Outback Fire

by Margaret Way

  Simon flushed. “Sorry, Miss McFarlane.” He glanced back nervously to where Athol McFarlane was seated in the Jeep. “It won’t happen again. Promise.”

  “That’s okay, Simon.” She smiled at him. “We all have to learn.”

  Luke’s session broke up ten minutes after and one of the part aboriginal stockmen took over, an excellent horseman and one of Luke’s “pupils.”

  Luke came out of the yard and crossed to where they were. The Major still seated in the Jeep, Storm leaning back against the bonnet. Father and daughter watched him with varying emotions. McFarlane with pride, gratitude and deep affection, a fatherly love that had turned Storm’s world inside out. Storm with the utmost caution overlaid with a kind of emotional tumult that was close to McFarlane’s love.

  Vibrations came off Luke even at a distance she thought. He had the perfect powerful physique, very lean but in no way thin. Countless images of him were tucked away in her mental file. She thought she’d had it firmly shut and under lock and key but one explosive kiss had torn open the lock. The file lay open although it still seemed important not to look.

  “Hi!” Luke acknowledged Storm with the same controlled smile he’d been giving her all week. Even then it had the ability to dazzle her. He walked around to where the Major was seated on the passenger side, leaning in man-to-man.

  “I think we’ve got ourselves a darn good horse, Major. He’s a cut above the usual bunch. Thoroughbred blood.”

  “I’d say he was one of Nahra’s.” McFarlane of course had spotted it. He named a station mare that had escaped to the wild some years before.

  “My guess as well.” Luke nodded in agreement. “With a badly trained horse it takes a good man to work it. Can’t have the men flat out trying to handle the horses especially in difficult terrain. That way they won’t be able to muster. The bay has potential. Now, what about a cuppa?” He leaned back over the bonnet to include Storm. “After that session I’m as dry as a bone.”

  “Good idea.” McFarlane’s gruff tones mingled pleasure with approval. “I’ve enjoyed this last week immensely. It’s a wonder to have Storm home at last. She’s been able to drive me all over. It’s good to see the men.”

  “They’re working well,” Luke assured him. “It’s been a pleasure for them to be able to speak to you, too, Major,” he reported.

  “What about if I have a go at that?” Storm suggested looking towards the sandy enclosure where the aboriginal stockman was working another brumby. It was a much smaller horse, a filly. The stockman was working from the ground, a technique Luke followed especially when handling a horse with behavioural problems. It was a whole lot safer than trying to work a horse when mounted. Ground control was achieved first before the move to the saddle. Storm whose horsemanship was not in question, found that she wanted to try it. Being home was so utterly different in every way from city life. She loved it. It was so varied and exciting, but she still resented being kept out of the picture.

  As it happened it was difficult to say which one of the men said “No” first. Her father or Luke. Maybe it was simultaneous.

  “I’m not going to get hurt,” she assured them coolly. “If Wally can handle it, so can I.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t, Storm,” the Major said, his relaxed expression turning to a frown.

  “Fifteen minutes. Luke can watch me. It’s just a filly. I can handle it.”

  “I don’t think we could handle seeing you get hurt.” Luke spoke quietly for both of them, himself and the Major. “Hazards exist, Storm, you know that.”

  “You don’t say those things to Wally,” she retorted.

  He considered briefly. “A fortnight ago Wally struck his head on a rail post when a horse bucked high. The filly looks quiet now but she could smash into the rails in an attempt to go through or over them if she takes it into her mind.”

  “I know,” she said in a crisp voice. “I was born here, remember? But I’d like to learn the technique.”

  “Okay so I’ll show you.” Luke gazed at this dark-haired, green-eyed “princess.”

  “That’s a promise?” She turned to face him directly.

  He struck his heart. “Or hope to die. But we won’t be working with brumbies. I can tell you that. You know enough about horses to know any horse can present a serious risk. Let alone a brumby outlaw. Now what about that tea? Take pity on me, Storm.” He smiled at her.

  It was one of those moments when she felt he reached out and actually touched her. Not just with those beautiful sapphire eyes but his hand. He might have been laying it on her naked breast so erotic was her reaction.

  She drew a harsh, shallow breath turning away. “Oh, all right. As far as that goes it’s thirsty work just watching you.” And waiting…waiting…waiting…for you to kiss me again. Opening the file a little had also opened up a great fissure, a deep, untapped vein of desire that threatened to rock her to her foundations.

  The days merged into one another with a continuum of peace. One afternoon Tom Skinner flew in with another physician, a specialist in his field, which was orthopaedics. The door was closed on Storm while both men conducted their examinations and conferred. Her father was an old hand at shutting her out when she was desperate to know the true state of his health. Afterwards, when the two doctors stayed on briefly for a reviving cup of tea, Storm tried her best to get some information. A difficult task when her father sat opposite her finally snapping out testily he was “just fine.” Storm drove the doctors to the airstrip, and with her father safely up at the house tried again.

  “He’s not fine, Storm” was all Tom Skinner would say. “He’s a very sick man. Life must be hard for him.”

  “He’s dying isn’t he.” It was a bleak comment, not a question.

  Tom stared ahead, as distressed in his way as she was. “Your father refuses to acknowledge such a thing. He’s a man who confronts his pain.”

  “He won’t let anyone else do it.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s rather cruel, isn’t it, Tom? While Dad plays the stoic he refuses to let me come close to him.” Would she ever get over feeling emotionally excluded?

  “It’s his way, Storm.” Tom Skinner had known Storm all her life and he shook his head regretfully. But Tom was a man under strict orders not to divulge the full extent of his patient’s illness. It could be days, weeks, months. Given McFarlane’s iron will, a year. “Don’t think for one minute you’re not giving your father the greatest comfort,” Tom consoled her pain.

  “He still treats me like a little girl, Tom. You know that. Sometimes I think I can’t take it any more, but I can’t leave.”

  “I don’t think your father trusts anybody outside of…”

  “Luke?” Storm broke in.

  “Storm, Luke is as desperate to get through to your father as you are,” Tom told her. “In many ways your father is a most difficult man.” Obdurate as granite, Tom thought.

  Two nights later the crisis came.

  Storm woke out of a troubled sleep with a sudden and profound belief something was terribly wrong. She sat up in bed listening as though the house around her would deliver up the answer.

  Dad.

  Her whole psyche sensed him very near her, like a low beam of light. The sensation was so strong it had her weeping, tears streaming down her face.

  Dad!

  She flew out of bed, shouldered into her robe, taking the quickest route via the verandah to her father’s suite of rooms.

  The bedside light was still burning. He was propped up against his pillows. His reading glasses sat low on his nose. His eyes were shut, his mouth open, strong jaw a little slack. The book he’d been reading was still in his hand, pages open.

  Sweet God!

  Storm just had time to cross herself before she buckled at the knees, falling half-way across the floor. She felt so faint she let her head flop forwards until the dizziness passed. She knew without going a step further her father’s mortal life was over. The sensatio
n of his being in her room was his spirit passing.

  Finally she rose and approached the bed finding a small measure of comfort in the fact her father’s expression showed no signs of agony. He didn’t even look tired and worn as he had at dinner. He looked as relaxed as when he was dozing in his favourite chair. He was one of the fortunate ones. He had died in his sleep.

  There was no pulse. No breath to fog the little mirror she found tucked away in a chest of drawers.

  Storm bent and kissed her father’s craggy forehead, speaking aloud. “Go in peace, Daddy. I love you.” Her tears fell on his cheek and very gently she brushed them off. Death was such a dreadful shock even when one was expecting it. Never properly understood. Insurmountable to accept.

  For a time, she didn’t know how long, she sat in a chair beside the bed, holding her father’s hand. Her weeping had stopped, though she was trembling so violently, her whole body was vibrating.

  Her mind’s eye seized on an image.

  Luke.

  Luke would want to know. Luke could confirm her father’s death. Strangely she didn’t think of Noni. Not yet.

  Storm let herself out of the front door into the darkness of the night. A cold wind was blowing in from the desert but she was oblivious to it. The sky was ablaze with a million stars. Another one up there tonight. Up there in the Milky Way, the home of departed heroes.

  She wasn’t wearing slippers but she felt nothing underfoot. She continued along the drive, through the gardens and out into the compound to the first of the staff bungalows, a glimmer of white. It was the biggest and the best. Home to the station’s overseer. She passed a bank of honeysuckle on the way, its perfume so sweet and haunting it would always stay in her memory of that night. Resolutely she moved on, seeming to glide in her filmy nightclothes, long skirt stirring and floating on the night wind.

  She moved up the few steps to the verandah. The bungalow was in darkness but she didn’t hesitate. She knocked on the door.

  “Luke. Luke.” Her voice unknown to her, rose in a poignant wail. In the depths of her grief she only knew she wanted him.

  Inside the bungalow Luke came out of an uneasy sleep.

  Was he dreaming? He was certain he heard Storm’s voice. Nothing unusual about that though. He dreamt about her frequently. With a groan he fell back against his pillow only to hear the voice come again. She was right outside his door. For an instant his whole body froze. Only one thing could bring Storm to his door.

  Even as he thought it he was up, pulling on jeans. He didn’t linger long enough to grab a shirt. She was standing outside the door, staring up at him, eyes unblinking even though he had switched on the porch light.

  “It’s Dad,” she said, her voice so soft he had to bend his head.

  “Oh, Storm.” He reached for her and folded her into his arms. “Storm.” His mouth found the top of her head. Kissed it. Drank in the fragrance of her hair.

  “He could have told us he was dying,” she murmured brokenheartedly.

  He held her and rocked her saying her name gently time and again. “Don’t talk about it now. It’s all over.” She seemed barely conscious her face and mouth were against his bare chest, but even in the deep distress of the moment his body reacted. “I’ll come up to the house with you.” With sheer force of will he pushed back all sense of desire.

  “Would you?” She lay her palms flat against him, lifting her head to stare up into his face.

  “I’m always here for you, Storm.” He could have added: I’ve always loved you. But even in grief he had his pride.

  It was the start of over one hundred hours of purgatory for Storm through which she suffered deeply. Finally Athol McFarlane was laid to rest in the family cemetery on Sanctuary Hill. The funeral had been delayed for several days with her father—that lion of a man—laid out in a cold room, until mourners from all over the country were able to organise travel arrangements to the remote station; extended family, life-long friends, important people within the industry, pastoralists, politicians. They came by charter plane, private plane, a whole convoy of vehicles that made the long, hot trek overland. All of them determined to pay their respects to a fine man, to the McFarlane pioneering dynasty.

  Luke had taken charge, making all the arrangements. Storm had let him, too grief stricken, too wretched, too disoriented to get herself together for the task. She had no one now. She had never known her mother. Her father was gone. Totally orphaned at twenty-seven.

  Luke knew how she felt. He had lived half of his life that way.

  Only on the day of the funeral did Storm regain control. Perfectly dressed in an outfit that had to be flown in as was his, a two-piece black suit, lustrous pearls at her throat and her ears, black pumps on her narrow feet, her long hair drawn back into a coiled pleat, a black hat with a down-turned brim on her head. Luke marvelled at the transition from brokenhearted child to woman in control. Only once at the graveside did she buckle but he had his arm beneath hers to support her. Somehow they got through, though Luke could feel the agony in her.

  Up at the house, though he stayed near her, she seemed in perfect control of her emotions, but her beautiful skin that had taken on a golden glow after her weeks in the sun had a tell-tale pallor. Mourners approached her to offer their sympathy and she spoke to each one in turn, her face sad but never betraying the full extent of her anguish. That was for later. Noni and her helpers circulated, offering platters of finger food and sandwiches. Tea and coffee was served, as well as cold drinks and spirits for the men. The men expected it as her father would have expected it at a friend’s wake. No matter what, people had to be fed. Most of them had come a long way.

  Carla Prentice, who with her parents had attended the funeral as a matter of course, waited her moment to get Luke alone, the depth of her jealousy startling herself. For at least an hour he had hovered around Storm like a bodyguard, his attitude clearly protective. As if Storm needed any protection. Carla seethed as she stared across the packed room to where Storm was standing talking to the Davisons, a wealthy pastoral family. Storm had taken off that very becoming hat—too becoming for a funeral Carla thought—the severity of her tightly pulled back hairdo unexpectedly flattering. It showed off the perfection of her profile and the long swan neck. A very cool one was Storm, Carla thought, her throat tightening, eyes flinty. What made her think she was so superior? Why did people approach her the way they did? Anyone would think she was royalty.

  Karen Prentice joined her daughter for a moment, her voice flat with warning. “Take that scowl off your face, Carla. It’s most inappropriate.”

  Carla brushed her curly hair from her forehead. “I’d no idea I was scowling,” Carla retorted, a light flush staining her cheeks.

  Her mother’s voice was low and toneless. “My dear, you’re looking at Storm as though you hate her.”

  Was she? Carla felt instant shame. “Sorry, Mum.”

  Her mother took her hand. “Don’t think I don’t know how you feel. Luke is overdoing it following Storm around. But then she has no-one really.”

  “She has plenty of friends,” Carla pointed out, her voice strained. She was unable to take her eyes off Storm and Luke. Luke was talking to Senator Austin but he was only a few feet away from Storm. Even in the heat when most of the other men had removed their jackets, Luke still wore a beautifully tailored black suit, his black tie sombre against the snowy-white of his shirt. Carla didn’t see him formally dressed that often, now she gazed at him with such longing it seemed too much to bear. How handsome he was.

  She could hear the sound of his voice, dark with a little edge to it, so attractive her mother always said it was just plain seductive. It had certainly seduced her. No other woman had snatched him from her grasp and a lot had tried. When Luke had appeared interested she had taken a few necessary steps. Lied if she had to. Carla felt a wave of self-disgust sweep over her. She had never imagined she could act the way she had. Falling in love with Luke had made her a little crazy. Even Storm
had the notion they were friends when Storm was the enemy, beyond competition. When Storm was around everything changed.

  A woman close to Carla was weeping quietly, comforted by a friend. Carla felt like weeping, too. Not for Athol McFarlane. For herself.

  Senator Austin moved off leaving Luke momentarily on his own. Carla came out of her spell to rush to his side, clutching his arm.

  “Impossible to believe the Major has gone.” Now she allowed a few tears to come into her eyes.

  “Yes.” Luke sighed deeply, looking over to Storm’s slender black-clad figure. “There’s a lot of grief facing Storm. I know how I feel. Bereft. The Major was kindness itself to me.”

  Carla nodded. “I know he was, Luke, but you were worth your weight in gold to him. These last few years you’re the one who’s been running Winding River. My big thought is how is the Major going to express his gratitude?”

  “Meaning what?” Luke’s voice was a little hard.

  “Come on.” Carla hugged him gently. “Don’t get me wrong, Luke. I only mean the Major is sure to mention you in his will. For that matter what is going to happen here on the station? Storm has her own life in Sydney. She’s anything but a countrywoman now. I expect when she’s feeling better she’ll return there.”

  “We haven’t discussed anything, Carla. It’s been such a shock even though we all knew the Major was ill. But Storm is her father’s daughter. She’ll make the right decision.”

  “She’d be mad to let you go,” Carla said wholeheartedly, forced to face the danger.

  “I may well be looking for something else myself,” Luke surprised her by saying wryly.

  “Really?” Carla’s gold-brown eyes opened wide. Hope stretched before her. “You could just about walk into any job you liked. We all know you could handle the top job on any station no matter how big. And you’re such a great businessman!” She sparkled up at him and pressed closer.

  Luke made no response to that but said quietly, “I think Garth Fullerton wants to have a word with me. Would you excuse me, Carla.”