He felt something shift inside him. He wasn't sure if it was a letting go of the fear that she wouldn't agree to let him do this for her, or if it was a swift thrust of sadness at the reminder of how much she had given up when she had turned her back on England and decided to stay in Australia and marry him.
He hadn't meant to kiss her, or even hug her, in front of the men, in front of the children. But he couldn't seem to stop himself from reaching for her, from holding her one last time.
His arms slid around her, pulling her slender body up against his hardness. He needed her close to him. Needed to smell her starchy muskiness, to feel the silken richness of her sinfully bright hair slip through his fingers one more time as he bracketed her face with his hands. He gazed deep into her beautiful, luminescent eyes...
And then he was kissing her. Kissing her as if he were starving, as if he could devour her and keep her with him.
Kissing her open mouth, her suddenly tearstained cheeks, her trembling eyelids. "God, I love you," he whispered, a shudder ripping through him as he pressed his forehead to hers. "Wait for me, Amanda. And when this is all over, come back to me. Just... come back to me."
She spread her fingers over his cheek, her lips hovering next to his. "I'll wait, O'Reilly. And I'll be back. We'll all be back. You'll see. You'll see."
O'Reilly squinted up at the shimmering hot ball of the sun, hanging low on the horizon like something malevolent, something fierce and deadly that refused to go away. "Shit," he said, swiping at his sweaty forehead with his arm. Then he remembered his shirt was covered with mud, and he said "shit" again, before hunkering down beside the dead ewe at his feet.
She'd been alive a minute ago, when he'd dragged her out of the water hole she'd got herself bogged in. But the strain had been too much for her; as soon as he'd set her on solid land, she'd given one panicked little bleat and rolled over dead.
It seemed to O'Reilly as if he spent most of his time these days pulling dead or dying sheep out of the few water holes that were left. The poor dumb creatures would drag their bony carcasses across the bush to drink, then find themselves too weak to stagger away from the deadly grip of the water hole's trampled, muddy edges.
He straightened, his gaze drifting back to the hazy horizon. It was probably just dust, he thought, hanging heavy in the thick, oppressive air. But he kept an eye on it as he swung into the saddle and turned his tired horse's head toward the homestead. They all spent a lot of time watching the horizon these days. This was bushfire weather. It wasn't even a question anymore of if, but more like when, and where.
Amanda and the children hadn't been gone for more than a few days when he'd seen the glare of fire reddening the sky to the east. He'd mounted up every man he could spare and ridden hard to help the neighboring stations fight the flames. But with the bush this dry, there'd been no stopping the fire.
Before the wind changed direction and drove the flames back onto charred ground, the fire had burned at least half of Bun- gowie Station and a good portion of Hannibal Cox's run, including the homestead and all the outbuildings.
Cox's wife and two sons had managed to survive by hiding deep in a cave where the nearby creek cut through a gorge, but Hannibal Cox and three of his men got caught in a blind canyon along with a mob of about five thousand sheep. Now, whenever the wind blew from the east, O'Reilly thought he could still smell the stench of roasted flesh and charred wool riding on the hot, sour air.
Lifting his head, he pressed his lips into a thin line as he watched the sun slip reluctantly behind the purple reaches of the Ranges. It would be dark soon, but he kept the gray gelding at an easy walk. He was in no hurry to get home. He'd almost reached the point that he hated that silent, empty house, hated the thought of spending another night alone with a book, or sitting on the veranda with Campbell, throwing back more drinks than was good for either one of them.
He'd thought at first that with time, it would get easier to bear, this living hell of having Amanda and the children gone. But as days turned into weeks and the weeks piled up, one on top of the other, the ache inside him seemed only to grow, until there were moments when he wanted to go stand out in the dying garden and howl at the moon like some bloody dingo.
The station buildings loomed ahead of him, dark and solid in the fading light. He pulled up at the homestead gate and watched the setting sun pour like melted honey over the ruin of Katherine's garden. He'd always hated that garden; now the sight of it like this, all withered and beaten, made him sad.
He turned the gray over to one of the men and went up the garden path to the darkened house. On the veranda, he paused to draw water from the cooler and was just lifting the mug to his lips when a voice said, "I must admit, Patrick, you're looking very healthy for a ghost."
O'Reilly spun about in a crouch, the mug clattering to the stone flagging as his hand flashed to the knife he always wore sheathed on his wide belt. "Bloody hell, Bagshaw," he said, straightening when he recognized the bulky figure lounging on a bench against the house wall. "You tryin' to get yourself killed or something?"
Mr. Errol Bagshaw, the local magistrate out of Melrose, raised a glass of what smelled like O'Reilly's best brandy to his lips and tssked over the rim. "My, my, my. Aren't we jumpy?"
"There's some pretty desperate characters roaming the bush these days."
"How true, how true." Bagshaw shook his head sadly, his long, greasy gray hair swishing back and forth against his shoulders. The Englishman was fat and sloppy and usually a good two months overdue for a bath, but O'Reilly liked the man anyway. He was quick, and he was clever. And he was also a lot softer-hearted than most people realized.
Picking up the mug with one swipe, O'Reilly sauntered over to lean against the rough stone wall of the house. "You bring the whole bottle out here, or just that glass?"
Bagshaw smiled wide enough to show his teeth and held up the half-empty brandy bottle.
"Much obliged," said O'Reilly, taking the bottle from the magistrate's slack grasp to splash two fingers' worth into the tin mug. He knocked it back with a shudder, then poured some more.
"You don't drink like a dead man, either," said Bagshaw.
O'Reilly paused with the mug raised halfway to his lips. "What the hell is all this about me being dead?"
"Vulgar, unfounded rumor, evidently. Word has it your run was wiped out by a bushfire a while back, and you and some of your men were turned into mutton chops. I was in the area, so I thought I might as well swing by here and see the damage for myself. I must admit I was a bit surprised to discover the homestead still standing." He grunted as he leaned forward to retake possession of the bottle. "And truly astounded—but gratified, of course—when your men told me you are as yet numbered among the living."
"It was the Cox run that burned, not mine," said O'Reilly, the fine brandy tasting foul on his lips. "Hannibal Cox and some of his men got caught when the wind changed and swung the fire around on them."
"Ah, so that's the way of it."
O'Reilly set aside the rest of his brandy unfinished and jammed his fingertips beneath his belt. "What made you think it was me, anyway?"
Bagshaw sighed as if he bore all the cares of the drought- devastated Flinders on his plump shoulders. "The tale was carried to Melrose by a couple of bullockies, who had it from Tie-Ping."
"You mean that Chinese hawker?" O'Reilly grunted. "Hell, according to my cook, Tie-Ping can't even speak Cantonese properly, let alone English. How the hell did they get the tale out of him?"
"Obviously not with a great degree of accuracy. I gather the bullockies identified you—or rather, thought they did—by your ownership of a blood bay stallion the hawker kept going on about."
"You mean Fire Dancer?"
"That's the one."
O'Reilly shoved away from the wall to go stand at the veranda's edge and stare out at the gathering twilight. It would be a dark night. There was no moon, and the thickening haze obscured most of the stars. "Hannibal Cox is the man w
ho originally brought the stallion in here from New Zealand," said O'Reilly over his shoulder.
Bagshaw pushed himself up from the bench with a mighty heave that tore a hoglike grunt from someplace deep in his ample belly. "That'll explain it. Now," he said, grunting again as he reached down to recapture both his glass and the brandy bottle, "do you suppose that excellent Chinese cook of yours has supper ready yet? I told him as soon as I arrived that I would be staying."
O'Reilly swung around, surprised into a grin. "I assume you told him to get the guest room ready, too?"
"But of course, my dear lad," said the fat man with a gentle laugh. "Of course."
* * #
After dinner, O'Reilly pulled a gaming table and two chairs out onto the veranda, and challenged Bagshaw to a game of chess. O'Reilly won the first game easily enough, but he knew from experience that Bagshaw was only warming up. They were forty-five minutes into the rematch and O'Reilly was carefully studying the board, when Bagshaw said in a deceptively conversational tone, "You remember those bullockies I told you about? The ones who had it you were dead?"
O'Reilly grunted, his gaze still fixed on the game.
"They were on their way down to Adelaide."
"So?" said O'Reilly.
"Your family is in Adelaide, aren't they?"
Wordlessly, O'Reilly lifted his gaze to the fat man's face. He was half out of his chair before Bagshaw said, "Sit down, son. You can't go anywhere on a night like this." He nodded to the darkness beyond the light thrown by the coal oil lamp and the smoking chrysanthemum leaves that kept away the mosquitoes. "It's blacker than a crow's backside out there tonight. If you don't want to break your horse's leg and your own neck, you're going to have to wait until dawn."
"Bloody hell," murmured O'Reilly, sinking back down into his seat to shove his knight into position almost randomly.
Reaching forward, Bagshaw edged the white queen to the left and showed his teeth in another one of those wide smiles. "Checkmate."
"Easy, boy," crooned O'Reilly as he settled the saddle on the horse's back. The chestnut gelding snorted and shivered its hide as O'Reilly reached for the cinch. The dawn was still only a faint rosy blush on the eastern horizon, but he was damned if he was going to wait any longer.
Four weeks. Those damned bullockies had left Melrose at least four weeks ago, Bagshaw had said. And if they'd got to talking on the way to someone heading south on a fast horse... "Bloody hell," he swore, pulling the cinch tight. For all he knew, Amanda could already be on a ship bound for
England. He'd told her to go, hadn't he? Made her promise she'd go if something happened to him. "Bloody hell," he said again, reaching for his bridle. "Bloody, bloody fool."
He was leading the gelding out of the stables when he caught sight of a flash of white, coming down the hill from the homestead. He paused, puzzled, as he watched Mr. Errol Bagshaw, clad in a nightshirt and nightcap and with a blanket folded diagonally around his fat shoulders, materialize out of the darkness.
"For God's sake, Bagshaw, what are you doing out at this hour?" O'Reilly demanded as he swung into the saddle. The leather creaked loudly in the stillness of the coming dawn.
"I forgot to tell you something I heard when I was up near Blinman yesterday," said the magistrate, panting. "It seems Costner Creek got sixty hours of rain not long ago. There's been some flooding downstream already. Just watch out, will you?"
A surprisingly cool wind swept up from the valley, bringing with it the smell of dust. O'Reilly gathered his reins. "I'll be careful," he said, as the wind gusted again, filling the air with a sound not unlike the clatter of a handful of pebbles thrown against a cliff face.
Bagshaw glanced around, puzzled as the faint pattering sounded on the roof of the stables and the drooping wattles and gums down by the creek bed. "What is that noise?"
Something wet hit O'Reilly on the cheek. He tilted back his head to stare up at the starless sky above. "It's rain," he said. "It's bloody raining."
And then the sky opened up, and it poured.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Amanda found the children in the hayloft, above the stables at the back of their aunt's East Terrace mansion.
It had been two days since one of Henrietta Radwith's acquaintances had brought them word of the devastating bush- fire that had destroyed Penyaka. Two days since they'd been told that Patrick O'Reilly and three of his men had died in the flames.
Sick with dread and uncertainty, yet refusing to believe it could be true, Amanda and the children had waited to be told it was all a mistake. Then, that afternoon, Christian Whittaker had come to tell Amanda that he'd met a couple of bullockies who'd just trailed down from the Flinders. The men had confirmed the news.
Suddenly desperate to be with the children, and afraid they'd somehow already heard about the bullockies in that mysterious way children have, Amanda went in search of them.
The atmosphere in the loft was thick with the scent of dried grass and horses, the light dim and dusty. She paused at the top of the ladder, her gaze shifting from one to the other of O'Reilly's three, silent children. Missy's cheeks were tear- stained, her eyelids red and swollen, her lips trembling. But Hannah and Liam were stony-faced, almost angry.
"I gather you heard what Mr. Whittaker came to tell us?" Amanda said.
Missy blurted out, "We still don't believe it," then burst into tears again.
Amanda sucked in a deep breath. It felt as if her heart were splintering into countless cutting shards of glass inside her
breast. She had carried this agony within her for three days now. She had managed to bear it only because the pain was to some extent numbed by disbelief.
If he was truly dead, no one would have had to tell her. She was certain of that. She would have sensed it, felt it. She and O'Reilly were too close to each other, too well in tune with each other's feelings and thoughts, for him to have met his death in such a horrible way, without her knowing his pain. Even as she had sat listening to Christian telling her about the bullockies, she had still found herself thinking, There must be some mistake.
Yet she was aware of a small voice, somewhere deep within her, that kept whispering that she might be wrong, that it was possible she was refusing to believe he was dead simply because she could not bear to accept the truth. Now she looked at his children, and said, "May I come up?"
Hannah only stared at her, but Liam nodded his head.
Her hooped skirts awkwardly clutched in one hand, Amanda clambered up the rest of the ladder to the rough planking of the loft floor. Using a bale of hay as a seat, Amanda pulled Missy into her lap and hugged O'Reilly's little girl close. "Let me hold you, sweetheart," she whispered. "I need to hold you."
Missy wrapped her arms around Amanda's neck and hugged her back so tightly it almost hurt. "You're not going to stop us, are you?" Missy asked, her tears wetting Amanda's shoulder through the cloth of her dress.
Amanda knew a quick, warning rush of apprehension that cut through her grief. "Stop you from doing what?" Her gaze flicked to Hannah and Liam. The two older children exchanged guarded glances, then stared pointedly away from each other, their faces carefully composed and blank.
"What is it?" Amanda demanded, looking from one child to the other. "What were you plotting before I came up? I know you, Liam and Hannah O'Reilly, and you never look this innocent unless you've something-to hide."
In the silence that followed, Amanda could hear Henrietta Radwith's horses moving restlessly in their stalls below. "If you—" She broke off in sudden comprehension. "Dear God. You were going to try to get back to Penyaka, weren't you?"
With a sudden, violent motion, Hannah pushed away from the pile of hay and went to stare out the loading door, her shoulders rigid, her jaw tight.
"You were, weren't you?" Amanda said again.
Hannah braced one arm against the opening's frame, but she didn't turn around. "I don't believe he's dead," she said, staring out over the tops of the gum trees in the nearby par
k- lands. "I don't care what those bullockies said. I still don't believe Papa is dead."
Whatever Amanda's own doubts, she wasn't so irresponsible as to encourage the children to build up false hopes. "I know it is difficult to accept, Hannah," she said, her voice sounding tired. "But—"
Hannah whipped around, showing Amanda a white, strained face. "Doyou believe he's dead, Miss Davenport? Really believe it?"
Amanda met the girl's wide, frank gaze. And couldn't lie. "No," she said on a painful expulsion of breath. "No, I don't. But a part of me is afraid that I'm wrong, that I'm simply finding it difficult to accept the truth, and that he is dead."
"If we go to Penyaka and I see his grave, then I'll believe it," said Liam.
"I'm sorry, but I can't let you do this. Your father wanted me to bring you children here to Adelaide to keep you safe. I can't let you go back up there."
"But we have to," said Hannah. "Don't you understand?"
Amanda let her breath out in a long, hurting sigh. "Yes. I do understand." And she knew now what she must do. "I'll go myself," she said.
"You, Miss Davenport?" said Missy, staring up at her.
Amanda's arm tightened around the little girl's shoulders, but she kept her gaze on Hannah and Liam. "If I went to Penyaka—if I talked to the people there, and saw your father's grave, would you accept it? For now? Until the situation improves and you can go there yourself?"
Hannah stared at her across the dusty length of the loft.
And for the first time in days, Amanda saw a ripple of emotion pass over the girl's face. "And if Papa really is dead, will you go back to England?"
September Moon Page 33