'Please do join us, Jack.'
'It's been a long, hot day, and I could do with a cold beer,' he said, lowering himself into a vacant chair and gesturing to the steward. 'What about you ladies? Could I buy you another drink?'
'Nothing for me, thank you, Jack,' Megan declined hastily. 'I'll finish what I have here, and then I must leave.'
'What about you, Glenys?' he asked, and Glenys seemed to hesitate for a moment before she smiled and nodded.
'I wouldn't mind another gin and tonic.'
'A beer for me, please, Sam, and a gin and tonic for the lady here.' The steward left to place their order at the bar and Jack glanced at Megan and Glenys as he settled back comfortably in his chair. 'Have you two ladies got partners for this evening?'
'What's happening this evening that requires a partner?' Glenys demanded curiously.
'We've got our local band playing in the restaurant this evening, and it's going to be a night of wining, dining and dancing,' Jack explained, shifting his dusty boots beneath the low table where they were hidden from sight.
'Count me out,' Megan intervened. 'I'm going to have an early night.'
Jack looked at the attractive brunette and smiled. 'Would you consider being my partner for the evening, Glenys?'
Megan was aware of a certain urgency beneath the surface of his casual invitation, and she silently willed Glenys to accept when she saw her hesitate.
'I'd like that very much, thank you,' Glenys finally answered him with a hint of shyness in her smile.
'Wonderful!' he exclaimed. 'I'll call for you at seven, if that would suit you?'
'Seven would be fine,' Glenys nodded.
'If you two will excuse me, then I really must go,' Megan announced, rising from her chair and smiling into jade-green eyes across the low table. 'Thanks for the drink, Glenys, and I hope you both enjoy your evening.'
The sun was setting beyond the ridge of distant hills, casting a pink hue across the sky when she left the Ladies' Bar and walked the short distance to her bungalow. She paused briefly on her stoep to watch a hadeda ibis swooping low overhead as it flew to roost with its 'ha-ha-ha-dahah' call echoing across the silent bushveld, and she sighed tiredly as she entered her bungalow.
If only life could be as simple and uncomplicated as nature! she was thinking when she closed the door behind her.
Megan had a valid reason for driving out to Thorndale on Sunday afternoon. Frances had returned home the day before with her baby, and Megan wanted to make her a gift of the landscape painting she had completed. The true reason for her visit to the farm was a restlessness brought on by indecision, but that was something she would keep to herself.
'This is magnificent, Megan!' Frances voiced her opinion as she studied the watercolour painting of willow trees trailing their branches in a winding river against the backdrop of a rocky-ridged mountain. 'You did the preliminary sketch for this painting that afternoon when you and Chad rode out to the river, didn't you?'
'Yes,' Megan nodded, looking away hastily to hide the pain and despair in her eyes.
She did not need Frances to remind her of that particular afternoon when she had been coerced into taking Chad along on that ride down to the river. The memory of it had haunted her every moment while she had worked on that painting. She had known then that Chad had the ability to disrupt her calm, comfortable existence, but she had foolishly ignored all the warnings her rational mind had issued.
'This was worth waiting for,' Frances announced, hugging her delightedly, 'and I insist that you stay and have supper with us this evening.'
Megan did not decline the invitation. The mere thought of having to return to the loneliness of her bungalow filled her with dread, but she wondered afterwards if it would not have been preferable to having to pretend to her family that nothing was amiss.
She lingered in the nursery that evening with Frances after little Daniel had been bathed, fed, and settled in his cradle. He went to sleep almost immediately, and still they lingered, marvelling at his minute perfection until Byron returned from the Grove, where he kept an excellent herd of Afrikaner cattle.
'I was hoping to be back a little earlier, but we had problems with the borehole pump,' he explained with a grimace as he hugged Frances to his broad chest and peered into the cradle at his sleeping son. 'I'm starving,' he said at length. 'What's for supper?'
'I'm not sure, but knowing Gladys, you could expect another four-course meal,' Frances replied, a humorous twinkle in her dark eyes as she disengaged herself from her husband's arm to lead the way down the passage and across the hall into the dining-room where Gladys, the buxom, elderly black woman, was checking that everything was in order with the array of sliced cold meats and salads she had set on the table.
'Sawubona, Miss Megan.' A white-toothed smile split her black face, but her dark eyes were critical when they flicked over Megan's small, slender frame. 'You are getting too thin, it's true,' she said in her heavily accented English. 'Maybe you must come and visit kaningi times, then I can put meat on your bones with my cooking.'
'Maybe I will come more often in future,' Megan smiled at her affectionately, and Gladys nodded as if the matter was settled before she left the room and returned to the kitchen, her weight making the floorboards shudder beneath her.
'Gladys was right,' observed Byron, his tawny gaze sliding over Megan's slight figure as they seated themselves at the table. 'You have lost weight.'
Megan tensed inwardly. 'I've been expending a lot of energy on my work lately.'
Byron accepted this explanation with an understanding nod and helped himself to the food on the table, but Frances continued to stare contemplatively at Megan.
'You're not ill, are you?' she asked, a worried frown creasing her smooth brow. 'You do have a rather drawn look about the eyes.'
'There's nothing wrong with me that a good night's rest won't cure,' Megan assured her cousin with a smile which she hoped would look convincing, and to her relief Frances left the matter there.
Megan tried to participate in the conversation at the supper table, but her mind wandered relentlessly. What was she going to tell Chad? Should she accept his offer, or should she reject it?
Later, when they drank their coffee out on the cool, dark veranda, she was still searching frantically for a solution to her problem, and she was beginning to despair when Byron excused himself to retire to his study. What am I going to do? she asked herself as she rose agitatedly from her chair on the veranda to lean against the wooden railings. The familiar sound and smell of the bushveld at night was all around her as she stared up at the star-studded sky, but she neither heard nor saw anything while she battled with her indecision.
'That's the third time in the last half-hour that you've jumped up out of your chair like a jack-in-the-box. Honestly, Megan, you're as restless as a horse that's been stabled too long,' Frances complained half in earnest and half in jest from the depths of her comfortable chair. 'What's the problem?'
'What makes you think that I have a problem?' Megan counter-questioned her cousin guardedly, her body tense and her hands clenching the varnished wooden rail so tightly that the muscles in her forearms ached.
'We've come a long way together,' Frances reminded her quietly. 'I know when something is bothering you, and you should know by now that you can trust me.'
'I do trust you, Frances, but I've got myself involved in a tricky situation, and—'
'It's Chad McAdam, isn't it?'
Megan should have known that Frances would guess at the truth, and, raising her hands in a gesture of despair, she turned to face her cousin's shadowy figure in the chair. 'Yes,' she sighed, 'it's Chad McAdam.'
Frances was silent for a moment before she said quietly, 'Do you want to talk about it?'
'Chad is in Johannesburg on business,' Megan began wearily, 'but before he left he told me he'd be sending his company's plane up to Izilwane in the morning with a load of veterinary equipment, and since I have to present my
illustrations to the publishing company before lunch tomorrow he suggested that I take the plane on its return trip to Johannesburg.'
'And then, I presume, you'll drive back to Izilwane with Chad when you've both concluded your business,' Frances grasped the situation.
'Yes, that's correct.'
'It sounds like a sensible idea to me. Why drive all the way down to Johannesburg when you can fly down and get a lift back with Chad, so what's the problem?'
'The problem is, there's more to Chad's offer than a simple matter of transportation,' Megan confessed as she returned to her chair and sat down heavily. 'You see, I—I jumped in at the deep end like an idiot, and I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to stay afloat.'
'In other words, Chad has been angling for an affair, but you've been avoiding the bait. You love him and, loving him as much as you do, you don't know how much longer you'll be able to resist the temptation.'
Frances had summed up the situation with her usual bluntness, striking more than one target, and Megan was glad she could not see her burning cheeks in the darkness.
'I've made my feelings pretty obvious, haven't I,' Megan responded drily, and not without a certain amount of embarrassment.
'Only to those of us who know you so well,' Frances assured her gravely. 'Have you ever considered the possibility that Chad might want something more than an affair?'
'He's always made it perfectly clear that marriage is out as far as he's concerned—so what else is there?' Megan demanded with a ring of unaccustomed bitterness in her soft voice.
'People have been known to change, Megan.'
'Not Chad!' Megan's laugh was mirthless and verging on tears. 'Oh, lord, Frances!' She buried her face briefly in her hands in a conscious effort to control herself. 'Tell me what I'm supposed to do?'
'What do you want to do?' Frances parried her query, and Megan took a moment to consider this before she answered her cousin.
'I think, deep down, I want to accept his offer of a flight down to Johannesburg. I want to meet with him and talk with him, and I want to take my chances on where it might lead me, but my mind warns against it.' She jumped up again and stepped towards the railing, gripping it tightly with her hands. 'I have a feeling that this meeting with Chad is going to be a crisis point in my life, and I'm not sure I'm ready for it. I don't want to lose what we've had together, and I'm terrified I might do something which will result in exactly that.'
Megan was startled by her own disclosure, and she lapsed into an embarrassed silence, expecting her cousin to laugh at her, but Frances was not laughing while she sat there staring out across the moonlit garden.
'Is Chad expecting you to call him this evening?'
Megan turned from her contemplation of the night sky to focus her attention on her cousin's shadowy figure in the darkness. 'Yes, he is,' she confessed quietly.
'Don't delay it, Megan. Call him now,' Frances suggested unexpectedly. 'Sometimes, when you love someone, you have to take chances. Go to him, find out what he wants, and then decide what you have to do.'
Megan hesitated only for a moment, and then she was going into the house and picking up the receiver of the telephone in the hall. She knew Chad's number at the office, she had stared at it often enough during this past week to know it off by heart, and she punched it out with a hand that shook slightly. She might not be quite ready for it, but Frances had made her realise that there was only one way to deal with this problem. She had to meet this crisis head-on.
The telephone barely rang before Chad answered it, making Megan suspect that he had been waiting at his desk for her call, and she somehow felt guilty for making him wait so long.
'Chad, it's Megan,' she said, her voice cool and calm despite the nervous thudding of her heart.
'What have you decided?' he demanded without preamble.
'I'd like to accept your offer to take that flight down to Johannesburg in the morning.' Was that a sigh of relief she heard coming over the line, or had it been her imagination?
'Very well,' he said briskly, interrupting her speculative thoughts. 'The plane should arrive at Izilwane at about nine tomorrow morning, and it will leave again as soon as the equipment is off-loaded. The pilot has been informed that he might be carrying a passenger on the return flight, and all you have to do is to make sure that you're at the airstrip by nine-thirty for his departure.'
'I'll be there,' Megan promised.
'Have you made a hotel reservation for yourself?'
'Yes, I have.'
'I presume you'll be staying at the same hotel as last time?'
'Yes.'
'Fine!' There was an odd silence at the other end as if Chad wanted to add something, and changed his mind. 'I'll be at the Rand airport to meet you, Megan, and I hope you have a pleasant flight,' he ended their brief conversation.
'Well?' Frances demanded curiously when Megan returned to her chair on the veranda.
'It's settled,' Megan told her cousin moments later with a shiver of nervous excitement coursing through her veins. 'I have to be at the airstrip at nine-thirty tomorrow morning.'
'What's this about having to be at the airstrip tomorrow morning?' demanded Byron as he stepped out on to the veranda.
Megan explained briefly and ended with a slightly breathless, 'I must go home and pack.'
'I'll drive you out to the airstrip in the morning,' he offered as they walked Megan to her car.
'That's kind of you, Byron.'
'Good luck,' whispered Frances before Megan could get into her white Mazda.
'Thanks,' Megan whispered back as she slid behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. 'I think I'm going to need it!'
CHAPTER TEN
The pilot was curious about the cargo he was ferrying back to Johannesburg, Megan could see it in the way he glanced at her from time to time, but there was nothing offensive in his manner, and his conversation whiled away the time during a flight which took less than an hour as opposed to the five-hour journey by car from Louisville.
Chad was at the airport to meet her, and he was an awesome stranger in his dark grey business suit and blue and grey striped tie when he stepped forward to relieve the pilot of the task of helping her to descend from the eight-seater plane. Megan shivered inside her suede coat, and she could not decide whether to blame it on the icy breeze sweeping across the tarmac or the commanding presence of the man beside her who exchanged a few words with the pilot before he ushered her towards the long silver-grey limousine parked a short distance away.
A black man in a grey suit and peaked cap opened the rear door when they approached, and Megan's mouth felt curiously dry as she preceded Chad into the warm, air-conditioned interior of the car. Her suitcase and portfolio containing her illustrations were stowed in the boot, and a few minutes later they were leaving the airport grounds and driving west towards the centre of the city.
'I wasn't expecting to be met in such style,' Megan remarked teasingly, stretching her legs out for comfort in the spacious interior of the limousine while she admired the plush upholstery and the many other luxurious additions which would be beyond the reach of a low-level executive.
'I'm trying to impress you,' Chad responded in the teasing vein she had adopted, his hand going out to the control panel beside him. He pressed one of the buttons, and Megan had to quell a nervous giggle when a panel slid silently into position to give them absolute privacy from the chauffeur in the driver's seat.
'I'm impressed,' she assured him gravely, but her blue eyes sparkled with laughter, making a mocking contradiction of her statement.
Chad's smiling glance captured hers and held it for a moment, but his expression sobered as he reached for her hand across the armrest between them.
'I'm glad you agreed to take this flight,' he said, his pale eyes probing hers as he raised her hand to brush his lips against the inside of her wrist in a brief, electrifying caress.
'I am too,' she confessed, her fingers curling about his in
an involuntary response, and she noticed for the first time the strained, tired look about his eyes and mouth. 'You look as if you've had a tough week, and judging from the way you're dressed, it isn't over yet.'
'I'm going to be dropped off at Aztec' His deep voice was clipped, and his fingers tightened about hers to convey an inner tension. 'I still have some unfinished business to attend to, but the car is at your disposal for the rest of the day, and Reggie, the chauffeur, has instructions to take you wherever you want to go.'
'You're being very kind and very generous.'
'I'm never kind, and I'm generous only when I want something in return.'
Megan stiffened beneath those strong fingers tracing the delicate network of veins at her wrist, but she could not stop that electrifying sensation that shot up her arm to make her nerve ends quiver in delight. 'I can't give you anything you don't have, or haven't had already.'
'I have a feeling you can give me something no one has given me before, but I can't quite decide what it is.'
She searched her mind for a clever response, but encountered a bewildering blank, and Chad's soft, throaty laughter did nothing to lift her from the well of confusion she had dropped into. What could she possibly give him that no one had given him before?
They were approaching the city centre when he released her hand to press the appropriate button on the control panel, and the division between the front and rear of the vehicle slid down silently into its cushioned recess.
Megan clasped her hands nervously in her lap and looked out the tinted window. The sound of the city traffic was muted inside the car, but to be surrounded by so much activity was enough to make her wish herself back at Izilwane, and she concentrated instead on the varying architectural design of the buildings. Some had been preserved as historical monuments and dated back to 1915, but others, sandwiched in between, were modern and perhaps more practical in their design. The old and the new seemed to blend without detracting from their own individual style, and the artist in Megan delighted in the perfect symmetry.
Bridge to Nowhere Page 15