An Outback Affair/Runaway Wife/Outback Bridegroom/Outback Surrender/Home To Eden

by Margaret Way

  He sounded in deadly earnest, his expression taut, his eyes like diamonds.

  Very gently she reached up on tiptoe, locking her arms around his neck. “Brock Tyson, you fill me with wonder.” Her voice communicated a deep loving intensity. “Love, what a miracle! I can’t believe I’ve found it. Of course I love you. I was born to love you. I’ll love you until I draw my last breath.”

  “And through eternity!” Brock slipped his arms around her, answering with corresponding emotion. As he gazed down at her a great hush grew between them, a full awareness of their commitment to each other. The great wisdom of it.

  “Go on, kiss her!” Eula finally burst out, a beaming smile on her face. Picture it, picture it—these two lovely young people coming together! It was wonderful, and didn’t they both deserve some happiness in life? “Bless me heart, Brock,” she chortled. “You oughtta kiss her. Come on now, a big kiss.”

  “Thank you for that, Eula.” Brock threw her a devastating smile that pinked her cheeks. Then, spreading his long fingers along Shelley’s soft cheek, he bent his head and very thoroughly obliged.

  This love of mine! he thought, filled with tenderness and desire. So precious. How had he got through life without loving Shelley? From this day forth there were new worlds to conquer. The prospect was tremendously exciting. He knew he could accomplish anything with Shelley by his side.

  EPILOGUE

  Mulgaree Station, four months later

  ACROSS the huge bedroom Shelley caught her reflection in the free-standing cheval mirror. She looked beautiful, more beautiful than she had ever hoped to look in her life. Her wedding dress was gold-tinged ivory silk, with a strapless bodice hand-sewn with exquisite crystals, tiny pearls and beads. The skirt, tightly waisted, was similarly decorated, billowing in a wonderfully romantic fashion to the floor.

  She wore a three-quarter veil, the tulle bordered for some inches in the same ivory-gold shot silk as her gown, held in place by a diadem of roses fashioned from ivory and gold silk. It curved around her head, the colour and lustre accenting the red-gold of her hair, which she’d left flowing because that was the way Brock liked it. That he loved her so deeply she still found astonishing. Brock was her future, her dream, her heart.

  Around her neck and in her ears she wore his gift to her.

  “With your skin, it just has to be pearls,” he’d told her, bending to kiss her cheeks, her mouth, her throat.

  And what pearls they were! The finest in the world. They had flown to Broome in the Northern Territory, the headquarters of the Australian pearling industry, to select them. They were perfectly matched, their lustre unique.

  “I want nothing less for my bride!” Brock had declared proudly.

  Today she and Brock were drawing a line between their past life and their future. The past, with all its traumas, pain and uncertainties, had found closure. Their future they faced together. Happiness in place of grief.

  She had two bridesmaids. One was her childhood friend, Nicole Cavanagh, a redhead like herself, but so much more beautiful, Shelley privately thought. Nicole had recently returned to her illustrious family home, Mara Station, after several years abroad, living and working in Paris and New York. Nicole had her own dramatic story to tell. Traumas she hadn’t yet said goodbye to. Shelley realized with a feeling of accomplishment that Nicole had gained comfort from renewing their friendship over the last few weeks.

  Her other bridesmaid was her sister, Amanda. Shutting Amanda and the family out of her big day would have been more than she could deal with.

  Philip was Brock’s groomsman. His best man was Drake McClelland. A name to contend with. It had bothered Shelley immensely at the beginning, bringing Nicole and Drake together in the bridal party, but Brock had convinced her it might be a good thing. The Cavanaghs and the McClellands, once the greatest friends, had been turned into mortal enemies for over a decade because of one terrible event that had destroyed the relationship. Shelley didn’t want to dwell on it on this day of days, when happiness reigned.

  Brock might have banished Philip’s mother from Mulgaree for ever, but these past hectic months had forged a bond between the cousins. They had reached a private agreement whereby Philip had a substantial stake in Kingsley Holdings with Brock holding the reins. Philip, with the help of an excellent overseer, now lived and worked on Strathdownie Station, a central link in the chain. These days he was a different man. He’d been able to move on, though Shelley suspected he would always have a soft spot for her.

  Although he had been in the ideal position to, Brock had not pressed charges against Philip’s mother and her lover Gerald Maitland. Not a decision taken easily or lightly, it had all been designed to protect the family. Frances had received an allowance from her son and a dire warning to stay away; Gerald Maitland had been made to retire from his prestigious firm, citing a need to “wind down”. The decree was absolute. Both obeyed. In many families some things were kept secret. Nevertheless, private justice had to be served.

  In preparation for the wedding Mulgaree homestead had been transformed. A small army of decorators had been brought in, working closely with Shelley who had carried with her innumerable sketches to influence the designers. In a way it had been like realizing a dream, especially when the team had taken her creativity seriously. There wasn’t one fabric or wall-covering she hadn’t picked.

  “We could give you a job any time!” she had been told constantly, and this was not flattery but genuine admiration.

  Her job, her life’s work, was to become Brock’s perfect partner. Wife, mother, best friend. She always consulted him, but he was kept very busy indeed with Kingsley affairs.

  “I want what you want. It’s that simple,” he’d told her. “I couldn’t say that to too many people,” he’d added dryly, hugging her to his side. Indeed, he had been very critical of the gloomy old mansion, asking that light and fresh air should be brought in.

  And from the old Kingsley mansion a new house had been born.

  At precisely three p.m., as the lovely processional music began in the grand formal drawing room, Shelley put her hand over her father’s. Today he looked so much better than he had looked in a very long time, and even her mother’s face was soft and pretty with pleasure. Since she’d woken up Shelley had had a sensation of being very close to her twin, Sean. In her heart she knew he would always be there.

  Her father’s hand tightened on hers. Strong hands. There were no whispered words. No talk of love. No plea for forgiveness. But still he tried to communicate through his hand. She would have to accept this as enough.

  They paused on the threshhold.

  Everything came into vivid focus.

  Up ahead was her wonderful bridegroom with his attendants. All of them six footers plus. All of them cattlemen from family dynasties. Pioneers of the industry and descendants of some of the first settlers to open up the vast Outback. They were standing in front of great banks of beautiful, fragrant white flowers—orchids, lilies, roses, clouds and clouds of white baby’s breath.

  Each step would take Shelley closer to Brock. She knew from the set of his tall lean body, so marvellously elegant in his wedding finery, that he was struggling not to turn round and look back at her.

  A smile bloomed radiantly across Shelley’s face. A wonderful light lit her eyes.

  Let life begin! She was ready for the challenge.

  Margaret Way

  Home to Eden

  “Lord knows how I didn’t visit you last night. I came close.”

  “What stopped you, Drake?” Nicole picked up a pebble and sent it skimming across the water. The movement startled a flock of white corellas that exploded into the air in protest.

  “I have to let you decide what you want.” He glanced down at her. She wasn’t wearing makeup—she didn’t need any with her skin—not even lipstick, which he found strangely erotic. “Which isn’t to say I’m going to wait a long time.”

  “For me to decide to sleep with you?” Her head
tilted, her eyes more green than blue in the shade of the wide-brimmed Akubra.

  “You will, whenever, wherever. We both know it.”

  She looked back at the peaceful, unspoiled scene. “It could be a mistake. Neither of us is exactly reconciled to the past.”

  “I’m trying, Nic. You find it very hard to trust.”

  “I’m concentrating on getting my life right.”

  “You think increasing intimacy with me will interfere with that?” His tone was deeply serious.

  She nodded. “I can’t deal with you like I’ve dealt with other men in my life.”

  Dear Reader,

  Home to Eden is the final book in the KOOMERA CROSSING series. I hope both my loyal, much-valued readership and welcome newcomers will have enjoyed the previous four in the series. I burned the midnight oil on one of them. I’ll leave you to guess which!

  Throughout the series, indeed my long career, you will have noticed I enjoy writing about families—in particular, dysfunctional families. These problematic families crisscross society, from the most privileged to the severely disadvantaged.

  Small wonder I’m drawn to exploring family life. There are so many mysteries connected to families: past secrets, double lives, things that are never spoken about but forever hover in the consciousness. Most bondings bring comfort, friendship and support. Some emotional attachments, however, can go beyond the norm. I’ve drawn on this for Home to Eden, coming at it from the angle of obsessive attachments. One can readily see such attachments could be a by-product of certain conditions such as loneliness and isolation. Families who live in remote areas are more dependent on each other for survival and emotional support. Outback stations certainly qualify as remote. The wonderfully inspiring, frightening and funny, tragic and violent stories of Outback life are legion. There are heroes and heroines and, inevitably, as anywhere else, villains.

  The heart is a very strong yet very vulnerable organ. Love and hate coexist there. Human beings can love fiercely, yet still be capable of hurting the object of that love. Jealousy has to be regarded as a great catalyst for disaster. Some jealousies pave the way to tragedy and death. Home to Eden is such a story. My aim, as always, is to give my readership good stories they can enjoy. I hope I’ve succeeded with KOOMERA CROSSING.

  Best wishes,

  Margaret Way

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PROLOGUE

  TWELVE-YEAR-OLD Nicole Cavanagh in her lacy white nightdress stands at the first landing of Eden’s grand divided staircase nursing a terrible apprehension. Her small fists are clenched tight. She can’t seem to get enough air. She is trying to guess the reason for all the commotion downstairs, even as the thought keeps rising that it is all about her mother, Corrine. The thought is terrifying.

  It is barely dawn, the light seeping in through the great stained-glass window directly behind her in waves of jeweled splendor: ruby, emerald, sapphire, topaz, amethyst. Nicole pays no attention even though the effect is entrancing.

  Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong. There is always turbulence when her father, Heath, is at Eden. Suddenly overcome by a gnawing premonition, she starts to tremble, reaches out to grasp the smooth mahogany banister as though she’s gone blind and is petrified of falling. Her ears strain to pick up exactly what the voices are saying. Her father’s voice blustery like wind and thunder overrides all others. He is such a violent man. She can easily pick out Aunt Sigrid’s tones, clipped but slightly hoarse; Aunt Sigrid once had a tracheotomy. Her aunt is a severe woman, her manner imperious, a consequence perhaps of being born a Miss Cavanagh of Eden Station. She is quite without her younger sister’s beauty and charm—“Left you in the dust, didn’t she, Siggy,” was her father’s cruel comment. But her aunt has always been good to Nicole in her fashion. As had Louise, her lovely grandmother, a kind and devoted woman who now sounds shaky and deeply worried. Grandfather Giles’s cultured tones reassure her, calm and reasonable as ever.

  Nevertheless, Nicole can measure what it all means. Child of a highly dysfunctional family, she has inbuilt antennae that track trouble. A frantic family row is in progress—she picked up on that almost from the moment she swung her legs out of bed. Aunt Sigrid always says she is way too knowing. From the sound of his voice, her father has worked himself into a frenzied rage. She has learned over the years from her practice of eavesdropping—the only way she can ever find out anything—that her often absent father is, as Aunt Sigrid said, “a disgrace to our proud name, an adventurer, a compulsive gambler, money spills through his fingers like water, he brought nothing to the marriage. Even the big diamond engagement ring he presented to Corrinne is a fake.”

  Yet he is very handsome in a dissolute kind of way. Nicole has looked that word up in the dictionary. Dissolute. It meant all those things. Perhaps that was what brought her mother to the marriage, his sheer animal sex appeal. Aunt Sigrid never failed to point that out. Aunt Sigrid’s own husband, Alan, “largely maintained by Father,” is nearly devoid of that quality and has no hope of ever gaining it.

  She can’t hear her cousin Joel’s voice. Almost four years her senior, already six feet tall, Joel is probably fast asleep. Joel’s ability to tune out family arguments is impressive. He professes to despise his father for being such a wimp, hates his mother’s constant nagging—who doesn’t?—calling his grandfather a “throwback to the feudal age” with his insistence on the importance of family, the proper respect, good manners, the sense of responsibility that should go hand in hand with privilege. Joel is something of a misfit.

  “I love only you, Nikki. You’re beautiful and good. You’re the closest person in the world to me.”

  She isn’t good at all. Even at twelve she is, as her aunt puts it, “hell-bent on establishing her place in the world.” That means eventually inheriting Eden. Her grandfather has promised it to her. She loves her historic home with a passion. She has that in common with her grandfather and her aunt Sigrid, but Aunt Sigrid will never inherit. Nor will Joel. That, too, her grandfather has confided. Eden is hers. She is the chosen one with special qualities which her grandfather claims he sees in her. Her grandfather’s love and faith sustains her. He plays the dominant male role in her life. He is Sir Giles Cavanagh of Eden Station.

  Her father starts to roar again, a sound that reverberates through the house. She steps back instinctively, overcoming the sensation he has actually struck her. Which he has on occasion and she never did tell Grandpa.

  “I’ll tell you who she’s with. Bloody McClelland, that’s who. The arrogant bastard. Always thinking herself a cut above me. But she chose me, not him. Now she’s picked up with him right under your noses, the arctic bitch.”

  “And where have you been all this time, Heath?” Her aunt’s voice cracks with contempt. “What do you get up to in Sydney apart from gambling? You’re never far from the racetrack or the casino. Do you think we don’t know that? You’re an addict. Gambling is a drug.”

  “There’s more attraction in gambling than living here,” her father answers furiously. “The lot of you looking down on me. The Cavanagh black sheep. Always so chillingly polite, but you bloody hate me. You just don’t have the guts to say so. What is a man to do when his wife doesn’t return home? To be humiliated like this! I tell you she’s finally gone off with that bastard. He never stopped loving her.”

  “What you’re saying is crazy!” Now her grandmother speaks with intensity. “Corrinne would never leave her child. S
he adores Nicole.”

  “But she’s done it this time, hasn’t she, dear Louise?”

  Nicole’s grandfather cuts in as though he’s reached breaking point. “Instead of your usual ranting, Heath, I’d be obliged if you’d focus on what might have happened to your wife. I very much fear an accident. Instead of wasting time, we should be organizing a search party. Corrinne has the Land Cruiser. It could have broken down somewhere.”

  “In which case she’ll soon be home.” Her grandmother sounds to anyone who knows her achingly unsure. “Corrine is a loving mother. She would never abandon Nicole. Never.” She repeats it like a mantra.

  A low growl issues from her father as if he’d momentarily turned feral. “Who are you trying to convince, Louise? Your beloved Corrinne is no more than a common whore. You realize you’re admitting she’s taken up with McClelland. She’d leave me, but never Nicole.”

  “I have no idea,” her grandmother, so proud, lies. “You were the one who snatched her away from him, Heath. Almost on the eve of their wedding. To think I was the one who invited you here for Corrinne’s engagement party. You were kin, after all. A Cavanagh. I felt sorry for you. I felt the family was too hard on you. How you repaid us.” A wealth of misery and regret in her voice, she went on, “You broke up two families who’d been the best of friends. The Cavanaghs and the McClellands. We’ve been here since the earliest days of settlement. The Cavanaghs even before the McQueens. We all stood together in this vast wilderness in order to survive. Our families would have been united but for you. Do you think I’d be speaking like this if you were a good husband and father? But you’re not, are you. I know you’re still obsessed with Corrinne. I know the black jealousy that prowls around your brain and your heart. Your mad suspicions. You never let her alone. But you scarcely have time for your own daughter, Nicole.”