Walkabout Wife

by Dorothy Cork

  `Write you a letter and walk out!' Edie echoed, only half aware of what he'd said after that. 'What did you expect me to do, I'd like to know? Make a—a threesome tonight?'

  Joe moved. 'Come on, Edie. Whatever it is you've got yourself into you're better out of it.' He turned and grasped her arm, but she pulled away from him.

  `It won't be a threesome,' said Drew, still ignoring Joe. 'Laurel's gone.' Now it was he who took hold of her arm and he did it roughly, possessively, pulling her towards him with a sharp movement. She didn't resist, and she was so close to him she felt herself melting, giving way, wanting him.

  `Where's she gone?' she asked huskily.

  `I don't know and I don't care. Come home, Edie—'

  It was the way he said it. It was like when he said, Come to bed. She said weakly, 'Oh, Drew—' and leaned her head against his chest.

  `Yes?' Drew muttered against her hair.

  `Yes,' she breathed. 'Oh—yes ! ' She didn't understand—not yet. But she would. She only knew it was going to come right after all.

  After that, she was rather vague as to what happened.

  She remembered leaning out of the Land Rover and calling across to Joe, as they took off, 'Tell Barb it's all right. Truly. I'll be in touch.'

  And then she and Drew were alone.

  She knew she was utterly committed now, and while something in her was at peace there were things she had to know. About Laurel. She had gone, but Edie didn't know why. Reason told her it was because Drew wanted it that way. Hadn't he said, 'I don't care where she's gone?' And hadn't he—hadn't he held Edie in his arms and said 'Come home'—in a way that destroyed all her defences?

  `Drew—' she began uncertainly.

  He was driving fast—dangerously fast except that there were no other cars on the road. All that was following them was a cloud of red dust.

  `What?' he cast her a quick, half-smiling glance. `Have you suddenly remembered your baggage? Don't worry—I didn't forget it, it's stashed away in the back. You won't have to go naked.'

  `Oh,' she said vaguely. 'No, I—I wasn't thinking about my clothes, Drew. I was—I was wondering about Laurel.'

  He swore softly beneath his breath. 'Damn Laurel ... Well, I suppose we must talk about her some time, so let's get it over. What's on your mind?'

  What was on her mind! What an infuriating male attitude to take ! Her jealousy was dying hard, but to be fair, she realised he didn't know much about that. She said mildly, `I'm sorry, Drew, but if you don't tell me I'll always be wondering. I knew you were engaged to her, you see—long before she told me so today.'

  `You did? How?'

  `Oh, I found out accidentally. There was that room at Dhoora Dhoora and then—well, Mickie thought

  you'd told me from something I said and—'

  `Good God!' he interrupted. Was that what got into you the day we were at the outstation? Why on earth didn't you tell me?'

  `Why didn't you tell me?' she countered. 'You could have—right at the beginning, when you explained why you needed a wife.'

  `I could see no reason to bring Laurel into it. The engagement was off, and all I was planning, if you can remember that far back, was a temporary alliance with a girl I had no intention of becoming involved with. I certainly didn't know I was going to fall in love with you then, Edie.'

  Her heart missed a beat. 'When did you fall in love with me, Drew?'

  He stepped a little harder on the accelerator. 'For heaven's sake don't let's start talking about that sort of thing now,' he said half humorously. 'I know where it will lead to even if you don't—and surely by now you know my preference for making love in bed.'

  Her pulses stirred and the colour came into her cheeks. Her thoughts raced ahead to when they'd be at the homestead—alone, and—well, she'd said yes now, hadn't she? Somehow she didn't think the dinner she'd planned—or even the roses—would be put on the table till very very late tonight, if at all ... With an effort she came back to the present.

  `What I was doing in contracting that marriage,' said Drew, 'was making a counter-move to defeat my aunt's strategies. But I suppose that doesn't make a lot of sense to you.' Actually, it made more sense than he knew, because she'd read his aunt's letter, but she wasn't going to confess to that now. 'You know about my cousin Greg,' Drew continued. 'Of course my aunt

  wanted him to take over Dhoora Dhoora, and for that reason she didn't want Laurel to marry me. I think I told you once she has a great head for strategy—'

  `So she invited Laurel to Ireland,' Edie put in.

  `Right. After having first prepared the ground by giving Laurel the idea she was something of a femme fatale and could take her pick between me and Greg—thereby, of course, deciding who was to have Dhoora Dhoora. It's wonderful how a sense of power can go to a woman's head. Laurel fell for the deal because at one stage she and Greg had had quite an affair—until she'd decided she'd set her cap at me. Anyhow, I was well aware of my aunt's motives, and I told Laurel that she could choose between me and a trip to Ireland. In effect, if she went, then we were washed up.'

  `And she—went?' Edie asked.

  `Yes, she went. I didn't tell her my own plans, of course. She decided she didn't like being dictated to, and the way she saw it was that I was going to need a wife very soon—so I was in no position to dictate. She thought she could come back if it pleased her.'

  `Didn't she—love you?'

  He grimaced. 'Let's face it, it wasn't exactly a love match on either side. I'd never fallen in love since Debbie died, and it looked as if I never would. I had to have a wife, and Laurel was willing, so--' He shrugged. 'It didn't matter to me that Laurel loved herself better than anyone. She's not warm like you, Edie —she's selfish and cerebral and she liked her feeling of power, not knowing how ill-based it was. Oh, I daresay she thought Ireland might have more to offer her than the outback, and no doubt there was the thought that if Greg sold Dhoora Dhoora there'd be all that money to play around with.'

  But she came back—she chose you, Drew,' said

  Edie, well aware that his aunt, in her letter, had said Laurel was going to marry Greg.

  `Oh yes, she chose me,' Drew said cynically. 'She didn't tell me why, but my guess is she somehow or other discovered she wasn't going to have much say in what was to be done with the money.'

  At that point their conversation came to a temporary standstill, because they'd reached Dhoora Dhoora and Edie had to start opening gates and closing them again.

  They didn't talk again, in fact, till they were home, and Drew had carried her luggage back into the bedroom she'd left with such different feelings earlier in the afternoon—in what seemed another lifetime.

  He set her suitcase down and looked across at her as she stood near the bed, and his eyes explored the whole of her as he said slowly, 'Remember the first time you came here, Edie—before we were married?'

  Edie nodded. If she wanted, she thought, she could have gone over every minute of her life—in detail—from the first minute she met Drew. He had changed it so drastically. She remembered the night she'd told him she didn't want him coming into her room, and she remembered that evening in the rose garden when he'd kissed her for the first time. More than kissed her. He'd just come home from the muster camp and his face and his clothes had been covered in red dust just as they were now. She'd told him scornfully that she didn't find him attractive, yet deep down, even then, she'd known that wasn't true. Even then she'd found him madly exciting, and she knew she'd never been the same after that kiss.

  `It's turned out unexpectedly, hasn't it?' Drew said reminiscently into her thoughts. He'd come across the room to her and now he raised his hand and drew one

  dust-roughened finger slowly down the smooth curve of her cheek. His eyes were more serious than she had ever seen them, and they stared at each other for a long moment while his finger caressed her cheek, then moved to her throat. Edie wanted to cry, simply because he was there and she was looking into his eyes—loving him. It
had had to come right : she knew that now. They must have been meant by the gods to meet —it couldn't possibly have worked out as it had otherwise.

  `When I brought you home that day,' Drew told her, `I didn't have the slightest idea I was going to fall so damn hard in love with you—even though your looks nearly knocked me out. All I knew at the beginning was that I badly wanted to make love to you. And I was so entirely ignorant of your character I took it for granted you'd slept with other men. Do you know—the fact you hadn't really shook me? It was round about then I began to realize how irrevocably I'd fallen in love with you.'

  `I—I wish you'd told me about Laurel then,' said Edie.

  His lips curved in a crooked smile. 'Good God ! I had enough to contend with without tossing in the irrelevant details of an engagement that had ended without a tinge of regret on my part. I'm aware a woman's imagination can really run riot over something like that.'

  `Mine did,' Edie admitted, though it didn't seem to matter now. 'I hated you and I hated Laurel. I guess I even hated myself. And when—when she came back today and said she was going to marry you, I think I just wanted to die.'

  `You make me feel a brute,' he muttered. He touched his lips to her eyelids, and then his arms went around her and he pulled her down on the bed with him. All

  her longing for him was stirred up as he held her against him and kissed her hungrily.

  `I love you, Edie,' he said a minute later, his voice low and urgent.

  `I love you too, Drew—so much it hurts.' Her lips found his this time and he moved away from her.

  `Don't,' he said. He let go of her and sat up. 'Don't make love to me that way, Edie—not yet. I'm filthy. I can't go to bed with you like this—not your first time. Can you wait while I shower?'

  `If you really want me to,' she said huskily. 'But I don't care if you're showered or not, Drew—I love you.' Her hands reached for him and moved to the muscles of his chest under his shirt.

  `Stop it, Edie,' he groaned, coming down to her again. 'Oh God—I'm glad no one else has ever made love to you! I think I'd want to kill him. Old-fashioned, aren't I?'

  Edie didn't care if he was old-fashioned or not. His mouth was against hers and then he was saying the words she most wanted to hear.

  `Come to bed, Edie—come to bed.'