by Margaret Way
She had to speak to Steven.
Back home at the stables, she turned the gelding over to one of the stable hands to take care of, and then she cut through the home grounds, narrowly dodging her uncle and Rosa who appeared to crave one another’s company. She made for the staff quarters beyond the home compound, encountering no one along the way. She prayed Steven would be at the bungalow even if he were packing to leave. It amazed her now, the amount of interference in her affairs she had tolerated from her father. She had to stop living that kind of life. But it also struck her Steven was the first man she was fully prepared to fight for. She had taken a long time to truly fall in love. Maybe that was it.
She was running up the short flight of timber steps when Steven faced her at the door.
“Hi!” he said, his strong face impassive.
“May I come in?” She felt incredibly nervous.
“Sure.” He stood away from the door. “You look tired.” There were shadows beneath her beautiful, intensely blue eyes.
“I couldn’t sleep. How could I what with everything that’s going on.”
“Would you like some coffee?” he asked. “Cal was here. I made him some, but I’m ready to make fresh.”
She shook her head. “No, don’t bother unless you want some. I haven’t seen Cal. I’ve been for a ride because I was in the mood for a darn good gallop. Trying to clear my head. So what did you and Cal decide?”
“Sit down, please.” It struck him she looked more fragile than he had ever seen her.
Meredith sank into an armchair, looking around her. The bungalow was comfortably and attractively furnished. Steven had kept it immaculately. No one could describe him as a careless man. “Two years later and this is the first time I’ve ever been inside your bungalow.” She gave a brittle laugh. “Doesn’t that say something?”
“It says you’re Ms McKendrick and I’m the overseer,” he clipped off.
She swallowed on her dry throat. “May I have a cold drink if you’ve got it?” she asked.
“Mineral water?” He glanced back at her, wanting desperately to take her into his arms. Determined not to.
“That’ll be fine.” She clasped her hands together. “Well, how did you end up?” she asked when he returned. “I must know.”
“How did we end up?” He put the frosted glass into her hand, his shapely mouth compressed.
“Steven, please answer me,” she begged. “You know how much I care about you.”
“Enough to take off with me today?” He stood staring down at her, his expression taut and challenging.
Her heart jumped. “What, on the freight plane?” Could she, would she? What could she throw in a bag? Where would they go? Their flight from Coronation would be the talk of the Outback.
“Yes,” Steve said. “You look mighty nervous.”
“But it’s a stunning suggestion, isn’t it, Steven?” Her sapphire eyes pleaded with him to understand.
“You’d come if you loved me.”
She thought, Is that right? Is that what I should be prepared to do? “I don’t know, Steven.” She shook her head from side to side. “I just don’t know.” She needed a little time.
“It’s okay,” he replied, as if he never for a moment expected her to say yes. “I’ll put you out of your misery. Cal has made the decision for me. I’m to go to Jingoll and Cash Hammond is to come here.”
“What?” For a moment she thought she would burst into tears. But shouldn’t she be used to hiding her feelings by now? “Jingoll is outside Alice Springs.”
“So?” His heart rose a little at her evident distress.
“How do I get to see you?” she demanded emotionally. “I wanted to learn to fly the plane but Dad wouldn’t hear of it. Even Cal couldn’t shift him. What am I supposed to do, drive all darned day and all darned night?”
“You’ve got money.” He shrugged, pretending indifference to her plight. “You could call up a plane just like that! Fix it with Jim Pitman today. He could fly you down to me. Stay a week or two.” To hell with it! Make it easy for her to make the break.
“Do you love me, Steven?” she asked with her heart in her eyes. “Or are you just a little bit in love with me? We don’t entirely know one another.”
“No, we don’t,” he replied soberly. He could see the way things were shaping up. Put to the test she was getting cold feet. And why not? He had no reputation to protect. She was Meredith McKendrick. “I should be finishing off packing,” he said, just short of dismissively.
A tight hand closed over Meredith’s heart. “Maybe we can meet again in a little while?” She stood up, trying unsuccessfully to pin his eyes.
“Why not? There are always rodeos, bush races and what not.”
Her head dropped. “I’m sorry, Steven. So sorry for everything.” She went to move past him to the door, fighting down a storm of tears, only he suddenly caught her to him, golden eyes glittering. He forced her head back into the crook of his arm, his mouth coming down on hers. Passionate. Heated. Punishing.
When he released her she put a hand to her breast. Her heart was hammering unnaturally.
“Just something to remember me by,” Steven offered tonelessly.
Steve headed almost directly south to the McKendrick holding that was situated close to the fantastically coloured McDonnell Ranges of the Red Centre. Here the landscape was as different from the tropical north as it could be. The Red Centre seemed as old as time itself, the mystique of the place amazing. Jingoll ran Brahmins, beautiful cattle crossed with the best Queensland Brahmans and going further back, fine American Brahmin stock. Jingoll’s Brahmins were well-known in the industry.
The change-over went remarkably smoothly, Steve assuming the top job of manager caused no problems whatever with the staff. Everyone knew he had been the overseer at the McKendrick flagship, Coronation Hill, but the rumour was, as Cal McKendrick’s man, he had been sent to make Jingoll an even bigger outfit than it was. That was okay by all. Steve Lockhart might be young but if he’d been overseer on Coronation, he really knew what he was about.
Steve set about proving it from day one. The best way he could cope was to bury himself in hard work. Work shifted the burden of his wretchedness a little. But he thought about her every minute of the day. Then again he had to admit Jingoll gave him a breathing space, while he tried to think how best to go about the difficult task of wooing an heiress which was far more a hindrance than a help. During his first few weeks he made several trips to Alice Springs or “The Alice” as everyone called it. The Alice almost in the dead centre of the continent was a big supply depot for the outlying cattle stations, mines and aboriginal settlements. In addition to being an important commercial centre it was also an enormously popular tourist spot for visitors from around Australia and overseas. The Alice was the jumping off point for the Red Centre’s great monuments and beauty spots; Uluru, Kata Tjuta, Mount Connor, the Devil’s Marbles, Rainbow Valley, King’s Canyon and the extraordinary Palm Valley, a sight Steve found staggering, blooming as it did in all its tropical splendour in the middle of the red desert.
On that particular day Steve having completed station business allowed himself a couple of cold beers and a big wedge of Mediterranean sandwich, a freshly baked round loaf stuffed with half a dozen delicious ingredients, before he made the long drive back to the outstation. He was sitting at the bar counter alongside a chatty local called Pete, when an old fellow with the long grey hair of an ancient prophet and a matching grey beard burst through the pub doors jabbering something with his mouth wide-open. Despite that, his voice was so agitated, so high and reedy, most of those in the pub couldn’t make out what he was carrying on about.
“What did he say?” Steve asked, not really interested. Pete was polishing off his own sandwich with gusto. It was seriously good.
“Hang on!” Pete swung around in his chair. “That’s old Barney. Should be Balmy. He’s a terminal alcoholic. Has been for the last forty years.” Barney was sti
ll into his high decibel hollering but it took a moment for everyone to work out what he was on about. By the time everyone did, the humming bar inhabited by tourists, locals and stockmen having a day off in town, shut down to a stunned silence.
“Struth!” said Pete as though someone important had just died without warning. As, indeed, they had.
The pub owner, ponderously moving his huge frame and smoothing back his remaining strands of sandy hair, came from behind the bar. “News is just in, folks,” he announced. “No need to mind Barney though he got it right for once. I have to tell you Gavin Lancaster, his son, the station overseer and another passenger, not yet identified, have been killed in transit to Darwin. Their Cessna with Lancaster at the controls went down some thirty kilometres north-east of the ranges. Apparently there was no emergency call, nothing. The wreckage was spotted by the Flying Doctor on a routine flight. So there it is! Lancaster is dead, when most of us thought he’d live to be a hundred.”
Pete immediately swung to face Steven, studying him with unblinking light blue eyes almost too big for their sockets. “God, mate, that’s your dad, isn’t it?” he burst out. “Isn’t Lancaster your dad? Hell, you’re the living spit of him. I spotted it right away. I tell yah, mate, I’m shocked. Shocked!”
Steve didn’t say anything. He couldn’t trust himself to open his mouth even if he could find his voice. Instead he had the urge to bolt. As always he had been aware of the curious stares coming his way ever since he had entered the pub. It happened all the time. What could he possibly tell this guy, Pete, he didn’t already know?
“Do you think there are things like justice in this world, mate,” Pete put the question to him in a philosophical kind of way.
“What’s your point?” Finally Steve managed to find his tongue, though even to him it sounded like a croak.
“My point, Stevo, is this!” said Pete. “And remember you got it from me. They’ve always said Lancaster was scared of nobody—but maybe he was a little bit scared of the Almighty? I know I am. It could well be Lancaster decided to do the right thing at long last and put you in his will.”
Steve wrenched up a sad, bitter laugh. “He didn’t know me.” He stood up wanting to get out of the pub as fast as possible. For one thing everyone was now staring his way. That’s what happened when you had the Lancaster brand on your forehead.
“I dunno, mate,” Pete said, shaking his head, “my feeling is you’re being a bit hard on yourself. I recognised you right off. Didn’t say nuthin’ then, o’course. Didn’t want a punch in the nose. Only jokin’, mate. You look a real good guy. Different from old Lancaster, God rest his soul,” he added piously. “My bet is, you might be hearin’ from his lawyers yet.”
“You’ve got a better chance of hearing from them, Pete,” Steve said, and moved off.
When he got back to Jingoll homestead, several voice messages were waiting for him. All of them related to the crash of the Lancasters’ plane. The news had circulated through the Outback with the speed of a high-priority cyclone. One message was from Cal saying he was sorry so many lives had been lost. No more. The family would be attending the Lancaster funerals as a matter of course. These Outback courtesies and marks of respect were understood.
Well, the high and mighty McKendricks might be there, but I sure as hell won’t, Steve thought, though the news had powerfully upset him. Lost lives he supposed. Light aircraft coming down in the Outback was a fact of life. One of the dead was his biological father, another his half brother, Brad. Even so he wouldn’t be attending any funeral. The family had never had any use for him. He had no use for them, either.
But there he was wrong.
Once again Fate had made the decision to step in.
The day of the funerals was one of scorching heat with banks of grape coloured clouds shot through with streaks of living green, piled up on the horizon. No one took much notice. Outback skies could turn on truly ominous displays without one drop of rain falling. The heat and the threatening sky didn’t prevent mourners from all over the country making their pilgrimage to the Channel Country in the extreme South West pocket of the State of Queensland. This was the stronghold of the cattle kings. The select band of families and pastoral companies ran the nation’s greatest concentration of beef cattle in their unique, riverine desert. The Lancaster fortress, Euroka, an aboriginal word for blazing sun was the flagship, but the Lancaster chain like the McKendrick empire spread its life lines through adjoining States.
Gavin Lancaster’s two daughters, Catherine and Sarah, both in their early forties, tall, elegant women, stood tearless, but their faces spoke of controlled grief. Standing with them at the graveside was their half brother, Steven. It was Catherine, the elder sister, who had persuaded Steven to attend. She had been adamant he should finally take his rightful place by their side. It was something Steve found enormously touching and, yes, healing. The family resemblance between all three siblings was so strong it made it much easier for them to identify with one another. The husbands were unable to attend so Steven stood in for them both. One was a brilliant economist at present a speaker at an overseas conference; the other a cardiologist with a very tight schedule.
Much had happened in the week since the fatal plane crash. The man who appeared to have ignored Steve’s existence for all of his life had left him by virtue of his elder half brother’s death a sixty percent controlling interest in Lancaster Holdings. It had been a shock on a monumental scale. Steve had gone on to learn from the family’s high-powered lawyer, who strangely enough had looked and acted more like a kindly parish priest, that Gavin Lancaster had secretly supported him for most of his life. Lancaster had made it possible for him to attend his prestigious school. Lancaster, too, working behind the scenes, had been instrumental in those early days, when Steve was fresh out of school, in getting him placed on a top station.
There were more shocks in store. Steve learned Lancaster had kept copies of his school reports and his sporting achievements along with a whole batch of photographs. Steve in his wildest imaginings had never conceived of such a thing. Looking through the photographs, he’d had to swallow many times on the hard lump in his throat. So the man Steve had spent most of his life despising had looked out for him all along, though Gavin Lancaster had chosen to live his life without his other son.
Perhaps his wife wouldn’t have tolerated me beneath their roof, Steve thought. Who would know?
Steve could hear the Lancaster lawyer’s voice in his head. “I never truly understood why your father did what he did, Steven. You’re obviously a fine young man, but he tried to make up for it in the end. You won’t have any problem whatever with the daughters. They’re women of depth and character. Both married now to outstanding men with no connection to the industry. Their interests lie elsewhere, so you’ll have a free hand to run Euroka. Cal McKendrick speaks very highly of you, so you’re up to it. Needless to say my firm is ready to support you in any way we can.” He had smiled encouragingly as he took off his glasses. “Let me be the first to offer my congratulations. It’s your father’s wish that you be known from henceforth as Steven Lancaster. And perfectly right it is, too!”
Rags to riches! Steve thought. But riches couldn’t be measured against the lifelong abandonment of a father. So far as he was concerned they could take it all away in exchange for the chance of having belonged.
Afterwards at the reception at Euroka homestead, Steven found he couldn’t have been treated better. Amazing what being handed a grand inheritance could do, he thought cynically. Some of the mourners even greeted him with a touch of reverence. Overnight a lot of power had been put into his hands. He and his half sisters made their way around the two large reception rooms briefly greeting people with a few words and a handshake. It might have been kind of crazy, but Steve felt he was supporting Cate and Sarah, far more than they were supporting him. But then it was obvious they had loved their father no matter what his faults and they had certainly loved their brother who, they
had told Steve, had been overwhelmed by the thought of his future responsibilities.
“You see, Brad wasn’t a cattleman,” Cate had told him with tears in her eyes. “The thought of stepping into Dad’s shoes used to terrify him. Brad really wanted a quiet life. Now he’s got it. None quieter than the grave.”
Steve turned to find himself face-to-face with the McKendricks. To anyone watching—and a great many were—it would have appeared the Lancaster heir was being comforted and consoled by close family friends.
Ewan McKendrick even got a little carried away with his words of reconciliation, Jocelyn McKendrick offered Steve her sincere condolences when she really meant congratulations. “I’m sure Catherine and Sarah are going to depend on you a lot!” She gave him a little encouraging pat on the arm.
Now I’m one of them! Steve thought, just so tired of all the hypocrisy.
Cal and Gina came to him, saying exactly the kind of thing he wanted to hear. When they moved off he was left alone with Meredith.
“Isn’t life amazing?” He spoke with great irony.
“Maybe that’s why it’s so interesting?” she said, staring up at him, soaking him in. From somewhere he had found a beautifully tailored black suit, pristine white business shirt, obligatory black tie. Probably one of his half sisters had organised it, getting it in from the city. It fitted perfectly. He looked extraordinarily handsome and strangely daunting. Almost another person. “How are you really?” she asked, striving not to feel rebuffed.
“Well, most importantly I’m rich. Even your mother and father are prepared to accept me. Let bygones be bygones and all the rest.” He glanced over her head to where Cal and Gina were standing at the centre of a small group. “Cal and his Gina make a beautiful couple. Where’s young Robbie?”
