Cattle Rancher, Secret Son

by Margaret Way

  “Isn’t it just!” He sighed deeply. “I’ve buried a father and a half brother I never knew. Wouldn’t you have thought my half brother at least would have tried to meet me?”

  Something in the way he said it brought her perilously close to tears. “You’ve heard enough about Gavin Lancaster to know he was a strange, hard man, Steven. I’m certain he had great power over his family. He probably ordered them not to make contact. Your existence was no secret, but he had decided to shut you out.” Meredith half turned away, quite upset over it.

  “At least I now know Cate and Sarah had wanted to meet me.” Steven spoke in a gentler voice. “I’m most grateful for that. But things could have been so different. No use talking about that now, of course.”

  “Fate has stepped in,” Meredith said. “You were always meant to come home.”

  His expression was disbelieving. “You’re not saying Euroka is home?” That idea struck him as downright peculiar.

  Meredith nodded. “You can’t damn your father for everything. At the end he gave you back your heritage. Your job is to keep it safe.”

  Steve picked up a smallish bronze sculpture of a horse and rider, balancing it in the palm of his hand. It was a work of art. “He didn’t know he was going to die. He didn’t know his son and heir would die with him.”

  “Fate, Steven,” Meredith repeated. “We have to leave it at that.”

  They were at the far end of the drawing room, moving into the adjoining room when Steve asked, “Are you sure there’s not someone following us?” The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up.

  “You’ve got a lot of imagination for a tough-minded man,” Meredith countered briskly, when she really felt like grabbing his hand.

  “And I’m not on my own. You can feel it, too,” he accused her. He knew if he touched her he wouldn’t let her go.

  “I wish I couldn’t,” Meredith confessed. “I don’t fancy sleeping on my own.”

  “Who said you had to?” He gave her a down-bent golden glance. He was overwhelmed by her loveliness yet he felt an immense pressure on him to behave well. He didn’t lack commitment, but the last thing he wanted to do was panic her.

  “I said. I’m here on the understanding you keep your distance.” Deliberately, she walked ahead of him, in retreat again. They were in a smaller room, a sort of parlour. It was enormously gloomy even with the lights on. There were a number of portraits hung on the walls around the room and she went to study them one by one.

  “Not a one of them seems happy!” Steve observed, looking over her shoulder. He had the urge to place his hands on her silk clad shoulders, to bend his mouth to her beautiful swan’s neck and kiss it but he kept his hands and his mouth to himself.

  “They do look a touch subdued,” Meredith remarked. “You’ve inherited the family face.”

  “Meredith, I’ve heard that for years and years,” he told her in a satirical voice.

  “Well, it’s a very handsome face. It could have been ugly.”

  “That wouldn’t have worried me if I’d had a name.”

  She moved on to the portrait of a very fragile-looking lady in a white silk morning gown. “It was all very sad, Steven, but you’ve been acknowledged now.”

  “Yes, indeed!” he agreed dryly. “My new status has certainly made a huge difference to your mother and father. Let’s get a glass of something.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a glass of wine,” Meredith said, all her nerves jumping. She knew she couldn’t count on herself not to surrender to anything he wanted. Indeed, she felt her entire tingling body belonged to him. Wasn’t that proof perfect she loved him? “I don’t expect there’s a wine cellar.”

  “This isn’t Coronation Hill, Ms McKendrick,” he pointed out suavely.

  “There might be, you never know.” She sounded hopeful. “Let’s take a good look upstairs before we go in search of one. I want to take this dress off anyway. It’s depressing me. Sarah left me a couple of things to tide me over until I go home tomorrow,” she stressed. “We’re pretty much of a size.”

  His glance swept her. It held so much heat it sizzled her to the bone. “Sarah’s actually thin,” he said a little worriedly. Sarah was, indeed, too thin. “But you’re very slender and lithe. You stand very straight. I like that. But I know what you mean. I’ll change myself, then we can hunt up some food. The piles of sandwiches didn’t take long to disappear and I had nothing.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “Nevertheless funerals evidently make a lot of other people hungry.”

  “And thirsty,” Meredith added, thinking it hadn’t just been tea and coffee that had quickly been downed. Whiskey decanters had been drained.

  “I don’t like this staircase,” Steve said, not able to prevent himself from admiring her legs. High heels on a woman were infinitely sexy.

  “Neither do I,” she said, not about to let him in on the idea she had for relocating the staircase. She had her reasons for keeping him guessing. In fact, she had to confess to herself she was rather enjoying it, even on such a sombre day.

  “So which bedroom do you want?” Steve asked, as they moved along the wide corridor.

  Meredith spoke up so casually they might have been cousins. “I’ll take Cate’s. It’s been aired and made up. Julie has been so good. She’s quietly seen to a lot of things.” She walked into the large old-fashioned bedroom that looked towards the front of the house. A verandah to walk out onto would have been perfect, but that would have to wait.

  What am I thinking, for goodness sake! She was actually redecorating the house in her head.

  “What about you?” she asked airily, stepping back to admire the embroidered silk coverlet on the bed.

  “I think I’ll just head across the hall.” He turned his crow-black head in that direction.

  “To Sarah’s room?”

  “I don’t want to get too far away,” he told her with a mocking smile. “You’re not mentioning you’re damned nervous, but I know you are.”

  “It’s an unfamiliar house,” she replied, defensively. “Moreover, one expects some kind of nervousness on such a day.” In reality she was spooked.

  He nodded, beginning to walk away. He might pretend to be at ease but all his senses were doing a slow burn. “All the signs augur for a thunderstorm during the night. If you’re frightened you don’t have to wait for an invitation to come over.”

  “Sorry, Steven,” she called after him. “I come from the Territory, remember?”

  He paused at the door, his face the face of the portraits downstairs. “It might shock you to learn, Ms McKendrick, the electrical storms here are even worse. Now, I’m going to change out of this undertaker gear. Knock on my door when you’re ready to go in search of the wine cellar. Let’s hope Julie has done us a service leaving us some food.”

  Left alone Meredith looked quickly at what Cate had left her. A pretty loose dress in an ink-blue and white pattern, a sort of trapeze dress with short ruffled sleeves and a double ruffle at the hem. That would do nicely, lovely and cool. There was a pair of navy flatties a half a size too big but she was glad of them. She rarely wore high heels; a pink cotton nightdress, pintucked and embroidered with tiny grub roses, matching robe, very virginal. Both sisters were easy to like. She saw how life might have been hard for them without their mother, and knowing they had a half brother somewhere they had been forbidden to meet.

  Meredith went to the solid mahogany door and closed it, without actually turning the lock. Would she forget to lock it tonight?

  “I’ll be damned if this isn’t the best room in the house,” Steven was saying, his surprised glance sweeping the large cellar with its attractive rustic ambience. The ceiling was dark beamed, the walls stone, as was the floor with a wide stone archway dividing the wine storage area with its long rows of racks from a seating, dining area if needs be. There were two big leather armchairs in front of a fireplace obviously well used—the desert could grow very cold at night—and a long re
fectory table with eight Jacobean style chairs set around it. There was even a strikingly realistic rural oil painting of a herd of cattle fording a coolibah-lined creek.

  “Someone spent a lot of time here,” Meredith observed, hunting at the bottom of the canvas for the name of the artist.

  “So what do we want?”

  “White for me,” Meredith said, shivering a little because the cellar was so much cooler than the house. “A sauvignon Blanc.”

  “A sauvignon Blanc it is.” Steve picked a bottle up, passing it to her while he hunted up a Shiraz for himself. Maybe there was a steak or two in the fridge? Euroka was a cattle station after all.

  No steaks, but a leg of ham, bacon, plenty of eggs, cream, milk, cheese, a basket full of bright red tomatoes, a brown paper bag full of mushrooms; and in the bread bin a loaf of sour dough bread, obviously freshly baked.

  “Looks like ham and eggs,” Meredith said. “We can pretend it’s breakfast.”

  “Ah, to think we really will be having breakfast together.” Steve said, mockery in his expression. But the emotion was there. “Look at you, a little housewife!” Meredith had tied a clean apron around her waist to protect Cate’s dress.

  “Do you think you can get away with this because we’re on our own?” she asked, briefly lifting her eyes to him. He was wearing a red T-shirt with his jeans and he looked extraordinarily vivid, vibrating with a physical energy that was like a force field around him. It was very impressive.

  “Get away with what exactly?” he asked, though he knew precisely what she meant. He was goading her. He didn’t want to, but he was.

  “Your resentments are evident, Steven,” she said, but went no further. The atmosphere between them was inflammatory enough.

  He shrugged. “You’re better off with me than at home I’d say.”

  Meredith didn’t acknowledge that, either. She took six large eggs out of their carton. “Shall I scramble them? There’s plenty of cream.”

  “Are there no ends to your talents, Ms McKendrick?” He tipped out the mushrooms that needed a wipe over. “Scrambled will be fine. Why don’t you have a glass of the red while you wait for your wine to chill?”

  “I think I’d drink anything at the moment.” She gave a faint sigh. The strain was telling on both of them. She began to break the eggs into a bowl adding the cream.

  “I’ll find us some glasses. Nice glasses.” Steve hunted through the numerous cupboards before he hit the mother lode, crystal. He filled two glasses and put one beside Meredith’s hand.

  “Thank you.” Meredith took a good sip of the wine. It was ruby-red and very good.

  A sudden gust of wind blew strongly through the back door, pungent with bush incense. Steve went to close it. “I know we’ll get rain,” he said. “I just know it.”

  Lightning was a dazzling white illumination, searing the retinas of her eyes. Meredith hid her head beside a stack of pillows. She could have pulled the curtains but she had no desire whatever to sleep in the pitch-dark. The bedroom was oddly cold. Could she risk getting up and finding a blanket? Why not? Steven wasn’t going to come to her. She had to bow low before him. The truth was he hadn’t forgiven her for her apparent rejection.

  You’d come if you loved me.

  And if you don’t, I’ll disappear out of your life.

  That had been the implication. What had she done? She’d waffled on about meeting up again in a little while. That had been a mistake. Now, apart from ensuring she had stayed with him, he was acting as cool as you please.

  “Good night, Meredith!”

  “Good night, Steven.” She was far from happy, but she managed to sound as cool as he.

  Both of them had been hungry, leaving not a morsel on their plates. There was ice-cream to follow; she found a tin of peaches. They finished the wine and then Steven made coffee. Afterwards they talked a good deal about running a big operation, something with which Meredith was well acquainted. She made a number of suggestions that he picked up on immediately, saying they were excellent and facetiously offering her a job. They talked about what would be expected of him, who might replace him on Jingoll, anything and everything except their personal relationship and where it was going, if anywhere. It was a huge jump from desire to consummation. She realised she wasn’t going to be allowed to get away with that perceived humiliation.

  Surely he realised she couldn’t have turned her back on everyone and eloped with him on the spot? She had obligations. It would have taken her a little time to put her affairs in order, then pack her bags if that was what he wanted; not that she didn’t understand where he was coming from. Steven had lacked real commitment from childhood. His family had virtually abandoned him by the time he reached adolescence. What a blow that must have been! What a heartache for a young boy! When he had suggested she go with him to Jingoll, a yes answer had been crucial. In some ultrasensitive corner of his mind she had failed him, even if he could rationalise the difficulties of her position.

  Then there was her parents’ embarrassing back flip. Who could blame him if he was contemptuous of that? Surely he couldn’t think his change of fortune had had any influence on her? All her adult life she had kept herself very much under control. She had been waiting for the right moment to make her move. She had, in fact, been working steadily towards it when Fate stepped in.

  Around three in the morning the rain advanced from the north like a large army on the march. Meredith heard it coming minutes before it actually arrived. Then when it did, the storm broke with ferocity, a driving deluge that changed direction within seconds as the wind chopped this way and that. Now it was pelting through the open casement windows, whipping up the curtains that went into a wild dance.

  Meredith turned on a bedside light, then sprang out of bed, but by the time she got to the windows the rain was lashing the bedroom floor. Half blinded, she managed to get one window down without much trouble, apart from being drenched—indeed, the flimsy nightgown was almost ripped from her body—but the sash on the middle window abruptly broke as she was lowering it. It came crashing down with fragments of glass flying like steel chips.

  Instantly she jumped back before the chips could stab her, curling up her bare toes against the broken glass that now lay on the floor.

  “Meredith?”

  It was Steven banging on the door, his voice charged with anxiety.

  “It’s open!”

  He burst into the room, shirtless, his jeans pulled on in obvious haste, zipped but not buttoned. She could see the low line of his navy hipsters. “Don’t move!” he ordered, taking in the situation at a glance.

  “You’ve got bare feet, too,” she warned him, rain all over her face and in her eyes.

  He yanked up a cushion and swished it a few times over an area of the wet floor. Then he pitched it into a corner. One armed he lifted her away and carried her that way back into the centre of the room. “You’re soaking wet.”

  “I know. So are you!” His black hair, his bronze skin and his upper body were glistening. Yet he felt warm, whereas she was chilled.

  “Hang on, I’ll get a few towels.” He rushed to turn on the lights in the bathroom, but she went after him her wet nightgown draped to her body like a second skin.

  A few seconds more and she was swaddled in a large bath towel while he took a smaller one to her hair. “You’d better get out of that nightgown.”

  “Excuse me, not while you’re looking!” She spoke huskily from behind the towel he was so energetically wielding.

  “Then I’ll turn away.”

  He did, throwing down the towel and turning his wide bare back.

  “What are we going to do about the rain pouring in?” she asked, pulling the nightgown over her head in a kind of frenzy. Her heart was beating much too fast. She knotted the pink towel around her like a sarong, feeling incredibly nervous but her whole body aroused.

  “We’ll have to pray the storm passes over quickly or the wind changes. Or I can rig up something. Can
I turn around now.”

  “Yes.” She had never been more conscious of her own skin.

  “Actually I could see you in the mirror.”

  She found that so electrifying her whole body broke out in a fabulous flush of excitement.

  “Only joking,” he murmured, his fingers reaching out to tidy her tumbled hair.

  “Then I’m not amused.”

  “Neither am I. I’ve never felt less like laughing in my life.” His eyes dropped the length of her body, and as he did so, his handsome face picked up a sharp shadow. “Your foot is bleeding.”

  “Is it?” She hadn’t been aware of any cut or sting.

  “Let me take a look,” he said with concern. “Sit on the chair.”

  “Aren’t we’re supposed to be fixing the window?” She knew where all this was going but she wasn’t about to stop it even for a tornado.

  “I’ll fix it when the rain stops. Right now I want to take a look at your foot.”

  “I don’t remember standing on any glass.” How could she when she was concentrated on him? The bright light cast a mosaic of glittering jet on his hair, the whorls on his chest, the dark gold of his face, the skin of his shoulders, his strong arms and his sculpted torso. Who could blame her for feeling such piercing desire?

  “You must have.” He balanced her narrow foot in the palm of his hand. “It’s not bad, just a bit of blood.” He reached around for a box of tissues that were sitting on the counter. “I’ll hold it until the bleeding stops.” He glanced up at her, glittering sparks in his eyes. “You know, your toes are as pretty as your hands.”

  It might have been the most thrilling compliment she had ever received because she was instantly on fire. “Not a lot of people know that.” She spoke shakily, finding the sensation of her foot resting in his hand incredibly erotic. She could even hear her heart banging furiously above the wild orchestration of the storm. It seemed to her to be passing over the roof in a dipping rush before swinging away.