by Valerie Parv
“What he’s like among the men is his business,” Tracey said. “Around Sunny and the other kids, he’s a very good father figure.”
The thought mirrored Judy’s impression so closely that she was momentarily speechless. Then Sunny came running out of the office, his eyes shining. “Wait till you see what we made.”
A slightly sheepish-looking Ryan followed carrying a large poster made from several sheets of paper taped together. On it he had drawn and colored a large kangaroo. Judy had to look at it for a moment to realize that it was missing a tail. The oddly-shaped paper streamer Sunny carried suddenly made sense.
“Looks to me like Pin the Tail on the Kangaroo,” she said with a laugh. Why hadn’t she thought of party games?
He held the poster at arm’s length. “It’s a bit crude. Never was much of an artist.”
She raised herself on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “It’s Skippy the Bush Kangaroo to the life. The kids will love it. It was kind of you to think of it.”
“There’s no kindness involved,” he dismissed gruffly. “I thought if they were occupied, they’d keep out of mischief at least until bedtime.”
“Spoken like a true parent,” Tracey said approvingly. She took the poster and, under the children’s direction, taped it to a tree to await the fun later. Small strips of tape were also added to the tail.
With the onset of rain, Andy Wandarra had returned from the muster camp, and Judy had invited him and the other workers’ families to the barbecue. Andy’s wife was too shy to join them, but some of the other staff had accepted, and it was obvious the children from Lake Argyle were having the time of their lives meeting the people they immediately dubbed aunties and uncles.
“How does your head feel?” Judy asked Ryan a little later, after everyone was settled with plates of blackened sausages, bread and salad. The appetizing smell of barbecue lingered on the night air. Cade and Tracey were deep in conversation, giving Judy the chance to have Ryan to herself at last.
He rolled a piece of bread around a sausage and bit into it. “Can’t feel a thing.”
“Because of the aspirin I saw you downing when you didn’t think I was looking?”
“Didn’t know they were rationed.”
She curbed her impatience. “They’re not. But your endurance is. You’ve run yourself ragged helping with the children today. I’d hoped you’d take time off to rest.”
He touched the tip of her nose with his finger. “When a woman worries this much about me, it has to be love.”
She swatted his finger away but not before a shiver threaded through her. If they hadn’t been surrounded by people, she would have been tempted to kiss him. He’d shown himself in a completely new light today, a most attractive light. “I’d never have picked you for a father figure,” she said, using Tracey’s term.
He dumped a daunting amount of tomato sauce onto a second sausage, then ate with gusto, not meeting Judy’s eyes. “I warned you there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“You weren’t kidding,” she said, wondering what other surprises lay in store. To disguise a sudden rush of feeling for him, she made her tone deliberately flippant. “Let me guess. You just dumped your third wife, and you have a dozen children scattered around the outback.”
“That I know about,” he conceded with a crooked grin. “My nickname’s not Stud Smith for nothing.”
The name was news to her, and she suspected had been made up for her benefit, but a fresh wave of desire rolled through her anyway. “I wouldn’t know, would I?”
“There’s one way to find out.”
The teasing had gone from his voice, and she realized he was serious. She was too, she acknowledged. Seeing him with the children, acting as a family man, had increased her desire for him rather than dampening it. Confusing, considering how much she resisted the family role on her own account. She gestured around them. “Is this what you want for yourself?”
“Eventually. Don’t you?”
“It’s easy for a man.” She couldn’t suppress a touch of bitterness. “You get the best of all worlds—a wife, children, the life you choose. You don’t have to give up a thing.”
“And you think a woman does?”
“Of course she does. Next time you’re at an outback cattle station, open your eyes. At the end of the day, while you and the men are sprawled in the shade, drinking beer and yarning, take a look at what the women are doing. They’re the ones supplying you with drinks, putting laundry on the line and keeping the children out of your hair.”
“Does the idea bother you because of what happened to your mother?”
She felt her gaze narrow. “You believe in cutting to the chase, don’t you?”
“Then I’m right?”
Judy’s voice became vibrant. “She didn’t want to worry anyone, so she delayed getting the treatment that could have saved her life.”
“And it might not have worked. You’ll never know for sure.”
“You don’t know either. You weren’t here.”
He put his plate down on a table and asked quietly, “Are you holding that against me?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. All I know is I don’t want a life like hers. All sacrifice and nothing left for me.”
He chuckled softly, earning a savage look. “What?” she demanded.
“I love your idea of self-centered.”
“Explain.”
He ran a hand lightly down her arm. “You’re determined not to become an outback wife. Yet you’re running your father’s household and a good slice of Diamond Downs, taking care of him in his illness, catering to stranded travelers, and worrying about my health. Yep. A charter member of the Me Generation.”
She hadn’t considered any of that. “I’m only doing what’s right.”
“Don’t you think Fran Logan felt the same? Doing things for others when it’s what you want to do can be the most selfish indulgence of all, because it makes you feel good.” His gaze sought out Sunny, kicking a ball across the grass with another child.
“Is that how you feel about Sunny?”
Ryan nodded. “Everybody thinks I’m Mr. Generosity, sponsoring kids like him. The truth is I’m selfish. They give me back far more than the time and dollars I donate.”
He watched as Tracey cleared away the debris of the meal. Andy got out his didgeridoo, marked with traditional designs, and began to play a throbbing melody on the hollowed-out log instrument, while some of the other guests joined in, clicking pairs of rhythm sticks together.
To the children’s delight, Andy produced a variety of animal sounds, then the sound of a road train roaring down the highway and finally a kookaburra’s laugh. All her life, Judy had been entranced by the sounds Andy could produce from the traditional instrument, and got a fresh kick out of watching the wide-eyed response of the new arrivals.
When the impromptu concert ended and Tracey announced it was time for a game, the children cheered. While Cade located a bandanna to act as a blindfold, Ryan helped Judy carry the remains of the food back to the kitchen. “A plague of locusts couldn’t have done a better job,” he said, surveying the cleaned plates.
“Leftovers won’t be a problem,” she agreed. His earlier comment about altruism sometimes having selfish benefits had struck home. It was hard to believe her mother’s sacrifices had made her happy, but Judy began to wonder if she’d seen the full picture.
Ryan finished loading the dishwasher and straightened. “Car’s coming.”
“You can hear an engine over all that racket?”
He nodded. Then she heard it, too, and the children’s squeals quieted as Cade greeted whoever had come to call. Given the muddy conditions after the rain, Judy couldn’t think who would have risked the treacherous roads. Perhaps someone was in trouble. She wiped her hands on a cloth and hurried outside.
Judy came up short at the sight of Max Horvath getting out of a Land Cruiser. Of all things, he had a bunch of flowers in his hand. To Cade, she said
quickly, “Tell Ryan to keep out of sight.”
Her foster brother nodded and went to the kitchen door in time to stop Ryan from being spotted by their neighbor. Max didn’t know of Ryan’s connection with the family and after last night’s incident, Judy wanted to keep it that way.
“Hello, Max, I didn’t expect to see you here after yesterday,” she said, referring to their argument in the café.
He held out the flowers. “I came to apologize.”
His threats had gone way beyond anything an apology could fix. She made no move to take the flowers. “As you can see, we’re busy. What do you really want?”
He placed the flowers on a table. “Only to make things up with you. Can I come in and talk?”
She didn’t want to cause a scene in front of Tracey and her young charges, but neither did she want him seeing Ryan. “We have nothing to say to each other.”
“I have something you might want to hear about Ryan Smith.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cade nod to indicate that Ryan was safely out of sight. “Very well, but only for a couple of minutes. You know Andy and my foster brother, Cade? And this is Tracey Blair and her charges from Lake Argyle. Max Horvath from Willundina,” she said by way of general introduction.
He acknowledged the others with a few words, but his body language telegraphed impatience. She couldn’t see Max readily sponsoring a needy child or going out of his way to provide them with a role model. In fact, she couldn’t see Max in any meaningful role in her life after he’d revealed how he really felt about her last night. She hoped Ryan would have the sense to keep out of his way.
“A beer would be nice, thanks,” Max said, although she had pointedly not offered him anything as he took a seat at the kitchen table. In the outback, this was tantamount to heresy, but she wasn’t interested in making Max comfortable any more than she would have welcomed a venomous snake into the house.
Rather than get into an argument, she cracked open a beer and placed the can in front of him. “We said everything we needed to say yesterday.”
He took a drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yes, well, I’d had a glass or two of wine and I was hurt that you seemed to be rejecting me.”
“I was rejecting you.” Her tone said nothing had changed. “Any chance we had as a couple withered and died years ago.”
“You must have thought we had something going when you agreed to go out with me.”
“I was wrong, wasn’t I?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said, not giving up. “That’s why I came with a peace offering.”
“I appreciate the thought, but flowers won’t…”
He didn’t let her finish. “Not the flowers, a friendly warning about Smith. After all, he came to you first before you referred him to me.”
“What about him?” she asked guardedly.
“While we were out last night, he broke into my safe and stole some documents and valuables. Mick Coghlan caught him red-handed, then took a shot at him when he refused to surrender. He winged the man, and I thought he might turn to you for help.”
“Because I’m a soft touch?”
Annoyance darkened Max’s expression. “Damn it, I’m trying to help you, Judy. Heaven knows why, when you keep throwing my efforts back in my face. You refuse to let me step in and take the worry of Diamond Downs off your shoulders. Now you won’t listen to a friendly warning. Smith had accomplices who helped him escape. We didn’t get a look at them in the dark, but they might be part of a gang working their way around the district.”
“Was very much taken?” she asked, curious to hear Max’s response.
Her interest mollified him a little. “He got away with some valuable heirloom jewelry and sets of coins my dad had collected. And a few old photos and letters of mainly sentimental value.”
I’ll bet they are, Judy though, keeping her face impassive with an effort. Max probably intended to solve a few of his immediate money worries by blaming Ryan for stealing valuables he hadn’t touched, if they’d existed at all. Max must know the real haul lay in the journal entries Ryan had photographed and the deed to Cotton Tree Gorge, but Max wasn’t about to admit any such thing to Judy. “I appreciate the warning,” she said noncommittally. “But it really wasn’t necessary.”
“Always so independent,” he said, standing up. “I won’t interrupt your party any longer. Can I use your bathroom before I go?”
Anything to get him off the premises as quickly as possible. “Sure. You know the way.”
He headed toward the bedroom wing where the main bathroom was located. She almost jumped out of her skin as Ryan sneaked up behind her. “Don’t do that,” she hissed.
“It’s what we jewel thieves do,” he said.
“You heard what he said?”
“I had the pantry door open a crack. Taking that man down is going to give me great satisfaction.”
She touched a hand to the side of his face. “Don’t underestimate him.”
He nibbled the tips of her fingers. “I’m the one you shouldn’t underestimate.”
“Never,” she confessed as gusts of heat swirled through her. His slightest touch made her a quivering mess. She masked her response with a frown. “You’d better get out of sight. He’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
He caught her hand and kissed her sensitive palm. “If you need me, I’m not far away.”
He disappeared into the pantry and Max came back shortly afterward. Something had changed about him, she thought. His movements seemed more predatory, and she shivered at the cold look in his eyes. Then she saw the photo he held in his hand. Stay calm, she instructed herself. “The bathroom came before my bedroom last time I looked.”
“True, but your room is far more revealing. My eye was caught by this photo lying on your dresser. I couldn’t help taking a closer look.”
Her dresser wasn’t visible from the hallway, so he must have gone in expressly to snoop. The thought of him pawing through her possessions made bile rise in her throat. She swallowed hard. “What could possibly interest you about an old photo of my great-grandfather?”
“Who’s the young woman with him?”
“I don’t know, a family friend, I suppose. The photo came to light after a clear-out of the office, so I’ll have to ask my father about it if the name matters to you.”
“Don’t bother,” Max said nastily. “We both know the photo came from my safe.”
She dropped all pretense. “Where you put it after stealing the file containing it from us.”
His eyes slitted. “Be careful with your accusations. The papers were among Eddy Gilgai’s possessions found after his death and placed in my safe until the owners could be identified. If anyone stole your property, it must have been him.”
Trust Max to blame an employee who could no longer defend himself, she thought. Eddy hadn’t been an angel, but his gruesome death in the jaws of a crocodile, had surely absolved his sins. “The photo belongs to us. Along with any other papers of ours you found—among Eddy’s possessions,” she added pointedly.
Max sidled closer, letting the photo drift onto the table between them. The shrill sounds of children playing outside was in eerie counterpoint to the chill silence in the room. “Why don’t we stop fencing around, Judy? Was Ryan Smith your plant to get access to those documents?”
“I don’t know what you’re…” She stifled a cry as he grabbed her arm and twisted it cruelly behind her back. “You’re hurting me. Let me go.”
“When you answer my question.”
“I’m the one you should ask, Horvath,” Ryan said, stepping into the room.
Max’s hold tightened, making her bite her lip as pain radiated along her tortured arm and shoulder. “So the pair of you are in this together. Is he the reason you lost interest in me, Judy?”
Her eyes watered, but she kept her head high. “I never had any interest to lose. It was a ruse to find out what you were up to. Ryan was o
nly acting on my instructions.”
“Are you going to let her suffer to protect you, Smith?” Max demanded.
“Let her go, then we can talk.”
Max shook his head. “The only thing I’m interested in is what you took from my safe. Is a bit of paper worth a broken arm, Judy?”
“We both know the paper is the key to Jack Logan’s diamond mine. If I give it to you, will you let her go unharmed?”
“It’s a deal.”
“Ryan, no,” she said, biting back a scream as Max jerked her arm upward.
But Ryan pulled a rolled-up yellowing sheet out of his shirt pocket and placed it on the table. “Now let her go.”
“My pleasure.” Max spun her hard across the room so she fell against Ryan. His arms came around her to steady her. By the time she recovered, Max was pocketing the paper. “Don’t do anything foolish. There are all those children outside and I have a gun,” he said, the implication frighteningly clear.
Ryan kept his arm around Judy. “You and your men like playing with firearms, don’t you Horvath?”
Max’s gaze went to the dressing on Ryan’s temple. “Let’s say they speak louder than words. It’s a pity Coghlan’s aim wasn’t better. Even so, that must hurt like the devil.”
“No need to sound so pleased about it,” Ryan said in a matching conversational tone. “You did say you were leaving?”
Max turned, then spun back. “Smith? You wouldn’t be related to the Smith on the title deed to Cotton Tree Gorge.”
“The world is full of Smiths.”
“But not here in this place, at this time.” His finger stabbed the photo lying on the table. “Let’s see, she’d be your grandmother? No wonder you’re taking such a keen interest in this business. And no wonder you’ve gained Judy’s affections so easily. You have what she wants.”
Judy spat out an oath, earning a look of astonishment from Ryan. “Not everybody has the same motives as you, Max,” she said.
“Don’t bet on it. When did she start taking an interest in you, Smith? Before or after she found out you’re the heir to the diamond country?”
