by Margaret Way
To his horror, he received another clip over the head. “Strangle, you mean. You’re on your knees, so apologise to Ava,” Varo told him harshly.
Apologise? Never!
“Can’t hear you,” Varo said.
“Oh, God, leave him. It’s not worth it.” Ava’s low, mellow voice had turned hoarse. She touched an involuntary hand to her bruised neck.
At that telling hoarseness Varo’s strong hand came out, ready to clip Selwyn again.
“Varo, please. Leave him for my sake.”
Varo gave her a brilliant sideways look. “I will and I am,” Varo insisted. “But first the apology. Go ahead, Selwyn. While you’re at it, admit your lies. You do realise you’re in a very bad position indeed?”
Selwyn was silent.
Varo turned to Ava. “Looks like he’s not going to do it. Ah, well!” Contempt was in his face as he stared down at the other man.
Selwyn didn’t do bravery either. He broke into a choked apology without actually admitting he had lied. “I only did it because I love you, Ava. I hope you realise that?”
“Thank you, Luke,” Ava said. “Tons of self-pity, no genuine remorse. The sad thing is you believe you’re a good person when you’re a man who knows nothing about love or even empathy. You have no capacity for it. You’ll find painkillers in the bathroom cabinet. Take a good long bath. I want you off Kooraki. The chapter in life we shared is over.”
They were almost at the door when Luke, now up and swaying on his feet, made a final attempt to inflict more wounds and more doubt. “Ask Karen if you want to know the truth,” he said, addressing Varo directly. There was a gleam of triumph in his eyes. “Women—even angel-faced women like Ava—are seldom what you think they are. What I told you should be enough to stop you from making a terrible mistake. Heed my warning. Take the path I suggest and see where it leads.” He flashed Varo a smile that had nothing to do with friendship or warmth.
Varo didn’t smile back. “It’s important you stop now, Selwyn,” he warned, looking very tense. “It’s possible you may have a cracked rib or two. What about a broken nose?”
Luke’s moment of feeling back in control crumbled. He had no reply to that. Ribs were one thing. A broken nose would seriously affect his good-looks. He was a man women noticed.
Luke, the king of lies, Ava thought bleakly. Luke, the rotten liar. He had taken lying to new heights. The truly depressing thing was that liars had a long history of being believed.
A familiar sick feeling grew in her stomach. Varo wanted to believe Luke was a pathological liar, but had all his suspicion fallen away? Luke had had a lifetime of practising lying. Practice had made him very convincing. She fancied she saw an element of doubt in Varo’s dark eyes. If he made the decision to speak to Karen she knew she would never recover. Karen was no benevolent soul. Karen harboured the demon jealousy. She had always been Luke’s ally in the past. Even so Ava thought her cousin, connected to her by blood, would not go so far as to condone such an enormous sick lie.
Right now all that mattered to her was that Varo believed in her innocence. Where would they be without trust? Trust between two people who loved each other was crucial.
* * *
Luke was locked up for the night. A generous tray had been sent up, so there was no danger of his dying of starvation. Another tray was delivered at breakfast.
When Luke’s eyes locked with those of the formidable housekeeper, who clearly hated him, he began to wonder if she might have put something in his food. The orange juice tasted a bit funny. He left it aside.
He was burning up inside with fury. As soon as he got back to Sydney he would arrange to meet Karen; probably he’d take her to dinner if he was fit enough. Put a spin on what had happened. He fully expected Karen to lie for him. He had always had a way with women. Even the strongest of them were weak. Even now he couldn’t believe Ava, his wife, no longer loved him.
Give her time, said the voice in his head.
He could almost tell the future in his guts. The Argentine would go away. fade right out of the picture. His accusations would stick. He just knew he would have the last word.
* * *
Right or wrong, good or bad, Ava’s mind was resolved on a single purpose. She had to ask Varo what he intended to do. She wanted a straight answer. If he intended to consult Karen—and even without telling her Karen would soon let her know—she could rule out her heart’s desire. Varo would go. And he would go fast. Varo wouldn’t be the first man to be blinded by lies. Up until now their hearts had been ruling their heads. Luke’s poisonous intervention had changed all that. Luke had brought them to the big question.
Did Varo trust her or not?
* * *
Varo escorted Luke to the airstrip. He fully intended shoving Selwyn on the freight plane, standing by to make sure he didn’t attempt to get off. From the moment they’d get inside the Jeep Selwyn had started up again.
“Beautiful women have a great deal of power. Remember that. They attract sympathy even when they don’t deserve it. Men are always the losers. They lose their wives. They lose their kids.”
Varo had turned to glance at him. “You never give up, do you?”
“Of course I don’t. And you seem to forget I am a practising lawyer. A very good one.”
“And you came close to being a criminal. You’d better remember that. You may have missed the bruises on Ava’s neck, but no one else did. They will all come forward to speak out against you. I can understand in a fashion why you tried so hard to convince me of your lies, but I assure you I have no need to check out your story with Ava’s cousin. I was standing outside your door earlier than you think. It wasn’t difficult to believe Ava might have suffered a miscarriage and didn’t want to speak about it. Impossible to believe she had her pregnancy terminated.”
“Listen—”
“Be quiet now,” Varo warned, his mouth twisted with distaste. “In a very short space of time Ava will apply to the court for a divorce. The separation time is almost up. You will offer no resistance. You may harbour a sick desire to hurt her, but you never will. Ava has a powerful brother. And she has me.”
* * *
An hour passed. It was evident Varo had driven off somewhere to think. Ava walked through to the kitchen to have a word with Nula, who was waiting to prepare a late lunch. “I have to go for a walk, Nula,” she said.
The housekeeper looked at Ava with concern. Ava was very pale and the marks around her lovely white neck stood out in the first flush of bruising. “A walk where?”
“Oh, just around the garden,” Ava said vaguely. “Don’t worry about lunch. Varo seems to have gone for a drive. We can have a sandwich and a cup of coffee later.”
Ava tried for a smile. Then she walked away.
* * *
What had delayed Varo was his offering assistance to the two station hands who had been allotted the job of off-loading the station supplies. At first they seemed a bit embarrassed, he supposed because he was a guest, but he took no notice. Three pairs of hands were better than two. Besides, he liked to talk to them about what they did on the station.
When he returned to the house, Nula told him before he even had time to ask that Miss Ava had gone for a walk in the garden. It wasn’t any city man’s idea of a garden. It was bigger, in fact, than the gardens of Villaflores, which were extensive. No matter—he would find her. He would find her wherever she was. At the ends of the earth. He had come to this extraordinary country for the wedding of a friend. He had found a woman who had caught instantly at his heart and at his imagination. He had found his future wife.
* * *
Ava heard a man’s footsteps crunching on the gravelled path. Instinctively she opened her mouth to call, “I’m here, Varo. On the stone bridge.” This was it. Decision tim
e.
Varo lost no time changing direction. He had come to know the Full Moon Bridge well. It spanned a man-made pond where the great buds of white lotus flowers slowly opened, their giant leaves almost reaching the base of the semi-circular bridge. The sun blazed out of an Outback sky of intense sapphire, lending emerald-green waters a blazing patina of gold.
Ava was standing in the middle of the bridge, gazing down at the glittering water adorned with the great gorgeous blooms. He went to call out an apology because he was a bit late for lunch, only she turned to him as he approached—such a sad, serious expression on her face.
“Ava, what is it?” His heart rocked.
“I thought you might have gone off to think,” she said, lifting her remarkable blue-green eyes to him.
“Think about what?” He snaked an arm around her back, letting it fall to her narrow waist.
Slowly he led her off the bridge to one of the small summerhouse structures in the garden, where it was a great pleasure to sit down in the shade, surrounded by wonderful scents and a wilderness of blossom. The birds and the butterflies loved this place. It was no wonder the Langdons took such pride in the magnificent gardens they had achieved over generations in the wild, he thought. He had already quizzed Ava about many of the native plants, thinking they could do very well in the gardens of Villaflores.
“Well?” He gave her a soft, tender look, fighting down his inner rage at the damage Selwyn had done.
Ava bit her lip. “I don’t really know where to begin.”
“‘Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop,’” he said humorously, quoting Lewis Carroll.
She had to smile. “You’re always surprising me, Varo.”
“I’ve got another one of Carroll’s,” he said, much more seriously. “‘I can’t go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’”
Tears came to her eyes as though they were saying goodbye. “That’s true, isn’t it?” she said. “But no matter what you do—what you decide to do—no matter where you go, I will never forget you, Varo.”
He frowned, then said, “So what is this? You’re telling me to go?” She had that look about her. She was so pale. Was she about to break his heart?
“No, no,” Ava cried out in a kind of agony. “I thought you would want to go. I thought you might have some lingering doubts. Luke is such an accomplished liar. He’s made lying an art form.”
“You think I doubt you?” Varo asked in amazement. “I may have briefly considered you had a miscarriage and couldn’t bear to talk about it. I would understand that. But the rest—never! You are my dearest, most beloved Ava. I trust you with my life. I trust you with my heart. Here—I give it to you.” He cupped his elegant hands, held them out to her. His accent was becoming more and more pronounced as his feelings grew. “You cannot turn me away. I won’t allow it.” There was real worry on his stunning face.
“Let you go? You’re crazy!” Ava exclaimed, letting her head fall against his shoulder. “I love you, Varo. You are the most wonderful thing that has happened to me in all my life. I would never have experienced love—true, undying love—if I hadn’t met you. You can’t go away.” She gripped him around the waist, tried to shake him. “I won’t let you. The first pregnancy I will ever have—the first baby I will ever hold—will be part of you. Our child. I should tell you I want at least four children. Two boys, Two girls. I think that should do it.”
Varo stared into her lovely face, his expression deeply serious. He chose that very moment to slip out of her arms, only to drop onto one knee before her. “Some of us are greatly blessed in life,” he said with emotion, because he was not a man who was afraid of emotion. “We find our soul mate. You are mine, Ava. I beg you to do me the honour of becoming my wife. Moreover, I insist on it. We will be married wherever you like. If you can’t leave your homeland, I will—”
Ava leaned forward and sealed her mouth to his. It was a deep kiss, with an intensity of which there was no doubt. After a while she lifted her shining blonde head, her whole being aglow. “‘For whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God,’” she quoted. “I certainly believe in Him. He brought me you.”
She held out her hands in a gesture of raising Varo to his feet. Then she too stood, to go into his waiting arms. They closed strongly, protectively, adoringly around her.
The moving finger had written. Time now for it to move on.
This was their destiny. They were ready to accept it and all life’s challenges head-on. The power of love was awesome. It would overcome all else.
EPILOGUE
WHEN Karen Devereaux was asked by Luke Selwyn to back his shocking claim she refused point-blank, livid with outrage. None of it could be proved. She just knew Luke Selwyn had made it all up. Ava had never breathed a word to her about any pregnancy because she had never fallen pregnant to Luke. Karen was furious, deeply resenting the fact Luke was trying to use her. It would be much better if she broke off their so-called friendship.
Word was Ava and Varo were having two wedding ceremonies: one at Kooraki, the other at the Estancia de Villaflores in Argentina. She dearly wanted to go to both. There was even a chance Ava might ask her to be one of the bridesmaids. She had seen a great deal of Europe, the United States and Canada, but she had never been to South America. This was a wonderful opportunity to go.
Dev and Amelia were back from their honeymoon. There was bound to be a huge engagement party. She and Ava had always been close. Now she would make it her business to draw closer to Amelia, the mistress of Kooraki. Hadn’t they always been a trio? Really good friends? She had always loved and cared for her cousin Ava. Or so she told herself. Luke Selwyn was someone from the past…
* * * * *
Cattle Rancher, Secret Son
Margaret Way
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
FATE, DESTINY, CHANCE: call it what you will, it has a hand in everything.
Gina Romano, a young woman of twenty-four, whose classical bone structure, golden skin, lustrous dark eyes and hair richly proclaimed her Italian heritage, was walking to her friend Tanya’s front gate. It had been a lovely relaxing afternoon with Tanya and her beautiful new baby, Lily-Anne.
Tanya, cradling tiny Lily-Anne, naturally the most beautiful baby in the world, was standing at the front door, waving Gina off: Gina’s hand was on the wrought-iron gate making sure it was closed securely after her, when she felt a tingle like an icy finger on her nape. It alerted her, bringing on a familiar feeling of alarm. Every time she felt that icy finger, and she had felt it many times in her life, she took it as a signal something was about to happen.
She pulled away from the gate, moving swiftly out onto the pavement, hands shaking, legs shaking, head humming as if it were filled with high tension wires. She was no clairvoyant but she had come to accept she had an extra sense most people either didn’t have or didn’t get to develop. It was a gift, simultaneously a curse; an inheritance handed down through the maternal line of her family as other families claimed the second sight.
The noise came first. One minute the leafy suburban street was drowsing under a turquoise sky, the next, a range of things happened. An early model car with its engine roaring and trailing grey-black clouds of exhaust fumes turned into the street without slowing at the corner. Gina watched the driver correct the skid, only to gun the engine even though the left fro
nt wheel was wobbling. Gina estimated he was doing a good fifteen to twenty kilometres over the fifty kilometre speed limit.
From the property directly opposite, the real estate agent overseeing the forthcoming auction, camera in hand, strode out onto the pavement on the way to his car. He stopped, took in the situation and cried out. Simultaneously a flame-haired cherub called Cameron from the house next door to Tanya’s came bounding down his unfenced driveway and ran pell-mell onto the street without so much as a glance in either direction. He was totally oblivious to danger, his mind was set solely on retrieving his blue beach ball, which was fast bouncing away from him into the opposite gutter.
The estate agent, a man of sixty, to his everlasting horror was assailed by such a terrible feeling of helplessness he simply froze, but Gina, who didn’t even hear Tanya yelling frantically so focused was she on the child, reacted like an Olympic sprinter coming off the blocks. Adrenaline poured into her body, causing a surge of power. She flew after the little boy, at one point her long legs fully extended front and back as she rose in an extravagant leap. Or so it appeared to the neighbours alerted by Tanya’s screaming and the awful din set up by the smoking bomb. As one of them later confided to the television reporter, “It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. The young lady was moving so impossibly fast she was all but airborne. Ought to make the headlines!”
So this then was much more than a simple good deed. It was seen to be on the heroic scale. But Gina herself felt no sense of valour. She did what she thought anyone would have done in the circumstances. A child’s life was on the line. What option did she have but to attempt to save it? Her very humanity demanded she act and act fast.
Heart almost bursting through her rib cage, she scooped up the child in the bare nick of time, her body sparkly all over as though wired, and then flew on to the safety of the grassy verge thinking there was no way she could avoid taking an awful fall or being pulverized by Tanya’s formidable brick-and-wrought-iron fence. She had a vision of herself lying on the grass, moaning because of broken bones, maybe even covered in blood. But for now, her main thought was how to cushion the child whose vulnerable little head was buried against her breast.