by Margaret Way
Haddo’s expression turned deeply sardonic. “She’s only known him for about two weeks.”
“Maybe it was love at first sight?”
“So what are you suggesting? I have them followed on those early-morning rides?” he asked dryly, picking up a sandwich and casually examining the filling.
“What do you think?” She wanted his opinion.
“They do seem to be attracted to one another,” he conceded. “But seriously. Chrissy from all accounts has had a chaotic life. She needs to give herself time before she can chart the right course.”
“We’ve got her on the right course,” Tori exclaimed, judging it the right moment to approach him. “What Chrissy really needs is a job.”
“I was wondering when you were going to get around to that,” he returned smartly.
“Jillaroo?” She tried out Chrissy’s number-one ambition, not at all sure Haddo could be persuaded. Chrissy had a natural affinity with horses and animals, and she had experience of farm life—but that bore little resemblance to the rigours and isolation of Outback life.
His handsome mouth tightened. “Tori, you know as well as I do it’s a tough life. Generally speaking women aren’t mentally strong enough, let alone physically, to handle the hard work involved or the lonely environment. A woman wouldn’t have any problem on Mallarinka because I wouldn’t tolerate it. But men leading a man’s life tend to become very macho. They like to keep the women out.”
“But our guys are just great!’ she protested.
“That’s because you’re Victoria Rushford,” he told her dryly. “Chrissy could expect to come in for a lot of ribbing.”
“It’ll be a piece of cake after what Chrissy’s lived through,” Tori said. “She’s been through hell. She desperately needs a safe place, security, a helping hand.”
“I thought we were giving her that?” Haddo commented mildly, blue eyes resting on her highly animated face. “Okay, we can start her off doing some time in the store. Then she can graduate to a few minor chores. We’ll see how she handles herself and whether she’s accepted. She’s a nice woman. I like her. But she’s not altogether in her comfort zone at the house, is she?” Haddo met her eyes directly.
Tori couldn’t deny it. Chrissy remained intimidated by her surroundings. “Especially since Kerri and Marcy arrived,” she said. “She’s lost all confidence around them.” She could have said a lot more, but didn’t.
“I suppose if Chrissy genuinely wants a job—”
“Oh, she does!” Her heart bucked up. “She loves being here. She really does.”
Haddo held up his hand. “Listen, I really approve of your efforts to help Chrissy, and others like her, but we’ll take it a step at a time, if you don’t mind. I’d have to think about providing suitable accommodation. We rarely take on jillaroos—for the reasons I stated. Women are trouble just by virtue of the fact they’re women. Obviously Chrissy can’t bunk in with the men.”
“What about the teacher’s bungalow behind the schoolhouse?” Tori suggested eagerly, having thought it all through. The bungalow hadn’t been in use since Tracey and Jim had married and been allotted more spacious married quarters. “It’s set up. All it needs is a lick of paint and a bit of sprucing up. I think she might like that. It would make her feel independent. Please, Haddo.” She stretched out a hand to him, emerald eyes imploring, the colour in her cheeks emphasising her gleaming white skin.
He took it, giving her an ironic smile. “So, you leave Chrissy here, and you go back to Sydney? Is that it?”
Gently she withdrew her hand, acutely conscious of their electric connection. Haddo would always be able to penetrate her defences. To give herself time she looked out of the bay window. Today she had arranged her hair very artfully, with lots of lustrous stray tendrils. It created a rosy nimbus about her face. She started to finger one of those tendrils. Just the thought of being away from Haddo pierced her with a fresh pain that bordered on agony.
After a while she glanced back, managing blithely, “There’s no rush. I haven’t quit my job yet. I intend to get a choir going. Music. Painting. Pip thought it a great idea. Oh, and I want the kids to get involved in making a garden around the front of the schoolhouse.”
“Anything else?” he enquired politely. “I have a lot of free time on my hands, as you know.”
She tapped his hand sharply. “Just give me your okay. I’ll do the rest. We could consider putting up a flagpole for them. They’d like that. Flags too—the Aussie flag and Mallarinka’s logo. And what about an adventure playground out the back, fenced in because of the little ones? They need me, Haddo, at least until Tracey comes back.” And I need them. “Why are you laughing?” She broke off to challenge him, at the same time revelling in the irresistible tenderness of his smile. All right, he had a sensational smile—but he didn’t smile at everyone like that, did he?
He shrugged a wide shoulder that pointed up the leanness of waist and hip. “I’m just thinking that deep inside you there was a dedicated schoolmarm fighting to get out. Who would ever have thought it of the Rushford heiress?”
CHAPTER FOUR
FOUR hectic weeks followed, during which time Tori managed to fit in all the things she had intended to do—but only just. The children spent many afternoons after school preparing and then planting out their new garden, with the help of Mallarinka’s head groundsman Vince, a station employee for over thirty years. It was Vince’s job to keep the homestead’s extensive grounds in order, but he was having a lot of fun helping the kids.
“This was a great idea of yours, Miz Victoria,” he told her enthusiastically, noting how much the children were enjoying having their hands in the soil. “You’ll find all the plants will thrive. They thrive up at the house. They’re all adapted to the dry conditions, and all the little lilies and violets are native, as you know.”
“I wish you’d help me with the adventure playground, Vince,” Tori cajoled.
Vince’s weather-worn face crinkled into a thousand lines. “The boss told me you were bound to ask and yes, it’s okay.”
If the children were delighted with making a garden, it was nothing to the fever of anticipation on the afternoon the piano arrived. Pip was there, of course, to witness the arrival, and later to play for the children, who thought everything was wonderful—even Charlie, who had done a lot of work helping Vince, and was making unprecedented progress at school.
Every time Tori passed him she lightly patted his shoulder, with a “Well done, Charlie!”
Archie, the overseer, took time out to chopper Chrissy into Koomera Crossing, where she was at last fitted with a porcelain crown that did wonders not only for her smile, but her confidence. Later she told Tori she felt as if she was walking on air. Chrissy didn’t hesitate, either, to have her over-permed corkscrew curls cut off by a male barber, who gave her a really chic short crop that suited her features to a T. Chrissy now spent her mornings catching up with her studies and her afternoons working, under supervision, in the station store. She was on the payroll, and she couldn’t have been happier. The store stocked all manner of work gear, and jeans, wind jackets, shirts, belts, bandannas, a range of riding boots and akubras, socks, underwear—you name it. Everything was supplied and sold to the staff at a good discount. As stocks went down they had to be replenished. Accounts had to be kept. Three staffed the store—four with Chrissy, who slotted in with no problem. No wonder she seemed to be walking on air.
“I’ve never been so happy,” she told Tori, giving her a big hug.
Tori returned the hug with a lump in her throat.
What really put Chrissy over the moon was moving into her own little bungalow. Tori had gone to a lot of trouble to make it tranquil and welcoming.
“My own home!” Chrissy said, starting to cry. “I’m sorry.” She swiped the tears away with the back of her hand.
“Don’t be sorry about tears of joy. Be excited!”
“I am excited.” Chrissy stood framed in the doorway,
staring rapturously around the open-plan living/dining area that was so bright and cheerful, and the well-equipped galley kitchen with a refrigerator beyond. The bedroom—there was only one—and the bathroom led off a corridor, with a laundry at the rear. “I’ll never, never be able to thank you enough, Vicki.”
Tori swept an arm around her, letting it enclose her friend’s thin shoulders. “Wait and see.” She laughed.
Kerri and Marcy were leaving first thing Monday morning. Haddo was to fly them to Longreach, where they would pick up a domestic flight.
“That’s good!” Pip murmured, the night before, when she heard, having suffered through the stay. “Kerri was never such a wet week before. I’ve told her she has to buck up. She’s got everything going for her, when she thinks of that poor child Chrissy and what she’s survived. If Kerri’s not falling pregnant it’s because she’s forgotten what it’s like to eat. I’ve no patience at all with her fad diet. All she ever seems to do is push food around her plate. Just how thin does she want to be anyway? Moderation is the answer, and daily exercise. Marcy, on the other hand, loves her food. And drink,” she added dryly. “But Haddo must have spoken to her, because I’ve noticed she’s laid off Chrissy.”
“And I promised I’d give her a broken tooth if she didn’t,” Tori confided.
Pip shook with laughter. “Oh, I do love you, Tori.”
“That’s good, because I love you too.” Tori put out a hand, helping Pip rise to her feet.
Pip had already said she was ready to turn in. Both Kerri and Marcy had gone upstairs a short time before. Tori was feeling a little tired herself, but she wanted to finish off the last couple of chapters of her new book. She had visited Venice twice, so she was finding the book—set in that fabled city—doubly engrossing.
Some time later she closed it with a satisfied sigh, then went in search of Haddo to say goodnight. Haddo was always the last to turn in and the first to get up, more often than not pre-dawn. She would never see him as anything else but a dynamo.
She’d thought he would have been in his study, but although the lights were on there was no one there. A horse-lover, her eyes were irresistibly drawn to the magnificent gilded bronze horse that stood on a tall plinth in front of a feature glass panel. She moved over to give it a pat goodnight, aware that the exterior lights were spilling all over the huge date palms in the garden. She glanced out, thinking she could hear voices…
The voices seemed to be mocking her.
Her expression changed, became alert.
She heard them before she saw them. Now they came into sight. Haddo and Marcy, out in the garden. Hadn’t she somehow anticipated this? Urgently she moved to one side of the glass panel, blocking herself from their sight. She could feel her face burning with blood. Hope all but abandoned her. Marcy had changed out of the pretty flirty dress she had worn at dinner into a tangerine caftan, decorated all around the neck and halfway down the front with lots of glitter.
It’s got to be what it seems to be, her inner voice warned her.
Yet she held fast. Haddo appeared to be frowning—maybe even protesting? Marcy, as usual, her glossy head tilted up to him, was talking a hundred to the dozen.
Tori’s stomach began to churn with nausea. She shut her eyes.
Don’t look. Don’t!
When she opened them again they were locked in a passionate embrace. Even the dark shadows that surrounded them had turned molten. Marcy’s arms were fully stretched to encircle Haddo’s neck, and his hands were grasping her rounded hips, pulling her to him.
Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Inside she was moaning.
Another of her illusions: she actually thought she could hear her heart breaking. She didn’t hate him. She loved him. It would always be that way. Another thing she had to accept, like the loss of her father. Haddo was a sensual man. She knew that. Not everyone was given sexual radiance. She could think of a few people who had it—none of them with conventional good-looks. Sexual radiance was something quite apart. Haddo had been given too much.
She felt a sob stick in her throat. She didn’t realise it but tears were running from her eyes. He and Marcy could have been lovers over the years. Why not? Haddo had had plenty of girlfriends. Women literally threw themselves at him. From the look of it he was still involved with Marcy. Or getting his kicks where he could. Most men would find Marcy a luscious armful. The sheer humiliation of it had her bending over double, like a woman in agony.
Oh, Haddo!
You deserve better, she told herself. He can’t kiss you the way he’s taken to doing and have maybe another half-dozen women on the go. Marcy among them.
It was her own fault. In the last four years she had tried to ease him out of her life. In a matter of six or seven weeks he had drawn her back inexorably into his force field.
She peered out again, grasping at the edge of the plinth to prevent herself from falling. She hadn’t the faintest idea how to handle this new situation, but one thing was certain. It made her position untenable. Just as she had come to love life, she was back on the awful merry-go-round.
To hell with you, Haddo. To hell with you both.
The tableau had changed. Marcy was now clutching Haddo around the waist, her head buried against his chest. Haddo appeared to be intensely moved, his hand lost in her thick shiny hair.
Get going, Tori’s inner voice whispered hoarsely. Get out of here.
Trembling hard, she moved stealthily around the bookcases, banging her knee against the big burgundy chesterfield before her shaking fingers found the light switch. She turned the lights in the study off, so she couldn’t be seen fleeing, but even flooded with anger had the sense to leave the exterior lights on.
Caught them. Caught them, that inner voice gloated. But hadn’t Marcy warned her in a fashion about her little secrets?
She had never felt so empty in her life.
They must have moved with bewildering speed, because the two of them were suddenly in the entrance hall.
God, where to hide?
She heard them talking together, but they hadn’t kicked in to full voice. Probably a continuation of murmured sweet nothings.
Behind the chesterfield?
Adrenalin blew in. Why hide?
I’m going to kill him if he comes in here.
It wasn’t in her nature to stay calm.
Probably the two of them would continue up the staircase. And so to bed! No, Haddo would turn off all the downstairs lights first, while Marcy tippy-toed along to his bedroom. With so much else on his mind he might think he had already turned off the study lights.
No such luck! He was coming her way.
She straightened up, ready to confront him.
With his hand on the light switch, the study still in darkness, he questioned, “Tori?”
She had stopped crying by then, but her eyes glittered fiercely. “Hi,” she said, as the lights came on. “How did you know I was in here?”
“I always seem to know where you are,” he answered quietly, immediately sensing her agitation. “It’s like radar.”
“So you wanted me to see you out in the garden, did you?” Her arms went tightly around herself lest she run at him, arms flailing.
“My God!” he groaned, and dipped his sleek dark head away.
Guilty as charged.
“Is that all you’ve got to say?” she demanded wrathfully. “You know I have to go home now, don’t you?”
“This is your home,” he said, making a move towards her.
He looked so big and formidable she sprang back behind the massive desk. “I’m going home and I’m not coming back. Ever!”
“Would you please listen?” he said, slipping into the voice she had heard him use so often when he was taming his wild horses.
“I’m through listening,” she stated. “I knew how dangerous this was for me, coming out here. You’ve just been playing with me, roping me in, you son of a bitch.”
At that designation his eyes flashed blue fir
e and his jaw muscles clenched. “Tori, you’re the only person I know who’s oblivious to the fact I’m the boss. Your boss. I don’t know what you think you saw—”
“Ah, don’t give me that.” She chopped him off fiercely. “You were kissing the damned woman. You were running your hands all over her big hips.”
A commanding stranger looked back at her. “So that’s what you thought you saw,” he rasped. “Give it a rethink.”
“Are you going to tell me you were just saying a fond farewell?”
“I don’t know about fond,” he said, in a perfectly hard voice. “You’re going to have to trust me, instead of rushing to judgement. You’re like a rocket that can fire off at any given moment.”
“And then plummet back to earth? Is that what you’re saying?” She was nearly dancing with rage, hot tears pricking behind her eyes.
“I’m saying I’ve taken all the punishment from you I’m going to take,” he informed her harshly.
“Would you listen to him?” She threw up her hands in a wildly theatrical gesture.
“I think you’d better stop, Tori.” Haddo was trying to control his own sudden rage. She looked so beautiful, so fiery, incandescent with outrage. And she was so wrong. Poor Marcy had come on to him. Her last bid. “Because I swear if you don’t—!”
She came around the desk at a run, filled with a deep primal urge to lock horns. “You’ll do what? Not even you would consider three in a bed.”
“Hell!” Haddo’s own temper burst out of bounds. He didn’t speak. He reached for her.
“Don’t you dare!” She defied him frantically, aware of his immense physicality.
He ignored her totally, catching her and pinning her slender, attenuated body hard against him. He had loved her too much for too long. There had to be an end to this.
“You’re hurting me. You’re hurting me.” Her breath was coming short. She struggled wildly, but it was no use. She was no possible match for him. No wonder women feared men. They were so strong.
“I don’t care,” he said, his mouth against her hair. “I’ve been far too kind to you up to date. No way am I in love with Marcy. I never have been. The pity of it is, she couldn’t seem to take it in.”
