Walkabout Wife

by Dorothy Cork

  Meanwhile, she and Drew were looking at each other in the burning sunlight and she heard her own indrawn breath as she moved jerkily towards the Land Rover, opened the door and got in. He was beside her in seconds, but instead of starting the motor he put out his cigarette, stretched his arm along the back of the seat behind her shoulders and looked hard into her face.

  `Well? You want to chicken out?'

  `Suppose I do—'

  `Then it's too bad for you.'

  `You mean you wouldn't let me go? Isn't that rather —unfair? I've married you—you have a—a marriage certificate. What more do you want?'

  He looked at her levelly and then said drawlingly, `What would you say if I told you I wanted—you?'

  Edie felt her pulses begin to pound. 'What do you mean? You—you said 'you didn't expect to find yourself a real wife this way—'

  His mouth curved in a sardonic smile. 'It would be a chance in a million, wouldn't it? But you were a real surprise packet. Hardly the wacky little nurse I'd been expecting.' He raised a hand and his fingers trailed down her cheek, and she felt herself shiver. 'You're a stunner, Edie. You know that? You're as beautiful as the desert rose. Any man in my position would be tempted to take you for his wife in deed as well as in name.'

  She bit her lip and gazed out past him at the burning red of the earth, the straw-coloured grass trampled by the cattle, the deserted yards where the dust was no longer stirred. She looked at the trees beneath which there was now nothing but shadows since the stockmen's gear had gone, and from them a flock of white cockatoos flew up suddenly into the cloudless blue of the sky. She felt devastatingly aware of the fact that she was alone with Drew Sutton whose eyes, when she returned to them, were on her face like a caress. A caress that lingered on her eyes, then slipped gently down to her bosom, its curves plainly revealed by the pink cotton knit vest she wore.

  She turned her head away and said huskily, Tor heaven's sake, what kind of a wife do you think I'd make a—a cattleman? I—I hate it already out here at

  the muster camp—heat and dust and flies and—and

  no comforts—'

  `Good God, do you think that bothers me?' he said amusedly. `Do you think I'd expect any woman to follow me out here to the cattle? The pioneering days are over, my dear.'

  `But the days of isolation aren't, are they?' she re--joined. 'It's lonely here—don't you even know that?'

  `Sure I know it.' His eyes hardened. 'But when a woman has a home to look after, a man to come back to her at the end of the day, children, her life is full enough. Besides, we do have neighbours, you know—and ample room for house guests at Dhoora Dhoora.'

  She raised her eyebrows, her colour heightened. 'Are you—are you trying to persuade me to become your—your lawful wedded wife, Drew?'

  `You're the one who started talking about wives, Edie,' he said unfathomably. 'But if I did decide to persuade you into anything, believe me, it wouldn't be with words,' he concluded, and this time he did start the motor.

  Five minutes later she asked him tautly, 'Where are you taking me?'

  `To the homestead. That's what you want, isn't it?'

  `But you—you have to go out to the muster.'

  `I don't have to do a damned thing. I'm the boss here. I can please myself what I do. I'm taking you home, Edie, and I'm staying the night with you. No one's going to be surprised.'

  She shivered at the way he said it. 'You—you don't have to stay at the homestead. I'd—I'd rather you didn't.'

  She saw his lip curl. 'Now come on—you can't have it all your own way. I'm taking you home to please you, and to please myself I'm staying to keep you company.'

  `But—but why?' She remembered too clearly what he had just said about persuading her. Did she want to be persuaded to become his wife? Was it really any different from deciding you'd marry someone who'd advertised for a wife? Yes, it was very different, she decided. Because this was real, and that other mad thing she'd done—she'd never have seen it through. Yet, she reminded herself bewilderedly, now she was Mrs Drew Sutton. He'd persuaded her as far as that already. But with words, with nothing else.

  `Why?' she heard him say. 'So we can get on closer terms with each other, of course. Doesn't that make sense?'

  Edie had no idea what to say. She didn't even know if he was serious or not.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  UNPACKING in her room some time later that day, Edie wondered not for the first time why she had let herself be persuaded to marry him It seemed that, with one foolish action—answering that ad—she had set in train a whole chain of impossible events. Events that had no place in the life of Edie Asher, nurse. Now here she was more or less tied up intimately with a stranger—Drew Sutton.

  She tried to counter his presence in the homestead with indifference, but found it an ineffectual weapon on the very first night they were there together.

  That night after they'd eaten, Edie carried the dishes

  Out to the kitchen before joining him in the sitting room for the ritual of coffee. He had put a cassette on the recorder to provide soft background music, one lamp was lit and the long curtains had been pulled back from the open doors so that the cooler air of night flowed into the room, bringing with it the scent of roses. Romantic, was Edie's first thought, but Drew asked her over his coffee, 'Do you play chess?'

  She shook her head, a little taken aback.

  `Shall I teach you?'

  `No, thank you,' she said, somehow not caring for the idea. 'I wouldn't be any good at it,' she added to excuse herself. 'I have no head for strategy. I'd rather just—'

  `Just what?' he wanted to know, as she paused, uncertain as to what she had been going to say.

  His silvery eyes were travelling over her insinuatingly, and she told him hastily, 'Just talk.'

  `Fine,' he said with a faint smile.

  Following that there was complete silence. Drew was leaving it up to her and she had no idea what to talk about. As well, she found it distinctly hard to think while he was leaning back in his chair looking at her the way he was.

  `Did you live in this house as a child?' she asked him desperately at last.

  He looked surprised. 'I thought I told you my father managed the outstation. I lived there till I was going on for seventeen. I'll take you over there one day. You'll like Damien and his wife Mickie. They're what you might call our nearest neighbours.'

  Edie bit her lip. The idea of meeting neighbours—being introduced as his wife—having to act that way—was nerve-racking. Anyhow, 'one day' meant nothing, so she wasn't going to worry about it yet. She glanced

  uneasily around the big room, and the soft lighting and the romantic music disturbed her. She thought of all those other empty rooms, and she asked, still tense, `Surely your uncle didn't live here alone till you came! He wasn't married, was he?'

  `No. But of course he didn't live alone. He had a housekeeper.' He leaned forward and set down his coffee cup on the tray she had placed on a small table, then still leaning forward, his legs apart, he lit a cigarette and looked at her narrowly through the smoke. `Mien I was thirteen or so, and away at boarding school, my aunt Anne and my cousin Greg, who was then a kid of eight, came to live here. Four years later, as I told you, I joined the household, and as well as that, Laurel Clarkson, my aunt's goddaughter, spent a fair bit of time with us. So you see, we were quite a family.'

  `And it all broke up after your uncle died?' Edie relaxed a little and leaned back in her chair, her hands behind her head. It seemed a pity a big house like this should be so empty—and it hadn't been so in other days. Suddenly aware that her posture had drawn Drew's eyes to her bosom, she lowered her arms and hunched herself forward over her knees. 'Your cousin Greg—he's the one who'll inherit Dhoora Dhoora if you're not married?'

  He smiled slightly showing his white teeth and corrected her. 'Greg won't inherit Dhoora Dhoora, Edie. Have you forgotten? I'm married—I have a wife.'

  Disconcerted, she blushed deeply and said e
dgily, `Well, it doesn't really seem fair to me. I mean, if he lived here all that time—from when he was a little boy, a lot younger than you. And after all, his mother was a Sutton—'

  `Not by birth. But true, Greg is a Sutton—our fathers were twin brothers. After Anne was widowed,

  she'd have liked to marry my uncle, and she came here

  with her son with exactly that in mind. She's a very

  ambitious woman, is Anne. However, it didn't happen.'

  It was the way he spoke rather than the words he said that made Edie comment, 'You don't like her.'

  He shrugged. 'I respect her—as I'd respect any businesswoman. Unlike you, she thrives on games of strategy. It takes a keen opponent to get the better of her, in fact.'

  `You used to play chess with her?'

  `I'm not talking about chess. I'm talking about a different kind of game.'

  She didn't know what he meant and he didn't offer to explain, so after a moment she asked, 'Where does she live now—since you took over?'

  One eyebrow rose. 'I hope you're not picturing me showing her the door ... She married again shortly after Uncle Philip's death—a man she'd known for some years. A horse breeder, and a friend of her first husband's, if it's of any interest to you.'

  `What happened to the others?' Edie asked, ignoring this gibe and not caring if he thought her inquisitive. `Greg—and your aunt's goddaughter?'

  `Greg decided to leave Dhoora Dhoora—entirely of his own free will. At twenty-one, he wasn't what you'd call co-operative, and he hadn't reached the stage where he could be made responsible for running the outstation. And of course, at that time, it looked as if Dhoora Dhoora was as good as mine with my marriage coming up.'

  He said no more, and Edie, still hunched forward over her knees, was suddenly sombre. His marriage. But Deborah had died—just days before the wedding, it seemed. Although it had happened probably nine years ago, she somehow felt it would be insensitive on

  her part to intrude on that part of his life. Drew had remained unmarried, and the logical explanation for that fact seemed to be that he hadn't got over the loss of his fiancée. She glanced at him covertly and said in a low voice, 'It must have been a bad time for you ... What did Greg do? Didn't he ever want to come back?'

  `No. He'd never been strongly attached to Dhoora Dhoora. It was mainly my aunt who had her eye on it. She didn't manage to get herself married to Philip, but she's not the sort of woman who gives up easily ... As for what Greg's been doing during the past few years, I couldn't really tell you. He took some interest in his stepfather's business and I've a strong suspicion he did a bit of betting on the horses. Since I was unmarried, he had a good income from Dhoora Dhoora. As a matter of fact, up until lately he's made a habit of paying a visit here once or twice a year. Possibly, among other things, to check how I was doing in the matrimonial stakes.'

  `Is—is he likely to come here at this time?' Edie asked, a faint alarm in her heart.

  `I hardly think so. He's shot off to Ireland to visit his mother and stepfather. Brian inherited a bloodstock farm in Limerick about a year ago, and Greg wanted to have a look at it. I imagine the farm needs money putting into it, and that's one reason I more than suspect Dhoora Dhoora would be put on the market if it went to Greg.'

  `I—I suppose you've let them know you're married,' she said uncomfortably.

  `I haven't, as a matter of fact. After all, it's barely happened yet, has it?'

  Edie crimsoned. 'But it has—happened. You surely won't wait till the eighteenth to let them know the station belongs to you?'

  `I'll probably write to my solicitors next week,' he said shortly. 'After that, it's up to them. And these things always take time.' He added, with an abruptness that took her by surprise, 'Come and sit by me on the couch, Edie. You've had your fill of talking by now, surely, and it's unnerving to sit here looking at you across a space of five feet under the circumstances.'

  She stopped herself just in time from asking, 'What circumstances?' because she suspected he was referring to the fact they were, supposedly, married. Instead, she parried the invitation by remarking, 'I'd better take the coffee tray out to the kitchen.'

  She picked up her cup from the floor, then stood up and crossed to the low table near the couch, but before she could stoop to it, Drew rose abruptly, brushing against her arm so that she dropped her cup and saucer on the floor. She uttered an involuntary exclamation of annoyance, but before she could even see what damage she had done, her wrist was encircled by his fingers and he had pulled her against him.

  `Come on now, Edie, haven't we played it civilised for long

  enough?' he muttered. 'You know damned well how I'm beginning to feel about you, don't you?'

  His face was inches from hers and she stared up into his eyes as though mesmerized. He had captured both her wrists and he held them behind her back as savagely as if she had been threatening him some way. She tried frantically to escape, but managed only to move her head, and immediately felt the roughness of his jaw against her forehead.

  `Let me go,' she breathed. 'You're hurting me!'

  `Then keep still,' he ordered, and she felt his thumbs pressing even harder against the delicate bones of her wrists.

  `We can't go on being strangers like this—it's not possible—'

  `It's possible to me,' she said on a breath that hurt. I'd—I'd prefer it.'

  `I don't believe that.'

  `You'll have to,' she panted, and twisted again in his grasp. He released her for the fraction of a second, but only to grasp her by the upper arms, so that now her breast was crushed against him.

  `I want you, Edie,' she heard him breathe, and then he cupped one hand against the back of her head and his face came down to hers. 'Give in, give in,' he murmured against her lips.

  She had known this would happen. She had known all along that he'd use his superior male strength against her. And it was so undignified to struggle—to scratch and bite and kick. And besides—besides-- She heard herself give a soft moan as his mouth covered hers, and with her breath now gone and her body drawn intimately against his, she had no choice but to submit as he pulled her down with him on the long couch where he had been sitting a moment ago. -

  The cassette music cut out, the room was suddenly quiet. Vaguely, she heard the far-off cry of a mopoke, but after that she was aware of nothing except that Drew's body was covering hers, and his mouth was demanding more and more response from her—a response that she was quite helplessly giving.

  It wasn't until he began undoing the buttons of her cream silk blouse and whispering urgently against her hair, 'Come to bed, Edie ! It's crazy to be messing about here'—that she forced herself to move away from him. He let her go, but not because he thought he'd lost out. On the contrary. Glancing at him, she was shocked by the heat of the desire she saw in his eyes. Her own

  body was trembling, and she was so keyed up it was

  beyond her for the moment to force herself to her feet.

  She put her hands over her eyes and told him unevenly, 'You—you told me I might have to remind you of your promise

  `To hell with promises,' he said softly but violently. `Aren't feelings—human emotions—more important than promises? I want you, Edie—don't let's talk—don't let's run away from it. Come to bed.' He had got to his feet and now he leaned down and, as if she weighed nothing, lifted her in his arms. She felt his male strength encircle her, and an obliterating warmth invaded her body so that shelonged weakly to feel his lips on her own again. And not in vain either, for his mouth was devouring hers as he carried her from the softly lit room along the hallway to her own bedroom.

  `We're married,' she kept reminding herself drowningly.

  Drew didn't switch the light on, but a warm radiance from the moon fell across the verandah and lessened the darkness inside. He pulled back the bedspread with a sweeping movement and deposited her on the mattress, and she lay there, her dark hair fanned out around her face, not moving, her he
art beating fast, a sensual lethargy possessing her so that she was incapable of rational thought. As though she were deep in a dream, she watched him start to undress, and then, crazily, just as he unzipped his trousers, the quiet of the night was shattered.

  Someone was banging on the front door and a man's voice was calling 'Drew! ' repeatedly.

  Edie's nerves revolted and her body felt as if it had been flung hard and violently against solid rock. Her heart thumped at the shock of the rude interruption.

  `Hell and damnation!' she heard Drew mutter. 'It's

  Frank—I'll have to bloody well go—'

  In seconds he had melted from the room and she sat up, hugging her knees. Was this fate stepping in—giving her time to reassess? Because—because, she thought appalled, wasn't this exactly how single girls got pregnant—carried away by the emotion of the moment? It was all very well for her to have told herself that she and Drew were married, she had no guarantee he'd been thinking of it that way. For all she knew, he might be no different from other men who'd wanted to make love to her—men who weren't interested in marriage or permanence or fidelity, but only in possessing her body for their own pleasure.

  She drew a deep shuddering breath, feeling her heartbeats slowing down to normal. She had wanted Drew to be her lover—she had wanted it more than anything. But for that interruption, it would have happened by now, there'd be no going back.

  She looked at the luminous clock on the bedside table. What on earth could Frank Wilson want at this time of the night? Though, ludicrously, it was only just after half past nine. Her thoughts had stopped their dizzy circling and the clamouring in her body was subsiding and she became aware of the sound of voices. Then a wire door slammed, footsteps crunched across gravel—and the silence came back. Drew must have left the house with Frank Why? Was it some emergency? She'd better get up, find out what was happening.