by Margaret Way
“It is,” Ava confirmed. “The mirage brought many an early explorer to his grave. To go in search of an inland sea of prehistory and find only great parallel waves of red sand! It was tragic. They even took little boats like dinghies along.”
“So your Kooraki has a certain mysticism to it not only associated with its antiquity?”
“We think so.” There was pride in her voice. “It’s the oldest continent on earth after all.” Ava shifted her long heavy blonde plait off her nape. It was damp from the heat and the exertion of a fantastically liberating gallop with a splendid horseman who had let her win—if only just. “You do know we don’t call our cattle stations ranches, like Americans? We’ve kept with the British station. Our stations are the biggest in the world. Anna Creek in the Northern Territory spreads over six million acres.”
“So we’re talking thirty thousand square kilometres plus?” he calculated swiftly.
“Thirty-four thousand, if we’re going to be precise. Alexandria Station, also in the Territory, is slightly smaller. Victoria Downs Station used to be huge.”
He smiled at the comparatives. “The biggest ranches in the U.S. are around the three thousand square kilometres mark, so you’re talking ten times that size. Argentine estancias are nowhere in that league either. Although earlier in the year a million-acre estancia in north-west Argentina was on sale, with enormous potential for agriculture—even eco-power possibilities. Argentina—our beautiful cosmopolitan capital Buenos Aires—was built on beef, as Australia’s fortunes were built on the sheep’s back—isn’t that so?” He cast her a long glance.
“I can’t argue with that. Langdon Enterprises own both cattle and sheep stations. Two of our sheep stations produce the finest quality merino wool, mainly for the Japanese market. Did Dev tell you that?”
“I believe he did. Dev now has a great many responsibilities following your grandfather’s death?”
“He has indeed,” she agreed gravely, “but he’s up to it. He was born to it.”
It was her turn to study the finely chiselled profile de Montalvo presented to her. He wasn’t wearing the Outback’s ubiquitous akubra, but the startlingly sexy headgear of the Argentine gaucho: black, flat-topped, with a broad stiff brim that cast his elegant features into shadow. To be so aware of him sexually was one heck of a thing, but she strove to maintain a serene dignity, at the same time avoiding too many of those brilliant, assessing glances.
“Your father was not in the mould of a cattleman?” he asked gently.
Ava looked away over the shimmering terrain that had miraculously turned into an oasis in the Land of the Spinifex. The wake of the Queensland Great Flood had swept right across the Channel Country and into the very Red Centre of the continent.
“That jumped a generation to Dev. He was groomed from boyhood for the top. There was always great pressure on him, but he could handle it. Handle my grandfather as well. The rest of us weren’t so fortunate. My father is much happier now that he has handed over the reins. My grandfather, Gregory Langdon, was a man who could terrify people. He was very hard on all of us. Dad never did go along with or indeed fit into the crown-prince thing, but he was a very dutiful son and pleasing his father was desperately important to him.”
“And you?”
Ava tilted her chin an inch or so. “How can I say this? I’m chiefly remembered for defying my grandfather to marry my husband. Neither my grandfather nor Dev approved of him. It soon appeared they were right. You probably know I’m separated from my husband, in the process of getting a divorce?”
Varo turned his handsome head sideways to look at her. Even in the great flood of light her pearly skin was flawless. “I’m sorry.” Was he? He only knew he definitely didn’t want her to be married.
“Don’t be,” she responded, more curtly than she’d intended. He would probably think her callous in the extreme.
He glimpsed the flash of anger in her remarkable eyes. Obviously she longed to be free of this husband she surely once had loved. What had gone so badly wrong?
“I too tried very hard to please my grandfather,” she offered in a more restrained tone. “I never did succeed—but then my grandfather had the ingrained idea that women are of inferior status.”
“Surely not!” He thought how his mother and sisters would react to that idea.
“I’m afraid so. He often said so—and he meant it. Women have no real business sense, much less the ability to be effective in the so-called ‘real’ world. Read for that a man’s world—although a cattle kingdom is a man’s world it’s so tough. Women are best served by devoting their time to making a good marriage—which translates into landing a good catch. Certainly a good deal of time, effort and money went into me.”
“This has led to bitterness?” He had read much about the ruthless autocratic patriarch Gregory Langdon.
Ava judged the sincerity of his question. She was aware he was watching her closely. “Do I seem bitter to you?” She turned her sparkling gaze on him.
“Bitter, no. Unhappy, yes.”
“Ah…a clarification?” she mocked.
“You deny it?” He made one of his little gestures. “Your husband is not putting up a fight to keep you?” Such a woman came along once in a lifetime, he thought. For good or bad.
Ava didn’t answer. They had turned onto a well-trodden track that led along miles of billabongs, creeks and waterholes that had now become deep lagoons surrounded on all sides by wide sandy beaches. The blaze of sunlight worked magic on the waters, turning them into jewel colours. Some glittered a dark emerald, others an amazing sapphire-blue, taking colour from the cloudless sky, and a few glinted pure silver through the framework of the trees.
“One tends to become unhappy when dealing with a divorce,” Ava answered after a while. “My marriage is over. I will not return to it, no matter what. Dev at least has found great happiness.” She shifted the conversation from her. “He and Amelia are twin souls. You’ll like Amelia. She’s very beautiful and very clever. She holds down quite a high-flying job at one of our leading merchant banks. She’ll be a great asset to Langdon Enterprises. Mercifully my grandfather didn’t pass on his mindset to Dev.”
“Dev is a man of today. He will be familiar with very successful women. But what do you plan to do with yourself after your divorce comes through?”
She could have cried out with frustration. Instead she spoke with disconcerting coolness. “You are really interested?”
“Of course.” His tone easily surpassed hers for hauteur.
She knew she had to answer on the spot. Their eyes were locked. Neither one of them seemed willing to break contact. They could have been on some collision course. “Well, I don’t know as yet, Varo,” she said. “I might be unequal to the huge task Dev has taken on, but I want to contribute in any way I can.”
“Then of course you will.” A pause. “You will marry again.”
It wasn’t a question but a statement. “That’s a given, is it? You see it as my only possible course?” she challenged.
He reached out a long arm and gently touched her delicate shoulder, leaving a searing sense of heat. It was as though his hand had touched her bare skin.
“Permit me to say you are very much on the defensive, Ava. You know perfectly well I do not.” The sonorous voice had hardened slightly. “Dev will surely offer you a place on the board of your family company?”
“If I want a place, yes,” she acknowledged.
He gave her another long, dark probing look. “So you are not really the businesswoman?”
She shook her head. “I have to admit it, no. But I have a sizeable chunk of equity in Langdon Enterprises. Eventually I will take my place.”
“You should. There would be something terribly wrong if you didn’t. You want children?”
/> She answered that question with one of her own. “Do you?”
He gave her his fascinating, enigmatic half-smile. “Marriage first, then children. The correct sequence.”
“Used to be,” she pointed out with more than a touch of irony. “Times have changed, Varo.”
“Not in my family,” he said, with emphasis. “I do what is expected of me, but I make my own choices.”
“You have a certain woman in mind?”
It would be remarkable if he didn’t. She had the certainty this dynamic man had a dozen dazzling women vying for his attention.
“Not at the moment, no,” he told her with nonchalance. “I enjoy the company of women. I would never be without women in my life.”
“But no one as yet to arouse passion?” She was amazed she had even asked the question, and aware she was moving into dangerous territory.
Her enquiring look appeared to him both innocent and seductive at one and the same time. Did she know it? This wasn’t your usual femme fatale. There was something about her that made a man want to protect her. Possibly that was a big mistake. One her husband had made?
“I don’t think I said that,” he countered after a moment. “Who knows? I may have already succumbed to your undoubted charms, Ava.”
She raised a white hand to wave a winged insect away—or perhaps to dismiss his remark as utterly frivolous. “It would do you no good, Varo. I’m still a married woman. And I suspect you might be something of a legend back in Argentina.”
“Perdón—perdonare!” he exclaimed. “Surely you mean as a polo player?” He pinned her gaze.
Both of them knew she had meant as a lover. “I’m looking forward to seeing you in action at the weekend.” She declined to answer, feeling hot colour in her cheeks. “It should be a thrilling match. We’re all polo-mad out here.”
“As at home. Polo is the most exciting game in the world.”
“And possibly the most dangerous,” she tacked on. “Dev has taken a few spectacular spills in his time.”
He answered with an elegant shrug of one shoulder. “As have I. That is part of it. You are an accomplished rider,” he commented, his eyes on her slender body, sitting so straight but easy in the saddle. Such slenderness lent her a deceptive fragility, contradicted by the firmness with which she handled her spirited bright chestnut mare.
“I should be.” Ava’s smile became strained as memories flooded in. “My grandfather threw me up on a horse when I was just a little kid—around four. I remember my mother was beside herself with fright. She thought I would be hurt. He took no notice of her. Mercifully I took to riding like a duck to water. A saving grace in the eyes of my grandfather. As a woman, all that was expected of me was to look good and produce more heirs for the continuation of the Devereaux-Langdon dynasty. At least I was judged capable of expanding the numbers, if not the fortune. A man does that. I expect in his own way so does Dev. Every man wants a son to succeed him, and a daughter to love and cherish, to make him proud. I suppose you know my grandfather left me a fortune? I don’t have to spend one day working if I choose not to.”
“Why work at anything when one can spend a lifetime having a good time?” he asked on a satirical note.
“Something like that. Only I need to contribute.”
“I’m sure you shall. You need time to re-set your course in life. All things are possible if one has a firm belief in oneself. Belief in oneself sets us free.”
“It’s easier to dream about being free than to accomplish it,” she said, watching two blue cranes, the Australian brolgas, getting set to land on the sandy banks of one of the lagoons.
“You thought perhaps marriage would set you free?” he shot back.
“I’m wondering if you want my life story, Varo?” Her eyes sparkled brightly, as if tears weren’t all that far away.
“Not if you’re in no hurry to tell me,” he returned gently, then broke off, his head set in a listening position. “You hear that?”
They reined in their horses. “Yes.” Her ears too were registering the sound of pounding hooves.
Her mare began to skip and dance beneath her. In the way of horses, the mare was scenting some kind of danger. De Montalvo quietened his big bay gelding with a few words in Spanish which the gelding appeared to understand, because it ceased its skittering. Both riders were now holding still, their eyes trained on the open savannah that fanned out for miles behind them.
In the next moment they had their answer. Runaway horse and hapless rider, partially obscured by the desert oaks dotted here and there, suddenly burst into full view.
De Montalvo broke the fraught silence. “He’s in trouble,” he said tersely.
“It’s a workhorse.” Ava recognised that fact immediately, although she couldn’t identify the rider. He was crouched well down over his horse’s back, clinging desperately to the flowing black mane. Feet were out of the stirrups; the reins were flailing about uselessly. “It’s most likely one of our jackeroos,” she told him with anxiety.
“And he’s heading right for that belt of trees,” De Montalvo’s expression was grim. “If he can’t pull up he’s finished. Terminado!” He pulled the big bay’s head around as he spoke.
The area that lay dead ahead of the station hand’s mad gallop was heavily wooded, dense with clumps of ironwood, flowering whitewoods and coolabahs that stood like sentinels guarding the billabong Ava knew was behind them. The petrified rider was in deep trouble, but hanging on for dear life. He would either be flung off in a tumble of broken bones or stay on the horse’s back, only to steer at speed into thick overhanging branches. This surely meant a broken neck.
“Stay here,” de Montalvo commanded.
It was an order, but oddly she didn’t feel jarred by it. There was too much urgency in the situation.
She sat the mare obediently while de Montalvo urged the powerful bay gelding into a gallop. Nothing Zephyr liked better than to gallop, Ava thought with a sense of relief. Nothing Zephr liked better than to catch and then overtake another horse. That was the thoroughbred in him.
The unfortunate man had long since lost his hat. Now Ava recognised the red hair. It was that Bluey lad—a jackeroo. She couldn’t remember his surname. But it was painfully clear he was no horseman. One could only wonder what had spooked his horse. A sand goanna, quite harmless but capable of giving a nervous horse a fright? Goannas liked to pick their mark too, racing alongside horse and rider as though making an attempt to climb the horse’s sleek sides. A few cracks of the whip would have settled the matter, frightening the reptile off. But now the young jackeroo was heading full pelt for disaster.
Ava held up a hand to shield her eyes from the blazing sun. Little stick figures thrown up by the mirage had joined the chase, their legs running through the heated air. She felt incredibly apprehensive. Señor de Montalvo was their guest. He was a magnificent rider, but what he was attempting held potential danger for him if he persisted with the wild chase. If he were injured… If he were injured… She found herself praying without moving her dry lips.
Varo had been obliged to come at the other horse from an oblique angle. She watched in some awe as he began to close in on the tearaway station horse that most likely had started life as a wild brumby. Even in a panic the workhorse couldn’t match the gelding for speed. Now the two were racing neck and neck. The finish line could only be the wall of trees—which could prove to be as deadly as a concrete jungle.
Ava’s breath caught in her throat. She saw Varo lean sideways out of his saddle, one hand gripping his reins and the pommel, the other lunging out and down for the runaway’s reins. A contest quickly developed. Ava felt terribly shaken, not knowing what to expect. She found herself gripping her own horse’s sides and crying out, “Whoa, boy, whoa!” even though she was far from the action. She co
uld see Varo’s powerful gelding abruptly change its long stride. He reined back extremely hard while the gelding’s gleaming muscles bunched beneath its rider. Both horses were acting now in a very similar fashion. Only a splendid horseman had taken charge of them, bringing them under tight control.
The mad flight had slowed to a leg-jarring stop. Red dust flew in a circling cloud, earth mixed up with pulped grasses and wildflowers. “Thank God!” Ava breathed. She felt bad enough. Bluey was probably dying of fright. What of Varo? What an introduction to their world!
The headlong flight was over. She had a feeling Bluey wasn’t going to hold on to his job. She was sure she had heard of another occasion when Bluey had acted less than sensibly. At least he was all right. That was the important thing. There had been a few tragic stories on Kooraki. None more memorable than the death in a stampede of Mike Norton, Sarina Norton’s husband but not, as it was later revealed, Amelia’s actual father. Sarina Norton was one beautiful but malevolent woman, loyal to no one outside herself.
Ava headed off towards the two riders who had sought the shade to dismount. Her mare’s flying hooves disturbed a group of kangaroos dozing under one of the big river gums. They began to bound along with her.
It was an odd couple she found. Bluey, hardly more than a madcap boy, was shivering and shaking, white as a sheet beneath the orange mantling of freckles on his face. Varo showed no sign whatsoever of the recent drama, except for a slick of sweat across his high cheekbones and the tousling of his thick coal-black hair. Even now she had to blink at the powerful magnetism of his aura.
He came forward as she dismounted, holding the mare’s reins. They exchanged a measured, silent look. “All’s well that ends well, as the saying goes.” He used his expressive voice to droll effect. Far from being angry in any way, he was remarkably cool, as though stopping runaway horses and riders was a lesson he had learned long ago.