.’

He stood straighter, his eyes moving from the ironbark ridge to the distant field, where he could see hundreds of heads of cattle moving around in the early evening, the ringers corralling them into a run-off area for the night.

‘She says I’m the father.’

‘Yes, but you hardly know her, as you said, and you are worth more than most people can possibly conceive.’

‘She says it can only be me.’

‘Again, you hardly know her—’

‘I know she’s telling the truth.’ He couldn’t explain how, but he believed Sarah, and that was saying something. Tate Carrigan was no fool. If his instincts were telling him she was being truthful, then she was.

‘You know it, or you want to believe it?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You’ve been waiting for an opportunity, your whole life, to prove that you’re different from him. Better. And now that you have it, you’re going out of your way to erase what your dad did to your mum.’

‘To both our mums. Willa’s mum too, come to think of it,’ Tate corrected. ‘And I’ve told Sarah as much. I am not letting this baby be raised anywhere but here, with me, but I’m not shutting her out.’

‘And if that destroys her?’

Like it did our mothers, Tate finished the sentence mentally.

‘It won’t.’

‘You’re making her marry you.’

‘I’ve given her a choice.’

‘A choice between becoming your wife and ditching her baby? Hell, I wonder what she’ll go for.’

‘What would you do, Rex?’ Tate asked with irritation. At some point, there’d been a turning point in their relationship. They’d grown up and come to see that their father was pitting them against each other for sport. It was better to fight him than each other. Better to be a team—united—than not. It had been around the time Willa—their half-sister—had turned up, he supposed. She’d been a wild, chaotic girl, so different to them, and they’d both loved her immediately and fiercely. For the first time, they’d felt what it was like to know uncomplicated, easy affection. And from the time Rex and Tate had found their middle ground, they’d realised how much they agreed with each other, how often they backed one another’s thoughts. So having Rex argue with Tate now was jarring. ‘What would you do?’ he repeated, wanting the answer. Wondering if there was a stone here he’d left unturned.

‘Probably the same as you,’ Rex admitted, finally. ‘But, Tate?’