He let his gaze travel over the thin bridge of her nose, her high, pale cheeks, her trembling, vulnerable mouth. O'Reilly saw her eyes widen with alarm, then shift sideways so that she was no longer looking at him. He brought both hands up to cradle her face between his palms. But you're going to have to free her yourself.' She's in there, ready to burst out of this drab cocoon you've wrapped around her. 'The woman you once were-the woman you still want to be-is awake, Amanda. I watched you take down your hair and open this tight collar.' He ran his finger down between the juncture of her clavicles, and felt her shudder. He let his hand trail down her neck to the open jacket of her riding habit. O'Reilly watched Amanda's throat work as she swallowed, painfully. 'Which means, you're going to have to kiss me.' 'Only problem is, I promised I wouldn't,' he said. She watched his mouth twist up into a funny smile.

She waited, unable to move, her gaze caught by his. She could see the want in his face, feel the tension in the fingers that curled around her neck. Her chest suddenly felt unbearably tight and she sucked in a deep, painful breath, trying to ease it. He laced his fingers through her free-flowing hair, cupping the back of her head in his palm. He shifted his weight, his hand coming up as he leaned forward. And she realized that they had focused on her mouth. O'Reilly's eyes were a fierce, hungry blue. A dragonfly hovered over the pool, its wings fluttering as the warm wind blew softly around them. Brilliantly colored cockatoos chattered, and larks trilled their sweet songs from the upper boughs of the red gums and wattles. The Flinders either speaks to you-calls to the wildness that heats your blood and the loneliness that howls in your soul-or it doesn't.' 'I don't think it's something anyone can explain. 'I don't understand what draws people to this place,' she said. She felt her need for him, her love for him, swell within her, hot and painful and sad. She let her gaze run over him, over the worn blue work shirt pulled tight across his broad chest by the way he sat, down to his lean, knife-slung hips and the scuffed toes of his leather boots. Just surviving here is something anyone can be proud of.' And the more I learn about them, the more I find to admire.

'You're unusually friendly with the Aborigines, aren't you?' She swung her head to look directly at him. When they chatter like that, the blacks say they're hurling insults at each other, telling one another their grandmothers died in forks of trees.'Ī surprised gurgle of laughter bubbled up from within her. From the far side of the creek bed came an answer, loud and shrill. When she didn't say anything, he nodded toward the low branches of a nearby coolabah tree where the trilling song of some unseen bird came in staccato bursts from out to the shadows.

September Moon by Candice Proctor