Outback Bride

by Jessica Hart

  'What if I have? It's none of your business, anyway!'

  'None of my business if my wife rings up her ex-lover for cosy little chats? Of course it's my business!'

  'We agreed what sort of marriage we were going to have,' she said with a resentful glance, ostentatiously rubbing her arm where he had gripped her with his hard fingers. 'It was to be a purely practical arrangement. There was nothing in the contract about giving up all contact with the outside world!'

  'We agreed that we would do our best to make sure that everyone thought that we were genuinely married,' said Mal savagely. 'You married me, Copper, and I think it's time you did a better job of acting like my wife than you've done so far-and for a start you can forget all about Glyn until your three years is up!'

  Copper shook her hair angrily away from her face. 'Careful, Mal!' she said provocatively. 'You're sounding almost jealous, and you don't want that, do you? Jealousy is one of those "messy'' emotions, like love or need, and we all know how you feel about those!'

  'What would you know about emotions?' he said unpleasantly.All you care about is business.'

  'That's good coming from a man who had to resort to blackmail to get a wife!'

  'Then I got what I deserved, didn't I?' said Mal with dislike. 'A woman prepared to sell herself just to be able to pitch a few tents and make people pay through the nose for the privilege of sleeping in them!'

  Copper's hands clenched around the sheet. 'If that's what you think of me, I think we'd better put an end to this farce right now,' she said, in a voice that shook with fury. 'There's no point in us carrying on like this. All you wanted was a housekeeper, and you've got Georgia now. It's pretty obvious that you think she's doing a much better job than I ever could, so I might as well leave you both to it and go back to Adelaide.'

  'What, and give up on your precious project?' Mal mocked. 'You'd never do that, would you, Copper? No, you signed a contract that committed you to staying here for three years, and three years you're going to stay. You can't tear up our agreement just because you've got the chance to go running back to Glyn.'

  'It might be worth losing the project to live with a man who appreciated me!' said Copper wildly.

  There was a dangerous pause. 'I'd appreciate you if you'd just stick to your part of our agreement and act like a proper wife,' said Mal, in a voice of cold control. 'And leave Brett alone, of course.'

  Back to square one! Copper blew out a hopeless sigh and put her head between her hands. It might have felt good to let off steam, but the argument wasn't going anywhere. 'Look, I keep trying to tell you,' she said grittily. 'Brett only flirts with me because he's jealous of you.

  'Brett's jealous of me?' Mal gave a mirthless laugh. 'That's a good one! How do you work that out?'

  'He never gets a chance to impress Georgia because you're always there.' She lifted her head from her hands and tried to explain. 'You're the one who runs everything. You're the one who decides what should be done. You're the one who monopolises Georgia every night. How can Brett compete with you?'

  'He's never found any difficulty before!'

  'I know, but it's different now. This time Brett's in love.'

  'Which he shows by behaving as if he's infatuated with my wife?' Mal suggested sardonically.

  Copper gave a despairing gesture. 'It's all aimed at Georgia,' she insisted. 'Surely you can see that?'

  'The only thing I can see is you making big green eyes at him every night,' he said in a biting voice as he lay down again and punched his pillow savagely into shape. 'If you left him alone, he might have a chance to fall in love with Georgia, but as it is you're just causing trouble. It's embarrassing for me and extremely awkward for Georgia to see the way you and Brett carry on.'

  'Oh, and we can't have Georgia feeling awkward, can we?' flared Copper, wrenching the sheet over to her side of the bed before throwing herself angrily down onto her pillow with her back to Mal.

  Mal pulled the sheet back. 'I'm warning you, Copper,' he said dangerously. 'You leave Brett alone. I won't stand by and watch you screw my brother up.'

  Copper was so enraged that she jerked round to face him. 'All I've done to your brother is to offer him a bit of sympathy and understanding, which is more than he ever gets from you. You're so pig-headed and arrogant that you can't even see what's going on under your own nose!'

  'You're not here to understand Brett,' said Mal callously. 'You're here to behave as my wife whenever anybody else is present, and that means not making an exhibition of yourself with my brother-or anyone else. I'd be grateful if you'd remember that in future.'

  'You needn't worry,' said Copper in a voice that shook. 'I've got no intention of forgetting why I married you!' Oh, God, the light was still on! Scowling furiously to stop herself from crying, she heaved herself up once more to click it off and then pointedly turned her back. There was a pause, then with a short, exasperated sigh he did the same, and although she lay tensely awake for hours he made no move to touch her again.

  It was such a stupid argument, Copper thought wearily the next day. It wouldn't have been too difficult to make up in each other's arms as they had done before. All she had needed to do was to roll over and whisper his name, but part of her had rebelled. Why should she grovel to Mal when she had nothing to apologise for? She wasn't the one being stubborn and blind and completely unreasonable, was she?

  'We'll be out mustering all day,' Mal said brusquely at breakfast. 'I need Georgia to spot the strays from the plane, so you'll have to forget your business for once and keep an eye on Megan for a change.'

  He clearly thought that was all she was good for, thought Copper, too weary after a sleepless night even to object to his implication that she didn't spend almost all of her time with Megan anyway while Georgia dealt with more of the household chores. She couldn't fly a plane, like Georgia, or ride out with the stockmen, cracking whips and chivvying the cattle along with piercing yells. As far as Mal was concerned, she was useful only for staying at home and keeping out of the way. It was amazing that he hadn't jumped at her suggestion that she go back to Adelaide. After last night, she would have thought he would be glad to be rid of her.

  The homestead felt horribly empty when Georgia and the men had gone and Copper was left alone with Megan. Miserably, she began clearing up the kitchen, but the silence was oppressive and accusing and in the end she could bear it no longer. 'Let's have a picnic,' she said to Megan, wanting only to get away from the house with its taunting memories of Mal: Mal climbing the verandah steps, Mal turning his head, Mal closing the bedroom door with a smile in his eyes. 'We'll take my car and go somewhere different for a change.'

  Copper hadn't used her car since she had driven up from Adelaide all those weeks ago, and it felt strange getting into it again. The last time she had sat behind the wheel Mal had been just a treasured memory, no more than an image from the past or a vague regret, and now…now he was so much part of her life that it was hard to imagine a time when she had existed without him. To Copper it seemed as if her whole life had been directed to the moment when she had driven up along the track and parked in front of the homestead. It was odd, looking back, to think that she had sat down to wait on the verandah steps without an inkling that Mal would walk around the corner of the woolshed and change her life again for ever.

  She thought about how much had changed since then as she drove out along the rough track that led towards a wild, rocky area that she had never seen for herself. Mal had pointed it out once on one of their afternoon rides. It had been too far for them to go on horseback, but he had told her about the eerie red rocks and the spindly gums and the huge termite hills that gave the place its own special atmosphere.

  Just remembering those rides made Copper's heart ache for the way things had been then. He had sat on his horse, relaxed and still, and the huge, empty horizon and the dazzling light had focused around him. Then, everything had seemed possible. She hadn't known how contemptuous his eyes could be, or how savage h
is tongue. Had she changed, or had he?

  It took much longer than she had expected to coax the car along the track, but they made it eventually and ate their picnic in the shade of an overhanging rock. It was a strange, wild place, that echoed with age and silence, but Copper was glad that she had come. Idly, she watched Megan playing house amongst the weirdly shaped stones. The stillness seemed to seep through her, calming her jagged nerves, and she was able to think clearly at last.

  She and Mal had been happy before, and they could be happy again. There was no point in hanging onto her pride if it just made her miserable. She would talk to Mal tonight and tell him that she loved him. He might recoil, but at least it would be the truth. Copper didn't think she could bear the thought of spending three years pretending that she cared more for her business than she did for him.

  She had to do something, anyway. They couldn't go on like this, letting stupid misunderstandings tangle themselves up into bitter arguments. The desire they had felt together was too strong, surely, to fall apart in a matter of days. Copper thought about the way Mal had kissed her and hope twisted inside her. If they could just have a night alone together everything would be all right again. It had to be.

  Suddenly eager to get back and tell Mal exactly how she felt, Copper got to her feet and stretched. 'Come on, Megan, let's go home.'

  It took a little while to persuade Megan to leave the little house she had created, but at last she was in the car, the picnic was packed away, and she settled herself behind the wheel. Her mind on Mal and what she would say when she saw him, Copper didn't register at first that the engine was wheezing and coughing. When she did, she frowned irritably and tried turning the ignition key again. Nothing happened.

  Copper tried again-and again, exasperated, then angry, and at last afraid. Trying to conceal her sinking heart, she got out of the car to open the bonnet and peer helplessly at the engine. She had no idea where to start finding out what was wrong, let alone how to fix it.

  The heat bounced off the metal and glared into her eyes. 'I'm hot!' Megan complained.

  Biting her lip, Copper opened the door. 'Play in the shade for a while,' she suggested, and went back to the engine. Nothing seemed to be broken. She checked the water and the oil, more for something to do than anything else, and then went to try the ignition again in the wild hope that wishful thinking was enough to do the trick.

  It wasn't, of course. Copper wiped her brow with the back of her arm and told herself there was no need to worry. When the muster got back, Mal would realise they were missing and come and find them. He won't know where to look, a cold voice whispered, and ice trickled down Copper's spine before she clamped down on the thought. Mal would find them. All she had to do was sit tight and keep Megan safe.

  Megan. Copper got out of the car. Where was Megan? Around her were rocks and trees and utter, utter quiet, but no little girl. 'Megan?' Her voice bounced eerily off the stones and her heart seemed to freeze in her chest. 'Megan?'

  All at once the afternoon had taken on a nightmarish quality. It was as if she had turned round and found herself on a different time plane, where nothing made any sense. Megan had been there only a minute ago. How could she be gone?

  Copper forced herself to breathe deeply and slowly. The one thing she must not do was panic. Calling Megan's name, she began making systematic circles around the car, spreading a little wider every time, until a cry, abruptly cut off, sent her stumbling through the trees in its direction, her heart pounding with dread. Copper found that she was praying as she looked desperately around her for any sign of the child, but she made herself work steadily between the trees until she came out into a sort of clearing and saw Megan, lying sprawled and much, much too still, beneath a weathered red boulder.

  'Megan!' Copper fell frantically to her knees beside her. The world had gone suddenly black. 'Please, no…please, no…please, no…' She could hear a voice muttering incoherently, and it was some time before she realised that it was her own and could fight her way back through the darkness to feel for Megan's pulse-a feeble beat that told her the child was unconscious but alive.

  'Oh, thank God!' The tears streamed unheeded down Copper's face as Megan stirred and moaned.

  'My foot hurts!'

  Copper's first reaction was one of relief that it was only her foot. Very gently, she checked Megan all over. One ankle was badly swollen, but she didn't know enough to tell whether it was broken or just sprained. 'What happened, Megan?' she asked.

  'I heard you calling, and I was going to hide up on the rocks, but I fell.' Megan began to cry. 'My head hurts as well,' she wept.

  She must have hit it as she fell onto the hard ground.

  Looking up at the smooth surface of the boulder, Copper went cold. It was quite a drop, and she could have been much more badly hurt. 'It's all right,' she soothed the child, gathering her into her arms without jarring the sore ankle.

  Why, why, why had she never learnt any first aid? Megan didn't seem to have hurt anything other than her foot, but who knew what damage the fall might have done to her head? 'Shh,' she murmured into the dark curls, rocking her gently for comfort. She suspected that Megan was more shocked by her fall than anything else, but she might so easily be wrong.

  Never had Copper felt more inadequate. Pretending that she knew what she was doing, she ripped up part of her shirt to make a bandage and tied it around Megan's ankle, but the slightest touch was enough to make Megan cry out in pain. 'I want to go home,' she sobbed.

  It was only then that Copper remembered the car. 'We can't go home just yet, sweetheart,' she said with difficulty. 'But I'll carry you back to the car and we'll get you some water.'

  'I don't want any water. I want to go home!'

  'I know, I know.' Copper laid Megan down in the shade near the car and used another piece of her shirt to clean the dust from her face. At least she had thought to bring some water with her. It was the only sensible thing she had done today.

  All the time she kept up a flow of cheerful talk, so that Megan wouldn't guess how desperately afraid she was, but inside she was desperately trying to calculate how long it would take Mal to realise that they were missing and organise a search. They were mustering in the far paddocks. What if they didn't get back to the homestead until it was almost dark and it was too late to look for them? She didn't want to think what it would be like to spend a night alone out here, with Megan frightened and hurt and only one bottle of water to see them through.

  For what seemed like a lifetime, Copper sat in the shade, cradling Megan on her lap and distracting her by crooning to her softly or telling her stories until she fell into an exhausted sleep. After that there was nothing to do but wait and watch the minute hand of her watch crawl slowly round. The silence gathered weight with every second that passed. Copper could feel it squeezing the air around her, crushing her until she felt so deafened by it that when she heard the plane at last she thought she was hallucinating.

  Lying the sleeping child gently on the ground, she struggled out from under the rock. Yes, there was the plane, flying low over the trees but still some distance away. Copper's first impulse was to shout, until she realised that she would only wake Megan needlessly, so she scrambled into the car instead, to begin frenziedly flashing the headlights.

  With an excruciating lack of speed, the plane banked and flew towards her, low enough for Copper to see Georgia gesturing from the cockpit as she talked into the radio. Desperately, Copper pointed to the lifted bonnet of the car to show that it had broken down. Georgia nodded and gave Copper the thumbs-up sign for encouragement. Then she dipped her wings and headed back for the homestead.

  For a full minute Copper just stared after her, unable to believe that Georgia had just gone and left them there.

  Then reason returned and she realised that there was nowhere for the plane to land among all the rocks. Georgia must have been radioing their position back to Mal. The relief was so overwhelming that Copper had to hold onto the
car door for support.

  Making her way back to their shelter beneath the rock, she gathered the sleepily whimpering Megan back into her lap. 'It's all right now,' she murmured. 'Dad's coming.'

  CHAPTER TEN

  The silence was so complete that Copper heard the crunch of changing gears long before she saw Mal's four-wheel drive, but the light was rapidly fading before the vehicle swung into the clearing, its headlights raking across Copper's useless car. By then she was too stiff and weary to move, and she could only sit helplessly as Mal leapt out and looked anxiously around him.

  'We're here,' she tried to call, but her mouth was so dry that it came out as no more than a whisper. It was enough, though, for Mal to swing round and see them huddled beneath their rock.

  After that everything was a blur for Copper, interspersed with sudden flashes of terrible clarity-like the look on Megan's face when she saw her father or the way Mal's arms tightened round his daughter with a sort of desperation. Too clear was the whiteness of fear around his mouth, the stony expression in his eyes when he looked at Copper and the terrible silence as he drove them home.

  "The explanations can wait,' he said curtly, when she tried to tell him what had happened.

  Back at the homestead, Georgia was waiting to help them inside. It was Georgia who knew about first aid and could bandage Megan's ankle properly, Georgia who helped Mal to soothe her and wash her and put her to bed. Copper was left to limp stiffly along to the bedroom, too sick at heart to do anything but sit numbly on the side of the bed with the remnants of her shirt in her hands. It was all her fault. She should never have taken Megan out there, should never have taken her eyes off her.

  Her sense of guilt was so great that Copper didn't even try and defend herself when Mal came into the room, shutting the door behind him with an ominous click. 'You realise you could have killed my daughter this afternoon?' he said, dangerously quiet.

  Copper flinched as if from a blow, but all she could do was turn her head away. She felt Mal's eyes boring into her as he moved into the room. 'You put her in a car that's not fit to drive outside a city and took her out to the most dangerous part of the property,' he said. He didn't raise his voice, but every word was like a lash from a whip. 'And then you let her wander off on her own and hurt herself badly falling off a rock. You might as well have pushed her off yourself!'