by Dorothy Cork
‘Darling, I haven’t taught you a thing yet,’ he protested. ‘But don’t provoke me—this isn’t the time or the place and I really think we’d better get moving. There are much more satisfactory places for making love.’ His voice was rueful and Farrell saw the gleam of his teeth as he smiled at her and her heart thudded. Reluctantly she moved away from him.
He locked up Mrs. Adams’ car, murmured something about sending someone out from Ansell for it, then installed her in the front seat of the Landrover, and they were on their way.
In five minutes Farrell was exhaustedly asleep, though she would much sooner have stayed awake so she could savour what Larry had said. ‘I love you dementedly.’
When she opened her eyes, she was sure it was something she had dreamed, it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. She glanced at the man beside her to assure herself it really was Larry, then caught her breath at the feelings the mere sight of him aroused in her. He turned and smiled at her, and she smiled back. She realised they were in Ansell, driving along a tree-lined street that smelled of orange blossoms and jasmine and pittosporum flowers—of all the sweet flowers of spring, the air was still warm, and a small silver moon had floated into the sky among the stars.
‘Feeling better?’ Larry asked. ‘I think we’ll stop here, Farrell. You’ve had about all you can take for one day, and I guess we both need a meal. All right?’
She nodded, too happy to speak. But as he pulled up in his own particular parking spot at the motel and reached for her suitcases, she suddenly thought of Mark and felt a pang. Meeting him again was not going to be altogether pleasant. She just couldn’t imagine how she would sort all that out, but oh, she mustn’t think about it now and spoil everything. She would wait till it happened.
In the motel she waited while Larry got his keys, and when he turned away from the desk and came towards her and their eyes met, she thought she could look into the blueness of his for ever. They went straight to his suite and when he had dropped her suitcases on the floor, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her again, with restrained passion. Then holding her a little away from him, he drew a finger down the line of her cheek. ‘We’d better go in to dinner, Farrell. Don’t worry about changing your clothes—you don’t look as if you could stand it, you’re like a drooping flower. God knows what your father would say if he could see you now. He’d never trust you to my care again—and seeing I hope to marry you that would never do, would it?’
‘I’m all right,’ she said, smiling. ‘Really, Larry. I slept—I feel wonderful. Just a bit hungry.’
In the little dressing room she splashed water on her face and combed her hair, and though her face was pale with fatigue there were stars in her eyes that simply couldn’t be extinguished.
They shared a light meal in the dining room, sitting at a secluded table, speaking very little and staring into each other’s eyes like lovers. Farrell thought of Quindalup—how soon they would be walking up the gorge to the lily ponds, swimming together in the pool near the sun shelter, relaxing on the li-los under the trees and telling each other everything. It wasn’t going to take her a week or even a day to decide whether or not she would marry him. She knew the answer now, and she knew that she would be quite ready for him to teach her all about love. She was afraid of nothing.
As they left the dining room and strolled along the terrace outside the cocktail bar, her glance went lazily over the crowd sitting at the tables. She remembered as if it belonged to another world that handsome boy who had stared at her when she had been here before, then suddenly she discovered someone was staring at her. She stiffened. Seated at the end of one of the tables was Mark. Farrell’s face went white with shock. She had known she would have to face him some time, but not tonight. Tonight was too soon—she couldn’t cope. Larry’s arm was lightly around her shoulders and she drew some comfort from that. She prayed Mark wouldn’t bluff his way through some frightful scene that she would find impossible to handle—that he wasn’t going to manage to spoil everything now it had come right. More than ever she was convinced he must merely be planning to use her as a convincing argument that he was really ready to settle down. Yet how could he do that? Especially now she was here with Larry. He surely couldn’t pick an argument—he knew very well she had no sentimental feelings for him. She simply couldn’t understand it, and the confusion of her thoughts was making her feel ill.
Now Mark was on his feet, a smile on his good-looking face, signalling to her and to Larry.
‘Hi, Larry—Farrell!’ Larry paused and Farrell paused too, her limbs trembling, while Mark came jauntily towards them. ‘You’re just the person I hoped to see,’ he told Larry with a grin. He turned his head. ‘Hey, Ruth, come and be introduced.’
Farrell stared as a tall red-haired girl in jeans and a blue cotton shirt embroidered with big flowers rose from the table and came forward obligingly.
‘Ruth, this is Larry Sandfort—I was telling you about him. Oh, and Farrell Fitzgerald. This is Ruth, my fiancée. Ruth Howard. I guess you’re not really surprised, Larry. Helen said she’d break the ice for me ... Ruth and I saw a lot of each other about six months ago, and we met up again just recently in Meekatharra. She’s the reason I’ve decided to quit the roving life and settle down to be a married man.’
Farrell felt almost too stunned to take it all in. So this was the girl Mark wanted to marry! It wasn’t her at all. It was such an immense relief she wanted to laugh. She didn’t know if she said anything at all, but she was vaguely aware of Larry offering his congratulations and adding coolly, ‘Yes, Helen gave us the news in a general sort of way. I believe you have ideas about working for Ansell-Sandfort Mining.’
‘Yair,’ Mark agreed. ‘Join us for a drink, will you, and we can talk about' it. Let’s find a table to ourselves.’ He turned around and reached for a nearby chair and pulled it out. ‘Sit down, Farrell. It’s great to see you again. And by the way,’ he added looking back at Larry, ‘Ruth here would like a job too.’
‘I rather thought she might,’ Larry said dryly. He had put a hand on Farrell’s arm, restraining her as she moved unwillingly towards the seat Mark offered. ‘Well, I’m not going to talk about it tonight. You’ll have to wait till it’s more convenient—and till I’ve given the matter some thought. If I do offer you a job, I’m not going to promise it will be something you’ll rush. You’ll have to make the best of what’s available, or look elsewhere.’ Then, with a brief smile at Ruth, he wished them both goodnight, and taking Farrell by the arm, guided her past the tables in the direction of his rooms.
Farrell didn’t find her voice till they were inside with the door shut behind them. Then she asked frowningly, ‘Aren’t you going to offer Mark work, Larry? You sounded so—hard.’
‘I was feeling hard,’ he said, pulling her down on the settee beside him and putting his arm around her shoulders. ‘To tell the truth, it was all I could do not to king-hit that young fellow.’
Farrell’s lips parted on a gasp. She had thought Mark might cause a scene—but it seemed Larry had been the one more likely to do that!’But—but why?’
‘Because he needs to be taught a lesson.’
‘I don’t understand. Those things he told Helen—they were about Ruth, not me. She looks quite nice,’ she added inconsequentially. ‘Mark didn’t do me any harm, Larry. You’ve already said you believed that.’
‘Oh yes, I believe it to some extent.’ He pulled her against him and brushed his lips lightly across her mouth and she felt a tremor of desire go through her. ‘You’d better hurry up and get yourself up to that hundred per cent standard of fitness pretty soon, Farrell,’ he said under his breath, tangling his fingers in her soft curling hair, his blue eyes exploring her grey-green ones. ‘What did happen between you, anyhow, Farrell? I know there was something—you were having quite a struggle that night you were delirious, and that was when you began to mutter about Mark Nelson. You might as well tell me now. I don’t want to spend the whole of my married lif
e wondering, and I’d sooner hear it here than at Quindalup.’
Colour flooded her face, then subsided again. It still upset her to remember that night at the roadhouse, and even now she knew she couldn’t bring herself to tell the whole of it to Larry. ‘Nothing happened really,’ she said after a moment. ‘I know now that I asked for trouble careering off with Mark the way I did—I asked him to let me come, you see. I was just too stupid to realise he’d—expect anything of me.’
Larry raised his eyebrows. ‘Not too stupid. Too innocent, perhaps.’
‘Well—I suppose so,’ she conceded. ‘Anyhow, everything was all right at first and then that last night he—he tried to start something.’ She bit her lip, then forced herself to go on. ‘He’d always just—got into his own bed, before, but this time he—he wanted to get into mine. So I screamed and—he just left me alone,’ she concluded, thinking how terrible it all sounded. ‘It was very decent of him really, wasn’t it, though, Larry? I mean, he could have made things very awkward, but he didn’t, so it’s really not fair if you take it out on him by not giving him a chance.’
Larry’s eyes were dark and he was scowling. ‘For God’s sake,’ he exclaimed, ‘you don’t expect me to praise him for his consideration, do you? I still say he deserves a good punch on the jaw!’
‘But nothing happened,’ Farrell insisted, a little alarmed by the look in his eyes.
‘Nothing happened? Didn’t he drop you off alone and defenceless bang in the middle of what’s decidedly a man’s country? If nothing happened then, it was certainly not his fault...’ Come to think of it,’ he added after a moment, and now the line of his mouth had softened in a way she loved, ‘it’s possibly Mark’s fault we’re here together now—sharing this VIP unit in the mining town of Ansell, W.A. In fact, you’re now in a very dangerous situation, Farrell, because I’m not taking you back to Quindalup till tomorrow. Have you any objections?’
‘None,’ said Farrell. Her eyes met his laughingly, and then suddenly they were both very serious, and as Larry pulled her to him she knew the utmost bliss. This was what she had come a thousand miles to find—love in the arms of the man she adored, the beginning of a new and thrilling adventure.
