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

by Margaret Way

  “Don’t expect me to haul it up for you.”

  “Dad will do it when he returns,” Amanda said carelessly.

  “Where is he?”

  “Shifting some of the cattle. Now…first things first. Your boyfriend was onto us first thing this morning. He had a very interesting tale to tell.”

  “Who’s my boyfriend supposed to be?” Shelley asked, already knowing the answer. The whole family had been pushing her friendship with Philip Kingsley. If it came to anything it would make things easier for them appeared to be the reasoning.

  “Ho-ho, little joke. Phil, of course. If you take my advice—”

  “I won’t.”

  “Don’t let him get away. Just how many guys are filthy rich and good-looking and, more importantly, interested in you?”

  “I could name a few wealthy men around here.” Shelley started to reel off some names.

  “Most of ’em are married.” Amanda groaned, thinking she would never get over Mitch Claydon, who had recently wed his childhood sweetheart, Christine Reardon. Okay, Christine was beautiful, but she was six feet tall. At five-six Amanda considered herself just right.

  Exhausted, Shelley fell into a rattan armchair opposite her sister, fanning herself vigorously with her cream akubra. “And what did dear Philip have to say?”

  Amanda took her time to answer, her eyes focused on her sister’s face. After a lifetime she still didn’t understand how her sister retained that perfectly beautiful skin while she, a honey-blonde, was always smothering her face in sunblock. Even so she couldn’t prevent the tiny coating of freckles across her nose. It just wasn’t fair.

  “So Brock Tyson is back?” Amanda gave her sister a sharp, searching look.

  “His grandfather wanted him home,” Shelley said quietly, hoping she hadn’t blushed at the mere mention of his name.

  “Then Mr Kingsley must be dying?” Amanda didn’t sound upset.

  “Didn’t Philip tell you that?”

  “No way! He just said his grandfather wasn’t enjoying his usual good health.”

  “Why doesn’t he say things the way they are? That’s Philip and his mother all over. They’re so secretive it’s a little paranoid. Rex Kingsley is dying.”

  “All right. No need to get huffy. The really big surprise was that you actually had dinner with Brock!”

  “So I did.” Shelley had a job keeping her tone normal.

  “Anything else?” Amanda stared at her.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Amanda gave a derisive snort. “I’m your sister, remember? At sixteen you had a giant crush on Brock Tyson.”

  “I wasn’t the only one. He was and remains fascinating.”

  “But trouble. He just threw all his chances away.”

  “What chances? He’s Kingsley’s grandson, for God’s sake. Surely that means something—blood?”

  “Not to that old tyrant. He’s dreadful. The male counterpart to the late Mrs Ruth McQueen, God rest her troubled soul. I bet she’s queening it over Hades. These old patriarchs and matriarchs! They had too much land. Too much power. Too much money. It must be true that power corrupts. What’s Brock look like these days? Wasn’t he sexy?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about whether he’s lost any of it,” Shelley said dryly. “He was always very handsome, very bold. Nowadays he has a real presence about him.”

  “Let’s call it arrogance. I remember him as arrogant.” And he’d never taken any notice of Amanda, which rubbed salt into her wounded ego.

  “Maybe. He’s certainly very self-assured, with those remarkable light eyes.”

  “They must be a legacy from the runaway dad,” Amanda commented. “No wonder old Kingsley hates him. Every time he looks at Brock it must remind him of the father.”

  “Probably,” Shelley conceded. “Yet Brock has a look of his grandfather. The chiselled features, the height. Rex Kingsley is a very imposing-looking man.”

  “But dreadful. So that’s it? You had dinner?” Amanda leaned over and seized her younger sister’s hand.

  “What were you expecting? An orgy?” For such an indolent young woman Amanda had a bone-cracking grip.

  “Not with you!” Amanda gave a patronising curl of the lip. “All the guys know you don’t put out.”

  “Whereas you do. You’ve got yourself a bit of a reputation there, Mandy.” Shelley sighed.

  “Don’t be so sanctimonious,” Amanda snapped. “I’m not worried about that at all.”

  “Maybe you ought to be.” Shelley shrugged.

  “You just had to say that, didn’t you?” The colour in Amanda’s pink cheeks darkened.

  “I care about you, Mandy. You’re my sister. It might be better if you played a little harder to get.”

  “You’re saying that because Mitch Claydon dumped me.” Her whole body burned with the terrible memory of the day Mitch had told her in no uncertain terms to get lost.

  “He didn’t dump you, Amanda,” Shelley said, hoping her sister would think straight. “You should stop talking like that. Mitch was never serious about you. There’s only one woman in his life and that’s Christine. She’s a lovely person. She’s my friend.”

  “Puh-lease!” Amanda groaned, touching her temple as though the pain there was excruciating. “Say no more about her. I’ve already forgotten about Mitch Claydon.”

  “That’s good to know, now he’s married.”

  “When will you see Brock again?” Amanda frowned. She appeared to be tossing up ideas in her head. Shelley could almost see them simmering. “If he’s sticking around I might turn my attention to him. You’ve got Philip safely hooked. It’s about time I settled down. I’m the wrong side of twenty-five. I’m pretty, I’m bright, I’m talented.” A faint look of torment was on her face.

  “Don’t worry, Mandy,” Shelley suggested, suddenly sorry for her sister. “The right man will come along. You just have to take it easier. But please don’t go around telling people Philip and I are an item. We’re not. I don’t want to mislead people, least of all Philip, and you’re a great one for spreading gossip.” She should have said making mischief. Amanda was stuck with that label as well.

  “Listen, do you want to enjoy the finer things of life, or are you dead set on killing yourself with work?” Amanda retaliated. “Mum and Dad are going to grieve for Sean forever. You could die of hard work and they wouldn’t pay any attention. Why don’t you listen, you silly girl? If Philip Kingsley asks you to marry him—and you could get him to if you gave him a bit more encouragement—say yes. Yes, yes, yes. At least he gives a damn about you. It would be better for the family as well. I know a few guys are interested in you, but Phil’s your best option. Keep playing hard to get and he might start looking at someone else.”

  “He’s welcome to,” Shelley said. “I might be trying to help my family at the moment, but I’m not going to commit suicide for you. Getting mixed up with Philip and Frances would be as good as killing myself.”

  “How melodramatic!” Amanda pulled a face.

  “I don’t think so. People can make very bad decisions in life that have serious consequences. Marrying for love is one thing, even if at some stage the love runs out, but marrying for convenience would do me and my self-esteem a lasting injury. One can’t love to order, Mandy.”

  “Oh, grow up!” Amanda cried in frustration, finding her sister and her principles extreme. “You don’t have to be in love with him to make a go of it.” Amanda frowned at the burning blue sky. “That’s not the important thing when you’re considering a good marriage. What a woman looks for is security. A guy who’s going to look after her, provide her with the good things in life. It’s better that Philip cares more about you than you care for him. It gives a girl bargaining power. Besides, Phil’s a nice guy. Okay, he’s a bit intense but he’s good-looking—or he would be if he’d straighten his shoulders and lift his head. Spunky little you could make him do that. If Old Man Kingsley is dying Philip is ready to step into his shoes
.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?” Shelley was starting to feel troubled by the conversation. She really wasn’t comfortable with this family push towards Philip, though she’d gone along with the friendship because it had seemed to please her parents.

  “What I meant was Philip will inherit,” Amanda explained patiently, confirming Shelley’s fears. “Do you realize what that means? He’ll come into a fortune.”

  Shelley shook her glowing head. In the heat damp little tendrils were clinging to her cheeks and forehead, giving her the look of a cherub always associated with the Logan twins. “Philip will never run Kingsley Holdings,” Shelley said. “He works very hard, I know, but he doesn’t seem to have it in him to get results. He’s not a natural-born leader. He’s not good with the men. I’m better myself with our own staff. Our little team pulls together and it’s mostly for me. Philip lacks authority. The trouble is he’s never been his own man.”

  “So what?” Amanda looked at her sister in disgust. “It’s money we’re talking about. Position. That homestead. It’s still pretty grand but run down. Frances has never been allowed to touch it, but you could. We’re both very artistic. Phil can hire people—an overseer, manager—who could do all the work.”

  “He has his cousin Brock,” Shelley said simply. “Brock is family. He too is a grandson.”

  Amanda gave her a long, knowing look. “You don’t really believe Kingsley will set Brock above Philip? Philip is the elder, and he’s the one who stayed. If everything we’ve heard is correct Brock’s not going to get a razoo.”

  Shelley drank in the heavy scent of frangipani from the garden. “One wonders why his grandfather got him home, then?”

  For a moment the sisters regarded one another in silence. “One wonders why he came?” Amanda said finally.

  “Why not? When it comes right down to it a lot of Brockway money was poured into Kingsley Holdings. Don’t we all believe—and the facts bear it out—that Rex Kingsley talked his wife into handing over all her money?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Sarcasm from Amanda. “He’s a truly greedy, manipulative man.”

  “Brock has Brockway blood in his veins,” Shelley reminded her. “His grandmother adored him, but then she had to go and die.”

  “Perhaps she was glad to.” Amanda laughed cynically. “I wouldn’t want to be in Rex Kingsley’s shoes right now. There’s a final reckoning.”

  “I believe there is,” Shelley said quietly. “Brock has been treated very badly. Philip told you about his mother?”

  Amanda flapped at an insect buzzing around her buttery curls. “That she died?”

  “Poor woman! She didn’t have much of a life.”

  “And whose fault was that?” Amanda suddenly challenged, oddly agitated. “You’ve got to want things out of life. You’ve got to have goals and go after them. You can’t get yourself stuck in the bloody bush. Why did she and her husband return to Mulgaree? Okay, so she went back to her father, but she must have known what to expect.”

  “She had a baby and no money, Amanda. She was young, more vulnerable than most, given how she was reared. The princess who was never let out of the castle. Kingsley saw to that.”

  “She had a husband,” Amanda countered.

  “I can’t answer that question, Mandy. The poor woman is dead. But Brock is here once more, and he’s the man for the job.”

  “God, you’d better not let Philip or his mother hear you say that,” Amanda warned, hitching the skirt of her sundress over her pretty knees. “You hardly know Brock anyway. I know him better than you do. You were just a kid when he left. You really should have invited him over, but I suppose it didn’t occur to you? Too harried with the shopping?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  “What?” Amanda sat bolt upright. “What did he say?”

  “He said he’d come.”

  “That’s absolutely great!” Amanda’s pert face lit up, blue eyes asparkle. “Just occasionally you do something right. I used to think going back a way that Brock was kind of interested in me.”

  “You were interested in him, more likely.” Shelley corrected, a little more tartly than she’d intended. Brock and Amanda? No, no, no!

  “Well, he wasn’t interested in you, that’s for sure,” Amanda responded, pouring on the acid. “What will happen when Phil finds out that you’ve got a soft spot for Brock? You’d be a real fool to jeopardize your relationship. Especially now, when he’s right on the brink of his reward. You’d better tell him Brock’s coming over to see me. He’ll accept that. I’m very popular with the guys.” She adjusted the strap of her pink sundress, cut low in front and undeniably sexy.

  “Maybe I’d better leave it to you to tell Dad that I’ve invited Brock,” Shelley said. “He accepts things much better from you.”

  “No problem. Dad loves me. I’m his firstborn.” Amanda, as usual, was quite complacent about the open favouritism. She looked flushed, unable to suppress the sudden burst of excitement. “Besides, for all we know Brock might fall passionately in love with me.”

  “I’ll be amazed if he does,” Shelley said dryly.

  “You should try to deal with your jealousy, Shel. I hate it when you get like that.”

  “I’m just being realistic,” Shelley warned. “I don’t know that you’re Brock’s type, Mandy.”

  “He’s a man, isn’t he?” Amanda drawled, lacing her fingers and then stretching her arms above her head with voluptuous grace. “So we didn’t hit it off in the old days? I’ve had quite a bit of experience since then. If Brock somehow gets himself back into Kingsley’s good graces, in particular back into his will, then that will make all the difference in the world. We’ll know I’ve found the right man to go after.” Amanda laid a cool hand on top of her sister’s. “You know, Shel, this sounds strangely like fate.”

  Shelley realized with a jolt that her sister was serious.

  Here we go again, she thought. If and whenever Brock took time to visit, one thing was certain: Amanda was going to come on real strong. Fantasy fulfilment was Amanda’s thing. For once in her life Shelley wasn’t sure she could watch it.

  Brock’s grandfather lay in the massive oak bed, his once towering frame oddly slight beneath the tight coverings on the bed. It gave him no joy to witness this shocking deterioration. Like his cousin, he didn’t care to see his larger-than-life grandfather so diminished. Even the stern, handsome face had changed. It had lost its forbidding expression. Despite the sudden sparseness, the matting of his pewter-coloured hair, the pronounced pallor and the deep grooves that ran from nose to mouth and down the chin, Rex Kingsley looked at peace with himself and his past.

  A nurse in a white uniform sat composedly beside his bed, ankles touching, hands folded neatly in her lap. She was middle-aged and competent-looking, with narrow glasses perched on her nose.

  “Oh, it’s you, Mr Tyson,” she said, looking up, her face brightening.

  “How is he?” he asked quietly.

  “Not good today. But he’s been hoping to see you.”

  “Thank you, Nurse. I’ll sit with him for a while. You can take a break.”

  “Is there something I can get you?” she asked, almost whispering. “Tea, coffee?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine.” He gave her a smile.

  “I won’t be far away.” Colour rose in her cheeks.

  “Thank you.” He took her place in the chair beside his grandfather’s extraordinary Victorian bed. It was Gothic in style, the rich claret-coloured hangings held in place by sumptuous tasselled tie-backs. This was the bed he’d die in for sure.

  Things would change dramatically with his grandfather gone. Philip’s mother, Frances, was already pushing herself forward as the mistress of Mulgaree, as mother to the heir apparent.

  Oh, my God, what am I doing here? Brock thought, half covering his face with his hand. He hated this man. Not so much for what he had done to him, but to his mother. Why were you so cruel to her? Given yo
u loved her once, why did you turn on her? For loving my father, a man you apparently despised?

  Yet his mother had always insisted his father had been anything but a weak man. On the contrary, he’d felt outraged and angry trapped at Mulgaree. The only thing that had kept him there was the strength of his love for her and for his child.

  What price had he paid?

  He’d always believed his grandfather had been mixed up in his father’s disappearance. There were layers and layers of treachery and cunning behind that grey near-sepulchral face on the pillow. How else could he have inflicted endless bullying on people he was supposed to care about? Finally, without quite knowing how, Philip and Frances had managed to turn Kingsley against them completely and they’d been out. Banished.

  Now he knew it had really been an escape. He and his mother had retreated from an unwinnable battle. Yet his mother had always maintained “You are the future of Mulgaree, my darling. The power will be yours.”

  He could hear her voice resonate in his head. So easy to believe it when love and reverence for the land ran through his blood. It was the one thing about him the old man had been able to understand.

  My grandfather. My enemy. Why should I trust him to rewrite his will?

  “I’ll be looking out for you” was the last thing his mother had said. He wondered if anyone who passed over to the other side really could.

  He wondered about Shelley Logan, who had offered him two things last night. An extraordinary relief from grief and a much too dangerous excitement. Shelley knew too much about pain for him to wish to hurt her further. And hurt her he would if he took over his grandfather’s mantle.

  Maybe he even had some of Kingsley’s ruthlessness in him? Maybe he would take on some of Kingsley’s personality if he stepped into the role? The years he’d been away from his grandfather and Mulgaree he’d had a good image of himself. Important people he’d admired had depended on him, trusted him. He had made many friends.

  But now he was back and the old darkness had descended so quickly.

  There was so much trauma surrounding the old man. Yet he knew which grandson must win if it came to a fight to inherit. Who had the stamina, the superior strength. Who could hold what he had built up together. It wasn’t benevolence or contrition that had caused Kingsley to beg him to come home. It was the fear his dream might come to an end in the wrong hands. No matter how much he might loathe Brock, he needed him to govern his empire after his death. And now that he had him home Kingsley was going to die happy in the knowledge that his name and his life’s work would survive. It was one of life’s serious riddles how even the worst never dared go against blood.