Bridge to Nowhere

by Yvonne Whittal

  The sun was stinging her face and arms and, taking Byron's advice, she headed towards the shelter of the gum and poplar trees on the ridge directly ahead of them. Chad caught up with her seconds later, and she cast a brief glance in his direction to notice that he sat remarkably well in the saddle for a man who claimed he was not an expert. She risked yet another glance at him, the artist in her revelling in the perfect symmetry of his attractively sculpted features, and she was admiring his stern profile with the straight, high-bridged nose and strong, jutting jaw when his grey glance collided unexpectedly with hers.

  A wave of embarrassing heat surged into her cheeks at the knowledge that she had been caught staring in much the same way she had stared a year ago, and she leaned forward in the saddle, the wind whipping through her short, honey-gold curls as she urged Juniper on to a faster speed. The dapple-grey gelding responded instantly to her silent command, but it was not the exhilaration of the ride that heightened the colour in her cheeks. It was that stinging mockery she had glimpsed in Chad's eyes before she had wrenched her glance from his, and she cursed herself silently for allowing him to make her feel and behave like a gauche teenager.

  She slowed Juniper down to a comfortable trot when they finally reached the tall, shady trees which grew so abundantly from the crest of the ridge down to where the fast-moving river wound its way among rock-capped hills through Thorndale property, and Chad followed her example.

  The familiar pungent smell of the bush mingled with that of horseflesh and leather, and Megan began to relax in the saddle, her small, fine-boned body moving in perfect unison with the rhythm of the animal beneath her. They rode in silence through the dappled sunlight, neither of them making an attempt at conversation, but Chad was not a man to be ignored. He had the ability to make his presence felt, and Megan was uncomfortably aware of him with every fibre of her being as she took the lead along the path that veered left down to the river.

  The river was still flowing strongly despite the fact that the bushveld had not had sufficient rain during the summer months, and birds chirped and fluttered noisily in the trees where they had sought safety in building their nests high along the willow branches trailing across the water.

  Megan and Chad had dismounted and were tethering their horses to a sturdy acacia tree when Chad broke the silence between them. 'I had grave doubts that someone as slightly built as you could control an animal of Juniper's strength and size, but you ride well.'

  'Frances taught me to ride when we were children, and she's one of the best.' Megan did not hesitate to give credit where it was due, and she smiled inwardly at the memory of those riding lessons so long ago as she eased her canvas bag off her shoulders and studied her surroundings from an artist's point of view.

  'You obviously admire your cousin a great deal.'

  'I do,' she confessed abruptly, aware of a trace of cynicism in his voice, but doing her best to ignore it as she walked away from him to seat herself in a shady spot on the uprooted stem of an old tree.

  'You didn't want me to come along on this ride, did you,' he stated with an unexpectedness that wrung an honest response from Megan.

  'No, I didn't.' She took her sketchbook out of the canvas bag and looked up suddenly to find him observing her intently through lowered lids with his thumbs hooked into the leather belt hugging his denims to his lean hips. 'I'm sorry if that sounds rude,' she added contritely, 'but it's the truth.'

  'Are you sulking because I've neglected to thank you properly for the meal you prepared for me the other night?' he demanded, smiling derisively, and Megan stiffened with indignation.

  'I am not in the habit of sulking, Dr McAdam, and leaving a home-cooked meal in the oven for you had been intended as a gesture of good-neighbourliness for which I didn't expect to be thanked,' she informed him, the chilling displeasure in her voice reflected in her eyes as she met and sustained his piercing glance. 'That's the way we are in these parts, generous and neighbourly, and in time you might learn to view our actions with less suspicion.'

  His sensuous lower lip thinned and his mouth became twisted with cynicism. 'It's my experience that a woman's generosity is meted only according to what she expects in return.'

  Chad's distorted opinion of women shook Megan considerably, but it also afforded her a glimmer of understanding which made the corners of her taut, angry mouth relax and quiver with the effort to suppress a smile.

  'Do you find that amusing?' he demanded curtly, his eyes narrowed to unfathomable slits, and she felt compelled to explain.

  'I was under the impression that your dislike was directed at me personally, but I realise now that you don't have a very high opinion of women in general, and I must confess to a feeling of relief.' She stared up at him thoughtfully, studying the rigid contours of his good-looking features and wishing she could probe beneath that harsh, cynical mask. 'I don't suppose,' she added speculatively, 'that you allow your opinion to deprive you of female company.'

  'Women can be entertaining as long as a man doesn't take them seriously, and they do happen to serve a purpose.'

  His implication was as clear as the sexual undertone in his deep, velvety voice, and his sensuous mouth curved with derisive mockery as she felt embarrassment staining her cheeks a deep pink.

  'I'll take a stroll farther up along the river and leave you to your sketches,' he ended their conversation abruptly, and he was walking away from her before she had time to recover sufficiently to formulate a suitable reply to a statement which she knew had been intended to shock her.

  Megan stared after him until the denseness of the trees along the banks of the winding river obscured him from her vision, and then her embarrassment slowly gave way to an intense sadness. Life could be cruel at times, and she could only think that it must have dealt Chad McAdam a savage blow. It had robbed him of the ability to care, and it had left him with the misguided notion that women were playthings that served a purpose only in a man's bed.

  A beetle landed on her opened sketchbook with a thud that startled her out of her reverie, and she sighed as she flicked it off and reached into her canvas bag to select one of her pencils. She worked steadily, her pencil moving with rapid, confident strokes across the paper, but she could not rid her mind entirely of the conversation she had had with Chad.

  A woman's generosity is meted only according to what she expects in return, he had said, and Megan shuddered inwardly as she recalled the contempt in his voice. She had lived a reasonably sheltered life as a member of a close-knit family, moving among people who were warmhearted, loving and generous to a fault, but she was no longer an innocent child who had to be sheltered from the sometimes harsh realities of life. She was aware that there were many women who fitted Chad's description aptly; women who gave very little in return for what they had received, but it was wrong of him to believe that all women were like that. So terribly wrong!

  Megan could not be sure how long she had sat there working, but the rocky-ridged hill, the rippling river, and the trees along the opposite embankment had been reproduced on paper before her, and she was reasonably satisfied with the result. Her back felt stiff, and she was arching it to ease the tension in her muscles when a twig snapped behind her, startling her into an awareness that she was no longer alone.

  'That's very good,' Chad announced himself, stepping over the log and gesturing to the sketchbook on her lap as he seated himself beside her.

  He smelled of the sun and a woody cologne. It was a potent mixture that tugged at her senses and heightened her awareness of him as a man in a way that alarmed her considerably.

  'This is merely a preliminary sketch for a painting,' she explained self-consciously as he leaned towards her to take a closer look at her work, and her nerves seemed to become alerted to something which she failed to put a name to when his arm brushed lightly against hers.

  'This may only be a preliminary sketch, but you've already succeeded admirably in capturing the essence of your subject on paper.' The com
pliment was unexpected, and when he raised his glance to subject her to a speculative stare, Megan lowered her gold-tipped lashes to hide her confusion, but instead she found herself staring in strange fascination at the fine dark hair springing from his tanned, sinewy forearm. 'I believe you've been remarkably successful in business as well as in the arts, and that's quite an achievement for someone so young,' he added, increasing that odd tension inside her when she looked up to meet that relentless, probing glance. 'You project an image of youthful innocence which could be deceiving, so what are you, Megan O'Brien? Eighteen? Nineteen, perhaps?'

  'Twenty-four,' she replied, averting her gaze to focus her attention on the hawk which had been circling the sky for some time.

  'Impossible!'

  'It is, nevertheless, a fact,' she laughed nervously, arching her aching back once again and altering her position slightly to avoid contact with that long, muscular thigh which had shifted so close to her own. 'How old are you, Dr McAdam? Or am I not supposed to ask?'

  His cynical mouth twitched with the suggestion of a smile when she glanced at him. 'Add nine years on to your age.'

  She raised her finely-arched eyebrows in a mocking response. 'Thirty-three? Impossible! You don't look a day older than…'

  'Careful, Megan,' he warned softly, his mocking, compelling glance holding hers relentlessly, and she had to steel herself not to flinch away from those long, sensitive fingers tracing the line from her cheekbones down to her small, pointed chin. 'You happen to be treading on dangerous ground.'

  That was true! His touch was like fire against her skin, quickening her pulse and underlining the fact that she would be treading on dangerous ground if she allowed herself to get too close to this man who was beginning to intrigue her to the extent that she felt an urgent need to know more about him. Common sense warned that Chad McAdam could disrupt the calm, comfortable existence she had carved for herself, and if she wanted to avoid being hurt then it would be safer to stay away. Far away!

  Megan emerged from her thoughts to hear the horses moving about restlessly, and she retreated hastily behind that protective barrier of aloofness which she had erected earlier that day when she had arrived at Thorndale to find Chad there.

  'I think it's time we returned to the house.' She rose abruptly to escape the tantalising caress of Chad's fingers before they could stray too far along her throat and busied herself packing away her equipment. 'The light has altered,' she offered as an excuse, 'and I could do with something cool to drink.'

  Chad did not contradict her, but Megan was agonisingly aware of his silent mockery as they mounted their horses moments later and rode back to Thorndale's homestead at a leisurely trot. He knew that his touch had disturbed her, and she could almost hate him for reading her so accurately.

  CHAPTER THREE

  'You're not going to spend the night out at Izilwane,' Frances argued with Megan after dinner that Sunday evening when they left the dining-room to drink their coffee out on the veranda. 'You're staying here.'

  'It's kind of you to suggest that I stay, but I—'

  'I insist!' Frances interrupted, settling herself comfortably on the cane bench beside Byron. 'This is the first time in weeks that you've come to the farm, and you can't leave until we've had a decent conversation.'

  'You're bossy,' Megan accused with mock severity.

  'I know,' Frances agreed with a smile in her voice. 'Will you stay the night?'

  Megan relented with a sigh. 'How can I say no when you ask so nicely?'

  'I have a couple of important phone calls to make, so I'll leave the two of you alone,' announced Byron, rising to his feet and putting his empty cup in the tray on the low table before he went into the house.

  Megan and Frances remained seated in the moonlit darkness, listening to Byron's heavy footsteps crossing the hall and growing fainter down the passage until there was a silence which was disturbed only by the screeching of insects in the undergrowth.

  'This is quite like old times, isn't it,' remarked Frances, her reminiscent observation finally ending the companionable silence between them.

  'Yes, it is,' Megan agreed on a sigh, recalling the many evenings they had spent together out on the veranda, relaxing after a busy day.

  'I wish you'd find someone nice and settle down with a home of your own. Isn't there a chance that you and Jack—'

  'Jack Harriman and I have never been more than friends, and that's the way it will always be between us,' Megan interrupted her cousin firmly. 'I'm in no hurry to be married, Frances,' she added for good measure, 'and I'm quite content with my life as it is at the moment.'

  'Yes, I know you're happy and content in what you're doing, but one day you'll meet someone, and then you'll suddenly wake up to the knowledge that it isn't enough.'

  Megan smiled into the darkness. 'I imagine that's true.'

  'What happened this afternoon when you rode out to the river?' Frances changed the subject abruptly, and Megan was instantly on her guard.

  'Nothing happened,' she replied evasively. 'Dr McAdam went for a long walk along the river while I made the preliminary sketch for the landscape you've been waiting for so patiently.'

  'Is that all?'

  Megan frowned at her cousin's shadowy figure seated on the cane bench, then her sense of humour rose to the fore and she laughed softly into the darkness. 'You sound disappointed. Were you hoping I'd say he tried to seduce me under the willows?'

  'Certainly not, Megan!' her cousin responded indignantly. 'You must have talked, though, because I did notice that the tension had eased a little between the two of you when you returned from your ride.'

  'He's a very cynical and embittered man,' Megan remarked thoughtfully. 'Someone must have hurt him very badly once, and he's neither forgiven nor forgotten.'

  'You must have indulged in quite a revealing conversation,' observed Frances drily, and Megan was glad of the darkness as she felt her cheeks grow warm.

  'Chad McAdam is a very difficult man to understand.'

  'Most men are difficult to understand until you discover what it is that makes them the way they are.' Frances spoke with the wisdom of a woman who had experienced this for herself, and she was silent for some time before she added unexpectedly, 'Chad McAdam is a very attractive man, with his own fair share of idiosyncrasies.'

  'So I noticed,' Megan laughed wryly.

  'Don't get involved, Megan.'

  A jackal howled in the distance as if to stress the urgency of Frances' warning, and the hair rose on Megan's arms. 'I don't intend to,' she stated firmly, suppressing a shiver.

  'I'm glad to hear that,' Frances sighed audibly into the darkness. 'I'd hate to see you hurt.'

  Their conversation ended there when Byron rejoined them out on the veranda, and later, when they went to bed, Frances' warning echoed repeatedly through Megan's mind before she went to sleep.

  Don't get involved!

  She did not want to get involved, but there was this cynical little voice at the back of her mind which persisted in saying that she might not have a choice in the matter.

  The time had come for the duyker to be released into its natural environment. Megan knew she could no longer postpone it, and she was preparing herself emotionally for what she had to do when Chad emerged from the veterinary building on the Monday afternoon and saw her with the small antelope she had reared.

  'The duyker has to go,' he instructed, approaching the small enclosure with a look of icy disapproval in his pale grey eyes. 'If you prolong this confinement the animal won't learn how to fend for itself.'

  'I know,' she said, resenting his interference as she rose from her haunches to confront him. 'I was thinking of speaking to Jack Harriman this evening and making the necessary arrangements.'

  Chad accepted her statement with a curt nod before he strode off in the direction of his bungalow, and Megan knew a strange desire to hurl something at that broad, departing back. He was a callous brute, and she doubted if he had ever had to let
go of something or someone he had learned to care for.

  Megan was up before dawn on the Tuesday morning. The bushveld air was cool and fresh, and the dew-wet earth sparkled in the watery rays of the sun as it rose slowly beyond the mountains in the distance. Birds twittered noisily in the mopani trees, and somewhere a dove was calling to its mate, heralding the awakening of a new day, but the magic of this moment escaped Megan as she coaxed the duyker into the small cage in which it was to be transported into the game park.

  A handful of succulent grass was all she needed to accomplish this task. The duyker quivered nervously when the cage door slid into position, trapping it, and Megan thought her heart would break when those soulful brown eyes met hers for one brief second before Jack Harriman instructed his men to lift the cage on to the truck. Her throat ached, and she was fighting desperately to hold back the tears when she felt Jack's arm slide about her shoulders.

  'He'll adapt very quickly,' he assured her, and she turned her face into his comforting shoulder.

  'I know he will.'

  She lifted her head a moment later as if someone had tugged her by the hair and, looking over Jack's shoulder, she saw Chad's khaki-clad figure walking towards them on his way to the veterinary building which housed his office, surgery and laboratory. He greeted everyone in passing, but his cold eyes skimmed over Megan with a hint of mockery in their depths, and her cheeks flamed. She had no reason to feel embarrassed and awkward about being seen with Jack, but suddenly she did, and she resented Chad for making her feel that way.

  Moments later she was watching the truck disappear down the road with its cargo which had become so precious to her. She turned, her eyes misting with tears, and at that moment she saw Chad observing her from his office window with his features set in an inscrutable mask. What was he thinking? Was he enjoying her misery? Megan did not stop to wonder. She pulled herself together instantly and hurried back to her bungalow to exchange her denims and shirt for a cool cotton frock before she opened up shop.