by Margaret Way
Dawn to dusk he drove himself; the evenings and the long nights he craved her. Talking to her over the phone didn’t suffice. She talked about her painting. She told him how much better her father was, how Alan had taken off and good riddance—her grandmother and Siggy were coping better than she’d ever have thought. Neither of them mentioned Joel. That would have shattered the odd calm.
Finally he couldn’t stand it anymore. She must have read his mind, because she asked him to come for her and take her to Kooltar.
“I need to see you, Drake,” she told him. “It’s time I settled my life.” She spoke with extreme steadiness, as though she had already made up her mind. Joel’s death had arisen directly from his sexual conflicts about Nicole. That knowledge and her ability to draw men to her, like her mother, might drive her into flight. Away from him. Drake couldn’t discount it as a possibility. As for him, all he wanted was to make her his wife. She could do whatever she liked with Eden. Sell it to another buyer offering the right price. Engage a properly experienced, competent overseer to run it. He could help her there. She could give it away, for all he cared. All he wanted was her. And as soon as possible. He knew her work, her painting, was very important to her.
Callista was providing him with another cause for worry. Her powerful negative feelings toward the Cavanagh family hadn’t diminished in the wake of Joel’s death. She spoke of sins and punishment, suffocatingly moral. At one point she said Corrinne had deserved all she got. Her brother, David, would be alive today if he hadn’t come under the spell of “that woman.” There was no way she was sorry for the family. They’d brought it down on their own heads. Drake may have saved Nicole’s life, but in doing so, didn’t he see that once more a McClelland could have been the victim?
The last thing Drake wanted was to cause his aunt further unhappiness, but he had permitted her to stay on Kooltar too long. Remaining there had made it easier for her to relive the old tragedies. There was a big world beyond Kooltar. Being part of it might help her regain some kind of normality.
Before he left to pick up Nicole in the helicopter, he resolved to speak to Callista. No need to go in search of her—she was in the drawing room, at the piano.
“Cally, could I have a word with you?”
She looked up smiling, resting her hands on the keys. “But of course, dear. What is it?”
He didn’t beat about the bush. “I’m going over to Eden to pick up Nicole and I’m bringing her back here. She’s been under enormous stress. I can’t think you’d want to add to it, Cally.”
At his words she looked shattered. “What stress has she suffered we haven’t, Drake?” she demanded, her teeth biting into her bottom lip. “You were forced to kill a monster to save her life.”
His expression darkened. “I don’t need reminding. I had no other choice. I love Nicole, Cally. I’m going to do everything in my power to get her to marry me.”
Callista flinched, then rose from the piano seat and stalked off several feet. “I don’t believe this!” She clutched her throat, a familiar pose. “I thought as you weren’t seeing her, you’d come to your senses.”
He was so angry for a moment he didn’t trust himself to reply. “I was giving her space, Cally,” he said at last. “I considered that important. Nicole loved her cousin, even if he did try to kill her. Can you imagine what her feelings are, knowing his love turned to such hatred he turned a gun on her?”
Callista’s dark eyes glittered and her whole body trembled. “Women like Nicole Cavanagh precipitate tragedy. They’re dangerous women. She and her mother. You’re playing with fire, Drake.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, Callista, not you. I’ve indulged you and your difficulties long enough. You play no leading role in my life as you seem to think.”
Callista caught at the back of a chair like a woman about to faint. She sat down heavily. “I love you, Drake. You’re all the family I have left. I’ve devoted myself to your well-being.”
His mouth twisted in pity. “You have in your way, Cally, and I’ve tried to respond by offering you a home and the freedom to do whatever you like. As it’s turned out, it was a big mistake. I should have been encouraging you to find yourself, instead of allowing you to get stuck in the one role of grieving sister. The way my uncle loved you wasn’t in any way the same as the way you loved him, Cally. Face it. David totally lacked your obsessive streak.”
Callista looked as if the sky was falling on her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. David and I couldn’t have been closer. We were soul mates as much as brother and sister. It was Corrinne who destroyed our very special relationship. David adored my playing. He would sit for hours.”
“Okay, so he did. He was a genuine music lover and you’re a gifted pianist. Did you have to fantasize he adored you? I’m sorry for you, Cally. You’ve wasted your life, living in the past instead of tackling the future.”
She stared at him with unconcealed rage. “Why turn on me? I’m no danger to you. She is. You’ll pay a great price for getting mixed up with her just as David did with her mother. I’m very afraid for you.”
He managed to bite back a harsh answer. “You’re better and brighter than that, Cally. You’re an attractive woman. A fine musician. You’re financially secure. It’s time for you to make a change. Get a life of your own. Sometime in the near future I intend to bring Nicole to Kooltar as my wife. I won’t have anyone show feelings of anger or hostility to her. That means you, Callista.”
For the first time fear and uncertainty entered her eyes. She sat utterly still. “You’re being shockingly direct, Drake. Can’t you see I’m broken inside? Surely I don’t deserve such condemnation. Your uncle’s death was witness to a dangerous woman’s power. He did die, you know, at a Cavanagh’s hands. Bad blood. Doesn’t that frighten you?”
“Some people might think you were slightly mad, Cally,” he answered quietly, though his expression was troubled. “Nicole has been the innocent victim in all this. She’s suffered, but she’s fought to survive. You’re simply being intolerant, small-minded, valuing all the wrong things. I suppose what I’m trying to say is you’ve never become an adult, an independent human being.”
Callista made a horrified, choking sound. “Are you trying to tell me Nicole Cavanagh is?”
“That, and she’s also very brave,” he replied. “It was a dreadful thing that happened to her as a child but she managed to pull herself back from the brink. You haven’t and you were an adult when it happened.”
“So what’s the answer?” Callista stared at him.
“Simple, Cally. You have to move out. Get a life.” Drake turned to move off, every inch the cattle baron.
HE FOUND HER waiting for him at Eden’s airstrip. She was pale, subdued, her beautiful hair drawn back and tied with a silk scarf.
“Hi!” he said simply, bending to kiss her cheek, not her mouth. They might have been a couple on the brink of breaking up, run out of words. “Let’s go.”
“How are you?” She searched his eyes.
“I’m fine.” The lie out came easily. “What about you?”
She shook her head a little. “Getting there. Some mornings I wake up and think the whole thing didn’t happen. That it was just a dreadful nightmare.”
“I know exactly how you feel.” Would he ever forget that split second of horror with Joel taking aim?
They started to walk. After a moment Nicole caught hold of his arm. “Do you think we could touch down somewhere along the way? The wildflowers are out. I want to see them from the ground, as well as from the air.”
“Sure.” He let his eyes rest on her, resisting the powerful urge to haul her into his arms, cover her face and throat with kisses. Always slender, she looked fragile, some flicker of expression in her beautiful eyes holding him at arm’s length. Was she going to tell him she intended to return to New York? He knew she still communicated with her friends, the Bradshaws, there. What would he do then? He doubted if he could take her d
eparture without a great deal of pain.
They climbed into the cockpit of the chopper. Drake started up the engine, listening to the roar of the rotor blades whirling above them. Nicole sat quietly, not trying to speak. In moments they lifted off vertically. Nicole’s eyes were on the distant ranges. Choppers could fly high and fast. They were wonderful for viewing the landscape. They had revolutionized the cattle industry. One man in a helicopter could do the work of more than a dozen stockmen. Helicopters could land almost anywhere.
Her wounded heart craved the healing sight of the desert under a mantle of wildflowers. Perhaps man hadn’t lost paradise entirely, she thought, when the earth still retained glorious wild gardens.
They were airborne only minutes, when under a peacock-blue sky a vast Persian carpet opened out before their enchanted eyes. It ran on to the far horizons. This was what the Channel Country was famous for: countless legions of paper daisies, the brightest whites and yellows she’d ever seen, feathery gold and orange blossoms, the richest pinks and purples and violets, the delicacy of pale blue, lime and lilac, the blood-red desert peas; wild gardens so prolific they could only have been sown with great handfuls of seeds the Creator scattered from the sky. Soon this miracle of natural beauty would fade and die away, but the remarkable seed pods would rise eternal, bursting through the baked sun-scorched earth the very next time conditions were right.
For now what they looked down upon was the miracle of the Inland, the miracle she and Drake had been privileged to witness from childhood. The wonder never went away.
Drake set the chopper down amid the everlastings. There was scarcely a patch of fiery red soil not embroidered by flowers. This was the same ancient magic the Aborigines had been spectators to for more than forty thousand years.
When the whirling rotors stilled, they climbed out of the chopper to have their nostrils bewitched by the strongest sweetest scents known to man. No perfume from a bottle, no matter how exquisite, could rival the scents of nature. Was it so surprising then, that standing in the midst of these fragrant masses that ran on mile after mile, Nicole felt tears well up in her eyes? The love of beauty, of natural things, was fundamental to her existence. These spectacular desert gardens were even more wonderful with Drake here to share them with her.
Drake gazed down at her face and saw the rapture there. At just the right moment he began to speak, unburdening his heart to her. Now, before it was too late, he had to tell her how much he loved her. What she meant to him. What she meant to his life. Eden simply didn’t come into it. It was she he wanted. He couldn’t get it wrong. If he broke down all barricades, maybe, just maybe, she would do the same.
As he spoke, his voice caressing her, her face began to shine and her eyes began to blaze.
It was the most moving voice she’d ever heard from him. Deep, thrilling, the sound penetrating her whole being. He spoke without fear of exposing his heart to her. Lines from the Song of Solomon fell, sweetly, gently from his lips:
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; and the time of the singing of birds is come.
“Has it, Nicole?” He took hold of her hand, bringing it to his mouth. “Will you stay and be my beautiful wife or will you fly away? There are tears in your eyes, my love.”
She blinked them away. “I always cry when I’m overcome with joy,” she said. “In this place, with you, I feel I can let any remaining sadness about Joel and everything that happened go.” She stared into Drake’s dark eyes, losing herself there. “Was I dreaming a lovely dream, or did you just ask me to marry you?”
“I’m waiting for your answer.” His smile looked a little strained.
“But surely you know it already.”
“I’m not that sure of myself. I have to hear it. Nicole Cavanagh, will you marry me?”
She threw back her head, lifted her arms joyously, spreading the palms upward to the sky. “Yes, yes, yes! A thousand times yes. Today and forever. You’re my favorite person in all the world. It seems like I’ve been waiting for you all my life.”
“In that case, hasn’t enough time elapsed?” His touch was gentle but electric. “I’m going to make this world a safe place for you, Nic.”
“You already have,” she responded, her tone loving and positive. “Everything you’ve said to me has touched the innermost part of me. It’s let in all this marvelous fresh air. You’re unafraid to tell me how you feel. Now I want to tell you. I’ve wasted so much of my life unable to drive the tragedy of my mother’s death from my mind. I should tell you, though I’m sure you already know, that as a McClelland I sometimes chose to strike out at you. Always that push-pull between us, all that conflict. Even so, I couldn’t let the bond between us break. You’ve always been important to me, Drake. Dr. Rosendahl may have helped me shed a lot of the debris from my mind, but your love for me has made me whole.” She moved into the arms he opened wide. “I love you. You’re absolutely necessary to me. I see you as my husband, the father of my children. I’m ready to take up life with you.”
“The two of us from now on.”
“Perfect. Amen.”
For brief moments they stood enfolded within each other’s arms, amid the wildflowers, then he raised her head to him, staring down into her eyes. “Here in this paradise, I’ve asked you to be my wife. It makes me gloriously proud and happy you’ve consented. I want to store up this scene in my memory, the everlastings all around us.” He glanced around them. “Bridal white. I want to remember your face, its exact expression, the look in your eyes. Love lifts a man to the skies. Let’s fly together, my darling heart.”
She returned his kiss, soft, deep, reverent as the occasion demanded. They were blessed and they knew it.
Gradually, melting together, they slipped to the ground, their bodies crushing the thick cushion of dazzling white daisies, releasing the scent. They made love as if for the first time, the flowering earth for a bed.
A LITTLE DISTANCE OFF amid the everlastings stood the silver-gray skeleton of a mulga. What was very curious about the desert tree was that it appeared to burn with a glowing white light. Sculpted by wind and scorching sun, it had over time taken the abstract form of a graceful young woman. The breeze appeared to toss her flowing mane as it lifted one of her bough-arms, suspending it in a wave. It created the amazing impression of offering the young lovers her blessing.
A trick of the dancing light, or some kind of magic? For in the next instant the sculpture once more became a petrified desert mulga.
The power of love. The power of nature. The power of two.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8223-4
HOME TO EDEN
Copyright © 2004 by Margaret Way Pty. Ltd.
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*Koomera Crossing
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