Sons Of Australia: The Mackays: Australian Boss: Diamond Ring/Surprise: Outback Proposal/Tempted by Her Tycoon Boss

by Jennie Adams

  They pulled to a stop on the outskirts of the settlement. Jayne glanced out of the window at two small children who’d come to see what the visitors were about. Dusky faces, curly black hair and the biggest, deepest, brownest eyes Jayne had seen stared up at her.

  Jayne opened the door and got out, and Alex followed suit. She smiled at the children. ‘Hello.’

  Shy grins came her way before the two darted off again. Jayne breathed the hot air into her lungs and shook her head. ‘How can they run like that in this weather?’

  ‘Kids can be pretty tough.’ Alex glanced about them. ‘Let’s go find our artists. That building over there looks promising.’ His shoulders were set like concrete. ‘I guess the rest will unfold. Brendan didn’t give me a name, but he said he’d phone to say I was on my way.’

  Jayne moved to his side, ready to do whatever she could to be supportive. ‘I hope this all works out for you, Alex. That it’s a worthwhile trip.’

  Oh, yes. Jayne was controlling her care factor towards Alex totally, right along with the attraction factor and the interest factor!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘THANK you for the privilege of seeing you all painting.’ Jayne spoke the words about an hour later as she and Alex stood inside the building he had pointed out. It was a shed with a concrete floor and corrugated iron sides and roof—large, with one whole end opened up for air and light and heaps of room inside for the artists to paint.

  The artists were men and women of various ages. Some preferred to sit on the floor to paint directly onto the pieces of linen or canvas. Others sat at tables. The artworks included depictions of desert sand, storms brewing, leaves and grasses, flowers and seedpods.

  Alex asked if he could look through a pile of completed canvases resting on several trestle tables in one corner of the shed.

  He’d been very controlled through this visit. Polite, friendly and businesslike as he dealt with the initial shyness of some of the artists. Too controlled. He must have had questions, must want to know which person out here might have answers for him. Brendan had paved the way for the visit. When would that person be revealed?

  Jayne wouldn’t have been able to wait. She’d have wanted to ask all these questions outright. But it was a small settlement, and the people here had their ways with things. Jayne just hoped Alex wasn’t burning up inside too much from the need to know.

  It was as Alex moved to the trestle tables that one of the older men, who’d worked silently at his artwork throughout the visit, rose and walked over.

  ‘I spoke with Brendan Carroll about your visit. He said you were looking for your family history out here.’

  These were the words Jayne had waited for and, when she glanced at Alex, she caught the sudden, quickly masked tension that for a moment filled his expression.

  Jayne stopped where she was, a few feet away from them. The other artists seemed content to continue working and Jayne returned to join them.

  Though she gave her attention to the work going on in front of her, she could still hear Alex’s response to the man.

  ‘That’s right. I spoke with some elders in Alice Springs last night but I got nowhere.’ Alex looked directly into the man’s face. ‘You know my name. The surname is one I chose a few years ago. I was left at an orphanage with the names “Alex Roy” pinned to my clothing. No last name, so they called me Alex Roy “Jordan” after a nearby street. Later on, I changed the last name to MacKay. I’m looking for answers about aspects of my parentage.’

  He drew a deep breath and blew it out. ‘Sorry. I guess the need to know goes deeper than I’d realised. I’m a bit tense right now.’

  The older man searched Alex’s face. ‘Will you tell me what’s your age? Your birth date?’

  ‘I don’t know the exact birth date. I got given one at the orphanage where I grew up.’ Alex told him that date and year.

  With a remote part of her mind, Jayne registered that she had correctly guessed his age. But, in this moment, that disparity was far less of concern than the conversation going on between the two men.

  ‘What else do you know about your history?’

  Why was the older man asking questions, instead of trying to answer Alex’s for him? And what was his name?

  ‘My mother grew up in Alice Springs, left me anonymously on the doorstep of a Sydney orphanage when I was a baby, and only revealed anything about herself to me in a letter that I received a few weeks ago after her…after her death.’ Alex drew another breath. ‘She was Lizzie Perry.’

  Jayne’s heart squeezed as she registered Alex’s words. He said it all as though it were nothing but matter-of-fact, but it was that history that was responsible for his maturity, for who he was. Knowing all of this, Jayne admired him twice as much for his good-humoured outlook on life, for the cheeky streak in his otherwise mature and steady nature that made him complex and at the same time so very appealing as a man.

  She wanted to go to Alex, tuck her arm through his, but she had to wait here and let this play out, give him the space to do this by himself.

  The older man’s hand rose to clasp his shoulder. ‘When Brendan phoned, I didn’t want to get my hopes up until I’d met you for myself. I’ve been watching you since you got here. My heart knew, but I had to ask the questions, too.’

  Jayne’s surroundings faded from her consciousness as she held her breath. Was this Alex’s answer?

  Alex’s face paled beneath the tanned skin and tension locked his expression into one of waiting, of hope held back. Of needing to know and perhaps not wanting to admit how much he needed that knowledge.

  ‘I’m not sure what it is that you know.’ Alex’s voice was deep and so, so guarded. He said gruffly, ‘Are you saying you think you know something about my past?’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’ The older man’s smile was a mixture of gentleness and regret and acceptance. He, too, seemed shaken.

  And there was something in that gentleness that Jayne had seen before—had seen in Alex. She took a step towards them before she realised it, and abruptly stopped again.

  ‘You were given your last name. It’s the same as my half-brother’s name. We had different fathers.’ The man drew a breath and the creases in his face seemed to deepen. ‘He was Peter Roy. He passed away eleven years ago. I’m Morgan Garrup. I’m your uncle.’ His eyes glistened with moisture. ‘I always prayed you’d find your way to your history. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever meet you, but I am very glad.’

  ‘Are you sure of what you’re saying?’ Alex swallowed once, and again. ‘My birth was never registered. I had nothing to go on.’

  ‘Except a need to find your roots here, I’m guessing.’ Morgan watched Alex carefully. ‘When you come from out here, especially when there’s blood inside you that’s been here for so long, there’s a part of you that needs to know.’

  ‘That’s how I’ve felt.’ Alex ran a hand over the back of his head. The vulnerable gesture made Jayne want, more than ever, to go to him.

  ‘I’m sure of who you are, Alex. I met your mother. It was only once, but she was already in the early stages of pregnancy with you at that time.’ The rest of Morgan’s story wasn’t great, but it did confirm that he had no doubts about Alex’s identity.

  The older man was shamed to say his brother hadn’t wanted a baby. By the time Morgan had caught up with his brother again to ask about the baby, the relationship between Alex’s parents had ended. The woman had been long gone. Morgan had assumed she must have kept Alex with her but he’d had no idea how to find either of them. Or even Alex’s name or gender. ‘You look very much like your late father, too. I’d like to know you, Alex. If you want, I can tell you about your history. Who you are. All of that.’

  ‘I’d like that.’ Alex turned then, sought Jayne’s gaze. The invitation was in his eyes and Jayne hurried to his side.

  Alex couldn’t quite get the shocked and stunned expression off his face, but he introduced Jayne, put into words what he’d just been told. ‘This is my
uncle, Morgan Garrup, Jayne.’ His tone deepened. ‘I have an uncle.’

  That one vulnerable statement brought moisture to the backs of Jayne’s eyes. She blinked and pasted the biggest, widest smile on her face that she could manage as she shook the older man’s hand. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you, Mr Garrup.’

  Jayne chatted on with the older man for a couple of minutes. In that time, she sensed Alex trying to pull himself together at her side. She felt privileged to be part of this, and particularly while his emotions were exposed in this way. Jayne wanted to hold him close, let him express whatever feelings this had brought to the surface for him.

  They spoke for a while longer until one of the other settlement residents came in to speak a few brief words. ‘News just came over the radio that there’s a bad dust storm on the way. It’s going to stop movement in the area, by the sounds of it.’

  ‘You should leave, nephew.’ Morgan spoke the words quietly.

  Resistance came immediately to Alex’s face before he glanced at Jayne and his expression became even more torn.

  ‘We can stay—’ Jayne began.

  ‘I don’t want to leave you yet…Uncle Morgan.’ Alex seemed to have to work to bring the words out.

  Morgan clasped Alex’s shoulder then. ‘We have time. You’ll come back when you can visit for a few days. You need to come to terms with finding me. I…need that time, too.’

  ‘Alex, can I go and start getting paintings packed ready for transit while you finish up here?’ Jayne thought that might be best—give Alex what time she could with his uncle.

  Alex nodded a little numbly before he seemed to clear his thoughts a little. ‘Thanks. Speak to Sue. She knows what I’m going to take.’

  Morgan and Alex both turned to speak further with the man who’d brought the weather report, while Jayne went to organise the artworks with Sue.

  When Alex joined Jayne outside at their vehicle, he looked pale but was obviously making an effort to be composed. ‘We need to go, Jayne.’

  His uncle had come out with him. Alex turned to the older man now. ‘I have the phone number for your niece so I can get in contact with you. You have my number.’

  Morgan patted his shirt pocket, where a piece of paper crackled. ‘Right here.’

  ‘Right.’ Alex swallowed. ‘I’ll be back soon. Within a couple of weeks. You won’t have gone—’

  ‘I’ll be here.’ Morgan’s eyes, which must have seen so much over the years, softened. He clasped Alex’s forearm and used the grip to pull him into a one-armed hug.

  Jayne fought back her emotion as Alex clasped the other man’s shoulder and, for a brief moment, bent his head. Grey hair to dark hair, the two men showed their biological similarities in the curve of the sides of their faces, the shape of the backs of their heads.

  Alex drew away.

  Morgan glanced at the sky, and then at Alex. ‘You must be careful to go the way I said.’ His eyes glistened before he turned away.

  Alex got in the Land Rover and they drove away.

  Jayne drew a slow breath. ‘I’ve heard that some Aboriginal people don’t like to say goodbye as they feel it can be bad luck.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m so glad you met him, Alex.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Alex’s throat worked as he swallowed. ‘I can hardly take it in. I…didn’t expect to feel so overwhelmed by finding someone…related.’

  He’d found more than that. He’d found open arms. A welcome from a family member, instead of the rejection he’d received at the hands of his mother and, whether he ever experienced it first-hand or not, also from his father.

  ‘Are you quite sure you don’t want to stay, Alex?’ That was the most urgent question on Jayne’s mind right now. And she would give up being back in Sydney by Friday, if need be, to give Alex that time with his uncle.

  ‘I appreciate the offer, Jayne, but I think Morgan was right. I do need time to get my head around this and, for now, to drive us to safety so we can get out of here. I need…to take this news to my brothers face to face, too.’ He gestured behind them as he turned, not in the direction they’d taken to get here, but along a track to the left. ‘Morgan needs the time, too.’

  ‘We’re not going back the way we came?’ Jayne glanced behind them. A ball of rolling dust seemed to be growing in the distance.

  ‘No. We’re driving north-west for about another hour.’ Alex’s hands tightened on the wheel as he navigated a particularly bumpy stretch of road. ‘We can’t go back.’

  ‘Where are we going now?’ Jayne didn’t question Alex making the decision about that ‘where’ without consulting her. She trusted him.

  More than you can trust your father with his decisions that impact on you. Yet Jayne had trusted her father. She’d trusted him with her working career.

  And where did that get you, Jayne?

  That was her battle. Her father had let her work up to a good job at Cutter’s. But he’d also made a promise that he hadn’t kept since Eric came along, and Jayne felt that hadn’t been fair. She’d worked hard and even without the proposal she was putting together now to put to her father, she had more than earned her partnership.

  So no. Perhaps she didn’t trust her father in some ways. He’d let her down with that, and he’d let her mother go…

  Oh, Jayne. You can’t blame him for that. You don’t know why she made that decision.

  Why did Jayne trust Alex the way she did? In the middle of the outback, headed away from where they’d come from to…Jayne had no idea where, when she’d known Alex a bare few days?

  But she did, and maybe that was because she’d seen his calibre as a man in circumstances that might have been rather hard on him, especially in the past twenty-four hours. And maybe it was just because somehow she knew she could.

  ‘We can get flown out of here. Before we left the settlement my uncle…Morgan asked one of the others to make the arrangements for us.’ Alex navigated a deeply corrugated stretch of track and increased his speed again once they got past it. ‘There’s a bush pilot. He does deliveries, mail runs and a few other things. He’s prepared to fly us in a round trip avoiding the storm, back to Alice Springs.’

  ‘How bad is it going to be back at the settlement? Will the people we met all be safe?’

  ‘They’ll be okay. Morgan says they’ve dealt with this sort of thing plenty of times before.’

  That was something, at least. But Alex’s tone…Oh, Jayne desperately wanted to wrap her arms around him, but that wasn’t possible right now.

  ‘I need to concentrate on driving now, Jayne. I don’t want to lose a minute of time to outrun this.’ Alex’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as he again navigated a particularly hazardous stretch of road.

  He was pitting his skill against the conditions. This wasn’t thrill-seeking. It was a combination of knowing himself, being confident in what he knew he could do, measuring conditions and strength. He had things on his mind right now, huge things, but even in the face of those he was making sure he and Jayne were safe. He showed a lot of courage and control.

  Jayne could learn a lot from Alex MacKay.

  ‘Hold tight.’ As Alex spoke the words, Jayne gasped as he steered around a large rock that had seemed to appear in the middle of the track from nowhere.

  A moment later, they were moving normally again.

  The road opened out and Alex released a slow breath before his hands relaxed a little on the wheel. ‘We should only be about half an hour from the pilot’s home now. He lives by himself and there’s no one around in any direction for quite a stretch.’

  ‘It would be a very different life out here.’ Jayne was beginning to really understand that. She choked a little. ‘Sorry. The dust—’

  ‘As well as what’s coming up off the track as we drive, the storm is catching up with us faster than I’d like.’ As Alex spoke, he glanced in the rear-view mirror and frowned.

  Jayne looked over her shoulder and was very glad they weren’t too far from shelter now because th
at ball of red dust seemed to have expanded behind them, covering everything in its approach.

  ‘We’ll beat it,’ Alex said with determination. ‘We’re not getting stuck in that.’

  Finally, they came to the end of their journey—to the sight of a hangar with a home built into one end of it, and to…

  ‘The plane’s leaving!’ Jayne stared at the view of the aircraft as it lifted off the end of the runway into the sky. ‘He’s leaving without us!’

  The pilot had indeed left and, when they stopped their vehicle outside the building and got out, there was a note taped sturdily to the door:

  Sorry, folks. There’s been an accident. Make yourselves at home and, whatever you do, stay indoors until the radio broadcasts confirm that this storm is over. I’ll be back to fly you out as soon as I can manage it.

  ‘At least there’s decent shelter.’ Alex turned the door handle. When the door swung open he gestured for Jayne to go in. ‘I’ll get the Land Rover under cover. Back in a minute.’

  ‘Okay.’ Jayne went inside. It wasn’t a large home, just a few rooms built into the end of the hangar, but the pilot had made the space his own. Jayne heard the scrape of large metal doors, an engine starting. By the time she’d looked at the living room, the shelves full of vinyl records, a coffee cup on the bench in the small kitchen and a percolator still warm and sending its aroma all through the cosy space, Alex had stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

  He had the large cooler from the Land Rover in one hand and Jayne’s handbag in the other. He set her bag down inside the door and placed the cooler on the floor in the kitchen.

  Jayne went to him then. She didn’t want to push, but he seemed to understand instinctively and he let her in. The hug they shared was long and silent, a giving and taking that Jayne couldn’t explain. Finally, Alex drew back and looked down into her eyes with very deep, very blue eyes.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said almost gruffly, and turned back to the cooler and removed two bottles from it. ‘I’m sorry we’re stuck here, Jayne. This wasn’t quite how I planned for this trip to end today.’