by Gloria Bevan
What would it be like to be loved, treated as a woman, by a man of Mark’s calibre? The thought came out of nowhere and she thrust it aside. That way danger lay.
She had no idea how far they were from the station when above the sound of the motor she heard the crashing of falling trees and rumble of earth as it slipped down the slope beside them. Her quick anxious glance went to Mark and she saw that he too was alerted to the ominous sounds. She said on a sharp breath, “Aren’t you going to stop and see what’s happened back there?”
“No use stopping, Twenty,” he was peering ahead through the misted glass. “Go for your life before you cop it yourself, that’s what you have to do in a gale like this! And keep your fingers crossed that the road’s clear ahead. This is a bad area, known for slips at any old time. It happens all the time—” He braked with a suddenness that shot her forward in her seat. Righting herself, she peered through the windscreen, her eyes widening in apprehension. The rain had eased and a pale moon emerging from scarves of cloud in a watery sky shone down on the river. River! It had been a mere trickle of water over rocks when they had crossed the bridge earlier this evening. Now flood waters were flowing over the banks and a rushing torrent was sweeping along, taking with it earth and trees, kauri logs and broken branches. The next moment she realised something else. The approach to the bridge had been washed away and now a deep hole foaming with water yawned only a few feet ahead of the Land Rover. “I don’t believe it,” she whispered. “We could be cut off ... couldn’t we?”
He slewed around to face her. “Not could be, Twenty, we darned well are!”
To her surprise he appeared more annoyed than startled by the torrent of water that barred their route to the homestead. “Incredible, isn’t it,” he was saying, “how the river can rise in a few hours like that! These flash floods are the devil. We often cop them in the summer, usually after a drought season. The water rises in no time at all on the dry river bank and can go down just as suddenly.”
“But what can we do? We can’t go back this way.” Angela raised hazel eyes wide with apprehension. “Is there another bridge further up the river? One that’s wide enough to take the Land Rover?”
“Good thinking. Twenty, but it won’t work. Not a chance! This is the only Land Rover bridge, or was up till an hour or so ago. No, I guess we’ll just have to settle for the old hut the road-workers left behind them. Luckily it’s no distance away, at the start of that stand of native bush. That old shack by the roadside.”
She rubbed a cleared space on the misted window, but could discern nothing but treetops wildly tossing against a gunmetal sky. “A hut?” she echoed faintly.
“That’s right.” He was reaching to the back of the vehicle in search of raincoat and rug. “Handy for anyone caught out in bad weather to put up for the night. Trampers use it mostly, a few surveyors, hunters. Even the odd touring party caught out in a storm on a summer camping trip. See it?”
“Not really, but I’ll take your word for it.” She spoke lightly, but underneath her heart was beating much too fast. The thoughts spun in a turmoil in her mind. Did he really mean they were to be forced to spend the night in a one-roomed shack by the roadside? But what else could they do? He had spoken so casually as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world for them to put up there together. Perhaps it was in the circumstances. Clearly in his outback existence such sudden eventualities as washouts and landslides were all in the day’s work, an occupational hazard of station life. Obviously this wasn’t the first occasion on which the bridge approaches had been washed away and travellers forced to take shelter in the nearby hut. Ridiculous of her to be so prissy and self-conscious over an emergency that was none of his doing.
Well, if he could be unconcerned over a night spent in the wilds so could she! It wasn’t as if there were the slightest—well, feeling—between them. She was here on sufferance, he’d made that quite plain from the beginning. As for herself, he was her employer, that was all. So why was her heart beating fast in this stupid fashion? Angela shied away from the answer to that particular line of thought. Blame the storm and act unconcerned, that was the way to handle her own personal emergency. Aloud she said, “You’re sure there’s no other way back to the station?”
His grin was sardonic. “You still don’t get it, do you. Twenty? We’re damned lucky to have some shelter for the night!” He threw a glance outside where the rain had eased to a light drizzle. “Come on, we’ll make a dash for it!” He switched off the headlamps and the next minute he was out of the vehicle and splashing over the muddy road towards her side of the Land Rover.
Now that the noise of the engine was stilled she could hear water splashing against the broken bridge supports. The roar of the flood waters and the moaning of wind in the trees underlined the fact that tonight was no night to be out in the open. But she would be in the hut, with Mark. She couldn’t decide which alternative was the more disturbing.
As he flung open the door the gale tore at her, loosening the windbreaker from around her shoulders and flinging her hair over her face. She fumbled in the darkness in search of the step, missed it and was about to leap down into a pool of water below when in a swift movement Mark picked her up bodily and almost without her volition she found her arms tightening around his neck.
Kicking the door shut behind them, he strode along the wet pathway. Now that her eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom she could faintly discern a winding track, and the pale blur of a small dwelling in the shelter of bush at the roadside. Rain was falling softly, beading their faces and hair, but she was scarcely aware of it for the tumult of her feelings. She told herself that this—this closeness—signified nothing to him, that to the master of Waikare she meant no more than a sheep he was rescuing from the storm and taking to shelter ... unfortunately. For something stronger than reason was taking over, an insidious sweetness that made her cling tighter to him, wish the short distance would never come to an end so that she could stay right here in his arms for ever! Already, however, a tiny shack with a tin chimney jutting from an iron roof loomed ahead. Soon he paused to push open the unlocked door with the toe of his shoe. Gently he set her down inside and she was aware of a dry timber floor beneath her feet.
“Welcome home. Twenty!” If only, she thought wildly, he didn’t mean by that what she suspected he did! Mark Hillyer carrying her tenderly over the threshold of their temporary home! She was conscious of a hysterical urge towards laughter and tears all mixed up together. Unthinkingly she put the thought into words, “Of all people in the world!”
He tossed the dripping jacket aside and put a light to a candle standing on a rough bench. He straightened, tossing the damp hair back from his forehead and above the tiny flame his eyes seemed to darken. But his tone was the familiar one of faint amusement. “Does that mean you don’t care for being carried over the threshold. Twenty?” Softly he added, “Gives you ideas, maybe?”
So he hadn’t missed the ridiculous significance of the situation. “No, it doesn’t!” All the tremulous happiness of the last few minutes drained away and she was left with the bitter reminder that she was just Twenty, the English girl out to catch a husband in a new country. All at once she felt she’d give anything to change that ready-made opinion of his. She’d even broach the subject again. Tonight would be a good opportunity and maybe with a bit of luck this time he might take her seriously. Suddenly it was desperately important that he should believe her. Slipping the damp windbreaker from her shoulders, she said lightly, “All I know is that I’m grateful for dry feet.” She glanced down at his sodden shoes. “Not like yours!”
“Oh, I’m used to it,” he said carelessly. His glance took in her damp hair, the coppery-coloured strands curling around her forehead, the rain-spattered slacks. “A fire will chase the damp away. All we need is a match and we’re away!” As he spoke he knelt to set a match to the sticks and newspaper already laid in a rough fireplace by a previous sojourner, probably the same man wh
o had left the dried tea-tree logs stacked alongside the open fireplace.
The flames soared upwards, making reflections on the rough log walls and Angela’s gaze went to a single bunk bed covered with a plaid woollen rug. “I see we have all the comforts of home!” Even to her own ears her laughter held a forced ring.
He was still kneeling by the blaze feeding it with kindling wood. “Come on, Twenty, may as well get warm.” She hesitated. The glint in his eyes did nothing to ease her mounting sense of confusion. “I don’t bite, you know!”
Angela dropped down at his side, holding her hands to the blaze. “I think the rain’s stopping at last.” How banal the words sounded. Mark must be aware of the disquiet she was trying hard to conceal. If that were true, however, he gave no sign but continued to regard her in the cool considering fashion she ought to be accustomed to by now, only she wasn’t!
“Guess you didn’t have an idea of what you were letting yourself in for when you came up to Waikare?”
Just what she wondered did he mean by that? “No,” she agreed faintly.
“No regrets?” He was stocking the flames, his face turned aside.
“Not so far.” Heavens, what if he took that to mean that she was referring to being cut off by the broken bridge, forced to spend the night with him in the hut? “I mean,” she babbled wildly on, “that cooking job with the shearing gang was tough going, but I guess it was all experience.”
She was leaning back, her eyes fixed on the leaping flames and hands clasped around her bent knees.
“Experience for what. Twenty?” he enquired softly, “life as a sheep farmer’s wife on a back-country station?”
Startled and indignant, she flung around to face him. “Why do you say that?”
“Just because you get so het-up on the subject—and because of John—”
“Oh, him.” Her voice was careless.
“Oh, him, just like that?” His tone was threaded with urgency and all at once it seemed to her that his eyes, “the cold blue Hillyer eyes”, were alive with a strange brilliance.
“Well,” with an effort she wrenched her glance from his deep compelling gaze, “I don’t know him all that well.”
But you let him kiss you. Do you let any man kiss you? Was that the direction in which his thoughts were running? It would be in line with his opinion of her as a girl with marriage on her mind. The thought was unbearable and made her say stiffly, “What have you got against John?”
“Not a thing! He’s a great guy. He’ll make a success of that land project of his later on, he’s got what it takes to make a go of things. A good husband too, I wouldn’t wonder—”
“But not for me? Anyway,” she said very low, “I don’t see that all this matters to you.”
“Oh, but it does, Twenty, it does! Any decent employer has a duty towards the men and women on his staff, wouldn’t you say? Temporary workers included, of course,” he added hastily as he saw the protest forming on her lips. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I ... suppose so.”
He was stacking heavy tea-tree logs on the open fire and the crackling of the dried timber mingled with the moaning of the wind outside. In the silence Angela was aware of a strange emotion that was stealing over her. a breathless happiness, transient as the flickering firelight. How attractive he looked with the flames throwing shadows over the lean face. And those blue eyes. Odd, they didn’t appear cold tonight. It must be the effect of the firelight. Mark’s voice was different too, as low and caressing that if she hadn’t known better she would almost imagine ... Lazily he reached a hand towards her hair, curling the end of a long coppery-red strand around his finger. “Looking after you, I mean.”
At something in his gaze she dropped her own. She had the most absurd impulse to reach up and touch the bronzed masculine face. She simply must take herself in hand, get the better of this electricity, fire-magic or whatever it was that was stealing away her senses. All at once she made up her mind. She would ask him straight out to listen to her. She’d make him believe that everything she had told him was the truth! Only this time she would appeal to him, she wouldn’t allow herself to get mad and spoil everything the way she had before. She drew a deep breath. “Mark, there’s something—”
But he had risen to his feet, mouth set and voice oddly gruff. “Time all little girls were in bed! That fire should keep going for an hour or so yet!” His glance moved to the nearby bunk. “It’s rough, but it’s better than nothing!” He turned away, said in a strangely hoarse tone, “’Night, Twenty!”
She stared up at him in surprise. “But where will you—”
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll doss down in the Land Rover. It won’t be the first time!” He was at the door, “See you in the morning!” The gale tossed the words back at her, then he flung the door shut and Angela was alone.
She stared into the leaping flames. How strange he was! She would never understand him. For a brief time tonight they had seemed to have a rapport between them. A sudden thought struck her. What it he too had been aware of that electric awareness that had seemed to leap between them? Could that be the reason he had gone so abruptly? Or was she imagining things? In this alien world everything was a puzzle, she mused bewilderedly. Except one thing. The truth hit her like a physical blow. She only knew she loved him. Loved the boss, that cold enigmatical employer of hers. All this time she had imagined she hated him, yet somewhere along the line she had allowed herself to fall in love with him. Deeply, irrevocably, hopelessly in love.
A longing so intense took over that it was only with an effort she prevented herself from running after him into the darkness, calling, “Come back! Come back! There are so many things between us, things that need explaining, that must be explained before you can ever think of me as—” She brought her thoughts up sharply. What made her imagine he would ever change his opinion of her? To him she was just Twenty, the silly, slightly amusing English girl who had planned a wedding to a stranger that hadn’t come off. All at once a pang of anguish shot through her. How could she have been so blind as not to take in his meaning before? He’d made it plain enough, heaven knows! John, the “good guy”, too good apparently to be allowed to get into the clutches of self-seeking young Twenty to whom one young Kiwi sheep farmer was as good prospective husband-material as another not now available.
Bemused by the intimacy of the firelit room, she had even forgotten all about Susan, with whom Mark’s feelings were already romantically involved. She had forgotten everything but his nearness. A yearning that was almost physical possessed her.
The flames had long ago died to glowing embers, but still Angela lay awake in the narrow bunk, conscious of the lumpy mattress and the regrets that wouldn’t go away. If only she had come to Waikare on her own initiative, without Martha’s name to spoil everything! If only she’d been able to explain the truth to Mark. Worst of all came the thought that she must live with it through the days to come. If only she hadn’t been stupid enough to allow herself to fall in love with him!
A fit of shivering shook her in spite of the oppressive warmth of the closed hut. Now she knew why she hadn’t really minded the exhausting work in the cookhouse, why she had offered with such alacrity to stay on at the station keeping house in Doris’s absence. It was all plain, too plain, and where did it leave her? It left her in a worse situation than ever. She was in love with a man who couldn’t care less about her. And the shame-making part of it all was that in spite of everything that had happened to her here she still didn’t regret having taken up Martha’s offer to come to Waikare. What she must do now was prevent Mark from ever guessing her feelings towards him. For the knowledge that she loved him would afford him the most amusement of all her pranks. She could imagine the capital he’d make out of that piece of interesting information! Tears squeezed behind her eyelids and slid down her cheeks. Why do you have to win all the time, Mark Hillyer?
She fell asleep at last, and when she awoke sunshine was slanting th
rough the small high window of the hut. She opened the door and peered outside, conscious of a chorus of birdsong from the native bush all around. Pools of water lay in the muddy pathway shaded by overhanging trees, but the river that last night had been a raging torrent had dropped to a lower level. In the daylight Angela could clearly see the broken timbers and sagging supports of the narrow timber bridge. How unpredictable was the weather in this part of the world! Now the air was incredibly clear and fresh, patches of blue sky showed between white clouds scudding by in a light breeze. Although leaves and branches all around her were beaded with crystal drops there was no doubt that the storm was over.
As she stood gazing around her Mark came strolling up the pathway towards her, and taking in his drawn, heavy-eyed appearance she felt a stab of compunction. He couldn’t have had much sleep last night, huddled in the Land Rover. If he had asked her to share the hut with him—but he hadn’t.
His tone however was cheerful enough. “Morning, Twenty!” The words were accompanied by the usual sardonic smile. “Sleep well?”
“Yes, thanks.” So they were back to the customary light approach. She wished he wouldn’t always talk to her in that tone of careless indulgence as though she were some strange creature who had somehow wandered into his orbit. She did have a name, although he would never acknowledge the fact.
“The river’s down,” he was saying. “Uncanny, isn’t it, the way it can rise ten feet in a few hours, then drain away again? We should be able to wade through to the other side if we pick the right spot. Care to give it a go?”
She nodded, looking past him to the vehicle standing near the washed-out approach to the bridge. “You’re leaving the Land Rover here?”
“Can’t do anything else but, Twenty! Not to worry, though. There’ll be someone zooming over from the house looking out for us before we get far on the other side of the river. They’ll guess what happened. Torrential rain like we had last night usually does a heck of a lot of damage on the road to the homestead. We’re bound to meet up before long with someone coming to the rescue!” Stepping inside the hut, he gazed towards the fireplace. “We’ll have to leave that as it is, tie embers are still hot, but I’ll send one of the boys over tomorrow to replace the log pile. You never know who’ll be coming along next looking for a night’s shelter.” He glanced towards her flared denim jeans. “You’ll need to, roll those up and go barefoot for this expedition!”