September Moon

by Candice Proctor

  His gaze caught hers and that instant in time stretched out, became something intimate. Something confusing and frightening but very real. Then loose stones and dirt rolled down the slope to shatter the calm surface of the pool and the stillness of the moment as Liam slid to a halt beside them. "I'm hungry. Can we eat right away?"

  O'Reilly held her gaze for one more pounding heartbeat, then turned toward the boy. "Sure thing."

  They spread a rug beneath the big coolabah tree and ate the picnic supper Ching had packed for them. The ride had given the children hearty appetites and they ate largely in silence, only squabbling once over the selection of chicken pieces, and again over the division of the chocolate cake.

  After that the children wandered away to clamber about the rocky edges of the pool while O'Reilly stretched out flat on his back on the rug, his hat tipped over his face as if he were sleeping. Amanda leaned back against the flaky trunk of the tree and felt the peace of this place envelop her.

  But the peace had a jagged edge to it. She was too conscious of the man who lay beside her. Of the way his moleskin trousers drew tight across his hard thighs when he propped one boot up on his bent knee. Of the way his chest lifted against the worn blue cloth of his shirt when he breathed. She found herself imagining the shape of muscle and flesh beneath the cloth. She imagined her hands touching him there, where the neck of his shirt gaped open to reveal his tanned throat.

  She jerked her gaze away. The older children had tired of the pool and were now running footraces out on the flat. Missy had taken off her shoes and stockings and hitched up her skirts so that she could poke around the lapping edge of the water with a long stick.

  "Be careful you don't get wet, Missy," Amanda called.

  O'Reilly eased back his hat and glanced at the water hole. "She'll be right. Don't worry."

  Amanda watched the little girl shove the stick down into the pool's bottom, then lean forward, looking sharply. "What is she doing?"

  "Huntin' for yabbies."

  Amanda swung her gaze back to him. "For what?"

  "Yabbies. Some people call them mud bugs. You eat them."

  "Bugs? You eat bugs?"

  O'Reilly let out a huff of laughter. "They're good. They taste like crayfish."

  She raised her eyebrows in polite disbelief. "The way goanna tastes like pork?"

  "Actually, I always thought goanna resembles chicken, myself." She saw his dimples peep. "But if you want a real treat, you ought to try a witchetty grub. The Aborigines dig them out of trees, and a good one will grow as long and thick as a man's finger. Course they tend to wiggle a bit as you let 'em slide down your throat, but—"

  "Mr. O'Reilly," Amanda said calmly, picking up the remnants of the chocolate cake and holding it over his head, "I must ask you most respectfully to kindly be silent."

  He eyed the suspended cake. "Very well, Miss Davenport. Since you ask me so respectfully."

  A shout and the thud of horses' hooves brought her head around. She set the cake down and almost gasped at the sight of Liam and Hannah mounted bareback on their horses, thundering across the plains, the horses' churning hooves kicking up dust and turf. Hannah's ragged hair streamed out behind her, while Liam's whoops drifted back on the warm breeze.

  "What are they doing?" Amanda asked, raising one hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun.

  O'Reilly lifted his head, then laid it back down again. "Looks like they're havin' a race."

  "Without their saddles?"

  He shrugged. "Why not?"

  "Because it's dangerous."

  "Nah. Those two children could ride practically before they could walk."

  Amanda watched the horses reach a distant tree and circle back toward the water hole. Hannah led by a good two lengths, her horse stretching out, its powerful haunches bunching as its flashing hooves ate up the distance until it seemed almost to fly across the barren ground. "That big black Hannah is riding is surely too strong for her," said Amanda, her teeth worrying her lower lip.

  He swiveled his head to look at her. "Relax. I've met very few natural horsemen in my life, but I've gotta say, Hannah's one of 'em. Hell, I had a big row with her before we left, because she wanted to ride Fire Dancer out here."

  Amanda ducked her chin to hide her smile. She'd begun to realize that O'Reilly and his elder daughter had a "big row" at least every other day.

  "Which of your horses is Fire Dancer?" she asked

  A warm, sleepy look crept into his eyes. "The stallion I won off Lumley."

  "Oh." She felt herself grow hot at the memory of that morning, and transferred her attention to Missy, who was now sitting on one of the weathered rocks rising up from the side of the water hole.

  In the golden light of the late afternoon sun, the child's hair tumbled down her back in a riot of fair, baby-fine curls. She was doing something with a pile of pebbles between her feet and had her skirt and petticoats bunched up about her knees, her thin bare legs sticking out looking almost as tanned as any native's.

  Watching her, Amanda tried to imagine what kind of mother could go away and leave this sweet, loving, giving child. Or Hannah, with her dark, needy soul. Or a wild, reckless, wonderful boy like Liam. And suddenly, Amanda was tired of trying to guess, of trying to understand without actually knowing. Keeping her attention fixed on the child, Amanda asked quietly, "How old was Missy when her mother went away?"

  She heard O'Reilly sit up quickly beside her, but she did not look at him. She did not want to see the expression on his face, did not want to know what he still felt for that mysterious woman who had been—no, she reminded herself; still was, surely?—his wife.

  He was silent for so long that she didn't think he was going to answer her. Then she heard him suck in a deep breath and let it out on a long sigh. "Six months," he said. "Missy was six months old when Katherine left. Luckily I'd already found Sally to wet-nurse the baby. Otherwise, God knows what would have happened to her."

  "Is she still alive? Your wife, I mean."

  "She's still alive. Or at least she was, last I heard."

  "Doesn't she keep in touch with the children?"

  He shook his head. "She went back to Victoria at first. But about six months later ... she met a Frenchman. An officer. She went to Paris with him."

  Amanda watched a brilliant blue dragonfly hover over the still surface of the pool. "A Frenchman's whore," Hannah had said.

  "I've never divorced her," O'Reilly said quietly. "Although I know a lot of people think I should. I just don't think it would be good for the children."

  "Yes. I can understand that." She could no longer bear not seeing his face. She swiveled her head and looked at him. He sat at his ease, one leg bent, his forearm resting on his upright knee. He had his hat pushed back on his sun-streaked hair as he stared as Missy. His dimples showed in his lean cheeks and the sun creases beside his narrowed eyes were etched deep, but not by a smile. It was as if he gazed far into the past. And whatever it was he saw brought him great pain.

  "How could she do it?" Amanda asked, the words bursting unplanned from someplace inside her. "How could a woman go away and leave her children like that?"

  He swung his head to stare at her. She saw his jaw tighten, saw the hard glitter of his eyes. And in that moment, Amanda thought, he truly hated her.

  "I don't know. You tell me. I'll never understand women. Especially Englishwomen."

  "She was English?" Amanda said with a gasp. "Your wife was English?"

  "Didn't you know?" His lips pulled back into a sneer. "She was English, all right. As English as press-gangs and sumptuary laws and the fires of Smithfield. And she hated Australia every bit as much as you do." He levered up from the rug and swung away. "It's time to go," he said over his shoulder.

  Amanda stayed where she was, her hands gripping together as she watched him stroll down the hill to where Missy's pony and the two remaining horses grazed peacefully.

  The sun still beat down warm and friendly on her sh
oulders; the birds still chattered cheerfully from the high branches of the surrounding trees. But the magic had gone out of the golden afternoon, and she felt tired and chilled and oddly alone. She knew she should be gathering together what was left of the picnic things. Instead, she sat and watched O'Reilly's tall, lean figure as he saddled the horses with swift, efficient strokes.

  Her chest ached almost unbearably. She wrapped her arms around her waist and hugged herself, but the ache within wouldn't go away. It was as if her heart swelled, filling with something that was more than empathy. Something she didn't want to feel again for any man.

  Especially not for this man. This Australian who hated England and the English, and who had a wife named Katherine to whom he was tied for all time.

  O'Reilly sat on the top rail of the split-wood fence. The pale light of the waning moon shivered.over the dark-red hide of the stallion loping in wide, useless circles around the paddock. It was late, the night still enough that he could hear the croaking of a frog from down by the creek bed, and the rhythmic thud of the horse's hooves, pounding ceaselessly on the hard earth.

  He set a match to his pipe and breathed in the rich aroma of the tobacco, mingling with the other night smells. The heavy, ever-present tang of eucalyptus, the sweet scent of dried grass, the warmth of healthy horseflesh. Tilting back his head, he gazed up at a white blaze of stars scattered across the blackness of infinity. He always thought the night sky looked so cold. Even on a warm night like tonight, the sky looked cold.

  He could still remember staring up at the stars as a boy on those long, lonely nights when he'd been sent out into the bush with a mob of sheep. His father had worked them all hard—or at least he'd worked the three boys. But their mother had insisted that Hetty be raised as a young lady, no matter how rough the realities of life on a new station in the wilds of Victoria might be. And by the time their mother was gone, Hetty had been seventeen and already engaged.

  O'Reilly had left home himself at seventeen, anxious for a new life, his own life. First he'd hired on as a jackaroo. But there was more money to be made in shearing. So he'd worked the circuit, saving his money, planning to buy a mob of sheep and cattle and drive it to the new country opening up in South Australia. Start his own run.

  Then he'd met Katherine Barr-Jones.

  He'd been just another nineteen-year-old shearer the day he rode onto the Barr-Jones station. He would never forget his first sight of that big stone house, surrounded by acres of carefully clipped and tended gardens. Most of the gentlemen's sons who came out to Australia were long on what they liked to call "breeding" and short on the money they needed to live in the manner they thought they deserved. But not Katherine's papa. Trenton Barr-Jones had made a fortune in India, and he'd decided to invest it all in Australia.

  Katherine hadn't been too happy about her papa's plans to set up his own private empire in the colonies. She'd rather have stayed in England, and she made no effort to hide what she thought of Australia. O'Reilly would always remember the first time he'd seen her. She'd looked so proud and haughty and untouchable, sitting sidesaddle on that showy white mare of hers. But he'd known she was watching the shearers, watching him. Wanting him.

  Vibrantly alive and strong-willed, Katherine might have been only eighteen and a virgin, but she'd always been the kind of person to take what she wanted. By the time the shearing season ended, Katherine was pregnant, and Trenton Barr-Jones had an Irish convict's grandson as a son-in-law.

  Listening to a dingo howl now, out in the bush, O'Reilly thought about all the stolen hours he and Katherine had spent together that spring. About how he'd held her in his arms and told her his dreams of opening up his own run, of someday building a big stone house to rival her father's. It wasn't until later that he realized she hadn't even been listening. She'd been too busy weaving her own secret plans, which mainly involved O'Reilly going to work for her papa's shipping company and taking her back to England.

  She didn't tell him about her scheme until after they were married, and she never forgave him for laughing out loud when she suggested it. Hell, it'd taken two years before she got over it enough to agree to join him in the new house he'd built for her at Penyaka. Yet he had still believed, then, that he could make her happy. And there had been some good times. Just not enough.

  Shifting sideways on the narrow railing, O'Reilly let his gaze wander over the darkened buildings of Penyaka. He might not have a house as big as Trenton Barr-Jones's yet, but he was proud of his run, proud of what he had built here. And if he survived this drought, he planned to make it even better. Now that he was older, he could look back on those first days of his marriage and see that in his own way, he'd been as selfish and ungiving as Katherine. Yet, he still didn't think he'd made a mistake by not giving in to her. Penyaka might have been hard on Katherine, but a lifetime shut away in an office in England would have been slow death for O'Reilly. It was their marriage that had been a mistake. If it hadn't been for the children, he'd have said shed been right to end it. But he doubted he could ever forgive her for the damage shed done to their children.

  A high-pitched neighing jerked O'Reilly's attention back to the far end of the paddock, where the big bay pranced, head up, neck arched, dark mane fluttering in the warm night air. They were planning to breed the stallion to one of the Thoroughbred mares tomorrow, and it was as if Fire Dancer could sense it, could smell the mare in heat.

  O'Reilly grinned at the restless horse. "I feel the same way, old boy," he said when the bay trotted up to shove its nose against his chest. He rubbed the white diamond between the stallion's dark eyes, his thoughts drifting to Amanda Davenport.

  He knew her now, knew enough to look past her starchy manners and plummy accent and see just how different from Katherine she really was. Unfortunately, the two women were different in almost every way but one—Amanda hated Australia, and she was desperate to get back to England.

  He knew it, and yet... And yet, that didn't stop him from lying in bed at night and imagining what it would be like to have her naked and beneath him. He wanted to fill his hands with her full breasts, to taste her sweet lips and send his hard body pounding into her softness. He wanted to make her let go of all that prim and proper nonsense she wrapped around herself. He wanted to hear her laugh, and moan and scream with pleasure—

  And quench this burning, untamed yearning within him.

  After lessons the next day, Amanda retreated to her room and tried to lose herself in Cicero. But the print swam in front of her eyes and her mind wandered, so that she finally cast the book aside and went to throw open the French doors to the veranda.

  She had thought the fresh air might help her concentrate. Only instead of returning to her book, she lingered, one hand on the latch, her gaze drifting over the neatly edged paths and flowering borders of the garden Patrick O'Reilly had planted for his English wife.

  Amanda felt a strange, yearning kind of sadness steal over her as she realized how little she knew about him. About the life he had lived before that day she had met him on the streets of Brinkman. About the experiences that had gone together to make up this man, Patrick O'Reilly, that he was now. She tried to tell herself she was being common, indulging in vulgar curiosity and an atypical prurient interest in other peoples' affairs. But it was more than that, and she knew it.

  She had just swung about to go back inside when the sound of his voice came to her on the afternoon breeze. "Steady, girl."

  Amanda stopped, her head lifted, listening. There was a gentle, coaxing quality to his tone that she had never heard before. His words were gentle, too. Soothing words, words a man might use to calm a nervous virgin, to allay her fears as he positioned himself to enter her.

  Shocked by the direction of her thoughts, she reached to shut the doors when the wind gusted again and she heard O'Reilly say, "She'll be right, sweetheart. Easy now. Hush."

  Amanda hesitated, then stepped out onto the veranda.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

&nbs
p; O'Reilly's smooth, seductive voice seemed to beckon her. Across the garden, down the hill to the stockyards.

  It was late afternoon, and the sun shone bright and high in the sky. There wasn't much grass left on the hillside, just scattered dry yellow stalks that crumbled to dust beneath Amanda's shoes as she walked, sending insects whirling away from her. Beside the empty creek bed, the rows of white- trunked, gray-leaved gums drooped lifelessly in the dry, still air. She could see a kingfisher sitting on a low bare branch, his enormous head swiveling as he watched her pass. A kookaburra, O'Reilly had called it. Jackass of the bush. She saw its big beak open and heard its strange, raucous laughter float off down the valley. Hoo-hoo-hoo-haa-haa-hoo-hoo.

  She was near enough to the stockyards now to notice the knot of men crowded around one of the yards. She strolled toward them, the sun hot on her hatless head. She recognized Campbell, and Jacko, the Aboriginal stockman. Liam and Hannah were there, too, hanging on the fence, their feet balanced on the bottom rail, their arms hooked around a post for support.

  And then she saw O'Reilly.

  He had stripped down to his shirt, which as usual hung half-unbuttoned, showing a tantalizing swath of muscled, sun-bronzed chest. He had his low-crowned hat pushed back on his golden head, his attention focused on the skittish horse mesmerized by his crooning voice.

  It stood in the center of the yard: a young chestnut mare, quivering but still, her head bowed, her hind legs spread, her

  tail up and lifted to one side, exposing her entrance to the purebred stud cavorting arrogantly around her.