Outback Heiress, Surprise Proposal

by Margaret Way

  ‘No dream, my darling.’ His sense of purpose and determination showed itself in his voice and the glitter of his eyes. ‘Drink up,’ he urged. ‘I want to make love to you all over again.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SHE hadn’t for a moment expected Annette to want to join the hunt for the killer dingo. Annette was a good rider, but hunting down rogue animals wasn’t her thing. For one thing she had never fired a gun in her life, though she had been a guest on great Outback cattle stations many times in her life. No, Annette shied away from any form of violence, especially blood and killing, but violence was being done to Daramba’s precious calves, too weak to save themselves, or to old and helpless animals that roamed the desert fringe.

  Bloodthirsty dingoes struck terror. The most vicious and powerful had been known to attack a lone man. Daramba’s men had by now taken to calling the dingo crossbreed The Ripper, because of the powerful animal’s peculiarly brutal manner of ripping open the flesh of all the unfortunate calves it had stalked and brought down. It wasn’t simply hunger, the need to sustain itself, the brute had developed a taste for blood.

  The new man, Vance Bormann, out rounding up clean skins in the lignum thickets over the past few days, had sighted the dingo away from the pack. He had taken a shot at it—and he hated to admit it but The Ripper had got away, bounding off into the farther reaches of the lignum swamp. At least it gave them a clue as to where the dingo pack was currently hiding out. Bormann had told them he had found, to his disgust, the carcass of a newborn calf at the scene and buried it.

  So the hunt was on. Gordon Carstairs very much wanted to be part of it. He told them quite matter-of-factly he was a good shot and an experienced rider. He’d grown up on a Victorian country estate, and although he hadn’t been asked to prove it, after ten minutes with Jacob, who was now Daramba’s overseer, Jacob had come back to Francesca with: ‘He’s a damned fine shot, Ms Francey. It’ll be good to have ’im along.’

  Annette, it seemed, had got caught up in the excitement. Or perhaps more accurately caught up in the excitement of Gordon Carstairs. Francesca was certain Annette had never expected to find love again—indeed she had turned her back on it—but the strong attraction between the two was plain to see. So Annette wanted to come along, but she would ride to the rear, ready if necessary to box the dingo in. That was if they were lucky enough to sight it or the pack.

  ‘What the hell does Annette think she’s doing, riding along?’ Carina asked Francesca, angry bafflement on her face. She paused for a moment, as though seeking a solution to a serious problem. ‘By far the most sensible thing for her to be doing is staying here at the homestead. You should insist. She’ll only be a liability.’

  Francesca couldn’t really argue with that, but she hadn’t had the heart to refuse Annette any more than she had found the heart to exclude Carina from this trip. So far everything had gone well, with Carina as charming and accommodating as Francesca had ever seen her. Now she had to intervene. ‘Please don’t say that to her, Carrie. Annette is the happiest I’ve ever seen her. I’m not going to allow anyone to spoil that. You’ve been so nice to her up to date. Don’t spoil it now.’

  ‘Sure!’ Carina appeared to shrug her bafflement off. ‘It’s Gordon, of course!’ She gave a knowing laugh. ‘He’s an old-fashioned man in his way—very gentlemanly and so forth. Annette would like that.’

  ‘I like it too,’ Francesca said. Were good manners old-fashioned? She thought not.

  ‘Well, you and Annette aren’t dissimilar in type,’ Carina said, giving her cousin a considering once-over. ‘You know—super-refined. I expect that’s why Bryn decided you were more suitable than me. I’m too out there. It wouldn’t have worked with Bryn and me anyway. I suppose that’s why I’ve found it so easy to move on.’ She went to press a real kiss onto Francesca’s cheek. The first one Francesca had ever received. ‘The great thing is that we’re talking, Francey. We’re friends again. If Carstairs is in favour with poor Annette, then he’s in favour with me.’

  Half the hunt got away early: Jacob, Carina—who could ride and shoot with the best of them—Vince Bormann, and two of the station’s leading hands. Francesca, Gordon, Annette and three aboriginal stockmen-trackers followed. The sun was up and the mirage was already abroad. Francesca made sure Annette’s fine skin was protected, swapping her own best cream Akubra with the ornate snakeskin band for Annette’s less effective wide-brimmed black hat, and tucking a favourite sapphire-blue and white bandana into the neckline of Annette’s long-sleeved cotton shirt to protect her nape. She wore the full-length sleeves for extra protection, but it wasn’t long before Francesca saw her turning the cuffs up to the elbow. All in all, Annette looked immensely stylish. As slender as when she’d been a girl in her riding gear—especially the tight-fitting jeans, which looked great on her. Francesca could see Gordon thought so too.

  Mid-morning and The Ripper hadn’t been sighted—although the party had flushed out a few dingoes, their yellow-brown coats merging with the colour and texture of the scorched grasses. Spotted, they’d made a run for the hill country, moving at top speed, their desert-lean bodies flattened out with the effort. Jacob had waved a hand, which meant let them go. No love was lost on dingoes, but it was The Ripper they were after. They were to concentrate all their energies on that.

  They were all strung out over a broad area of hundreds of yards. Francesca and Annette were away to the rear, with Francesca keeping her eye on the older woman. The horses were tiring. Morale was running low.

  ‘What the hell?’ Carina was way ahead, with one of the stockmen. When she shouted, her voice carried a long distance on the clear air. She threw up a hand, gesturing towards a dried-up water course with a heavy surround of trees.

  What was she shouting for? Francesca had to ask herself. If Carina had spotted The Ripper she would only alert the cunning animal. A glance passed between her and Annette. ‘Do you want to go back now, Annette?’ Francesca asked. ‘You could take shelter under the trees.’

  ‘I just might!’ Annette said, a look of relief coming over her face.

  ‘It’s very tiring,’ Francesca said quietly. ‘I’m starting to feel a little shaky myself. My muscles haven’t had such a workout in ages.’

  Annette nodded, then turned her horse’s head in the direction of the nearest billabong. ‘Are you going on?’

  ‘Just for a while,’ Francesca said. ‘Stay in the vicinity. We’ll come back for you.’

  ‘I’m fine, Francey. Don’t worry. I know where I am,’ Annette told her with a reassuring smile. ‘Good luck now.’

  For some reason Francesca didn’t take the route the rest of them had taken. She had the feeling she was being led, that her route was charged with more purpose than finding the rogue dingo. She was meant to come this way. For most of her life she had had these mysterious intuitions. She wondered if other people did. Surely they must?

  Riding deep in under the trees, she saw to her left a waterhole, glittering like a shallow lake, though she knew from experience it would be deep enough at the centre. Something splashed close in to the reed banks. She froze.

  Nothing, though her skin was prickling. Gamely she rode on, her face and her neck streaked with sweat, rivulets running between her breasts. The air was getting thicker and danker. Her nerves were crawling. The deeper in she went, the more she thought she could smell dingo. The others were coming back now. Unsuccessful. She could hear raised voices, the thunder of hooves. She even caught Jacob’s dejected yell.

  ‘The bastard ain’t here, or he got away!’

  Her shoulders rode high and tight. She was very nervous. So was Jalilah. Just a few hundred yards on, the dark green undergrowth became thicker, darker and more tangled, making it difficult for her to proceed or continue searching for tracks. But the smell of dingo filled her nostrils. Dread began a slow crawl over her skin. This, then, was where their quarry was waiting. She knew it. She had succumbed to the compulsion. Now alone, she was riding right at
The Ripper.

  It was enormous for a pure-bred dingo. It was difficult to say who took the most fright. The dingo, in a lather of sweat so its matted coat looked a mangy, orange-streaked grey, slunk back, crouching down on its haunches. No use trying to keep it off by shouting or clapping. She could see that wouldn’t work. The dingo was intent on her. Teeth bared, it looked at her with what seemed like human hatred, though that had to be her over-active imagination. Nevertheless it made the short hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

  The animal began to snarl, its ferocity and sheer size bringing on a moment of sheer panic. She had seen dingoes all her life, but nothing like this. This wasn’t the average wild dog. This was a monster. It wasn’t going to retreat. But Francesca’s nerves had begun to attack, and the mare, spooked by the presence of the dingo, was acting up. Dingo or not, it looked more like a lion ready to spring.

  It couldn’t reach her upper body—or could it?—but it could savage her foot, or Jalilah’s legs and sides. She heard shots. Marvelled at them. One seemed very close. Too close. She hadn’t expected that one. Her hands that one moment had been shaky now steadied on the .22 rifle. She had a job to do. This was her world, and this was one dingo who had to go.

  ‘All right—come on!’ Francesca muttered at the beast, in the process passing on courage to herself. ‘Come on!’

  The dingo needed no further urging. It leapt for her, as though she were no more than its next victim to be ripped to shreds, but Francesca, ice-cool, got off a single shot.

  The bullet sped to its mark, penetrating the rogue dingo’s brain.

  Hey, little one!

  Near startled out of her wits, Francesca swung her head sharply. She didn’t know the soft voice, but it was aboriginal. There was no one in sight, which her mind found unacceptable.

  Hey, little one, can you hear me?

  The voice came again. From where? The waterhole? The reeds were flattened over a wide area. The dingo had most probably torn through the area, snapping them off. It seemed to her for a trance-like moment that the grasses were stained with blood. She blinked, by now dumbstruck, and when she opened her eyes again the bloodstains were gone. Incredible! Her body rocked a little in the saddle. The heat and the kill. It was proving too much for her.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she called, trying to inject authority into her shaky voice. ‘Show yourself.’

  What did she expect? An aboriginal figure to slide out of the water and into her field of vision? The voice was aboriginal. No question. But now, to her further astonishment, the whole scene that had been bathed in a deep green gloom changed dramatically. The sun slanted through the high branches of the Red River gums, vividly illuminating the deep waterhole.

  Francesca sat her horse, confounded, watching ripples fan out wide over the water. There was no wind. No movement in the air. The branches of the trees were still. She felt as if she was having an out of body experience, but curiously she was not alarmed. Someone, some entity, was trying to tell her something. Make her pay attention. A vivid imagination was part of her. She had to accept that. It worked supremely well for her as an artist, but sometimes it could work against her. She listened a little longer. Nothing. She tried to remember who had called her little one. The ‘one’ had been clearly articulated. Taree Newton had always called her little ’un. It wasn’t Taree’s voice. Aboriginal, but more city-educated. She would have been very glad to see him, but Taree hadn’t come on the hunt. At his age, he wasn’t up to it. A memory long forgotten stirred, then as quickly faded out.

  ‘I’ll come back,’ she promised, though she couldn’t begin to explain why she said it, or to whom.

  The mare delicately skirted the body of the dead dingo, hoofs high, returning almost of its own accord along the rough trail Francesca had blazed. It wasn’t until she reached the open plain that she saw Carina, riding towards her as if a gang of cattle rustlers was hot on her trail. Her mount looked almost out of control, though Carina was an experienced rider. When she and Francesca met up, a hundred yards off, Francesca saw her cousin’s face was streaming with tears. Carina was sobbing, struggling for breath. In an instant Francesca’s heart went cold with fear. She had never in her life seen her cousin in such a state.

  ‘There’s been an accident,’ Carina gasped, swiping the wetness from her face, her hand like a washcloth. ‘Annette. She’s been shot.’

  ‘Dear God, no!’ A fine trembling started up in Francesca, spreading from her chest into her stomach and limbs. Had Annette been brought down by the shots that had preceded her own? Sick to the point where bile was rising to her throat, Francesca kicked her mare into action. Unless she had shifted out of the designated area, Annette should have been perfectly safe.

  Annette had been extremely lucky. The only reason she was still alive was at the last moment the man sent to terminate Francesca Forsyth’s life had realised he was targeting the wrong woman. Abruptly he had changed aim, so that the bullet glanced off her arm, high up, near the shoulder. Fool that he was, he had mistaken Annette Macallan for his target. The woman was of a height, with the same very slender build, and she was wearing the cream Akubra and the blue bandana he had been alerted to look for. Even when she had turned her head she had momentarily confused him. She was a beautiful woman, but at the very least twenty or more years older than his target. There would be no pay-off for killing the wrong woman.

  Swiftly Bormann had remounted, then ridden like the wind. When the woman was found he would be nowhere near her. Some of the others had got off a few shots. Hadn’t he and the Bitch been the ones to incite them? This whole thing was an accident. The woman could hardly say otherwise. She hadn’t even been aware of him.

  It was Bryn when he returned home—he had cut short his China trip—who hit on his own theory for the shooting ‘accident’. It came to him the instant his mother mentioned in passing that she had been wearing Francesca’s Akubra, and that Francesca had also lent her a blue bandana to protect the vulnerable skin of her nape. He took time to think it out. His mind searched for alternative explanations for the bizarre incident, but nothing carried the weight or the logic of his own scenario.

  Francesca had been the target. Not his mother. Not that he could alarm Francesca by telling her that. What proof did he have, anyway?

  His mother had started walking the length of the lagoon when she had heard shots being fired. There had been a lot of shouting as well. She had grown afraid. Everyone in the party had an alibi, if indeed an alibi was needed. He could be wrong. There were no witnesses to anything. Quite a few shots had been fired to flush out the animal. No one else believed for a moment it was anything but a near tragic accident. There was no reason in the world for anyone to want to hurt Mrs Macallan. She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The stray bullet had mercifully glanced off her shoulder. All the flowing blood had made the injury seem much worse than it actually was.

  His mother was already on her way to a full recovery, with Gordon Carstairs dancing attendance, seemingly unable to get back to work. Annette would bear a scar, but nothing cosmetic surgery couldn’t fix. Everyone on the station had been extremely upset. Carina had needed sedation, so severe had been her reaction. Francesca had astonished herself by taking charge. No police had been called in. It would have taken hours for them to get there in any case. Daramba had always looked after its own. A doctor well known to them had been flown in to attend to Annette.

  Even so, Carina had been quite right. Annette should have stayed back at the homestead, where she would have been perfectly safe. Francesca felt she had to bear a lot of the blame, though Annette wouldn’t hear a word of it.

  ‘My own fault, Francey,’ she said, gently holding Francesca’s hand. ‘You told me to stay put, not walk into the danger zone.’

  Still her son was not convinced. And what the hell was that? Carina requiring sedation? Carina and his mother had never got on. More likely Carina was hiding from a plan gone wrong. Bryn thought back to how at the end his gra
ndfather had come to believe his partner had got rid of Gulla Nolan. Frank Forsyth would have had his reasons. Gulla might have had something on him. It had been no accident at all. Carina had more than a dollop of her ruthless, unforgiving grandfather’s blood. And she was an excellent markswoman. When she’d realised she had the wrong target in her sights, she’d veered off before making her getaway. No one was likely to suspect let alone question a Forsyth. A woman, moreover, so distressed she had to be sedated.

  All the more reason to get Carina to admit it, Bryn thought. Francesca had to be protected at all costs.

  It was Elizabeth who gave him the lever. She was the one to unmask the mole in their midst. She had gone to Valerie Scott to ask for the schedule for any upcoming meetings Francesca was to have with those seeking potential grants. She had, in fact, fully expected to have the schedule on her desk that morning. Not finding Valerie in her place, Elizabeth had decided the schedule was most probably in a drawer. When it was not easily sighted amid the paperwork, Elizabeth had pulled out an entire drawer to give it a thorough search. It was then she’d come upon what she’d at first thought was a state-of-the-art mobile phone. She had never come across one like it.

  She was busy examining it, frowning in a troubled fashion, when Valerie returned from a visit to the restroom.

  Elizabeth looked up and met the other woman’s eyes. Immediately it struck Elizabeth like a bolt of lightning. Valerie Scott was their mole. It wasn’t simply Valerie’s violent flush that gave her away. Elizabeth had had her doubts about Mrs. Scott right from the beginning. Her loyalty could well have been given to her ex-lover’s immediate family and not to Francesca, whom she must have thought of as a usurper. Elizabeth was certain that with this sophisticated gadget Valerie Scott would have been able to monitor all of Francesca’s calls and pass on information. She might even have been able to relay the calls directly, for all Elizabeth knew. Right now it was a matter for security.