Her Outback Protector

by Margaret Way

  “Have you considered, Daniel, he might not have known about you?” Moreland asked with a sad smile. “Your mother mightn’t have been given the chance to tell him she was pregnant?”

  “Whomever he was,” Daniel answered with a harsh brittle laugh. “I don’t think we should continue this conversation at the moment, sir. It’s causing you great upset and it’s certainly not helping me. In any event it doesn’t change anything. We can’t rewrite history.”

  “We can remake the future, Daniel,” Moreland said with such a hopeful expression on his face Daniel turned his head away abruptly not wanting to be moved by it.

  It was then he caught sight of Sandra, his dream and his desire but as far away from him as the moon. He felt the hot pulsing beat of his blood. She looked absolutely beautiful in a summery outfit he had never seen before. She must have just bought it he realized. She hadn’t worn it on the plane, nor did he think she had it with her. She was walking buoyantly as a dancer does, threading her way through the tables, a lovely smile on her face.

  It was difficult to take his eyes off her but Daniel turned back to Moreland speaking in an undertone. “This is Sandra now. She’s looking forward to meeting you. Is someone waiting for you, sir, your chauffeur?’

  Moreland laughed softly, correctly interpreting Daniel’s look of concern and glad of it. “I’ve had a shock, Daniel as you have, but don’t worry, I’m quite all right. In fact my doctor tells me I’ll live to one hundred. Such are the ironies of life. My chauffeur is out the front, yes. We’ll talk again when you’ve had more time to absorb what I’ve shown you. Meanwhile I want you to take those.” He indicated the photographs on the table.

  Not quite understanding why he did it, Daniel quickly thrust the photographs into his inner breast pocket, a little embarrassed by how vehement he had become about them.

  Both men stood up as Sandra reached their table, looking lit from within. A lot of people in fact were caught up in watching her. Daniel introduced them, Moreland clearly enchanted, but as Sandra sat down for a few moments, she said in fascination, “Surely I’ve met you before, Mr. Moreland? Perhaps when I was a child?”

  Moreland smiled back. “I couldn’t possibly have forgotten you, Sandra.”

  “Then how do I explain it?” Her dark blue eyes were full of wonder. “There must be something in this other life business.” She laughed.

  Moreland stroked his chin. “Millions of people believe in it. Your observation interests me, Sandra. I know your uncle Lloyd of course and your cousin Bernard but I’ve always thought I should have met you, Trevor’s daughter, Rigby’s granddaughter. Perhaps you can visit me at my home some time soon. We should get to know one another. Who knows I may be of service? Daniel can bring you.”

  “Why, I’d love that, thank you.” Sandra said, giving Daniel several quick questioning looks. Daniel was looking extremely sober, even upset, as though the meeting hadn’t gone at all the way he wanted.

  They sat talking pleasantries for ten minutes more. Eventually Daniel and Sandra accompanied Joel Moreland to his car, a stately Bentley. His chauffeur who had been in casual conversation with a hotel employee sprang to attention. “But you have a dimple just like Daniel,” Sandra remarked in some wonder, turning to Joel Moreland as Daniel momentarily moved off. “The same side of your face. You have silver-grey eyes as well. One sees them rarely. Is there some connection? Is that possible?” She stared into those eyes. “There is, isn’t there? I feel it in my soul.”

  Moreland simply smiled. “Women never cease to amaze me.” He continued to hold Sandra’s hand.

  It wasn’t just the eyes and the dimple, it was the charm, Sandra thought, all sorts of thoughts whirling through her head. A question was about to tumble out only Daniel, who had been stopped by a passing acquaintance, was about to rejoin them.

  “Don’t forget my invitation now,” Moreland said, relinquishing Sandra’s hand.

  “I definitely won’t.” Sandra was still rooted to the spot. Just like Daniel, Moreland towered over her in the same reassuring nonthreatening way. “Is this our secret?” she asked, her mind racing with powerful intimations.

  “We have to work on it, Sandra,” he told in a sober voice.

  CHAPTER NINE

  DANIEL waited for the Bentley to pull away before he turned to Sandra to ask, “Have you had something to eat?”

  “You’re always trying to feed me, Daniel.” She tried a laugh, a little daunted by the gravity of his expression. “I’ve been shopping actually.” She looked down at her dress, hoping that he liked it. She’d bought it to gain his attention.

  “You look like a ray of sunlight,” he said, but unhappiness touched his eyes.

  “You’re upset about something, aren’t you?” Sandra didn’t care what he thought. She took his hand. She was his friend, wasn’t she? Even if he wouldn’t allow anything more. She was still working on it.

  “Does it show?” He gave her a wry glance.

  “And Joel Moreland has something to do with it? Why don’t we have a coffee by the water?” she suggested. “It’s a beautiful day. I’d forgotten Darwin Harbour is so immense. The deep turquoise of the water is amazing. You can fit in another coffee can’t you?”

  “Whatever you want.” He made no attempt to let go of her hand. In fact to Sandra’s tremulous joy he continued to hold it while they crossed the street and made their way to a harbour front coffee shop where one could sit outside beneath big blue and white umbrellas. Sandra ordered a cappuccino and a sandwich. Daniel settled for an espresso.

  “Are you sure that’s all you want?” he asked, sounding concerned coffee and a sandwich weren’t substantial enough. She was still light enough for a zephyr of wind to blow her away.

  “That’s plenty,” she said, anxious to get on with what was troubling him. “I want to hear all about your meeting. Please tell me.”

  “You know, don’t you?” He leaned forward abruptly, slipping off her sunglasses so he could stare straight into her eyes.

  “I don’t know exactly what it’s all about, Daniel,” she said carefully, “but I can see a resemblance between you and Joel Moreland.”

  “Moreland?” Daniel asked in a voice that cracked in surprise. “Then you’re seeing a lot more than I can.”

  Sandra’s expression softened. “Whether you can see it or not, there is. Don’t be distracted by age and the silver hair. I bet his hair was once as black as yours. He has the height, the shoulders, the manner, the charm. You both have a dimple in your cheek and extraordinary silver-grey eyes. They’re fairly rare, Daniel.” She broke off as their order arrived.

  Thoroughly unnerved, Daniel took a quick gulp that burned his mouth. “He wants me to take a blood test. I imagine one that establishes DNA.”

  “Good grief!” Sandra, about to take a bite of her sandwich, put it down again. “This is serious.”

  “I’m not taking any DNA test, Sandra,” he said with considerable firmness.

  “Okay.” She soothed him. “I don’t blame you.”

  “I know nothing for sure,” Daniel said, wanting to reach across and take her hand. She offered such comfort. Since Sandra had come into his life he realised he no longer felt he walked alone.

  “Well what you do know don’t keep it to yourself. He must believe you could be family?’

  “Who cares!” Daniel said shortly, then made an effort to collect himself. “Once, to have had a family would have mattered a great deal. It doesn’t anymore.”

  “You can’t forgive the fact the man who fathered you abandoned your mother and his unborn child,” Sandra observed, in an understanding voice.

  “Would you forgive it?” Daniel threw down the challenge.

  “No I would not.” Sandra picked up a sandwich and bit furiously into it. “So if you and Joel Moreland are related as it does appear, your father would have been his son who was killed. Jared, wasn’t it?”

  Daniel’s eyes flared as though he couldn’t bear the answer. “Here, take
a look at these.” He withdrew the photographs Moreland had given him passing Sandra the one of his mother first.

  Sandra held the photograph in her hand, studying it with intense interest. It was of a very pretty vulnerable looking young woman with haunting dark eyes. “This is?” She guessed it had to be his mother although Daniel bore the young woman no easily discernible resemblance.

  “It’s a photograph of a young woman who worked for the Morelands in the late 1970s,” he said in a strained voice.

  “Her name was Johanna Carson. My mother was known as Annie Carson.”

  Sandra kept her eyes on the old photograph. “You’re Annie Carson’s son. You would know if this was your mother.”

  “I’m afraid it is.” Daniel sighed deeply as though he didn’t want to talk about it. “Everything she told me, I believed all of it. I think now, most of it was probably not true. My entire childhood and my whole adult life I’ve believed what little my mother told me.”

  “Believing one’s mother is an article of faith, Daniel,” Sandra pointed out gently. “My mother too dealt in fantasy.”

  “Maybe it’s a problem with mothers,” Daniel said. “Tell me what you make of this?” He passed her the second photograph.

  Sandra found herself looking at a beautiful young woman who could be Daniel’s twin. “How extraordinary! Who is this?” She eyed Daniel cautiously.

  “Moreland’s granddaughter, Cecile.”

  Sandra acknowledged that piece of information in silence.

  “Why produce these photographs now?” she asked, tapping the photograph with her finger. “This Cecile could be your twin. What’s going on, Daniel?”

  Daniel’s broad shoulders tensed. “How the hell should I know.”

  “Why decide to acknowledge you now?” Sandra frowned.

  “Exactly.”

  Sandra fell into a thoughtful silence. “Do you suppose if Jared Moreland were your father he simply didn’t know about you? Maybe he was killed before your mother told him or he was killed before they could do something about it. Maybe they intended to get married?”

  Daniel gave an off-key laugh. “My mother worked as a domestic in their house. Moreland has always been a rich powerful man. It’s highly unlikely he would have looked on such a union with favour.”

  “I like him,” Sandra said, her blue eyes burning bright. “He seems the nicest, most trustworthy man. I don’t want to feel badly about him. I’m sure you don’t want to, either.”

  “No, I don’t.” Daniel admitted. “He said his sister-in-law only recently suggested the possibility Jared had fathered a son.”

  “Did you believe he was telling the truth? You’re a good judge of men, Daniel.”

  “I was very taken with him,” Daniel said. “I had this strange feeling I knew him right from the minute we shook hands. Both of us were upset. In fact he had a bit of a sick turn which shook me up as well. All the colour drained from his face. I had to get him a brandy. I got the feeling he wants to make things right. Oh God, I don’t know, Sandra.” Daniel looked away over the glittering marina with its splendid yachts. “Even if he is my grandfather I don’t fit into his world. He just can’t walk into mine and think I’m going to do anything he wants. I’m not stooping to any DNA test. Not now, not ever! I’m someone else entirely from that. I’m going to make my own way, thank you, not become Joel Moreland’s illegitimate grandson, for God’s sake. I’m me!” he said wrathfully.

  “Could I dare put a word in here?” Sandra asked, staring into his taut face.

  “Best to stay out of it, Sandra.”

  “Sorry, Daniel. I’m in it, remember? Maybe Mr. Moreland is trying to steal you away from me? It’s not on. You’re mine until your year is up or you’ve had enough of me.”

  His stormy expression lightened. “I couldn’t ask for a better boss,” he said, hoping his smile was on straight.

  “You’re the boss, Daniel,” Sandra said, “but I’m learning.”

  “You haven’t wasted a minute. You’re really smart, Ms Kingston.”

  “Then can you let Mr. Moreland explain?” she urged. “He wants us to visit him some time soon.”

  He gave her one of his long glittery-eyed looks. “I’ll take you any time you want, but the other has nothing to do with you, Sandra, so don’t get in the middle of it. If Joel Moreland thinks he’s going to recognise me now—subject to a DNA test of course—” he added caustically, “it’s all too late.”

  Sandra put out a hand and grabbed his wrist. “Daniel, will you listen to me for a second?”

  “No, I won’t,” he said in a dangerous voice. “You find it too easy to twist me around your little finger. Eat your sandwiches, Sandra. Your coffee must be cold. Mine is.” He put up his hand to signal the waiter. “I’ll order fresh.”

  The sun rose higher. The bush was quiet except for bursts of unrivalled merriment from the blue winged kookaburra perched on the sturdy limb of a red river gum. These majestic trees soared to one hundred and twenty feet and more forming a marvellous corridor of green along Jirra Jarra Creek. It was one of the favourite haunts of Sandra’s childhood. Scarcely an inch of the great gums went unexploited much like the multistorey apartment towers in the city. Ravens, hawks, owls, magpies and even the great wedge-tailed eagles nested on the upper branches; brilliant parrots, laughing kookaburras, bigger birds and magpies underneath; bats, possums, reptiles in the hollows. Even the fallen branches and thick leaf debris protected ground nesting little birds, insects and tiny reptiles like the fierce little horny lizard. There were more lizards in Australia than anywhere else in the world, the most spectacular of them in her desert home.

  Away from the brilliant glare of the plains the peace and cool of this green sanctuary was exquisite. The creek’s deep dark green waters were said by the station aboriginals to possess healing powers not only for the health but behavioural problems as well. She and Berne along with the station children had swum here all the time with a stout rope tied to a high branch of a river gum allowing them to fly into the water or across the stream like Tarzan and Jane. Berne hadn’t benefited much from the sacred waters. He appeared to be the same as he ever was, causing Sandra to believe he would be a whole lot better off starting a new life elsewhere. Her uncle was a lot easier to get on with these days, mollified no doubt by her genuine interest in his encyclopaedic knowledge of Australian wildflowers. He was presently getting ready for another field trip to a remote pocket of Western Australia, a State renowned for the magnificence and sheer abundance of its native flora. A man who loved flowers and plants with a passion couldn’t be all bad she reasoned. She was an adult now and thinking like one. Her father’s fatal plane crash which her mother had claimed was murder had to have been an accident. Only Fate had been responsible.

  A little wind blew up, skittering along the green corridor, loosening the olive green leaves and the petals of some dusky pink wildflowers that grew in cylindrical clumps in this oasis-like area. The aboriginal women made a paste of these succulents using it to protect and soften the skin of the face. Sandra knew for a fact the paste was wonderfully soothing on cuts and scrapes. There was so much that was really effective in bush medicine she thought. Arranged around her were the striking dark red sedimentary rocks and boulders that littered the ancient landscape. They formed such a contrast with the cabuchon waters of the creek, the lime-green of the aquatic plants and reeds that shadowed the creek’s banks and the smouldering blue of the sky.

  She had been sitting there daydreaming for some time now; carrying on a lengthy inner dialogue. There was so much that was problematic in her life. Daniel’s life too was as mixed up as her own. Now he was confronted by revelations that had stunned and angered him. Daniel had carried a very bad image of the man who had fathered him. That wasn’t going to go away in a hurry. She knew as well as anyone what it felt like to be unwanted.

  A commotion on the high ridge—the unmistakable sound of a motorbike—made her turn her head. It was approaching at spee
d. The unwelcome din in such a peaceful place caused a flight of iridescent painted ducks about to land on the creek’s surface, to skim it for a few feet before soaring steeply up again; up, up, over the tops of the red river gums seeking quieter waters. The kookaburra held its position, giving way to ribald protest, cackling away for all it was worth without deigning to move off its perch.

  “Shut that bloody kookaburra up!” Chris Barrett, the jackeroo, yelled to her. He rode down the track, braking to a flamboyant stop a few feet away from her. Never mind the fact the wheels of the bike tore up scores of wildflowers releasing their faintly medicinal smell. “One of the boys told me this was the likely place you would be.” He gave her his cheeky grin; a young man who thought he could always talk his way out of trouble.

  “Did they now,” Sandra said, watching him dismount. A real show-off was Chris. “So why aren’t you working with the rest?”

  He took a seat atop a red boulder. “Give me a break. I’ve been chasing a flamin’ stallion all morning. A real stroppy devil.”

  “I take it he got away?”

  “Yes, he did,” Chris said ruefully, “but we got the mares and yearlings, even a few foals. It’s a fantastic sight watching those wild horses run. I’m going to miss it. Mind if I come and join you for a few minutes?”

  “Sure,” Sandra nodded, pitching a few more pebbles into the deepest part of the creek. “But you’re looking forward to going home, being with your family—surely?”

  Chris laughed. “Well yes and no. I’ve had a great time here. Dan is a marvellous bloke. All the men look to him. No mean achievement when he’s so young. These guys are really tough, but Dan has earned their respect. He often used to stand between us and old rubber guts—sorry—” he flushed “—your grandfather. Every other day I expected to be sent packing even though Mr. Kingston and my grandfather knew one another from school days. Dan stood up for us all. By the same token we’ve all got to pull our weight. Even lightweight old me though I reckon I’m a lot less stupid now. I’m not exactly looking forward to knuckling down in the staid old family firm. I’ve grown used to all this wonderful space, the excitement and adventure, the company of my mates.” He stared into her face, hoping he was hiding his tremendous crush. “You’re not going to sell the place, are you, Sandra?”