Outback Fire

by Margaret Way

  “No apologies, Luke.” She gave him a grateful look. “Thank you for taking the time.”

  “So what’s on the menu?” He looked to see what she had managed so far.

  “Salad as an entrée, salad for mains, salad for dessert,” she joked. “That’s as far as I got.” She sank into a chair, letting Luke take the crutches from her, then she sat forward to rest her elbows on the table. She had covered it with a pale blue damask cloth that shone in the light. “There’s a ham in the fridge, fillet steaks. I managed to thaw some smoked salmon. Take your pick.”

  “If it’s okay with you I think I’ll go for the steaks.” He was hungry.

  “Of course. A man needs filling. I’ll stick to the salad and maybe a couple of slices of the salmon. I haven’t been doing anything so I’m not terribly hungry. How’s the muster progressing?”

  “Right on schedule.” He dipped into the refrigerator and withdrew a couple of steaks. “When you’re properly on your feet again I’d like to show you how things are run. You’re a good businesswoman, you’ll take it all in your stride.”

  Storm was briefly quiet. “No Dad to contend with?”

  “The Major was one of the old school. There are many, many things you need to know.”

  “And you’re going to teach me?” She stared into his handsome face.

  “I’m assuming you want to learn?”

  “Of course I do.” The black wings of her brows furrowed. “And what better teacher?”

  He ignored that although it wasn’t said provocatively. “Like a glass of wine?”

  “Sure.” A thirst rose in her throat. “You’ll have to go down to the cellar. I wasn’t up to those stairs.”

  “Mind a red?” He paused at the cellar door. “No time to chill a white.”

  “Red will be fine. A good Shiraz.”

  He was back within moments, going to a drawer for the corkscrew. It came to her that she loved watching him move about. He had such method about him, a clear, cool, logical mind. No unnecessary shuttling. Economy of movement. It made her smile.

  Over the meal he began to talk to her about the McFarlane operation, which was far more involved than she had imagined. She, in turn, spoke about her father’s extensive portfolio, which she had inherited, not terribly surprised when it appeared he already knew pretty much the extent of it. Not that he claimed prior knowledge but it was evident to her her father had taken Luke into his confidence. In fact Luke raised suggestions, showing his own knowledge of the share market and how to play it. He even suggested a different broker, citing a name. “They’re more on the ball than the crowd your father had been dealing with for years. You need new blood.”

  The conversation continued at an engrossed pace even after they moved to more comfortable chairs in the sunroom. Both were in accord, Luke seemed relaxed. What better time to approach the dilemma that lay between them and try to resolve it, Storm thought, deliberately introducing the subject. “You said once you wanted to start your own operation.”

  A small shrug though his body tensed. “Even your father knew that, Storm. I owed him so much. He gave me a home, a first-class education, even the damned clothes I stood up in until I could finally earn. But I made no secret of the fact I always wanted to be my own man.”

  “Dad would have admired that.”

  “It was scarcely why I did it.”

  “I know. I don’t want to force you to reject your share of Winding River, Luke. It was Dad’s wish that you have it. I promise you I won’t go against his wishes. I have no thought in my mind of contesting the will.”

  “Why not?” He gazed at her with his intensely blue eyes. “You’d probably win. Bring in the big guns. The thing is, Storm, it’s too massive a bequest. Not easy to accept. Not easy for you.”

  She took a breath. “Dad wouldn’t have been around if you hadn’t saved his life?”

  “Maybe that was exaggerated.” He brushed the idea off.

  “I don’t think so. Dad himself said he thought he was done for. I won’t fight your share, Luke. As far as I’m concerned you’re entitled to the profits as well. You’d be working the whole operation.”

  A range of warring emotions crossed his face. “You know what your father had in mind?”

  She nodded her dark head. “Pretty feudal wasn’t he? He was practically giving me away.”

  Luke’s shapely mouth set. “He thought it would work. An arranged marriage no less.”

  “Just like the good old days,” she crowed. “So what would have happened had I married Alex or someone like him and you married Carla or her successor? Didn’t he think it through?”

  Luke answered, almost angrily. “Obviously not. You knew your father, Storm. What he wanted had to be. Of course as a business arrangement it would have worked fine.”

  She considered that, unnerved. “You mean you’d accept your inheritance if I consented to marry you?”

  He studied her with his blue level gaze. Somehow she had changed out of the borrowed dress. She was wearing a little violet singlet top that showed off the beautiful neat shape of her breasts, with a sarong splashed with fuchsia and violet flowers, wrapped around her slender hips. It was as if he’d always known these hungers for her, yet answered crisply. “I don’t mean that at all. When I get married, Storm, it’ll be because I can’t live without that one woman in my life, and she can’t live without me.”

  At the look in his eyes her cheeks flamed and she dropped her gaze. “Are you telling me you haven’t met her?” She cursed herself for being such an emotional coward.

  “Oh I’ve met her all right,” he clipped off, “but she’s all locked away behind emotional barriers.”

  “Not of her own making…you know they weren’t all self-inflicted…”

  “Maybe not,” he sighed, “but she’s the only person in the world who can knock them down.”

  He carried her up to her room. They could have taken the lift that had been installed a few years back when the Major was having difficulty with the grand staircase, but there was too much pleasure in having her in his arms, no matter the inevitable torment.

  “So what are you going to sleep in?” he asked after he set her down on the huge, canopied bed. Such a beautiful bedroom she had, fit for a princess.

  “This will do.” She glanced down at herself, not wanting to go to the least bit of bother. The briefs she was wearing matched the singlet. The sarong was simple to untie. “I’ll splash my face and clean my teeth.”

  “I’ll go get your crutches,” he said. “Turn off the lights.”

  She didn’t even wait, hopping the short distance into the en suite, grabbing onto the porcelain basin for support, her left leg bent up at the knee. By the time he returned she was hopping back to the bed.

  “God there’s no stopping you, is there?” he said, torn between amusement and dismay.

  “I managed okay. The trick is to not put your injured foot to the ground.”

  “You will try to remember what I told you about making good progress?”

  “Yes, brother, dear.”

  “Cut it out.”

  She felt a jolt. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re a cruel little cat,” he said quietly.

  “But I meant it sincerely. I am sorry. You know as well as I do my tongue always runs away with me.”

  “You don’t have to let it. Are you sure there’s nothing else I can get you? You might need painkillers during the night?”

  “Then I’ll call out to you,” she said sweetly, putting her hands behind her head and making a plait.

  “You’d better not,” he warned.

  “Why, what might happen?” she asked softly, her green eyes glowing.

  His answer was curt. “What’s going to happen if I don’t get out of this room.”

  “So I’m sexually satisfactory at least.” Something was pushing her into being provocative. Blind need?

  “Good night, Storm,” he said without a smile, turning on his heel.
/>   “Good night, Luke. Aren’t you going to kiss me before you go?”

  “You’re a mystery to me, Storm. That much I know.”

  “A woman should always be a mystery to her man,” she came back at him.

  “You’re taking it for granted, aren’t you, I’m your property?”

  “Why not?” she said discordantly. “I’m yours. If you wanted to you could carry me off.”

  “As what, first prize?”

  She threw herself backwards across the bed, her eyes filling with tears at the faint lash in his voice. “Don’t go, Luke.”

  He groaned in frustration, struggling under the weight of pride and his pent-up desires, knowing himself trapped.

  “Don’t go,” she whispered, turning her raven head that had already escaped its thick plait. Its silken coils swirled all over the pale gold brocade of the quilt. “Share my bed with me. Share Winding River.” She extended one slender arm. “The way things are, there’s no escape.”

  He agreed. How could he not? But the years of duelling had to cease. He wanted liberation. For himself. More importantly for her. Looking at her lying across the bed like that, his strong desires broke their leash. Impetuously he crossed to her bed, positioning himself directly behind her head, then he dropped to his knees, cupping the lovely alluring oval of her face between his hands. Storm, his heart’s desire. “Witch!” he murmured, kissing her glowing eyes shut.

  “All witches have green eyes.” She flung back her arms, digging her fingers into the fiery thickness of his hair. “Kiss me until you can kiss me no more.”

  For the briefest moment he considered drawing away, a gesture meant to torment her as she had tormented him for years, but her pulsing mouth was just beneath his. “Have you thought I could hurt you,” he muttered, “knock your ankle?” It was a genuine concern.

  “I don’t care.” She looked into his marvellous face, the risk of some pain to her ankle counterbalanced by the anticipation of the priceless pleasure only he could give her. “I can’t promise I won’t scream.” She gave him a slow, tantalising smile.

  “Then I’ll have to be very, very gentle.”

  In one exquisitely controlled movement he rolled the violet singlet off her, slipping it over her head. “You’re so beautiful!” Her skin gave off such a lustre in the light. Like ivory satin. “So beautiful,” he repeated, laying his head between her breasts, inhaling the seductive scents of her woman’s body. “I can hear your heart pumping,” he murmured, revelling in her heart-breaking, open-mouthed sighs of rapture.

  “It beats for you,” she whispered, never once looking away from his eyes. So then, very slowly, Luke moved onto the bed beside her, careful where he was placing his long, lean body, feeling the huge bed take his weight. Such intimacy he had only dreamed of! He pressed his mouth to the blue pulse that beat so wildly, betrayingly in her throat.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  LUKE had just finished talking to the station’s resident saddler when he spotted the light aircraft coming in from the north east. A few minutes more and he could confirm his educated guess: a single engine Piper. It could only be one person. Carla. Her father had bought it for her a few years back. No toy, but the vehicle best suited their unique way of life. He knew what Carla wanted. She wanted to check out what was happening on Winding River. It was no secret Noni had taken leave. That left him and Storm alone. In that extraordinary way women have, Carla had long divined his heart despite all the dramas and clashes between him and Storm. Carla had seen straight into the secret places, though he had never discussed Storm with her at any time, nor had he ever risen to the barbed remarks Carla had thrown his way.

  He had stopped his relationship with Carla almost at the time Storm had broken off her engagement to Alex. Carla had taken it better than he hoped, making him promise they would always remain friends. He thought that was so. Carla always appeared to have accepted the shift in the relationship. It struck him unpleasantly from time to time that Carla had instigated a few breaks of her own with a couple of his former girlfriends. Carla had always been ready to sew disinformation, even downright lies, always denying them convincingly when questioned. Scheming he had come to see was at the centre of Carla’s being. Outside of that when she got what she wanted, she was good company. But his feelings for her had never amounted to being in love even if their relationship had transcended the merely sexual.

  Now he saw he had trouble. Carla was another one who believed she could never lose.

  He arrived at the airstrip moments before she set down, waiting for her to complete her after checks.

  “Luke, how’s it going?” She rushed to him, her attractive face lit up in a bright smile, that in no way reflected her central tensions. “I heard on the grape vine about Storm’s accident. With Noni being away I thought I’d do the neighbourly thing and volunteer my services. It can’t be easy for her until her ankle heals.”

  What was he supposed to do? Give her coffee and send her on her way. Storm wouldn’t be agreeable he knew. The two were not close.

  “That’s kind of you, Carla,” he said, unwilling to hurt her by refusing her quick kiss. “I suppose you got your information from the hospital?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. One of our stockmen broke a few ribs and his collarbone. A bullock pinned him between a gate and the fence.”

  “He’s okay?”

  “He’ll live,” she said cheerily. “How is it up at the house? Pretty dismal I should think. Storm adored her father.”

  “Yes, she did,” he answered quietly.

  “Not that she was the best daughter in the world to him.” Carla gave him a quick you’d-have-to-agree-with-me glance.

  Instead he retorted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She reached up to pat his shoulder. “Now, now, don’t get hot under the collar about your pal, Storm. Honestly, the way you two grew up! It was damned near incestuous.” She gave a little laugh.

  “It was damned near nothing of the kind,” Luke responded in a voice that should have warned Carla off. “I hope you don’t go around repeating that sort of thing?” He could well believe that she might.

  “Sweetie.” Carla was all innocence. “A lot of people think so. The Major treated you like his son and heir.”

  His strong jaw tightened. “The Major has gone now, Carla. I’d appreciate it if you don’t stir things up and put our friendship at risk.”

  Her brown eyes, her best feature, shone with ready tears. “As if I’d ever do that.” She began to walk towards the Jeep, speaking over her shoulder. “I expect the will has been read?”

  “You surely don’t think I’m about to discuss it with you, Carla?”

  She scanned his taut, handsome face. “Knowing you, no. I’m sorry about what I said before,” she apologised. “I know what Storm means to you. But even you can’t deny she didn’t visit her father as often as she could have.”

  “She rang him regularly,” Luke said abruptly, looming over her. “She has a career, you know.”

  “Ah yes, the brilliant jewellery designer!” Carla exclaimed. “I expect if she hadn’t sprained her ankle she’d be back in Sydney now?”

  Luke recognised this couldn’t go on. “Carla, what did you really come for,” he asked quietly. “I’m not going to have you upsetting Storm. I somehow feel that’s your aim.”

  A red flush whipped upwards from her throat. “What a terrible thing to say! Is that what you think of me, Luke?”

  He looked over her head. “I can’t help remembering some of the mischief you’ve made.”

  She struggled to deny it then realised it was impossible. “You know what they say? All’s fair in love and war.”

  “That’s all over, Carla.” He regarded her with a mixture of sympathy and wariness. “I never led you to believe I was after a commitment.”

  “Of course you didn’t.” She tossed her head. “You laid it straight on the line. We were two adults in need of comfort. Speaking of comfort, Storm must be
one of the richest women in the country?”

  He tried to keep his cool but she was making him angry. “That’s her business, Carla. She’ll be very rich certainly.”

  “I just hope the Major left a sizeable legacy to you?” she asked him with considerable directness.

  “Why do you say that?” he parried not about to take her into his confidence.

  “Because he knew your worth,” Carla almost jeered. “We all know Storm will head back to Sydney. Probably she’ll sell up. She can’t run the operation.”

  “You obviously don’t know Storm,” he said crisply. “She’ll never sell Winding River. The McFarlanes pioneered this part of the world.”

  “So? Not all the old families are still around. It makes sense for her to sell it. I know Dad would jump at the chance to acquire it. The banks are lending again. If we sell off a few interests… This is one of the best operations in the country. In these last few years that’s largely been due to you. We could make plans, Luke. You and I.”

  So she had never chosen to believe their relationship was over. “Carla, the last thing I want to do is hurt you,” he said, his face set, “but there’s no we. Stop knocking your head against a brick wall.”

  She looked up at him and put a finger to his lips. “Shh! It may appear like that to you, but to my way of thinking you’re the one who’s doing the head knocking. You just won’t accept you’ll never get Storm. She’s way too big a prize. Even for you.”

  After last night that thought didn’t strike him. “Carla, this conversation is getting downright depressing. Feeling like you do I think it’s best if you fly off home. Our relationship failed, accept it once and for all. If we’re going to pay attention to the grape vine, I’ve heard you and Les Marshall are pretty close.”

  She stiffened as though she’d be thrown off balance. “Les is just a playmate. Nothing serious. A woman likes to feel wanted.”

  “Men do, too,” he said. “Listen, I can offer you a coffee.”

  She smiled. “That’s nice of you, Luke, but I really did come to see Storm. You’re making me out a bitch with an unpleasant taste for making trouble, but my motivation couldn’t be purer. I want to be of help. I know Storm isn’t a friendly person but Mum was on my back to come over. We really feel for Storm. Everyone does. Why can’t you give me a bit of credit?”