Outback Fire

by Margaret Way

  “So you are attracted to him?” Bloomfield watched her carefully.

  Her expression gave her away. “The very minute I start to get things into perspective something like this happens. I never in my wildest dreams thought Dad would handcuff us together. I loathe it.”

  “I’m absolutely certain, although he never said so, your father intended the two of you to marry,” Bloomfield offered.

  “That would solve everything, wouldn’t it?” Storm replied with false blitheness. “Especially in regard to Winding River. Luke could run it. I could produce the next heir. After all that’s a woman’s job, isn’t it? Having the babies, raising the kids. I had a career. Not that Dad ever saw it as one.”

  It was sadly true. “Surely you can continue your career, Storm,” Bloomfield said. “You’re brilliant and very widely sought after. Gillian loves the beautiful necklace and earrings you created for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. I love to see her in it. Surely you can work from anywhere even if you have to make business trips from time to time?”

  “What are you suggesting, Robert? Luke and I should bury our differences and get married.” The very thought took her breath away.

  “Whom you marry is your business entirely, Storm,” Bloomfield pointed out. “I wish you all the happiness in the world. You have had every material want but I do realise in many ways you were emotionally deprived. Luke, too, for that matter. He lost his parents at a very vulnerable age.”

  Storm dipped her head. “And he never acted up. Not like me. Luke took it on the chin. Whatever he thinks of me, Robert, whatever the bond, Luke isn’t a man I can twist around my little finger.”

  “Not like the last guy, eh?” Bloomfield gave her an owlish smile. “What was his name?”

  “Alex. He’s still around. He won’t know about Dad. He’s in Hong Kong on a business trip.”

  “But that’s all over, the relationship?” Bloomfield asked, looking at her a little sharply.

  Storm shrugged. “It wasn’t really ever on. I’ve never found the man to satisfy me.” Outside Luke, she thought. Luke had brought love-making to a fine art.

  “I take it Luke’s romance with the Prentice girl didn’t amount to anything?” Bloomfield continued very smoothly.

  “Not for her want of trying. She’s madly in love with him.”

  “So would I be if I were a young woman.” Bloomfield gave a little bark of laughter, then swiftly sobered. “What are you going to do about Luke, my dear,” he asked quietly. “You realise you could contest your father’s will. My firm will stand by you.”

  “You believe I have a right to?” Storm asked in a tight voice.

  “Most people would.” He shrugged. “Athol could have left Luke a sizeable sum of money. Enough to kick-start a small operation. Luke has all the skills to build on that. He’s a young man with a big future.”

  “And besides he has half of Winding River. Off the record, Robert, I don’t want you to speak as a lawyer, but as a family friend, what do you think I should do?”

  Bloomfield considered very carefully. “This is one you have to solve yourself, my dear,” he said finally. “I’ll back you whatever you do, but this cuts too close to your heart. I suspect to Luke’s as well. You are the main beneficiary of your father’s will. There’s plenty more left of it to read. You and Luke share Winding River at least in Luke’s lifetime. After that, as I said, it reverts to you or your heirs. Luke cannot take up a position anywhere else—I’m darn sure Clive Prentice would love to have him sign on at Mingari—but under the terms of your father’s will he has to stay here and run the whole operation. For that he takes the income, which I suppose is fair enough. Being a top cattleman is hard, dangerous work and one has to have a natural rapport and authority with the men. So far as residing together in the homestead, that’s something I can’t possibly decide. God knows it’s big enough to house a small army but there are the proprieties of course.”

  Storm was vibrating with nerves. “I’ve offended him deeply,” she said. “It’s one of my hang-ups.”

  “I’m afraid, my dear, you have. But knowing you I expect you can smooth things over. Angry or not I know Luke cares a great deal about you. I watched the two of you at the funeral. It seemed to me you share a very strong bond, whether you want it or not. Now sit down, again, Storm, so I can get on with reading the rest of the will. At the end you’ll find yourself a lot better off than even you expected. In fact you’ll be one of the richest young women in the country.”

  So why didn’t it cheer her up? Storm slipped quietly back into her chair.

  When Robert left she would have to find Luke. Not to kiss and make up. Her father had just made him her honorary brother.

  The mauve dusk came and went. Night set in. Luke didn’t come up to the house. Not that she had been expecting him to. He was probably as shell-shocked as she was, but her feeling for him erased everything else. In the starry darkness the desert air was cool and crisp. It enveloped her. Lights were on at the bungalow and she mounted the steps marvelling how swiftly events had overtaken her. Her father’s death; the funeral; her night with Luke; the power and passion of their union when they had both forgotten their place in the scheme of things.

  Now this. The will. Just as their relationship flared into sexual radiance everything could crumble. Maybe there was even something inevitable about it. Like a doomed affair. She anticipated Luke would be uncharacteristically cold but when he opened the door to her knock so casual was his expression she might have been one of the station hands. “May I come in?”

  “If you wish.” He was the picture of calm but he was angry. She knew it. It was all in his eyes. And she knew those eyes.

  “Have we really come to this, Luke?” She looked around the living room, which was comfortably, even cosily furnished, spotlessly clean and tidy, but smaller than her own bedroom at the house.

  “I haven’t got the answer to that question, Storm,” he queried. “Are you going to sit down?”

  “Thank you.” She moved to a club chair. “I didn’t handle the will reading very well.”

  “Truth to tell neither did I.” He glanced towards her. She was looking all of a sudden very fragile in that masculine chair. “Have you had anything to eat?”

  “I had some lunch.”

  “I was making coffee. Do you want some?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “So what have you come to tell me?” he asked a little later, placing their coffee on the table between them along with a ham sandwich. “Go on, eat it,” he prompted.

  She felt too sad and weary. “Why did Dad do this, Luke? Help me understand.”

  “Why?” His cleanly defined mouth tightened. “No matter what you think not to enrage you. Your father lived his life as the man in control. Scott Fitzgerald once said that the rich are different, and it’s not just that they have more money. Your father had the power to control lives. Whatever he wanted had to happen. You must know he had plans to marry us off.”

  “No, I didn’t,” she answered at once. “All I know is every single male friend I brought here he compared unfavourably with you. Surely he didn’t think that was the right way to go about it?”

  He frowned slightly. “Eat your sandwich.”

  She shook her head but picked it up and bit into it, surprised to find she was hungry.

  Luke let her finish it before pushing her cup of coffee nearer her. “Like another?”

  “You’re definitely, but definitely a carer. That was good but I’d rather talk right now. Dad seems to have made you my honorary big brother.”

  Luke responded instantly losing his cool. “The hell he did! The things you say, Storm. You’re really something.”

  “Must be one of the reasons you love me.” She smiled at him, very wryly, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Why would I love a terrible woman like you?” he said in the same wry tone.

  She stared at him with intensity. “God knows!” She held her head. “Maybe
I’m disturbed. Maybe we can’t live without one another. Situations like this must exist.”

  “It’s the strangest case I’ve ever struck,” he returned dryly. “The person who made things so easy and so difficult for us was your father. He should have had a son of his own.”

  “I’d still have been shunted into a back seat,” Storm said, knowing it to be true.

  “But you wouldn’t have resented me at all. I wouldn’t have been part of the equation.”

  She shrugged. “Anyway, it’s all hypothetical. I knew Dad would reward you for your hard work and dedication…I expected that.”

  “But you never expected he’d do something so intolerable. You do find it intolerable, don’t you?”

  Storm drew a jagged breath, unable to deny it. Even from the grave her father was affirming Luke’s value as equal to hers. “Can’t you understand it’s been a blow?”

  “Of course I understand.” The words burst forth. “I’ve been understanding all the injuries to you for most of my life. We’ve been presented with a dilemma, which I understand can only be resolved if we marry. Simple, if we were so madly in love with each other no problems existed. But marriage is a pretty big hurdle.”

  “You wouldn’t marry me?” she asked, acknowledging a perverse sense of outrage.

  It brought an ironic smile to his mouth. “The only way I’d want you to come to me is of your own free will. But the handicaps are very much in place. The Major has put me in a bad position. You might consider that.”

  “In what way are you in a bad position?” she retaliated, thinking they would be forever locked in conflict. “Overnight you have half of Winding River.”

  There was an endless, endless pause filled with a ringing tension.

  “I thought I made my feelings pretty clear,” Luke said, blue eyes electric. “You can stick Winding River, ma’am. Get your boyfriend Alex to run it. Contest the will if you like. Argue undue influence I coerced your father into leaving me half the station. He was in very poor health. A dying man very largely dependent on me, not only to run the whole operation but for company. You sure as hell kept your distance.”

  It was a struggle not to hit him, but she didn’t make that mistake. She stood up, anger and anguish all over her face. “I was wondering when you were going to say that. I’ve been dreading it actually.”

  “Why not?” his voice was hard with mockery. “You go ahead and blame me for everything no matter what. The sad fact of the matter is you can never trust me. You’ll always be harking back to days that would have to be left behind. That’s where this feeling of powerlessness you have began.”

  That did it. “So what are you suggesting, peace at any price? What am I supposed to say, Luke, good on you. You deserve half my inheritance. Bighearted Storm. I think it’s lovely Dad thought so much of you.”

  “Hey,” he said. “I told you. I don’t want it.”

  “Then you’re a fool.” She tried to pull herself together, her anger shaming her by tipping over into desire. “Only it’s not so straightforward, is it? You’re not a fool. Far from it. You know I wouldn’t contest the will.”

  Suddenly Luke could take no more. “I think if you don’t want to risk getting manhandled, you should get out of here.”

  She wasn’t even the heiress now. “You don’t scare me, Luke. I happen to know you. You’re nothing if not the perfect white knight. Whatever I think of this arrangement, it was Dad’s decision to split the station between us. He knew I couldn’t work Winding River without you.”

  “Try to concentrate when I speak to you,” Luke said, sounding very tough. “That isn’t a consideration. I told you I could find you someone very capable to take over. Two names come to mind. I’ll give you both.”

  “You won’t stay?”

  “Obviously this needs spelling out in big letters. N-O.”

  The hardening of his mood, the things he was saying, somehow frightened her. But she wasn’t about to show it. “You’ve been paid up until the end of the month. You said so yourself.”

  “Okay but I won’t wait a minute longer.” He clipped off the words.

  “You’ll refuse Dad’s request?” She was thoroughly unnerved.

  “Maybe you should just go, Storm.”

  “All right.” She had her pride. She walked to the door, her eyes huge and brilliant in her pale face. “Dad felt you were crucial to our continuing success. I can’t deny I’m finding this hard, but I think so, too. We both need longer, Luke, to think about all this.” Deliberately she met his condemning eyes.

  As if she were tormenting him he thought. She looked quite heartbreakingly beautiful. So much a part of him. Even at this worst of times he wanted her desperately but he would fight that to the death. One thing he’d learned: Storm had an infinite capacity to hurt him. “Good night, Storm,” he said resolutely. “It’s been one hell of a day.”

  “Tell me about it.” She made a little sound like a sob. “What happened to us last night, do you know?”

  He stared at her from his superior height. “You’re all grown up, Storm. I guess it was sex.”

  She took a ragged breath. “Is that what it was?”

  “You need to answer that. I couldn’t.”

  “It wasn’t just sex for me,” she confessed, very softly as though she was speaking to herself. “It was incredible. Like something I’ve never known.”

  It would be madness to weaken. “Well I guess now it’s all over,” he managed to say coolly. “Sad for me. Sad for you. But that’s the way it is.”

  Blindly she turned away. “I think I’ll go back to Sydney in a day or two.”

  He nodded, cut to the heart. “Well that’s what you were going to do anyway, wasn’t it?”

  She was quiet for a moment. “I feel dreadful,” she said firmly. “I can’t believe what’s going on.”

  “It’s absolutely clear to me. The thought of sharing Winding River with me has upset you dreadfully. As if you weren’t upset enough already. I’d have been a lot happier if your father had left me his damned stamp collection.”

  She was too disturbed to smile. “He did. If you’d waited you’d have found out. There are other things as well. Personal things,” she said despairingly. “You didn’t even ask…”

  “How very rude of me.” He simply couldn’t bear to look at her and not take her in his arms. “I’ll walk you up to the house,” he said briskly. “Are you going to be all right on your own?” Even now it worried him.

  “What in a house where Dad’s haunting every corner?” She shivered in the crisp night air.

  “You always did have too much imagination.”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” She breathed out audibly in mute appeal.

  “I think we can work something out,” he found himself saying. “You sleep in the bungalow. I’ll go up to the house.”

  She raised her dark head. “I don’t know.” But she did know. She wanted to. Even if Luke wasn’t there.

  “So that’s settled.” He read her eyes. “You can collect a few things at the house then we’ll come back here. I’ll leave from the house in the morning, otherwise I would have to wake you.” He had a sudden vision of her asleep beside him that very morning, brushing it down, but not the monstrous deep ache inside him.

  “Thank you, Luke,” she said quietly, like a sweet little girl. “It’s such a very, very big house and it’s so filled with him.”

  At this point of time it was true. “What it needs,” he said tautly, “is children. Lots of them.”

  “Oh, Luke.” There was a little tremor in her voice. “I was thinking four.” Sudden tears appeared.

  That was his undoing. He gave way to the awful, tearing desire that was rising in him. He pulled her into his arms, so hard, he was certain it hurt her but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be overshadowed by that other dominant male figure in her life. Her father. He wasn’t going to let anyone else have her.

  Storm, too, felt the waves growing, curling over into g
reat tunnels that were taking her under. She clung to him, frantic for more, only he released her abruptly, keeping hold of her shoulders.

  “Whatever man you choose to father your children,” he said, his voice harsh with emotion, “you’re going to lead him one helluva merry dance.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE bungalow had good karma. The instant her head hit the pillow, Storm fell into a deep dreamless sleep. Not even the birds woke her; her nervous exhaustion was so complete. She’d slept in Luke’s boyhood bedroom that had charm and peace about it. She remembered the display cabinet in the corner. His mother had bought it to install in his room. It was filled with sporting trophies he had won at school and university. Luke had been, still was, a superb athlete. He excelled at polo but as her father’s health failed he’d found less and less time to play it.

  Three guitars hung on the wall.

  She took one down and began to tune it, staring out the open window at the cascade of white bougainvillea like a bride’s veil. She and Luke had once fancied themselves as musicians. They had entertained themselves, her father and friends who came to visit the station, with country and western songs, which always went over well. It had amused them a lot. They weren’t half bad in those far-off days. Their voices had blended well. Still in her nightgown Storm sat down on the bed again and began to strum an old Irving Berlin song about loving somebody always…always….

  Of a sudden she stopped playing, unbidden tears gathering in her eyes as she acknowledged Luke had always been there through the best and the worst of it. There was more joy, more pain, more anger, more passion in being with Luke than anyone else in the world. Just as there had always been the struggle to accept him. She’d been engulfed by her feelings; she was nothing beside Luke. In her city persona, she had become a confident, successful woman—much admired. On her home ground she was still the immature teenager whose great underlying wish to be number one with her father was never fulfilled. Not then, not now, not ever but she remembered Robert’s words—her father had loved her in his fashion. When was she going to accept the circumstances of her life? When was she going to rise above the past? She had her own identity. She was a woman and revelled in it. She might have wanted to be a boy when she was a child, a tall, strong, clever boy who could easily compete with Luke for her father’s attention. Now it seemed pathetic and well…sad. She was totally happy and secure in being a woman. In fact she was quite unable to contemplate her old primitive wish to be a boy. It seemed so ridiculous now.