An Outback Affair/Runaway Wife/Outback Bridegroom/Outback Surrender/Home To Eden (37 page)

“Kingsley cut us off completely. I returned the favour. More than anything I blame him for turning his back on my mother. Why would I want to notify him when she died?”

“I'm surprised you came home,” she ventured. Brock, always vivid, had developed a very commanding not to say daunting presence mixed in with the familiar charm.

“Just occasionally I remember I'm a Kingsley on my mother's side. If dear old Grandpa wants to reinstate me in his will—and he seems to want to—I'm not going to stop him. My mother was owed. I'm owed.” The silver eyes took on a hard glitter. “They call it atonement.”

“So you're staying at Mulgaree? That can't be easy.” She remembered how Philip and Frances had always been so jealous of Brock, with his energy and effortless skills, the way he stood up to his domineering grandfather.

“It's not as though I have to see anyone if I don't want to.” He gave a brief laugh. “Heaven knows the old barn is big enough.”

“You used to love it,” she reminded him dryly.

“And I still do, Emerald Eyes.”

Shelley Logan was no longer the cute little teenager he re
membered. She'd matured. She had a woman's sensitivity and perception and she wasn't afraid to speak her mind. Back then she'd been way too young for him, but in the interim the rosebud had opened up velvety perfumed petals.

He continued to stare at her, holding her gaze captive. Despite the poise he hadn't been prepared for, she was flushed with colour. Her wild red-gold hair lay loose around her shoulders. Her beautiful eyes were large and lustrous, her mouth sensitive and her chin prettily pointed. If it wouldn't jeopardize their old easy friendship he would have told her she looked damned sexy.

“So what's the verdict?” she asked dryly, with a tilt of her chin.

“Just checking,” he drawled. “All right, Shel. You've changed. You've grown up. So what are you doing right now? On your way home to your family?” He recalled the bleakness of Wybourne, the Logans' loss of all joy.

“Tomorrow. I can't make the return trip the same day.”

“God, I would think not. Look at you! The wind could pick you up and blow you away. Still giving you hell, are they?” In his experience nothing really ever changed.

She shook her head, her tone mildly chastening. “You shouldn't talk like that, Brock. I love my family. We survive. I guess I'll always bear the pain for surviving when Sean didn't.”

“You should have said blame. But it was a terrible accident, Shelley. You were a very young child when it happened.”

“I know, but it doesn't seem to help.” She looked away.

“Not when you're not allowed to forget. Hell,” he burst out explosively, as though the small space couldn't contain him—as indeed it couldn't. “Let's get out of here.” He'd been aware from the moment he'd greeted her that every head was turned in their direction, the well-oiled gossip machine getting underway.

“Where? I need to get something here.” She glanced in the direction of the counter.

“Then do it,” he ordered briskly. “You must be staying at the pub?”

“As it happens, I am.” Brock was still pure flame. Which gave cautious old Shelley an excellent chance of getting burned.

“Then so am I. I was going to sleep in the truck, but Mick can sort me out a room. What do you say we have dinner? I see Koomera Crossing's redoubtable schoolmarm Harriet Crompton has opened up a restaurant. No doubt about Miss Crompton! She always was a woman of many talents.”

“That would be lovely, Brock.” After her earlier fatigue excitement had started to run at full throttle.

“We have lots to catch up on. The fact is Phil advised me—maybe it was a heavy warning—that you were his girlfriend?” Silver eyes emitted sparks.

“Why hasn't he told me that, then?” she said flippantly.

“You're too good for him, Shelley.” Brock's antagonism towards his cousin spilled out.

She stared up at him for a moment before she answered. Even in misty green Ireland his skin must have seen plenty of sunshine. His olive skin was like polished bronze.

“Isn't that a little cruel? I feel sorry for Philip. Your grandfather is very hard on him, and his mother has such high expectations. Philip is under constant pressure to perform. Not that your grandfather allows him any real responsibility.”

“Just keeps him on a tight leash. Must be hard for Phil. He was a dopey kid.”

“Whereas you were as bad as you could get.” She softened the charge with a smile. “Philip, unfortunately, is still very much under the influence of his mother. Now, I'll pay for this, Brock, if you can wait.” She settled hurriedly on the gardenia-scented bath gel.

“I think you're right.” He gave the nod to her choice. “Gardenia goes with your beautiful skin.”

 

Of course she didn't have a dress. She should have thought of that before. But Brock's off-the-cuff invitation to have dinner with him had chased all thought from her mind. For the first time since she'd attended the wedding of her friends Christine and Mitch Claydon she had a deep desire to look pretty.

How? She took another look at herself in the old-fashioned, slightly speckled pier mirror. It stood in a corner of the small room where fresh cotton sheets, pillowslips and towels smelled deliciously of boronia.

Trim and tidy. If called on that was the way Shelley would have described herself. Unlike her sister Amanda she had no wardrobe of pretty dresses. Her day-to-day dress was a practical work uniform—jeans and a cotton shirt. She stared at herself dreamily. Brock Tyson had always been kind to her, for all his dashing but undeniably moody nature. These days he looked like a man well able to handle himself in any situation. Tough. A bit like Rex Kingsley himself, who was as harsh and unyielding as the very terrain of his desert kingdom.

Finally she decided on a dash half a block away to the town's little dress shop, where she'd seen a very pretty blouse displayed in the window. The only reason she'd resisted it was that she had too few occasions to wear anything so frivolously pretty. Basic denim was her scene. This top was a kind of patchwork of yellow cotton and lace, with little ribbons and rosettes for a trim. The owner assured her it could be worn successfully with her white jeans.

Très chic!
She'd have to take her word for it. At least she had some make-up and a fairly new pair of white leather trainers she'd brush up.

Shelley felt wildly excited, but tried to bring the whole thing back into focus. By taking her out tonight Brock was probably trying to ward off the tensions of being home. Besides, she'd always associated Brock Tyson with excitement and—it had to be said—danger. It seemed to swirl around him like smoke.

He was a young man who had sustained many psychological wounds, even if the scars from his physical beatings had healed. The assaults by his autocratic grandfather had stopped with one fist-to-fist bout when Brock was fifteen and already topping six feet. One of the station hands who had witnessed it, open-mouthed and secretly overjoyed, had told the story to a mate, who'd told it to another mate in the Koomera Crossing pub. The gossip had spread like wildfire and the whole town had known within twenty-four hours.

“Old bastard Kingsley took a beating! And about time. I tell ya, it was something to see!” This along with plenty of chortles that hadn't lasted long. The informer had been promptly sacked, finding it very difficult to get station work within a huge radius.

Brock had earned his badge of courage, but had shown that he had a dark side. It would pay Shelley to remember that now.

 

The last thing Brock had thought he would be doing this evening was socializing. Truth was, he'd been feeling incredibly bad since he'd buried his mother—as though her early death had been somehow his fault. He'd certainly given her plenty of grief by being always at loggerheads with his grandfather. Not that she had ever blamed him or breathed a word of it. But the wound would never heal; the grief would never be buried. He hated his grandfather, who had cast them off all alone. Hated him and wasn't about to beg God's forgiveness. Once he'd even accused his grandfather of getting rid of his own father, Rory, who supposedly had “run off like a cur”, to disappear without trace. But men in the Outback went missing all the time.

Was that what happened to his father? Knowing his grandfather, he could see him shooting anyone who challenged his authority in cold blood. He was that type. A megalomaniac. Having so much power and money could do that to an already mean man. His grandfather had been en
raged by his only daughter's runaway marriage. He had tried to have the marriage annulled, but failed. His mother had already been pregnant with him. God knew why his parents had allowed Kingsley to dictate to them, bringing them back to Mulgaree, where Brock had been born in an upstairs bedroom.

His father had stuck it out, enmity and harsh treatment notwithstanding. All for his mother, who had felt too helpless to know what to do. But six years on Rory Tyson had disappeared, leaving a note his grandfather had burned after showing it to Koomera Crossing's police constable, who had been sent to investigate the disappearance.

After that—nothing. And there had been no news from Rory for all these years. Brock had investigated but drawn nothing but blanks trying to trace his father. He would get square with his grandfather for that. Getting square was important.

With a muffled oath Brock fought out of the bleak thoughts that threatened to swallow him up. He turned back to the task of getting dressed. His black hair was still damp from the shower, but already drying in the heat. He felt it was too curly, too long, though women always told him how much they liked it. In his experience women were always ready to say something nice. Men were the bastards.

Swiftly he pulled on a clean shirt. Lucky he had it with him. What the hell was he doing? These days he wanted to be by himself, to lick his wounds. So why a night out in town? The thing was he'd always found something endearing about the little Logan girl, who had grown into quite a woman. Her twin, Sean, had been the image of her. The drowning had been a terrible tragedy that had left the boy's parents half mad; the sadness had affected the entire town and the outlying stations. The mother, it was said, still lay in bed crying all day, and the father, Paddy Logan, had allowed no one to forget that tragic day. Least of all his younger daughter.

They had been beautiful little creatures, those Logan
twins. Everyone had thought it wonderful the way Shelley looked after Sean like a little mother. It wasn't right the way she'd been treated since his death. She'd taken far too much punishment from her family. Like Brock had. It created a bond between them. Come to that, he hadn't really forgotten kissing her at some dance. She'd been no more than sixteen but it had stuck in his memory, like a tune. He had a feeling that Shelley Logan with her lovely smile, on the outside so calm and collected, was bottling up a lot of passion. She was a redhead, after all. Red was nature's fire sign.

But what sort of a person was her sister, Amanda? Sitting at the piano playing and singing while Shelley was probably toiling away in the kitchen, preparing a meal for her parties of tourists. He doubted if she'd get much help from her poor mother. The few people in town he'd spoken to about the Logans had assured him things were as bad as ever for the family—except for Shelley's new venture, which had taken off. Everyone admired her. Shelley Logan was a capable, hard-working young woman with plenty of guts. That was the word according to Koomera Crossing.

All Brock knew was that sweet little female creatures like Shelley Logan eased a man's soul. And Lord knew how he thirsted for some area of peace. But romance wasn't on the agenda for him. Not even a brief affair. Certainly not with the girl he'd watched grow up. He couldn't plan anything. Not with his future so undecided.

He knew he wouldn't find peace at Mulgaree. But fronting up to his grandfather was a fierce necessity. Mulgaree was where he had been born, and his mother and his uncle Aaron, Philip's father, before him. Philip, on the other hand, had been born in a private maternity hospital back in Brisbane, because Frances had been terrified of having her child on an isolated Outback station. Uncle Aaron, who he sort of remembered as kind, had been killed on the station, handling a wild steer, when Philip was just a little boy. The steer had gored him. Aaron had died without uttering a cry.

After that they had all lived in hell.

 

“Well, don't you look pretty!” Brock stood in the open doorway staring down at Shelley, the delicate fastidiousness of her. She had braided her beautiful red hair so it coiled and glinted around her small head like loops of flame, complementing flawless skin smooth as a baby's. A slick of bright colour decorated her mouth, and her green eyes were so big and mysterious they dominated her face. She looked as if he could cast spells if she so chose at any moment—even on him.

Watch out!

The thought made him laugh aloud. “‘Light she was and like a fairy!' Brock spoke with an exaggerated Irish accent. “That's an extremely pretty blouse.” Extremely pretty breasts. He felt a sudden wave of desire that made his stomach tighten into a hard knot. But he was obsessively involved with regaining his birthright, remember? Hadn't he already decided he couldn't get involved with Shelley Logan? Yet in the space of half an hour he had developed quite a taste for her.

Brock's gaze moving over her left Shelley with a sensation of shivery excitement. He had one arm lazily resting above her head on the doorjamb, and was just staring down at her. He was so tall.

“I'm glad you like it.” It cost an effort but her voice came out normally. “I didn't have anything suitable to wear so I raced down to the local dress shop. I found this in the nick of time.”

“My good fortune.” He grinned. “Shall we go? I've made reservations. They tell me Harriet's menus are so great people have to book ahead.”