by Various
“I’m so sorry.” She was tempted to tell the man who had accosted her he couldn’t have been watching where he was going.
“No worries, love.”
She registered in amazement his incredible outfit. Navy boxer shorts with a frog-green singlet.
“You need help, little lady?”
That, when she was some inches taller than he. She momentarily closed her eyes. “I’m fine, thank you. Someone will be meeting me.”
“Lucky devil!”
Olivia’s Balfour blue eyes glinted. Why did it have to be a man? She could have been meeting a favourite aunt. She continued making slow progress through the swirling throng, marvelling at the sights around her.
She had never seen such flimsy dressing in her entire life, nor so much bare skin. Not even on the Caribbean islands. Nor so many marvellously attractive children, girls and exotic young women with startlingly beautiful black eyes, and skin either gilded honey, café au lait, light fawn or chocolate. They were all petite, with lovely slender limbs. Not for the first time in her life she felt like a giraffe, more pallid than she really was. Even Bella might have a job being singled out here. She didn’t know if these people were part aboriginal, part Indonesian, part New Guinean, part Chinese—anywhere from South-East Asia.
She didn’t know this part of the world at all. But they were all Australians, it seemed. They spoke with the same distinctive Australian accent, so much broader than her own and—it had to be said—the voices so much louder. No comment seemed to be offered quietly. She recalled her own voice had often been referred to as “cut glass.” But then they all spoke like that, the Balfours.
Heavens, was it possible she was a snob after all? For a moment she wondered if she had caught herself out. Looking around her she saw Australia’s proximity to Asia was well in evidence. This was a melting pot. Fifty nationalities made up the one-hundred-thousand-strong population and they all seemed to be waiting for flights out or meeting up with relatives and friends. She remembered now Darwin was the base for tourists who wanted to explore the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park and the great wilderness areas of Arnhem Land. She could readily believe such areas would be magnificent, but she couldn’t think how they would find the strength to go exploring in such heat!
She hadn’t thought to take off her long-sleeved Armani jacket. No chance of her ever getting about in floral bras, halter necks and short shorts like the young women around her. Not that there was anything wrong with her legs. Or her arms. Any part of her body for that matter. The jacket she wore over a slim skirt and a cream silk shirt beneath. Now she wished she had taken off the jacket. She was melting with little chance to mop her brow. The humid heat was far beyond anything she was used to. By Darwin standards she realised she was ridiculously overdressed. Absolutely nobody looked like her. Even her expensive shoes felt damp and clonky.
She was fully aware of all the curious glances directed her way. She also had quite a number of pieces of luggage to be off-loaded—all necessary, all bearing the famous Louis Vuitton label. Now she wished she had bought some ordinary everyday luggage. It was starkly apparent she didn’t fit in. Worse, she must have looked helpless.
“All right, love, are you?”
Olivia turned, astonished. Obviously she did have helpless or hopeless tattooed on her brow. For out of the milling crowd had emerged a pretty dark-skinned woman somewhere in her thirties, a little pudgy around the tummy, wearing a loose, floral dress alight with beautiful hand-painted hibiscus and some kind of rubber flip-flops on her feet. Despite that Olivia could see with her trained eyes that this was a woman of consequence, albeit in her own way. She had that certain look Olivia recognised, the self-assurance in the fathomless black eyes. She also wore a look of kindly concern. Olivia valued concern and kindness. Olivia liked her immediately. Something that happened rarely with strangers.
“Thank you for asking, but I’m quite all right.”
“Don’t look it, love!” The woman flashed a smile, still observing Olivia closely.
Did all these people speak their thoughts aloud? Olivia felt giddy and terribly overheated, as though the sun had bored a hole in her skull.
“Yah pale, and that lovely porcelain face of yours is flushed and covered in sweat. What say we sit down for a moment, love.” She paused to look around her. “Long flight, was it? You’re a Pom, of course. No mistakin’ the accent.” The woman laughed softly. “No offence, love. Me great-grandad was a Pom. Sent out to oversee the Pommy pearling interest. Used to be big in those days. His family never acknowledged me but that’s OK. I never acknowledged ‘im. So come on.” She took Olivia’s nerveless arm in a motherly fashion. “Over here. Don’t want you faintin’ on us.”
Olivia’s laugh was brittle. “I’ve never fainted in my life.” Nevertheless she allowed herself to be led away.
“Always a first time, love. They reckon five out of ten people faint at some point of their life. I fainted when I got speared one time. Accident, o’ course, but I nearly died. Me and Rani were out fishin’ for barra—that’s barramundi, if you don’t know. Best-eatin’ fish in the world.”
“I have heard of it,” Olivia said, not wanting to be impolite. “It’s terribly hot, isn’t it?” She sank rather feebly onto one of the long bench seats arranged in rows.
“This is cool for us, love. By the sound of it you wouldn’t want to be here in the wet. It’s just over.” The woman took a seat beside her. “What are you doin’ here anyway? Don’t look like a tourist to me. Look more like the wind blow you in, the wind blow you out. A bit spooky!”
“Spooky?” Olivia felt what was left of her self-confidence ooze away.
“Something about you, love.” The woman looked searchingly into Olivia’s blue eyes. “Your spirit bin wounded. Somethin’ happened you weren’t countin’ on? Don’t worry, yah spirit will heal here, far, far away from what you left behind. You’re gunna be able to display your real colours.”
Olivia, who fancied she had something of a gift, recognised a prophecy when she heard one. “Oh, I hope so!” The strange woman continued to stare directly into her eyes. Just as hypnotists do. Probably she was one. Or a sorceress. Then again she might discover the woman wasn’t real.
“Yah bin like a bird in a cage strugglin’ to escape,” the woman continued, her tone at lullaby pitch. “Beatin’ yah wings and flingin’ yourself against the bars. You have to have the will to escape.”
“Maybe I’ve been frightened to fly alone?” Incredibly Oliva found herself divulging that startling piece of information.
“Escape is within reach.”
The one thing she hadn’t reckoned on was an airport clairvoyant. “I’m waiting for a Mr Clint McAlpine to pick me up,” she confided in another strange burst of friendliness. “I’m to work for him.”
It was the woman’s turn to be astonished. “Clint hired yah?”
“You call him Clint?” Olivia was somewhat taken aback. No one, for instance, outside of family and close friends called her father Oscar. Dear me, no!
“Now, now, love, don’t come over the Pom.” The woman tapped her hand lightly. “We all call him Clint. We love him up here. He’s the best fella in the world. A fittin’ heir for his dad, who’s up there in the Milky Way, the home of the Great Beings and our ancestors. I’m Bessie Malgil, by the way. I shoulda told yah. Everyone knows me around here. I paint.”
“Pictures?” Olivia stared at her with quickening interest.
“Not your kind of pictures, love. We’re talkin’ indigenous art. Now how about you? What’s your name? Lady Somethin’, I’ll be bound!”
“Olivia Balfour.” Olivia gave the Good Samaritan her hand. “No title.”
“Don’t need one. Written all over yah. Nice to meet yah, Livvy,” Bessie said, giving Olivia’s elegant long-fingered hand a gentle shake.
Livvy! She had waited all her life to be called Livvy.
“My golly, girl, you’ve taken on a challenge comin’ down here t
o this part of the world. You look like you belong in one of them fine palaces.”
“No, Bessie, no!” Olivia shook her head, a movement that only increased her dizziness. “I’m just an ordinary person but I am interested in challenges.”
“Not today you ain’t!” Bessie pronounced firmly. “Look, love, let’s get you out of that straitjacket. Not that it ain’t dressy but we need to make a start. You’re overheatin’, that’s for sure. Clint’s comin’, yah say?”
“Oh, I do hope so.” Olivia rose in a rather wobbly fashion to her feet, while Bessie helped her out of her linen jacket, folding it neatly over the back of the bench.
“If he said he bin here, he’ll bin here,” Bessie stated with the utmost faith. “Blow me down if that’s not ‘im coming now!” Her whole face lit up. “Bin out on a muster by the look of it.” She chuckled. “Last week he was sellin’ two of the Queensland stations in the chain. People are lookin’ for cheaper beef. Global recession an’ all. We can deliver better up here in the Territory. Your worries are over, Livvy. Here he comes.”
Olivia started to her feet again, for once in her life standing awkwardly. McAlpine was coming. From where? What direction? Even as her eyes swept the crowded terminal she became aware of a ripple of pleasure, of recognition and excitement, in the crowd. She even detected a sprinkle of clapping. Something that always happened when royalty was around.
Bessie’s indicating hand came up. “Here he is, love. Right on time.”
Olivia followed her gaze helplessly. McAlpine?
All she could see was a strikingly tall, wild-looking man striding towards them. Some character that embodied the great outdoors, or the hero of a big-budget adventure movie set in the desert sands of Arabia or the jungles of the Amazon, the ones she avoided. This man was dressed in what she took to be the ultimate in bush gear. Khaki shirt, khaki trousers, a surprisingly fancy silver buckle on the leather belt he had slung around his lean waist. Polished high-heeled cowboy boots made him even taller than he already was. A wide-brimmed cream hat, the Australian slouch hat, was set at a rakish angle on his head. His hair, a dark auburn in colour, was almost long enough to pull into a ponytail, for God’s sake! When had he last visited a hairdresser? Most of his darkly tanned face was covered by thick stubble that, left another few days, could turn into a full beard.
Just the sight of him rendered her fragile. In fact, she felt too shocked to move a muscle.
But the eyes were the eyes she remembered. Glowing and glittering like a full-grown African lion. She had no parallel for this. He hadn’t looked like this in London or at the family wedding in Scotland. Then he had fitted effortlessly into her world. But this was a far cry. Here in his own country he looked like a man who had never been tamed.
While she stared back in a kind of bemused horror, he suddenly put up his hand and swept off his wide-brimmed slouch hat in an extravagant gesture she interpreted as mocking. He looked quite extraordinary! A totally different breed. She could feel a blush further redden her face and neck. This was a dangerous man. Way outside her ken. And to think of it! She had put herself in his power.
Olivia did the only thing she could do.
She fainted.
A lot of things had happened to him in his eventful thirty-eight years, but he had never had a woman collapse in a dead faint into his arms. A beautiful woman no less—tall, elegant, with classic aristocratic features. His mind was suddenly filled with his irritating but surprisingly vivid memories of her. Olivia Balfour, ice princess, had only just arrived and already she was trouble.
“Poor little thing!” Bessie crooned, as he swiftly fielded the young English woman’s tall, too-slender body, lowering her so she lay flat along the empty bench.
“She’d be all of five-eight in her bare feet,” he pointed out drily.
“Yeah, but she looks kinda vunerable, don’t you think?”
“Vulnerable, Bessie,” McAlpine corrected, privately agreeing.
“Whatever!” Bessie shrugged. “I always say vunerable. Why don’t you never tell me before?”
“Never heard you say it, but you’re spot on.”
“’Course I am. Anyway, knew this was gunna happen. Too many clothes. I spotted that right off.” She leaned over to slip off Olivia’s low-heeled, very expensive leather shoes.
“Who wouldn’t?” McAlpine commented drily. He seemed to remember telling the high-and-mighty Ms Olivia Balfour to get off her high horse, pedestal, whatever. She had got under his skin and he hadn’t bothered to hide it. The divorce coming up. That was his excuse. Marigole had been giving him all the flack she could muster.
“Not used to our heat,” Bessie was saying. “How she’s gunna survive outback, boss, I dunno as yet.”
“It’ll come to you, Bessie, like it always does. You and I both know lilies thrive.” He stared down at Ms Balfour’s still, lily-skinned face. She had very long eyelashes. They were starting to flutter. A good sign. He moved his hand to undo a few buttons on her silk shirt. She had done it up almost to the neck despite the pressing heat which today was climbing to near forty degrees Celsius. Did she have no sense at all? Next he slipped the waist button on her tight pencil-slim skirt. “Cold water, Bessie, chop, chop.”
“Sure, boss!” Bessie spun on her thongs to obey, just as a terminal staff member hurried towards them, a very attractive brunette who had waited her moment to zoom over to them, physically beating off another female attendant in the process. She carried a plastic container of ice-cold water.
“Is she all right?” the brunette enquired, looking not at the faint victim as perhaps she should have, but full into the cattle baron’s extraordinary big-cat topaz eyes. They were stunning in his bronze face. She had been told he was a hunk. She wasn’t at all disappointed. Hunk was too tame. He was drop-dead gorgeous!
“She’s coming around.” Clint frowned slightly, taking Olivia’s pulse. A bit rapid but not overly weak. “Thanks for that.” He took the container from the attendant without really seeing her.
“No problem, Mr McAlpine.” Long heavily mascaraed eyelashes batted away, her fingers tingling deliciously from the brief contact with his. Gosh, he was awesome! And he was unattached. Everyone in the Territory knew his marriage hadn’t worked out. Unbelievable! The ex-wife had to be a blend of near blind and mentally challenged. “Could she need medical attention?” she asked helpfully. “I can arrange it.”
“I shouldn’t think so.” Gently Clint tapped Olivia Balfour’s cheeks. They were cool and damp and not worryingly hot and dry. “She’s exhausted from the long flight and she’s overdressed. The cold water will cool her down.” He realised after a moment the brunette was lingering on. He had got used to this kind of thing. Women worked hard at attracting him, often outrageously. Amazing how much more attractive having money made a man. “Thank you.” He gave her a smile that held a pleasant dismissal and reluctantly the airline attendant tore herself away, heading back to her mundane duties.
Olivia opened her eyes, trying desperately to reorientate herself.
Dear God, had she died and been transported to hell or what passed for it? She made a grab for someone’s shirt. Heat was swirling all around her. Surely she didn’t deserve this?
Full consciousness swiftly returned. She was looking straight into McAlpine’s lion’s eyes. She uncurled her fingers which were twined like tentacles of a vine around his arm. “God help me, did I faint?”
“Ah, the princess awakens from her slumbers!” he murmured suavely. “God help you, you did, Ms Balfour.” He rose to his impressive height. “Look, I’m going to lift you so your head is resting back against my shoulder. Then I want you to drink some cold water. Bessie will help.”
“Oh, good, Bessie…” She was enormously grateful Bessie, her Good Samaritan, hadn’t left her.
“I’m here, love, don’t you worry.” Bessie, who had already decided to take this beautiful, fragile lady under her wing, had moved in close, clucking like a mother hen. Why, the willowy cr
eature had eyes as blue as a Ulysses butterfly’s wing and skin so white she might have been zoomed down from a celestial planet. Bessie took the container in hand.
“Really, I’m all right!” Olivia protested, when she felt like a rag mop.
“Really, you aren’t,” McAlpine drawled. He sat behind her, drawing her upper body against him. Immediately she slumped her golden head gratefully against his shoulder, clearly needing assistance. She might be terribly hot and bothered, he thought, but her skin gave off the most exquisite scent of roses. “Right, Bessie. Let’s get it into her.”
“Always wanted to be a nurse.” Bessie chuckled. “Like takin’ care of people.”
“Well, now’s your chance.”
“She’s lucky I sensed her,” Bessie said with satisfaction. “Not that me antennae bin flyin’ solo. The crowd had spotted her too. Never seen anyone so beatific in their whole lives.”
“Beatific?” Clint laughed. “That’s a good word, Bess.”
“Means angel, don’t it?”
“Looking like an angel.”
“Or mebbe a brolga in search of water. Jes’ standin’ there, she was.”
Brolga? Olivia felt a wash of panic. What was a brolga, for heaven’s sake? Some sort of slang for bird brain?
McAlpine’s body was disturbingly hot, hard and steely strong, the sweat on him clean—an arresting combination of pheromones and the vast outdoors, dead sexy in its way. For an insane moment she wondered what it would be like to know that body intimately. The next she wondered if it were possible she was on the verge of a spectacular mental breakdown. She had only set foot on this tropical outpost and already she was going troppo. She knew the term. Surely some Englishman who had spent too long in the tropics had invented it? She had never thought to experience it firsthand.