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

by Margaret Way

  “You’re no comfort at all to your mother,” Alan chided.

  “Do shut up, Dad,” Joel said in disgust. “What sort of man are you? Your life is just one long pretense.”

  “My whole life actually,” his father answered mildly.

  “What are we waiting for, Joel?” Nicole asked in a surprisingly steely tone.

  “Surely you haven’t forgotten?” He stared back at her like a combatant. “There’s a killer out there.”

  “Or in here.” Heath brought the whole thing into the open. “Something in the back of my brain keeps telling me neither of you has told the truth,” he addressed father and son. “I was wrongly accused.”

  “That’s what they all say, old boy,” Alan drawled. “You had someone to place you elsewhere, didn’t you? That let you off the hook.” Alan spoke smoothly, but Nicole could see a vein beating away in his temple.

  “Exactly! But as it turned out, so did you. And Joel.” Heath’s black eyes glinted.

  Nicole drew in her breath sharply. “Dad, all we’re doing is taking stabs in the dark. Pointing at this one and that. No actual proof of anything. Joel was out driving. He was waiting to get his license, remember. He was sixteen years old.”

  Heath didn’t answer for a moment. “Every Outback kid can drive as soon as they can see over the wheel,” he said presently. “Joel regularly took one or other of the station vehicles out. No one knew where he went. Or where anyone went, for that matter. An Outback station offers unlimited freedom of movement. In all my years here no one ever checked on anyone.”

  Nicole’s thoughts were a chaotic mix. “Surely at least for that particular time everyone’s movements were checked?” Being a child at the time, she’d been terribly handicapped.

  “Pretty much like a city person saying I was at home all night, alone,” Heath offered wryly.

  “But Granddad would have investigated.”

  Heath considered awhile. “All these years later things seem clearer, especially when one is dying.”

  “Oh, great!” Joel gripped the sides of his chair. “Now we’re all suspects.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me,” Heath said in a very quiet voice. “It certainly wasn’t Nicole. It wasn’t the illustrious Giles. Nor saintly Louise.”

  “You haven’t commented on Mum yet,” Joel crowed sarcastically.

  “I’ve concluded Siggy had nothing to do with it, either, though I’ve speculated on that, as well. Siggy loved her sister, though she was horrendously jealous of her.”

  “There’s at least one thing you should tell us,” Alan said. “Didn’t you and she share a brief sexual encounter? Corrinne betrayed you, you betrayed her?”

  “Sure I did. Later.” Heath didn’t rise to Alan’s taunt. In fact, he looked quite unconcerned. “But never with poor old Siggy. Apart from the fact I didn’t want to add to her troubles, she never had the slightest appeal for me.”

  A thin foxy smile crossed Alan’s face. “Well, you conveyed that often enough. Constantly humiliating her.”

  “Maybe I was trying to put her off,” Heath suggested, which in fact might have been true, Nicole thought.

  “Oh, don’t let’s talk about Siggy like this,” she pleaded. “She’s always tried to do her best in a dreadfully complicated household.”

  “True!” Alan declared. “Don’t you think it’s high time we started on the McClellands? Exotic little Callista is a near basket case. Did she ever resolve her obsessive passion for her brother? The thing is, none of us knows what really happened.”

  “I won’t stop until I’m certain,” Nicole promised, the grimness of her expression offset by her beauty.

  “Well, then, you’d best mind your back,” Alan murmured.

  “The person who tries to harm Nicole will finish in hell,” Heath stated with astonishing vigor. “I’ll personally see to it if I have to. I’m not all used up yet.”

  FROM THE ANCIENT flat-topped mesa they had a grandstand view of Shadow Valley. It had been very difficult for Nicole to consent to coming here, but she knew the only person she could approach the valley with was Drake. Even then it was with a sense of great apprehension.

  Shadow Valley was a magnificent canvas even under drought. Eminently paintable. Color-saturated. A land beyond dimensions peopled on that scorching afternoon by thousands of little leaping stick figures the mirage threw up on the burning air. The great blood-red plain sprawled away in all directions; the far horizon, aglitter with the spectacular, jeweled gibber that littered certain parts of the desert.

  The eternal golden spinifex made a patchwork carpet, crisscrossed by innumerable interwoven water channels that gave the vast area its name. After heavy rains, when floodwaters broke the banks, the entire area was inundated. Billabongs ran fifty miles wide. The great plain turned into the inland sea of prehistory. It was one of the great sights of the Channel Country but no greater than when the floodwaters receded and wildflowers turned the arid Wild Heart impossibly glorious.

  Beautiful, blazing, blinding, mile after mile after mile of desert flora; the white and gold paper daisies, the blue lupin and dancing Sue, the pink parakeelya, the purple moola-moola, the Morgan flower and the parrot pea, spider lilies and tomato bush, the scarlet desert peas, the pink boronia and its cousin, the divinely scented brown and yellow. Another sight that station people lived for and stored in the memory for when times were hard.

  Drake drew the Land Cruiser to a halt. “Let’s get out,” Nicole said quickly in a voice that revealed her tension.

  “Are you okay?” He rested an arm on the wheel, looking intently at her pale profile. He knew she was upset. She couldn’t fail to be. He recognized the same upset in himself, but he felt comforted by the fact she had consented to come with him. That meant a lot.

  She nodded, shoving on her cream akubra and adjusting it low over her eyes. “I’ll know soon enough.”

  “Just remember, we’re trying to understand how the accident happened.”

  Out of the vehicle, Drake came around the hood with its strong bull bar to join her. He looked up at the opal-blue sky. Clouds were gathering on the horizon. It was very hot and still, and their voices were clear and loud in the isolation. “The first of the storm is coming up,” he commented. “I hope to God it amounts to something. The rest of the state has been blessed with good rains. It’s got to be our turn.”

  “I pray every night.”

  “As do we all.”

  She glanced at him. His face with its aquiline nose was shadowed by the wide brim of his akubra. His eyes glittered, like jewels in a mask. He looked strong, balanced, whereas she felt an emotional mess.

  “Do you suppose this was the spot they stopped? Or farther over?” She stared around the escarpment. Thick green swathes of bush arched away to both sides, but the broad ledge was almost free of any kind of vegetation, worn smooth by vehicles and horses.

  “If we go a little nearer the edge, you might be able to pick out some landmarks.” He was observing her closely. He knew she was almost messianic in her desire to find out what had really happened. “The base is littered with huge boulders.”

  “Don’t I know it!” She shuddered. Her mother’s battered body had been resting on one, face upturned, eyes open. How she wished she could lose that horrible vision, but it was almost as if she were there on that tragic day watching her mother’s body be flung clear of the vehicle, bouncing from one rocky ledge to the other, until it finally reached its resting place.

  “We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said gently.

  “I’m all right. Just hold my hand.”

  “I was going to, anyway.” He laced her fingers through his.

  “All right, let’s do it.” She felt pressure akin to dread build in her chest.

  “You don’t suffer from vertigo, do you? You never used to.”

  Nicole gave a short laugh. “Lots of things I didn’t suffer from.”

  They approached the edge of the rugged escarpment, the hard-pack
ed fiery earth bound by tussocks of grasses bleached silver. In Shadow Valley beneath them, the desert floor was littered with boulders of all shapes and sizes. Huge and small, their sides worn smooth as marbles by the abrasive action of the sand and wind. In common with all desert rocks, they changed color according to the time of day and the weather conditions. At midafternoon in the quivering golden heat, they blended with the ochre-stained earth, a rich orange-red.

  “There.” She pointed, grief locked away inside for now.

  “You’re sure?” His expression was grim. The memory of his uncle David had assumed almost mystical proportions for him. David had been such a peaceful person, with great charm of manner. He had died far too young.

  As had Corrinne, the love of his life who had nonetheless betrayed him.

  The huge boulder they were staring at was perfectly round, a giant’s marble standing about six feet high, dwarfing the other rocks and decaying pinnacles that surrounded it. Above them soared a wedge-tailed eagle, leisurely riding the wind. No sign of the falcons, the fastest birds of prey on earth.

  Nicole and Drake contemplated the desert floor for quite a while in silence, Drake with his arms locked securely around her, holding her back against him. “What brought them here, do you suppose? The view, or was one or the other issuing an ultimatum about ending the affair? Your mother was married. She had you.”

  “She would never have lost custody of me,” Nicole said passionately. “Granddad would have seen to it. Anyway, my father wouldn’t have wanted custody.”

  “Why not?” Drake countered. “You don’t really know that with certainty, Nic. In many ways your father was put in an impossible situation.”

  “Did he tell you that when you talked?” She twisted her head back to look at him. Drake had been on Eden since ten that morning.

  “Not in so many words, but we covered a lot of ground.”

  “I told him I was in love with you,” she admitted.

  “Pity you haven’t told me. Did you also tell him you don’t trust yourself with me?”

  She shook her head, her long hair arranged in a heavy braid. “You made a great impression.”

  “I wasn’t trying to make an impression, Nicole,” he said dryly.

  “Maybe that’s why you did. You don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.”

  “Not true. I value the opinion of my friends and the many people I admire.”

  “You can’t admire me. I’m a mess.”

  His hands came up under her breasts, encircling her rib cage. “On the contrary, I think you’re very brave. I admire that.”

  She leaned back against him, reveling in his strength. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “That gives me comfort.”

  “My mother’s last words keep coming back to me. ‘We need to choose new clothes for you, darling. You’re growing out of everything!’ She had that lovely little smile on her face, so loving. ‘I think that calls for a trip into Sydney.’ Then she laughed and mussed my hair. How could she say such a thing if she was contemplating ending her life? She would never have left me. I’ve never for a minute believed otherwise.”

  He turned her about. “Why have you never said this before? Your mother’s last words to you, I mean?”

  She knew he was waiting for a response she couldn’t give. “Because they were really private. Something between my mother and me. Just the two of us, mother and daughter.”

  He gave her a deep searching look. “It was all so very hard for you, Nic. You were just a child.”

  “I dream of her, too,” she confessed. “She’s always trying to tell me something, but just as she’s about to, I wake up. Do you think we’ll ever know? I confronted Joel about seeing Dr. Rosendahl.”

  “And?” he prompted.

  “At first he was livid, then he settled down. Sometimes I wonder if I know Joel at all. I certainly don’t know Alan. He’s endlessly playacting. It’s just so slick. You’ll see at dinner. Family discussions have been extremely intense of late. I know I’m stirring things up, but I can’t seem to stop. I thought Heath would find it draining, but he seems to have gone into some kind of remission.”

  “That can happen, Nic, before the end,” Drake said quietly.

  “I know. He volunteered a DNA sample.”

  “He told me.” He guided her gently toward the car, intent on finding a way down into the valley. “Getting you to believe the truth has been one long battle.”

  “I accept it now.” She drew a deep breath. “But I want it made official.”

  “You’re going to tack the results on a bulletin board or run it in the local rag?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Sometimes I do. Other times you speak in tongues.” His dark-tanned skin glittered with a light sweat. She found it incredibly erotic, imagining her tongue licking it off. She was madly, incurably in love with him, no matter where it took her.

  When they reached the Land Cruiser, he took her into his arms and looked down at her intensely. “Could you love me, Nic?”

  “If our lovemaking means anything, the answer must be yes.” It wasn’t commitment, but it wasn’t denial.

  “Would you want to marry me?”

  “The impossible dream.” There was a fluttering just above her heart. “My greatest love, my greatest fear.”

  “You have to break out of your prison, Nic. Others find ways to live their dream.”

  “I’m trying to,” she said. “Desperately.”

  “And I’m committed to helping you.” He continued to stare down at her, thinking the world was vast, but if he searched through every corner of it, he wouldn’t find a woman he wanted more than Nicole Cavanagh, daughter of the woman his uncle had lost his heart and his life to. “You have a siren’s eyes, do you know that?” he asked with a twisted smile.

  “Sirens aren’t human. I am. Only too human.”

  The lids of her eyes closed as his hungry mouth came down over hers.

  Gold dust fell from the sky. It spilled down over them like a silky inescapable web.

  Drake pulled his mouth away. “Isn’t there someplace we can go?” he asked huskily, the urgency in his voice sending thrill after thrill through her. “I want you so badly I’m going to go up in smoke.”

  “I’m the same.” Impossible to deny it.

  “Tell me where.” He was already starting to move.

  “I’ll tell you when we’re driving.” She ran on ahead, her eyes suddenly teasing, taunting, free of all melancholy.

  Making love to her was the nearest he had come to paradise, Drake thought.

  STRANGE HOW HISTORY repeats itself, the figure buried deep in the cover of the bushes agonized. His rage was so acute it felt as if a horse had fallen on him, crushing his chest.

  The faithless Corrinne, the temptress who wanted every man she saw, and McClelland. He hadn’t seen either of them in the longest time. Fourteen years, to be exact. Laughable, really, how people had never suspected him! He was family, after all. Only much later had Rosendahl started to piece things together. Rosendahl, with the most benign of expressions and yet piercing eyes that could beam down to a man’s soul. That couldn’t have been allowed to happen; Rosendahl had to be removed. Just like Corrinne, who’d been planning on sending them away from Eden.

  Heartless bitch!

  Bright noon. It was suffocatingly hot in his place of concealment. He was sweating heavily in the dense shelter, down on his haunches. He shifted his grip on a sapling and a branch whipped back fiercely, stinging his face. He wiped off a smear of blood.

  Damn! he snarled to himself. That hurt. Not a breath of breeze reached him. But as he watched, a snake came close. So close he instinctively shrank back, holding his breath in sudden panic. The thing slithered away as it sensed the unwelcome presence of a human, disappearing into the thick screen of grasses. Bloody snakes and lizards! He never felt secure with them about. Goannas could grow to a massive six feet long and were known to attack.

  He ha
dn’t sighted a living soul on his way here. Only the cattle, and they weren’t about to tell. Just like the lovers of old, they were parked only a few feet from the cliff face. Almost the same spot. Uncanny! He fancied he could still see his footprints on the baked red earth, except he’d taken good care to get rid of them using the leafy head of a broken branch as a broom. He wasn’t such a fool he didn’t know Judah, the tracker, would cotton on to them at once.

  He’d gone to David McClelland’s side of the Land Cruiser first. Though startled, neither of them had suspected a thing, nor did they show the slightest shame at being discovered together. He was scarcely a risk to them, after all. He was nothing.

  How many times had he relived every minute of that short encounter? He’d waved, as good as a sympathetic squeeze of the shoulder, saying he was going on his way. McClelland, always the gentleman, had actually waved back.

  Nudge nudge, wink wink. The poor fool!

  All it took was for him to get back into the four-wheel drive, reverse, then roar dead ahead, the massive bull bar on his vehicle slamming into the rear of the Land Cruiser, pushing it inexorably over the stony crest, just like that. Too easy! The realization of what was happening to them came too late, but he fancied he’d heard her sobbing. She continued to sob in his nightmares. It was getting so bad he had daytime echoes in his head.

  Momentous events could be over in seconds. He’d yanked open his door, sneezing violently at the cloud of red dust, walked to the very edge of the escarpment and peered down. In the brilliant light, he saw her splayed across a boulder, just like a sacrifice, clearly dead. He didn’t have to check on McClelland. The windshield had caved in on his head. No one could have survived that crash. He had expected and hoped the Land Cruiser would catch fire, but somehow it didn’t. They’d really deserved to be immolated together. Still, he felt his cup of bitterness that had for so long overflowed, miraculously emptied….

  Now Nicole. The most beautiful of women, with far more spirit than her mother. More aggression. Time for her to get what she deserved. She, too, was playing the part of whore, responding passionately to McClelland’s kisses, her beautiful body delivered up to him, to his mouth and his hands. It was sickening, the two of them locked in each other’s arms. She was as faithless as her mother. He was overcome by a feeling as powerful as grief, only lethal. But for the fact he didn’t want to get caught, he felt like shooting them now. Or McClelland, at least. He had other plans for Nicole, the mirror image of her mother, though she was as good as dead. The heiress to a ruthless dysfunctional family hiding behind their name and privileged background, the veneer of polished gentility.