Outback Angel

by Margaret Way

  “Okay now.” He started towards her, hoping she’d planned on lots of mistletoe when a little voice carolled, “Wait for me!”

  “Good heavens, Kylee, where did you come from?” Jake laughed, much taken with this child as she scurried out of the shadowed passageway, gulping down cake.

  “Been to the kitchen,” she told him joyfully. “Clary gave me tea. Are yuh gunna put the Christmas angel up, Mr. Jake?”

  “On second thought, you can help me.”

  “Can I?” Kylee squealed, her huge eyes flashing sparkling lights.

  “I should be able to lift you without killing myself. Now Miss Angelica was a different story.”

  “I thought you were interested in Herculean tests,” Angelica reminded him, watching him lift the child like a bundle of feathers and carry her up the ladder.

  Near the top, bracing himself securely, Jake reached out his long arm while Kylee placed hers over his as he set the angel into position. “There, done!” he cried triumphantly.

  “Done!” Kylee threw back her toffee-coloured head and laughed then she leaned forward and gave Jake a smacking kiss on the cheek, her free hand stroking his face.

  Angelica, watching this touching scene from beneath, found herself caught up by longing for a happy married life. A husband who was both lover and best friend. She also wanted children. She was twenty-five, nearing twenty-six. She couldn’t help thinking she was moving further away from the optimum time to have children. And she wanted four. It was the dilemma facing many career women like her. Put off having children into the late thirties never mind the forties and risk not being able to conceive at all. The medical profession had aired their warnings.

  Gillian grabbed her hand. “Would you believe that little kid kissing Jake?”

  “I think it’s lovely, don’t you?” Angel’s dark eyes were on man and child as they slowly descended the ladder.

  “Yes, she’s a cute little thing.” Gillian gave a warm smile. “Wherever did she get those orange curls?”

  “I guess we’ll never know. Could be genetic, but surely there are aboriginal tribes in the Centre with blond and bronze hair?”

  “Yes there are,” Gillian recalled. “Leah is very attractive, isn’t she, in her way?”

  “Very,” Angelica agreed. “It would be wonderful if she could find herself a good man this time. She and Kylee deserve a better life.”

  “She should thank Jake for rescuing her,” Gillian said. “Not everyone cares, you know.”

  “Well I do,” said Angelica with emphasis.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FROM the moment Dinah Campbell arrived Angelica could see why Stacy and Gillian found her an intimidating guest in their home. The forceful Dinah acted as if she were the owner of Coori with the McCord women brief tenants. Dinah Campbell wasn’t one of the world’s underdogs. She was supremely self-confident, and always looked everyone straight in the eye. Physically very attractive, she had genuine platinum-blond hair, which she wore in a short, sexy tousled crop, apple-green eyes, good lightly tanned skin, trim athletic body, and to cap it off she was a cool dresser. All in all she made a very eye-catching package.

  But her manner! Miss Campbell appeared to attach much importance to herself as the only child of a landowning family with money to burn. Dinah herself already possessed more money than she actually needed from her maternal grandfather with the full expectation of in time gathering in the lot. The trouble was, wealth didn’t always vouchsafe niceness of manners, Angelica thought, watching Dinah airkiss first her hostess then Gilly, making it seem they were honoured to have her pop in, before turning what used to be called a gimlet eye on Angel.

  “So you’re the caterer?” she asked for openers, managing to make it sound vaguely insulting.

  “I see myself more as a Celebrity Organiser.” Angelica smiled, determined not to take offence. “Angelica De Campo. How are you, Miss Campbell?”

  “Oh fine, fine.” Though Dinah’s accent was well-educated, her voice timbre was not all that easy on the ear. “Good heavens, you must be all of six feet?” She directed her gaze to some point above Angelica’s dark head as though clouds were billowing there.

  Used as they were to Dinah’s abrasive style, Stacy and Gillian looked at one another shell-shocked, but Angelica laughed it off.

  “Yes,” she said calmly. “All it takes is two inches of heel.”

  “I imagine it’s a sore point?” Dinah’s green eyes were so drilling she could have been trying to punch holes in Angelica’s glowing, olive-skinned flesh.

  “Not at all. I figure it means I can eat more,” Angelica said tongue-in-cheek. They were all still standing on the verandah where they had grouped to greet the Outback aristocrat but now Angelica decided the only course open to her was to excuse herself.

  “Lovely to meet you, Miss Campbell.” She smiled, already on the move. Everyone told little white lies as a social lubricant. “I must see how Leah’s getting on.”

  She couldn’t have picked a better cue. “Leah? Really?” Dinah’s artfully darkened eyebrows shot up to her shaggy fringe. “Isn’t she the aboriginal girl with the child? Why would you have to see her?” It was clearly a demand that needed answering but even Angelica was at a loss as to a civil response. She looked to Stacy as mistress of Coori to say something, to put Miss Campbell in her place would be good—but Stacy’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Plainly in Dinah’s company she lost all confidence when confidence wasn’t her thing.

  Dinah was still waiting for an explanation, wearing a slightly frowning expression. After all, she had asked a question.

  Well that’s it, Angelica thought. Obviously she believes everything that happens on Coori is her business and her long friendship with Jake is going to end in only one way. With a spectacular Outback wedding. The joining of two dynasties. McCord-Campbell. Such-was-life Angelica had to ask herself if it mightn’t be true, and she herself fitted into the Passing Sexy Fling category. “Leah is being a great help to me,” she offered finally, continuing to sound pleasant and calm.

  “Please come back for lunch,” Stacy called after her, looking nerve-racked.

  “Will do.” Angelica took off down the front steps before she threw caution to the winds, giving Stacy and Gillian a cheerful little wave. Both of them for their own good had to find their tongues.

  Dinah meanwhile went to the balustrade, peering after Angelica’s rapidly receding figure. She was intent on finding out which way Miss De Campo was heading. It appeared she was making for the Great Hall, which really begged another question.

  “Well!” she said co-conspiratorially, turning back to the McCord women with raised brows. “She’s a surprise.”

  “Who?” Stacy enquired, just to hold up the inevitable.

  “Why, Miss De Campo. Who else?” Dinah shrugged.

  “In what way?” This was awful. This was excruciating, Stacy thought. Couldn’t Angelica have stayed? Stacy regarded Angelica as very brave.

  “She’s a little bit too sure of herself,” Dinah said. “When one thinks about it, she’s only here to do a job. She even swaggers.”

  “Crap!” Gillian, having picked up that crude expression from Charlie, decided to use it.

  “Well I never!” Dinah looked at Gillian, near aghast. “That’s very rude isn’t it, Gilly?”

  “I thought you were the one being rude.” Gillian darted a desperate look towards her mother. “Angelica is a lovely person. She’s very kind.” And more than a match for you.

  “Well she would be, wouldn’t she?” Dinah lightly jeered. “As I said, she’s here to do a job. A job, incidentally, I could have done with pleasure.”

  “But Jake couldn’t have had enough confidence in you,” Gillian said, going red. “I don’t want to be unpleasant, Dinah, you’re our guest. But I hope you’re not going to start on Angelica because she’s so beautiful.”

  Dinah pondered that almost derisively. “Beautiful?” Maybe to Gillian’s standards was implied. “Sh
e’s very striking sure, but, Gilly, and I’m sure this is your true opinion, she’s way too tall. In fact she’d be very hard-pressed to find a man who didn’t have to look up at her.”

  “Jake doesn’t,” Stacy offered with satisfaction, then immediately looked away to get back her strength.

  But Dinah viewed Stacy’s small neatly dressed figure as though Stacy had been attempting a little joke. “Jake doesn’t have to look up to any woman,” she offered complacently, “but knowing Jake as well as I do, I’ve only one thing to say. She’s definitely not his cup of tea. And that bust! It’s really too voluptuous.”

  “Well no one is ever going to say that about me as long as I live,” Gillian, who was flat-chested, complained. “Busts are definitely big time.”

  Angelica found Leah and Kylee in the Great Hall. Kylee, seated at a little child-size desk, was happily trying to copy what her mother was doing while Leah was up on a trestle working on one side of her mural.

  They both cried, “Hi!” as soon as Angelica walked in, their faces near identical in the contentment of expression. Leah had already solved the big problem of covering the background by having one of the maintenance men on the station allotted to her by Jake spray paint the ceiling and the back feature wall a beautiful dense blue like the skies over Coori.

  By the time Angelica walked in Leah had completed a whole section with balloons rising into the sky like a spring of giant fresh-water bubbles. The day before she had painted in Angel’s surrealistic idea of floating umbrellas and several large silver trophy cups copied from those in Jake’s study. There was considerably more to be done but she had made a great start. The four-foot section of the rear wall was to become a billabong featuring the magnificent species of waterlilies unique to the Channel Country and Coori station. This was Leah’s wish as the waterlily flower was the totemic ancestor of her coastal tribe. Connecting billabong to sky from the drawing board design would be a range of amethyst hills.

  “That’s coming along beautifully, Leah,” Angelica called, thrilled by Leah’s progress. It confirmed Leah’s talent and Angelica’s faith in her. She had since seen a large portfolio of Leah’s work full of wonderful imagery and the fantasy of aboriginal mythology as well as Coori landscapes filtered through aboriginal eyes. It was a style, entirely natural, that combined elements of both worlds. Aboriginal culture and that of the white man’s.

  To Angelica’s thinking in terms of commercial success, it seemed to give Leah’s work an edge. Whoever had given Leah lessons—a nun at the mission—knew what she was about.

  “I’m happy, Miss,” Leah said, a sense of workmanship and pride her normal demeanour these days.

  “So you should be,” Angelica said admiringly. “You’re going to make a name for yourself with this.”

  “Mr. McCord likes it.” Leah grinned. “He said he can’t wait for me to start paintin’ the horses. He loves horses.”

  “So do I,” said Angelica, who continued diligently with her early morning and late-afternoon lessons, enjoying herself immensely while she was at it. She had a marvellously helpful teacher, a complete professional, who freely admitted she had a good natural seat and good hands. This made his job that much easier.

  Leah’s design featured three polo ponies and riders during play. The front rider was to be clearly recognisable as Jake wearing his Number 3 jersey, the position for a team’s most experienced player and usually the captain. This was Leah’s idea.

  Angelica stayed on for a while, making sure to praise little Kylee for her efforts, delighted the child had inherited her mother’s talent. Rather than return to the lounge and Dinah Campbell she thought she’d go in search of Jake. She knew from their morning conversation he was schooling the best of the latest pool of brumbies. She had never heard him use the term “breaking in.” It would be interesting to see him and Dinah together. That wouldn’t happen until a pre-dinner drink unless Dinah took it into her head to find Jake, as well. It couldn’t have been more obvious she had little in common with Stacy and Gillian while Stacy and Gillian appeared to find Dinah exhausting.

  What of Jake? Angelica steeled herself for the answer. She took the Pajero in the direction of the Four Mile where she knew there were holding yards following the chain of billabongs. Coori station seemed to go on forever. She had only seen its boundaries from the air. A lake-size expanse of lagoon looked wonderfully inviting shimmering through the trees. It appeared deep enough but the water must have contracted because it was surrounded by a wide sandy beach. Reed beds abounded and the ubiquitous waterlily. In this particular lagoon it was the lavender-blue of the lotus lily sacred to the ancient Egyptians. For as long as she could remember there had always been talk of an ancient Egyptian presence in Australia especially in the tropical north. The beautiful lotus lily was native to both countries.

  Slowing her vehicle, she first heard then saw a small waterfall cascading down the worn-smooth rock face at the back of the lagoon. And this was drought, except for that one miraculous downpour. She wondered what the waterfall would be like in times of flood or the wet years when probably it would be huge. A tree stretched its long branches over the lagoon and she thought it would be a marvellous place for the children on the station to hang a rope to jump from. Just as she thought it she saw an old rope dangling from one of the branches and laughed aloud thinking someone had already had the bright idea.

  When she arrived at the Four Mile she found Jake working his magic on a wild stallion. She parked in the shade and walked quietly across the lightly grassed space, her face alight with interest. Three stockmen had taken up learning positions on the opposite side of the railed enclosure and she waved to them, watching them doff their dusty wide-brimmed hats before she found herself a nice comfortable spot around the fence.

  Jake glanced at her briefly, but he didn’t speak, clearly focused on the job. She, however, felt a sense of longing that was like an actual weight. She was, she realised, in so deep she craved the sight of him. The brumby looked a fine specimen, not poor at all for its life lived in the semi-arid desert fringe. She knew brumbies could become useful and tractable working horses. She wasn’t sure what stage Jake was at, or indeed what the stages were, but the horse wasn’t bucking or pawing the ground. It looked entirely controllable, probably due to Jake’s unique skill.

  Eventually as she watched with great interest, the horse was saddled and Jake mounted quietly, gently urging the animal forward. She supposed a considerable amount of work had gone into the lead-up processes for the horse to accept the saddle then the rider. Maybe the final schooling? The horse moved off at a steady controlled pace.

  Moments later Jake dismounted, handing over the reins to one of the stockmen and calling a few instructions. Apparently it was someone else’s turn to try their hand. In another enclosure a distance away she could see a number of horses milling, their hooves raising a bright rust-red cloud of dust. Jake had already told her large numbers of brumbies roamed the vast Outback stations.

  He loped towards her, his lean powerful frame so extraordinarily graceful in its movements she felt a great thrust of sexual excitement, which extended from her heart through her groin to her legs. He was magnificent. She couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to lie beside him in a big soft beautiful bed!

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” he drawled, thinking if they were on their own he couldn’t be responsible for what happened.

  “I’m only sorry I didn’t come sooner.” Her smile was a ray of sunshine in her vivid face. “I take it that horse has been through any number of stages to allow you to ride it like that?”

  He pushed his akubra lazily further down over his eyes. “Ma’am, you take it right. Schooling horses is a job I really enjoy. I find it pleasurable and a challenge. We don’t need as many station horses as we used to. Helicopters and motor bikes have taken over the musters, but I like to put the best of the brumbies to use. The rest can run free. It’s time-consuming, this so-called business of breaking
horses in. Coori adopted the British method of breaking horses in from the earliest days. The big difference was that over there horses were used to humans from the beginning and so were more tractable and well-behaved. Our brumbies roamed a vast wilderness and never saw a single human soul. Consequently they’re damned wild. And fierce.”

  “So a gentleman in Britain could walk right up to an un-schooled horse and pat its nose while an Outback man had a far more dangerous time of it.”

  “You bet!” He yanked at the red bandana around his strong bronzed throat. “If they ever managed to catch the strongest and fleetest. A wild horse’s response to a direct approach would be to bolt like merry hell. In my grandfather’s day when he was still a young man his best friend, a fine horseman, was killed on the station. He made the fatal mistake of walking away from a brumby that was being broken in. The horse lashed out with its hinds legs, smashing his arm, shoulder and finally near caved in the side of his head.”

  “How terrible!” Angelica said weakly.

  “Horses are unpredictable creatures.” He shrugged. “They can bite, rear or strike savagely with their front and rear feet. That’s why good horsemen take pride in their ability to ride any horse with safety and facility.”

  “Have you been thrown?” She looked back at him with the greatest sense of pleasure.

  He sent her an amused glance. “I’ve taken my share of falls, but strangely I’ve never broken anything. There’s an expertise in taking a fall as well. As for you, you’re making an improvement every day.”

  She executed a little bow. “Thank you. I have a top-rate teacher. You’re surprisingly patient.”

  One bronzed brow shot up. “What do you mean, surprisingly?” he scoffed.

  “You’re a man who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”

  His golden gaze narrowed over her. “I can’t believe you’re calling yourself a fool.”

  “You know what I mean. Anyway I’m very grateful to you. When I go home I’m going to keep up my riding.”