by Margaret Way
“Okay. You asked.” She drew in a quivering breath. “Janis is in love with you.”
His darkly tanned face visibly lost colour. “No, no, no, no!’
The tension was so palpable she could feel it on her skin. “I’m sorry, Cal, but I say it as I see it. Janis is infatuated with you. That’s the reason she’s so unhappy. It’s not PND. The Flying Doctor people were right. It’s not a mood disorder, something mood enhancers and good counselling can counteract. Her feelings are all tied up with you. You had your own experience with Brooke. I had mine with Sean. We can’t love to order.”
“Bloody hell, no!’ he repeated, looking supremely outraged.
“Think about it.”
“This is wrong!” He spoke roughly, green eyes flashing. “She’s my uncle’s wife. She’s the mother of his child. I don’t even like the woman and God knows I’ve tried. How could she be so disloyal?”
Amber gave him the only answer she knew. “It happens, Cal. Brooke still loves you. I suppose she’ll regret her indiscretion to her dying day.”
“Indiscretion! What a lightweight label. I didn’t know about Janis.” He looked and sounded extraordinarily tense.
“I know you didn’t.”
“Does Eliot know?”
“He may not have grasped the depth of her feelings,” Amber said. “Doomed love can be awful. Both of us got a taste of that.”
“Because we weren’t really in love in the first place,” he decided tautly. “They were there. That’s all there is to it. Seeing Brooke beside you confirmed that for me.”
At his admission her heart gave a great leap of joy, but she didn’t follow up that revealing piece of information when his energy was focused on something else entirely.
“If what you say is even halfway true, I can see no happiness ahead for my uncle.” Cal gave vent to a bitter sigh. “The situation is far more worrying for Marcus.”
She shared his distress. “First step is to get Janis some help. Eliot can call in a doctor.”
They swept through the massive gates that lay open to the homestead. There was fresh urgency in Cal’s manner. “We need a nanny back for Marcus. You’ve been wonderful, but that’s not your job. I have no option but to get back to the men. We’re coming into our busiest time and I have outstations to check on yet. God, what a mess!” His tone was a mixture of grief and contempt.
CHAPTER TEN
AS SOON as Amber walked into the house she veered off to make her routine check on Marcus.
“He’s outside, love,” Dee told her. Dee was busy punching down dough to get a good even texture for her bread. In the time Amber had been on the station she had enjoyed all sorts of Dee’s delicious, freshly baked breads and rolls. The woman never stopped but she obviously thrived on and took a great deal of pride and pleasure in running the household.
“Asleep?” Amber asked.
“Sleepin’ his head off,” Dee confirmed. “I guess he would after such a helluva night.”
“And Janis?”
“Madam hasn’t stirred as yet,” Dee told her dryly. “I reckon she’d feel a whole lot better if she got some decent tucker into her.”
“And Eliot?”
“He’s with the baby.” Dee had taken to whispering. “If this keeps up he could be a good candidate for a heart attack.”
“Don’t say that!” Amber shuddered. “I’ll go out to them.”
“I’ll make coffee. I’ll just shape this into loaves and set it aside for a while.”
“Lovely!”
“You got on pretty good with Brooke?” Dee called.
Amber turned back. “I liked her, Dee. I think she took the message that she had no future with Cal on the chin.”
“Seems like it.” Dee shrugged. “Big surprise there or she had the sense to recognise she was outclassed. But what about Mrs MacFarlane?”
“Oh, Dee!” For a moment they just stared at each other.
“Okay, love.” Dee relented. “Pity you got drawn into this. On the other hand…” She left the rest unsaid. Their whole relationship had taken a conspiratorial direction.
The long covered porch to the rear of the kitchen area had been turned, of late, into a day nursery for Marcus. It was beautifully cool and a great deal of care had gone into achieving an atmosphere of simplicity and balance. A seated stone Buddha sat high on a tall decorative stone plinth. Today Buddha was holding a basket of freshly picked bougainvillea flowers. Clumping bamboos provided foliage, mixed with golden canes and kentia palms. Little Marcus was benefiting from the peace and serenity.
Eliot stood up. “Brooke got safely away?”
Amber smiled. “I do so admire her ability to fly a plane.”
“You could learn if you wanted to. To be honest, I’ve never met a young woman so capable.”
“Well, thank you. But how much are we born with, Eliot?” she asked wryly. “It’s the luck of the draw.”
“So far as I’m concerned, you’ve been very lucky,” he said. “Shall we sit down?” He pulled out a wicker chair for her.
“I’ll just take a peep at Marcus. Dee is making coffee.”
“I’m so sorry for last night,” Eliot said when Amber returned. “I don’t believe I’ve ever felt so terribly ineffective. I can’t seem to say the right thing or offer the comfort my wife needs.”
“Get the doctor back,” Amber suggested gently. “Forgive me if I’m overstepping the mark.
“How could you be overstepping the mark?” Eliot’s expression was bleak. “You’ve been an enormous help. Jan and I had no right to ask it of you. You’re here as Cal’s guest.”
Amber thought she had rarely seen a more tormented face. “Today would be a good time, if it could be managed. The right medication will help Mrs MacFarlane. Get her through a bad patch.”
“Doctors have been here before, Amber,” Eliot reminded her. “My wife has drained an enormous well of sympathy with her behaviour.”
“Make the call,” Amber urged.
“I will, my dear,” Eliot promised, his face eerily calm.
When Cal saw the Super King Air fly over he knew the RFDS was coming in to land. He threw himself into the Jeep, determined to be back at the house in case of any trouble. How had he never picked up on Jan’s feelings? How could she have developed such feelings when he had never given her the remotest encouragement? For God’s sake, she was his uncle’s wife. The whole thing was sickening. He couldn’t think about it and do his job. The only thing that seemed to hold him in place was returning to the homestead to find Amber there. She had touched his life in every possible way. He could feel her all around him, in the very air he breathed. He’d never imagined he could feel about a woman like he felt for her. He had thought himself in love with Brooke. He had come very close to marrying her. Outback born and bred, Brooke knew and understood exactly what their life would be. Amber was right. The whole torment of the breakdown of his parents’ marriage had never left his mind.
It was crucial for his own happiness to find a woman with the strength to face life on the land squarely. A brave woman he could love and trust. His life’s partner. Wasn’t she right under his nose? Could he possibly be that lucky? He had been allowing himself to dream of winning Amber’s heart. But was it unwinnable? Even if he could win it, would the marriage survive the early days of high romance that had made his parents commit to each other in the first place? Or would the full force of remoteness, the epic struggles with drought and flood, give rise to feelings of being trapped in a world that took more than it gave?
Amber was a city girl. A beautiful, accomplished woman. Wouldn’t it be madness to expect a woman like that to settle for a life on the desert fringe? So she wanted to write? She’d have plenty of peace and quiet, he thought ironically. That was if Eliot and Jan could save their marriage and move away. In all probability Amber would soon be getting offers to return to television. Come back, all is forgiven. The very idea of her going away shook him to the bone.
Roma
ntic love was an agony, so elemental one was powerless to fight it.
He knew in his heart that his uncle’s hasty marriage wasn’t going to last. Where then did that leave an innocent child? The greatest blessing of all to most women had turned out to be a real calamity for Janis. Not all women were born to be nurturers. He had learned that the hard way.
Cal made the home compound in record time, parking the Jeep in the shade. His stomach muscles were knotted with tension. He wanted to turn away from all this; he had no option but to go forward. He was master of Jingala.
Dee met him in the entrance hall. Not Amber. Only the sight of her could ease his tension.
“How’s it going?” He fixed Dee with a questioning stare.
“Doc Trowbridge has persuaded Mrs MacFarlane she needs a while being looked after in a clinic.” Dee spoke without expression.
“Okay. That’s good, is it?”
“Better than any of us thought. We expected resistance.”
“So she’s agreed, then?” There was no reason to doubt what Dee was saying, yet he felt enormously on edge. “Where’s Amber?”
“She’s upstairs,” Dee assured him with a backward jerk of the head. “Eliot wanted her along. Poor man is right out of his depth. He’ll travel back with Mrs MacFarlane, of course. By the sound of it, they’re coming now.”
Both of them looked up as a small group of people moved into view at the top of the timber staircase. Dr Tim Trowbridge—well known to them—and a nurse brought up the rear. Amber was a little in front of Eliot, who was gently leading his wife by the arm, an expression of great unhappiness on his face. Janis, on the other hand, looked mute and sullen, eyes dark in their sockets. What shocked Cal most of all was the fact that Janis had cut her long dark hair. No, not cut, she’d hacked it so it fell in jagged layers.
Cal moved very fast to the bottom of the stairs, his senses finely honed to all sorts of dangers, on full alert.
At the sight of him Janis suddenly erupted, shaking off her husband’s hand with a single violent motion. “She did this,” she shouted. “We were all right until she came.”
While the others stood transfixed by this unexpected burst of rage, Janis swooped on Amber. Though thin, Janis was now possessed of a manic strength.
“Bitch! You won’t have him.” She locked her arms around Amber, thrusting her forwards to the very top of the stairs.
“Janis!”
“Mrs. MacFarlane!” Behind them startled cries rang out in horror and protest.
Only Cal had read Janis’s mind. Off balance with jealousy and her perception of Amber as the enemy, Janis had been driven to act. He tore up the stairs as Janis, with unnatural strength, was attempting to push her intended victim down them. It was all happening too fast…
Amber had begun to resist strongly but, in the shocked interim, Janis had gained the upper hand. Janis pushed out with all her might, her expression so triumphant she might have been disposing of the one person who stood between her and all future happiness.
“There!” she shouted in triumph.
With sick terror Amber could feel herself go. She was falling…toppling…Even as it was happening, her brain flashed a picture of her prone body at the foot of the stairs. A tragedy, with Janis MacFarlane to blame. What a blot that would be on the proud MacFarlane name.
Feeling utterly disconnected, beyond help, Amber braced herself for the worst. A broken hand, a broken shoulder, a broken wrist, a broken neck? Only, instead of her fall continuing, it was interrupted on the way by a hard male body thudding into hers.
Cal.
He crossed strong arms around her, knowing he couldn’t stop the momentum but fully prepared to take the worst of the fall. He had taken plenty of falls before. There was a trick to the rolling and he had long since learned it. Even so, something could always go wrong. He wasn’t just saving himself, he was endeavouring to save the woman he loved. It only made things that much harder.
“Go with me, Amber!” he muttered urgently, not even sure if she heard him.
She did, allowing her body to go pliant. She was putting all her trust in Cal’s ability to cushion their inevitable stunning descent.
Even Janis was momentarily silenced, taken in hand now by both her husband and Trowbridge, who was appalled and not bothering to hide it.
Cal hit the floor first, deadening the impact for Amber, who came to rest half slumped over his back. Her breath was rattling through her body with shock, but she knew with enormous relief that she had come out of it unharmed. Both of them just lay there, Cal winded. Amber was frantic that he might have taken a hard knock to the head. She tried to sit up to make sure he was all right, with Janis all the while at the top of the stairs shouting down at her, “I wish I’d killed you! I wish you were dead.”
Truthfully, Amber was so grateful to be unharmed she called with black humour, “I’m doing my best!” If it hadn’t been for Cal, Janis might have got her wish. Surely Janis hadn’t planned it? Amber had to reject that. It had been an un-premeditated act. Janis needed a scapegoat for her perceived failure in life. Amber had been elected.
Cal, however, saw no humour whatever in the situation. He brought himself into sitting position, getting his breath and ignoring the stabbing aches and pains through his upper body and a worse one at the back of his head.
“Are you okay?” Amber begged him, her heart in her eyes. Incredibly, Janis, at the top of the stairs, was demanding to be released, as if she had done nothing wrong.
“I wouldn’t have had you within a thousand miles of harm,” he told her bleakly. “Now this. That performance was enough to last me my lifetime.”
He rose to his feet a shade gingerly, bringing Amber with him but keeping her within the shelter of his arm. “I hope you find health and peace, Janis,” he said. “I truly do. But you’ll never set foot in this house again.”
A sombre pall fell over the household for the rest of the day. Even the two house girls went about their chores hushed. No merry giggles resounded around the big open rooms. All was quiet. Even little Marcus didn’t break the silence with a single cry for attention. It seemed that in the absence of his mother Marcus was turning into a model child.
How sad was that?
Even though Janis had intended her real harm, Amber couldn’t find it in her heart to condemn the woman. Some part of her would always pity Janis MacFarlane, who was later to abandon the child she had given birth to without a backward glance. It was as though it had never happened.
Cal returned to work, a sombreness on him like a dark veil. He was devastated that real harm could have been done to Amber, and in his own home. He had accepted that Janis needed help, but never until those very last minutes had he come to the realisation she was an actual danger to the one woman she saw as a threat. In a way, it was all his fault. There must have been clues along the way but, all unknowing, he had missed them like a fool. Why hadn’t Eliot hinted at the bizarre situation—probably paralysed with embarrassment—or at least taken Janis away whether she wanted it or not? Why had Eliot allowed Janis to call the shots? Was he trying to save his marriage? Eliot was only staving off the inevitable. This was a marriage that should never have taken place.
It shocked and humiliated him that Tim Trowbridge and his nurse had witnessed what had happened. It could easily have been a tragedy. A police investigation. Cal knew not a word of the incident would go any further, but that didn’t stop him from agonizing over the whole terrible business. After that, Amber would surely be determined on going back home.
And who could blame her? She had come as close to serious assault as she was ever likely to in her life. He could see how it had shaken her, even though she had gazed quietly at him with tears glistening in her beautiful golden eyes. “Thank you, Cal. You saved me.”
She might have been part of the family already, prepared to close ranks. That she had come so close to real danger while under his roof and his protection he found shattering. For the first time he confron
ted head on what he had been trying to keep within manageable limits.
If he lost Amber, he lost everything.
Dee was busy, ladling three teaspoons of sugar into Amber’s teacup, her preferred antidote to shock. “She coulda killed ya!”
“Well, she didn’t.” Amber took a sip, face screwed up at the excessive sweetness. “Let that be an end to it.”
“Good thing you feel like that. You’re so forgiving!” Dee shook her head in wonderment.
“Cal can’t forgive himself,” Amber lamented.
Dee nodded. “He’s taken it to heart. You were brought here as his guest, yet Janis and her troubles wrecked all that.”
“No, Dee, I’ve loved being here. I love this place. I love the wilderness, this extraordinary desert environment. I love the way I can go riding any time I please. A dozen scenarios for a book having been filling my head. We get along so well.” She reached out to take Dee’s hand. “I love little Marcus—I pray things will work out for him. Eliot loves him. There could be light at the end of the tunnel for Janis.”
Dee clicked her tongue in dissent. “You mark my words. When a bit of therapy gets her back on her feet, she’ll file for divorce. Eliot will have to part with a few million. That should keep her going. It’s a no-brainer who gets Marcus. Janis won’t want him. I have an idea that’s what the beef was with her mother. Her mother probably didn’t want Janis, either. What Janis convinced herself she felt for Cal wasn’t love. It was a sickness.”
Amber set down her cup so quickly it rattled in the saucer. “And you knew all about it, Dee?”
Dee looked ashamed. “I had a struggle with it at first. Couldn’t believe it. But it was in everything she said, the look in her eyes. She fell for him, hook, line and sinker. I reckon it was the first real bond of her life. No one was attractive to her but Cal. Not even her own baby. That’s how bad it was. Fatal attraction.”
“Oh, dear me, yes.” Sadly Amber shook her head. “Cal hates the very idea of it. I think he’s blaming himself.”
