Woman at Willagong Creek

by Hart, Jessica

  ‘I’m sure Robyn could manage it,’ Olivia said waspishly. ‘Being such an outback girl!’

  ‘As you’re my wife, I expect you to be pleasant to Robyn.’ Guy’s voice was quiet but implacable. ‘Not only is she a friend, she’s an essential part of the team. I need a helicopter on these musters. I haven’t got enough men or enough time otherwise, so you’re going to have to get used to her being around a lot over the next few weeks. While she’s here, I don’t want you putting on airs and graces and intimidating her.’

  ‘Me? Intimidate Robyn?’ Olivia stared incredulously at Guy, then yelped as the butchering knife slipped across the smooth surface of the onion and sliced into her knuckle. ‘Ouch!’ The blood welled to the surface and she sucked frantically at the cut.

  ‘I told you to be careful with that knife!’ Guy was round the table before she realised he had moved. He dragged her unceremoniously over to the sink and held her hand under the cold tap. ‘It serves you right!’

  ‘Thanks for your sympathy!’ Olivia tugged her hand away to inspect the wound. It was a tiny cut, but very deep, and the bone gleamed whitely through the blood.

  ‘You don’t deserve any sympathy after the way you were waving that knife around,’ Guy said crossly, then broke off to peer at her. ‘Olivia? Are you all right?’

  There was a loud roaring in her ears. ‘I’m fine,’ said Olivia, and keeled forward gracefully.

  Guy caught her before she hit the floor. Muttering under his breath, he lifted the slim body in his arms and deposited her ungently in a chair, pushing her head between her knees.

  She came to to the feel of Guy’s hand, reassuringly capable on the nape of her neck. ‘What happened?’ she asked weakly.

  ‘You fainted at the sight of that ghastly wound.’ His voice was dry. He rummaged in one of the cupboards for a plaster and stuck it over her knuckle with brisk efficiency. ‘Can you walk?’

  Furious with herself for giving him yet another opportunity to write her off as a squeamish ‘city girl,’ Olivia stood up abruptly. ‘Of course I can walk!’ But her legs buckled as a wave of nausea swept over her, and she clutched at the nearest thing, which happened to be Guy’s arm.

  ‘I think you’d better lie down for a bit.’ She couldn’t decide whether he sounded exasperated or amused as he lifted her easily into his arms again.

  ‘I don’t need to lie down. I feel fine.’ She felt awful, distinctly queasy and fuzzy, as if she were made of cotton wool.

  Guy ignored her, and carried her down the steps and across to the homestead. The feel of his arms about her was inexpressibly comforting, and Olivia suddenly longed to give in and lean her head against his shoulder. Her face could rest just under his jaw; her lips would be a mere breath away from his throat. He smelt of dust and sun and horses.

  She was just about to relax in his arms when Robyn’s clear voice called out from the veranda, ‘What’s the matter with Olivia?’

  Olivia stiffened. ‘Put me down!’ she muttered to Guy, who gave no sign of having heard her.

  ‘She’ll be all right. She just fainted,’ he said to Robyn as he climbed the veranda steps with his burden.

  ‘Fainted? Why?’

  What business was it of hers? Olivia thought with a scowl. ‘I cut myself,’ she said sulkily. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’

  Robyn was looking fresh and neat in clean jeans and pale blue chambray shirt, her curls still damp from the shower. Like Guy, she looked utterly right in her surroundings, and Olivia, who knew that, no matter how hard she tried, she would never look as if she belonged, felt a wave of depression wash over her.

  ‘Well, let me know if you want me to take over in the kitchen.’

  There was no doubt that Robyn would be able to take over everything, Olivia thought bleakly. She wouldn’t shriek at David’s insects. She wouldn’t faint at the first sight of blood. She would be able to cook the men the sort of meal they liked, plain and ungarnished, and she wouldn’t alarm them by appearing in a dress. She would look at home and talk to them about things they knew, and they would all wish it was Robyn Guy had married instead of that peculiar Pom.

  A dull sense of her own inadequacy settled inside her like a stone. She had been fooling herself when she had thought she was adjusting. She could never be like Robyn, never be the suitable sort of girl that Guy would really want to marry.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Guy asked, as he laid her on the bed.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Olivia said listlessly, and turned her head away. Her hand ached, her head ached, her heart ached, and she didn’t want to think about how bereft she felt without Guy’s arms around her.

  There was an unsettling intimacy in watching him move about the room, stripping off his watch, unbuckling his belt, unbuttoning his shirt. Olivia saw him with a strange new clarity, as if for the first time, every detail about him clear and distinct. She had always made a point of leaving the room, or pretending to be asleep, when Guy dressed or undressed. Now she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  Her gaze rested on the long, clean line of his back, the powerful shoulders and firm, tanned skin as he stripped off his shirt and sat down on the other side of the bed to pull off his boots.

  ‘You’d better stay here for a bit,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I’ve never seen anyone faint from such a small cut before.’

  For once Olivia didn’t respond. He stood up and stretched, rippling the muscles in his shoulders, and her stomach clenched with the impossible need to reach out and touch him.

  Unhurried, assured, Guy walked across the room with his peculiarly controlled grace, and pulled a towel from the back of a chair. Suddenly Olivia wanted desperately for him to turn and smile at her. Really smile. She wanted him to turn and open his arms so that she could slip her own about him and feel his skin beneath her hands. She wanted to rest her cheek against his chest and listen to his heart beating. She wanted him to hold her close and kiss her the way he had done before. She wanted him to want her the way she desperately, desperately wanted him.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Olivia?’ He was watching her from the end of the bed. The towel was slung round his neck, and one eyebrow was raised at her expression of appalled realisation.

  ‘What?’ Olivia, jerked back to awful reality, could only stare at him with wide, troubled blue eyes.

  ‘You look very strange.’ Guy looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Is something the matter?’

  Yes. ‘N-no, of course not!’ Horrified to find herself stammering, Olivia slid her eyes away from that searching gaze.

  Guy stood looking down at her in silence, his expression half irritated, half concerned, then he shrugged. ‘In that case, I’ll go and wash.’

  As the door closed behind him, Olivia sank back on to the pillows and stared unseeingly at the ceiling. How had it happened? And why had it taken her until now to realise the truth?

  She was in love with her husband.

  The meal that night was a disaster. By the time Olivia got back to the kitchen the apple pie was burnt and the vegetables overcooked. Still overwhelmed by new emotions, she put sugar in the gravy instead of salt, then stood clutching the wooden spoon while the gravy congealed unnoticed in the roasting dish.

  Robyn was clearly unimpressed, and her glances at Guy were sympathetic. Olivia was too miserable to care. Why on earth had she allowed this to happen? It had been just another business deal; at the end of it all she was going to walk back into her sophisticated life. How could she have fallen in love with Guy, of all people? He wasn’t handsome, he wasn’t charming, he certainly wasn’t in love with her. He just sat at the end of the table and looked like that, and she felt her bones melt with wanting him.

  Perfectly at home, Robyn laughed and chatted to the men. Everything about her seemed designed to point out how alien and unsuitable Olivia was. Olivia’s pride rebelled at last, and she retreated behind a barrier of frigid sophistication, but if Guy noticed how brittle and aloof she appeared he made no comment.
/>   The next morning was even worse. After a sleepless night next to Guy, who ignored her throughout, Olivia was tense and unhappy, and determined not to show it. She struggled through breakfast and then, to prove how relaxed and comfortable she felt, strolled down to the stockyards where the calves were being forced through a grisly routine. Separated from their mothers, they were wrestled into clamps. A burning brand was seared into their rumps and their horns were clipped off with what looked to Olivia like barbaric cruelty. Shaking their heads, dazed with shock, blood spouting in a bright red gush from what remained of their horns, the animals were released into a holding yard where they milled around, bellowing in protest.

  Appalled at the smell and the blood and the rough handling, Olivia watched for about a minute before fleeing back to the kitchen. Her hands shook as she washed them at the sink, sickened by what she had seen and ashamed by her own squeamishness. She would never, ever belong here! David had been hanging over the rails, watching with interest, Robyn had been branding, working side by side with Guy, with calm, capable hands, their faces absorbed. And she, Olivia, couldn’t even watch! Guy must be embarrassed to have such a wife! Robyn was so clearly suitable that she wondered why Guy hadn’t married her long ago.

  Drearily, she made her way over to the cold store. There was still lunch to prepare, meals to be cooked, another day to be got through. As she reached blindly into a sack for some onions, her hand brushed over something that moved sickeningly in response, and she leapt back, pulling over the sack. Onions tumbled out around her feet, and through them slithered a small brown snake.

  Olivia didn’t stop to think. Clapping her hands to her ears, she screamed. The snake, disturbed from its coiled sleep, writhed quickly back into the dark behind the sacks lining the walls. Olivia shuddered with disgust and began to back away in the opposite direction towards the door, as if the snake had retired merely to plan another attack. The relief as her hand touched the screen door was indescribable, and she stumbled down the steps in time to see Guy running over from the yards.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded, grabbing her by the shoulders. ‘Why were you screaming?’

  Olivia, shaken, humiliated, exhausted from lack of sleep, burst into tears.

  ‘This bloody place! I hate it! I hate it!’

  Guy’s brows snapped together. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘There was a snake! In the onion sack.’ She gulped back another sob. ‘I touched it.’

  ‘Did it bite you? Are you hurt?’ His hands tightened against her shoulders.

  ‘N-no.’

  Guy relaxed slightly. ‘You -’

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me!’ Olivia interrupted him, crying uncontrollably now with the pent-up feeling of the past few weeks. ‘I’ll get used to it - that’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? Well, I won’t! I’ll never get used to it!’ Wrenching herself from his grasp, she ran sobbing towards the creek.

  ‘Olivia!’ Guy called, but she ignored him, half blinded by tears as she blundered down the bank and into the drifts of fragrant gum leaves. The trees leant over her, shading her from the harsh sky and cocooning her in quiet.

  ‘Olivia.’ Guy caught up with her easily. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Willagong Creek’s the matter with me!’ she shouted back at him hysterically, heedless of the tears streaming down her face. ‘I hate it here! I hate the flies and I hate the dirt and I hate the fact that every time I open a drawer or put my hand in a sack there’s some horrible creature waiting to jump out at me! You think all I’m good for is cooking and cleaning, and I can’t even do that very well, and I didn’t want to ride, but you made me, and I hate horses, and you all hate me because I can’t brand a c-cow!’ She trailed off into helpless, hiccupping sobs.

  There was a hateful suspicion of a smile in Guy’s voice. ‘We don’t hate you, Olivia.’

  ‘Yes, you do! I can’t do any of the things you want me to do. You didn’t want me to stay, and you were right! Well, I’ve had enough! You can keep your precious outback - I want to go home!’

  She turned away and for a long moment there was only the sound of her jerky crying in the still creek.

  ‘What about David?’ Guy said quietly.

  ‘He doesn’t need me! He’d much rather b-be with Robyn.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t.’ Guy turned her firmly back to face him. ‘He’d miss you more than you know; more than he knows, probably.’

  When she only shook her head miserably, the tangled golden hair swinging in front of her face, he pulled her close against him. ‘He would,’ he insisted. His hands were warm and strong against her back, moving gently, as if he were soothing a quivering animal.

  Olivia took a shuddering breath and leant against him. The feel of his arms about her was infinitely reassuring. Slowly the hysterical, frustrated anger subsided, and it was enough to rest her face against his neck and feel him breathing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered at last. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Do you really want to go home?’ Guy asked above her head, and she could feel his chest vibrating as he spoke.

  ‘No,’ she whispered. She knew she ought to pull herself together, move away, show him that she was all right, but it just felt so comfortable being held by him. ‘I was just being … stupid. I didn’t mean all I said. I don’t want to leave David.’ I don’t want to leave you. The words trembled on her lips, but something held her back. Guy had only mentioned David, hadn’t he?

  ‘I know it’s been difficult for you,’ he said surprisingly. ‘If you did want to go ... if you ever find that you really can’t cope -’

  ‘I can cope!’ she said into his neck, rather muffled, wanting to pull away, to look confident, wanting more to kiss the pulse beating below his ear. Her lips were almost touching it, almost …

  His mouth was close to her silken hair. ‘Good girl,’ was all he said.

  There was no reason for them not to step apart. Olivia even expected him to put her firmly away from him, but he didn’t. Neither moved, but something indefinable changed. The comfort, the reassurance seeped away and a deeper, more exciting feeling took their place. Guy’s hands continued to smooth rhythmically up and down her back; perhaps his arms tightened imperceptibly, perhaps Olivia pressed just that tiny bit closer. Her breath shortened as a quivering deep inside her erupted without warning into a burning awareness of their bodies touching, holding each other, of Guy’s warmth and strength and the aching need to lift her face so that he could kiss her …

  ‘Guy! Is everything OK?’ Guy’s hands stilled suddenly, as Robyn’s voice called from the creek bank. ‘Oh, sorry!’ The other girl had obviously just caught sight of the two of them standing so close together. ‘You’ve been gone so long,’ she excused herself. ‘We wondered what was happening.’

  Guy released Olivia slowly, almost reluctantly. ‘It’s all right,’ he said up to Robyn. ‘I’m just coming.’

  It was a clear dismissal. Robyn hesitated, then walked away, leaving Guy looking down at Olivia. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes.’ Olivia’s eyes skittered away to the trees. ‘Yes, I’m OK.’

  ‘I’d better get back, then.’

  ‘Yes.’ What could she say? Don’t leave me? Don’t go? Stay here and kiss me? Lay me down on the scented leaves and make love to me?

  With a final look, Guy turned and began to walk after Robyn. ‘Guy?’ Olivia called, suddenly desperate.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I … I am sorry.’ She lifted her head, her eyes deep and blue. ‘I won’t make a scene like that again.’

  ‘Will you be coming along later, or would you like me to take the smoko with me?’ Robyn asked from her vantage point on a big, snorting horse. The men had just started moving the cattle back out to a new area, and the dust was slowly settling back into place in the now strangely silent stockyards as they receded into the distance.

  ‘I’ll bring it,’ Olivia said firmly, edging away from the horse.


  ‘We’ll stop at Kinvalier - oh, I’d better take something now, after all. You can’t get a vehicle up there, and you don’t ride, do you?’

  Olivia bristled, and her turquoise eyes flashed. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I know you go out with Guy and David sometimes, but this would be a long ride on your own.’

  ‘I’m perfectly capable of riding out to Kinvalier!’ Olivia snapped.

  Robyn looked unconvinced. ‘There’s no need for you to come, you know. Guy wouldn’t mind if you stayed.’

  Oh, wouldn’t he? ‘Tell Guy,’ said Olivia through gritted teeth, ‘that I will be bringing the smoko. I’ll be with you about half-past ten.’

  Later, eyeing her horse’s flattened ears, she wondered what on earth had possessed her to make such a stupid boast. She wasn’t at all sure she could even saddle the horse, let alone ride all the way out to Kinvalier. Why, oh, why hadn’t she just handed over the fruit scones and stayed quietly at home?

  ‘Because you don’t want Robyn to be alone with Guy,’ she reminded herself, forgetting the presence of the four ringers and David, who had been allowed to go as long as he stayed close to Robyn.

  When Guy had left her standing in the creek, Olivia had come to a decision. There would be no more tears, no more embarrassing scenes. She was in love with Guy, and she was going to make him love her, no matter what it took. If a Willagong woman was what he wanted, that was what she would have to become.

  Willagong woman rode, so she would too. She took a firm grip on the bridle, and advanced towards the horse.

  By the time she neared Kinvalier, it was past eleven o’clock and she was exhausted. Sensing the lack of a firmer hand, the horse played up, but she had clung on with grim determination. She had fallen off twice, and had been so enraged by the time she had caught the horse and remounted the second time that she had jerked the reins and kicked her heels into its ribs with a fury that had surmounted every fear. The horse, as if recognising a stronger will, had behaved beautifully since, but now, as they came in sight of the herd, it pricked up its ears and increased its pace, as if catching some of the excitement.