An Outback Affair/Runaway Wife/Outback Bridegroom/Outback Surrender/Home To Eden (56 page)

“Don't let's go over that again.” Her breathing was ragged.

“It'd please me greatly never to hear you insinuate it again.”

“What do you know, anyway, Drake?” She stared directly into his dark eyes.

“I know you're your own worst enemy.” As had happened so many times in the past, their conversation jumped to the deeply personal. No in-betweens. “You're incredibly bitter about your father.”

“And you aren't?” Her eyes blazed.

Briefly he touched her arm, a calming gesture that nevertheless had steel in it.

“No one could call us friends anymore, could they, Drake.” She made an effort to pull herself together, conscious that people were looking their way.

Drake moved to the relative privacy of a broad column. “Fate took care of that,” he said dryly, “but we're still neighbors.”

“So we are. We get invited to the same places.”

“How else would I have seen you in the last five years?” he went on, looking into her face. “Christmas parties, a wedding or two, polo matches…the last time, a picnic race meeting. One has to be grateful for small mercies. Things could change if you really wanted them to, Nicole. You have one solution at hand for this ongoing cause of conflict.”

Hope spurted, died. “You're talking my father, DNA?” She tipped her head. Tall herself, she still had to look up at him.

“It would settle the paternity issue once and for all.” There was challenge in his voice.

“I couldn't bring myself to ask him.”

“You don't have to ask him.”

“I need permission. That's how it works.”

He kept his eyes on her. “You have a question. I have the answer. The decision is up to you. So far you've just made things hard for yourself. And me, too.”

She shrugged, conscious of the truth of his claim. “Have you seen him?”

“I don't normally pop over to Eden to say hello.”

“Once you did.”

“Yes.” Images of her as a bright and beautiful young girl flashed into his mind. She'd been quite the tomboy, determined, adventurous, brave in her way. Never the sort of kid that tagged along like her cousin, Joel. She had a wonderful natural way with horses, too, which had created an additional bond between them, plus a great love of their awe-inspiring desert homeland.

“Heath is supposed to be dying,” she found herself confiding. “At least that's what Siggy said.”

“Why does it sound like you doubt her?” He couldn't help frowning.

“I don't want to talk about that,” she said, stalling. “In fact, I don't want to talk about Heath Cavanagh at all. He's not a very nice man. He could have blood on his hands. You McClellands long believed it.” She drew a breath, and her next words held a conciliatory note. “I'm afraid of going home, Drake. That's why I don't go home.”

“Do you think you have to tell me that?” he responded, his voice rough with emotion. He wanted to reach out for her. Comfort her. Once he would have. “We'd better cut short this conversation,” he suggested. “You're sagging on your feet. I can't leave you here while I fly back home alone. I just can't. I'd be abandoning you to a series of very tiring flights.”

“Indeed you would, but I've survived so far.” She straightened her shoulders.

“At this point I doubt much further.” He put a supportive hand under her elbow. “Let's call a truce. We can go back to being sparring partners after I land you on Eden.”

N
OTHING HAD CHANGED
.

From the air Eden looked timeless. Primordial. Majestic. The homestead and its satellite buildings nestled in the shadow of the ragged escarpment that commanded the empty landscape. The colors were incredible. They reminded her of the ancient pottery she'd seen in museums. Orange and yellow, fiery red, molten cinnabar, indigo, the silvery blue of the mirage that danced over the spinifex plains. Vast areas that in the Dry resembled great fields of golden wheat. In the shimmering heat of the afternoon, the lawns and gardens that surrounded the homestead, fed by bores, were an oasis in the desert terrain.

“Eden!” All her love for it was revealed in the one word.

“Home of the Cavanaghs for one hundred and fifty years,” Drake said with a glance at her proud yet poignant expression. “No time at all compared to the Old World.”

“But plenty of time to put down roots.” She stared down at her desert home, knowing it might be already under siege from the very man who sat beside her at the Beech Baron's controls. “Eden is our castle and we guard it from all comers.” Her voice was charged with emotion and more than a hint of warning. “The
ruined tower…” Her voice faltered. That was a slip. She never mentioned the tower.

“Is a relic from the bad old days when it was used as a lookout and fortress against the marauding tribes.” He wouldn't force her to bring up the personal significance of the tower. “That's the story, anyway. Personally I think the Aborigines were only trying to defend themselves or cut out a beast for food.”

“We don't really know. There were mistakes on both sides. Eden and Kooltar suffered several incidents in the same years, the mid 1860s. So did the McQueens farther to our north. A member of my own family and two of the station hands were speared to death barely a hundred yards from the tower door.”

“With the expected reprisals afterward.” His tone suggested the reprisals had been too severe. “Didn't a tribal sorcerer put a curse on the Cavanaghs?”

A faint shudder passed through her body. “Thanks for reminding me. No one took it lightly. We still don't.” After the tragedy, hadn't her grandfather said repeatedly the family was cursed?

He glanced at her sharply. God she was beautiful, and in the way that most moved him. Yet everything about her was dangerous to him. Danger to his self-assurance, his assumption he was in control of his own life.

“It all happened, Drake.” She paused a moment, twisting her fingers. “They went to the ruined tower to make love. My mother and your uncle.”

“There, you've said it.” His eyes flashed triumph. “Uncle. That's it. My uncle. My blood relation. Not yours.”

“Whether I believe it or not is another thing,” she
answered, knowing the subject always led to a fierce row.

Just to prove it, he snapped back, “I'm not your cousin, Nicole.” His voice that could sound so attractive suddenly grated. “I have no cousinly feelings whatsoever toward you.”

“Maybe not, but where did the affection we had for each other go? Remember how we used to roam? We'd ride miles into the desert. Come back overheated by the sun to dive into a cool lagoon. You used to let me ride your palomino, Solera, now and again. Even Granddad liked to see you, despite the troubles. He always said you had a great future.”

“Not everything disappeared in a puff of smoke,” Drake mused. “I'm building very successfully on the inheritance Dad left me. The McClelland Pastoral Company is doing well. Making money isn't hard. Sustaining relationships is a lot harder.”

“So how do you regard me now?” It wasn't said provocatively, but very quietly.

“The truth?”

“I don't want you to lie.”

“As your mother's daughter.” The words came out in an involuntary rush.

She gave him a sad look. “In your eyes, then, a huge flaw. I am my mother's daughter, Drake, but I'm proud of it. She wasn't the only one who committed the unforgivable. Your uncle was her lover.”

His remarkable eyes flared. “A very dangerous thing to be. Fiancée, then mistress. It brought their lives to an untimely end.”

“All because they wanted each other. No one really believes it was an accident.”

“Well, if someone else's responsible, they're still out there.”

“Supposedly dying.” Her tone was flat.

“I don't think your father had anything to do with it,” he confounded her by saying. “For all his faults he was far too much in love with your mother to kill her. My uncle maybe. Not her.”

The great shift in his thinking confused her. “What are you trying to do? Rewrite history? Why are you saying this, and why now?”

He shrugged, but kept his eyes on the landscape below. “When were we ever able to discuss the subject without anger? You've had five years away to think. So have I.”

“But you believed Heath was responsible somehow?” she protested. “Your whole family did. No one more than your aunt Callista. She was the loudest in her condemnation.”

“That isn't surprising. She adored her younger brother.”

“So did your father, but he was never cruel. He and your mother simply withdrew into a shell. I heard your mother remarried?”

“Hardy Ingram, the M.P. We've known him for years and years. He's a good man. He'll look after my mother well, but he's no substitute for Dad. He was a one-off. He died too young. These past couple of years without him have been sad. My mother couldn't stay on Kooltar.”

“I can understand that.” She didn't say that having her difficult sister-in-law around all the time would make things hard, but instead asked, “Is your aunt still living with you?”

“Kooltar is her home.” Clipped, ready to defend.

“She should have married. Gone away.” Nicole sat in sober judgment.

“None of your business, Nicole. We couldn't all run.”

That stung. “Now,
that
was cruel.”

His hands on the controls clenched, knuckles whitening. “Yes, it was. Bloody cruel. I apologize. You suffered more than any of us.”

“I found them. How many hundreds of times have I been back over that horrible day? It's like a video you don't know how to stop.”

“I can understand that. The shock and the grief killed your grandfather. My own father was never the same after. The way the investigation ended! It as good as left everything up in the air.”

She looked down at her locked hands. Didn't she live her own life on the brink, just waiting for someone to shove her off? “I'm sorry, too, Drake. But it was never my fault.”

“Of course it wasn't!” He gave a grimace of dismay. “At the end of the day we were all betrayed. I've thought hard about this. As I said, I believe your father had nothing to do with what happened.”

“Then you're the only one.” She sighed. “If you're right, that leaves the glaring question of who did. What about Heath's alibi? What if the stockman was lying? He left the station not long after and conveniently got killed when his ute ran off an Outback track. That's like having a two-car crash in the middle of the Simpson Desert.”

“It was reported, as well, he'd been drinking heavily for days.”

“Probably had one hell of a guilty conscience. Does your aunt still hate me?”

Drake's features tightened. “She doesn't hate you, Nicole.”

“Don't be daft. Of course she does! When it comes to intuition, men aren't half as smart as women.”

“I'm not about to disagree,” he answered.

“Good. Around you, Callista was always very careful. Brothers and nephews are sacred. To hell with the rest of us. She never shared your liking for me, even as a child.”

He glanced at Nicole through narrowed eyes. “Can you imagine how difficult it was for her with you the living image of your mother?”

“There are differences,” she declared. “I'm me. I'll never be unfaithful to my husband. I'll never abandon my child. Oh, God, Nicole, shut up,” she bid herself, shocked at coming so close to condemning her mother.

“Let it out.”

“I've had years of letting it out.”

“Maybe the struggle has been too much. Maybe you have your own secrets you don't want to be known. At least you have a source of release through your paintings.”

“Yes, maybe. Certainly mine aren't happy paintings, Drake, although critics seem to find them powerful.”

“I hope I can see them.”

“Sure, I'll bring some over to the house,” she suggested with heavy irony. “I just know I'd be welcome. Dear Callista hated my mother long before she hated me. Even as a kid I saw glimpses of it.”

“The devil you did! Cally was all set to be your mother's maid of honor.”

“A piece of diplomacy.”

“You know nothing about it. You weren't around.”

“Well, you were only a toddler and I could have been already in the womb.” Her voice was perfectly calm, accepting. “I was a premature baby. You'd almost believe it, except I was robust from day one. My mother and I talked a lot, you know. We were very close.”

The gaze he turned briefly to her was piercing. “Are you trying to tell me your mother confessed to you that Heath Cavanagh wasn't your father?”

She stared back, hot color coming into her cheeks. “No need to look so intimidating. You don't scare me. She never said anything of the sort.”

“I never believed for a minute she did,” he retorted with complete conviction. “But you must have felt tormented. Did you ever ask?”

“Lord, no!” Nicole gave a violent shake of her head. “I wanted to believe it.”

“What?” A single word delivered like a shot.

“That Heath was my father.”

He gave a short laugh. “He
is
your father. Your mother would never have lied to you about that.”

“She didn't lie, either, when she told me Callista hated her. Callista believed her brother's love for my mother threatened her own relationship with him. You've heard of envy, haven't you? It's one of the deadly sins. Even Siggy envied my mother, her own sister.”

He shook his head wearily. “What else did you expect? It must have been very difficult for Sigrid to
have a sister as beautiful and as fascinating as Corrinne. Poor Sigrid lacked those qualities.”

“And Heath Cavanagh never let her forget it.”

Hadn't he always thought there was something there? Drake pondered. Sigrid's unrequited desire for her brother-in-law? “Corrinne besotted them all,” he said finally. “I know you don't want to hear it, but your relationship with Joel might have similarities.”

She shot him a horrified glance. “You're insane!”

“I wish.” His sidelong glance was deadly serious. “I think your mother had a few concerns Joel was too much around you.”

Nicole couldn't restrain herself. She threw out a hand, clasping his strong wrist as hard as she could.

“Don't do that, Nicole.” He shook her off, suddenly seeing a vision of his uncle behind the wheel, the beautiful woman beside him, striking out in anger, perhaps making a dangerous grab for—

“You make me so angry!”

“You always did have a temper,” he observed grimly. Something she shared with her mother?

“Well, you arm yourself with your tongue, I think. You're making up all this business about Joel.”

“I don't make things up, Nicole. You should know better.”

“But Joel and I were reared together. He's my first cousin.”

“So he is. Maybe he finds that a problem. He can't focus on anyone else.”

She averted her head. “Why do you hate Joel?”

“I don't hate him. I don't hate anyone. But even when we were kids, he was never harmless.”

“What do you mean?” Oddly she half understood.

“You're never going to get your head out of the sand, are you.”

“Are you implying something was wrong?” She found the whole subject too difficult to deal with.

“Of course not. But didn't your mother who spoke to you of so many things ever suggest to you Joel was too dependent on your company, your affection?”

“No, she didn't!” Nicole's answer was vehement. “What have you got Joel pegged as now? An incestuous psycho?” Had her mother ever mentioned something on the subject? If she had, Nicole was unwilling to open the door of her memories even a crack.

“First cousins can and do marry. Forgive me, it's just that I'm not comfortable with Joel. I never was. I remember him forever hovering, always wanting to know what we were talking about. He was right there at the race meeting in June. Hasn't changed a bit.”

“Probably thinking he should break us up. Joel really cares about me.”

“We all know that. Nevertheless, a word of warning won't go astray now you're back on Eden.”

Her mind turned over his words, rejected them. “Why oh why do people get things so wrong?”

“I'm only trying to put you on guard. The protective streak I developed a very long time ago.”

“If there's any threat to me, it could come from you,” she said quietly. “We both know you'd like Eden. You'd like the Minareechi.” She referred to Eden's largest, deepest, permanent stream that in flood turned into a tremendous sheet of water, the breeding ground for huge colonies of nomadic waterbirds.

He said nothing, so she continued, “You'd like to add it to the McClelland chain?”

Finally he spoke, his tone mild. “I'd be right there if Eden ever came on the market. Why not? If I didn't get it, someone else would. Has someone been dropping little hints in your ear, Nic?” He shocked her by using his childhood name for her. “Most probably Sigrid, while she was delivering the news that your father had returned.”

“Siggy's no fool,” Nicole said.

“I'll happily acknowledge that. But Eden has gone down, Nicole, you have to admit. It's no longer the same as it was in your grandfather's time. Sigrid does her best, but she's no replacement for Sir Giles. Her husband is little use to her. Alan's an odd bird, actually. You could know him for years and years and yet never really know him. And Joel isn't performing well as manager. You must have felt the weight of that when you were last here. He's arrogant. He has a harsh tongue on him. He's devoted to heavy arguments, instead of getting on with the job. Eden has had trouble holding on to good men. I'd say that was testament to Joel's style of management.”