Outback Surrender

by Margaret Way

  "That would be lovely, Brock." After her earlier fatigue excitement had started to run at full throttle.

  "We have lots to catch up on. The fact is Phil advised me-maybe it was a heavy warning-that you were his girlfriend?" Silver eyes emitted sparks.

  "Why hasn't he told me that, then?" she said flippantly.

  "You're too good for him, Shelley." Brock's antagonism towards his cousin spilled out.

  She stared up at him for a moment before she answered. Even in misty green Ireland his skin must have seen plenty of sunshine. His olive skin was like polished bronze.

  "Isn't that a little cruel? I feel sorry for Philip. Your grandfather is very hard on him, and his mother has such high expectations. Philip is under constant pressure to perform. Not that your grandfather allows him any real responsibility."

  "Just keeps him on a tight leash. Must be hard for Phil. He was a dopey kid."

  "Whereas you were as bad as you could get." She softened the charge with a smile. "Philip, unfortunately, is still very much under the influence of his mother. Now, I'll pay for this, Brock, if you can wait." She settled hurriedly on the gardenia-scented bath gel.

  "I think you're right." He gave the nod to her choice. "Gardenia goes with your beautiful skin."

  Of course she didn't have a dress. She should have thought of that before. But Brock's off-the-cuff invitation to have dinner with him had chased all thought from her mind. For the first time since she'd attended the wedding of her friends Christine and Mitch Claydon she had a deep desire to look pretty.

  How? She took another look at herself in the oldfashioned, slightly speckled pier mirror. It stood in a corner of the small room where fresh cotton sheets, pillowslips and towels smelled deliciously of boronia.

  Trim and tidy. If called on that was the way Shelley would have described herself. Unlike her sister Amanda she had no wardrobe of pretty dresses. Her day-to-day dress was a practical work uniform jeans and a cotton shirt. She stared at herself dreamily. Brock Tyson had always been kind to her, for all his dashing but undeniably moody nature. These days he looked like a man well able to handle himself in any situation. Tough. A bit like Rex Kingsley himself, who was as harsh and unyielding as the very terrain of his desert kingdom.

  Finally she decided on a dash half a block away to the town's little dress shop, where she'd seen a very pretty blouse displayed in the window. The only reason she'd resisted it was that she had too few occasions to wear anything so frivolously pretty. Basic denim was her scene. This top was a kind of patchwork of yellow cotton and lace, with little ribbons and rosettes for a trim. The owner assured her it could be worn successfully with her white jeans.

  Tres chic! She'd have to take her word for it. At least she had some make-up and a fairly new pair of white leather trainers she'd brush up.

  Shelley felt wildly excited, but tried to bring the whole thing back into focus. By taking her out tonight Brock was probably trying to ward off the tensions of being home. Besides, she'd always associated Brock Tyson with excitement and-it had to be said-danger. It seemed to swirl around him like smoke.

  He was a young man who had sustained many psychological wounds, even if the scars from his physical beatings had healed. The assaults by his autocratic grandfather had stopped with one fist-to-fist bout when Brock was fifteen and already topping six feet. One of the station hands who had witnessed it, open-mouthed and secretly overjoyed, had told the story to a mate, who'd told it to another mate in the Koomera Crossing pub. The gossip had spread like wildfire and the whole town had known within twenty-four hours.

  "Old bastard Kingsley took a beating! And about time. I tell ya, it was something to see!" This along with plenty of chortles that hadn't lasted long. The informer had been promptly sacked, finding it very difficult to get station work within a huge radius.

  Brock had earned his badge of courage, but had shown that he had a dark side. It would pay Shelley to remember that now.

  The last thing Brock had thought he would be doing this evening was socializing. Truth was, he'd been feeling incredibly bad since he'd buried his mother-as though her early death had been somehow his fault. He'd certainly given her plenty of grief by being always at loggerheads with his grandfather. Not that she had ever blamed him or breathed a word of it. But the wound would never heal; the grief would never be buried. He hated his grandfather, who had cast them off all alone. Hated him and wasn't about to beg God's forgiveness. Once he'd even accused his grandfather of getting rid of his own father, Rory, who supposedly had "run off like a cur", to disappear without trace. But men in the Outback went missing all the time.

  Was that what happened to his father? Knowing his grandfather, he could see him shooting anyone who challenged his authority in cold blood. He was that type. A megalomaniac. Having so much power and money could do that to an already mean man. His grandfather had been enraged by his only daughter's runaway marriage. He had tried to have the marriage annulled, but failed. His mother had already been pregnant with him. God knew why his parents had allowed Kingsley to dictate to them, bringing them back to Mulgaree, where Brock had been born in an upstairs bedroom.

  His father had stuck it out, enmity and harsh treatment notwithstanding. All for his mother, who had felt too helpless to know what to do. But six years on Rory Tyson had disappeared, leaving a note his grandfather had burned after showing it to Koomera Crossing's police constable, who had been sent to investigate the disappearance.

  After that-nothing. And there had been no news from Rory for all these years. Brock had investigated but drawn nothing but blanks trying to trace his father. He would get square with his grandfather for that. Getting square was important.

  With a muffled oath Brock fought out of the bleak thoughts that threatened to swallow him up. He turned back to the task of getting dressed. His black hair was still damp from the shower, but already drying in the heat. He felt it was too curly, too long, though women always told him how much they liked it. In his experience women were always ready to say something nice. Men were the bastards.

  Swiftly he pulled on a clean shirt. Lucky he had it with him. What the hell was he doing? These days he wanted to be by himself, to lick his wounds. So why a night out in town? The thing was he'd always found something endearing about the little Logan girl, who had grown into quite a woman. Her twin, Sean, had been the image of her. The drowning had been a terrible tragedy that had left the boy's parents half mad; the sadness had affected the entire town and the outlying stations. The mother, it was said, still lay in bed crying all day, and the father, Paddy Logan, had allowed no one to forget that tragic day. Least of all his younger daughter.

  They had been beautiful little creatures, those Logan twins. Everyone had thought it wonderful the way Shelley looked after Sean like a little mother. It wasn't right the way she'd been treated since his death. She'd taken far too much punishment from her family. Like Brock had. It created a bond between them. Come to that, he hadn't really forgotten kissing her at some dance. She'd been no more than sixteen but it had stuck in his memory, like a tune. He had a feeling that Shelley Logan withh her lovely smile, on the outside so calm and collected, was bottling up a lot of passion. She was a redhead, after all. Red was nature's fire sign.

  But what sort of a person was her sister, Amanda? Sitting at the piano playing and singing while Shelley was probably toiling away in the kitchen, preparing a meal for her parties of tourists. He doubted if she'd get much help from her poor mother. The few people in town he'd spoken to about the Logans had assured him things were as bad as ever for the family--except for Shelley's new venture, which had taken off. Everyone admired her. Shelley Logan was a capable, hard-working young woman with plenty of guts. That was the word according to Koomera Crossing.

  All Brock knew was that sweet little female creatures like Shelley Logan eased a man's soul. And Lord knew how he thirsted for some area of peace. But romance wasn't on the agenda for him. Not even a brief affair. Certainly not with the gir
l he'd watched grow up. He couldn't plan anything. Not with his future so undecided.

  He knew he wouldn't find peace at Mulgaree. But fronting up to his grandfather was a fierce necessity. Mulgaree was where he had been born, and his mother and his uncle Aaron, Philip's father, before him. Philip, on the other hand, had been born in a private maternity hospital back in Brisbane, because Frances had been terrified of having her child on an isolated Outback station. Uncle Aaron, who he sort of remembered as kind, had been killed on the station, handling a wild steer, when Philip was just a little boy. The steer had gored him. Aaron had died without uttering a cry.

  After that they had all lived in hell.

  "Well, don't you look pretty!" Brock stood in the open doorway staring down at Shelley, the delicate fastidiousness of her. She had braided her beautiful red hair so it coiled and glinted around her small head like loops of flame, complementing flawless skin smooth as a baby's. A slick of bright colour decorated her mouth, and her green eyes were so big and mysterious they dominated her face. She looked as if he could cast spells if she so chose at any moment even on him.

  Watch out!

  The thought made him laugh aloud. "'Light she was and like a fairy!' Brock spoke with an exaggerated Irish accent. "That's an extremely pretty blouse." Extremely pretty breasts. He felt a sudden wave of desire that made his stomach tighten into a hard knot. But he was obsessively involved with regaining his birthright, remember? Hadn't he already decided he couldn't get involved with Shelley Logan? Yet in the space of half an hour he had developed quite a taste for her.

  Brock's gaze moving over her left Shelley with a sensation of shivery excitement. He had one arm lazily resting above her head on the doorjamb, and was just staring down at her. He was so tall.

  "I'm glad you like it." It cost an effort but her voice came out normally. "I didn't have anything suitable to wear so I raced down to the local dress shop. I found this in the nick of time."

  "My good fortune." He grinned. "Shall we go? I've made reservations. They tell me Harriet's menus are so great people have to book ahead."

  "Did you speak to Harriet herself?" She had to break through this confusion, this spell, otherwise the excitement would be impossible to stop.

  He took the key of the door from her fingers. "That's how we've managed to get in. Harriet told me she'd look after us. Harriet's a big fan of yours."

  "That works both ways." She looked at the span of his shoulders as he closed her door, suddenly bedevilled by the memory of what it was like to be swept up in his arms. Yet something about Brock Tyson, for all his macho image, made her heart break. What a dreadful penance it must have been for his mother and him, having to remain on Mulgaree after his father had deserted them. It was such a sad house. Like her own.

  "I've not been to Harriet's since it opened," she remarked, pitching her tone to conversational. "I was invited to the gala night, but Amanda wanted to go and I wasn't happy leaving my mother. You wouldn't believe the migraines she gets."

  He took her arm as they walked the corridor, so slender, so delicate, he felt he could encircle it. "How we sacrifice our lives to misery."

  "My mother is afraid to be happy. She believes that it would be a disloyalty to Sean."

  "Sounds a terrible waste. It's depressing, but I can't say I don't understand," he replied sombrely.

  They had to move past a sea of smiling, highly interested faces on their way out of the pub. Everyone seemed thrilled to have Brock back. Brock was quite calm with it all, returning shouted greetings from the bar. Shelley felt herself blush. What was she doing on Brock Tyson's arm? Just being with him seemed a tremendous event.

  They walked in a vaguely fraught silence until they reached Harriet's, where lights from the restaurant spilled out onto the pavement. Inside it was lovely and cool, the decor green and white, with feathery stands of bamboo in pots, graceful arches, and old sepia photographs of the town's past decorating a wall. From the night it had opened Harriet's had been a very popular gathering place for the locals as well as people from the outlying stations.

  Harriet, looking marvellous in a mandarin-yellow Thai silk caftan that flowed softly around her slim body, came forward to greet them jauntily.

  "Welcome, welcome!" She bent forward to kiss her expupil Shelley's cheek. "Where have you been all this time, Brock? We've really missed you."

  "Ireland." He looked into Harriet's eyes, finding them kind and very shrewd. He named a famous stud farm.

  She nodded, having heard of it. "The life must have agreed with you. You look marvellous. But someone told me as I came up that you lost your dear mother?"

  For a minute he couldn't answer, grief and wildness spoiling in him. "She's where she wanted to be, Harriet. The home of her ancestors. There was no home for her here." Pain and bitterness played about his chiselled mouth.

  "My heart aches for you, Brock. You've taken a hard blow." Harriet pressed his arm, looking with great sympaihy into his brilliant eyes. "We'll talk of this again, but for now you'll be wanting to find some peace and comfort. I have a good table for you in the courtyard. Come through. You look lovely, Shelley."

  Harriet smiled with great encouragement at her. Shelley was a young woman she very much admired. A brave person of high intelligence, Shelley Logan could have gone far in any one of the big cities, but she had stuck with her highly dysfunctional, unappreciative family. What it was to he tied by the bonds of love and loyalty! And a quite undeserved feeling of guilt, Harriet thought.

  "Great to see you, Brock!"

  Brock's hand was caught and held over and over, slowing their progress, but finally they were seated at a secluded table for two in the courtyard, with its white rattan glasstopped tables and white rattan chairs and huge golden canes in glazed pots. The comfortable upholstery was in white Indian cotton with a pattern of green bamboo leaves to continue the theme, while near them white ceramic elephants held pots of colourful flowers on their backs. It all looked enormously attractive.

  The restaurant was only open three times a week-after all Harriet was well into her sixties and couldn't risk burnout-on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, for lunch and dinner. But far from stretching her to the limit, Shelley thought affectionately, Harriet looked years younger and on top of the world.

  "An experience awaits you," Harriet was saying with a flourish, passing them what looked like a fairly extensive menu for a small restaurant. "Oriental-style cooking is the speciality of the house, but if you would like something else we can whip it up for you."

  "You're a wonder, Miss Crompton," Brock told her, his face respectful but still holding more than a trace of that wicked daring that had so distinguished him as a boy.

  "Tell me that when your meal is over." Harriet smiled. "Now, I must return to the kitchen-but one of my girls will be here shortly to take your order. Would you care for a drink in the meantime?"

  "Shelley?" Brock looked across the table at his companion, so pretty he had no desire to look anywhere else.

  "May I have a glass of white wine?"

  "Certainly. Why don't we push the boat out and have champagne?" It had been a rotten day. He could do with a few bubbles, and Shelley might like it. "Okay?"

  "Perfect," Shelley agreed.

  Harriet smiled. "I'll have someone bring it over."

  CHAPTER TWO

  OVER the leisurely meal Brock left the soul-destroying world of Mulgaree with all its bleak memories behind him. Shelley was lovely enough for any man-so interested in what he was saying, asking such intelligent questions that he found his whole body, for months coiled tight as a spring, relaxing. And dinner rated highly. He'd had some fine, unforgettable meals in the gourmet restaurants of Ireland and France, where he'd visited constantly on the stud farm's business, but the well-travelled Harriet was right up there with them. No mean feat for a small Outback town on the edge of nowhere.

  They'd opted for Thai food, as it was the speciality of the house: magnificent chilli prawns, flown in from the t
ropical north, garnished with crispy curry leaves and served with a wonderfully flavoured cream sauce, followed by a chicken dish in a peanut sauce, accompanied by shredded cucumber, carrots and spring onions. Then they'd enjoyed little jellied fruits, beautifully arranged, to finish. Delicious, imaginative and innovative, when most dishes were done to death.

  "That was superb!" Brock said with satisfaction and not a little surprise.

  "I've never had such a wonderful meal in my life!" Shelley agreed. "I've been flat out trying to master a few Japanese dishes for my guests."

  "Have you succeeded?" He was deriving a lot of pleasure from watching the swift changes of expression on her mobile face. In the candleglow from the frangipani-ringed lamp her eyes had little flecks of gold suspended in the emerald. Fascinating!