Outback Husband

by Jessica Hart

  When Cal had gone. Juliet kept making herself think about what it would be like. She was terribly afraid that that was what he had been going to tell her the other night, but he hadn’t said anything more. There was a new constraint between them, and the only time it disappeared was when they made love. They would have to talk some time, Juliet realised drearily. Their three month trial was nearly up. Cal would be looking around for a property of his own, and she would have to pretend that she didn’t need him and didn’t care.

  The racecourse consisted of a dusty field behind a rope. There was a beer tent and a token bookie with a blackboard. Juliet remembered going to Royal Ascot with Hugo. She had worn a silly hat and high-heeled shoes and drunk champagne. It was like remembering a film she had seen, a life that had belonged to someone else, not to her.

  The children were all excited at the change of scene, but there was a wariness in Cal’s eyes that made Juliet uneasy. She felt self-conscious and out of place, even though she was dressed unexceptionably in jeans and a fine linen shirt. She hadn’t wanted anyone to accuse her of being overdressed.

  ‘I’ll get some drinks,’ said Cal brusquely. He disappeared into the beer tent, and Juliet, feeling abandoned, took the children to look at the horses, which were corralled in another patch of dust.

  ‘Did you see Cal’s back?’ a laconic voice behind her asked.

  ‘Yeah, I heard he was,’ answered another.

  Back? thought Juliet, then remembered that Cal had told her that he had grown up in the district. ‘Coming back’ for him could probably mean going anywhere within a five-hundred-mile radius.

  ‘You know he’s working at Wilparilla?’ the voice went on, and Juliet heard the other man whistle in surprise.

  ‘At Wilparilla? Why would he want to do that? I heard he made a packet of money down in Brisbane. He wouldn’t need to work for anybody, let alone—’

  He broke off as they were joined by another couple, and they moved off, leaving Juliet to wonder why he had been so amazed to hear that Cal was at Wilparilla.

  Cal saw Juliet standing stiffly by the rails as soon as he came out of the beer tent. For someone who had professed such an interest in meeting her neighbours, she looked oddly forlorn. Why had she been so keen to meet other people anyway? he thought crossly as he made his way over to her, balancing five drinks awkwardly between his hands. Wasn’t he good enough company for her?

  ‘I’d better introduce you to a few people,’ he said to Juliet as she handed out the soft drinks to the children. He knew that he sounded ungracious, but he couldn’t help it. He wished they hadn’t come. He had wanted to stay at Wilparilla, where he could keep her to himself, and now he was going to have to stand there and watch other men look at her.

  They wouldn’t see what he saw, though. They would see a slender, uptight girl with a rather haughty expression, just as he had seen at first. Only he knew how warm and vibrant Juliet was underneath. She had blossomed over the last few weeks, but something had happened to make her withdraw into her defensive shell again. Cal wished he knew what it was.

  Everyone seemed genuinely pleased to see Cal again, Juliet thought as a group hailed him before they had taken two steps. ‘Cal, it’s good to see you back! We knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away. What’s all this about you managing Wilparilla? Joe just told me, but I couldn’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s true enough.’ Cal forced a smile. ‘And this is my new boss, Juliet Laing.’

  There was a startled silence as all eyes swung round to Juliet. What was the big surprise? she wondered as she smiled weakly back at them. Surely it wasn’t unheard of for a woman to hire a manager?

  Every group they met reacted in the same way as soon as Cal introduced her, with intense speculation swiftly masked by an awkward bonhomie. Juliet was very conscious of people looking after her as she and Cal moved on, and she could feel herself growing more brittle and English by the minute. It was a relief when the races started and there was something else for everybody to talk about. A man standing on a trailer provided commentary through a megaphone, although Juliet couldn’t work out how he could tell one horse from the other, as they all seemed to be enveloped in a cloud of dust churned up by their hooves.

  It was clear, however, that the races were more about beer and gossip than about horses. After two races, a break was announced. Juliet slid a sideways glance at Cal. He didn’t look as if he was enjoying this any more than she was, but perhaps he would have a better time if she wasn’t hanging around him the whole time.

  She must be an embarrassment to him, Juliet realised with a twist of the heart. She didn’t belong here, that was obvious. She was too brittle, too English, too much Hugo’s widow. They were probably all feeling sorry for Cal, unable to shake off his pathetically clinging employer.

  Juliet winced at the thought. ‘Come on, boys, let’s go and get another drink,’ she said, taking Kit and Andrew by the hand. Natalie had found some children her own age almost as soon as they had arrived, and was playing behind the beer tent somewhere.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Cal began, but he had been spotted already by an attractive woman in a blue flowered dress who was bearing down on him with a delighted smile.

  ‘Cal! It’s great to see you again. Are you really manager at Wilparilla?’

  Juliet slipped away before Cal had a chance to introduce her. She couldn’t bear to go through all that incredulity again. What was so strange about Cal being at Wilparilla?

  Kit and Andrew weren’t used to crowds, and they were getting fractious. Juliet got them a drink each and they pushed their way out of the stuffy tent and found a place to sit down in its shade instead. It was quieter there, and out of the way, and there was no one to raise their brows and stare at her when they learned that she was Cal’s boss.

  Why would anyone want to stand in the tent, when it was hot and beery and so noisy that the two men on the other side of the canvas were having to raise their voices to be heard? ‘Seen Cal?’ one shouted, and Juliet sighed. She had overheard enough conversations about how surprising it was that Cal was manager at Wilparilla. She had accepted that it was a temporary measure, until he found somewhere of his own, so why couldn’t everyone else?

  In the distance, she could see Cal, still talking to the woman in blue. They were obviously old friends. Juliet wondered if the other woman was married. She looked so right standing next to Cal, much more right than she had done. Juliet dug her nails into her palms and looked away, to distract herself by listening to the conversation continuing behind her instead.

  ‘What do you reckon to him managing Wilparilla?’ one was saying. ‘He must hate that.’

  ‘You know Cal,’ replied the other. ‘He’ll do whatever it takes to get his own way. I don’t reckon it’ll be for long anyway. The widow’s hanging on longer than he thought, but she’ll sell in the end and he can get Wilparilla back.’

  ‘Have you seen her?’ said the first. ‘She’s a nice-looking woman. He should just marry her and save his money. I can’t believe it hasn’t crossed his mind.’

  ‘Maybe she won’t have him.’

  His friend snorted his disbelief. ‘He’d be a good catch. From what I hear, he made a mint of money down in Brisbane.’

  ‘I don’t think that would be enough for Cal,’ the other man said thoughtfully. ‘I’ve seen her too, and she’s nothing like Sara. I wouldn’t have said Mrs Laing was his type.’

  The first man said something that Juliet couldn’t catch, and his companion laughed. ‘You may be right, but if you ask me, all Cal is interested in is getting his station back. Wilparilla means more to him than any woman. Want another beer?’

  So that was it. Juliet felt sick and very weary. She looked across at Cal, still deep in discussion with his friend in blue, and wondered how she could have missed something so blindingly obvious. She remembered commenting on how quickly he had found his way round Wilparilla, asking if he was hoping to buy a property of his own. Yes, he had said, but
he hadn’t said that it was her station he wanted.

  Cal was having trouble concentrating on the conversation. He kept glancing over his shoulder to where Juliet sat with Kit and Andrew in the shade of the beer tent, wanting to go over to her but sensing that he wouldn’t be welcome. Now he looked over again, and met Juliet’s blue gaze through the crowd. The expression of pain in her eyes cut him to the quick, and he knew instantly what she had discovered. It was the moment he had been dreading all day, and now it was here.

  Without even bothering to make an excuse to his companion, Cal went quickly over to Juliet as if afraid that she would bolt from him. But Juliet sat, defeated, just waiting for him. There was nowhere else to go. She looked up at him as he stood before her, her face white with the shock of betrayal. Andrew staggered to his feet and clutched at Cal’s hand.

  ‘Can we see horses now?’ he asked hopefully.

  Cal didn’t even hear him. He was looking down at Juliet. ‘I tried to tell you,’ he said.

  ‘You didn’t try very hard,’ she said, not even bothering to hide her bitterness.

  ‘Juliet, it isn’t what you think,’ Cal began urgently, but Juliet was getting to her feet, shaking off the hand he put out to help her.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this in front of the children,’ she said, her voice hard. ‘I want to go home. Tell Natalie I’m not feeling well, if you like, but go and get her. I’ll take Kit and Andrew.’

  Kit, hearing the word ‘home’ began to protest that he wanted to see the horses with Andrew, but Juliet ignored him. Taking the boys firmly by the hand, she walked off to where the little plane was parked with all the others. She held herself rigid, as if it was the only way she could stop herself falling apart.

  Cursing his own stupidity, Cal watched her go. He wanted to run after her, to pull her round and make her listen to him, but she was right. He would have to wait until they got home.

  It was a silent flight back to Wilparilla. Cal flew the plane, his face grim. Natalie, who had objected to being removed from her game, was sulking, and the boys were tired. Juliet said nothing. She didn’t even allow herself to think. Once she started thinking, she knew that the pain would be too much to bear. She just sat there and told herself that she couldn’t cry in front of Kit and Andrew.

  Somehow Juliet got through the rest of the day. Moving stiffly, like an old woman, she fed the children, bathed the twins, read them a story and tucked them up in bed. Her throat was tight as she bent to kiss them goodnight. Kit and Andrew loved Cal, too. They had learnt to trust him, to treat him as the father they had never had. How were they going to bear it when he had gone? And how was she going to bear their pain as well as her own?

  She could hear Cal and Natalie somewhere. Wearily, Juliet went outside and sat on the verandah steps. She could cry now, she thought dully, but the tears wouldn’t come. The misery was a tight, hard stone inside her. It wouldn’t let her cry.

  Cal had lied to her. It was all Juliet could think about. She had worried that he might not love her, but it had never occurred to her that he would lie to her. She had been so sure that he was open and honest. Too honest, she had thought. How stupidly trusting could you get?

  She had loved Hugo, and he had lied to her. She had fallen in love with Cal, and now he had lied to her too. She had let herself love him, let herself be happy. She had trusted him, and all Cal had wanted was Wilparilla.

  Juliet had never felt so betrayed, so lonely, so bereft of anything to believe in. She’d thought she had learnt her lesson the first time, but like a fool she had come back for more. She should have known that the only person she could trust was herself.

  When Cal finally came out, she was still sitting at the top of the steps, her head bent and the heels of her hands pressed against her eyes in despair. He could see the nape of her neck, so soft and vulnerable, and the sight of it made something ache inside him.

  It was a hell of a time to realise how much he loved her, Cal thought bitterly. He had been a fool. He should have told her from the outset what he was doing at Wilparilla, but he had allowed himself to get carried away. He hadn’t wanted to think about anything while he was with her. He hadn’t even known that he was falling in love, although now it was hard to believe how blind he had been.

  When exactly had it happened? When had he stopped wanting Wilparilla and started needing Juliet instead? Cal looked down at her with a bleak heart. The last thing he had wanted to do was fall in love with her, but he had, and now it was too late to tell her. She would never believe him now.

  He sat down next to Juliet on the step, without touching her. She didn’t look up, didn’t take the hands from her eyes, but she knew that he was there. ‘Is it true?’ she asked in a muffled voice at last.

  ‘That I used to own Wilparilla? Yes, it’s true.’

  Juliet’s last faint hope that she might have misheard, or misunderstood, died then. She lowered her hands and turned to look at him with eyes that were dull and dark with misery. ‘Why did you lie to me?’

  ‘I didn’t lie to you,’ said Cal heavily. ‘I just didn’t tell you the whole truth. Everything I told you about selling up, about Natalie wanting to come back—that was all true. I said she wanted to be in the outback again, but she wanted to be here, at Wilparilla. And I wanted it too,’ he admitted. ‘I’d put years of work into Wilparilla. After I left, I kept in touch with people back here. I heard how Hugo was letting everything run down, and I hated the thought of it.’

  He hesitated. ‘And then Pete Robbins told me that Hugo had been killed.’

  ‘So you thought you’d exploit his grieving widow and pressurise her into selling before she had a chance to know what she was doing?’

  ‘Those offers came from me, yes,’ said Cal evenly. ‘I couldn’t believe that you would really want to stay once you’d lost your husband. I offered you a fair price, more than the land was really worth, but you wouldn’t go.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t take no for an answer,’ Juliet said in a flat voice.

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I wasn’t ready to give up. I still thought you’d change your mind once you realised how difficult it would be for you to run Wilparilla on your own, so I instructed my lawyer to repeat the offer at regular intervals. I was waiting for your reply when I spoke to Pete again, and he said that you were looking for a manager. It didn’t sound as if you were thinking of selling, so I decided being manager here would be better than not being here at all. At least I’d be in a position to stop Wilparilla sliding any further downhill.’

  Juliet’s face was tight, closed. ‘And in a better position to persuade me to sell?’ she asked bitterly. ‘Is that what the last few weeks have been about? Softening me up? Waiting for the right moment to break the news that I don’t have any choice but to sell?’

  ‘You know it hasn’t been like that,’ said Cal with a sigh.

  ‘Do I?’ The blue eyes were bright with anger and unshed tears. ‘I don’t think I know anything any more.’

  He ran his hand despairingly over his face. ‘Juliet, it wasn’t like that! I realised on the muster that you weren’t going to sell, and that nothing I could do would persuade you otherwise. I’d done my best to make things difficult for you, just to prove to you that you couldn’t cope, but you could. You coped with everything I threw at you.’

  ‘So you just changed your mind?’ she asked, not bothering to hide her disbelief.

  ‘Yes! I was going to leave when the trial period was up, but then…well, you know what happened, Juliet. You know what it was like. I didn’t want to go,’ he finished simply.

  ‘Or did you just have a better idea?’

  He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’d done a great seduction job,’ Juliet pointed out in the same flat, hard voice. ‘There must have seemed a much easier way to get Wilparilla back.’

  Cal stared at her. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Let’s face it, marriage would have solved all your problems.
It was a good plan, wasn’t it, Cal? Marry me—and I’m sure you didn’t think you’d have any problem getting me to fall into your arms—and you’d get your precious station back without even having to pay for it, plus a free wife thrown in to look after Natalie and sex whenever it suited you.’

  A tide of invigorating anger swept through Cal and he surged to his feet. How dared Juliet even suggest such a thing? ‘I wouldn’t want Wilparilla at that price,’ he said savagely. ‘The sex has been good,’ he told her, matching her deliberate crudity with his own, ‘but not that good! I’d rather start again with a new property than tie myself to a woman like you for life!’ He looked down at Juliet contemptuously. ‘I don’t need you, Juliet—I can look after Natalie myself—but you need me.’

  ‘I don’t need you!’ Juliet shouted in a desperate attempt to convince herself as well as him. ‘I don’t need anyone!’ She clamped her lips together, struggling for control. ‘I’ll advertise for a new manager,’ she said, when she could. ‘If it wasn’t for Natalie, I’d tell you to leave tomorrow. But for her sake you can stay until your replacement arrives. Then I want you to go.’

  Cal’s face was set. ‘Natalie doesn’t need any favours from you,’ he said in a biting voice. ‘We’ll go tomorrow.’

  Without another word, he went down the steps and strode off into the darkness. Juliet watched him out of sight, and then something inside her shattered, and she buried her head in her arms and wept.

  ‘We brought the mail for you, Mrs Laing.’ The stockmen handed over a bundle of letters sheepishly. They were late. None of them had been in a state to drive back after the races had finished, so they had stayed on drinking and were now suffering from colossal hangovers.

  It had seemed like a good idea to stop at the post office on their way through to pick up the post as a peace offering, but now it was clear that they needn’t have bothered. Juliet hadn’t even noticed that they weren’t there, and, from her expression, she wouldn’t have cared even if she had known they were missing.