by Valerie Parv
The thought of his muscular arms closing around her drove out the clever retort she knew she ought to make. Whatever she said, he was determined to read what he liked into it. If this was his way of extracting revenge, it was masterly.
In her column, which had never been meant to see the light of day, if only she could make him believe it, she had called him an over-rated lover. Now he was making her eat those words.
No matter how he denied bringing her out here to seduce her, he was doing it with every word and gesture. She swallowed as her throat dried. Knowing what he was doing should have made her immune to him. But it only seemed to make her more aware of him as a man.
She looked desperately around them. ‘Isn’t the Canning stock route not far from here?’
He ran a finger across his lower lip, removing a last droplet of tea. He seemed well aware of her attempt to change the subject, and she wondered if he was going to let her get away with it. Then he relented. ‘Yes, it is. This track is an offshoot of the main stock route which the surveyor Alfred Canning pioneered at the turn of the century.’
She gestured around them. ‘Why would anyone in their right mind want to drive cattle through the western desert? It must be some of the most remote country on earth.’
‘They had no choice. A cattle tick was plaguing the herds in the East Kimberley region. To stop it spreading, the farmers were banned from bringing their cattle into other parts of the state. They had to find other markets for their stock, which meant taking them overland through the desert, where the ticks couldn’t survive.’
The thought of stockmen on horseback driving herds of cattle through this parched region was bleak. ‘It must have been hell.’
He pushed his hat far back on his head. ‘It was. Moving from sun up to sundown. Night watch till sunrise. Many of the Aboriginal stockmen did it just for their food and a blanket. On the way, I’ll show you some of the wells which were built along the route to water the cattle.’
‘I’d like to see them.’ The change in his demeanour puzzled her. Apparently his arrogance didn’t extend to this country or its traditional inhabitants, but only to her. He was a strange mixture, this Bryan McKinley.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE track to the well was clearly defined. Obviously the historical monument attracted the tourists, who braved the remote track in their four-wheel-drive vehicles.
Jill didn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t the sturdy structure which greeted them. Much of the fencing was intact, and the well contained sweet water. Around it were stands of acacia, beefwood and mulga trees.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. After staring at the blood-red sand for hours, this green oasis was heavenly.
He nodded. ‘Whatever time of year I come here, it’s always green.’
She gave him a speculative look. Out here he seemed more relaxed and outgoing somehow. ‘We passed a lot of cattle on the way in. Who do they belong to?’ she asked.
‘The Canning stock route is a right of way and crosses a number of cattle stations, mine among them. Stock and horses from all of them drink at these wells.’
‘And the saucer-shaped tracks I keep seeing in the sand? What makes them?’
He smiled tolerantly, and the transformation in his face was astonishing. It was just as well he didn’t do it more often, Jill decided. It threw her completely off balance. ‘They’re made by wild camels,’ he explained. ‘They’re the survivors of the early expeditions which opened up this country. Water hauled up from the wells using camel power was called “whipping water”.’
She grimaced. ‘They used to beat the poor animals to make them haul up the water?’
He shook his head. ‘The camel walked back and forth to raise and lower a bucket. It was suspended on a pulley mounted on a whip pole over the well.’
Her smile was self-deprecating. ‘I suppose it doesn’t pay to be too soft-hearted out here.’
‘It’s tough country, often deadly, and it breeds tough people,’ he agreed. ‘But you’ll also find some of the biggest hearts in the outback.’
Thinking of him, she agreed with the tough part. It was harder to imagine him as big-hearted when she had yet to see proof that he owned such an organ.
If he had, he would see that she didn’t belong here. She was hot, gritty, longing for a cool shower, and felt as if she would explode if they drove over yet another sand dune. It was humiliating to have Bryan get out and push her vehicle when she stalled before the top of a dune.
‘The trick is to charge at the dune then quickly change down the gears as you slow down on the slope,’ he advised with ill-disguised impatience.
Her eyes stung. ‘It wouldn’t be necessary if there was a decent road in this place.’
Although her temper was frayed, he seemed unaffected by the arduous hours on the road. His only response was to hand her a mug of water from the cooler in his jeep. ‘Drink this. It may improve your temper.’
‘The only thing which will improve it is a trip back to Perth,’ she snapped, but accepted the water. Obviously he wasn’t about to let her die of thirst.
‘Your love of the outback is touching,’ he observed.
His sarcasm fuelled her anger. ‘If you must know, I grew up in the outback. My father was a country policeman, retired now. I spent my childhood in places like Broome and Halls Creek, wherever he was posted.’
‘But you couldn’t wait to move to the city,’ he guessed correctly from the derision in her voice.
She handed him the mug. ‘Can you blame me? It got very wearing, always being the new kid at school, and making friends only to leave them behind whenever Dad was transferred.’
‘So you stopped trying to make them,’ he deduced with swift accuracy.
This was ground she preferred not to cover, especially not with him. ‘Maybe I’d just had enough of heat, dust and flies. I gather you feel no such urge to stray.’
‘I was born here, at Bowan Run, my family’s original property outside Bowana,’ he said, his tone provocative.
A swift flash of jealousy for his sense of belonging was overtaken by annoyance. ‘How nice for you to have Daddy’s company to inherit.’
A muscle worked in his jaw, betraying his quick flaring of anger. ‘There was no silver spoon in my mouth,’ he denied in a voice as cold as steel. ‘Bowan Run was heavily mortgaged and run down when I took it over. My father had a heart condition which prevented him from doing much to keep it going.’
It was the opposite of what she had expected to hear, and it unsettled her to be wrong about him on this, at least. ‘My mistake,’ she murmured.
‘I’ll add it to my collection,’ he rejoined drily. ‘Fortunately my parents will be spared your barbed comments. They live in retirement in Darwin with my sister and her children.’
‘Like my folks,’ she surprised herself by volunteering. ‘They live with our younger sister in Broome. I’m always hearing about the joys of married life.’
‘More cynicism, Jill?’
‘No, realism,’ she fired back. ‘My life suits me as it is, and I don’t see why I should change it to please some man.’
Her chin lifted, defying him to fault her reasoning, hiding a truth she had only recently begun to face herself. As a result of her disjointed childhood, she not only avoided close friendships, but love as well. She still wasn’t certain whether David’s appeal had been because she had known instinctively that he was unavailable. She hated to admit it, but part of her had even been relieved to discover the truth.
‘Then all I can say is, you haven’t been in love,’ Bryan said, homing in on her thoughts with unnerving accuracy.
Her eyebrows arched upwards. ‘How would you know?’
‘Because if you had, nothing else would matter.’
She shook her head, the dust-speckled curtain of hair flying around her head. ‘You’re wrong. My mother loved my father, but even she was worn down by the endless moving and resettling. It does matter, believe me. I vowed th
at when I grew up I would put down roots in the city and never set foot in the outback again.’
‘Yet here you are.’
‘Yes, here I am, hating every minute of it.’
His narrow-eyed scrutiny transfixed her. ‘Are you quite sure you hate it so much? People change, you know.’
Her eyes flared a denial. ‘Well, not me. Heat, dust and loneliness are what I remember most from my childhood, and they haven’t changed.’ Nor had the kind of man who tamed this forbidding land, she thought inwardly, her resentment growing.
‘You can be just as lonely in the city as in the outback, sometimes more so,’ he pointed out.
Unwillingly she recalled parties where she’d felt totally isolated, even though surrounded by dozens of people. Contrarily, she felt moved to defend her lifestyle. ‘It isn’t the same. Out here you can die without anyone knowing or caring.’
‘You’re wrong about the caring part. The outback was built on heroism and self-sacrifice.’
‘Well, you’re welcome to it,’ she retorted, beyond minding. His enquiries were touching sensitive areas she preferred to leave unexplored. All she wanted was for this drive to end. If his town didn’t have running water and electricity she would kill him.
He gestured impatiently. ‘From now on you’ll keep those views to yourself. We’ll be in Bowana by sundown.’
Then he took her to visit the well, one of a string established by Canning when he had surveyed the stock route in 1908. Later visitors had maintained and restored the wells. The sight of the green oasis with its long history had restored some of her flagging spirits. She was in a much better mood by the time they set off to cover the remaining distance to the town.
As Bryan had promised, they arrived as the last rays of the sun were painting the town orange-gold. Many of the buildings were made of mud-brick and sandstone and dated back to the late 1800s.
The main street was easy to identify. It was the widest street, with a single-storeyed hotel, sandstone public administration building, a rambling general store, butcher’s shop and very little else.
The surrounding cottages also looked original, with charming bull-nosed iron verandas and tumbledown outbuildings. A kelpie cattledog barked half-heartedly as they drove past.
Apprehension prickled through her. The town was smaller than the places to which her father had been posted. Putting Bowana on the map wasn’t a challenge. It was mission impossible.
She cheered up a little when Bryan turned into the driveway of an imposing residence with wide verandas on three sides, supported by posts and embellished with complex fretwork. At least this house looked as if it ran to indoor plumbing.
‘Your place?’ she asked when they were parked in the wide gravel driveway.
He nodded. ‘I can run things better from here than living on any one of the properties. They each have a resident manager, so they don’t need another boss confusing the men.’
She studied the early Australian architecture. ‘I didn’t expect to find anything so imposing out here.’
He started to heave belongings out of the jeep. ‘It was built for the resident magistrate of the Bowana gold-fields, who was one of my forebears. He worked his way up from inspector of police in Derby to resident magistrate at Halls Creek, before being transferred here.’
‘He had good taste.’
As Bryan led the way inside, she was even more impressed. The stone walls were immensely thick and the tall windows were shuttered to keep out the heat. She recognised a ventilated roof lantern as typical of gold-fields buildings.
Doors opened off a wide hallway into spacious rooms which felt blissfully cool after the heat of the desert. She couldn’t help admiring the pressed metal ceilings. They were so intricate that they wouldn’t have looked out of place in a French chateau.
He noticed her upward glance. ‘Wait till you see the one in the living-room. It’s painted in thirtynine colours and embossed with eighteen-carat gold leaf. Your bedroom ceiling has five hundred individually hand-painted flowers.’
Her steps faltered. ‘I beg your pardon?’
He nodded. ‘I know because I counted them when I was a kid, visiting my grandfather here.’
‘I didn’t mean the flowers. I meant the bit about my bedroom. I thought I’d freshen up here, then go on to the hotel for the night.’
‘You wouldn’t care for the Royal Hotel. It’s not a fit place for you to stay. It’s far less regal than its name suggests.’
As far as she knew, every town in Australia possessed at least one ‘royal’ hotel. In Australia, such hotels were primarily drinking places, providing token accommodation at best. She shuddered, imagining what it would be like. ‘All the same, I can’t stay here with you.’
‘Not decent?’ He recalled their conversation on the track. ‘You needn’t worry. The guest quarters are self-contained and perfectly respectable.’
She would still be sharing a house with him, but there didn’t seem to be much alternative. She could hardly turn around and drive back to Wildhaven, as well he knew. ‘You might have warned me,’ she said, trying for defiance and finding only weariness. Her doctor would be horrified if he knew how she’d spent her day. It hardly fitted her prescription of rest and relaxation.
He was unperturbed by her anger. ‘I want you where I can keep an eye on you, which shouldn’t come as any surprise. Your room is this way.’
Jill’s shoulders drooped with tiredness as she followed him through the rambling old house. She’d been functioning on adrenalin all day, and the strain had caught up the moment she brought her car to a halt. All she wanted now was a wash and a long rest. They could argue over accommodation later.
As her footsteps dragged, Bryan turned to her, his expression irritated. ‘I didn’t think you were the type to sulk, Jill. It must have been obvious that accommodation here would be limited at best.’
How could he look so fresh and energised? Apart from a dusting of desert sand which made him look infuriatingly craggy and handsome, there was nothing to suggest he’d been on the road since sunrise.
For her part, she felt as if she’d run a marathon. Her skin felt gritty and hot, and strands of hair kept getting into her eyes. She pushed them away impatiently. ‘It will be interesting to see what you tell the tourists you intend to bring here, when they find there’s nowhere to stay.’
Annoyance gleamed in his dark gaze. ‘The original plan was to offer farm-stay accommodation on the surrounding properties, to give visitors a taste of the real outback. I thought you’d be more comfortable staying in town.’
The implication was clear. He thought she was too spoiled to stay on a property, and her attitude now was bearing him out. His opinion of her shouldn’t matter, but somehow it did. Should she tell him the real reason why she was on leave? He would have little sympathy for her illness, probably blaming it on her lifestyle, if he even believed her. She decided to keep her problems to herself.
‘I’ll be fine once I’ve had a shower,’ she assured him, her voice vibrant with a tiredness which felt bone-deep. ‘I’m not used to the heat.’
His eyes raked her, his expression scornful. ‘This “Lady of the Camellias” act is a bit sudden, isn’t it? You weren’t bothered by the heat at Wildhaven.’
Her brother’s house was air-conditioned and her workload entirely optional, but to say so would mean explaining about her state of health, and she didn’t feel up to it right now.
Her chin came up, although she was aware of the infuriating sparkle of tears in her eyes. She blinked them away. ‘I wasn’t aware it was a crime to be tired.’
His set expression eased a little. ‘You’re right; it isn’t. It’s been a long day for both of us.’
She was amazed to hear him admit it. Surely he hadn’t been as disturbed by her company as she was by his? As he manhandled her luggage through the doorway, she studied him covertly.
He looked anything but tired, yet his expression was wary, as if the day hadn’t turned out
quite as he expected. Kissing her at the billabong had been an act of revenge, even though her senses ran riot at the very thought. It was hard to believe it could have had an equally devastating effect on him.
There was no sign of it as he stepped aside to allow her to precede him into the room. Only his thoughtful gaze resting on her gave her pause. ‘You should find everything you need here.’
Immediately she was conscious of a tension between them which hadn’t existed a moment before. It throbbed between them like chords played by an unseen orchestra, the rippling notes seeming to draw them closer together.
She had taken a half-step towards him before she realised what she was doing and drew herself up. ‘This will be fine, I’m sure.’
The room was as character-filled as the rest of the house. An antique lace spread covered a Queen Anne bed which looked large enough for two. Her eyes snapped away from it, focusing instead on the view of the front gardens from the French windows. A working fireplace had pride of place along another wall.
‘Your bathroom is through here.’ Bryan opened a door through which she glimpsed attractive period-style fixtures. The bath looked wonderfully deep and reminded her of the weariness she hoped to assuage in its depths.
‘Are there any water restrictions?’ she asked, remembering her childhood discipline. Water had always been precious in the country towns where she grew up. During droughts it was often rationed.
He shook his head. ‘We have our own bore supply and rainwater tanks as back-up, so there’s no need to limit yourself. Use as much as you like.’
It was an effort not to fling her arms around his neck to show her gratitude. Only the thought that if she did she might not want to let go held her back. It was crazy, this longing to feel his arms around her. It must be another symptom of the virus. Her emotions were usually much better controlled. At least she’d learned something from her experience with David Hockey. ‘Thanks,’ she said weakly, aware that her legs weren’t going to support her for much longer. ‘I’d like to try that bath now,’ she said in a maddeningly husky voice.
He seemed to snap out of whatever mood held him in thrall. ‘Fine. I’ll finish unloading the cars. We normally eat around seven.’
