by Margaret Way
“Have you spoken to Granddad about it?” So many things he talked to her grandfather about. Why not her?
“In due time I’ll ask his advice,” he said, capturing and holding her gaze. “It’s you I’m telling first. You I wanted to be with me when I returned here. That’s the big reason I delayed.”
“Then I’m honored,” she said, her throat tight. “You’ve become quite a favorite with Granddad.”
Gold flashed in his dark eyes. “Joel and I connected easily. It could have been very different.”
“But you took the gamble?” Inside a voice said, leave this alone.
“I can’t deny that, Cecile,” he said, suddenly looking grave. “I was a different person then.”
“Is that likely, your changing so quickly?” she asked, unable to resist the challenge.
“I think falling headlong in love changes people pretty smartly,” he retaliated. “You say you Would have gotten around to breaking off your engagement to Carlson without my coming into your life. I have a little trouble believing that. I think your meeting me changed you overnight.”
“You’re so sure of yourself.” Cecile began to busy herself tidying up.
“How can I not be when I have you in my arms?” he countered, his voice deep in his throat. “Stop that. What are you so afraid of?” He reached out to lock his hand gently around her wrist.
“Let me go, Rolfe.” She trembled, as she said it..
“Why can’t you look at me? I feel like holding your head still.”
She stopped what she was doing. “All right, are you listening?” She reacted emotionally. “As soon. as you touch me I spin out of control. I don’t even know how to put a stop to it. You can’t fall madly in love with someone you hardly know.”
He laughed softly. “You’re not the first person to say that nor the last. Can’t you accept a great thing has happened to us?”
She looked away from his eyes. “I can accept something cataclysmic has happened to us, certainly to me, Rolfe,” she said more quietly, “but I have more difficulty accepting your dramatic change from a man hell-bent on exacting whatever revenge he can on my family to a recent convert. It’s like men in jail suddenly finding God.”
He stood up and looked down at her. “I think you better stop there.”
“So do I.” Her heart was going madly. She didn’t want to fight with him, but it was happening.
“And you’d better start questioning if you’re as much in love—or lust—or whatever the hell you call it—as you claim to be. Falling in love is a time of transformation. I know it if you don’t. You might also consider whether you’re not the least bit neurotic. The poor little rich girl always condemned to testing people. Is there anyone you can trust? Mightn’t that mean you haven’t sufficient sense of yourself? I love you. I’ll shout it out loud. I love you! But today, right now, I don’t even like you.”
Cecile too came to her feet. “Didn’t take you long to admit it,” she said angrily. “Maybe you have difficulty distinguishing love from hate? I’ll never forget the way you were looking at me when I was standing on the balcony at Daniel’s Wedding. It was so——” She sought for a word. “So…”
“Desiring?” he suggested curtly.
“I Was going to say, calculating. I saw that, Rolfe. I didn’t dream it up.”
“So I’m supposed to feel guilty for the rest of my life? Why can’t you just let a man be?”
“I’m sorry we started this conversation,” she said.
“You brought it up in the first place.”
“That’s right, blame me.” She rushed back up the step, catching the toe of her shoe in a split timber plank. “Damn!” She pitched forward and he caught her.
“Careful,” he said. “You are so trouble prone.”
She lifted her head, saw the tormenting little smile in his eyes. “Are you after the job of minder?”
“I’m after the job of husband,” he said bluntly, getting his arms around her. “Maybe I should keep you here like this until you say yes. My prisoner.” He bent his head and kissed her, not stopping until she was making little moaning sounds of surrender.
“I’d be shattered if you ever wanted to leave me,” she told him passionately. “Think about it, Rolfe.” She hit a hand to his chest. “You say you’re not going back to Argentina to live, but you might want to at some stage. It happens.”
“And you wouldn’t come with me?” He rocked her slightly.
“I could say my life is here.”
“If we married you would become my life,” he said, looking deep into her eyes. “As I would become yours. You mustn’t fear I’ll return to Argentina. I’ve already promised you I won’t.”
“So what happens now?” Cecile asked, feeling near helpless. “Where is this great tide of feeling going to carry us?”
“Toward the future, Cecile,” he said with great confidence. “Not the past. Think how terrible it would be if we parted. Do you really want that?”
No! “I’d never get over you,” she said, finally accepting whether it was safe or not, it was tme.
“Then you have to believe in me.”
THE ANSWER DIDN’T DROP out of the sky. That night Cecile stood at the French doors of her bedroom staring up at the great copper moon of the tropics. This was decision time. She had to make up her mind for good. She wanted Rolfe in her life. Indeed she couldn’t bear the thought of life without him. She was a child psychologist. She had studied and treated many kinds of conflicts that arose during the early years of life. As the granddaughter of a very rich man, she had virtually been programmed to look very carefully at the people around her before she offered her trust. Trust had become of paramount importance to her. She had suffered little betrayals over the years any number of times. But being left totally in the dark by the man she had come to love had crushed her. It had precipitated an emotional crisis, but to resolve it she had to get out from under. Rolfe, for his part, had been programmed from a blighted childhood to hate the family who had wreaked such painful trauma on his own. His mother apparently hadn’t known the full story, either, but it was certain she, too, hadn’t let go of her loathing of the Morelands. Looked at objectively, putting aside her own troublesome fears and anxieties, it was easy to see Rolfe had been made a victim, not once, but many times over. It was characteristic of a man not to want to talk. Men Walked away from talk, whereas the need to talk things through, sometimes exhaustively, came naturally to women. She had to take that into consideration. Rolfe had acted on his programming. She had acted on hers.
Their crisis had reached a peak. Resolution had to come from her. Hadn’t Rolfe confided with deep emotion that she had offered him redemption? Why doubt him? She understood so much about children and how their experiences formed them. Now she had to turn her clear professional regard on herself and Rolfe. The sins of her grandmother, Frances, could no longer be allowed to visit themselves on her and Rolfe. She was the one who had to take meaningful action.
“You have to believe in me!”
Their happiness together rested on that foundation. She had to start turning herself in another direction. There was no one else like Rolfe for her in the World.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE MONTHS SINCE Daniel and Sandra had left on their honeymoon had flown by on wings. The happy couple were due home in a couple of weeks. Their honeymoon trip—from all accounts glorious—had taken in all the great capital cities of Europe and had been extended when the newlyweds decided they wanted more time to explore the countryside of the various regions.
No sooner had they learned the details of the return flight home than Joel started planning a reunion party.
“Nothing big, around a hundred or so, Ceci. I’m sure Sandra’s bridesmaids would like to come. We can organize their tickets. Bea will want to be here. I’ll send the jet for her and your mother.”
“Don’t you think you should give Daniel and Sandra a little time to recover, Granddad?” Cecile asked. �
�There’s such a thing as jet lag.” Nevertheless she was as excited as her grandfather Daniel and Sandra were coming home.
Joel looked up from some property development plans he had spread out on the coffee table. “They’ll be fine, Ceci. They’re young.” He dismissed jet lag with a wave of his hand. “Let’s see. They’ll be home early morning of the Wednesday. We’ll plan it for the following Saturday night. What do you think?”
Cecile didn’t have the heart to say, “Wait a while!” Her grandfather was living his life as though every day was his last.
“Something else I wanted to talk to you about, my darling. Sit down now. Those flowers are just right.” Cecile had been twitching a dried oleander branch around her arrangement of orchids and Asian lilies in a celadon vase.
“I’m sitting.” She smiled at him affectionately and began to twiddle her thumbs.
“Serious now.” Her grandfather took another sip of his coffee and put it down. “I’m thinking of offering Rolfe much the same job he was doing so wonderfully well for his step-father. Breeding and schooling fine polo ponies for the international market. That means second in charge to Jock Lindsey at Lagunda. Jock has been with me for donkey years, as you know. He isn’t far off retiring. At that time Rolfe would take over. What do you think?”
A faint trembling began in Cecile’s hands and spread to her body. “It’s a lot to take in, Granddad. Have you discussed it with him?”
Joel shook his head. “Not as yet. I’m sounding you out first.”
That made sense. “On the face of it, Granddad, it sounds a perfect solution for both parties,” she said quietly, “but I don’t really know what Rolfe’s plans are.”
“Then you’d better find out, my darling,” Joel advised her. “Rolfe and I have discussed his idea of turning Currawa into a small working station and tourist destination. He told me he’d already discussed it with you. More and more tourists are visiting the Red Centre. Many like the idea of staying on an Outback station and getting an idea of Outback life. It could work well, handled the right way. But Rolfe’s got a wonderful way with horses. He said himself horses are his passion. What could be better than working at Lagunda? His stepfather will be very sorry to lose him, but I’m hoping his loss will be my gain. Of course if you’re against it, I know he won’t consider it.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Surer than you are apparently,” he said shrewdly. “Rolfe has been working very hard to restore your trust, my darling.”
“I know.” She touched her grandfather’s hand. “Both of us are working to iron out whatever problems we have left. The process is almost complete, but making that final commitment is a huge decision, Granddad. You weren’t happy in your marriage. Neither were my parents. I can’t hide the fact I love Rolfe. I don’t want to. I want to shout it aloud, but some part of me, down deep, is very sensitive to how marriages, even marriages founded on love, can fail.”
“Well, marriage is a big gamble for anyone, Ceci.” Joel sighed. “We all pursue happiness but it’s very elusive. The thing is, time passes. You can’t let your life slip by. You have to take action one way or the other. The failure of your engagement to Carlson was a setback. You’re too intelligent to set the stage for another failure. Rolfe is a very different man from Carlson.”
Cecile’s eyes glittered with the depth of her emotion. “I love him so much, sometimes I’m afraid of it.” She spoke the simple truth.
Her grandfather leaned back in his chair, deep understanding on his face. “Ah, Ceci,” he said. “With love there’s always the underlying fear of loss. Fear one party will profoundly change and cease to care. Fear of a third party entering the marriage to rock the boat. Fear of terrible things happening to the loved one. That happened to me with Jared. I started having bad dreams a couple of weeks before he was killed.”
“I didn’t know that, Granddad.” Cecile looked at her grandfather with compassion in her eyes.
“Sometimes I had such a tight feeling in my chest I thought I might have a heart attack, though I was only in my forties, very fit and strong. Still, that’s how I felt. Presentiments. Hordes of people have had them. I had an intense passion for Frances at the beginning. God knows why, but it faded fast. I suppose the things that mattered to me didn’t matter at all to your grandmother. She only pretended in the early days for my benefit. She told me that herself. We grew apart. I have to accept blame. There was always the pressure of business on me. It wasn’t that I was dedicated to making money. That wasn’t it. I had vision. I wanted to do good things. For the community, for the Territory, for my country.”
“You succeeded, Granddad. Have no fear. You’re an Outback icon. We’re all very proud of you.”
“And I’m proud of you, Ceci,” said Joel. “And Daniel, my fine grandson. Your mother, you and Daniel are the three most important people in my life. But I have to tell you I thoroughly approve of Rolfe. We get on like a house on fire. At times we seem like family. I sense he’s missed a grandfather figure in his life. I’m happy to be it. I would be absolutely delighted to welcome him into the family-which wasn’t exactly the case with Stuart.”
“Stuart turned on me very quickly,” Cecile said, disenchantment in her voice.
Joel shrugged. “Well, one couldn’t blame him for being tremendously upset. But he should have stopped there. Of course he was trying to discredit Rolfe in your eyes, but he can’t be allowed to put private business on the public agenda. You’ll have no trouble there. But getting back to Rolfe, I know I have to wait until you two make a decision regarding your future, but tell me this—could you consider life at Lagunda?”
The reality was she would consider Mars as long as she was with Rolfe. Yet she couldn’t commit herself at that moment. “I have to think about it, Granddad. Malagari is my favorite place, but I love Lagunda, too. It’s a different world.”
“Subtropical, glorious location, the Pacific ocean at your doorstep. Most people would think they’d died and gone to heaven if they lived there.”
“I know. But I’m still sorting out a few aspects of my life.”
“Of course. As far as Malagari goes, I need Daniel to take over the running of it. He’s a born cattleman. But Malagari will always remain the ancestral home. Half goes to you, half to Daniel. I know how much you love it. Lagunda, as you say, is a very different world, lush and green. Would you want to continue your career? It has its dangerous side. That’s been brought home to us.”
Cecile looked down at her ringless hands. “I trained hard for it, Granddad. I ’ve been able to help a lot of children. That was my aim.”
He looked pointedly at her. “You want children yourself?”
She flushed and looked up. “Of course I do. What a question! I love children.”
“Sorry. I know you’re very different from your mother. Justine always made the excuse that having more children was dangerous. It wasn’t true.”
“I know. Bea told me.”
He clicked his tongue. “Bea got wise to Justine early. She fooled the rest of us for years. In that sense I feel sorry for your father. This other woman, you like her?”
“Yes, I do.” It was no shock he knew they’d met. “I believe and I hope she and Dad will be very happy together. Life is too short to be unhappy.”
“Absolutely,” Joel said. “I can tell you something that would make me enormously happy.” His whole face lit up.
“Tell me, it’s yours!” Cecile felt a great wave of love.
“That’s a promise?” He leaned across the table and put out his hand.
“Yes, if I can.” She shook his hand.
“Then make me a great-grandfather someday soon,” he begged. “You and Daniel. I can tell you now I can’t wait.”
TWO DAYS LATER Cecile and Rolfe and Joel flew to Queensland, Joel’s pilot landing at the Gold Coast airport. From there they rented a car to drive to Lagunda in the beautiful hinterland. Jock and his wife, Valerie, welcomed them warmly. A delicious lunch wa
s waiting, and afterward Cecile, Rolfe and Joel made an inspection of the property—an entire world especially designed for horses——with Jock at the wheel of the 4WD. It was a-delightful trip. This was some of the prettiest country in Australia. The blue ranges formed a background for the lush green pastures; there was abundant wildlife, swans, ducks‘, even a couple of pelicans on a big spring-fed lake just deep enough for a horse to enjoy a dip. There was the tang of salt in the air as the wind blew in from the ocean.
In the white-fenced paddocks was the sweet familiar sight of horses galloping around the perimeter, full of the joy of life, tails and manes flying. Jock stopped from time to time to point out a special horse. Others, each as beautifully groomed as the next, trotted over to the fence to see what was happening and hopefully be petted. There were mothers standing in the paddocks with their foals, a heart-melting sight. The place was filled with incredibly beautiful horses, around three hundred at any given time. Back at the stables they looked in on the latest addition, a foal that had arrived just the previous night. A little colt, he was all legs with a bobtail that he flicked the minute he caught sight of them. Cecile waited long enough to see him cuddle up to his mother to nurse, his little tummy fast filling with milk. A feed, a satisfied sigh, then a nap.
The reason they had come was for Rolfe to make his own inspection, to see what he thought, and from there make a decision as to whether he wanted to take up Joel’s offer. He and Jock had hit it off immediately. If they hadn’t, there would have been a problem, but both had a relaxed manner and there was the great common bond of the love and deep knowledge of horses.