by Margaret Way
The thicket was no more than twenty-five yards away.
* * *
Gina fell into his arms, collapsing against him, burying her face against his chest. His strong arms encircled her as though he would never let her go. All his defences, all his efforts to keep his real feelings in check were swept away.
His mother rode up, her face paper-white. “My God, Cal,” she gasped, chest heaving. “Only you could have done it. Gina could have lost her life.” She spoke with the tremendous relief of a person who had seen a horror averted.
One arm still strongly around Gina, Cal went to his mother’s assistance helping her dismount. There were tears coursing down her face. “My fault, my fault,” she kept saying. “I’m so sorry, son. We wanted it to be a big surprise for you.”
“Whatever happened?” His mother looked too distraught to really question, but he had to know at least that. Gina was in shock. She was very pale and trembling. So far she hadn’t spoken a word.
“A bloody kangaroo!” His mother who rarely swore, swore with gusto. Anything to relieve her pent-up feelings. “Gina has been doing so well I thought we could try a little gallop. All would have been well, only the ’roo just popped up in front of her, spooking that silly mare. Spooked good old Dunbar, too, for that matter. He did quite a dance. If Gina had had more experience she could have reined the mare in. Instead Arrola took off as though she was going for the post in the Melbourne Cup. I didn’t know she had it in her. I’m so dreadfully, dreadfully sorry. I would never have forgiven myself if anything had happened to Gina.” Jocelyn looked into her son’s eyes, frightened.
“I know that, Mum,” he said gently.
At his response Jocelyn rallied. “Well, we’d better get her home,” she said, already swinging herself back into the saddle. “A shot of brandy should do it. Some good strong black coffee. Always helped me. I’ll ride ahead. Get one of the men to bring the Jeep. Bear up, Gina, girl,” she called down to Gina in such a bracing voice Gina might just have been blooded. “It’s a miracle you managed to stay on. I can think of any number who would have fallen off.”
Jocelyn kicked her sweating horse into a gallop, determined to outrun her lapse of judgement. The girl had guts. Damned if she didn’t!
Gina remained within the half circle of Cal’s arm, dragging in fortifying breaths. She was very pale but he thought it unlikely at this stage she would go into a faint.
“This is just a suggestion,” he murmured quietly. “I could take you up before me on the gelding. You would be quite safe and we’d meet up with the Jeep quicker. If you prefer not to, shake your head.”
His tone was so gentle and comforting Gina nodded her head. “Okay!”
“Okay what, Gina?” His expression relaxed a little.
“I’ll ride with you.” She turned up a face that showed a mixture of trepidation and bravery.
“I’ll never let you come to harm,” he said, making no effort to hide his depth of feeling. “Just trust me.”
“I do,” she whispered. She had the sense many of the defences he had put up against her had toppled.
“I really don’t deserve it.” His brief laugh was ragged.
“You saved my life. Whatever would have happened to me if you hadn’t turned up?”
“Don’t even think about it.” Cal shuddered.
“Death by freak accident.”
“Hush!” Of course, it happened. Freak accidents weren’t uncommon in station life.
“It was all for you, the riding,” Gina wanted to reassure him. “Your mother had faith in me. I let her down.”
“God, no,” Cal protested violently, greatly upset even if he appeared in control. “The best station horses can be spooked. Horses are such nervous animals and the ’roos have a bad habit of popping up out of nowhere. You’ll learn how to keep a horse under control.”
“Is that why you want me to get on one again!” She gave a ghost of a laugh.
“Not today if you don’t want to.” His arm tightened around her. It was a relief to hear her voice strengthening and see colour coming back into her cheeks.
“Then I have to tell you the only one I’d do it for is you!”
* * *
Back at the homestead Gina found herself being fussed over.
“You can go off now, Cal,” Jocelyn said after about an hour and several cups of tea later. “Gina will be fine now. We’ll look after her, won’t we, Robbie, darling?”
“We’ll spoil her!” Robbie stoutly maintained.
Cal stood up, looked down at Gina, reclining on the sofa. “I’ll stay if you want me to.” God, he’d do anything she wanted.
“That’s okay, I know you’ve got lots to do. I’m fine. Really!” In fact, she had never felt so safe and sound.
“We’ll look after her, Daddy.” Robbie gazed up at his father. “Won’t we, Nan?” Robbie had taken to calling Jocelyn Nan of his own accord. “It bothers you, doesn’t it, Daddy, Mummy got such a fright?”
Cal smiled down on his very perceptive little son. “You can say that again, pal!”
“Mummy’s brave all the time,” Robbie announced proudly.
At that moment, Rosa, who had been taking a leisurely drive with Edward, rushed in, closely followed up by a concerned-looking Edward, their gazes falling on Gina. “What is this I hear?” Rosa asked worriedly.
Gina thought it time to move. She swung her feet determinedly to the floor. “No fuss, Rosa, dear. I’m fine.”
“You look upset?” Rosa’s dark eyes flashed accusingly around the room, focusing on Jocelyn. Her baby needed protection.
“Mummy doesn’t want to talk about it, Rosa, okay?” Robbie jogged over to Rosa and took her hand in his. “She got a fright when her horse bolted, but Daddy saved her from any danger. No one is as good as my daddy. He’s a marvellous rider. Now we’re helping Mummy get over it. Would you and Uncle Edward like a cup of tea?”
Rosa blinked and caught her breath. “Coffee, I think, sweetheart,” she said. “I must admit I panicked.”
Jocelyn stood up immediately, all graciousness. “I’ll go organise a pot. It won’t be too long before it’s ready.”
* * *
For the rest of the day Gina took it quietly, but by evening she was over the worst of her shock. She was alive when she could have been a serious casualty. Or dead. Everyone appeared enormously grateful. For the first time there was genuine accord around the table, Jocelyn leaning over to touch Gina’s hand several times during the meal. Even Ewan put his hand on top of Gina’s and gave it a little squeeze. Gina didn’t realise it but everyone thought she was standing up to a very frightening incident awfully well. Meredith, who had been staying with Steven for a couple of days working out how best to refurbish Euroka’s homestead, had been startled and upset by the news when she phoned in earlier in the evening.
“It must have given you a tremendous fright, Gina,” she said. “And Mum, too. When I spoke to her she was trying hard not to cry. What a miracle Cal was around to save you. You’ll have to make it up to him tonight, girl!” This she proffered with a smile in her voice.
The very least I can do! Gina felt a rush of affection for her soon to be sister-in-law.
* * *
The household settled around eleven o’clock and a short time later Cal tapped on her bedroom door.
He stood looking down at her, a bottle of champagne and two flutes in hand, a white linen napkin draped over his arm. “Room service, madam.”
“Please come in,” she said, as though he were exactly that, but her whole body was instantly a-pulse.
“Sometimes nothing else will do but champagne,” he offered smoothly.
“It certainly helps.” Gina turned and saw them both reflected in the mirror of the dressing table;
he with his impressive height, densely, darkly, vividly masculine; she with her flowing hair and glowing skin, dressed only in a satin robe, the quintessential image of alluring woman. As an image it appeared incredibly erotic. “Do we have something to celebrate?” Her dark eyes watched him.
“You know we have. This has been quite a day.” He leaned to graze her cheek. “There is a God,” he announced.
“Of course there is.” Gina moved to take up a position on the invitingly cosy chaise longue covered in a lovely pale green silk. “I’ve never doubted it.”
“And I never will again!” Cal said, his voice filled with real gravity. He didn’t think the memory of the immense blessing they had been granted that afternoon would ever leave him. Gently, he twisted the cork from the bottle, muffling the loud pop with the linen napkin. “I should have brought a wine cooler,” he said, partially filling one flute then the other. “You do realise the silk on the couch is the same colour as your robe?”
“That’s why I’m sitting here,” she said, her voice silken cool. Gracefully she accepted her flute from him, deliriously close to swooning. “Sit beside me. There’s plenty of room.” She patted the smooth surface.
He gave her his achingly beautiful smile. “The damn thing is almost as wide as a double bed. We might try it here one night.” Emerald eyes glittered as he moved slowly towards her. “To us!” His breath ended on a faint groan. “For gut-pulverising moments this afternoon I thought I was going to lose you.”
They clinked glasses, their eyes locking. “You do want me around then?”
He continued to soak her in. “How can you say that?”
She pushed back the long cuffed sleeve of her robe. “You’ve been very…conflicted, Cal. You can’t deny it. I could tell.”
He smarted inside, knowing the charge was right. “Tonight is going to be different,” he promised, low voiced. “You tore the heart from me, Gina. Afterwards…” He paused, shrugged a shoulder, then settled opposite her on the chaise. “Some things you can’t help.”
“I know. I’ve gained a lot of experience these past few years. It wasn’t supposed to happen like it happened,” she said with profound regret. “I should have done something.”
“I should have done something.” The admission continued his liberation. “Think how different it would have been.” He captured her free hand, studying her pearly fingernails, inflamed to be near her. “I should have married you four years ago. I had the wisdom to fall in love with you. I lacked the wisdom to see through Lorinda. She was enormously convincing and she was family. I believed she loved me and had my best interests at heart.”
“And so she did, by her lights.” Gina spoke with intensity. “That’s what made the deception so easy. You trusted her because she was family. I trusted her because I truly believed I wasn’t good enough for you.”
His hand pulled away. “Is that what she said?” he asked sharply, his face tautened into an angry mask.
Gina glanced straight head. A fresh arrangement of exquisite tropical orchids had been placed on the nearby table. “I believed it,” she repeated, thinking it wasn’t a good thing to store up the mistakes of the past. Life wasn’t long enough to hold on to thoughts of vengeance.
“And what do you believe now?” he demanded, swiftly draining his glass, then setting it down.
She hesitated a moment. “You mightn’t be good enough for me!”
He laughed aloud, charmed and amused by the little expression of hauteur. “Drink up,” he ordered. “I’m going to make love to you far into the night.”
“Really?” She exhaled voluptuously, unable to hide her sensual pleasure. “That will be wonderful! But I need more from you than desire, Cal McKendrick, however ravishing.”
“Desire is only part of it, Gianina,” he assured her. Those moments of terror when he had thought she could be killed, had clearly shown him his own heart. He loved her so much he wanted to go down on his knees before her.
“Then tell me about the other part,” she invited, holding her empty flute for a refill.
He stood up. “You have a mind to make me wait?” He glanced back over his shoulder, seeing more of her golden flesh exposed as the robe slid off her ravishingly sexy long legs.
Gina’s smile was slow. “It’s more that I want these moments to last. You delight and astonish me with your lovemaking, Cal, but you have never said I love you.”
He rejoined her on the couch, handing back her glass. “Surely that applies to us both? I’ve never heard it from you. At least, of recent times.”
She tongued a bead of champagne around the rim of the flute into her mouth. Delicious! “Too much confusion. Too much pain. I thought the love you once had for me—or I thought you once had for me—had disappeared.”
He leaned forwards to brush his mouth over hers, tasting the delicate yet intense fruity flavours on her luscious lips. He would never, never, never find another woman like Gina. “Where could the love go?” he asked. “It was always there. All locked up inside me.” He drew his head back, murmuring, “You really do look like a goddess.”
His desiring gaze enveloped her in flame. “A goddess?” She laughed shakily. “Not at all. I’m just a woman.”
“If you were only just a woman I might have found it easier to forget you.” When he spoke again his voice was edged with agitation. “I never got to be with you when our son was born.”
She quickly set down her glass; cradled his beloved dark head. “And how I missed you! I cried out your name, not once but many times. Everyone in that delivery room knew the first name of my child’s father if they were not to know the last.”
He drew back, staring into her huge velvety eyes, brilliant with the glaze of tears. “I should have been there.” His voice carried a mixture of great conviction and pain.
“You’ll be there next time,” she whispered, afraid she was going to break down.
“I couldn’t forget you, Gina.” His voice cracked with strong emotion.
“No more than I could forget you.” She tried to encircle him with her arms, leaning into him to kiss his mouth. “Do you believe in Destiny?”
“I do now!” Cal’s hands moved to her shoulders, peeling back her robe, then he dropped to his knees in front of her, his open mouth brushing against her throat, moving down lingeringly to the fragrant slopes of her full breasts. His strong hands were drawing her in nearer and nearer. Finally he eased the robe off her naked body cradling her back with his spread hand. “You’re mine and I’m yours!”
Womanlike, she teased him, shaking her tumbled head. “I want you to prove it.”
He didn’t answer. He only smiled, picking her up and carrying her to the huge four-poster bed where he laid her down and slowly began to practise his magic on her.
“I truly, truly love you,” he softly whispered.
“I truly, truly, love you.”
“And I will to my last breath.”
That night they made love not only with their bodies, but to the depths of their souls.
* * *
Days later Cal announced he was going to fly a blissfully happy Gina to Broome to buy her some pearls. “My wedding present to her. We’ll only be gone a day or two.”
Immediately Robbie piped up. “Can I come, too, Daddy?”
Cal placed his hand gently on his son’s head. “Not this time, Robert, but I’ll have a big surprise for you when we get home.”
Robbie caught his mother’s eye. “What is it?” he asked in a loud stage whisper.
“A surprise is a surprise, my darling,” she told him, her mind already on giving him a little brother or sister to love. “But you’re going to absolutely love it!” she promised.
Robbie gazed back at her steadily for a moment then he cried out in an ecstasy of excit
ement. “It’s the pony!”
“Careful now, Robbie, you’ll tip over your chair.” Ewan reached out to steady it, looked at the child fondly. What a great little chap he was! Of course it was the pony. Every McKendrick had his own pony by Robert’s age.
“Don’t worry about Robbie, you two,” Jocelyn said, flashing her grandson a big conspiratorial smile. “He’ll be fine with me!” She couldn’t help but hope that her rival for Robbie’s affections, the flamboyant Rosa, would soon move off and take the besotted Ed with her. “I adore pearls as you all know. They’ll suit you beautifully, Gina, with your lovely skin. Our South Sea Pearls are recognised all over the world as the finest of all white pearls. ‘The Queen of Gems’, they’re called.”
* * *
The multi-cultural city of Broome, with a vast red desert behind it and the azure-blue Indian Ocean in front of it, was a fascinating melting pot of nationalities, Gina found. European, Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Koepanger and Aboriginal cultures were all represented. Broome had quite a history going back to its founding as a pearling port. It was the English seaman and pirate William Dampier who was credited with having discovered Western Australia’s fabulous Kimberley region for which Broome was the port. That was way back in 1688, when Dampier first visited “New Holland”, bringing Britain’s attention to the area’s rich pearl-shell beds.
Gina actually owned little jewellery outside the costume variety so the afternoon’s shopping expedition was very exciting, especially when the sky seemed to be the limit. The pearls that were put on display for them took her breath away. At first she didn’t know what size she should be looking at. Even strands of smallish pearls were worth thousands. The boutique assistant steered them towards another showcase.
More strands were laid out for her. They were all so beautiful she stood staring down at them not sure what she should pick. No price was being mentioned. The assistant must have taken her silence for some tiny sign of dissatisfaction because she turned away and came back with a shorter strand, a necklet of magnificent, large pearls.