Outback Man Seeks Wife

by Margaret Way

  ‘When are you wanting to leave?’ Clay asked, oblivious of anyone now but Carrie.

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘It would be a three-hour drive even moving!’

  ‘I’ll take you,’ he said.

  ‘So how would we meet up?’ she asked shakily. God, she wanted so much to be with him when she didn’t even know if she could handle it. Her whole philosophy of life was coming under bombardment. It was as though a volcano lying dormant within her was showing perilous signs of erupting.

  ‘What the hell, I’ll drive out to Victory Downs,’ Clay decided. ‘I’ll get an early start. What have we got to hide anyway? I’m going to see my cousin. You’re going to see your ex-fiancé. No need for me to come in and meet the folks,’ he said with extreme dryness. ‘You can come out to the car.’

  Carrie shook her head. She just couldn’t face her father’s opposition. It would be like a great icy wind from Antarctica. ‘I’ll meet you in town. I’ll park here.’

  ‘What time can you make it?’ He didn’t like the idea of her making all these long drives.

  ‘Eight o’clock. Is that too late?’

  ‘Eight’s fine. Put in a few clothes. You’ll be tired. We might as well stay in Toowoomba overnight.’ His blue eyes looked directly into hers. ‘Trust me, Caroline. We’ll be fine.’

  Did she trust him?

  That wasn’t the question at all. The answer was and it came right away. Did she trust herself?

  When she found Scott’s room, his parents were already there, seated at their son’s bedside.

  ‘Carrie, dear!’ Thea Harper rose at once, coming to hug and kiss her. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’

  ‘Carrie!’ Even Bradley Harper’s severe face broke into a smile. ‘Thanks for coming. How did you get here?’

  ‘Drove,’ Carrie said, cutting off the conversation by moving quickly towards the bed. ‘How is he?’ She bent over Scott’s prone frame, gently, even tenderly, taking his hand. ‘Any change?’

  ‘They’ve wound down the drugs,’ Thea Harper said, in a shaky voice. ‘They’re waiting for him to come out of it.’

  Carrie lowered herself into the chair Bradley Harper drew up for her close to Scott’s head. He looked very young and handsome. Sleeping quietly except for the monitors. ‘He’s going to be all right,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, God, he has to be!’ Thea Harper suddenly started to sob.

  ‘Thea, stop that,’ her husband commanded. ‘You’re wearing yourself out. Scotty’s going to be okay now Carrie’s here.’

  Please, please, please, don’t put this on me, Carrie thought, something like panic crawling across her skin.

  How was she supposed to feel when Scott had been continuing an affair with his old flame? Ready to forgive and forget? It seemed so. As far as the Harpers were concerned she and Scott were destined for marriage no matter what! The Harpers adored their only child so much they were prepared to make any sacrifice for him including her. If, God forbid, Scott were to be confined to a wheelchair they would still expect her to go through with the marriage. If she loved him, she would. Now she fully understood she didn’t love him.

  The Harpers, sick and exhausted, had gone off to have coffee leaving Carrie still sitting by Scott’s bed. She, too, had shut her eyes as a headache pressed down on her temples, although she was still gently holding his fingers.

  ‘Carrie?’

  Her eyes flew open. She hadn’t imagined that. Scott had spoken, sounding perfectly lucid. ‘You’re awake. Oh, thank God!’

  ‘What happened?’

  His dilated pupils seemed impossibly large. ‘It’s okay. You’re all right,’ she patted him reassuringly. ‘You’re in hospital. You were in an accident. You were badly concussed. Hang on, I have to get a doctor in here.’ She rose from her chair.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ Scott called. ‘Don’t ever leave me.’

  Carrie flew out to the nurses’ station, her mind swirling with crazy thoughts of flight.

  The Harpers were ecstatic. ‘It was you!’ Thea Harper, laughing and crying gave Carrie all the credit. ‘He heard your voice. He felt the touch of your hand.’

  ‘He was ready to come out of it, Mrs. Harper,’ Carrie said, aware Scott’s doctor was studying her with a close but friendly eye.

  ‘No, you were the miracle!’ Thea maintained, hugging Carrie yet again, her exhaustion lifted. ‘You, Carrie McNevin. You’re an angel.’

  An angel, imagine!

  ‘Look I’ll have to shoo you all out for ten minutes or so,’ the doctor said. ‘You can come back one at a time and say your goodbyes. This sleeping beauty might have awakened, but he’s still in need of plenty of rest.’

  ‘We’ll go,’ Bradley Harper said, putting an arm around his wife. ‘Love you, son!’ A hard, tough man, he declared it in a strong, emotional voice. That hurt Carrie. She doubted her father could ever say that to her. Certainly not in that voice. ‘We’ll be back later,’ Brad Harper said.

  ‘Don’t go, Carrie,’ Scott appealed to Carrie, his eyes glassy. ‘I need you here. Carrie?’

  She looked at the doctor unsure what to do. ‘She can come back later,’ the doctor said. ‘Settle back, young man. You want to get out of here as soon as possible, don’t you?’

  ‘Can’t wait. Everything is going to be okay, Carrie,’ Scott said and it seemed to her there was full comprehension in his eyes. ‘Kiss me before you go.’

  She bent over him, touching her lips to his temple. ‘I’ll come back later, okay?’

  ‘I love you,’ Scott said, as though there were no other woman in the world.

  The Harpers were waiting for her down the corridor. Thea reached out to hug her yet again. ‘You’re really a godsend, Carrie. You are the one he needs.’

  The pressure was getting scary. ‘We should talk about that, Mrs. Harper, but not today,’ Carrie said. ‘Are you going to look in on Natasha? She hasn’t been discharged yet.’

  ‘Of course we’re not going to look in on that scheming young woman,’ Thea said. ‘She’s done nothing but throw herself shamelessly at Scott.’

  ‘It appears I was the only one who didn’t know that,’ Carrie said quietly.

  ‘My son loves only you, Carrie,’ Brad Harper told her in a voice that defied her to disagree. ‘Natasha Cunningham meant nothing to him.’

  ‘Actually she did, Mr. Harper,’ Carrie said, inside objecting to his domineering tone. Why did men want so much power over women? ‘But let’s not spoil the moment. Scott is going to make a full recovery.’

  ‘Thank God!’ the Harpers declared in unison. ‘Come and have a coffee with us, Carrie,’ Thea invited. ‘We’re drowning in it but we can have tea.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs. Harper, but I intend to look in on Natasha,’ Carrie said, letting them make what they liked of that.

  ‘Good! Give her what for!’ Brad Harper advised, his weathered face grim.

  Natasha Cunningham was not in bed. She was sitting in an armchair looking out the window, her back to Carrie. No one else was in the room. Clay must have gone, although they had made arrangements to meet up late afternoon.

  ‘Natasha, it’s me, Carrie,’ she said in as gentle a voice as she could muster.

  A moment of stunned silence, then, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Natasha responded roughly. She thrust up and turned around as if prepared for confrontation.

  ‘I would have thought that obvious,’ Carrie said. ‘I came to see how you are. Knowing what your family is like I thought you could do with a friend.’

  ‘Ain’t that the truth!’ Natasha was half laughing now, but she looked terrible. She was white and drained, her eyes bloodshot and red rimmed as though she had never stopped crying. The right side of her face was black and blue all around the jawline. Lacerations were clearly visible on her lower neck and arms. She wasn’t in hospital garb. She was wearing a T-shirt and loose linen trousers that hung on her. Always bone thin, she had lost even more weight.

  ‘Thank God you got out o
f it as well as you did,’ Carrie said. ‘Please sit down again. You don’t look so good.’

  ‘How’s Scotty?’ Natasha asked, leaning over as though her stomach ached. ‘I dared not go near his room.’

  ‘I was about to tell you. When you sit down. Preferably lie down.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Natasha waved a hand irritably, but she went back to the bed. ‘How is he?’ She stared Carrie right in the eye.

  ‘You know he’s been in a medically induced coma. He’s fully conscious now. He recognises everyone. The fractured clavicle will keep him quiet for a couple of months and he can forget polo for a while longer, but he’ll heal. His doctor is expecting him to make a full recovery. His youth and fitness will be a big help.’

  There was an unbearably intense look or gladness and relief on Natasha’s face. Then she burst into violent tears. ‘It was all my fault. Everything is my fault.’

  Carrie could only feel pity. ‘Are you well enough to talk about it or should we let it go?’ Her very nature was preventing her from feeling the ill will towards Natasha she thoroughly deserved.

  ‘You must be furious with me. Furious and disgusted.’ Natasha dashed her tears away with the back of her head. ‘I’m a bitch. A real bad bitch. I’ve gloried in it.’

  ‘No, you haven’t.’ Carrie shook her head, suddenly convinced it was true. ‘Somehow I think you’ve been pushed into that role. I’m not furious with you. I don’t exactly understand why. By rights, I should be.’ Carrie reached inside her handbag for some clean tissues, which she passed to Natasha. ‘Did you have an argument? Was that it? Scott lost control of the wheel?’ She could well see it happening. Natasha was such a volatile young woman.

  ‘Do you love him, Carrie?’ Natasha didn’t answer Carrie’s questions but asked one of her own. ‘He’s a real bastard you know.’

  ‘But you love him,’ Carrie pointed out, doing her own ignoring.

  ‘God knows why! I’ve always loved him. I’ve tried, but I could never get myself free of him. He took my virginity, you know. I might have held on to it longer if not for him. And he wasn’t too gentle about it, either. Scotty only thinks about himself.’

  ‘It certainly looks like it,’ Carrie agreed. ‘And you’ve been with him all this time?’

  Natasha wept afresh, charcoal smudges beneath her eyes. ‘He’s as mad as he can be for you, but you wouldn’t come across. He told me. I could barely stop laughing. I, unlike you, couldn’t keep away from him. Not that he ever turned me down. Sex is very high on Scotty’s agenda.’

  ‘A little bit too high, if you ask me,’ Carrie said, crisply.

  Natasha nodded as though they were two friends having a serious discussion. ‘He even wanted it the night of the dance when he had that fight with Clay.’

  ‘Oh my Lord!’ Carrie groaned softly. ‘And that’s the man I got myself engaged to! How utterly blind I’ve been.’

  ‘Don’t sound so shocked.’ Natasha picked up a few white grapes and popped them in her mouth. ‘He needed comfort. He knows I can give it to him. None of this little bit of loving stuff like you dish out.’

  ‘Thanks for sharing that with me, Natasha,’ Carrie said. ‘You’re one underhanded pair and it’s starting to show.’

  Natasha laughed. ‘You’re a very dull person, Carrie. Face it. I have more than a few tricks.’

  ‘Of course you have,’ Carrie said. ‘Even then Scott isn’t all that interested in you.’

  ‘You don’t love him,’ Natasha cried, mortally stung.

  ‘You’d have been ready to do violence had I truly taken your man.’

  ‘You bet!’ Natasha wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘I’d have skinned you alive.’

  ‘Only I wouldn’t stoop to prostituting myself with another woman’s fiancée,’ Carrie said flatly. ‘Has Clay been to see you?’

  She didn’t expect to see a smile break across Natasha’s face. ‘You know my cousin’s a really nice guy when you get to know him. One of the good guys. I didn’t get to know too many of them. Scott got in the way. Clay would never tell a woman to get herself an abortion.’

  Carrie felt like an avalanche had hit her. Abortion! She could even feel herself turn pale.

  ‘I’m sorry, Carrie,’ Natasha burst out. ‘I’m really and truly sorry. You’re a good guy, too. You’ve always been nice to me even when I’ve been a pig.’

  Carrie hardly heard her. ‘You’re pregnant?’ she asked, astonished now Natasha hadn’t caused it to happen long before this.

  Natasha’s answer came right away, not without a trace of triumph. ‘I am.’

  ‘Even through the accident?’ It was a mystery to Carrie.

  ‘Strong little beggar,’ Natasha said, fondly.

  ‘How far along are you?’

  ‘Ten weeks,’ Natasha said, patting her flat tummy.

  ‘Did you tell Clay?’

  ‘God no!’ Natasha looked astounded by the question. ‘Of course I didn’t. What’s it got to do with him? Strewth, he was acting like you’re the love of his life. What’s with you anyway that the guys get so carried away?’

  ‘You’re the one who got carried away, Natasha,’ Carrie said, her expression firming. ‘Either that or you decided to resolve the situation. I wouldn’t put it past you.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Natasha said.

  Carrie shook her head. ‘You have a gnat’s sense of what’s right and wrong, Natasha. And Scott suggested you get an abortion?’

  ‘Not suggested, dear. Scott’s not like that. It was a command. It’s you he wants to marry. I’m beginning to wonder if you little virgins aren’t the smartest of us all.’

  Carrie ignored the comment; instead she asked, ‘What are you going to do about the baby?’

  Natasha touched her stomach tenderly again. ‘I don’t know yet. This will be a great, great scandal unless I pack up and leave home in a hurry.’

  ‘Do your parents know?’

  Natasha shook her dark head vehemently. ‘Come off it, Carrie. We’re talking the world’s most sanctimonious people. It’s just you, me and Scotty. And the doctor who examined me, of course and he’s not talking.’

  ‘You must keep the baby, Natasha,’ Carrie said, trying hard to deal with all this. ‘It’s precious new life you’re carrying. This is your child. You’ll regret it all the days of your life if you allow yourself to be talked into an abortion. Your little one has put up a fight for life so far.’

  ‘That he has. It’s a boy, I know. Scotty’s son.’ Natasha stretched out a leisurely hand for more grapes, her expression showing maternal pride.

  Carrie’s head was swimming so badly she might have been drunk. There was an ache in her heart. A worse ache in her head. ‘So you’d better get Scotty to marry you,’ she said, somehow finding the strength to stand up. ‘I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  THEY sat in a quiet corner of a little restaurant at the top of the Range, a twinkling world of coloured lights spread out across the city beneath them.

  ‘No appetite?’ Clay asked, having watched her toy with the delicious food.

  ‘I should have stuck with the entrée,’ Carrie said, putting down her knife and fork. ‘The food’s great, but life’s getting too much for me.’ Her dark velvety eyes registered sadness.

  ‘Scott’s going to make a full recovery,’ he pointed out. ‘That must take a lot of the burden off you.’ He hoped to God it did. Maybe then she could tell Scott to let go.

  ‘It does,’ she admitted.

  ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was just so perceptive, she dipped her head.

  ‘Thought so.’ He let his eyes rest on her. She was wearing a bare little black top with a multi-coloured, multi-patterned gauzy skirt that almost reached her ankles. Her beautiful long hair braided away from her face shone pure gold in the candlelight. Her skin had an equally lovely gold tint. He had never seen any woman he thought more beautiful. No woma
n to touch her.

  ‘Obviously it’s very much upset you?’ He topped up her glass of white wine.

  ‘Thank you.’ She raised her glass and took a long sip. ‘This is in complete confidence, because I trust you.’

  Warning bells began ringing inside his head. ‘Just so long as you’re not about to tell me you’re going to marry Harper in December?’ His eyes sizzled over her.

  ‘I’m not going to marry Scott,’ she said and shook her head. ‘Chances are when he’s fit enough—or even before then—he’ll be marrying Natasha.’

  Clay sat back, astonished, though Carrie had delivered the news quite matter-of-factly. ‘Now that’s the very last thing I expected to hear.’

  ‘She’s pregnant,’ Carrie explained, still in that quiet even tone. ‘I had to tell someone. I couldn’t keep it to myself. Natasha is pregnant with my ex-fiancé’s child.’

  ‘God!’ Clay was genuinely stunned. ‘Doesn’t she know about contraception?’

  Finally Carrie released a long-baffled sigh. ‘Being Natasha I’d say she took her chances. She could even have been trying to push her luck. Who knows? The fact is, she’s carrying Scott’s child.’

  ‘Then he must marry her,’ Clay said as though there were no other course open to the man.

  ‘He told her to have an abortion.’

  Clay couldn’t disguise his contempt. ‘Doesn’t that say everything you need to know about Scott Harper? His own child and he’s ready to destroy it? Natasha can’t listen to him. Times have changed so much. She’ll get through and she’ll adore her baby.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Carrie said, thinking the essence of the Cunninghams was their coldheartedness. ‘There aren’t too many families like yours.’

  ‘They’re not my family,’ Clay retorted, his voice peppered with loathing. ‘Nor will they ever be in my mind. I gather Natasha doesn’t get along too well with her parents. It doesn’t make sense to me, these rich people. They have everything and they have nothing. Then again Natasha is getting looked after so well financially she’d never leave home.’

  Carrie drank her wine slowly. ‘I would say that’s because of Scott.’ Natasha wasn’t far off thirty and on her own admission she hadn’t really looked beyond her first lover.