“She’s a damn liar, Leo!” His chest heaved as he pointed into the distance. “Saw her slink out of an Abo shack this morning!”
The rain dripped down her face, curled around her open lips. He was telling the truth. The world pierced with clarity, the noise of the storm suddenly sharp and loud in her ears. Clare had lied. Leonora had heard the woman’s gossip and lies a million times before, but it hadn’t registered. The thought of James—the thought of him with Clare—had erased all logic. Remorse poked instantly. “I-I-I’m sorry,” she stammered.
James’s jaw clenched and his lips tightened to a hard line. The anger was fierce in him now. The thunder cracked above their heads, but James didn’t flinch. He stepped forward and shouted through the rain, “Why the hell am I defending myself to you?” His voice was rough and harsh. “You’re the one who’s married!”
James stepped another foot forward. “How dare you accuse me, question me on anything!” he yelled. He pointed to the direction of the station, his eyes furious. “Every night you go into that house and share a bed with that bastard when I know . . . I know you should be sharing my bed! Do you know what it does to me when I think about you lying next to him, night after night—thinking about him touching you? Do you have any idea? It eats me alive, Leo! It kills me!” He ran his hand through his hair, pulled at the wet strands. “So, no, I have never been with the likes of Clare, but I’m no saint, Leo. I’m still a man and I want you so bad that . . .” He scowled and stopped, unable to find the words. He stomped closer. “So, you tell me, Leo. Tell me what the hell right you have to ask me anything!”
“Because . . . I love you!” she shouted back, her voice choppy. “I love you.”
James grabbed her by the shoulders, kissed her lips feverishly, roughly, endlessly. The rain pelted their hair and ran over lips, the erupting sky invisible and soundless.
James slid his lips from hers, held her face with spread fingers. “Leave him,” he pleaded.
Leonora’s legs went weak. “I can’t,” she whispered.
Under heavy, slick eyelashes, James’s eyes hardened. He loosened his grip on her shoulders, swallowed with revulsion. “Is it the money?”
“No!” she cried, and grabbed his arms.
James yanked away from her touch. He looked at her lips as if they made him sick. “You’re a coward.”
She shook her head violently. “No.” Her voice choked desperately as she floundered for his hand. “Please don’t say that.”
James recoiled, stepped back, his face bewildered. “You’re a bloody coward.”
He hated her. Leonora stood alone under the smashing rain, watched helplessly as he retreated one step at a time. She opened her mouth, her voice washed away, mute.
“Go back to Alex,” James ordered with a clear, low voice. His face was ice as he looked at her for the last time. “I don’t want you anymore.” James turned, walked toward his horse, his body soaked and dark.
Leonora fell to her knees in the mud. He was leaving. Panic, old and hidden, rose to the surface and spread to every cell. Truth hung wet and cold and suffocating—they all left.
She stared at her hands as they sank and stained in red earth. “He’ll take the children away!” she yelled above the storm, defeated. James stopped but did not turn around. “The children,” she whimpered, hitting her fist weakly into the mud, splashing red dots along her arm.
James turned his head, his brows low, his voice chilled. “What children?”
Don’t say it. Stop it now. Let him go. But the loss, the emptiness, grabbed at her heels and clawed her ankles. “The Aborigines!” she cried. “If I leave, Alex will send the children away.”
The silence hung like a noose. The voice of caution slinked away. She had said it. There was no retreat—no stopping what she started.
James marched back to her. She sobbed with face down, sick with remorse and infirmity. His boots took shape, paused in front of her knees. He reached down and pulled her gently up by the shoulders to her feet.
“I tried to leave!” she cried without looking at him. “I asked for a divorce. But the mission came for the children and I saw . . . I couldn’t let him do it, James.” His fingers tightened against her shoulders, kept her from crumpling. “I know . . . we know what happens to orphans.” She looked up at him then, defended almost soundlessly, “I’m not a coward.”
James looked through the gauze of gray, hard rain until he found her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Tears fell harder, mixed with raindrops. She gripped his elbows, shook them without power. “Because you’d confront him. And there’s nothing that can be done. Nothing.” She lowered her voice and searched his face. “He’s a violent man, James.” She twisted the soaked fabric of his sleeve. “Promise me you won’t do anything.”
But James was lost in her eyes, in the beauty of her face. He put his hand around her waist and pulled her body against his. She tried to pull back, needed him to understand. “Promise me, James!” she begged. “Please . . .”
James did not hear her. He wrestled her arms to her sides and covered her words with his lips. And the words, the caution, the hunt for a promise, filtered away with his kiss and she melted into the warmth of his figure and the urgency of his mouth.
The rain fell hard, landed rough and steady upon their skin. It soaked their faces, their hair, their ears, their frantic lips; it soaked the fabric of their clothes until the fabric clung, weighted warm and slack, against their figures. A bolt of lightning cracked the sky, landed so close as to make the wet ground sizzle, its force strong enough to part their lips. James lifted Leonora into his arms in one strong swoop and ran for cover in the barn.
The metal roof pounded as if hammers fell from the clouds instead of water. The new wood walls, still green in spots and smelling of tree sap, trapped the thick humidity between slats. Pressed, damp hay engulfed and sweetened the air along the ground and rose and strengthened as it climbed the eaves. James lowered Leonora to her feet and pushed her against the wall, found her mouth again. Lightning, spastic and frequent, brought light, then dimness, back and forth like a lamp knob turned on and off with indecision. Thunder rode tandem with the white, jagged bolts, did not lag by a beat. The sheep and horses shuffled softly in the straw in a faraway test of sound.
James rolled his head into Leonora’s neck, kissed the curves of her throat, tasted the skin slick with fresh rain. Home. She clutched his back, her hands too small to touch it all at once. She rubbed her palms along the muscles in his arms, the tight forearms, the hard biceps and shoulders. Home. She tugged at his wet shirt, pulled the fabric from his trousers, the buttons tight from rain. Blind with kissing, she fumbled and pulled at them, unclasping some and popping others. He curled his fingers in her hair. Home.
Without taking his lips from hers, James shook off his open shirt, letting it fall from his arms onto the ground. Leonora kissed down the ripples of his chest as he pushed her blouse from her shoulders and pressed his mouth along her collarbone. She reached behind her back and unclasped her skirt. James pushed the fabric off her body with hard strokes, and for one moment he paused, looked at the length of her in his arms. And in this pause, they stared at each other, the sound of thunder cutting through the sky, the lightning flashing upon their still faces, illuminating them.
James bent his neck down, kissed her softly and slowly this time, touched her face with his fingertips as if the bones were more fragile than porcelain. She reached to his pants, pulled at the belt. The leather slid against the metal buckle and drew through the loops with the sound of a slow, worn whip. With sure fingers, she undid the steel button below his waist. His body shuddered slightly under her touch. James moved closer, drifted his fingers over her silk slip and touched her breast. Her mouth opened with the touch. He slid his palm over the breast, cradled it in his fingers, then moved up to the tiny straps of the slip and let them fall from her shoulders. The slip draped to the ground under its own weight.
/> James wrapped her into the folds of his arms, pressed her body against his smooth chest, and lifted her feet off the ground before laying her gently on the clean hay. The storm raged above and around as their limbs and breathing entwined. The steel roof beat and echoed under the pounding; the barn walls vibrated; the ground trembled—the bodies trembled. Rain-soaked skin pressed and quivered below urgent fingers. Lips found the nape of the neck, found the tender nook on the underside of the elbow, found the small indent at the base of the lower back. Fingers etched lines and curved and tightened around the hidden, soft flesh of breasts and buttocks and inner thighs. A slide of hand; an arched body.
The muscles of James’s thighs hardened and twitched with restraint, then loosened as Leonora’s hips rose willingly—furiously—to meet his. Small muffled cries of pleasure—drawn, high mimics of pain—wafted atop the warm, still air. The lambs bleated plaintively with the strange sounds and writhing bodies and inched closer to the legs of the ewes.
Breathing quickened and labored within the walls and drowned out the pounding of rain. Home. Home. Home! The horses stepped nervously as a long cry floated into the thick air. Another cry, low and guttural, followed and then silence.
The barn’s air grew sleepy and quiet. The sheep closed eyes and rested chins upon the fleece of their babies. Slow breathing mingled with the rain, with the breathing of sheep and horses, mingled with the slow and lazy smell of hay. Gentle, tender kisses—unhurried and calm this time—lost their need to rush. For time had stopped. The fear, the loneliness, the weakness, washed away. They had a home now. After a lifetime of searching, they were home.
Smooth touches. Caresses over naked skin. Soft whispers exchanged between lips and earlobes. Muffled laughter tangled in hair and at the throat. Kissing. Lips moved across necks and arms and legs and stomachs. Limbs slid and tangled. Stroking. Fingers that would not stay idle inched and played. Searching and touching. Heat and softness; wet and pulsing skin. Crevices. Tender spots. Opening. Waiting. Wanting. And the breathing shifted, came quicker and more urgent once again. And the barn filled again with the sounds of lovemaking below the storm.
Leonora woke to hazy brightness. Late-afternoon sun seeped through the cracks of the barn wood, stretched spears of light across the floor, highlighted the finite crumbs of dust and straw. The rain had stopped. Water dripped gently from the roof and tapped into the rain barrel. The air was rich with wet loam. The ground steamed. Hay bales simmered with internal decomposition.
Leonora’s body was weak and relaxed from lovemaking, her bones soft as jelly. Her eyes wandered over James’s naked body, his arm still wrapped heavily around her waist like he was afraid she might disappear. His face was calm. She looked upon the features with awe; he had never looked so handsome, so perfect. The old burdens that he carried behind his eyes had faded. His hair was tousled, pointed out in rumpled spurts. Bits of hay threaded through the chestnut strands. She smiled, laughed softly and gently picked out a few bits.
James stirred, stretched out his back and pulled her tight against his chest without opening his eyes. He smiled languidly and whispered into her ear, “I love you, Leo.”
She nuzzled against his neck, ran her nails across his side and hip, the skin rising in tiny bumps under her touch. James propped himself on an elbow and touched her face, outlined the curves of it. He moved the wisps of long hair away from her face and tucked them softly behind her ears, etched the thin gold chain of her necklace down to her breasts.
Leonora leaned into him and kissed his forehead, his cheek, the edge of his mouth, before placing her lips against his, parting them with the tip of her tongue. There was no fear in the barn; there was no going back.
Her eyes flitted to the white rays forcing their way between the wood. She sighed and lowered her gaze to her fingers that rested on James’s chest. James studied her profile and saw the first lines of worry take shape. He lifted her chin, read her mind. “We’ll figure it out, Leo.”
“You won’t leave?”
“I’ll never leave you.”
She smiled bravely and nodded, the worry still growing with the sun that hovered too hot and too high. James hugged her in his arms, stroked her hair. Warm tears trickled a line down his neck and he held her tighter. “We’ll figure it out.” He didn’t want to let her go. “I promise.”
The stallion whinnied, pulled at his reins. A new thunder pounded, seemed to rise from the very ground, distant but intensifying. The sheep rose with attention; the lambs staggered on bent, wobbly legs at the earth’s sudden movement. Leonora sat upright, pulled her clothes to her breast. James jumped to his feet, slipped on his pants. The steady rhythm defined to a horse’s gallop. James dropped his shirt over his head, fumbled with buttons as he walked to the door. “Stay here, Leo!” he ordered, all peace gone.
He cracked the door and peered out. “I think it’s Tom. Too far away to tell for sure.” He glanced at her, the look soft. “Don’t come out until I get you, all right?” James tucked in his shirt, closed the barn door behind him.
Tom rode up fast, stopped the horse so quickly that its front legs kicked the sky. “Jesus, James! Been lookin’ everywhere for you.” He shimmied off the horse, his pupils darting. “Is Leonora with you?”
James gave a short nod, hardened his face.
“Christ.” He spit. Tom grabbed his arm, his speech firm and clear. “Listen, James. Alex has the whole bloody station out lookin’ for her. I tried to get a head start, but they’re close behind. You gotta get out of here. Now.”
James sped to the barn. Leonora was already dressed. “I heard,” she said.
James grabbed the horses. “Come on; we’ve got to get out of here.”
“I can’t leave, James. Besides, we can’t take the chance of being seen together. You go.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Tom opened the barn door, his eyes wild. “James, you need to get outta here! You got a five-minute lead at the most.”
“Go, James!” Leonora begged. “Please.”
James looked at one and then the other. With gritted teeth, he mounted his horse.
“Stay toward the eastern paddocks,” directed Tom.
James turned to Leonora, opened his mouth to speak.
“Go!” Tom yelled.
With one final look, James snapped his mouth shut and spurred the horse.
Tom watched the trail of upturned dirt, rubbed his forehead, the fear complete in his features. “I’ll wait until he’s out of sight and then I’ll send the signal that I found you.”
Tom left the barn. A shot fired, the gun cracking echoes over the plain. Two more followed. Leonora flinched with each blast, squeezed her eyelids and held her ears.
The sound of horses, maybe four or five, clamored toward the barn. Her muscles tensed. Alex shouldn’t be back. Her legs went limp. Maybe he knew. Blood drained from her face and left her fingertips cold. The horses were near. Men’s voices rose and fell above the hooves. Leonora walked through the doors, the sun blinding.
Tom stepped next to her protectively, shielding her with the rifle. “Tell him you got caught in the storm and stayed here to ride it out,” he hushed. “Orright?”
She nodded just as the rush of men and horses ground to a halt. Tom shouted to the group with forced ease, “She’s orright! Just a little scared from the storm.”
Alex got off his horse and walked toward her, his gait stringent. She tried to read his eyes, his mood, but they gave nothing away. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said. “Had every man out on the search.”
“I’m sorry. I got stuck in the storm,” she answered with caution. “Fell asleep in the barn.” She reached out a hand and rested it on his arm. Her wrist shook. “I’m sorry I worried you.”
Alex looked at her shaking hand, seemed to assess the movements, then drew his focus to her face. He was unusually quiet, darkly calm.
She hid the faltering hand behind her back, swallowed hard. “How did you make it th
rough the storm so fast?”
He was quiet for a long moment. His eyes lowered. “Something’s happened, Leonora. It’s your aunt,” he spoke softly. “She passed away.”
Her eyes dried, the frantic blinking stopped.
“I’m sorry.” Alex dropped his voice, his chin. “Just got word last night. I wanted to wait and tell you in person.”
Her thoughts blurred. She couldn’t place where she was or what she felt. A haze of disbelief clouded. There was no sadness, no relief—only numb, stilted incomprehension. She pivoted slowly, turned to the barn like a figurine in a music box, wondered if she was dreaming. She had been in James’s arms. Now she stood before Alex. Now her aunt was dead. And the haze thickened and closed her throat.
“I’ve already made arrangements for us to go back to America,” announced Alex.
She snapped her head up. “America?”
“For the funeral, Leonora.”
“Of course.” Her mind swirled. She didn’t know what the words meant.
“The steamer leaves Friday from Fremantle. We need to leave first thing tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. Tomorrow! The word rang in her temples.
“We’re lucky.” He nodded. “With the war, the ships are limited.”
Leonora stopped listening. She was leaving tomorrow. Leaving James. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Your aunt was a good woman,” Alex offered with rare compassion. “She’ll be missed.”
CHAPTER 59
Sixty seconds in a minute.
The sun beat relentlessly upon James’s back as he busied his hands with the already-tight wire fences, with the polishing of the already-gleaming saddles, with the endless chores that he completed and restarted.
Sixty seconds in a minute. James counted each one. Over and over again, he counted—each endless second a tiny wave pushing the steam liner, his heart, across the Pacific. And each second, he knew, Alex was with her.
Sixty minutes in an hour.
The minutes of the day were torturous, but the minutes of the night were inhuman with infinity. The minutes of the night reminded him that Alex would share her bed. The minutes wondered if Alex would touch her. The minutes grew malicious and promised that Leonora would forget him, forget what had happened in the barn, forget that they were meant to be together.
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