The Outback Engagement

by Margaret Way

  “Pleeze!” Darcy was desperate not to display an ounce of softness. She didn’t know her sister. She didn’t know if the sweetness was real or assumed to make Courtney’s short stay on Murraree easier.

  “You’re like Grandma.” Courtney let her eyes move over her sister’s face and the willow delicacy of her tall frame. “The colouring, the set of your eyes and brows.” She found she was trembling so much with emotion, she had to settle herself into an armchair. “Mum would do anything to make it up to you, Darcy. So would I.”

  “Well that’s nice of you, but it’s too late now, my dear.” Darcy stuffed her hands into her jeans pockets in case she reached out to her sister. “The damage has been done, Courtney. To you and to me. We grew up apart. I loved you once but we can never get back to that. The results of separation have been too profound.”

  They went into their father’s bedroom together, but Jock McIvor only had eyes for his younger daughter. Darcy might not have existed so blinkered was his vision.

  I should have taken a bet on it, Darcy thought. I love him but people are right. He’s one son of a gun. I’ve heard it for years but I did everything I could to block it out. Just how many times had she found McIvor lacking and forgiven him?

  “Courtney!” Now McIvor was gesturing with his withered hand for her pretty as a picture sister to come close.

  Last minute bonding, Darcy thought bleakly. McIvor was obviously desperate to get on the right side of God.

  “Father,” Courtney answered, her voice trembling. She was still afraid of him from the look in her eyes, even though McIvor seemed as though his heart could stop at any moment.

  “He wants you to go to the bedside,” Darcy prompted, dead set against showing protectiveness but protective all the same. It was as if they had moved back in time. The big sister with the little sister who had to be protected from her blustering father. “It’s okay.” She nodded reassuringly. “He’s failing very fast.”

  “Come with me,” Courtney begged.

  Another pattern from the past.

  “It’s you he wants,” Darcy murmured, absolutely beyond jealousy. Such were life’s ironies she was fast learning.

  “What are you two whispering about?” McIvor demanded querulously, a frown gathering. “Always whispering. No need to stay, Darcy. I’m not going to eat her.”

  “I want Darcy to stay,” Courtney spoke up. She crossed the Persian rug with its rich glowing colours to stand beside the bedside.

  “Don’t I get a kiss?” McIvor asked.

  It was frightfully hypocritical. McIvor was giving a perfect imitation of the loving father with the prodigal child.

  Does he really deserve a kiss? Darcy thought, standing well back so she could ponder life’s mysteries. One thing was certain. This was Courtney’s fifteen minutes of fame.

  Courtney bent over him gracefully like a daffodil on a stalk, planting a quick kiss on McIvor’s deeply scored forehead. “I’m sorry you’re so desperately ill,” she said, as pity consumed her. The wasted figure in the bed bore no resemblance to the man she remembered. None! That man had been a giant, splendidly fit and handsome, with brilliant blue eyes and a deep booming voice. This man’s voice was a hoarse whisper. His lips were blue. There was even a blue tint to his grey skin. His hands on the coverlet trembled. He looked ready to expire.

  “I’m dying, my girl,” McIvor said poignantly, whether to make Courtney feel guilty or not Darcy didn’t know. She was learning new things every day. Her father had never adopted that tone with her. Never got his tongue around it. “I wanted to see you before I breathed my last,” McIvor told Courtney staring into her lovely face like she was an angel who had come to escort him to Heaven. “You’re even more beautiful than your mother.”

  Courtney gently shook her head, staring down at her father in surprise. The intervening years had changed him. He was so different to how he had been then. So totally different to what she had expected.

  “I keep that portrait in my room to remind me.” McIvor gestured towards the opposite wall.

  Courtney turned to follow his gaze. Her vision had been so trained on the man in the bed she had failed to notice anything else. “How extraordinary!” she whispered. She began to wonder if there was a possibility she had judged her father too harshly. “You must have cared about her?”

  “Of course I cared about her,” McIvor claimed, as though his love had never burned out.

  He’s not having any difficulty lying Darcy thought. Probably his whole life had been littered with lies.

  “And you,” McIvor added, grasping Courtney’s hand. “I blame all our unhappiness on your mother, child. She behaved very badly. She broke the sacred marriage bond.”

  Clearly that’s the way he saw it, Darcy thought, wanting to quit the room and bang the door. And what did you do, Dad? Hit on every attractive woman in sight? Darcy felt like she was awakening from a distorted dream. Apparently her father’s marriage vows had adultery written into them. It was starting to seem like she’d been brain washed as Curt had long claimed.

  “Mum missed Darcy terribly,” Courtney was saying. “I did too. We were so unhappy.”

  McIvor gave a terrible smile, lips drawn back from his teeth like a tiger. “She managed to cope though, didn’t she? She soon found herself another man. You mother may have abandoned me but still, my girl, we share a powerful bond. You are my daughter and I want to leave you well provided for.”

  “I have a good job I enjoy.” Courtney answered swiftly as though trying to head him off.

  “What does this job involve?” The fatherly pose slipped again. The question came out like a sneer, in keeping with his long held view Courtney would turn out like her mother to be a bit of fluff.

  “I’m personal assistant to the top woman in a public relations firm. The competition for my job was intense.”

  “So you’re clever like your sister?” McIvor cut a bitterly sarcastic grunt short. “You’ll be able to open your own firm with what I’ll be leaving you. More than you could possibly make in a dozen lifetimes. You two girls—” only now did his gaze shift to Darcy who was reduced to supporting herself against a gigantic rosewood cabinet-on-chest “—will be heiresses. The McIvor heiresses. Is there some man you’re mixed up with?” He shot Courtney a piercing stare she didn’t appear uncomfortable with.

  “I have lots of male friends,” she said calmly.

  “You would! The men would be swarming around you like bees around the honey pot,” he harrumphed.

  It would be fair to say they did but Courtney answered modestly. “There’s no-one special in my life at the moment.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” McIvor said. Affairs were all right for him. That didn’t include his daughters. “After I’m gone, the two of you will become a mark for all sorts of unscrupulous characters and it will happen quickly. You must be protected. I’ve made arrangements for that. Your sister will tell you all about it.” He patted Courtney’s hand in a way that suggested he’d been deprived of her for far too long. “You’re going to stay with me, aren’t you?”

  Darcy watched in amazement. Her father appeared to be speaking with genuine intensity. She had an impulse to cry out: “I’m over here, Dad. I’m Darcy, remember? The one who stayed.” Her father’s reactions were so strange. He was acting positively loving towards Courtney, as if he desperately needed to make up for her loss, when he had never spoken of his younger daughter. Not for many years and then as though her loss didn’t matter. Perhaps Jock McIvor had a deadly fear of meeting his Maker. Darcy was seeing a side of her father she had never seen before.

  “That was awful,” Courtney gasped, when they were out in the long hallway jam-packed with enough consoles and mahogany chairs to fill an antique shop. “I didn’t know my own father. He’s changed beyond all recognition.”

  “That’s what a couple of heart attacks and a stroke do to you,” Darcy said. “Only six months ago he still looked marvellous.” Darcy kept her tone dispassionate
when she was feeling profoundly upset. “His first heart attack shook him to the foundations. He thought he was indestructible. When it came it came all at once.”

  “And you weren’t going to tell us?”

  “You’re kidding!” Darcy’s tone was bleak. “I didn’t identify with you any more, Courtney. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Please tell me you don’t resent my coming here now, Darcy?” Courtney spoke haltingly as though it pained her.

  “I’m struggling not to, but it’s quite a task. I’m only human.”

  “I don’t want the money. I don’t need to be an heiress.”

  “Crazy as that sounds.” Darcy scoffed. “Who knocks back money?”

  “Whatever there is belongs to you,” Courtney said, desperate to get closer to the sister she had missed for so long. She had lots of girlfriends but no one could take Darcy’s place. “You were the one who stayed. Adam told me you’ve been an enormous asset to Father; that you do a marvellous job on Murraree. You always did love the land.”

  “I would hope now you’re a woman you will too,” Darcy surprised herself by saying. “Dad didn’t handle you right. He was such a bully. He’s said in the past he had no talent for being a husband. There’s a good chance he had no talent for being a father either.”

  They found Curt and Adam talking companionably in the old plant filled conservatory at the rear of the homestead. The external steel framed glass walls were almost enveloped in an extravagantly flowering cerise bouganvillea that turned the very air rosy. Both men stood up as the two sisters moved into the room side by side, as complete a contrast in types as one could ever see.

  Darcy looked like a high strung thoroughbred with the upward tilt of her head, long neck, thick glossy mane and delicate racehorse legs, Curt thought. Golden haired Courtney was much shorter but she too held herself beautifully, the prettiness of her childhood firmed into adult loveliness. Although they couldn’t have looked less alike both shared an air of intelligence, breeding and a quiet self-confidence for all the traumas associated with their childhood.

  Darcy for her part watched in endless amazement as Curt and Courtney moved towards each other as if drawn by powerful magnets. It hit her right between the eyes. Curt and her radiant little sister? Well it didn’t have her blessing. He bent his shapely head and kissed Courtney’s apple blossom cheek. He hugged her. He did hug her. Even imperturbable Adam was looking hard in their direction as though he hadn’t foreseen such an ardent welcome either. Adam’s expression hardly evoked approval

  And what of hers? Did it mirror Adam’s? It would have to be revealing. Not that anyone appeared to notice her. Courtney went very sweetly into Curt’s arms, not even reaching his heart. Darcy’s own heart gave a great sick lurch. Some trembling voice inside her began to shriek. Don’t take him. He’s mine. He’s mine. He’s always been mine.

  Curt didn’t appear to know about it. Neither did Courtney. They were smiling at each other with open affection. Something more. Strong attraction? Darcy felt herself flush a hot red. It was all her own fault. She had blundered through her love life. Maybe Courtney was in search of a husband? No woman in her right mind could overlook Curt. But Curt was her rock and Darcy was ashamed she kept quiet about it. She really had become her own worst enemy. The sight of Curt and Courtney together filled her with something like dread. She needed time to assimilate it. She knew from the depths of her sick and sorry experience she couldn’t bear seeing another woman in Curt’s arms.

  Even her own sister. Her own sister worst of all! Courtney would be much better at holding onto a man than she ever was. Courtney would know lots of things she didn’t know. How to keep a man at her side. How to make him feel big and strong and cherished. Courtney clearly didn’t have her pathetic hang-ups.

  “Curt, how lovely to see you!” There was honey in Courtney’s sweet voice. Emotional tears sparkled in her blue eyes as she looked wonderingly into Curt’s striking face.

  “Welcome back, Courtney,” Curt responded in a way that would have made any woman’s toes tingle. “How did the meeting with your father go?’

  Ultimately Darcy pulled herself together. “Break out the trumpets. It was the return of the prodigal daughter.” Her laugh was brittle. Surely it was extraordinary neither Courtney nor Curt had made any comment on the other’s appearance. Curt might have been six-foot at sixteen when Courtney and her mother had left but he was just a boy. Now he was a marvellous looking man, intensely charismatic. Courtney for her part had been a child of ten. Now she was a vision of enchanting femininity. They surely couldn’t have seen one-another in the meantime, could they? Darcy very nearly turned faint. Curt would have told her. Wouldn’t he? She almost asked the question aloud but she felt undermined enough already. The answer could be really bad.

  “I’ll organise coffee,” she said instead, covering her dismay and confusion with briskness. “Still black for you, Adam?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Adam responded almost solemnly. He was hard at it pondering the possibility Courtney was giving a performance for Curt’s benefit. And what a performance. Little Ms Courtney McIvor had multiple talents.

  “I’ll help you,” Courtney turned to offer, struck by the expression on her sister’s high mettled face.

  “No, thanks. You and my friend, Curt here, must have lots to catch up on.” Darcy tried, but couldn’t control the sarcasm. “Adam can explain all about the trust that Dad wanted set up and how it works.”

  “Trust?” Courtney looked worried. “Aren’t you inheriting outright?”

  “Your father had his reasons for wanting a trust to be set up, Courtney,” Curt said, companionably drawing up a chair. “Adam and I are trustees. As Adam is the legal man I’ll let him explain it to you thought it’s simple enough. I’ll give Darcy a hand in the kitchen. I’m hoping she’ll find herself a housekeeper. I know a few suitable women who’d jump at the job.”

  “I can manage. I have managed,” Darcy pointed out stiffly. “Really I’d hate another woman in the house.”

  “Having a housekeeper will give you more time to yourself,” Curt said in a reasonable voice. “Besides the homestead is too large for one woman to get around.”

  “So is that a criticism?” Darcy demanded to know as they were walking away. “Have you been busy checking for dust?”

  “What’s eating you?” he asked, noting the high colour in her cheeks.

  “I’ve learned one thing today,” she informed him. “Nothing is ever as it seems.”

  In the privacy of the kitchen she asked the burning question. “You didn’t seem much surprised by Courtney’s appearance nor she by yours. If I didn’t know differently I’d swear you two have met up sometime. Maybe when you’re in Brisbane on business. Have you?” she asked fiercely, feeling the hammering of her heart.

  Curt’s chiselled mouth turned down. “How I’ve dreaded this day! I am so sorry, Darcy. I can’t put a foot right with you. I should have known you wouldn’t miss a trick. We didn’t think it would do the slightest good to tell you. In fact a lot of harm.”

  “We, who’s we?” Darcy was on the verge of hitting him.

  “Mum and me,” Curt said, taking a step nearer, not away. “You must remember our mothers were friends?”

  “So? I thought we were friends? What are you talking about? Please tell me in under ten seconds because I’m going to explode!”

  “You’re worse than a fire cracker,” he said as though the thought had suddenly struck him. “My mother was worried about them. She kept in touch.”

  “Kath did?” Darcy took it so badly she almost bent double. Katherine Berenger was the finest woman she knew. Darcy respected her immensely. That Kath of all people had never said a word!

  “She didn’t dare start anything lest it rebound on you. Your father would have reacted badly to any interference in his affairs. Your mother believed it was far too risky to anger him. She made my mother promise to keep their meetings a secret.”

  With one dism
issive gesture, Darcy waved his explanation away. “I don’t think I can handle this,” she announced, looking as appalled as she felt. “Your mother helped me through the worst times yet she never confided in me?”

  “Think about it, Darcy,” he urged, his handsome face taut with strain. “If you were told you would have confronted your father. No question about it. You know what his reaction would have been. He’d have gone ballistic. You were no match for McIvor. He used to make strong men quail. My mother tried to offer you all the balm she could affirming your mother’s love for you. The terrible position she was in.”

  “Her love for me!” Darcy’s laugh was wild. “It wasn’t enough to make her stay. Some women stay with their children no matter what. Abusive husbands, poverty, isolation. She wouldn’t stay, much less risk taking me.”

  “She was so desperately unhappy she couldn’t remain with your father. She couldn’t continue sleeping with the enemy.”

  Darcy stared at him. “I’ll never forgive you.” Her words rang loudly in the silent kitchen.

  “That’s not the worst thing you’ve done to me,” he responded harshly.

  “I feel like everyone has deserted me. I trusted you, Curt, as much as it’s possible to trust anybody. I revered your mother. And you’ve both lied to me.”

  “Not lied, Darcy. We simply couldn’t tell you without betraying your mother and upsetting you dreadfully. There was no way your father was going to let you go. You were the one he’d decided to keep. It was bad enough for you without causing more trauma. You would not have been allowed to go to your mother. Your father has lived his life as a powerful and in his way dangerous man. A very physical man given to unpredictable courses of action. He did threaten your mother and she took those threats seriously as well she might.”

  Elaborately Darcy turned her slender back to him, her deeply entrenched feelings of betrayal coming to the fore. She began to make the coffee setting out cups and saucers as if on autopilot. She’d actually gone to the trouble of making a fruit cake now she sliced through it as vigorously as if she were chopping through a timber log. “Damn you, Curt,” she said tightly.