by Jane Corrie
When she walked into the dining room a little while later, she found that not only was Cora present, but in an agreeable mood. Only Cal could have worked this miracle, Della thought with a slight pang of misery as she took her place at the table, acknowledging Cal's casual greeting with a slight nod of the head.
In spite of her rejuvenation, Della was determined to take as little part in the conversation as was possible, no matter how many attempts were made to pull her into verbal battle. But as it happened, there was no need for her to adopt any such - tactics, as Cal did most of the talking during the meal, and all the girls had to do was listen, Cora making the odd remark now and again.
It appeared a visitor was due the following day, a buyer keen on purchasing one of the Arabian stock. At the first mention of the bloodstock, Della had cast an apprehensive eye towards Cora, thinking it was not an ideal subject on which to base what she had hoped was going to be a peaceful evening, but Cora's expression remained tranquil and interested in what Cal was saying.
A cloud of depression settled over Della, for although she knew she ought to be grateful for the fact that Cora's venom had been drawn, woman-like, she couldn't help wondering what method Cal had used to bring about this astonishing change in her. Had he held her in his arms and demonstrated his love for her? Shaking off these thoughts, she made herself listen to what Cal was saying and found the subject had now moved on to antique saddles, and the visitor's request to see Cal's racing saddle.
'You won't sell it to him, will you, Cal?' Cora asked. 'I've heard about him, he collects them.'
Cal gave a slow smile that made Della's heart turn over, as he replied, 'He hasn't a hope! And I've a feeling he's going to be one very disappointed man. He's keen on having one of the Arabs, but if he had to make a choice, the saddle would win hands down.'
'Which of the stock will you sell?' asked Cora innocently, and Della was not fooled by the casual question, knowing instinctively she was hoping Cal would say Moonglow.
For a brief moment Cal's eyes met Della's, and she hastily bent her attention to Luis' heavenly chocolate mousse, praying that her colour would not rise. She was totally unprepared for Cal's drawled, 'Which one would you sell, Della?'
Della made her reply sound as casual as Cora's question had been. `I'm afraid I wouldn't sell any of them, so it's just as well I haven't got to make the choice.'
For a long moment Cal looked at her, and Della realised a little too late that she had given the wrong answer for anyone totally uninterested in any form of ranch life, and this time she did blush.
'That will probably be my answer, too,' he said slowly without taking his eyes off her.
The glints started to appear in Cora's eyes, and Della could see trouble ahead, and so apparently could Cal, as he adroitly changed the subject.
Della stayed close to the homestead the following morning, leaving Moonglow grazing with the rest of the herd in the lower paddocks. Even if Cal had decided not to part with any of the bloodstock, she felt it would be presumptuous of her to remove, to her way of thinking, the pick of the bunch, for Cal was rightly proud of his stock and would want to show her to his visitor.
It was at lunchtime that the storm broke, and the tension that Della had felt building up, no only inside her, but in some indefinable way, had seemed to touch Cora too, for as much as she disliked her, Della had the sense to see that the showdown she had been inwardly dreading was the only answer to the problem. Cora needed to assert herself as Cal's girl, and her pride had had to take a few knocks lately.
Della sensed the time was right for just such a showdown, but she never dreamed of the form it would take, or the ensuing consequence.
The first intimation of the trouble ahead came when she overheard Cora talking to Cal, who after presumably seeing his visitor off, was now returning to the homestead for lunch. Della was not eavesdropping, for Cora's excited voice penetrated
through her open windows as Della got ready for lunch.
'I'm not a bit surprised, Cal. I never liked him. I didn't like to tell you before, but he kept pestering me and I had to put him in his place. I guess that's why he took the saddle—to get even.'
Della frowned; someone had taken Cal's saddle, apparently, and whoever it was, Cora knew the culprit. As she left her rooms, Della mused that if it were right that the saddle had indeed been stolen, it wouldn't have happened if David hadn't been removed from the stables, for no one would have got near enough to steal anything, not with David sleeping in the loft, and it rather sounded, she thought, like someone who knew the stables were unattended, but who?
Her silent query was answered a short time later when she joined them for lunch, and had barely sat down before the door from the kitchen section was flung open and a white-faced David entered the dining room.
'I didn't take it!' he shouted in a voice that held a frantic appeal directed at Cal.
With shocked disbelief, Della heard Cal say harshly, 'We'll talk later.'
The words sounded ominous to Della, and David must have received the same impression as with an agonised expression on his face, he rushed out of the door.
Everything was now clear to Della. But whoever had taken that saddle, she would stake her all that it hadn't been David. She looked across at Cora, and there was a smirk of satisfaction on her face, then she looked back at Cal, whose grim countenance was on the door David had just rushed through. How could he believe ...?
Della got up quickly, 'David!' she shouted, and prepared to rush after him.
Cal's cold voice halted her. 'Leave him; if he's innocent, he knows me well enough by now to know he's nothing to fear, but that saddle was found in his quarters, tucked away out of sight.' He shrugged. 'If Cora's telling the truth, then I suppose it would explain why he did it.'
'If he's innocent,' Della almost hissed the words back at him. 'Of course he's innocent!' She looked at Cora still sitting with an almost angelic expression on her face. 'Well, how about it, Cora? You've already told one lie. David never pestered you—he can't stand you, and well you know it! Oh, yes,' she told the startled girl, 'I heard what you told Cal, only I didn't know who you were talking about. Did you take that saddle? It's just the sort of thing you'd be capable of, if anyone wanted to get even, it was you. David wouldn't let you have one of the Arabians, would he?'
Cora's fingers clenched round her water glass and she flung the contents straight at Della, who, seeing it coming, dodged the spray with ease. She was sure now that she was right—not that she could ever get Cora to admit it. The injustice so inflamed her that she lost all inhibition, and with an almost casual action she picked up the jug of salad cream and held it with studious care above the still simmering girl, then slowly she poured the contents over her immaculate head.
She did not wait to see the result of her handiwork, but turned towards the door as Cal's authoritative voice rapped out, 'You'll stay right where you are. I think you owe each other an apology, and you're going nowhere until we straighten this thing out.'
A surprised Della turned back to face him; he hadn't thought fit to intervene before, so why now? Was it because his love had got the worst of the encounter?
She watched him take two determined steps towards her. 'Stay away from me, Cal Tarn—unless you want the same treatment! ' she warned him, and as he still kept coming her hand closed round the rim of the salad bowl.
Her action checked him for a second, and his eyes widened fractionally as if in amazement.
'I mean it,' Della ground out. 'I've taken all I'm going to take from you, and that toady creature. You can keep Rimmer's Way, I want no part of it.' She flung a look of disdain at the now hysterical Cora. 'She's more your mark, and I wish you joy of her '
Cal took one more fast step in her direction his manner purposeful. Della threw the bowl at him,
making him check his stride once more as he ducked to miss it.
Taking advantage of the pause, Della rushed out of the door. She knew she hadn't much tim
e, for one of Cal's steps would match three of hers, but she had been a good sprinter at school, and she prayed she hadn't lost her pace as she sped towards the paddocks.
Luck was with her as she saw Romano tethered to a post outside the main paddock, and with an agility which would have brought a burst of applause from David on a happier occasion, she was on Romano and heading away from the homestead at a fast gallop.
Instinct told her David would have made for the open spaces; not for one moment did she consider that he would have gone back to the stables to await Cal's judgment. He thought David guilty, and David knew it.
As Romano's flying hoofs ate up the miles, Della concentrated all her thoughts on where David might have gone. Painstakingly, she went over the past conversations with him, trying to spotlight a favourite spot of his on the ranch, and just as she was about to give up, a vague memory stirred her consciousness. The creek! He'd said something about swimming there when the water level was high enough, but he'd also said that wouldn't happen until after the wet season.
Della hadn't much choice in the matter, but there was nothing else to go on. The trouble was she wasn't too sure of the way, and only knew they had passed what Cora had called a water hole, on that first outing, and if she kept going she would eventually come across it.
Now she could hear the thudding of hoofs behind her, and knew that she hadn't much time to locate David. Then on the upper slopes directly in front of her she saw his horse grazing, and knew she had been right, for she was certain the creek lay below those slopes.
She slipped off Romano and gave him a pat on the rump. 'Keep going boy,' she murmured softly, hoping to throw Cal off the trail, for he wouldn't be able to see Romano as yet, but he would be able to see the dust in the distance and, Della hoped, follow it.
The slope down to the creek was steep, and she cautiously made her way down it, every now and again slipping on the loose stones strewn in her path.
At first, there was no sign of David when she finally got to the creek, and she walked along the bank, her eyes searching the sparse scrub that grew alongside the now almost dried-up river bed, then she saw him; his slight boyish figure hunched up as he sat perched on the trunk of a fallen tree.
`David?' she said softly.
David stiffened and flung a quick look back towards her. On seeing Della he relaxed slightly, but his figure was still slumped in utter dejection.
`It's all right, David, I don't believe you took the saddle, and what's more I told Cal so.'
For a while David was silent, then he said in a half broken voice, 'He won't believe you—only her —she says I did it.'
Della was miserably aware that he was right. She sat beside him. 'I threw a jug of salad cream over her,' she offered soothingly.
David stared at her, and she could see that he had been crying. 'Can you imagine it?' she asked with a wry grin. 'It ran all down her face.'
His look of utter incredulity faded, and a grin replaced it. The next moment he was half sobbing and half laughing, and Della pulled him near and he sobbed into her shoulder.
'I wouldn't steal anything of his,' he sobbed.
'I know, David. It's not much comfort, but I think one day Cal will know that too,' she said quietly.
'He'll throw me out,' hiccoughed David. 'He won't want me around now—not a thief.'
'Well, you're not a thief,' Della said firmly, 'Come to that, they won't want me around either—he got the salad bowl thrown at him.'
A gurgle of strangled laughter greeted this statement.
, 'Tell you what,' said Della, 'we'll team up. There's a riding stables the other side of Sydney, and I've a friend back in England who once said they were short of instructors. So we'll sling our swag bags over our shoulders and take off, shall we?'
'I think,' said a firm voice behind them, 'that I just might have something to say about that!'
Della and David swung round to meet Cal's eyes, and Della thought she saw a spark of humour in them, but was sure she was mistaken.
Cal looked at David. 'So you'd leave me high and dry, would you? And I'd hopes of turning you into the best jockey this side of the border.' He shrugged casually. 'But if that's the way you want it ...'
David straightened and stared at Cal in half-belief. 'You mean, you want me to stay?' he asked with wide eyes.
Cal's eyes left David and went to Della, then rested on David again. 'Telling you so, aren't I?' he said softly. 'And if you're not back at the stables scrubbing out in ten minutes flat, you're fired! '
With a huge grin, David took off as if charged by electricity.
Della decided to join him; she didn't much like the look in Cal's eyes as they rested on her.
'Oh, no, you don't,' Cal said as she began to follow David.
Still backing away, Della said with a hint of panic in her voice, 'I've said all I'm going to say,' and her foot felt for the beginning of the slope ready for the upward flight.
Cal's arms folded across his chest as he stood studying her. 'You'll never make it,' he drawled mockingly. 'But you're welcome to try.'
Della knew she wouldn't make it either, and her eyes fell from his compelling ones.
'That salad bowl,' he said, still in that soft drawling voice, 'missed me by inches.'
Keeping her eyes on the ground, she murmured, 'I'm sorry.'
'Sorry it missed—or just sorry?' he inquired in a matter-of-fact voice.
Della was wondering where Cora was, and thought she was probably sitting on top of the hill giving herself a grandstand view of Cal meting out the punishment, and the thought gave her courage. 'Accept whatever you like,' she said stubbornly.
He drew in his breath sharply. 'Woman, you really do ask for trouble, don't you? You remind me of a young filly who's yet to be broken.'
That did it! She looked up at him with blazing eyes. 'You'll not break me, Cal Tarn,' she got out bitingly. 'You've underestimated me all along the line, but it doesn't matter any more—we've reached the end of the line, as I said back at the homestead.'
Having made her point, she felt much better, and turned on -her heel towards the slope and began to walk up it. She had only taken a few paces when she felt a rope around her shoulders, pinning her arms to her side.
In disbelief she looked round at the man on the other end of the rope, and felt herself being pulled slowly but surely back to him.
'Like I said,' Cal commented casually, 'a young filly who's yet to learn who's boss.'
'If that's not typical! ' spat out Della. 'Treating me like a horse! Where's Cora? Is she sitting up there drinking it all in while you have your fun?' she asked, as she struggled to release herself, all to no avail as Cal only pulled the rope tighter about her.
His next action stunned her, for he pulled her into his arms. 'Now that my little wildcat's claws are sheathed,' he said softly, 'I can do what I've been wanting to do for weeks,' and he kissed her with a hard intensity that frightened her.
With the fear came another emotion—outrage. He would even go so far as to make love to her to make sure his precious land was safe. 'How dare you?' she all but screamed at him, so great was her fury. 'I've told you, the ranch is yours, you don't have to go to these lengths to keep it. I'll sign an agreement to that effect, so you won't have to worry that I might change my mind.' She made another furious attempt to release herself. 'Now stop this ridiculous charade and let me go!' she demanded.
To her surprise he did as he was bid and slipped the rope off her, but his expression was grim, and Della concluded that he hadn't liked being told a few home truths. But it had had to be said, and she was through with half-measures.
The next minute she found herself picked up and unceremoniously dropped into the creek. She was too startled to even scream. There was only a foot or so of water there, just enough to cushion her landing, and she found herself spluttering as she struggled to her feet to meet Cal's cool surveyance as he stood with his feet planted apart and his thumbs tucked into his belt.
&
nbsp; `When you've cooled down a little, we'll talk,' he said grimly.
Cora's rages had nothing on Della's at that moment, and bending down she clutched a handful of mud and threw it at him, her fury mounting as she saw him grin as he ducked to avoid it.
The next moment she was hauled out of the creek and on to the bank again. This time she was ready for him, and began kicking and struggling in his grasp.
'My, my, you sure got your dander up, haven't you? If our sons take after you, I can see I'll have my work cut out,' he chuckled, as he held her in an iron hold.
Della heard, but it didn't make sense. She stopped struggling simply because she had to, she had no strength left.
'That's better,' he said softly. 'Now we talk.'
There was nothing Della could do about it. She couldn't ever remember feeling quite so miserable. She was bedraggled and all played out, and desperately loved the man who had brought her to this state of sheer despair. Of all the times to acknowledge the fact that she loved him, she thought in near panic—no matter what, he hadn't to know that.
'Please let me go, Cal,' she said quietly. 'You don't understand.'
Cal's hold on her slackened, and she disengaged herself from his arms and sank down slowly on the log David had sat on, then pushing a damp tendril of hair away from her forehead, she said wearily, 'I'm not happy, don't you see?' Her eyes filled with tears. 'Uncle Denny wouldn't want me to stay if I
were unhappy. You said you wanted what he wanted, didn't you?' her voice wavered. 'I've never been so unhappy in my whole life—not even after John ...' she blinked. She didn't know why she had to bring that up now.
'Who the hell's John?' Cal asked sharply, gripping her arm in a painful hold.
She tried to shake off his hold, but couldn't. 'Someone I once knew,' she said wearily. 'It doesn't matter. I only want you to accept things as they are. I meant what I said about signing away whatever rights I have to Rimmer's Way. I want to leave today, or tomorrow—as soon as possible, in fact.'
