An Outback Affair/Runaway Wife/Outback Bridegroom/Outback Surrender/Home To Eden

by Margaret Way

  “That’s a bit of an exaggeration, Mum,” Mitch said, effortlessly maintaining his balance on the two legs of his chair.

  “Not much. They brought her into town for lunch. The parties are kept for Amanda. Shelley must be terribly hurt the way her mother and father favour her older sister.”

  “You mean they broke her heart,” Christine replied without hesitation. They all knew the story of the Logans. “Shelley was punished for surviving when her twin, Sean, didn’t.” Sean had been the boy and Pat Logan’s pride and joy. “That was a tragedy.”

  “It had a dreadful impact on the family.” Julanne looked sad. “Little Shelley took the blame for her big sister. The twins were six. Amanda was eleven. She should never have taken them down to the creek.”

  “I always had it in my mind that Amanda wandered off and left them,” Christine said. “But she told a different story. One that made Shelley out to be a very naughty, disobedient little girl. That wasn’t the way I saw it. Shelley was such a cute little thing—bright as a button, red hair on fire and the most beautiful big green eyes. I remember her as being quite motherly with Sean. It was lovely to see.”

  “Then he died.” Julanne sighed sadly, and tender-hearted Christine momentarily closed her eyes. “Drowned. I suppose we’ll never know the truth of it,” she reflected. “They still work the property, but Pat’s heart went out of it when he lost his boy. They were really struggling until Shelley got the bright idea to take in tourists.”

  “Really? When did this happen?” Christine enquired.

  “A year or so ago. It’s an ‘Outback Encounter’ kind of trip. The station hosts a small party of guests at a time. It gives tourists a taste of the real Australia. Shelley’s really very clever. But the family work her too hard. She does all the cooking, organizes the activities, while Amanda sits around in the evening looking pretty. It’s not cheap, but the meals are excellent, the accommodation is comfortable, and Shelley works very hard to make the trip memorable. They’re never short of visitors. They attract Europeans and Japanese mostly.”

  “Taking in tourists is keeping their heads above water,” Mitch remarked. “All due to Shelley, though she doesn’t get much praise for herself from dear Daddy, no matter how hard she tries. If you want to invite Shelley, and I think you should, you’ll have to invite Amanda as well, otherwise they’ll all give Shelley hell.”

  “So things don’t change?” Christine mused, shaking back her drying mane.

  “Not with the Logans. The family was destroyed by Sean’s death and Shelley was sadly made the scapegoat.”

  In the end they made a list of twenty young people who would fit in perfectly. The numbers included quite a few of Mitch’s polo pals, a fact Christine commented on.

  “It’s a way of life out here,” he pointed out, as though that guaranteed their invitation to the party. “You of all people shouldn’t object, Chris. You used to love watching the game.”

  “And that’s what I had to do. Watch. I wanted to play.”

  “You were such a daredevil you’d have been hurt.”

  “And you weren’t?” Her eyes flew to his in challenge.

  “The sport is too dangerous for a woman, Chrissy. I couldn’t have borne to be around had something happened to you.”

  Her eyes, incredibly, stung with tears. She looked down, blinking them away. “You can’t imagine how that comforts me. Now, who’s this? Tony Norman?” She took refuge in consulting the list.

  “You’ll like him.” Julanne patted her arm. “He’s the overseer on Strathmore. Very likeable and good fun.”

  “My life has changed so much. I haven’t kept up with anybody.” Christine lamented.

  “Yeah, well, we all know that.” Mitch’s voice was bone-dry. “But everyone will be very curious to see you.”

  “We’d better get cracking, then!” Christine sprang up with enthusiasm. Her own mother hadn’t suggested a party but Julanne had. “I want you to know I love you, Julanne.” Affectionately she dropped a kiss on Julanne’s head, before disappearing through the open French doors into the house.

  “I tell you what you have to do, my darling,” Julanne said broodingly to her son. “You have to win that girl back.”

  Mitch’s attractive voice rasped. “How sorry do you want me to be the next time, Mum?” He rose restlessly, shoving back his chair before moving to the white wrought-iron balustrade where he stared fixedly at the landscape. The sheer incandescence of it!

  “In no time at all Chris will want to return to her glamorous world—the Manhattan apartment, the soap star, being famous.” He turned back to his mother, as though reminding her. “She’s no ordinary woman. She’s a supermodel. Look at her! God, the polish she’s acquired! She’s been working at it for years. I don’t know about schoolboys, but most men’s mouths would fall open when they see her pass by. She’s got such flash all around her. So don’t get up any false hopes. I couldn’t go through it again. I’m happy enough just the way I am. Free from emotional pain.”

  Even as he said it he thought that one night alone with Christine would be worth all the agony. His body was crying out for her. Having her in his home, right under his nose, was both heaven and hell. Just how much punishment was a man supposed to take?

  He hadn’t learned a darn thing.

  It was wonderful when they all came together—the friends Christine had left behind, laughing and joking, reminiscing about the life they had shared, the childhood friendships that had been so strong. Everyone was relaxed and comfortable from the moment they arrived, secure in the knowledge that they could party all night if they wanted to because they were all staying over. The girls were to be accommodated at the homestead, while the young men could find a bunk at the staff quarters.

  Ten couples in all had been invited, so Julanne had decided on a sit-down dinner rather than a buffet. The antique oak table in the formal dining room could seat twenty-four when fully extended, and Julanne, a born hostess, with too few occasions to go to town on entertaining, loved to use it.

  Kyall and Sarah, looking simply beautiful in an ice-blue sequinned slip dress, arrived first, flying in with other guests they had picked up en route. Among them were the Logan girls, Amanda and Shelley, and the Saunders brothers, who were members of Kyall’s polo team, as was Mitch. The McIvor girls, in sparkling form, arrived by helicopter, as did Terry and Alex Cooper. The rest made the trip overland, arriving in T-shirts and jeans and making the transition to party gear hours later. Everyone came to see their homegrown superstar, Christine, and to have fun.

  Christine didn’t disappoint. She wore a dream of a dress that produced appreciative oohs and aahs and shrieks of laughter as she gave an over-the-top catwalk demonstration. Made of layers of floaty whisper-weight silk chiffon, the dress was patterned in floral swirls of pink and violet, blue and lime-green. The long, softly tiered skirt was asymmetrical, falling from knee height to the ankle, the neckline of the slip top dipped deep, and her high-heeled gold sandals showed off her lovely feet and legs.

  “A marvellous dress for the heat.” Amanda Logan, who had lots of fantasies revolving around the extremely hard-to-get Mitch Claydon, tossed her blonde head challengingly, thinking that the dress must have cost a couple of thousand dollars at least. She’d been well pleased with the way she looked—decidedly sexy—until she caught sight of Christine. She was stunning, of course—Amanda had seen all the pictures in the magazines—but much too tall. And why she would want to wear stiletto heels was a mystery!

  “Or alternatively she could start a heatwave of her own.” Mitch cut in on Amanda, sparkling eyes sweeping over Christine in a way Amanda definitely didn’t like. “That’s some dress!” he told Christine, not bothering to hide his male appreciation. “I don’t think you should ever take it off.”

  Julanne looking into her huge living room, embraced the colourful scene. Everyone looked happy. All the young women—she had known them from childhood—had gone to a good deal of trouble to look their bes
t. Their dresses were very pretty. Julanne loved the romantic look currently in vogue—it was just the thing for a summer party.

  Amanda’s was perhaps a touch too provocative—a scarlet mini-dress fringed with beads and revealing a little too much creamy bosom. Amanda was a very pretty young woman—though she didn’t have a tenth of Shelley’s character—and Julanne was perfectly well aware she had had her sights set on Mitch for some time. She’d already given him a very showy kiss when she’d arrived.

  The young men, all friends of Mitch and Kyall, were considerably smartened up from their everyday uniform of denim shirts and jeans. They wore soft summer-weight suits with trendy dress shirts and silk-woven ties.

  Dinner went off perfectly. Julanne, helped by Noni, their housekeeper, had a lot of fun serving up the delicious menu they had worked out: a banquet of fresh seafood flown in especially for the party from the tropical north of the state. They all dined regularly on the best of station beef, lamb, pork, veal and game, but seafood wasn’t readily available on the desert fringe. Consequently all the compliments that were forthcoming had Julanne flushed with pleasure.

  There were oysters in champagne sauce, stir-fried crab cream, magnificent ocean prawns served with a sauce of Indian spices, sea scallops wrapped with grilled bacon and served with a red wine sauce, and as a centrepiece superb Red Emperors—one of the great eating fish of the world—steamed in banana leaves with papaya chilli and coconut salsa.

  Afterwards, for anyone who could fit it in, there was dessert of either passion fruit and citrus salad sorbet, or peppered pineapple with vanilla ice cream. Everyone, with the exception of three of the girls who complained pleasurably that they would have to go on a diet for a week, fell on the offer.

  “How do you manage to eat so much and stay so slim?” Amanda asked Christine, looking thoroughly bewildered. Amanda, who wasn’t a great one for exercise, tended to put on weight easily.

  “One of the pluses of being tall.” Christine threw Amanda a smile, aware she had been observing her closely all evening. “But I do watch my diet and I work out. This is a very special occasion. It’s a lovely banquet and everything tastes so good!” Christine grasped Julanne’s arm as she was passing. “Thank you so much, Julanne. You’re so good to me. I’ll never forget.”

  “Didn’t I hold you when you were a baby?” Julanne answered, looking well pleased. “Kyall too.” Julanne smiled fondly at Christine’s brother and his beautiful fiancée Sarah beside him.

  “My mind flies back to the time Mitch and Chris, Sarah and I thought it would be wonderful to find the ‘Claydon Treasure’,” Kyall said, putting his hand over Sarah’s. “We all got lost following some old map Mitch offered as proof of the treasure’s existence.”

  “I remember that as if it were yesterday.” Mitch smiled, his tanned face and golden hair seeming to attract all the light. “There is a treasure. No joke. Mum, why don’t you sit down and tell us about it?” he begged.

  “I’m sure most of you know.”

  “Please, Julanne,” Christine urged. “Even I don’t know the whole story.”

  “I don’t know it at all,” Shelley Logan joined in.

  “Heavens, you were a toddler when they went on that search,” her sister reminded her tartly. “Darling Sean was still alive.”

  Shelley’s expression went from vivid to stricken, and the whole table—with the exception of her own sister—seemed to gather around her.

  Christine smiled in empathy at this young woman who’d had to cope with that sort of thing for most of her life. Shelley looked so fragile—she was a petite five foot three—but from all accounts she was the rock of the Logan family. Christine, the experienced fashion model, realised that with very little effort Shelley, with her porcelain skin, big green eyes and explosive mop of red-gold curls, could be made to look quite beautiful. But it was Amanda’s saucy red dress and red satin slingbacks that had cost the money, not Shelley’s pretty outfit that made her look like a teenager. There was something about Shelley Logan that tugged at the heartstrings.

  Pressed on all sides, Julanne sat down, launching into the tale of the Claydon “Treasure”.

  “We’re going back to the 1840s now, when Edward Claydon, a well-to-do native of England, his wife Cornelia and his young family of two sons and two daughters took up a great selection of some three hundred thousand acres on the fertile tablelands of the Darling Downs—which, as you know, is some one hundred and sixty kilometres west of Brisbane.

  “These days the Darling Downs are known as the granary of Queensland, but in the early days settlers like the Claydons raised sheep, which they drove overland from the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. It was Edward Claydon’s intention, like many another adventurer who made the long dangerous sea trip, to come to this country and establish his own dynasty. And when there was a serious outbreak of disease among sheep in those early years he undertook to move himself, his family and his healthy flock of ten thousand sheep and one thousand cattle much farther on. Here to Marjimba, in fact, which was about as far away as he could get.

  “Here he settled. Here he prospered, with no threats from the aboriginal people on his vast selection. The threat came instead in the form of a bushranger called Paddy Balfour, an escaped convict servant who took over a twenty-man gang called ‘Balfour’s Bunch’ and spent a number of years—until he had the brains to quit—roaming the bush.

  “The gang’s main target was new South Wales, but as the reward on his head kept increasing Balfour and his bunch headed for South-West Queensland. They held up quite a few settlers living in isolation, so Edward Claydon decided to get together all the gold he possessed, as well as his wife’s jewellery—most of it inherited from her rich merchant-class English family—and hide it from Balfour and his criminal bunch. The only trouble was Edward neglected to tell anyone where he buried the treasure.

  “His fears about being robbed by the gang, though understandable, were never realised. The gang broke up after two of the party were shot dead by the terrified wife of a small settler who had been left alone while her husband was away droving. At almost the same time Edward was killed by a horse thief who returned his fire. When the family began to recover from their sudden violent loss they started to wonder about the treasure.”

  “And they’ve been wondering to this day,” Mitch said, looking very handsome and relaxed.

  “And the map?” Shelley’s green eyes were huge.

  “It took us two miles away from the homestead before we were forced by heat and weariness to abandon the adventure.” Mitch smiled. “Chrissy couldn’t keep up.”

  “That’s not the way I remember it.” Christine’s eyes touched his in mock challenge. “I could keep up with you, Mitch Claydon, any time. How old were we, Sarah?”

  “You were the youngest, at nine.” Sarah smiled. “Kyall—” she touched his arm with rich contentment “—was eleven, going on twelve. Mitch and I came in between. I know we all got into a lot of trouble. You especially, Chris,” she added with a tiny grimace, remembering the wretched consequences of their adventure.

  “Isn’t that the truth?” Mitch’s tone was crisp. He hadn’t forgotten either, though a lot of time had gone by. The youngest member of the party Christine, the least responsible, had endured a tongue-lashing at home. Not so Kyall. Never Kyall. Though he had always sprung instantly to his sister’s defence.

  “So no one in the family has the slightest clue as to where Edward hid the treasure?” Shelley asked, restoring him to the present. “Surely it could have been somewhere in the house? A secret place?”

  “Do you think we haven’t looked?” Mitch gave her a comical look. “Over the years Chris and I searched every nook and cranny.” And made love while we were at it, he thought, watching colour creep up into Christine’s beautiful skin. “The treasure is nowhere to be found.”

  “But where did the map come from?” Shelley was fascinated. What a difference a “treasure” would make to her struggling family.
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  “I think it was just a bit of fun.” Mitch had long since concluded this. “The map was folded very small and stuck into a toy stagecoach. Not a toy, really, now a collectable. It was made late eighteenth century. It’s still there, in one of those cupboards.” He indicated a long wall of built-in cabinets just behind him, the upper sections glass-fronted, displaying a collection of beautiful porcelain—plates, dishes, tureens, vases and numerous figurines—along with a fine collection of silverware.

  “Show it to her, Mitch.” Christine looked at him, sparkling-eyed. “This is all part of the legend.”

  “Will do, ma’am.” Mitch stood up and executed a flourishing bow in Christine’s direction. He walked to the long line of cabinets and a moment later returned to the dining table with the toy stagecoach, which he placed on the table in front of Shelley.

  “Oh, isn’t that sweet?”

  “Valuable too,” Mitch told her. “A collector’s item. Quite rare.”

  Shelley touched the wooden coach with a reverent finger. There was a little curtain at the window, four pieces of luggage on top, the driver up front, a man riding shotgun to the rear. Both wore brown cloth overcoats with long black hats. “And the map’s still inside?”

  “Let her see it, Mitch,” Christine prompted, thinking how different Shelley was from her sister. Amanda wasn’t looking at all pleased to see Shelley enjoying this special attention.

  “Okay.” Mitch’s lean strong fingers worked delicately and he opened the coach door, withdrawing a slip of yellowed paper.

  “What about making some copies?” Christine joked.

  “Yeah, what do you say, Mitch?” Rick Saunders grinned. “Could be a spotter’s fee?”

  “I can safely say there would be a handsome reward for anyone who could find it. But needless to say the treasure belongs to the Claydons. Damn, where is it?”

  “Deep in the desert,” Christine said. “All of you are free to start digging.” She looked around the table at the laughing guests.