Burning with Passion

by Emma Darcy

  Her mother needed her. Her father had to be found. As far as her family was concerned, this St Valentine’s Day had brought nothing but misery and despair. Caitlin hoped she could do more for her parents than she could do for herself. Her one-sided love-affair was definitely on skid-row, but if her parents’ marriage could be rescued, at least that would be something.

  Her fingers flew over the keyboard. She re-read what she had typed on to the monitor, nodded her satisfaction, then switched on the laser printer and waited for the fateful page to roll out.

  She was on her feet, ready to pick up the page and sign her name to it, when she heard her office door open. She glanced around automatically.

  Her heart thudded with apprehension when she saw David enter and close the door behind him. She didn’t want another confrontation with him. What was over was over.

  ‘Caitlin...’

  ‘You’re supposed to be looking after your guests.’

  The printer whirred. She turned back to it. David could say what he liked. She wasn’t going to let it affect her. The page that would put an end to everything between them rolled towards her.

  ‘We’ve gone into recess for twenty minutes to re-establish contact with reality,’ he stated, conveniently forgetting that he had ruled out a recess when she had suggested it. ‘We’re going to relook at what direction we’re all coming from,’ he went on, his voice coming closer and closer. He paused. ‘Caitlin, you were magnificent!’

  An accolade indeed, coming from David, but it came too late. Caitlin steeled her heart against responding to him.

  The phone rang.

  David automatically picked it up. Slowly and deliberately, Caitlin signed her resignation.

  ‘It’s for you,’ he said, holding the receiver out to her.

  She put down the pen, picked up the page and walked back to her desk. He stood on the other side of it, waiting for her. His face carried an interrogation mark. He looked puzzled. He frowned at the roses and expensive toiletries.

  Caitlin took the phone and handed him the page containing her resignation. He didn’t lower his gaze to read it. His eyes quizzed hers, trying to understand what was going on. She ignored him.

  ‘Caitlin Ross speaking.’

  ‘Caitlin, this is your father.’

  Her attention was immediately arrested. Her father sounded distressed. Her heart went out to him. What misery could he have endured to make him snap at such a time, on the very day he should have been celebrating thirty years of marriage with the woman he had once loved?

  ‘Oh, Dad...’ She didn’t know what else to say. Somehow those two words summed up her feelings.

  ‘I’m sorry, Caitlin. I have bad news for you.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ she said gently. She had to listen to both sides, act as the peace-maker, help find a reconciliation between them if one could be found.

  ‘It’s Dobbin, Caitlin. He’s been terribly, severely injured.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ A wail of deep distress. Her pony. Her friend and confidante since she was eleven years old. In many ways that horse had filled gaps in her life more than any human being. ‘How?’ she cried. ‘What happened?’

  A defeated sigh. ‘He panicked during the thunderstorm last night. He became entangled in a barbed wire fence.’

  Her heart contracted painfully. Barbed wire could rip a horse to shreds. A tremor of premonition ran through her, making her feel weak and shaky. She reached for her chair, pulled it towards her, sat down. ‘Is he...?’ She had to know. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to face the worst. ‘How...how badly is he torn?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Caitlin.’ Her father’s voice was sad and wistful. He knew how much the old pony meant to her. ‘We couldn’t let him suffer. We had to put him down.’

  She could not strangle the wail of protest at the futilities of life. It welled from deep inside her and found utterance on her lips. Her chest heaved once, twice, three times. The burgeoning grief could not be suppressed. It was too much to bear...the death of her hopes for David’s love, the death of her parents’ marriage, and now the very real death of her beloved old pony. She hadn’t even been there to nurse his head, stroke him once more, say goodbye...

  Tears formed in large droplets and gathered pace as they streamed down her cheeks. She slumped forward, propped her elbow on the desk, and covered her face with her hand as she wept.

  This had to be the most wretched day of her life.

  ‘Caitlin?’ Her father’s voice, pained and anxious.

  ‘Caitlin?’ David’s voice, oddly strained for him.

  She struggled to regain control of herself, control of the situation. There were things she had to do. ‘Dad, where are you?’ she choked out. ‘I need...to see you...talk to you.’

  She dropped her hand, her fingers scrambling blindly for a pen to write down whatever address he gave her. David’s gold pen was pressed into her hand, a notepad placed in front of her.

  ‘I’m at a pub. Don’t feel like going home, Caitlin,’ her father said flatly.

  ‘What pub, Dad?’

  ‘The Last Retreat. It’s down the Yarramalong Road.’

  It took Caitlin three attempts before she had it correctly written down. Slowly she replaced the phone, set the pen aside, peeled off the note page, pushed herself to her feet and set a course for the coatstand where she’d hung her shoulder-bag.

  She was waylaid by a broad chest and arms that gently cradled her against it. ‘What’s happened, Caitlin?’

  She stared at David’s throat. She had never heard it produce words that sounded more sympathetic and sincere. Once she had craved for them. Even now, she had a craven wish to lean on the warmth and strength his body seemed to promise. She needed loving very badly. But David Hartley wouldn’t give that to her. Not the kind of loving she needed. It seemed almost funny that her tears had moved him as nothing else had. Maybe she should have wept more often.

  ‘Let me go, David,’ she demanded tonelessly.

  ‘Caitlin, let me help you,’ he said earnestly. ‘Tell me what’s wrong. If there’s something I can do to help, let me do it.’

  ‘It’s too late for that, David.’

  ‘It’s never too late.’

  He was wrong. No one could turn back the clock and save Dobbin. He would probably think her a sentimental fool for grieving over an old pony. Sentiment was not David’s strength. Caitlin had had ample proof of that.

  ‘You’ve never cared about my feelings for you or for my family. Never bothered asking about them. You didn’t let any thought of my needs infringe on your personal life,’ she stated as a matter of incontrovertible fact.

  ‘I didn’t realise...’

  ‘You only had two concerns,’ she went on, relentless in her indictment of his self-centredness. ‘Business and sex. I’m not sure even now which came first on your list of priorities, but I tend to think it was business.’

  ‘I care about you, Caitlin,’ he said stiffly. ‘I care a lot.’

  ‘No...no...’ The pained truth of his feelings for her was reflected in her eyes as she dragged her gaze up to his. ‘Not enough. You only care about me when it suits your convenience, David. I’m nothing more than that. You use me to serve your needs.’

  An angry flush—or was it one of guilt?—speared across his cheekbones. ‘That’s not true. You’re more important to me than...’ He hesitated.

  ‘Your precious schedule!’ she finished for him.

  The flush deepened on his cheekbones. She had hit him hard and low with something he could not deny.

  ‘There’s reason enough for that,’ he snapped.

  ‘I’m sure there is. You have a reason for everything.’

  ‘So do you.’

  She pushed out of his embrace, grabbed her bag from the coatstand and slung it over her shoulder. ‘I’m going now,’ she said with unshakeable determination.

  ‘You’re really resigning!’ He sounded bewildered.

  ‘Darned right I am.’

>   He thrust his hands out in appeal. ‘Tell me why!’

  ‘Because you’re a heartless, insensitive, callous brute,’ she hurled at him.

  It smacked home, too. He flinched. ‘I know you’re upset, Caitlin,’ he retorted imperiously. ‘You’re in a temper. If you want compassionate leave, take it.’

  ‘No need,’ she said tightly. ‘I’m not coming back.’

  ‘Let’s have a cooling-off period.’

  She looked her disdain for that idea. ‘I’m already cold where you’re concerned, David.’

  ‘Tell me what I can do,’ he demanded, still sure he had the power to sway her.

  ‘I don’t want to. If I told you, you’d only reject it. Just as you reject almost everything about me. Just as you rejected me this morning.’

  ‘I had the Germans coming!’ he cried in exasperation.

  ‘You made your choice!’ she snapped. ‘That’s your bed. Lie in it. You can go back to your German delegation now.’

  She stepped around him and headed for the door.

  ‘It’s not what I want.’

  ‘You should have thought of that earlier.’

  ‘Caitlin!’

  She ignored the hoarse command and kept going, opening the door without a backward glance. Before she could close it, he was beside her. She walked on towards the elevator. David matched her step.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ he grated out, frustration underscoring every word.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’re the best assistant I’ve ever had.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I can’t do without you.’

  ‘Tough.’

  ‘I’ll raise your salary.’

  ‘I can’t be bought.’

  ‘I’ll improve your conditions.’

  ‘Too late.’

  ‘Isn’t there anything I can do to change your mind?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What the hell am I going to do?’

  ‘Stick to business, David. You’re better at that than human relationships.’

  She reached the elevator and pressed the ‘down’ button. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ he said.

  Caitlin said nothing. She was going to miss him too, but there was no way she could tell him that.

  ‘Who gave you the roses and the other fripperies?’

  The elevator door opened. She stepped into the compartment, pressed the button for the ground floor and turned to look at the man she had loved. His face was a study of conflicting and violent emotions.

  ‘I don’t know who gave me the St Valentine gifts,’ she said sadly, ‘but it should have been you, David. It should have been you.’

  The door slid between them and closed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CAITLIN was surviving on nervous energy. Inwardly she felt pummelled, stricken, destroyed and destitute.

  She took a taxi from the Hartley building to her apartment where she quickly discarded her office clothes. What was needed for David was far too fancy for her father. In his opinion, fashion was a lot of silly nonsense. Very down-to-earth was her dad.

  She pulled on a T-shirt, a pair of jeans and her old battered Reeboks, then raced to the bathroom to clean off what was left of her tear-riddled make-up. The mirror revealed she didn’t look all that good. Certainly not at the top of her form. It would have to do.

  She grabbed what she needed in the way of toiletries, and headed back to the bedroom to pack enough clothes to see her through a week. She didn’t know if her parents would get back together again, but she might end up staying with her father, staying with her mother, or jockeying between the two of them until something was straightened out.

  She had little doubt that her older sister would stand staunchly by her mother. Michelle had always been Mummy’s little girl, while Caitlin, six years her junior, was very much her father’s daughter. If any rapprochement could be made, Caitlin knew she was the most likely catalyst.

  She hastily swapped the essentials from her suede shoulder-bag to the leather one she favoured for practical purposes, collected her suitcase, locked her apartment, and headed for her car.

  Caitlin loved her little car. The Mazda 121 was cute and friendly with its rounded curves. David had laughingly called it a cartoon bubble car, but Caitlin had not let his amusement spoil her pleasure in it. She didn’t care about flash performance or a status statement. It was the first car she could call her very own and she loved it.

  As she walked along the parking bays of the carport attached to the block of apartments, it occurred to her that throwing in her job with David could change her financial position quite drastically. On the basis of the salary David had paid her, she had moved from a shared apartment to having the luxury of a one-bedroom apartment to herself. She had taken on the commitment of paying for a car. If she didn’t land some comparable job very quickly, she would have to shed either the car or the apartment.

  The future took on a bleaker prospect.

  Caitlin fought off the threatening wave of overwhelming depression. She had made the right decision in parting from David. She would not sell her soul for money. If the car had to go, it would be a far less heart-wrenching loss than Dobbin.

  As for the apartment, she had shared one before and she could share again. That was no great hardship. She had enough grief to deal with at the present moment. She would worry about tomorrow when tomorrow came.

  She didn’t actually need a car. She still caught the bus to and from work rather than fight peak-hour traffic for such a short trip. She used it more for weekend travelling than anything else. For the situation Caitlin found herself in today, her little car was invaluable. She settled herself into it with a sense of relief and comfort, and started the journey north.

  She thought over her parents’ lives as she drove out of Sydney and along the Newcastle expressway. Everything had changed quite dramatically for them two years ago. An estate developer had offered a huge amount of money for their farm at Mardi, an irresistible sum of money to her mother’s mind. She had nagged her husband into selling, much against his personal inclinations.

  They now had a lovely brick home in the nearby township of Wyong, in the same street where Michelle lived with her husband and three young children. It was precisely where her mother wanted to be. Caitlin was aware that her father was not quite so happy with it.

  He missed the farm. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He was bored silly. Planning the next trip to some distant part of the world he hadn’t seen and didn’t wish to see was not his idea of having a purpose in life. His most prized Galloway horses and Caitlin’s pony had been agisted on a property at Wyong Creek. Keeping an eye on them was his only link to all he had given up.

  Caitlin’s mother considered that quite enough. They had earned their retirement and now was the time to enjoy it before they became too old. It had seemed a valid argument. Yet for some reason, which had to be very cogent to him, her father had walked out on her mother. Today of all days!

  Caitlin left the expressway at the Wyong exit and took the route through Mardi to link up with the road to Yarramalong. She felt a twinge of sadness as she passed the old farm, now subdivided into two-and-a-half-acre housing lots. She had spent a very happy childhood on that land.

  Life is change, she told herself, but some changes cut very deeply at fundamental values.

  She wondered how much David would miss her. Would he miss her at all? She berated herself for the speculation. It was futile. To David, whose life centred on his needs, she was already yesterday’s woman. He would have a replacement lined up before he left the office today.

  She had to shut him out of her mind. And heart.

  A roadside sign gave the distance to ‘The Last Retreat’ as two kilometres. Caitlin knew it was more a country lodge than a pub. The signboard outside the main building listed horseriding among the activities available for guests.

  As she parked her car in the area set aside for visitors, she saw her father�
�s pick-up truck outside one of the motel-style units. She decided to bypass the reception desk inside the lodge and go directly to the unit her father was undoubtedly occupying.

  It was one-thirty. Time was of the essence. If there was to be an anniversary party tonight, it was due to start at seven-thirty. If it hadn’t been already cancelled.

  She knocked on the door long and hard before it was opened. Her father looked terrible; unshaven, his clothes crumpled, and worst of all, with an air of defeat written all over him.

  Caitlin went straight into his arms, hugging him with a fierce love that wanted to make everything better for him, yet ending up blubbering on his shoulder.

  He patted her back and stroked her hair, still his little girl despite the passage of years that had turned her into a young woman. ‘There, there,’ he soothed. ‘Everything is all right.’

  ‘I wish it were.’

  ‘It’s for the best. Take my word on it.’

  ‘I’m trying to, Dad,’ she sniffed.

  ‘What happened to Dobbin wouldn’t have happened if we’d still had the farm. I’d have gone out to have a look at him.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Dad.’

  ‘I don’t know, Caitlin. I should never have agreed to what your mother wanted. We’ve never had a happy day since.’

  Caitlin took a deep breath. This was the problem that had to be faced without any further delay. She looked up pleadingly. ‘Dad, you and Mum have now got all the things most people dream about. You worked hard, battled hard, struggled hard. You should be able to enjoy the good things in life.’

  ‘We sold out for money,’ he said heavily, ‘and they spoiled it. Some of the best grazing land in these parts. I knew every inch of it, every blade of grass.’

  ‘You don’t want to let go, do you, Dad?’

  ‘No, Caitlin, I don’t want to let go.’

  He stroked her cheek in rueful tenderness, smudging away the tears. ‘You’re a good girl, Caitlin. The one bright spot in my life.’

  She choked on another well of emotion. But she could not allow herself to be diverted. She swallowed hard and cut straight to the crisis that had to be tackled.