by Margaret Way
CHAPTER TWO
THINGS DIDN’T RETURN to normal after Siggy’s phone call. Or what passed for normal for her, though recently she had begun to feel her life was starting to come right. Only there was no escaping the past. The more one tried to push it away the more it fought back like some noxious weed that festered and spread.
The truth was, Siggy’s news had upset her badly, bringing back a sharper agony than she’d known in a long time. It stirred up all her old memories of the tragedy that had alienated two families and sent her fleeing halfway around the world in an effort to rebuild her life.
So Heath Cavanagh had landed on Eden’s doorstep to die? He had no right whatever to be there.
Unless he’s your father?
She could never escape that voice in her head. If only she knew without resorting to DNA testing. That would be too humiliating, except it could uncover a huge truth. Or a lie. Though she’d searched for evidence of him in her face and in her behavior, she couldn’t or wouldn’t recognize any Heath Cavanagh in her. No characteristic, no expression. Neither could she mark any resemblance to David McClelland. So who would know? She’d had to totally reappraise her mother’s life. Her adored mother had not been Miss Goody Two-shoes; most certainly David McClelland had been her lover. Before and after her marriage. Well, they’d certainly paid an appalling price for their infidelity.
Her grandparents had refused to talk about it. Siggy was adamant Heath was her father. While she was vocal in condemning him, Siggy could, on occasion, defend him with vigor. One had to wonder why. From all accounts Siggy had been jealous of her beautiful sister. Was it crazy to think at some stage Siggy might have indulged in some petty revenge by stealing Corrinne’s husband, if only one single time? Either that or she’d fallen under Heath Cavanagh’s spell and couldn’t help it. So much that couldn’t be spoken of. No wonder she’d been desperate to get away.
Her grandmother always understanding, never demanding, would love to have her home, though her grandmother had been the first to say the family should listen to Dr. Rosendahl’s advice and send her away from Eden. At least until such time as she felt she could cope.
Who said she could cope now, even after five years of living abroad? Was she strong enough to confront the lingering ghosts? To visit the escarpment, Shadow Valley? Basically she was scarred, and those scars weren’t going to go away. Sometimes she thought she would never be free to get on with her life until she had the answers to all the questions that plagued her.
Perhaps she could find them if she returned home. She was older, a survivor, albeit with unresolved grievances. In some ways it seemed the decision had been made for her. If she found Heath Cavanagh wasn’t in the terrible condition Siggy would have her believe, she’d send him packing. Then there was the threat of Drake and his ambitions. She needed to be home to keep an eye on him. She could see the big advantages that would open up for him and the McClelland cattle chain if Eden fell into his hands, but Eden was her ancestral home. He would never take it from her.
Nicole checked out Qantas flight schedules on the Internet. By the time she disconnected, her plans were already made. It may not have been exactly the thing to do, but she had no intention of notifying the family until the last moment. She’d arrive quietly, before Siggy could cover all bases.
A WEEK LATER she arrived in Sydney thoroughly jet-lagged but thrilled to be back in Australia. She’d left a subzero winter in New York and arrived to brilliant blue skies and dazzling sunshine of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. She always found it impossible to sleep on planes, so she was groggy with exhaustion, her body clock out of whack. She was in no condition to take a connecting flight to Brisbane, so she booked into a hotel and slept. The next day she awoke refreshed, ready for the hour’s flight to Brisbane midafternoon. That meant another night in a hotel and more phone calls before she could arrange a flight out west to the Outback that lay beyond the Great Dividing Range, and from there a charter flight to Eden.
Flying was a way of life in the Outback, with a land mass that covered most of the state of Queensland. The Channel Country where she was heading was home to the nation’s cattle kings. Her people. A riverine desert, it provided a vast flat bed for a three-river system that in the rainy season flooded the distinctive maze of channels that watered the massive stretch of plains. The Channel Country covered a vast area, one-fifth of the state, with the nearest neighbor—in Eden’s case the McClellands—one hundred and fifty miles away. Chances were she’d be completely played out by the time she got home.
AT EAGLE FARM AIRPORT in Brisbane, the same old routine, minus the intensive obligatory checks that had taken place when she’d arrived from overseas. A lengthy process she accepted without complaint in this new dangerous age. Passengers resembling a benign flock of sheep headed off to Baggage Claim, where they milled around waiting for the luggage to come through. When it did, within moments a crush of bodies appeared at the conveyor belt, all eyes glued compulsively on the flap. As the luggage made its way around, it was seized triumphantly and hauled away.
She couldn’t sight her matching Louis Vuitton bags, a going-away present from her grandmother years before. A young woman behind her suddenly rushed forward, nearly knocking her over, and heaved off a great canvas bag covered in travel stickers.
“Sorry!” A rueful grin.
“No problem.”
After a while she began to get worried. Everyone else was picking up their stuff, so where was hers? Maybe someone had taken a liking to her expensive luggage. Absurd to spend so much money on luggage when it got treated so roughly, she thought wearily. Just as she was starting to feel this was no joke and her luggage had been left in Sydney, the first of her cases tumbled out onto the conveyor belt.
Thank God! Still she’d have a battle to get two of the heavy suitcases onto the trolley. She moved forward, prepared to marshal her fading strength.
HIS DRIVER was a short round balding man who stepped forward to identify himself.
“Mr. McClelland?”
“Yes.”
“Jim Dawkins,” the man said cheerfully. “I’m here to drive you on to Archerfield. Mr. Drummond sent me.”
“Yes, I know. I spoke to Harry last night.”
“Just the one case, sir?”
Drake nodded briefly. “It was only an overnight trip.”
“I’m parked out front and down a bit.”
“We might as well get under way.”
“Right, sir.” Dawkins took charge of the overnight bag.
God knows what made Drake turn back to look around the airport terminal. And at that precise moment. But if he hadn’t, he’d have missed her. For a moment he stood immobilized by shock, feeling as if a hand had reached in and twisted his heart.
Nicole Cavanagh. He could count the days since he’d last seen her. June, when she’d returned briefly as she always did for her grandmother Louise’s birthday. June and Christmas, like clockwork before she flew away again.
She had her back to him, standing at the conveyor belt waiting for her luggage. He’d recognize her anywhere by that glorious mane. It was difficult to describe the color, but it always made him think of rubies. Today the familiar cascade of long curling hair was pulled into a loose knot. As she turned—a young woman keen on collecting her luggage surged forward and nearly knocked her down—he saw that flawless skin, milk-white with fatigue, large, blue-green eyes set at a faint slant. Even at that distance, he could see they were shadowed with exhaustion.
Not that anything could dim her beauty and the aura she gave off, a mixture of cool refinement and an innate sexiness he knew she was almost totally unaware of. Every woman he met fell short of Nicole. She was wearing a sleeveless, high-neck top in a shimmery golden-beige, narrow black slacks, high heeled sandals, a tan leather belt with an ornate gold buckle resting on her hips. She looked what she was. A thoroughbred. High-stepping, high-strung and classy. No matter their dark history, he found it impossible to quietly disappear, t
o simply go on his way and ignore her. He’d heard Heath Cavanagh was back on Eden. Obviously Nicole was returning home to assess the situation.
“Wait for me, could you?” he asked Dawkins who, as an employee of an employee was obliged to do whatever he wanted, anyway. “I’ve just spotted a friend.”
“Right, sir.”
A friend? he asked himself, feeling his nerves tighten. These days they were more like veiled enemies. Too much history between them, old conflicts aired whenever they came face-to-face, but the magnetic attraction that had grown out of their childhood bond somehow survived tragedy and loss. Probably the tensions between them would never go away. But Nicole, like her tragic mother, took hold of the imagination and never let go.
He moved toward her, glad for the little while she couldn’t see him but he could see her. Words would only tear them apart.
NICOLE HAD READIED herself to grab the first case, when a man’s arm shot past her and a familiar male voice said near her ear, “Won’t you let me? The Vuitton, is it? What else?”
She was paralyzed by shock, and her heart leaped to her throat. She spun around, feeling desperately in need of several deep breaths. “Drake?”
For a mere instant there was that unspoken recognition of their physical attraction. “Nicole,” he answered suavely.
“You of all people!” She experienced a strong sense of dislocation, staring up at the commandingly tall young man in front of her. Two years her senior, Drake McClelland emanated strength and confidence, an air of authority he wore like a second skin. He had a darkly tanned face from his life in the sun, singularly striking hawkish features, thick, jet-black hair and dark eyes that were impossibly deep. “How absolutely extraordinary. I’ve hardly been back in the country twenty-four hours, yet you’re one of the first people I meet. What are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer for a few moments, apparently preferring to concentrate on collecting her heavy suitcases and depositing them on the trolley, a task he made look effortless. “Like you I’m a traveler returning home. You are returning home, Nicole?”
She ran her tongue over her dry lips. “Yes. Were you on the flight from Sydney? I didn’t see you.”
“Maybe I didn’t want you to,” he found himself saying unkindly, for he hadn’t sighted her, either.
She winced slightly in response to his tone. “So things haven’t changed, it seems.” The last time she’d seen him, in June, it was at a picnic race meeting when inevitably their conversation, civil to begin with, had degenerated into passionate confrontation. Grievances were ageless.
“No.” His features hardened, but there was also a kind of sadness there.
“Have you picked up your luggage yet?” she asked, simply for something to say. She was unnerved, amazed it was so, when for some years now they had lived in different worlds, coming into contact only when she was home. The place of her birth, though vast in size, was populated by a relative handful of people. Station people all knew one another. They were invited to the same functions and gatherings as a matter of course. She rarely refused an invitation when she was home, even if she knew perfectly well Drake would be there.
“I didn’t have luggage, only an overnight bag,” Drake replied over his shoulder. “It’s with my driver. I’m flying out of Archerfield. The plane’s there. How are you getting home?”
No smile. Curt tone. Always the overtones of authority.
“I’m not ready to go home yet, Drake.” She studied his compelling face for a few seconds, then looked away. It made no sense to ache for what you weren’t allowed. “I’m too tired. Too much traveling. I can’t sleep on planes.”
“Neither can I.” He gazed down at her moodily. “So what’s the plan? Stay overnight at a hotel and fly on tomorrow?”
“Something like that.” She flipped back a stray tendril, conscious she was swaying slightly on her feet and unable to do much about it.
His hand shot out to steady her. “You look utterly played out.”
“Thank you, Drake,” she responded wryly, immediately aware of skin on skin, the crackling tension between them.
He dropped his hand abruptly. “Where are you staying?”
“The Sheraton.”
“Then I’ll give you a lift into the city.”
She shook her head, feeling extraordinarily close to tears. Exhaustion, of course. “You don’t have to do that, Drake.”
“I know,” he said, “but since I’ve known you all your life, I don’t feel right leaving you when you’re so obviously jet-lagged. My driver is waiting outside.”
She hesitated, hoping against hope the usual antagonism wouldn’t flare up. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
“Right, well…I have to say yes and thank you. But I’m taking you out of your way, aren’t I?”
“It would hardly be the first time,” he said tersely. “I suppose I could change my plans to accommodate yours. It won’t matter much. We could fly back tomorrow. The alternative for you would be many more hours spent arranging connecting flights.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.” She spoke quietly, feeling all the distrust and conflicts just below the surface.
“Why not? It’s not as though you don’t have enough on your plate. I heard your father is back on Eden.”
She shrugged. “Heath Cavanagh?”
“There’s no remote possibility your father is anyone else.” The last time they’d met, they’d managed to fight bitterly about her paternity. Accusations full of impotence, despair and fury. The acridity still hung in the air between them.
“Don’t let’s go over that again.” Her breathing was ragged.
“It’d please me greatly never to hear you insinuate it again.”
“What do you know, anyway, Drake?” She stared directly into his dark eyes.
“I know you’re your own worst enemy.” As had happened so many times in the past, their conversation jumped to the deeply personal. No in-betweens. “You’re incredibly bitter about your father.”
“And you aren’t?” Her eyes blazed.
Briefly he touched her arm, a calming gesture that nevertheless had steel in it.
“No one could call us friends anymore, could they, Drake.” She made an effort to pull herself together, conscious that people were looking their way.
Drake moved to the relative privacy of a broad column. “Fate took care of that,” he said dryly, “but we’re still neighbors.”
“So we are. We get invited to the same places.”
“How else would I have seen you in the last five years?” he went on, looking into her face. “Christmas parties, a wedding or two, polo matches…the last time, a picnic race meeting. One has to be grateful for small mercies. Things could change if you really wanted them to, Nicole. You have one solution at hand for this ongoing cause of conflict.”
Hope spurted, died. “You’re talking my father, DNA?” She tipped her head. Tall herself, she still had to look up at him.
“It would settle the paternity issue once and for all.” There was challenge in his voice.
“I couldn’t bring myself to ask him.”
“You don’t have to ask him.”
“I need permission. That’s how it works.”
He kept his eyes on her. “You have a question. I have the answer. The decision is up to you. So far you’ve just made things hard for yourself. And me, too.”
She shrugged, conscious of the truth of his claim. “Have you seen him?”
“I don’t normally pop over to Eden to say hello.”
“Once you did.”
“Yes.” Images of her as a bright and beautiful young girl flashed into his mind. She’d been quite the tomboy, determined, adventurous, brave in her way. Never the sort of kid that tagged along like her cousin, Joel. She had a wonderful natural way with horses, too, which had created an additional bond between them, plus a great love of their awe-inspiring desert homeland.
“Heath is sup
posed to be dying,” she found herself confiding. “At least that’s what Siggy said.”
“Why does it sound like you doubt her?” He couldn’t help frowning.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” she said, stalling. “In fact, I don’t want to talk about Heath Cavanagh at all. He’s not a very nice man. He could have blood on his hands. You McClellands long believed it.” She drew a breath, and her next words held a conciliatory note. “I’m afraid of going home, Drake. That’s why I don’t go home.”
“Do you think you have to tell me that?” he responded, his voice rough with emotion. He wanted to reach out for her. Comfort her. Once he would have. “We’d better cut short this conversation,” he suggested. “You’re sagging on your feet. I can’t leave you here while I fly back home alone. I just can’t. I’d be abandoning you to a series of very tiring flights.”
“Indeed you would, but I’ve survived so far.” She straightened her shoulders.
“At this point I doubt much further.” He put a supportive hand under her elbow. “Let’s call a truce. We can go back to being sparring partners after I land you on Eden.”
CHAPTER THREE
NOTHING HAD CHANGED.
From the air Eden looked timeless. Primordial. Majestic. The homestead and its satellite buildings nestled in the shadow of the ragged escarpment that commanded the empty landscape. The colors were incredible. They reminded her of the ancient pottery she’d seen in museums. Orange and yellow, fiery red, molten cinnabar, indigo, the silvery blue of the mirage that danced over the spinifex plains. Vast areas that in the Dry resembled great fields of golden wheat. In the shimmering heat of the afternoon, the lawns and gardens that surrounded the homestead, fed by bores, were an oasis in the desert terrain.
“Eden!” All her love for it was revealed in the one word.
“Home of the Cavanaghs for one hundred and fifty years,” Drake said with a glance at her proud yet poignant expression. “No time at all compared to the Old World.”