by Margaret Way
“Modesty prevents me from taking the credit, Dee.” Amber smiled.
“Don’t interrupt me. We’re all indebted to you.” Dee spoke with feeling. “And you can count Mrs MacFarlane in, though she’d die before she’d ever admit it.”
“Let’s give her a chance, Dee.” Amber gently touched Dee’s shoulder. “I don’t like to be too judgemental.”
“Me, either.” Dee sighed. “At the same time, I can’t condone her behaviour. Best go back to them, love. Brooke will be acting like you’re her new best friend, but be on your guard. She’s pleasant enough, I’ll grant ya that. She might have thought she could get away with playin’ around, but Cal will never forgive her or have her back.’
“Surely she can gauge that?” Amber asked. Could it be true that Brooke had recently received a measure of encouragement? “What about when she stayed before? Janis was insistent they were still…close.”
Dee snorted. “Cal would have put bars on his doors and windows if he could. There was no hanky-panky, love. Set your mind at rest. No sneaking up and down the corridors. Now, I’ll have coffee and some nice little cup cakes ready in a few minutes. Someone has to spare Brooke Mrs MacFarlane’s endless railing against life. If you ask me, she acts more like a woman in the throes of a mad passion than a new mother with a medical problem.”
Amber had already formed that opinion but it still gave her a shock to hear it more or less confirmed by Dee—someone more in a position to know.
They all came together again at dinner. Brooke had ridden out that afternoon in search of Cal, coming back to the homestead an hour later to lament, “I couldn’t find him anywhere.” Amber didn’t feel able to offer a comment. Cal must have led the muster into the depths of the lignum swamps before making his return to the homestead alone.
Brooke regrouped with seduction clearly on her mind. She looked lovely in a short silk dress in a gorgeous shade of blue. Her make-up was impeccable and her glossy fringe drew attention to her big brown eyes.
Amber, for all her qualms, enjoyed looking at her. The Cattle Baron would hardly be human if he didn’t appreciate what a sight for sore eyes she was. Brooke Rowlands was a glamour girl and very flirtatious by nature. She was certainly giving Cal the treatment, by no means throwing in the towel.
And she was a lot of fun. A most welcome change from Janis, who sat looking exhausted, pushing the delicious food around her plate as though it deserved to be thrown out. Not that Brooke left Janis out of the conversation. She constantly made efforts to draw Janis in but she wasn’t terribly successful if monosyllabic replies were anything to go on.
“Janis and I are planning a short trip away,” Eliot, looking a good deal happier, at one point announced.
“Excuse me?” Janis turned on him so sharply that Amber winced.
Eliot didn’t back down. “You need the break, my dear,” he said with just the right amount of command. “We both do. Our darling boy has given you a hard time—not his fault, of course—but miraculously he appears to have settled.”
“No miracle,” Cal drawled, savouring another mouthful of a very fine Shiraz. “I’m sure Jan is happy to give Amber credit for bringing about a few changes.”
“Amber, of course.” Eliot saluted Amber with his wineglass. He had thanked Amber over and over privately but he knew that thanking her on an occasion like this was like waving a red flag in front of his wife’s nose.
“Well, that’s grand then, isn’t it?” Brooke exclaimed. “You’ll be staying on to look after little Marcus, Amber?’
“Amber isn’t a minder, Brooke,” Cal broke in. “She’s a miracle worker. Eliot and Jan can go away, happy in the knowledge that we’re all here to look after Marcus.”
“Excuse me, but I don’t think I want to go away!” Janis threw up a hand, thus sending her wineglass—mercifully empty—over.
“Doctor’s orders.” Eliot attended swiftly to the wineglass.
“You’re raving!” Janis drew back in her chair. “I haven’t seen a doctor for ages. I don’t need a doctor. I don’t like doctors.”
“You want to look after your own baby, is that it, Jan?” Brooke intervened with real kindness. She had tried to like Eliot’s second wife but Janis MacFarlane was incredibly difficult to like. However had Eliot married her? Sex couldn’t be the answer. Janis looked as if she’d scream the place down if ever a man came near her. Yet she had produced a child, as difficult a little soul as his mother from all accounts.
“My figure’s gone.” Janis made a very revealing answer. “I don’t know my own body any more.”
“It will come right again,” Brooke assured her in a soothing tone. “You’re way too thin. A short break seems just the thing, wouldn’t you say?” She looked to the others to back her up.
“I have mentioned the Great Barrier Reef,” Eliot said. “Sun and surf.”
“What, with all the concern about skin cancer?” Janis’s brows shot up. “You’re raving! The sun will kill you, so you’d better watch out, Ms Wyatt.”
“Ms Wyatt?” Brooke pulled a droll face, catching Amber’s eye.
“I hate this trend of calling people by their first names right off,” Janis explained loftily.
Cal gave a sardonic laugh. “Just as well you didn’t go into public relations, Jan. You’d have had no future whatever.”
Over coffee, Brooke asked if Amber would like to visit the Rowlands’ station, Goorack. Brooke was Outback born and bred, which made her a hospitable young woman.
“I’d love to!” Amber replied with genuine warmth. She liked Brooke, for all her fall from grace. Most people would. Brooke was bright and friendly. She didn’t blame her at all for trying to get Cal back. She understood it completely. She even understood Janis’s sad fixation and her refusal to go away with her husband for a short break. How the marriage was going to work out, Amber didn’t know. Divorce looked like the best option at this point, except—and a huge except—they shared a lasting bond. They had a small child desperately in need of tender loving care, not from well-meaning people around him, but from his mother.
Amber prayed that would happen. And happen soon. Janis MacFarlane might have a passion, but sadly it wasn’t for motherhood.
Amber had been lying sleepless for about an hour, staring up at a moonlit ceiling. The ceiling stared back, offering no answers. She realized she had been straining to hear a baby’s cry. Janis had been in such an odd mood, even for an odd woman. Eliot would have a job on his hands getting her to go away. Seeing Cal on a daily basis was something Janis clearly had to have. No future in that!
She was giving her pillows a hearty punch when an unmistakable summons came on her door. Hadn’t she been half expecting it? Janis MacFarlane was too much under a hypnotic spell to go quietly. She threw on her robe, padding to the door.
Cal stood there, his arms holding on to the door frame, wide shoulders hunched.
“Another raid?” She tried for a joke, seeing the strain in his face. “Janis again?” She didn’t want to go to Janis. She wanted to pull Cal inside. Sweep every scrap of caution under the Persian rug. Her body was aching for him. She was even ready to rope him in. Deep down she was sorry for Brooke. But she had to remind herself: all’s fair in love and war.
“’Fraid so,” he said, sounding as sexually deprived as she felt.
“Just when I was getting my hopes up,” she felt emboldened to say, a splash of colour in her cheeks.
“I didn’t say I won’t be back.”
“I didn’t say I won’t let you in.”
“That’s good. You’re so darn beautiful I can’t keep it a secret. I want to kiss every inch, every fold, every crevice of your sweet creamy body. That’s for starters. Then I want to work around it with my tongue. I want to do everything you want.” He broke off with a huge sigh. “Hell, I can’t take this!”
“You mean we have to put the ravishing on hold.” Statement not a question.
“I couldn’t be unhappier about it, but the idea o
f a holiday has really got Janis going. You’d think she’d been sentenced to a stint in jail. You have to come. Eliot and I are stalled. She was trying to shake Marcus quiet.”
Amber was stunned. This was a warning sign, impossible to ignore. “She didn’t. She couldn’t.”
Cal ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “No one could call her a gentle soul. Not even with her own child. Are you coming?”
“Of course I’m coming. You didn’t wake Brooke? You did consider her at one time for mother of your children.”
“And I guess she’d make a good mother,” he answered tersely. “Just not for my children.”
“Maybe you’d better make sure she knows that. She’s still in love with you.”
“God forbid she should stay that way.”
He sounded absolutely on the level. It should have allayed her fears, yet she said with a touch of disapproval, “Oh, you’re cruel!”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” He grasped her arm, lucid green eyes sharpening over her body. “Isn’t that a new robe?”
“You’re paying me so many after hours visits I thought I’d better shake a new one out. It’s a genuine Japanese silk kimono. Bought it on a trip to see the cherry blossoms. They don’t come cheap. Not this quality. Glad you noticed.”
“I’ve got used to noticing everything about you, Amber. Janis’s behaviour would chill out the hottest-blooded male, but that’s not happening here. What’s wrong with the blessed woman? She’s so utterly dissatisfied with her life—it’s a total mess.”
He’d hit it on the head. “Eliot has to assert himself. They need that break. Get life back into perspective. Janis is a married woman with a child. It’s called responsibility. Commitment.”
“If you ask me, she wants to put as much distance between herself and Eliot and the baby as she can.” Cal spoke with a world of regret.
Brooke asked over breakfast, “Did I hear a lot of noise last night, or was I dreaming? I have to say I had one glass of wine too many.”
“Just the baby,” Amber explained the incident away. No matter how much she had wanted Cal to join her, little Marcus had got the vote.
“What the heck is wrong with Janis?” Brooke asked, lightly buttering a piece of toast. “A friend of mine suffered post-natal depression after her second baby. She was quite okay with the first. She said it was pretty bad but she got lots of love and support. From the very first time I met Janis…maybe I shouldn’t say this—” she swept on “—Janis struck me as overwound. You know, the neurotic sort, with the main focus on themselves, what they need and want out of life. I guess having a baby might have worsened the condition. I can see how worried everyone is. Can I hold the little fellow before I go? I need to be back home by mid-afternoon.”
“Of course you can!” Amber agreed straight away, pleased that Brooke had asked.
“I know this seems absolutely crazy—” Brooke was back to muttering behind her hand “—but Janis seems to have the hots for Cal. Tell me it isn’t so?” She pinned Amber with her big brown eyes.
“Janis is fragile at the moment,” Amber offered quietly. She didn’t mention the huge fight that had broken out after Eliot and Janis had retired, an argument initiated by Janis and her aversion to leaving the homestead. Marcus had settled into his routine of sleeping quietly, only to be woken by his mother’s high-pitched rant. It had been more than enough to set him off. It had taken Amber ages to quieten him after taking him down to her room.
“So have you got the hots for him?” Brooke asked. “Don’t be offended. I have to ask. You’re so beautiful…but I’ve never stopped loving him.”
“Brooke, I don’t know what’s in Cal’s mind.” She hoped Brooke wouldn’t press her further.
“So how long have you known him?” Brooke asked, intent on finding out.
“Only a matter of weeks.”
“Long enough.” Brooke fetched up a huge sigh. “He’s terrific, isn’t he?”
Amber poured them both a fresh cup of coffee. “Sure is,” she said.
Cal returned to the house to see Brooke off. He had long since made the decision not to forgive her but it appeared he was undergoing some sort of sea change of late. And he knew since when. Since the arrival of Amber Wyatt into his life. She was making him over. Maybe making him a better man. He wouldn’t be in the least surprised if she talked him into seeing his mother again. The perennial globetrotter, his mother spent some time in her own country. Would he ever forgive her? Could Amber persuade him to? He could only wait and see.
Brooke was trying hard for composure, but in the end she pulled Cal’s head down to her. “I’m so sorry we didn’t make it, Cal.” Real tears stood in her eyes. “I’ll always love you.” She stood on tiptoe, pressing her mouth against his so passionately she would have left him in no doubt.
Amber, about to make her entrance to say her goodbyes and tee up a visit to Goorack, diplomatically stepped back a few paces, sheltering behind a luxuriant golden cane. She could hear the distressed note in Brooke’s voice as though she had somehow divined that any further attempt to get him back would fail. Amber of the tender heart felt like offering condolences. At the same time she had to ask herself—if Cal and Brooke had still been engaged would he have asked her to Jingala?
The answer had to be a resounding no! So, at the end of the day, Brooke’s loss was her gain. That was if she knew how to convince Cal of the depth and steadiness of her feelings. He in turn had to do the same thing for her. No greater risk than giving one’s heart away. No spontaneous recovery. Healing took time.
To Brooke’s great credit, her manner with Amber remained warm and friendly, so much so that Amber went along for the ride while Cal drove Brooke to Jingala’s giant hangar where her Cessna was parked.
“It must be wonderful to be able to fly,” Amber said dreamily as the Cessa lifted off the runway and climbed into the wild blue yonder.
“I’ll teach you.” Though his answer was abrupt, his hand was resting on her shoulder, his thumb absentmindedly caressing the bone.
“You think we will have that amount of time together?” She tipped her head so it lay along his hand.
“That’s up to you, Amber.” His caressing hand moved to her cheek. “I know this has had the elation of an adventure for you. I know you genuinely love the Outback. You see its wild beauty. Feel its mystique. But what of your career? You might suddenly go off and never return. Jingala will be something to look back on. God, you’re beautiful enough to get into movies.”
“There’s a price to be paid for all that fame,” she pointed out. “There’s even a price to be paid for being on national television. I haven’t told you about a few stalkers who caused me some grief. There is always some nutcase out there. Anyway, I’ve never had the slightest ambition to become a movie star, even supposing I got a break.” She didn’t mention that she had been approached some time back by a top agent for a lead part in a new television series. She had turned the role down.
“Okay.” His handsome features were taut. “But loneliness is very threatening and it’s a lonely life out here. The absence of so many things you’re used to. I’ll go further and say you don’t really know what you’d be getting yourself into.”
“So you are taking me seriously?” Her heart lifted in hope.
“You know damned well I’m taking you seriously.” Intensity blazed out of his eyes. To prove it, he lowered his head to catch her mouth, kissing her so deeply that she found herself clutching him for support. “I want you in my bed,” he groaned. ‘No one else but you.”
“But you fear I’ll put a dent in your heart, then go away?” She pulled back a little so she could look into his eyes.
“Maybe that fear is chronic.” He gave a harsh laugh. “I couldn’t bear to have you, then lose you. Surely you can understand that?”
“It works both ways, Cal,” she told him gently. “You have me, then you drive me away with your fears. I think you always carry the image of your mothe
r in your mind, a beautiful woman who was unfaithful to her husband. Probably driven into an affair through sheer boredom or loneliness. Please don’t cast me in that role.”
“Did I say I have?” he asked with a note of anguish. “You’ve never known the pain of loneliness and isolation, Amber. Have you?”
“I think you’re just trying to find reasons to reject me.”
A faraway look came into his beautiful green eyes. “Hard to reject you when I’m hooked.”
Elation filled every nerve, every fibre of her body. “You’d give up your freedom?”
“Would you?” He held her gaze.
“Gracious me, yes. Total commitment is a very serious business. That’s why we’re in this holding pattern. The other problem isn’t going away.”
“You mean Janis?” he asked impatiently. “What are we going to do about Janis? God, it ought to be the title for a psychological thriller. Except it’s not funny. Eliot can’t cope. He and Caro were so much in harmony, he doesn’t know what’s struck him with Jan. I know some people might deem his lack of action as gutless but he’s far from that. I’ve seen him being incredibly brave. It’s just he’s a fish out of water in this situation, even if he has done his best. Jan has resisted all offers of help. So what next?”
“You ask, so I’ll say. Eliot has to act. He’s not engaging as much as he should.”
“I know.” Cal shook his dark head. “My fear is Janis wants to abandon Marcus.”
“Mothers don’t abandon their babies.” The thought shocked her.
“Of course they do,” he answered bluntly. “And this one will.”
“She can’t remain at Jingala.”
“Why is it I feel you’re trying to tell me something?” he asked sharply.
Amber looked away to where a flock of corellas had covered the branches of a river gum like fantastic white blossom. “It’s not pretty,” she warned.
He gritted his fine teeth. “For God’s sake, Amber, let’s hear it.”
