It wasn't until Hannah asked the question that Amanda realized just how little thought she had given to her own future. She had been so sure that O'Reilly wasn't dead, that her future still lay with him, with these children, at Penyaka. "I don't know," she answered honestly. "Why?"
It was Liam who answered. "Missy said she heard you promise Papa that you'd go back to England, if... anything happened to him."
Amanda felt as if something were squeezing her chest, stopping her breath with panic and pain. She thought about saying good-bye to these three children. About leaving this sun-seared, untamed land and returning to her old life in England.
And she knew she could not do it. If it turned out that she was wrong—if she truly had lost the man she loved, then she didn't want to lose these children, too. She knew she had no legal claim to them, but she and Henrietta Radwith had come to respect each other in the weeks Amanda had been in Adelaide, and she didn't think O'Reilly's sister would stand in her way.
"I'm not going back to England," Amanda said, her voice firm. "I want to stay here with you: I promised your father I'd go home, but... Australia is my home now. It's where I belong."
It wasn't until she'd actually said it that Amanda realized it was true. Here she had a family, and she had a home.
She was where she wanted to be.
"I have spoken to the captain of the Atlas," Christian told Amanda the next day as they strolled through the parklands opposite Henrietta Radwith's East Terrace mansion. "He says he can hold a cabin. But the ship sails next week. You must make up your mind what you're doing."
"I have made up my mind," said Amanda. The rustle of her skirts startled a pair of lorikeets chattering in an emu bush beside the path; the birds took flight, two streaks of vivid emerald touched with flashes of sapphire and ruby. She turned her head, watching them.
"Good God," said Christian, stopping to gaze at her. "You're not going."
She swung to face him. "No, I'm not. I can't."
She saw the dismayed concern flash in his gentle brown eyes before he quickly veiled it. He was a good friend, she thought, reaching out to clasp his hand. They'd become especially close on that hard trip from Penyaka down to Adelaide. They'd spent many an evening together, sitting beside a crackling, eucalypt-scented fire and staring up at the starry southern sky while they talked. She had told him, shyly, about her future plans with O'Reilly, and Christian had told her of the young cousin he thought he might marry on his return to Oxfordshire. Since their arrival in Adelaide, he had been busy, winding up the company's affairs, getting ready to sail. But he'd kept in touch often, and since the news of what had happened at Penyaka, he had visited every day.
"But O'Reilly is dead," Christian said now, his fingers tightening around hers. "What is the point of staying?"
"First of all, I still can't accept it." She curled her free hand into a fist and pressed it to her chest. "If he were dead, I would know it. I'd feel it. Here."
A muscle bunched in Christian's ruddy cheek, twitching one side of his mustache. "Are you sure, Amanda? Are you sure it's not just because you don't want to believe it?"
"Perhaps," she said softly. "But I can't simply take someone's word for it. Don't you see? I must know."
Christian's gaze shifted uncomfortably away from her. "Short of going up there to find his grave for yourself, I don't see how that's possible."
"But that's exactly what I plan to do. There's a German missionary and his wife leading a small group up north. They've agreed to take me with them. They leave on Wednesday."
"Go back up there?" Christian's gaze flew to hers, his voice rising uncharacteristically in alarm. "In this drought? You must be mad."
"No." She shook her head. "Just in love."
He sighed and swung away from her, as if trying to master his feelings. "You do realize that the Atlas is the only ship in the harbor at the moment bound for England? I've checked; there's not another expected for months. Once we sail, you'll be stranded here for goodness only knows how long."
"It doesn't matter. I've decided I won't be returning to England."
"What?" Christian spun back around to stare at her, his jaw slack, his eyes bulging. "Not go back to England? You mean, stay here? Forever?"
For the first time since they had heard the heartbreaking, soul-destroying news about O'Reilly, Amanda felt a smile tug at her lips. "Dear Christian. Don't sound so horrified. I want to stay here. I want to be with the children, but... It's more than that."
Lifting her face to the gentle, wattle-scented breeze, she let her gaze drift to the blue-green hills that stretched away toward the north. "There was a time when I thought I'd never say this, but I actually like it here. I like feeling the golden warmth of the sun on my face, and looking up at a sky so clear and blue and endless, it almost hurts to see it. There's something about this land—it's so ancient, so strange, so wild. And yet so peaceful and honest." She brought her gaze back to his puzzled face. "I like it here," she said again. "But more importantly, I like myself here. And I'm afraid that if I went back to England, I'd end up going back to being the person I was before—the person I don't want to be anymore." She laughed softly. "Does that make sense?"
"Probably not," said Christian. "But as long as it makes sense to you, that's all that matters." He took her hand again and pulled it through the crook of his elbow. "Come, let's finish our walk, shall we?"
"I'm going to miss you," she said quietly, strolling beside him.
"Yes, I shall miss you, too. If you ever need anything— anything at all—"
She squeezed his arm. "Yes, I know. And thank you."
* * *
By the time O'Reilly reached Brinkman, the creeks had already begun to run.
At first, they were only trickles of water, their surfaces covered with dust, creeping like slowly awakening fingers from one shrunken waterhole to the next. But as the rain continued to pound down, the dry, hard earth could not absorb the water fast enough. Thick red rills appeared, joining together, washing with a roar into creeks that swelled and swirled with all the debris of the drought.
Dawn brought little light to the storm-washed landscape. The clouds hung thick and low: roiling black masses that rumbled and split with fire and sent sheets of rain hurtling at the parched landscape. O'Reilly slogged on. Rain poured off his hat, soaked through his clothes, ran into his eyes, dripped off the edge of his nose. The chestnut's hooves made sucking, plopping noises in the rain-splattered mud, and twice it slipped i» the muck and almost went down. O'Reilly swore at the delay, gritted his teeth as the cold wind bit him to the bone, and pulled the gelding in to a walk.
If it had been up to O'Reilly, he would probably have ridden on through the night. But by four o'clock, when he spotted smoke curling from the stone chimney of a rain- washed shepherd's hut on a distant hill, the chestnut was exhausted. O'Reilly reluctantly left the track and stopped for the night.
The shepherd and his hut keeper provided O'Reilly with a warm meal for his belly, hay for his horse, and the chance to dry his clothes in front of a roaring fire. But the next night he had to make do with the burned-out ruins of an abandoned station. The roof leaked and the wind howled through the broken walls, and O'Reilly was up and in the saddle again before daybreak.
He rode determinedly on, his mind eased by a decision he'd reached at some point during the long, cold night. He'd already known that if he arrived in Adelaide to discover Amanda gone, then he was willing to go to England after her. But he'd now resolved that—even if she was still in Adelaide—he was going to tell her that he was willing to go to England with her. If she didn't think she could face the prospect of spending the rest of her life in Australia, then they would both make their home someplace else. He loved this land, loved it like his own life. But he loved Amanda more.
Dawn was barely a pale hint through the heavy gray clouds when he pulled up at the top of a rise and looked down on the flood-swollen torrent at the base of the hill. "Bloody hell," he said, w
iping the rain from his face with his soaked forearm. He studied the four or five wagons huddled together on the near bank, trying to decide which way they'd been headed before they'd made camp, but it was impossible to tell if they'd been stopped by the storm-fed creek or had crossed too late last night to go any farther.
A forlorn wisp of smoke testified to someone's pitiful attempt to coax forth enough of a fire to cook breakfast. O'Reilly eased the chestnut down the steep hill to the camp, hoping whoever it was had at least managed to brew up a pot of hot coffee or tea. That creek looked mighty cold.
He could see the fire now, partially sheltered by canvas rigging, and the big, sturdily built man with a long, straw- colored beard and clean-shaven upper lip who was tending it. At the sound of the chestnut's hooves splashing through the mire, the man looked up, showing a lined but pleasant face that split into a smile. "Guten Morgen."
"G'day," said O'Reilly, his stirrup leather creaking as he lifted in the saddle, easing his aching, cold-cramped muscles.
"It is a good day to spend in a varm, dry bed, I think."
"Yeah. You see one around here?"
The man laughed. "No. My own bedding got soaked through last night, when we crossed the river, so I vas not tempted to linger." He reached to lift a blackened pot from the hissing fire. "Would you like some coffee?"
"Much obliged." O'Reilly swung out of the saddle to hold his hands out to the flames. "So you crossed the creek last night, did you?"
"Creek? You call that a creek?" The German handed
O'Reilly a steaming mug of coffee and hunkered back down beside the fire. "In my country, we call that a river."
"Thanks," said O'Reilly, wrapping his numb fingers around the hot mug and taking a sip of the scalding black liquid. "I suppose it'd be called a river here, too, if it looked like that all the time. But if you'd come through a few days ago, you could have driven right across the bed without even gettin' your wheels muddy."
"That is what the englische woman we have with us said. I would have made camp on the other side last night, but she said the vater was rising, and we had best cross while we could." He shook his head. "She vas right. We could never have crossed if we had waited until this morning. It would be suicide."
"Yeah. Well, thanks for the coffee," said O'Reilly, setting down the empty mug and collecting his reins.
"Lieber Gott." The German straightened up to face him. "You are going to cross that river? Now?"
"No worries, mate." O'Reilly swung into the saddle. "You just keep your horse's head upstream and relax and let him drift over. It's only if you pull him up suddenly or don't sit still or try to turn that he's liable to roll on you."
The German shook his head. "This is a hard country you have. First drought. Now flood."
"Don't forget the bushfires," said O'Reilly with a grin. And he nudged the gelding forward into the swirling reddish- brown water.
She heard his voice in her dream, heard the clipped Australian cadences and the light, self-depreciating tone she loved. In her bedroll in the Herbolts' wagon, Amanda moaned softly as sleep—and the dreams of O'Reilly it always brought her—slipped away from her.
She sat up, shivering in the damp, chill air. "First drought. Now flood," she heard Mr. Herbolt say.
And O'Reilly answered, "Don't forget the bushfires."
"O'Reilly," she whispered. "Dear God, it's him."
Hope flared within her, brilliant and breathtaking. She tried to damp it down, terrified of disappointment even as she threw back the covers and leapt to her feet. "O'Reilly!" she screamed, lunging toward the cart's tailgate. Her foot hooked Frau Herbolt's outflung arm and Amanda went down, whacking her knee on a trunk and slamming her elbow against an iron pot.
"Vat is it?" Frau Herbolt sat up with a start, her nightcap slipping over one eye.
"Auf Wiedersehen," called Herr Herbolt.
"He's leaving." Amanda scrambled to her feet. "No! Wait."
She threw herself over the endboard, barely conscious of the loud rip that sounded as her nightdress caught on a peg. Then her bare feet hit the cold, slippery mud and shot out from beneath her before she could do more than scrabble to grab a handhold.
Her bottom slammed against the sodden ground with a teeth-jarring thud that sent the breath whooshing out of her. Gasping for air, she thrust both hands into the mire and pushed herself up, going down again on one knee before she was on her feet and running for the creek, the mud squishing up between her toes.
She could see him now, in the dim, storm-tossed light of dawn. A tall man astride a big chestnut already up to its withers in the swirling waters. As she watched, the horse's head thrust forward and it began to swim.
She slid down the bank to the water's edge, heedless of her bare feet and legs, heedless of her torn nightdress, heedless of the cold rain pelting down on her and the wind whipping her loose hair around her face. "O 'Reilly! " she screamed, her voice a thin wail lost in the roar of the rain and the boom of the creek and the howling of the wind.
She felt a man's brawny arm close around her, yanking her back as a beefy palm slapped across her mouth. "No, my child," Herr Herbolt said, shouting to be heard over the raging floodwaters. "He can't come back now—he's already in the middle of the current. If he tried to turn that horse now, they'd both drown."
Her eyes rolled sideways until she could see the bearded face and gentle brown eyes of the man who held her. She nodded solemnly, so he would know that she understood.
He let his hand fall slowly. "You know this Australian?"
"Yes." Rain ran down her face as she gasped for breath, her chest rising and falling, her heart pounding. "He's the one I told you about—the man they said died in the fire."
"Then by God's mercy he will not drown in this flood," said the German.
Amanda wished she had the man's quiet faith. Her stomach felt as if it had wedged up in her throat, choking her. Reaching out one cold-numbed hand, she gripped Herr Herbolt's strong arm as they stood together, side by side, their gazes fixed on the swimming horse and its rider. The rain washed over them in icy, windblown sheets chased by flashes of lightning and the ominous rumble of thunder.
Above them, the cloud-filled sky slowly paled with the coming day, showing them a red-brown river that heaved and churned and seemed to rise higher and higher with each passing moment. Broken tree branches and entire uprooted gums swirled dangerously in the churning, frothing flow, sending waves rolling out to slap against the flooded banks and lap at Amanda's bare feet.
"He's being swept downstream," she said, shivering uncontrollably.
"Yah. He is letting the current carry him across."
"There." Amanda strained forward as the chestnut seemed to heave up out of the water. "He's touched bottom again." Then the horse staggered and lost its footing, and Amanda had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. Man and horse plunged down, lost for a moment in the turmoil of swirling thick mud, only to reappear again, scrambling up on the far bank, wet but whole.
"Thank God," whispered Amanda. "He made it. He's safe."
The man on the horse reached to pat the chestnut's streaming wet withers, leaning forward as if he were saying something to the frightened, shivering animal. Then he wheeled about to look back at the floodwaters he had conquered.
Even from this distance, Amanda saw his head come up.
Saw his gaze fix on the bedraggled, barefoot woman who stood at the water's edge, her nightdress ripped half off, her hair hanging about her shoulders like a limp red rag. He stiffened.
"No," she screamed as he urged his mount forward again. "Don't come back! "
But the chestnut hesitated only an instant before, shuddering, it plunged straight into the churning, deadly waters.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
O'Reilly kicked his feet free of the stirrups and willed his body to relax as the icy waters swirled up around his thighs to lap at his groin. He held the chestnut's head pointed upstream, but beyond that he just let the horse drift
across and concentrated on keeping his own weight as still and evenly balanced as possible.
She was running now, her slim white legs flashing, her arms pumping as she dashed along the bank to keep him in sight while the current swept him downstream. Her bare feet splashed through the shallow water, kicking up a spray that soared through the air behind her. Rain slashed down at her. The wind whipped at her glorious flame-colored hair and plastered the thin wet cloth of her ripped gown to the naked body beneath. She looked magnificent, wild, free.
And he wanted her.
He wanted to lay her down in the water's edge and take her there, with the rain pouring down on them and the wind howling around them. He wanted to bury himself inside her and listen to her breath catch and watch the rapture spill across her face. He wanted to hold her in his arms and cover her with kisses and never, ever let her go.
He still couldn't believe that she was here. He certainly didn't understand why she was here. He only knew that she was here, that she hadn't gone back to England, that her eyes were wide with terror for him even as her lips quivered with what could only be joy. And he felt a sweet warm ache flood through him at the realization that this joy, this terror, this abandoned dash through the stormy dawn was for him. For love of him.
"O'Reilly." Her voice floated to him over the rush of the water and the roar of the wind and the pounding of the rain. "O'Reilly, you mad, dégénérâtq Australian. Are you trying to kill yourself?"
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