Her Outback Protector

by Margaret Way

  “I’ll take care of that,” Lloyd offered. “She was my stepmother though she never took the time to be one. In many ways she was quite simply, mad. I’m going back to Perth as soon as I can. Berne can come with me. The trip will do him good. I understand he wants to be an airline pilot.”

  “Sure do.” Berne smiled across at Sandra.

  “Then good luck, my boy. You’d better get on with it. You’ll have a lot to learn.”

  “No problem!” Berne appeared entirely comfortable with the idea.

  There was a memorial service for the late Mrs. Elsa Kingston in Darwin. Dying so soon after her husband, people acquainted with the family shook their heads in sympathy prepared in death to overlook the fact the marriage had been a disaster.

  Outside the church people pushed forward to introduce themselves, or reintroduce themselves, offering a word of condolence or respect. From time to time Daniel touched Sandra’s elbow, dipping his dark head to murmur the names of people she didn’t know. The healing process with her own family had started, but Daniel was the one person Sandra wanted beside her.

  “It’s Joel Moreland coming this way,” Daniel alerted her, easily spotting Moreland’s distinguished silver head among the crowd. “He has a lady with him. Seventies, beautifully dressed. The sister-in-law I’d say.”

  They approached, a handsome couple. Moreland looked even more impressive in his dark clothes. He certainly was a splendid looking man Sandra thought as introductions were made and respects paid. The lady was Moreland’s sister-in-law, Helen, widow of a younger brother who had never enjoyed good health and died prematurely at fifty-six.

  Helen Moreland tried, but couldn’t conceal her shock at meeting Daniel, indeed her expression crumpled into tears.

  “Now, Helen,” Moreland took her hand in a comforting grasp. “It’s all right, my dear.”

  “I just can’t believe it that’s all,” Helen Moreland said, staring into Daniel’s eyes. “He looks exactly like you at that age, Joel.”

  “I’m not sure I want to speak about this, Mrs. Moreland,” Daniel said, very quietly.

  She put her hand on his arm. “But you must, my dear. Not here, I know. But you must hear what I have to tell you.”

  “Perhaps you could join us at home,” Moreland suggested. He looked from Daniel to Sandra, his eyes resting on her as though she were a powerful ally.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Daniel said, courteous but firm.

  Sandra turned to him immediately. “Perhaps you should, Daniel,” she urged. Secrets turned into terrible burdens. The best thing Daniel could do was let Mrs. Moreland tell him what she knew.

  “Please, Daniel.” Helen Moreland lifted her gentle eyes that nevertheless missed nothing to his face. “Did you know Joel was christened Daniel Joel Moreland? His father was Daniel too so somewhere along the way to avoid confusion Daniel got to be Joel. Jared was christened Jared Joel Moreland.”

  “Where is this leading, Mrs. Moreland?” Daniel asked, intensity in his voice.

  “Why don’t we follow a bit later on?” Sandra smoothly intervened. “Any taxi driver will know where you live.”

  “If that’s your wish.” Joel Moreland inclined his silver head. “Or I could send my man back for you.”

  “I don’t seem to have much choice, do I?” Daniel turned away from an intense scrutiny of Sandra to ask in an ironic voice.

  “It’s all for you, Daniel,” Helen Moreland said.

  “Perhaps an hour, Mr. Moreland,” Sandra said quickly, linking an arm through Daniel’s and holding on.

  Moreland, the man with the Midas touch, nodded, seemingly content to let a twenty-year-old girl handle things. “As you wish, my dear.”

  The fact they had reached a decision gave Sandra a new sense of purpose. Resistance, however, was coming off Daniel in waves. She knew and sympathized with the intensity of conflict going on inside him but she trusted her feminine intuition. The crowd had dispersed and the two of them had wandered off finding the same coffee shop they had visited once before.

  “You don’t want to go, do you?”

  Daniel had removed his dark jacket in the heat. The dazzling white of his shirt made a striking contrast with his tanned skin. “You know damn well I don’t,” he replied, tersely, thinking he had done nothing but drink coffee over the last few days. “Though I’ve taken great note of the fact you seem determined to get me there.”

  “Maybe it’s where you belong, Daniel,” she said. “Ever thought of that?”

  He dismissed that with a cursory wave of his hand. “I don’t exactly belong anywhere. Most certainly not with the man with the Midas touch.”

  “Even though he could be your grandfather?” she asked, covering his hand with her own.

  “Why are you doing this, Sandra?” He stared into her beautiful eyes, his own filled with emotion.

  “Because I love you, that’s why,” she said briskly.

  “Sandra.” He bent his dark head over his hands without looking up. She couldn’t keep telling him she loved him otherwise he could never go away.

  “No need to be embarrassed,” she said cheerfully. “You know me. I rush in where angels fear to tread. You don’t have to love me, okay? I can see you’re obsessed with standing alone, but you need a little bit of a hand with this. I’m the right woman for the job.”

  He lifted his head again, finding those electric-blue eyes. “And a little hand is what you’ve got.” He raised it to his lips and kissed it.

  “People are looking, Daniel,” she pointed out, love for him invading every part of her body.

  “Fine. Who cares?”

  “I thought you did?”

  His eyes glittered. “How many people do you think know you’re the rich Alexandra Kingston, mistress of historic Moondai station?”

  “You want to pretend I’m not?”

  “I wish with all my heart you weren’t,” he said, with intense feeling.

  “Then I wouldn’t be me, Daniel, would I? I know you care about me.”

  “I wouldn’t be heading for the Moreland mansion if I didn’t,” he told her a shade harshly. He was lashing out in frustration when he loved her. Hell he knew it, but it was impossible to say. What could he offer her? Maybe in a year or two when he had time to get going. Hope reared its head. She looked so beautiful, so exclusive. She was wearing a little black suit with gold button detailing, a white silk blouse beneath the jacket, sheerest black stockings—he had never seen her in stockings—with a pair of high heeled black shoes on her feet. The shoes matched her handbag. No hat. Just her radiant curls that were growing longer and thicker by the day. He knew the outfit had been air freighted in. She’d told him she had nothing she could wear to a funeral in her wardrobe. Well she wore this outfit with considerable chic. She looked what she was: a lovely, fashionable heiress and thus way out of his league.

  The meeting with the Morelands passed with far less difficulty than Daniel had anticipated. Helen Moreland who recognised Daniel was there to please Sandra more than anyone else, lost little time telling her story while Joel Moreland and Daniel, sat forward in their respective armchairs, their heads bent at exactly the same angle.

  “I want to tell you the truth, Daniel,” Helen Moreland began, “you know, the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth as I know it. The story is as old as time. A secret arrangement between two women. One powerful, one of lower station. The young scion of the family falls in love with a pretty young woman employed as a servant in the house. It was Jared’s mother, Frances, who became aware of this attraction and found it utterly unthinkable. She sent the girl packing while her husband was away on business and her son was enjoying what should have been a fun week with his friends which took in the Alice Springs annual rodeo. What tragic event happened next pushed all thought of a dismissed servant out of a wildly grieving mother’s mind. For almost four years Frances was literally off her head with grief. She adjusted to the harsh reality of life in time but had never fully recovered. Fra
nces adored her only son. She had such plans for him. She genuinely believed no blame could be attached to her for getting rid of a girl she considered little more than an opportunist. It wasn’t until Frances lay dying that she told me she had a feeling—just a feeling—the girl could have been pregnant. She said she did try to trace the girl—this was some five years after Jared’s death—but Johanna Carson had simply vanished with the money Frances had given her to disappear. But that feeling, remained. It must have haunted her, particularly as she kept it all to herself. After Frances died it took me quite a while to work up the courage to tell Joel. He’d had enough to bear but what if there was some truth in this feeling Frances had? Joel set an investigator to find out. The rest you know.”

  Joel Moreland looked up as his sister-in-law’s voice faltered. “We have ample reason to believe you’re Jared’s son, Daniel,” he said. “The son he never knew about because you were in your mother’s womb. Knowing my son the way I did he would have stood by Johanna no matter what. As Helen said, my wife had great plans for Jared—she worshipped him almost to the exclusion of our lovely daughter—she already had a girl picked out for him. She would have been determined not to allow Johanna, your mother, to ruin those plans. God knows what would have happened only Jared was killed. It was all too late. And it would have been only Frances couldn’t keep her secret to the end. She knew not to tell me. I would have been shocked out of my mind. We’re talking my grandchild here! She chose to tell Helen.”

  “I tried to get her to tell you Joel,” Helen said, emotional tears springing into her eyes. “But she was adamant you should never know. You would never have acted as Frances did. I believe Frances had more than a feeling Johanna was pregnant but she was already condemned as not being good enough for her son.”

  “A nice, compassionate woman,” Daniel observed grimly.

  “Your grandmother, Daniel,” Joel Moreland reminded him, sadly. “I know how you feel, son. I understand perfectly. Perhaps if Jared had lived Johanna would have found the courage to tell him she was pregnant. Had I been at home more often; been more aware of what was happening in my own household I wouldn’t have permitted my wife to sack her. I don’t remember Johanna all that well, I’m sorry. I was so busy all the time, travelling around the country and overseas. Nothing worked for your mother, I’m afraid. Nor for you because of it. My wife’s punishment was not only the loss of her son but her only grandson. That’s you, Daniel. I know I asked you to allow a DNA sample but I didn’t really want to anyway. I know you’re my grandson.”

  “So do I,” Helen Moreland added with untrammelled joy.

  “You’re the image of Joel at the same age. You also have a look of Jared, though you have Joel’s eyes. Cecile has them too. No one seeing you and Cecile together would doubt you were family.”

  “So what is it you expect me to do, sir?” Daniel addressed Joel Moreland directly.

  A look of agonised longing passed over Moreland’s distinguished face. “I want you to take your rightful place as my grandson, Daniel. Be in no doubt I would never have let Johanna go, knowing she was carrying my grandson. Your father would never have permitted it either. If you doubt it, you don’t know me,” he said emphatically.

  Daniel believed him without hesitation. “How many people know about this?” he asked.

  “For sure, only the four of us. Sandra—” Moreland turned his head to smile at her “—recognised the resemblance right off but then I sense she’s very close to you?”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something, sir?” Daniel asked bleakly. “Sandra is the Kingston heiress. I work for her.”

  Joel Moreland nodded. “I understand your feelings, Daniel. Your sense of pride and decency, but you’re the Moreland heir. Don’t you want to be?”

  The question saw Daniel on his feet, obviously upset. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s too much to handle.” He shook his head.

  “I understand that as well.” Moreland rose to his full height, laying his hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “You need time, Daniel. Time is on your side. Unfortunately it’s not on mine.”

  “You’re not ill?” Daniel asked with a rush of dismay.

  “No, no,” Moreland reassured him swiftly, “but I’m not young anymore. I’m not even middle-aged even if I don’t feel so old. I’m a septuagenarian, Daniel.”

  “Like me.” Helen Moreland smiled at them both, wondering how anyone could fail to see the resemblance. “I couldn’t be more thrilled to meet you, Daniel. It’s like a dream come true. Thank you so much for bringing him to us, Sandra.” She reached out to take Sandra’s hand. “Now that we’ve met, you can’t go away, either.”

  A lot more than the words said was communicated through the women’s eyes.

  Just as Sandra guessed, Daniel, with a fixed determined look in his eyes insisted on moving back into the overseer’s bungalow.

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere, Sandra,” he told her as they rode out to the holding yards. A road train was due in around noon to transport a mob of prime cattle to market. “There’s not a single soul on the station who would harm a hair of your head. Your uncle and cousin have left for Perth. They were never any threat even if they’ve been damned unpleasant up until very recently. It was all in your mother’s mind, sad to say although she was right about one thing. The crash was no accident. Meg is in the house and I’m near enough for you to yell if you want me. I’d be with you in a trice. I can’t stay in the house, you can see that?”

  “Certainly,” she answered mockingly, watching a small group of nomadic emus feeding on some dry seeds in the ground. Emu oil had been used for countless centuries by the aboriginals for a variety of ailments. These days it was having great success easing the pain of arthritis. She had to think about that one. Lord knows there were enough emus running wild on Moondai. “You’re scared I’ll barge into your room.” She turned her head back to Daniel. He looked marvellous in the saddle, all lithe athleticism, a superb horseman.

  “You bet I am,” he said. “I’m scared what I might do.”

  “Could I believe…consider having sex?”

  “It’s okay for you, to joke. By the time you got around to yelling stop, you’d have pushed me right over the edge.”

  “There’s a cure for being a virgin, you know. I think that’s what’s worrying you.”

  “You want to stop teasing, Sandra,” he warned. “In my book there are certain rules of behaviour.”

  “Does this mean you’re going to keep me at arm’s length until we’re married?”

  “You can stop that right now,” he admonished, noting the cheeky mocking look on her face. “Besides, did I ever mention I love you?”

  “If you had any brains you would,” she answered, smartly.

  “Sandra, I love you more than life itself!” She assumed a melodramatic voice, quickly reverting to her normal tones. “That would be nice. And that’s not all, as any good salesman would say. There’s an added incentive. The house comes with me. There’s tons of room for future kids. Try to see it my way, Daniel. There’s only one word for us. It’s soul mates!”

  He gave a short laugh. “Then this soul mate has a lot of soul searching to do.”

  “I know,” she sighed, riding her mare in closer. “Daniel there’s nothing wrong with admitting to being Joel Moreland’s grandson. He’s a lovely man. A lovely, lonely man. You could think of him.”

  “I expected you to say something like that, Sandra. Thing is, I’m thinking of my mother.”

  “I am too, Daniel,” she said with utter sincerity. “I could never be insensitive to what your mother went through. But had she lived long enough I don’t think she would have told you to deny this relationship. In a way it’s a vindication of all the sacrifices that went before. Frances Moreland paid for what she did. I just don’t think you and your grandfather should have to suffer her mistakes any longer. It’s not as though I’m doing myself any good, saying this. You become a Moreland, where does that leave me? I’m sending you o
ff to join the competition when I desperately need you.”

  “I’ll be here as long as you need me, Sandra,” he promised, a flash coming into his eyes. “When I get my life straightened out we can talk.”

  Well at least we’ve got that cleared up, Sandra thought. She knew she only had to sit still and she’d get her way in time. She loved this man, this Daniel. She was more than prepared to put up a good fight for him.

  EPILOGUE

  HER mirror told her she looked dazzling. This was the eve of her twenty-first birthday. A big party was being held downstairs in her honour. Moondai was a much healthier, happier place than it had been for many long years. Daniel continued to manage the station wonderfully but the time was rapidly approaching when she felt in her bones he would go to his grandfather. For Daniel with a good bit of coaxing from her had cemented his relationship with his grandfather. She could take extra credit for the fact Daniel had bowed to his grandfather’s dearest wish to allow Moreland to be added to his name. These days Daniel was known as Daniel Carson-Moreland but everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the Carson was dropped. Maybe Daniel C. Moreland she’d suggested to him? She was after all, a terminal do-gooder.

  The entire Outback had taken in its stride the revelation that Daniel Carson was actually Jared Moreland’s son. Stories like that might have happened all the time for all the lack of fuss. The great thing was, Jared lived on in his son. Most were pretty sure a fine young man like the late Jared Moreland would have married his young love had he not lost his life so tragically and needlessly. Such a waste! But Daniel was universally liked and approved of, a fitting heir for his grandfather.

  Neither Lloyd Kingston nor Berne resided at Moondai anymore. Berne was continuing his intensive training and doing extremely well. Lloyd had taken up residence in Perth, a city he had always liked, close to his academic friends. He had also acquired a lady friend he brought back with him to Moondai to celebrate Sandra’s twenty-first. Festivities were to last the entire weekend. Sandra had invited all her old friends, especially those who had formed the hospital entertainment group. Vinnie, her former next door neighbour was invited, too.