by Margaret Way
Carrie clasped her two hands together to stop them trembling. Her father was such an overpowering man. “I’m twenty-two, Dad,” she pointed out quietly. “An adult. I have to find my own way in this world.”
“Without money?” he retorted angrily. “You’ve never taken money seriously. I’ve always had plenty of it.”
Carrie measured the extent of his anger and bewilderment. “I’ll be in your debt, Dad. But you have to give me a much wider latitude. With the position I’ve been offered I have free board and a generous salary. I have Grandma’s money, too, if I ever need backup.”
“You don’t understand,” her father said in a near fierce tone. “I don’t think I could endure your going away, Carrie. You’re the light of my life. My firstborn. Your mother’s greatest legacy to me.”
Sorrow brushed Carrie’s face. “You have another daughter who loves you, Dad, very very much. You have Glenda.”
Her father turned his handsome, aggressive head away. “I know and I love them both but my deepest feelings are for you, dammit!”
Almost an obsession, Carrie thought. “That’s turned us into a triangle, Dad. Me at the top, Glenda and Mel at the sides.”
Her answer provoked her father to anger. “I hope your sister has nothing to do with this departure?” he thundered. “A blind man could see how jealous she is of you.”
Carrie almost sagged. “Mel has absolutely nothing to do with it,” she told her father resolutely. “I must leave, Dad, my own decision. I must be on my own for a while. Mr. McQuillan,” she sensed she had better stick to the strictly formal, “will call into the office today to see you. He’ll ring beforehand to check if it’s convenient.”
“Will he now!” Jeff Russell fumed. “I’ll see him. I certainly shall. I’m very curious about this McQuillan. He could hire a dozen governesses. Go to an agency. What does he want with you? Glenda tells me he’s a divorced man.”
Carrie studied her father quietly, feeling love and pity for him. “It happens, Dad. Without it being anyone’s fault.”
“And he has a child?”
“Of course. Regina will be my charge,” she returned levelly.
“It’s bloody ridiculous!” Jeff Russell cried in a great burst of agitation. “Trust James to involve himself in all this. Always so gentlemanly but he’s always been hostile to me,” he sneered. “I believe James is capable of setting this whole thing up. Probably McQuillan has fallen in love with you. You’re a very beautiful young woman with lots of fine qualities. I can’t imagine for the life of me why he wants to employ you as a governess for his child. I suspect he wants you but he’s trying to make it seem respectable. I won’t have it!” He jumped up from the table, pushing his chair back so forcibly it scraped along the tiles.
Carrie rose, too, facing her father squarely, something not a lot of people were capable of. “Dad, your estimate of the situation couldn’t be more wrong,” she said levelly. “Mr. McQuillan is actually being kind to me. He had another type of person in mind. He told me so. I’m the one who pressed for the job. I need to get away from everything to do with my old routine. I need a totally new environment for my feelings of frustration and grief to go away. I beg you to understand. You say you love me….” Abruptly she cracked, tears filling her eyes.
“Carrie, sweetheart!” her father exclaimed, staring back at her in worried perplexity. “You’re far more disturbed than I thought. I don’t like to see you in this agitated state. It breaks my heart. You need the love and support of your own family, whatever you might think. Perhaps a holiday. Anywhere in the world. Glenda and Melissa can go with you for company. Stay at the best hotels. I should have suggested it long before now.”
“I don’t want a trip, Dad.” She couldn’t add, never with Glenda.
“Depression, that’s what it is,” her father said, his face full of concern. “You don’t have to tell me anything about that. I went through hell after your mother died. Hell!” he repeated as though the grief was still too hefty for him to shoulder. “Let me speak to McQuillan. I’m good at sizing men up. Glenda has told me all about his background. Pioneering family and all the rest of it. Chain of cattle stations. That doesn’t mean he’s the sort of person I want my daughter associating with.” Jeff Russell reached out and patted his daughter’s shoulder several times. “Leave it to me, Carrie. Leave it to your father. A move away might be all right as long as it’s not extended.”
Glenda waited until her husband had left, kissing him goodbye in the entrance hall, before she joined Carrie in the morning room where the family had breakfast.
“So how did it go?’ she asked, her tone rather brutally avid.
Carrie looked up from where she’d been sitting, looking out at the prolifically flowering garden. Not Glenda’s work. They had a wonderful gardener come in three times a week. “My coffee is cold,” she said evenly. “Would you like a cup if I make some?”
“I’d like to know what your father had to say?” Glenda answered bluntly.
“Well, let me put your mind at rest.” Carrie had already started to move. “Whatever Dad says, and he doesn’t want me to go, I’m accepting the job.”
Though Glenda brightened with relief she still managed to sneer, “What job? You must think I’m an idiot if I can’t read the signs. You’re after him, aren’t you?” she said crudely.
“If you think that then you are an idiot,” Carrie replied, her expression calm and cool.
“That’s right, abandon the too-good-to-be-true-golden-girl act.” Glenda moved so the two women stood facing each other. “Don’t trip up with this one, Carrie,” Glenda warned. “I’ve done my level best for you but it’s all gone on far too long. You’ve cut Melissa off from her own father. You’ve done everything you could to divert his love from me.”
For the first time in her life Carrie felt utterly free of her stepmother. “Oh, come on, Glenda, that’s a lie, and you know it.” Carrie moved a decisive step forward so the petite Glenda had to fall back. “My father’s behaviour is his own. I bent over backward trying to deflect attention from me. And don’t kid yourself you did your best for me. You were a rotten caretaker from day one. A woman so mean-spirited you couldn’t take a helpless little child into your heart. I could have cared for you but you wouldn’t let me. You know my friend Christy Sheppard? She has a stepmother. She adores her. Lucky Christy. Now I’m going to be in the house for a few days more until I can get myself and my things together. I’d advise you—and you’d be wise to observe this to the letter—if you so much as look sideways at me, you or Mel, I’ll tell Dad what a rotten bitch you’ve been to me all these years. And you know what, Glenda? Dad will believe me.”
A truth that Glenda recognised with a bitter twist of her mouth.
Her father drove her out to the airport, smiling through his upset. Whatever Royce McQuillan had said to him, or how he had handled himself, Jeff Russell had settled down from the time of their meeting. He now accepted a complete change of environment on the McQuillan historic station would be in Carrie’s best interests.
Royce McQuillan had told him about his family, his grandmother, his uncle Cameron and his wife and his small daughter Regina, all of whom resided at the homestead. Naturally Jeff Russell was happy about that. In fact it was clear to all of them Royce McQuillan had made a decidedly good impression on the notoriously hard-to-please Jeff Russell. It made it possible for Carrie’s father to accompany her to the airport and to hug her supportively when she left, telling her if things didn’t work out she knew she had a loving home to come back to.
Astute as he was about many things, and Jeff Russell was a very successful businessman, Carrie reflected, her father had been as good as blind as to what went on in his own home.
The thousand-mile flight took her north of Capricorn and into the tropics; over glorious tall green cane country an eternal presence for hundreds of square miles; the great mango plantations, the banana plantations, pawpaws, passionfruit, all manner of exotic new tropi
cal fruits, alongside the Great Barrier Reef, the eighth wonder of the world stretching away out to sea for twelve hundred and fifty miles. As a Queenslander Carrie had visited many beautiful islands of the Reef, swum in the magnificent lagoons, drifted with face mask and snorkel around the submerged coral gardens and hired scuba gear to further explore the incredible beauty of the undersea realm. She’d almost got to the Daintree Rainforest, which joined the turquoise sea, but Melissa had become sick on that particular trip and they had had to return home. Perhaps she would get the opportunity now.
Carrie stared out the porthole at the thick carpet of clouds, marvelling that she was here at all. She’d advised Royce McQuillan by phone she couldn’t return with him but needed a few days to ready herself for the trip. As requested she’d faxed him details of her arrival. Either he would drive in from the station to meet her or if he couldn’t make it he would send someone, probably his overseer.
The flight was pleasant and uneventful. They landed to brilliant sunshine, the air even brighter, the countryside more densely green and colourful than the subtropical capital. Crimson, white, mauve and orange bougainvillea spilled over fences and pergolas around the airport, the great poincianas were already coming into flower, the tulip trees and the cascara trees lacing their hanging bean pods with yellow bloom. It was much hotter than it had been at home. She was glad she had worn something crisp and fresh, a white cotton and lace shirt with a matching skirt, sandals on her feet. She hadn’t forgotten to bring a wide-brimmed hat with her, either, an absolute must anywhere in Queensland with its perpetual sunshine.
A little flushed with excitement, Carrie composed herself to wait. She didn’t expect it would be long. Royce McQuillan was very much the sort of man who followed through. The plane had been packed mostly with tourists who used the large coastal town as a jumping off point for the Reef islands, the luxurious Port Douglas resort on the coast or the rainforest. They were waiting now, assembling their luggage, relaxed and carefree, holidays in front of them.
I’m here as a governess, Carrie thought. If anyone had told me that even a week ago I’d have thought them mad. Her talents such as they now were, lay in a different direction. But she was determined to do a good job. She felt confident about giving Regina lessons, perhaps helping her a great deal. She had been an excellent student herself. Better yet she hoped to make friends with the child, win her confidence and liking. Why not? She’d always got on well with children. In fact she had really enjoyed helping out with students from the Young Conservatorium. But then, she reminded herself, those children were exceptional. They wouldn’t have been there otherwise. Regina McQuillan had been labelled “a little terror” by her own father. Albeit he was smiling at the time. The one thing she couldn’t be was a failure. She really needed this time out even if Royce McQuillan never spared another minute for her again.
The very strange thing was that nobody came. Not Royce McQuillan. Not anyone from the station. She’d been waiting well over an hour and a half, staring out the window at the landscape. Once she got up to buy herself a Coke. Another plane had arrived, offloading passengers and cargo. She was beginning to feel depressed. Was it possible everyone had forgotten about her? She realised Royce McQuillan would be a very busy man. Perhaps something had gone wrong at the station? Someone had injured themselves? She’d read it happened fairly frequently on Outback stations.
The same female airport attendant who had approached her once before came up to check again if she was all right. It was midafternoon now. Two long slow hours had gone by.
“I was supposed to be met by someone from Maramba Downs,” Carrie now explained. “I have to say I’m getting a bit anxious. Would you happen to know the station at all?”
The young woman’s face lit up. “Everyone knows Maramba up here. It’s one of the best cattle stations in the country. The McQuillan family is big in this part of the world. Something like royalty. You know Royce McQuillan?” the attendant trilled. Obviously she did.
“I’m here to be governess to his little girl,” Carrie told her.
The other young woman squealed. “Boy, you’d have fooled me. You don’t look like any governess I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen a few passing through.”
“Why is that?” Carrie asked, thinking governesses had to be intelligent young women.
“Heavens, you got off the plane like a movie star going incognito.” The attendant studied her afresh. “Say, why don’t you ring the station? Check on whether someone’s coming. It’s getting pretty late and it’s one heck of a drive. A good two hours and that’s really movin’.”
“I suppose I’d better.” Immediately Carrie stood, looking ’round her.
“I’ll keep an eye on your luggage,” the young attendant promised. “The phones are over there.” She pointed.
“Yes, I know. Thank you.” Carrie returned the friendly smile. “Won’t be long.”
A woman’s voice answered the phone, sounding very, very surprised. “But, my dear, I’m absolutely certain Mr. McQuillan knows nothing about this,” the voice informed her. “Why ever didn’t you let us know? How very foolish!”
Carrie launched straight into assuring the voice—it turned out to be the housekeeper—she had sent a fax the day before containing all the relevant details.
The upshot of the rather jarring conversation was the housekeeper advised her to take one of the airport buses into town and check into the Paradise Point hotel. Mr. McQuillan would be informed as soon as he came in. The inference plainly was Mr. McQuillan would be displeased and there was a certain amount of dubiousness about whether Carrie had in fact notified the station at all.
“Now, you’ve got that straight?” the housekeeper double-checked as though Carrie could very well be dimwitted.
“Yes, thank you. The Paradise Point hotel.”
“Just tell them you’re going on to Maramba Downs,” Carrie was further advised. “You won’t have to pay for anything.”
Carrie hung up, feeling slightly jaundiced. This definitely wasn’t a good start. She was highly relieved, too, the housekeeper wasn’t a member of the family. She sounded a real dragon.
She watched the tropic sun go down in fiery splendour from the small balcony off her room. They must have thought she was to be a guest of the station because she’d been booked into a room overlooking the sea that was definitely deluxe. Oh, well, if she had to, she’d pay the difference between it and what a station employee would normally rate.
Whatever had happened to her fax? The journal printout on the home office machine had given the OK result, so it must have been received. Yet the housekeeper, her voice saturated in doubt, had given the decided impression all faxes to the station were dealt with promptly. A mystery!
By six-thirty she was starting to get hungry. She’d had a light breakfast at home, keeping out of Glenda’s way, no lunch, nothing on the plane. A Coke at the airport terminal. Should she add dinner to the tab? The answer was yes. Royce McQuillan, if she ever saw him again, could dock her wages.
Carrie was running a brush through her hair when there was a knock on the door. She hadn’t asked for room service. Maybe they were going to downgrade her to a lower floor. She was determined to make light of this. She put down the brush, glanced at herself briefly in the mirror, then went to open the door.
Like the first moment she’d laid eyes on him she lost time. Royce McQuillan was standing there looking dazzlingly attractive in a khaki shirt, narrow jeans, dusty riding boots on his feet, his black hair glossy as a bird’s wing, wind-ruffled into curls, one of which had descended onto his bronze forehead. This was a seriously sexy man.
His very first words, however, were crisp and to the point. “Couldn’t you have let us know?”
“I did let you know.” She threw him a look of pure censure.
“How?” He surveyed her loftily from head to toe.
She eyed him back, struck afresh by such blazing vitality allied to nonchalant grace. It was even more evident
on his home ground, dressed like a cattle man. All he lacked was the big rakish Akubra.
“By fax,” she told him, feeling totally connected again. “I can prove it if I have to. At least I think I can. I might have thrown the result slip out. I wanted to leave Dad’s study neat.”
“You sent a fax?” Unexpectedly he lowered his rangy height into the nearest armchair, long legs out in front of him.
“You don’t believe me?” She tilted her chin.
His black eyes sparkled like jets. “How can you talk that way when you’re supposed to be the governess?” he drawled.
“What way?” She couldn’t quite understand him.
“I’m not used to bits of girls tilting their chin at me,” he explained.
“Right. I’ll stare at the floor.” Hadn’t she first thought his employees would address him staring at his feet? “I’m so sorry you didn’t get my message. I did send it. Perhaps it’s been missed.”
“Nope.” He ran a hand over his dashing black head. “I believe every last fax has been checked.”
“Then I don’t understand.” Carrie gestured a little wanly.
“Me, either. Anyway I’m here.”
“You drove in?” And it was such a trek she’d been told.
“I didn’t fly,” he said dryly. “It’s a long drive but too short to take up a plane.”
“How kind of you,” she murmured sweetly into the pause.
“Isn’t it? I’m damned hungry. It was one hell of a day. Have you eaten?”
Carrie shook her head. “I was just about to commit a mortal sin and put dinner on the tab.”
He laughed as though she amused him. “I have to wash up.” He got to his feet, waves of pure energy coming off every movement. “We’ll stay the night and travel back first thing in the morning. Suit you?”
