Lucifer's Brand

by Nicola West

  The hotel entrance was pleasantly cool, air-conditioned, with huge pot-plants giving it a welcoming appearance. It was attractively furnished, though completely unpretentious, and Flair felt her interest quicken as she stepped through the fly-screens and caught the eye of the pretty, dark-haired receptionist behind the desk. In another moment the manager was with her and she smiled at him, liking at once his pleasant craggy face.

  Then her brows contracted as she noticed the almost -embarrassed expression in his eyes. He returned her smile vaguely, as if his thoughts were elsewhere, and shook his head when Flair mentioned bringing in her luggage.

  'Look, Miss Pattison,' he said at last, his embarrassment acutely obvious by now, 'I think it'd be better if you went straight to your room. There's someone come to see you—it looks as if you might have to change your plans.'

  'Change my plans?' Flair stared at him. 'I don't know what you're talking about. I've been looking forward to working here and I like Gerald ton already. Anyway, I don't know anyone here—there must be some mistake.'

  The manager's face turned red and he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. 'No, there's no mistake. Look, I'm as sorry about it as you are, and if you want to come back here any time—well, in the next couple of weeks anyway—I'll keep the job open for you, can't say fairer than that. But you'd better go and see your visitor. He'll explain it all to you.'

  Bewildered, Flair followed him through airy corridors to her room. She could not understand what had happened, and inside she was crying out in protest at this further interference in her life. Just as she was hoping to get settled at last—who could this possibly be, waiting for her the moment she arrived, proclaiming a change in plans that she knew nothing of?

  Various thoughts flew through her mind, but she could come to no conclusion. Her appointment here had happened so suddenly that she could not believe that anyone she knew could have arrived in Geraldton before her. And anyway, why should they? Why should anyone want to prevent her taking up this new job?

  The manager opened the door and Flair stepped into a spacious room, shaded from the sun by Venetian blinds, as pleasantly furnished as the rest of the hotel—a room she could be happy in. Her resentment grew at the unwarranted interference in her plans. She turned, looking for her unknown visitor— and gasped with pure amazement.

  'You!' she whispered as Luke uncoiled himself from a large basket chair and stood tall and uncompromising in the centre of the room. 'I might have known it! But—how? Why? What do you want of me now? Can't you leave me alone? Do you have to persecute me like this?'

  CHAPTER TEN

  Luke moved slightly so that she could see his face more clearly, and she was shaken by the grimness of his hard mouth. He crossed over and looked down at her, his gaze penetrating, with a shadow of scorn somewhere behind it and she met it with a puzzled frown shading her own sea-green eyes.

  'I'm not persecuting you,' he said harshly. 'Believe me, if there'd been anyone else to send I'd have sent them. Do you think I want to spend my life chasing you about all over W.A.? Do you think I'd have come at all if it hadn't been important? You've got to come back to Perth, Flair, and you've got to come now.'

  'Oh, I have, have I?' Flair was just about at the end of her tether. She had been looking forward, after her long drive, to settling in to her new home, getting to know new people and tackling a new job. She had intended pushing Luke Seager right out of her mind, back to the limbo he had been in before she knew him. And now this! 'Didn't I make it clear to you that you don't have the running of my life? When are you going to learn that I don't come running just because you happen to crook your little finger. . . .'

  'And when are you going to learn that I don't play games?' he cut in furiously. 'Yes, Flair, you do come when I call, because I don't call for nothing, do you understand that? My God, ever since you set foot in this country you've thought you could call the tune, you've thought it was all set up just for you, just for one spoilt little English girl—it never occurred to you that anyone else might matter, did it? Never struck you we've got lives to live too, lives that were doing very nicely, thank you, until you happened along.' His hand shot up and tangled in her hair. Flair jerked away involuntarily and gasped with pain as the hair pulled agonisingly at her scalp. Goaded almost beyond endurance, she glared at Luke and raised her hands, fingers crooked, to claw at his face. But before she could touch him he had both her slender wrists in one huge fist and had pulled her close, too close even to kick at his shins as she longed to do.

  'Just be still and listen for a few minutes, will you,' he grated, and she felt his breath fan her cheek. 'You seem to have a very exalted idea of your importance, don't you? Do you really think I've come all this way just for the ride? Do you really think it's just because I'm yearning for a sight of your pretty little face? I've got business to attend to, you know. I'm not out on a picnic.'

  'So why don't you tell me what it is?' she flashed. 'This important business that's brought you up here—why don't you tell me, and then you can get out and go back where you came from? Because I'm not going back, you know—whatever it is that's so important it's brought you up here to wreck my life yet again, I'm not giving it up, I'm not going back! So the quicker we get this over and you go, the better it'll be for both of us.'

  His compelling eyes were like gimlets as they searched her face. 'Just as I thought,' he growled at last. 'That's why I didn't ring, didn't leave a message. I tried to tell myself that you weren't that callous— that you'd drop everything and come. But I knew you wouldn't. I knew you'd just shrug it aside, just like you did before. I knew I'd have to drag you every inch of the way.'

  'I don't know what you're talking about,' Flair said wearily. 'Shrug it aside—callous—what on earth is it all about?'

  The scorn was naked now in his eyes, deepening to utter contempt as his lip curled, and Flair flinched away from the expression that wounded her, even as she told herself it didn't matter.

  'Your father's what I'm talking about,' he told her curtly. 'Remember him—the fellow you came out to see? The fellow who's had to worry and wonder about you, who didn't even know where you were last night? Or maybe you've forgotten him already. Now you've got your nice little career on the go again, I suppose he doesn't matter any --'

  .'Stop it!' she screamed. 'Stop! What about Dad?' A flicker of fear ran chillingly up her spine and she shook her trapped arms helplessly. 'What's happened? For God's sake, what's happened?'

  'Did you go home last night?' Luke asked, and she nodded impatiently.

  'Yes. Dad wasn't there, so I left him a note,' Her eyes widened as she realised what she'd said. 'That's how you knew just where I was heading, isn't it? You've seen the note. But what about Dad?

  'Jeff was already in hospital when you arrived,'

  Luke told her flatly. 'He'd gone in for some tests. In the early hours of this morning he had an attack— they tried to get you, but no one knew where you were or how to get hold of you. Jeff wasn't in any state to tell them himself, even if he'd known, and nobody thought you might actually be at home. Eventually they got on to me. I went in to see him and decided you'd better be found, and quick. I went to the house to see if you'd written, or phoned a message through—he'd left the answerphone set. I found your note.'

  Flair's face was chalk white, her eyes two huge green pools. She tried to speak, but her voice wouldn't work. She cleared her throat and tried again, and this time managed a thin, dry whisper.

  'Dad—ill? An attack—what sort of attack? Why wasn't I told he was going into hospital? How—how bad is he?'

  'What do you think?' he answered brutally. 'Look, Flair, I'm not wrapping it up for you. You must have known this was on the cards. Yes, Jeff's in a pretty poor way, though they're doing all they can for him, and it's not helping that he doesn't know where you are from one day to the next. You've been nothing but a damned worry to him from the moment you arrived, don't you realise that? Or do you think he just sits back and smile
s and thinks you're amusing? My God, you make me sick! "What sort of attack?"' he mimicked cruelly. 'A heart attack, of course, what else? And as for you not being told he was going in to hospital—are you really trying to tell me that would have made one scrap of difference to your precious plans? And that Jeff wasn't well aware of that?'

  'Dad . . .!' Flair whispered, staring sightlessly at the bands of evening sunlight that sloped through the Venetian blinds across the cool tiled floor. 'Dad . . . I've got to get to him. . . .'

  'That was the general idea,' Luke agreed sarcastically. 'That was why I came up. To get you back as fast as possible. And not for your sake, either,' he shot at her. 'For Jeff's—though God knows why it should matter to him!'

  Flair turned her dazed eyes on him. He had released her arms now and she stood rubbing them absently, unaware of the fact that there would be a faint ring of bruises round each wrist. Her mind, shocked into numbness by the news and Luke's brutal way of breaking it to her, had begun to function again, and she stared at him wonderingly.

  'How did you get up here so quickly?' she asked. 'If you didn't leave until after I did—and you didn't pass me anywhere on the road, I'm sure, unless it was when I was filling the tank somewhere—how did you get here before me?'

  'The same way we're going back,' Luke said tersely. 'I flew. And that's why we need to be on our way as soon as possible—it'll be dark before long, and although it's not a long flight I'd sooner make it in daylight if I can. So can we go now?' His voice was sardonic. 'You needn't worry about your car—I brought a man up with me, he'll drive it back tomorrow.'

  'My—car?' Still shaken, Flair passed a hand across her forehead. Then her eyes widened. 'You flew? But is there a plane back? I --'

  'I flew myself,' he told her in tones of extreme patience, as if talking to a child. 'Look, let's cut the chatter, Flair, and get on our way. I've explained everything to your friend here, he understands the position.' He took her arm, more gently this time, and his glance swept over her face. 'It's been a bit of a shock to you, this, hasn't it? Well, maybe you'll take a bit more notice of other people another time. Jeff's never been one to complain about nothing, but maybe you didn't know that.' And before she could ask what he meant, he was sweeping her out of the room. 'My driver's been having a meal. He'll drive us out to the airfield and then we can get moving.'

  'I didn't even know you had an aeroplane,' Flair murmured as they arrived at the civil airfield and she saw the smart little Cessna parked near the perimeter. A feeling of nervousness shivered through her limbs as she looked at it. She had only ever flown in the jumbo jet that had brought her to Australia— and this looked tiny!

  'There's a lot you don't know about me,' Luke said shortly. He nodded to the mechanic who came up to them. 'Everything okay, Pete? Right—we'll be away, then. Get in, Flair.'

  It was obvious that he was going to make no concessions at all to her lack of experience and any possible nerves. Silently, Flair climbed aboard and sat down where he showed her, strapping herself in securely. The engine roared into life and the tiny aircraft began to move. She closed her eyes. Now, more than at any time, she longed desperately for the comfort of Luke's strong arms, even the reassurance of a glance from those compelling blue eyes.

  But for all Luke was concerned, she might not have been there. And her thoughts were sad and bitter as they flew south down the coast and back into Perth.

  At any other time, Flair would have thrilled to the pleasure and beauty of that flight. The sweeping coastline below, the intense blue of the sea laced with white surf; the colours of the bush, painted with the red glow of the setting sun; finally the tower blocks of Perth beside the broad curving slash of the Swan river—all these made a picture that imprinted itself for ever in her mind, yet which she could not enjoy. Her thoughts were too taken up with anxiety over her father, and unhappiness at Luke's intractable and hostile attitude.

  And if he thought it was her fault, she thought with sudden anger, how much blame should be laid at his door? The merger—the broken contract— hadn't those things worried Jeff just as much? Weren't they as likely to have caused the stress and uncertainty that had brought on this devastating attack?

  Perhaps that had never occurred to Luke. But when all this was over, Flair was going to make sure he knew that it had occurred to her. On that, she was determined.

  At last they were back in Perth, touching down softly, to be met by another of Luke's drivers with the big Holden. Agonising pictures filled Flair's mind as they drove back through the darkened streets of the city. No wonder Dad had been looking tired lately! She had noticed it so many times—at that first moment of meeting at the airport, even.

  She cursed herself for not having realised there was something seriously wrong, for having accepted his explanation about a heavy workload, for not having insisted that he see a doctor or at least take things easier.

  And Luke—she could kill him, she thought viciously, she could strangle him with her bare hands. He must have seen the difference in her father. Yet he had continued to demand more and more work from him—the island complex, the Albany motel, all the smaller alterations he was making to other properties that nevertheless piled up into a lot of work and worry. And then, having created as much stress as he could, he took the whole lot away at a moment's notice. Took away her father's livelihood, in effect, for surely by then Seager Hotels must have formed the bulk of Jeff's work. No wonder her father had grown older and greyer, no wonder he was now lying in hospital recovering from a heart attack. And at that thought her own heart contracted with fear— suppose he wasn't recovering. . . .

  And now they were in the forecourt of the hospital and the driver had stopped to let them out. Her heart hammering, Flair got out and joined Luke, following him through the main door. Neither of them spoke. Luke's face was grim, and Flair was too sick with fear to say a word.

  The corridors seemed to go on for ever, but Luke clearly knew his way about them and strode along without glancing at Flair, who had almost to run to keep up with him. By now, fear was pricking her skin all over. Suppose Jeff was worse? Suppose—but she pushed the thought away hastily. He had to be still alive. The idea haunted her that while she'd been sleeping comfortably at home, he'd been in here, fighting for his life. If only she'd known! If only she'd tried to find out where he was.

  She glanced at Luke, striding ahead. If things had been different, he would have been her support and comfort now. She felt suddenly bereft, realising that she couldn't turn to him for help and knowing with a sudden despairing clarity that he was the one man on earth who could help. If only everything hadn't gone wrong, she thought hopelessly, she and Luke would have belonged to each other. But there were too many barriers between them. Roxanne—the merger—the broken contract—there was no way she could go to him for comfort, no way he would give it. Because he too had shown an inexplicable hostility. Something else that she still didn't understand came between them when he looked at her, something that brought scorn and contempt into his eyes.

  They were at the door to the ward, and Luke paused to speak to the duty nurse, while Flair stood by feeling sick with dread. She closed her eyes with relief when she heard the nurse say that Jeff was still alive and holding his own; and then she felt Luke's hand under her arm and raised her face to look up at him.

  Even now, his expression was remote and shuttered, and Flair felt the hot tears in her eyes. Couldn't he see that she needed the comfort only he could give? Couldn't he, even now, drop those barriers and help her? But the hostility in his glance told her the answer. He couldn't. Wouldn't. There was nothing between them now but dislike.

  Jeff was their only link.

  'You'd better go in on your own,' said Luke. 'They don't want him to have too much excitement. He may be asleep, of course.'

  Trembling, Flair tiptoed into the ward. It was very small; there were two other beds, but she hardly noticed them. Her eyes were for Jeff, lying as white as the sheets that covered him.
Jeff, whose eyes, more grey than green now, opened slowly as she approached; who smiled faintly but with all the old affection and lifted a pale hand weakly from the bed in greeting.

  'Oh, Dad,' said Flair, and felt her eyes fill with tears.

  She mustn't cry though, mustn't upset him. Gently, she kissed him and sat down beside the bed, stroking his hand.

  'Luke brought me,' she told him as his eyes watched her face. 'Do you know, I was at home last night—if only I'd known you were here! Why didn't you tell me you were coming in for tests, Dad? I'd have come straight back.'

  'I didn't want you worried.' The tired eyes searched hers. 'You haven't been happy, Flair. I made Luke promise . . .!'

  Flair frowned. 'Made him promise what? Dad, Luke hasn't told me anything. What was it he promised?'

  'Made him promise not to tell you I was ill.' The voice was weaker now. 'I wanted to see you settle down happily. . . . He's a fine man, Flair. That contract—he only cancelled it because I had to back out. The doctors said ... he gave me good terms, Flair. . . . Wish you and he could get things straight. . . .'

  Flair stared at him. His words didn't make sense. She wanted to ask more questions, get the full story, but she knew she mustn't worry him now.

  'Fine man . . .! Jeff was muttering. 'Been a son to me, Flair . . . and now I've got my daughter too. . . .'

  'Dad,' she whispered. 'Dad, don't think about it. Don't worry. Everything's going to be all right, Dad, all you've got to do is get better. It's all right— everything's all right.'

  She was aware of Luke coming quietly to her side and she looked up at him, all the barriers down, all her love and fear showing at last in her face. Her heart sang at the implication behind Jeff's words, and she searched Luke's face for the truth. For a moment, their eyes held, acknowledging that now, for the time being at least, their own feelings must be put aside for Jeff's sake, that somehow he must be given hope, something to live for. . . . Then Luke bent down too and said softly: