by Dorothy Cork
the muscled bareness of his back, and began to push at his chest, feeling his skin firm and exciting under her hands. 'Let me go—you said we had to talk.'
To her shocked surprise, he raised his head almost instantly.
`Oh God! Why do you do this to me, Edie?'
`Do what?' She almost sobbed it out. 'You're—it's
you You—you never mean what you say—'
`You're my wife,' he groaned. 'I've tried to forget it,
but I can't.'
`I'm not your wife—I took your name to do you a favour—'
`Edie.' He put his hands urgently on either side of her face and looked at her penetratingly through the darkness. She could feel his eyes probing into hers—into her very soul. 'Legally you're my wife. That's basic and I can't get past it. Five minutes ago I was angry —cold. Now you're in my arms and I want you—and you want me. Will you come to bed with me?'
Something inside her ached and ached. She longed to say yes, to lean her head against the nakedness of his chest, to have him lift her in his arms and carry her to the bedroom and make the most violent love to her. It was all she wanted in this life. Yet she loathed the idea of having him use her body if his heart belonged to someone else. ,
`No,' she said. 'No. Don't touch me !'
And then she hurt all through when his hands fell from her and he said with a contempt that ate into her heart like acid, 'The way you say that! When only this morning you as good as said you didn't want me to keep my hands off you. What's happened in the meantime?'
`Nothing,' she insisted. 'You were wrong, that's all. I don't want you to touch me—not ever again.'
Yet she did, she did—she wanted it more than anything. But how could she want it? She was nothing to him—even now he might be thinking about Laurel, remembering the feel of her body against his. Oh yes, Edie had read enough to know that men—and women —pretended they were in some other lover's arms even when they were carried away on a tide of passion.
But she wasn't going to have Drew Sutton ride out his passion on her with Laurel Clarkson in his mind.
She put her head up and reminded him unsteadily, `You said we'd forget we were married.'
`And I said it wouldn't be easy—and now I know it's damned well impossible,' he said between his teeth. `But okay, little virgin—I don't pretend to know what this is all about, but we'll play it your way. Run along —you can have that big bed all to yourself. You can curl up all by yourself and go to sleep. You will, I suppose,' he added scorchingly, 'without the slightest trouble.'
He stooped and picked up the bathrobe and flung it unceremoniously across her shoulders. 'Cover yourself up, for God's sake!'
Edie clutched the garment to her, her breath uneven, and all but ran back to the bedroom. She was in bed with clothes pulled up to her chin by the time Drew reached the doorway, and despite herself she stared back at him as he stood looking across at her.
`I suppose you have no idea what kind of a picture you make,' he said savagely, 'lying there with your dark hair spread out on the pillow and those beautiful eyes so wide and frightened. Do you think I'm such a brute I'm determined to—have my way with you, regardless of your wishes?'
Edie didn't answer. She could feel her heart beating violently against her ribs and she was positive he must
be able to see its movement under the light bedclothes. His chest gleamed darkly and his eyes glittered as though enchanting her, and she stared and stared at him, feeling faintly dizzy. The clamouring bells of her senses made her aware of an almost maddening desire to accept those broad shoulders, those narrow hips. She wanted his mouth on hers, his hands discovering her body—hers discovering his. Suppose he had deceived her? Suppose he was ready to make believe she was Laurel—why should she care, so long as they could lie together in the darkness discovering delight
Oh God! With a stifled groan she turned on her side away from the sight of him. She was sick—really sick —to keep thinking this way, as if she had no pride, no dignity—as if the gratification of the senses was all that mattered.
She heard him move further into the room, saw his shadow on the wall as he picked up soap and towel, heard the soft click of the door as he closed it behind him.
She lay as she was, on her side, half curled up, agonising. What would it be like to be properly married to him, instead of having to go through this subtle form of torture? Why didn't he just make love to her, if that was what he wanted? But he would, of course. She had only to say yes.
But she'd said no, and he'd accepted it. Or had he? Was it as simple as all that? Was he going to leave her alone tonight? She knew enough about him already to be aware his passion was easily aroused.
It seemed a lifetime before he came back from the shower.
`Are you asleep, Edie?'
She shook her head, not turning to look at him, though her heart leapt a little. He wasn't going to leave
her alone, and she was ready to turn to him when he said levelly, 'To set your mind at ease, we'll go home tomorrow. You'll have your own room there, and I shall be able to sleep in a bed.'
He switched out the light and she lay quivering, frustrated. He was going to lie down on the floor and she couldn't bear it. She was quite sure she had only to say, 'Don't sleep there—come into the bed', and he'd come. But of course she wasn't going to say any such thing. It would be worse—far worse—than what she'd said this morning.
All the same, half a minute later, she said it.
`Drew, don't sleep on the floor—please----'
His reply was a half smothered exclamation that made her recoil.
Tor God's sake, I've had enough trauma for tonight ! You've made your choice and I've accepted it. Just don't push your luck too far. Go to sleep and shut up.'
She didn't reply. She felt utterly humiliated.
Of course she couldn't go to sleep. Long, long after she could hear from his quiet even breathing that he was asleep, she lay restless in the big bed. She thought endlessly of Drew—and of Laurel. Perhaps they'd ended their engagement by mutual agreement—perhaps he'd really meant it when he'd said this morning they should get to know each other better before they took the serious step of making their marriage a real one. Yet how could she believe him when less than twenty-four hours later he was asking her to come to bed with him?
When finally she slept it was through sheer exhaustion.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE slept in late in the morning, and Mickie finally came in with breakfast on a tray and Woke her. Drew's pillow was on the bed beside hers, and a quick almost guilty look around assured Edie there was no sign he had spent the night on the floor. He had very evidently made sure of not giving himself away !
Did you sleep well?' Mickie asked, and Edie said she had, and hoped she didn't look as haggard as she felt.
`The men went out a couple of hours ago,' Mickie told her. 'Drew said you were so sound asleep he didn't wake you. They should be back any time now. It's a pity he wants to get back to Dhoora Dhoora so soon. I'd have loved to have you stay another day, but I guess there'll be other times.'
`Yes, of course,' Edie agreed automatically. She was relieved to know Drew wasn't about, that she wouldn't have to face him just yet, and give the appearance of being a happy bride. Much as she liked Mickie, she hoped they'd leave for home the minute Drew came in.
Mickie offered to lend her some clean clothes, but she refused with a show of gratefulness. 'There's no point really—we'll be home today, so I can make out.'
`Well, I'll leave you to dress,' the other girl said. `Have you had enough to eat? I'm afraid I took it for granted you weren't a big breakfast eater.'
`Oh, I'm not—I've had plenty,' Edie assured her, having found she had to force herself to eat even the
toast and marmalade Mickie had brought her.
Once she was alone, she climbed out of bed and looked at herself rather anxiously in the mirror. She hadn't slept well, and no amount of trying could persuade her
she looked like a happy bride who had spent the night in her husband's arms. Her face was pale and there were shadows under her dark eyes. Heaven knew how Mickie had interpreted her decidedly fragile air.
More to keep herself out of the way if Drew should come back than for any other reason, she took a shower and got back into her white jeans and T-shirt. She combed her hair and put on some lipstick, but as she hadn't brought her eye make-up with her there was nothing she could do to disguise those shadows. She was still at the mirror when she heard the sound of a motor, and the blood rushed to her face and then subsided. She felt she couldn't go out to meet Drew, not even for the sake of appearances. She would just have to make some excuse when she finally had to appear.
She folded the bedclothes slowly, and put the quilt back on the bed and was wondering what she could do next when Mickie came to the door.
`How's it going, Edie? The men are having a beer. Drew sent me to tell you to get a move on—he's just about ready to go.'
Edie gave her a bright smile. 'I'm sorry if I've kept anyone waiting. I was just tidying up a little.'
`That's sweet of you,' said Mickie. But you shouldn't have bothered.'
Drew got to his feet and came over to greet her like a loving husband as she came on to the verandah with Mickie. Nervously she watched him stride across to her, his silver-grey eyes examining her face so minutely and so intimately she wanted to disappear through the floor. All that had happened between them last night
seemed to unfold in her mind like the re-running of a film, and her feelings were in complete confusion as he put his arms around her and lowered his face to kiss her. He hadn't shaved, and the roughness of his jaw rasped against her soft skin and she felt a shiver go through her and wished in sudden despair that she was safely asleep again.
Only a few minutes later they had said goodbye and were on their way home, and in no time Edie became aware of the distance that existed between them. He had kissed her in front of the others, but now the coolness of his attitude was showing and it made her shrivel up inside.
`I hope you've enjoyed your taste of female company,' Drew said almost heavily after a silence that had lasted a long time. It had been getting on Edie's nerves, and yet she had found herself unable to break it, even though she was uneasily aware that he probably felt she owed him some explanation for her behaviour.
`Yes, I—I like Mickie,' she said with an effort at naturalness. 'She told me she and Damien have been here four years. I suppose you must all know each other pretty well.'
`Pretty well,' he agreed, his tone polite but still distinctly distant to her sensitive ears. 'Dame's a man I can trust implicitly, and I've a lot of time for Mickie. She's the sort of girl who gets on with almost anyone. There's no worse disaster in the outback than a woman who's a mischief-maker, and there isn't a malicious bone in her body.'
Edie digested this. He was right about Mickie. She was sweet—sweet and tactful, and it wasn't her fault she had told Edie something that Drew, evidently, hadn't intended she should know. She knew it would
be very mean of her now to mention Laurel Clarkson in any way that could make him suspect Mickie had been telling tales. Frowningly, she stared out at the pink and straw-coloured grasses woven together over the soft red of the earth. The golden gleam of wattle blossom and the flame of new gum tips against the sun caught her eye as he said laconically, `I'd cast you among the non-mischief-making group too, as a matter of fact.'
Edie felt herself start. That was a compliment, and somehow she hadn't expected him to have anything nice to say about her this morning.
`Would you?' she asked, and then added without really meaning to, 'I suppose you mean you trusted me not to tell Mickie about—about us. How we met, I mean,' she corrected herself hastily.
`I guess that's right,' he agreed. He didn't ask if she had told Mickie, so she didn't tell him. Instead she remarked with an oblique look at his profile, 'It must be nice to feel you can trust people like that.'
He turned his head and caught her eye. get the feeling you're telling me—and not very subtly either—that you don't trust me.'
She was telling him that—but her mistrust lay in a different direction from the obvious one.
`I'd like to know why,' he said reasonably. 'You seemed happy enough after we'd talked in the car yesterday. Now you appear to be having second thoughts. Is it too much to ask to know the reason?'
It was too much. She could hardly say, Mickie told me about you and Laurel Clarkson, so she said aloofly, `I don't have to explain myself to you. It's not as if we were—'
`Married? Engaged?' he suggested mockingly when she stopped. 'All the same, you're not being very co-
operative, are you? It does help a relationship if people are honest with each other.'
Honest! Edie thought cynically, and she almost laughed. He could talk about being honest! She said, `We don't have a relationship,' and she saw his eyebrows go up.
Tor God's sake, who do you think you're fooling? We have a relationship all right. Which reminds me—just don't invite me to share your bed again while you're feeling this way, will you? Next time, I might take you up on it—and spoil our relationship completely,' he finished grimly.
After that they didn't talk at all. Edie sat dumbly beside him wanting to cry and wishing she had never heard of Laurel Clarkson. It had poisoned everything —just at the moment when they had been getting on to a steadier footing. Now there was an unbearable tension between them. She thought of the peace of the flat back in Sydney—of Barb, of the patients she had nursed, of her quiet orderly life, and she felt a longing to be back there. She even thought of Joe and of how uncomplicated he was. But deep in her heart she knew it would be impossible to go back now. She would stay on here until the game was played out one way or another—till she won Drew or lost him. Though at the moment it looked very much as if she had lost him already.
Drew went out that afternoon without telling her he was going, or even saying goodbye to her. She only knew he had gone because she heard the car. Well, he could come and go as he pleased, she wasn't really his wife, as she had pointed out to him more than once. All the same she felt foolishly hurt, and when she had washed the lunch dishes, she spent the rest of the after-
noon sitting listlessly in the shade in the garden. She thought constantly about Drew and Laurel and with difficulty resisted, an impulse to go into that bedroom again. Once there, she would only torment herself with further thoughts of the two of them together. Instead she tried to think out why on earth Laurel had left him. It was incomprehensible.
He was back home earlier than she expected him, and he came straight out to the garden in search of her. He stopped within a few feet of where she sat and she looked up, her heart beating fast, to find him smiling at her distantly.
collected the mail from the box on my way home, Edie,' he said briskly instead of greeting her. 'I'll be sorting it out in the office, so if you like to come along presently you can collect anything that's arrived for you.'
`Thank you,' she said stiffly, almost hating him for his politeness.
`Did you have a restful afternoon?' he asked, his eyes expressionless.
`Yes, thank you,' she said again, and hoped her bitterness didn't show on her face.
He went, and she waited almost half an hour before she went inside. She hoped a little wistfully that there would be a letter from Barb, but she didn't expect to hear from anyone else, as no one knew where she was. The office door was open and Drew sat at his desk, absorbed in a letter he was reading. He had sorted the mail into various piles and she was amazed to see how much of it there was. There were parcels and packets as well as letters, and as she waited for him to acknowledge her presence, she pondered on them, and decided they must be for all the stockmen and various people who worked on the station. Drew would have to take
the mail out to the muster camp—or down to the stockmen's bungalows.
She moved slightly and he looked up, his grey eyes
abstracted.
`Oh, you're there. Only one letter for you, Edie,' he said, and handed it to her absentmindedly.
`Thank you,' she said automatically. She hesitated a moment, but he had returned to his own correspondence, and rather frustratedly she went back through the house to the side verandah and stood there to read her letter. It was from Barb, of course, but as she read it only half her mind was on it. The other half was back in the office with Drew, and she was picturing that faraway look in his eyes and wondering who his letter had been from. She knew so little about him—it was almost nothing. She knew the names of only a few people in his life—his aunt Anne, his cousin Greg —Laurel—
She blinked away her fancies and forced her attention back to her own letter, but had to start reading it again. Barb had received her note from Narrunga but was plainly concerned about what was going on. `Honestly, Edie,' she read, 'you shouldn't play on my nerves this way. One little note that tells me exactly nothing. What's happening? I'm getting worried—I mean it. I feel guilty about having let you do such an idiotic thing. What kind of guy is this cattleman if he's not what we expected? For heaven's sake, let me know. And if he's not rushing you to the altar, as you said, then what's going on? Please write.
`You might be interested to know that Joe's been to the flat several times. He wants to know where you are and he's threatening all sorts of things if I don't tell him, soon. He's a nice bloke, Edie—I think he really does want to marry you. I wish you'd come back, and
though what you decide is up to you, of course, it seems to me it's the most sensible thing to do.' The remainder of the letter was chit-chat about the hospital and various mutual acquaintances, and Edie skimmed through it rather quickly. The old life seemed very far away and very unreal, and the fact that Joe was apparently having second thoughts about marriage didn't interest her at all. But she was sorry Barb was so worried—she had repeated that in a postscript—and she promised herself she'd write to her that night. What exactly she'd tell her, she had no idea. The truth wasn't going to be very reassuring, that was certain !