by Margaret Way
It was Laura who took a little step back, blinking to break the spell. He was so compelling, so at ease within his own body. His whole aura flowed over her.
“I’ll wash my hands in the laundry,” she said quickly. “Why don’t you go into the house?”
“Maybe I’ll put coffee on.” He started to move off with long strides. He knew he could fluster her very easily, but he was loath to make her feel threatened in any way. Secrecy surrounded Laura as he supposed it surrounded him.
“I’d like a cup,” she called.
He was grinding the coffee beans—good beans, a present from him—when she came in the back door, quietly removing the big straw hat. She was the classic romantic heroine, with her sensitivity and her lovely dreamy face.
“You want it straight?” he asked.
“Unless it’s terrible news, Evan. Nothing about Sarah or Kyall.” Her green eyes were registering concern.
“No,” he hastened to reassure her. “It’s about Ruth McQueen. She’s disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” She looked across at him in astonishment. “From where? The homestead—Wunnamurra? Sarah was only there yesterday.”
“I’ll tell you what I know.” He began to measure the coffee into the pot. “Harriet Crompton rang me. She and Sarah are very close, as you know. It appears fears are held for Mrs McQueen’s safety. She’s nowhere in the main compound. They’re searching the bush.”
“Oh, how dreadful!” Laura slumped into the curved banquette, wondering if this new development had something to do with yesterday’s confrontation.
“Has something occurred to you?” He shot her a razor-sharp glance.
“Me? What would I know?” she evaded. “I’ve never even met Mrs McQueen, but I’ve certainly had time to gather she’s an extraordinary person.”
“A real tyrant. But something flickered in your eyes.” God knew he was getting to know her face intimately. “I couldn’t help noticing Sarah paid you a visit yesterday afternoon. Her car was out front.”
“She naturally wanted to see what I was making of the place. With your help, as I told her. I’m very grateful.”
“People like us should stick together,” he said sardonically, thinking an army of men would be tripping over themselves trying to help her. “Anyway, that was the message as relayed by Harriet. Sarah wanted you to know. Apparently they’re all very upset.”
“I don’t like the sound of this, Evan,” she said, understanding her friend Sarah’s relationship with Ruth McQueen wasn’t good.
“What do you think has gone wrong?” He assembled cups, saucers, spoons, cream and sugar. He knew the place as well as she did.
“Why would a woman like Ruth McQueen wander off?” Laura propped her elbow on the table, supporting her white brow with her hand. “Maybe she needed a place to think?”
“So far away no one would ever find her?” he asked dryly.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure. We haven’t heard the whole story, Laura. Gossip here and there. A warning. Don’t ever get caught by Ruby Hall. Someone ought to caution her. She’s dreadfully reckless with the truth.”
“That’s the town sticky beak? I picked that up from Harriet.”
“Be on your guard. I can promise you she’ll be on your case.”
“Won’t do her much good.” Laura smiled. “I can be as determinedly non-forthcoming as you.”
“Not possible, Laura.” That beautiful rare smile again.
“I won’t argue. But thanks for the tip. I’ll know to steer clear of Ruby without making an enemy of her.”
“Good.” He didn’t crowd her, but went to the opposite end of the banquette. It was too damned cramped anyway, especially for a man his size. “There aren’t supposed to be secrets in bush towns. Ruth McQueen from all accounts is a ruthless woman. Not liked at all, while Kyall is universally admired. Mrs McQueen is vehemently against Sarah, as I imagine you know. She idolizes her grandson. Sarah and Kyall have just become engaged and the balance of power has shifted. Dictators don’t like that.”
“No,” she replied briefly, her mind never far from Colin. “Perhaps she’s trying to scare them by vanishing?” Laura tested her idea on him.
“Emotional blackmail, do you mean? She could take that approach,” he said dubiously. “On the other hand a woman like that must feel she’s in total control.”
She had experience of the rage when a controller like Colin didn’t feel that way. “It doesn’t sound good,” Laura offered sombrely.
“No.”
“Sarah was so very, very happy yesterday. I would hate that to change.”
“So would I. Sarah deserves to be happy. It’s time for her to be.”
“It doesn’t sound as though she could be happy living at the McQueen homestead with that very grand lady who’ll do anything to upset her.”
“Kyall won’t let that happen. I’m sure all will be resolved.”
“Sadly, life’s not always like that.”
“Don’t fall into the doldrums. Eat that biscuit,” he said. “You haven’t put on an ounce.”
Her expression lightened. “What was it the Duchess of Windsor used to say?”
“One can’t be too rich or too thin,” he answered.
“Being rich doesn’t ensure happiness,” she said.
“No, it doesn’t. The first time I saw you I thought you were a poor little rich girl with a tale to tell.”
“I know.”
“You do come from a privileged background?”
“You surely don’t want me to apologize for it?”
He shook his head. “Of course not. I was one of the lucky ones myself. But I would like to hear what you’re holding back. It’s hard to believe a too-demanding boyfriend could cause you such grief.”
Why couldn’t she say it? It’s my husband. He’s brutal by nature, with darkness in him. “You don’t know what I’m dealing with, Evan,” was all she could manage at the time.
“Tell me.” He caught her fingers briefly, felt their tremble.
“Maybe I don’t want you to see me as I am.” It came out so very starkly she herself was shocked.
“If you’re trying to tell me you’ve done bad things in your life, I just don’t believe it.”
“Not bad things, no.” God, she hoped not. Was it bad to have allowed Colin to rape her? For that was what it had been. No love. No consent. But she couldn’t have stopped him without being knocked senseless.
“In retrospect I can see how naïve I’ve been. I don’t admire myself for it. I’ve accepted people at face value. If they were nice to me I thought they were nice people. But some wear handsome masks to hide their ugly faces. Maybe they’re really devils, or in the devil’s employ? That’s when despair comes.”
The mere thought of her entangled with a “devil” chilled his blood. Goodness knew, he’d seen the face of evil in a beautiful woman. “Laura, if you’re in a bad situation you have to get free,” he said, with some passion.
She closed her eyes. “I know that. I’m working on it. I don’t feel alone. But I need a little time.” Why couldn’t she simply say, Something horrible happened to me, Evan. A marriage that shamed me. She didn’t realize that hers was a classic response from innocent victims of abuse.
“Did you live with this man?” Evan asked bluntly, giving in to his first bitter taste of something near jealousy. He hated it.
Her beautiful clear eyes became shuttered. “He told me he loved me. He swore it time after time.”
“It sounds more like he terrorized you.” His voice was grim.
Laura shook her head, not ready to tell anyone outside Sarah, another woman, what she had suffered at Evan’s hands. “I just fell out of love with him.” She took a quick sip of her coffee, swallowed it.
“Are you sure of that?”
“Haven’t I come here to escape?”
“Obviously he has a powerful hold on you?”
“Yes.” No point in lying.
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“Laura, I’m sorry.”
She couldn’t fail to recognize his sincerity. “I’m sorry too. But it’s my own fault. I was the easiest target.” She wondered what he would ask next.
“You know, you’re the one who has to decide you need help. Or do you want to deliver yourself back to him.”
“God, no!” She couldn’t stop the shudder. “What an unbearable thought. But he won’t let go.” In fact I’m certain he’s already begun looking, she thought.
“That might well be the case with you?” he watched her face. “You can’t let go either.”
“That’s not right, Evan,” she said, very quietly, her soft lovely features firming with resolve.
“Then help is at hand, Laura. All you have to do is want it.”
“You have no use for weak people, do you?” She lifted her head.
“I don’t regard you as weak. Whatever makes you think that?”
“I’m not a woman of substance.” She fought against sudden tears.
“I’d like to be—I’m going to be—a woman of substance, like Sarah,” she said.
“Sarah has had her troubles, I’m sure. And they’ve left their mark on her. As my bad experiences have left an indelible mark on me. You’re younger than either of us. One doesn’t know everything at twenty or twenty-three. That’s no age at all! One’s whole life is a process of learning. Obviously someone has gone out of their way to try to crush your spirit. After your father died you must have felt very much alone.”
“I really needed him.” She forced her grip on her coffee cup to relax. “I don’t think I’ve felt safe for years. Certainly for a long time now the feeling of safety has eluded me.”
“What drew you to your doctor, then?” he asked, using a quiet, soothing voice. “Why did you fall in love with him?”
She put a hand beneath her satin hair. “He’s very handsome. Nothing like you.”
“Thank you.” His mouth turned down.
“I mean he’s an entirely different type. Golden-haired. Azure blue eyes. Cold, cold, cold. Nowhere near as tall as you, or so powerfully built. He’s slim. Very elegant, in his way. He’s terribly interested in clothes. He wears only the best.”
“These are very superficial things, Laura,” he chided her.
“You asked. I’m trying to answer. He’s clever. He’s very highly regarded.”
“What’s his speciality?”
“I’m not saying. I’ve already told you too much. He’s very much admired.”
“It occurs to me you don’t admire him.” His deep voice was dry.
“He’s so clever he can be insufferable,” she burst out, then stopped abruptly. “That’s all I’m telling you, Evan.”
“Well, it’s a start.” He continued to study her expressive face.
“I don’t buy your cover either,” she countered. “I’m going to steal into your place one day…”
“To do what?” He narrowed his eyes at her.
“Search for clues. You could be an international spy. Are they still around?”
“Of course they are,” he confirmed. “They’re all out there in the arena. All the major powers, all the little guys spying on each other. The most extraordinary thing is even if they’re on the same side they won’t tell each other what they’ve learned. The strongest intelligence agencies just don’t want to share.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Worse, it could be criminal negligence.”
“You’ve travelled widely?” It was good to shift the focus from herself.
“I have. A lot of the time hitching rides. Moving on.”
“An adventurer?”
“Something like that.”
“Why did you move here? It’s not your environment. You couldn’t be more isolated.”
“That was the big attraction,” he said dryly. “The isolation and the lure of the desert. Though the desert was nearly the death of me.”
“How? Please go on.” She was fascinated.
“I was with an anthropologist friend who was visiting sacred sites when our helicopter crashed. One minute we were sitting pretty, the next falling out of the sky. This is it! It’s all over! The pilot was badly injured, but Greg and I managed to get him clear before the chopper exploded. Search and Rescue spotted us.”
“A bad experience.”
“I’ve had worse.” And a lot closer, he thought.
“There must have been some good ones?” she insisted, admiring the way his thick dark hair curled around his head and onto his nape.
“Many beautiful and unforgettable ones. The heavenly peaks of the Himalayas. I didn’t climb. I took it easy in a chopper. And perhaps the most awesome journey was to Antarctica, some years back.” Hell, would she remember his photograph on the back cover of his book, complete with full beard? “I got to see a glorious world with a group of great guys from all over,” he continued briskly. “In a curious way the vastness, the overwhelming feeling of being a speck, alone in its powerful effect, isn’t unlike the feeling one gets in the heart of the Outback. You recognise how tough it is to survive. The huskies howl as mournfully as any dingo. The thought that one could easily lose one’s life is the same in both places.”
“Which makes us full of admiration for all our explorers.”
“Lord, yes,” he agreed fervently, even reverently. “It’s not a question of pushing to the limits. It’s going beyond human endurance. And the beauty of the place! The Outback is all brilliant oven-baked ochres. Extremes of colour—blood-red, cobalt blue, the rich gold of the Spinifex plains. A world of great heat and dancing mirage. Antarctica is blinding whiteness. A world of ice with tinges of aqua in the crevices. From the great red pyramids of the desert, its shifting sands sculpted by the winds, to the frozen pyramids of ice and the swirling white blizzards.”
“I’m forming instant pictures.” Laura shivered. “How long were you there?”
“A little over two weeks, then I had to move on.” He didn’t say he’d been due back in Washington.
“I would think an experience like that would not only be memorable it would stay for ever.”
“Like a space flight to the moon.” He smiled.
“I’m surprised you haven’t been there.” she gently mocked.
“I’ve talked to a guy who has.”
“Truly?”
He nodded, turning his head as a familiar strident sound interrupted them. “That’s the phone. I’ll get it, if you like. It could be Harriet. I asked her to ring us if she had news.”
“I pray it’s good!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE shock of Ruth McQueen’s death immediately encompassed the whole town, although no one was informed of the exact circumstances. The official word was heart attack.
The fact that she had gone for a long walk in the bush no one found extraordinary. Ruth McQueen, after all, had run a great Outback station almost single-handedly for many years after her husband’s premature death. She had led a full and active life, in her youth and middle life having piloted her own plane over the vast wilderness that was the country’s Red Heart.
Ruth McQueen was the Outback like few other women, the matriarch of a great pioneering family. What everyone did consider extraordinary was she had gone off on her own without telling anyone. A grave mistake in the bush. Even seasoned stockmen had found themselves lost.
But Ruth McQueen, paradoxically respected and loathed, had been a bold woman, and appropriately she had died boldly, perhaps wishing to end her life out in the wild bush rather than in her bed. For it was soon made public that Ruth McQueen had had a heart condition she had been advised would kill her if she persisted in living her life to extremes.
One would have needed to know Ruth McQueen and her family intimately to begin to understand the true circumstances that had led to her death. But, as with most things pertaining to powerful families’ affairs, the exact truth would never be known. It would do no good. Rather, a lot of harm—which was w
hy the McQueen family reached a unanimous agreement to bury the matriarch with the full honours they all knew she did not deserve.
It was called burying Ruth with her sins. But first the family had to come together in solidarity. Perpetuate a myth.
Kyall’s younger sister, Christine, a glamorous international model, would be asked to return home. No one was absolutely sure she would. The late Ruth McQueen had to take much of the blame for her granddaughter’s defection.
The shoot had actually begun with a crew call at six o’clock in the morning. Christine had had to be on the set by eight o’clock for hair and make-up. The photographer, a famous one, favoured working early mornings or late afternoons. This was a big budget shoot to launch a French designer’s new collection of trousers, trouser suits, evening tuxedos and smoking suits with the waistcoats, shirts and blouses that went with them.
Christine had been engaged for the project because she looked fabulous in trousers. She had a tall, ultra-lean, sexy body. Add to that she was beautiful, with a healthy vivacious look that was gaining ground against the anorexic waifs. She had gorgeous blue eyes and that wonderful lavish hair. She was also intelligent, co-operative, good humoured, and clever enough to come up with many different looks. A winning recipe for becoming a success.
Christine had never dreamed about success when she had fled her home, the historic sheep station Wunnamurra in the Australian Outback. Her flight had been to escape her mother’s and her grandmother’s domination.
By sixteen she had grown into a frame inherited from her father’s side of the family—nearly six feet tall, with wide shoulders, a shapely bust, lean through the torso and flanks, and long, long legs. Her mother was short of stature, like her grandmother. They made up for it with their lofty, commanding manner.
Both had been uncomfortable with the fact Christine had grown “so big”. They did not find it attractive. It was splendid for brother Kyall, the McQueen heir, to top six-three; disaster for a young woman. Men would treat her with wry amusement. Women would either be sympathetic or cruel.
