by Margaret Way
Late afternoon while her father was taking a nap: “Just like a child!” he said. “I actually need it.” Storm took out one of her favourite horses, Rising Star, an ex-racehorse whose delight in galloping Storm found exhilarating. A good gallop would clear the cobwebs. She loved horses. Loved riding. She’d felt confident and comfortable on a horse’s back. She had done ever since she could remember.
There were photographs of her up in the saddle at age three, hard hat on her head, little striped polo shirt, jodhpurs, shiny boots on her feet. Photographs of her on horseback at all ages. An impressive one of her at the Royal National Show performing an advanced dressage movement. For a while there dressage had been her passion, until her passion for jewellery making had taken over. Rising Star was a wonderfully supple and responsive ride. Once on the open plain she gave the bright chestnut with the white star on his forehead her full rein.
There was magic in galloping. It was far, far better than driving a powerful Ferrari. One of her male friends had let her take his around a track at high speed. It was exhilarating, but give her a fast horse every time.
A half hour into her ride, when the sunset was turning the deep blue sky into a glory of pink, crimson, and gold with bands of indigo and orange on the horizon, she sighted Luke. He was on horseback, coming from the direction of one of the holding camps. The way he rode filled her with excitement. He was a wonderful horseman. For long moments she was defenceless against the stirring sight of him galloping towards her. Why was she so much in need of her father’s love and attention that she took it out on Luke? Maybe if her mother had lived? God how she wished she had. It wasn’t all that easy being a child, a young woman, in a man’s world.
Luke reined in, his eyes a blazing blue against the golden bronze of his skin. His dark red hair contrasted brightly against the pearl-grey of his akubra. Never a sign of a freckle. Not one.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked, allowing his eyes to move over her, glossy mane wind-tossed, those beautiful cat’s eyes clear and sparkling.
“Yes,” she answered shortly when she felt quite emotional.
“How did it go with your father?” he coaxed.
“Well. He asked where you were.”
Luke made no immediate comment on that. “Let’s ride into the shade. You really should be wearing a hat for protection.” He glanced at her as she came alongside him. As usual she’d let her hat slide down her back.
“How come you don’t get freckles?” she asked.
He grinned. “You’ve wanted to know that ever since I can remember. The answer is the same as ever. I don’t know. I’m not ginger like poor old Sandy, you know.” He named a station hand whose freckles were so close together they resembled a mottled tan.
“Dark auburn,” Storm said, a soft note entering her voice. Luke’s mother had had the same beautiful colouring. Any kind of light fired that hair.
“Did you tell him where I went?” Luke asked, as they rode down on a narrow, curving billabong. The pink and cream water-lilies floating on it were wondrously beautiful and fragile. Like creations in porcelain. Or enamel, Storm thought, her creativity stirring.
“I simply said you went back to work,” she offered after they’d both dismounted. “He wants you to come up to the house for dinner.”
Luke stared at her for a minute, then turned away. “No.”
“Ouch!” She glanced at his unsmiling profile. “Would you like to tell him that yourself?” She gave him a slight, dangerously provocative smile.
“All right I will.” He bent to pick up a few pebbles. He had to keep his hands off her. He sent them skimming across the water one after the other. “It’s your first night home after all.”
“Let’s start again,” she said wryly. After all this had gone on for years. “I’m afraid nothing is complete without you.” There was no anger in her voice…just a resigned acceptance.
Luke straightened, staring out sightlessly over the dark emerald lagoon. “It has far less to do with me than a symptom of your father’s driving need of a son.”
“Do you know I agree with you,” she said. “Why didn’t he remarry?”
A pause then, “You wouldn’t have liked that, Storm.”
That unnerved her, threatening her tenuous poise. “Are you saying Dad sacrificed his own desires to appease me?”
“It’s possible.” He turned at last to look at her. “Having your father’s sole attention has always meant a great deal to you.”
“And that’s not normal?” she asked defensively, staring into his eyes.
“Perfectly normal for a little girl as isolated as you were. Every little girl needs her mother.”
She felt such a rush of emotion she turned away blindly. “You’re absolutely right.” A moment slipped by. “I’ve tried to get away from you, Luke,” she admitted, low-voiced though it seared her.
“I know.” His voice equally tense came from somewhere behind her. “I’ve had to pay a high price for your father’s affection.”
“How do you mean?” She spun on her heel only to discover him standing directly in front of her. His aura was so powerful, so male, she found it intimidating.
“You’ve figured it out by now,” he clipped off. “I lost out on you. Your affection.”
“Surely it wasn’t important to you.” Deliberately she moved back a few paces, putting distance between them.
“You charmed me in your cradle.” He, on the other hand, stood perfectly still.
“I used to hero-worship you.” She found herself saying haltingly as though in the grip of a truth serum.
“Then all at once things changed.”
She took a deep shaky breath, trying to suppress the sharp rising excitement that was cutting through her like a blade. “Dad has ruled our lives,” she muttered. “He set us one against the other.”
He shook his head. “If he did, he never meant to.”
That spooked her. “Why do I ever expect any fairness from you?” she flared. “I can never open my heart to you, Luke. You’re always on Dad’s side.”
“Wake up, will you?” he begged. “I’m here for you, Storm. You might consider it’s possible, too, you’re never on my side. Any chance we could start again?”
“No, I just can’t. I really can’t,” Storm said in a passion. “Too many years have gone by.”
“What are you frightened of, Storm?” he asked, fearing his own loss of control. Very quietly he moved towards her, like he sometimes did in her dreams. “Why are you so frightened of me?”
She was so alight she felt she would blow a fuse. “Such arrogance!” Her voice rang out caustically. “I’m not frightened of you at all.”
“If you back any further you’ll finish up in the water,” he warned, holding out his hand.
She ignored it, a pulse away from lashing out at him.
“I think you are,” he continued.
The air between them vibrated with a tension that had them both catching their breath.
“What do I have to do to prove it?” She stood there, hands on hips, head thrown back, eyes flashing green fire. An attitude of defiance he had witnessed countless times over.
“Why don’t you let me show you?”
He started to walk towards her again, his brilliant eyes intent on her, while she tried to fight back excitement and panic.
“Don’t you dare touch me, Luke,” she warned.
He gave a challenging shake of his head. “I’m genuinely amazed I haven’t tried it before. For years you were too young, but you’re old enough now. Two fiancés no less.”
“I couldn’t even count your girlfriends!”
So great was her tumult she actually considered the ignominy of flight. But he was there, one hand taking a fistful of her hair, the other strong arm snaking around her waist pulling her so closely into him she felt the impact of body against body in every last cell.
Luke allowed her to grind against him in a futile struggle, her beautiful, high breasts crushed
against his chest, her long-fingered hands flailing wildly. Her breath was coming unsteadily through her parted lips, sweet and clean against his skin.
He lost control.
He was alight with desire. It pounded in his temples and in his brain. The times she had cut him to the bone! The infinite number of times she had played princess of the manor! When his mouth came down over the luscious cushion of her lips, she gave a cry, muffled but keening like a bird’s.
“Surely you’ve been kissed before?” He couldn’t stop himself from offering a taunt. The wish to hurt her as she had hurt him was overriding any thought of tenderness. He was unaware his voice sounded drugged with long-denied desire.
Fire crackled, spat, burned through Storm’s veins. She’d been kissed many, many times but no one had evoked such a passionate, primitive, reaction. She had imagined him kissing other women. Carla, the rest. In his arms she was forced to admit it, but the reality of having his beautiful clean-cut mouth over hers was too overwhelming to describe.
She wanted to lock her lips and her teeth. She wanted to deny him any pleasure he might take from her mouth and her body but the voluptuousness of her own emotions were simply too much for her. It was as if he had taken possession of her.
The very thing she feared.
“Luke, stop!” No order. A plea, knees trembling, her head falling forward against his chest, the wild urge to fight him spent.
“When I’m so enjoying myself?” His resonant voice was husky, mocking.
“What are you trying to prove?” Her skin was pale with the force of emotion, her eyes huge.
“Only the truth,” he said quietly, observing her extreme agitation.
“Well the truth is I hate you.” She responded passionately, on cue.
“Goes without saying! But what do you actually mean, given that you kissed me back?”
Storm couldn’t bear to consider that. “I did not!”
“Did so. We can play these silly games. You know something?” He put his gleaming head to one side. “You’re the greatest kisser I’ve ever met and Carla’s not bad.”
She saw red as she was meant to. Luke was an illness, a fever. There was no escape from him anywhere. She moved with feline speed and suppleness. She lifted her hand in an arc, then cracked it sharply against his lean cheek. Fall of flesh upon flesh.
A moment frozen in time.
God! In the heat she felt chilled. Overcome by shame. Humiliation. A kind of despair. She really needed help with no help to be had. Where was the enviable control, the poise that was so much a part of her? It deserted her utterly on her home ground. As her arm began to fall he pinned her wrist, not cruelly but leaving her in little doubt of his vastly superior strength. “A warning, Storm. Don’t do that again. Not ever.” His eyes were blue stars.
“No I won’t.” Her tone was full of self-disgust. “It’s too demeaning. And you won’t kiss me either. Understood?”
He smiled a little at the “turn the tables” mechanism she so often deployed, holding her intently with his eyes. “Now that I can’t promise. Not when I’ve just got a taste for it.”
“Have your little joke,” she turned on her heel.
“What makes you think it’s a joke?” he called after her, watching her take the grassy slope like a gazelle.
“You won’t like it if I tell Carla.” At the top she turned to threaten him, her cheeks flushed.
For answer he sketched an elegant little bow. “My life is in your hands!”
It was said with the utmost mockery. A sobering prospect to know it was true.
CHAPTER FOUR
A WEEK slipped away, during which time Storm kept a close watch on her father. His general health picked up having her near. His eyes were brighter behind his glasses. He was always able to summon a smile. He talked endlessly of the old days; how he met and married her mother. How beautiful she was. How much he loved her. How his very existence was threatened when he lost her.
“But I had you, my darling. I had to pick up the reins.”
Her father was so happy, so at peace, Storm found it almost impossible to broach the subject of her return to Sydney. Sooner or later she had to. It was necessary to keep her work before the public, especially now when she was riding high on her little moment of fame. But the ideas kept coming. Not just for the swank pieces that brought in the money and had the most staying power, but for good contemporary pieces within the reach of young, sophisticated jewellery lovers. Experimental pieces. She had brought a sketchbook with her—she was rarely without one—and it was almost filled. She’d also been asked to custom-design impressive pieces of jewellery for men. One of her customers was a top male executive who swore by the healing power of carnelian for his legendary quick temper. Others thought turquoise brought good luck. Every gem was credited with a special healing power.
She’d sketched out a few blueprints for bold signet rings either sculptured in solid sterling silver or eighteen carat gold handset with semiprecious stones; lapis lazuli, amber, jade, malachite, opal with its beautiful play of colours, jet, onyx, fire agates. Working with these gems and having easy access to them, Storm felt their power more than most. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and pearls remained the top five. So many legends were attached to them but Storm was just as fascinated by the many semiprecious stones that passed under her eyes. Stones that had been known and used since antiquity. A few years back she’d made a jade pendant on thin-corded leather for her father to wear around his neck. She’d used the most sought after jade, too. An intense apple-green. She’d gone to great lengths to secure it. Jade was said to have healing power over bone problems if it was worn. Her father had taken the pendant in his hand, admired the workmanship, and given it back.
“A man doesn’t wear jewellery, sweetheart,” he had said in a kindly but dismissive voice. “Besides I don’t believe in all that healing stuff.”
She still had the pendant at the bottom of her mother’s jewel case which was now hers.
Luke became a fixture at the dinner table. Something that worked wonders for the Major’s moods, if not Storm’s. Luke had the most marvellous calming effect on him. That’s what’s wrong with me, Storm thought. I’m not calm, volatile mostly. Periods of calm. Always acutely aware of Luke, she had become preternaturally sensitive to his presence. But she had resolved to be good. Pleasing the Major was paramount to both of them. With an effort on both sides, they kept up a charade, a pretence at a new intimacy the Major didn’t miss but apparently rejoiced in.
In the daytime Storm took her father for trips around the station so he could call in at the various camps and worksite to speak to his men. Often they enjoyed a mug of billy tea and sometimes a slice of freshly baked damper. At other times Storm parked the Jeep on high ground so her father could look down on the mob spread out across the plains or a party of stockmen fording them across the shallows of the permanent stream that ran through the station. His favourite port of call was to watch Luke break in the best of the brumbies though “breaking” scarcely described Luke’s method. Luke was one of the natural born “calmers.”
He had an innate love and understanding of horses. No one on the station knew of one he couldn’t ride when horses aren’t inherently rideable. The horses Luke handled were broken in superbly. Horse breaking is a highly skilled task. It involves mouthing, riding and educating. Brumbies unlike the station bred horses weren’t used to the sight of humans. Station horses were well handled from an early age consequently they were even-tempered and relatively controllable. Brumbies, were something else again. Often their bucking at the riding stage was positively ferocious.
Over the years many a stockman had sustained injuries trying to ride a wild horse; crushed ribs, broken collarbones, broken limbs, broken facial bones. It was a fairly easy matter to get oneself killed, especially if a horse was cornered in a yard. That particular afternoon, the “mouthing” over Luke was riding a big bay standing some sixteen and a half hands with obvious thoroug
hbred blood. The bay most likely was the progeny of one of the station mares and a brumby stallion. Brumby stallions were notorious for their attempts to run off station mares to join the harem.
“I thought I was good in the old days,” the Major grunted in admiration as they sat in the Jeep watching proceedings. “I never had Luke’s skill nor patience. He’s turned so many of these rogues into good working horses.”
“That’s the Luke we know and love!” Storm quipped, watching Luke speak quietly, soothingly to the wild horse urging the animal forward. Luke knew better than anyone how to get himself into the horse’s comfort zone. Nervous, unpredictable horses were time bombs waiting to go off. Luke knew how to control his own emotions, something that communicated itself to the horse. There were no punishments in Luke’s methods. A horse reacted according to its natural instincts he always said. If that presented a problem, then the problem had to be solved.
They sat for a good hour along with several stockmen and the two young station jackeroos perched up on the fence. The youngsters new to Luke’s horsemanship were thrilled by the display, one of the jackeroos calling out to Luke for “a go.” Luke took no notice whatsoever if indeed he heard the boy. His concentration on the job in hand was too intense. No one had ever seen Luke land on the sand, paralysed with pain.
“Stupid young devil!” the Major snorted with a hard edge of irritation. “Tell him to stop, Storm.”
“Okay, Dad. Take it easy. One is foolhardy at that age,” she said lightly opening the Jeep door. “I used to want to ride a buckjumper myself, remember?”
“Don’t I ever!” the Major said with a faint tremor. “Tell that lad if he can’t keep his silly mouth shut he can push off. Go find some work. They simply don’t know what’s involved here. There are plenty of professional breakers doing the rounds, but I haven’t seen one to match Luke. He can control even the most dangerous horse and they’re dangerous animals.”
Storm walked over to the high railed fence and tapped the jackeroo lightly. “Listen, Simon, keep it down. Calling out to Luke could distract him. That horse could start acting up any time.”
