'Don't have too many late nights while you're in Sydney, Wade.'
'Sydney?' Vicki's anger rose, then suddenly dissolved into something she couldn't name, unless it was fear. Her voice came quite shrill as compulsively she stared at Wade. 'You were there only a few weeks ago.'
He replied curtly, glancing quickly at the others, as if impatient of their presence, 'You know, Vicki, I have to go there often—on business.'
'Yes.' Trying desperately to control herself, she subsided. Catching Miss Webb's faintly malicious smile, she realised she must have betrayed herself, yet the fact that Wade's wife was obviously among the last to learn of his departure didn't seem important any more. She felt deserted, that she was to be left on her own again. She even felt frightened—frightened and strangely heartbroken. 'How long will you be gone?' she gulped.
'Business shouldn't keep me longer than two or three days.' He stared at her narrowly.
'I'll wager you have other interests that will,' the Old Man broke in with a mischievous glance in Vicki's direction.
Other interests? Vicki felt a horrible coldness gripping her by the throat and felt suddenly ill again. The Old Man needn't spell it out, she had no need to ask! What a fool she had been to let herself hope, and this, she realised, was what she had been doing all along. She wasn't sure what exactly she had hoped for, but whatever it was it had suffered a crushing blow. Love and resentment warred within her, the latter winning, so that when she felt Wade's eyes on her she refused to look up.
Wade neither confirmed or denied his grandfather's sly digs regarding his stay in Sydney. Instead he said firmly, 'I'm taking you and Graham out after lunch, Vicki. I want to assure myself you haven't forgotten how to ride. You were good but inclined to be reckless, and in some ways I don't feel you've changed much.'
Why did she feel it wasn't just her riding he referred to? It must be a sign of something that he was prepared to spare her an hour of his valuable time. Most probably he merely wanted to be satisfied she was capable of being left in charge of Graham.
Before she could speak Miss Webb intervened. It was the first time she had opened her mouth to say anything during the meal, and then it was coolly. 'Graham usually has a little rest after lunch. I'm not sure we can manage.'
Wade smiled at her, quite indifferently. 'I'm going to give you the afternoon off, Miss Webb. I think you deserve it, and I'm sure Graham will suffer no harm if he misses his rest now and again. I'm sure you'll find some-'. thing to fill in your time until we come back.'
It was astonishing that Miss Webb made no further demur. Vicki stared at her, as if willing her to find other objections, but all the nurse said was that she would get Graham ready.
Vicki wanted to refuse Wade's offer urgently, to remind him how, when he had literally dragged her from Melbourne, her entertainment had never been on the schedule he had planned for her. Of course he hadn't said it was for this reason he had arranged the afternoon. Very probably she would find it far from entertaining.
When he asked curtly if she had done any riding since she had left she could have wept that he made no attempt, in front of Miss Webb, to hide that they had been apart. For all she lost patience with herself for caring she answered sharply, 'Don't worry, I shan't make a nuisance of myself by being thrown.' She almost added—which will eliminate any possibility of having to keep me here longer than necessary, with broken bones! There was something about the set of his mouth, however, that warned her that such observations might be better kept to herself. A faint hope of a last-minute reprieve came to her. 'What about your grandfather?' she tried to be tactful. 'He might want me here.'
'I can manage,' the Old Man grunted, not for a moment deceived. If I die while you're gone I'm not going to take any harm until you get back.'
Wade snapped harshly, as if this was the last thing he cared about, 'Jeff's here, and Miss Webb.'
Vicki forbore to point out that he had given Miss Webb the afternoon off. She had long since realised the futility of arguing with him, so just confined herself to staring at him resentfully.
He rose to his feet. 'I've just one or two things left to see to. You'd better get one of the girls to put up a cool drink for Graham and something to eat. We might be gone some time.'
For all he said this, Vicki had not expected they would be going any great distance because of Graham's age. She was startled, therefore, to find they were taking the helicopter and there was no sign of any horses.
'You said riding!' she exclaimed, frowning at him over Graham's small, wriggling body.
'So I did he replied shortly, 'and so we are. Maybe you didn't hear me mention that the boys are busy combing out the wild country for strays. Well, that's where we're going. We can pick up three horses there.'
I don't know why you're doing this,' she attacked him tautly. 'I wouldn't have come, but' she couldn't go on until she'd taken a very deep breath, 'there's something I want to speak to you about and there might not be another chance, as you're going away.'
'Really?' His voice was taunting, the expression in his eyes savagely mocking as they went slowly, assessingly over her. They seemed to strip her coldly and, by direct contrast, her whole body went hot. 'When I suggested this trip it was for Graham's amusement. I'm taking the chopper because of his age. Wherever we go we can't be away long, but I think he's already explored many of the creeks around the homestead.'
Yes, but'
He cut in ruthlessly, 'Whatever you have to say to me will have to wait until we're alone or he's at a safe distance.'
Already Graham was looking from one to the other, a little of his excitement giving way to bewilderment as he sensed, without understanding, that his parents were quarrelling. It was a perception which must be born in children as he had never known two parents until recently. In spite of her love for him Vicki found herself regarding him with an impatience she had to stifle. Glancing at Wade again, she agreed sullenly. 'Oh, all right. Perhaps it's just as well we'll soon be back. I realise you must be busy, what with having to arrange your trip tomorrow, as well as everything else.';
T didn't arrange anything,' he replied cryptically.
She looked down at her tightly clasped fingers, none the wiser, finding it impossible to look for Clues in the dark hardness of his face. Suddenly she dared not look at him. Her memories of last night, while wrapped in a hazy veil of sensuous sensation, were too recent. Something in her face, she feared, would betray her, if she were to meet his devious glance too often. It was strange, she thought, how for over four years memories seemed all she had had to cling to. For her there had never been the rosy hopes for the future on which most people based their most constant reflections. With a painful sigh she turned to her small son, putting her arm protectively around him as the helicopter veered.
That Graham was obviously not scared at all and was thrilled to the tips of his small boots seemed just something else to hold against Wade. Vicki's distraught face closed up as she glanced down at his dancing excitement.
'Was this really necessary?' she asked quickly, as Wade bent enquiringly towards her. It's only going to make everything more difficult for him, one day soon.'
Wade didn't pretend not to understand what she meant, and his eyes narrowed slightly. 'I didn't say anything about his leaving.'
As he placed a heavy emphasis on his second last word, Vicki felt herself shake. So her suspicions could be right? Wide with an unspoken accusation, her eyes flew to his and she saw in them all the old cruelty.
Becoming aware of Graham's sulky face gazing at her, she was ready to decide tearfully that he was beginning to dislike her as much as Wade obviously did. Realising this, she was quite prepared to hear him say crossly, 'Graham's staying at Baccaroo, Mummy.'
'I'm staying——' she automatically corrected him, and was startled when Wade apparently busy with the controls, retorted tersely, 'You'd better wait until you're asked.'
They reached the camp by mid-afternoon and the horses were already waiting
.
There was a small pony for Graham. 'I had it brought up with the stock horses,' Wade told Vicki briefly, his face still hard, as though the harshness of his last remark still lingered between them.
There was not a great deal to be seen at the stock camp and she was relieved when they mounted and left, glad to escape from the constant admiration in the cook's eyes as they rested on her while he ostensibly helped the boss. Wade had told them on their way here that his grandfather had always been very insistent about hunting out cattle that wandered away from the main herds and took to living wild. It had certainly been almost an essential way of supplementing income in the harder times the McLeod family had known. The Old Man was still keen, so was Jeff Curry. Wade confessed to occasionally enjoying a few days spent this way himself, but Vicki doubted if it was to indulge his grandfather.
As they rode off she heard Wade explaining to Graham, who seemed to understand such things, that they brought on such expeditions plenty of stock horses and a small mob of quieter cattle. Then the men would ride into the thick bush-covered gullies and creeks to find the wild ones. Sometimes they might be forced to chase some of these animals for miles, until the beast eventually turned on them. Then the rider had to fling himself off his horse and pull it down, then tie the cow or bull's legs together. After this the man would return to base camp and bring back a few. of the tamer cattle. Usually the captured animal, once its leg ties were removed, would allow itself to be driven with the others back to camp.
Vicki wondered, listening to Graham's many questions, why Wade didn't mention the danger. Unhappily she was aware, as she had been once before, that she could be jealous. She noticed how Graham's. interest was wholly caught by what his father was telling him, that his reactions were entirely different from the childish if innocent boredom he had usually displayed when she had talked to him of her days at the shop.
'Don't you think you should point out how dangerous it is?' she said stiffly. 'Flinging yourself off a horse to grab a wild bull by its tail?'
'They aren't always bulls, or terribly wild.' Wade shot her a comprehending glance, glinting with ironic amusement 'Perhaps he's been shielded a bit too much. You can't recognise danger if you don't know it exists. But it will be years yet before he can go chasing after anything on his own.'
As if to demonstrate that he wasn't as irresponsible as she made out he kept Graham on a leading rein, refusing to let him off even when the boy objected. 'You're on a strange pony,' he said. 'He's not what you've been used to.'
Vicki, her eyes going from the man, so tall in the saddle, to the young child by his side, wasn't sure she was pleased at the way Graham rode. For a four-year-old he was quite remarkable and she supposed such an aptitude must be in his blood. Despairingly she reflected that while the way Graham was shaping constantly delighted old Mr. McLeod and earned his father's approval, it failed to bring her the same satisfaction. More and more his father and great-grandfather would be determined he should never leave Baccaroo. She was not so certain of Wade, but there seemed to have been a different light in his eyes when he had looked at Graham lately. Desperately Vicki hoped she was mistaken.
There could be no disputing that the country here was wild. There was something about it which thrilled Vicki yet made her shiver. Maybe because it was so hard and ruthless it bred men, who of necessity were made the same way— otherwise they might never survive. She had, for all its harshness, come to love it, but some parts, she thought wryly, were worse than others. At the homestead this was always referred to as the wild country. It was here that cattle often strayed. They could be lost for months, sometimes years, until there was a need or inclination to hunt them out. Occasionally small planes were used for this purpose nowadays, but horses were often the only satisfactory way of completing the job.
Once Wade had brought her out here for a couple of days. She had enjoyed every minute of it. He didn't ask if she remembered, so she didn't mention it. One part of that short expedition was better forgotten, anyway.
She recalled that it had been very hot and they had found a half wild steer and chased it through the bush. She had lost her hat and had stopped. Wade had noticed immediately and left Jeff to get on with the chasing while he had turned back to help her retrieve it.
There had been a trickle of water in a dried-up creek bed, only a trickle, but she had begged to be allowed to rinse her hot face in it, after they had found her hat.
As he had nodded she had dismounted-and Wade had slid from his own horse to watch her. He had walked- over to her, glancing at her closely, with an intentness she had found disconcerting. Then, to her astonishment, as she got to her feet again, he had reached for her, and drawn her into his arms.
It had been a terrible shock to her over-excited heart as he had pulled her close and buried his face against her warm young neck. She had only to close her eyes to feel still the heat from his body, the overwhelmingly sensuous feeling which had shot through her as he had crushed her to his sweat-soaked chest. She had found herself clinging to him as his arms had suddenly tightened. He had picked her up, with a thickly muttered exclamation, and began carrying her deeper among the trees. Her clinging hands had wrapped themselves around his neck and she had ' turned up her mouth, searching blindly but instinctively for his. Then the enraged steer had broken through on them.
Even now, although trying to convince herself it didn't matter, she found herself wondering what would have happened if the beast hadn't doubled back. She recalled how, as if suddenly coming to his senses, Wade had almost thrust her away from him. It had been a long time before he had touched her again. That had been early in their marriage.
Jerking back to the present, she heard Graham crying that the boulders they were passing were on fire. She smiled. This was exactly what she had thought herself when she had first come out here. Both the sandy scrub and mountains of Central Australia were the colour of terracotta. This was the red centre, the hundreds of miles of desert and semi-arid plains which made up a lot of the great Outback, the land of the never-never! This was a part of the huge continent where a torrential rain of twelve inches or more could be followed by three years of drought. And, with no rain at all, cattle could begin dying in their hundreds.
Today, with the heat rebounding off the dried-up earth and rocks, she wondered how Graham stood it after the almost English climate of Melbourne. 'Are you all right?' she asked anxiously, but he never so much as blinked a sandy eyelash, as he nodded his head.
Funny, she reflected, those thick, camelhair lashes were all Graham appeared to have inherited from her. In everything else he was Wade. A deep depression smote her. This wasn't something "she hadn't known, but coming here had made it infinitely worse. When eventually she managed to escape with him, every time she looked at him she would see Wade, the husband who didn't want her. How, she asked herself desperately, would she ever learn to live with it? Before it hadn't seemed to matter so much, but it was different now.
The creek Wade took them to was the same one she had just recalled, but she couldn't believe he had brought her here deliberately. Today there was a little more water in it, but it was still no more than a few feet across. Graham protested he would rather try to catch a wild cow, but his father said he must content himself by the pool, that there would be no wild 'cows' for him until he was much older.
Wade chose a spot where there was shade from trees. It was sparse, but it was shade and a welcome relief. With a relieved sigh Vicki sank down under one of the overhanging branches, the tiredness which had pursued her since she had got up coming over her again. She didn't realise how very young she looked in her brief shirt and tight pants, her hair falling heavy, and silken on either side of her clear-cut, unblemished face.
Graham, resigning himself, to the water, splashed happily. After seeing to the horses, Wade had a word with him before coming over to stare down at Vicki. ' 'Tired?'
Something in his eyes caused her to flush warmly. 'I don't know why you ask,
' she retorted mutinously. 'You know I'm never tired.'
'I don't know anything of the sort,' he rejoined coolly. I seem to remember when you and Graham first arrived you were very tired indeed. If I hadn't insisted you had plenty of rest you wouldn't have made such a good recovery. As it is, I still see you occasionally looking too pale.'
She doubted if he ever really noticed, although she did admit how, after finding her on the point of collapse on the day she had been cleaning her bedroom, he had looked after her, even if his usual harsh manner hadn't changed. For a while, until she had grown stronger, he had often been around. Now, as he settled his long length beside her, she wished he would take himself away. She had no desire to have an unrestricted view of his broad chest, as he unbuttoned his shirt against the heat and lay back with his arms negligently behind his head.
'I'm going to ask you something else,' he resumed dryly, when she didn't speak. 'I'd like to know what's eating you this afternoon. Apart from a smouldering sense of injustice, which is obvious a mile off, I'm convinced there's something else. Correct me if I'm wrong, madam, but I don't think so.'
Staring away from him, she found herself unable to deny it. 'No—you're right, but I don't know why I should have
to put it into words.' She kept her voice down so Graham wouldn't hear. He was young enough to be fond of repeating things and she didn't want him filling Miss Webb's ears.
'Put what into words?' Wade's voice was low, too, but infinitely savage.
Beneath his hard eyes she almost hadn't the nerve to go on. She nearly didn't, but it was bursting to be out, she couldn't seem to do anything to stop it. Her cheeks were scarlet as she opened dry lips. 'Why did you send Miss Webb with my tea this morning? It's not something you usually concern yourself with. I don't think I shall ever be able to look her in the face again!'
'It was what you wanted, wasn't it?'
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