High Stakes Bride (5 page)

A renowned horse breaker, Robert had had a lengthy client list and had commanded high fees. The business, which had started out on a shoestring budget, had expanded rapidly. To cope with the demand, Susan had begun working full-time with the horses, and a large amount of investment capital had been sunk into building a set of stables and a covered training facility. While Robert had been alive the income had been steady and substantial, more than enough to cover the mortgage, but, within days of his death, the horses had been removed and the income had dried up.

The final nail in the coffin was an ostrich contract Robert had bought into just before he'd died—a deal which required the purchase of a bird a year for a further period of five years at an exorbitant fixed price. So far the venture had failed to make anything but a loss. The ostrich industry had folded, and prices for the birds and the products had plummeted, leaving investors with a financial lemon that continued to squeeze
them
dry. The contracts were cleverly executed and legally binding, creating a financial drag that tied investors into paying for birds that were more use in a zoo than on a farm. For years Dani and the group of investors had waited for the syndicate that had set up the farm to fold, so freeing them, but against the odds the ostrich facility continued.

The easy option would have been to sell off a parcel of land to cover the debts, but over the past few years Robert Galbraith had already sold off the maximum amount of land allowed under the local authority rules to help fund the costs of the new businesses—the farm could no longer be subdivided. Any debts now had to be met out of farm capital.

During Dani's first interview with the bank, the possibility of bankruptcy and a mortgagee sale had been suggested, but she had refused to give in to that option. Her reaction had been knee-jerk and fierce. In his will, Robert Galbraith had entrusted her not only with David's care, but with Galbraith Station, which had been left jointly to both her and David. If Robert and Susan had still been alive, Galbraith Station would have prospered not only in a business sense but as the warm hub of their family.

The fact that they had died and she had had a part in it haunted her. For years—a shadowy carryover from childhood—she had quietly kept a watch on Susan, Robert and David. The vigilance had been habitual and ingrained. Sometimes Susan had chided her about being overprotective, but she'd accepted the way Dani felt: they were her family, and doubly precious to her because of the past.

But no amount of checking on the people around her family or personally ensuring their safety had helped in the few seconds it had taken for Susan and Robert's lives to end. As hard as she'd tried, she'd been powerless to save them, but she was determined to help David—and to save Galbraith.

Pushing to her feet, Dani walked out into the dusty area in front of the barn and stared at the clear blue sky. The shadows were lengthening and the air had cooled slightly, but it was still unseasonably hot.

Brown hills, the texture of the grass like velvet with the low angle of the sun, rolled into the hazy distance. Diminished as the property was, it was still substantial enough to provide a good income—provided there was rain.

The drought couldn't have happened at a worse time. The slow death of Galbraith Station was excruciating. Sometimes she felt as if the place was sucking every last iota of strength and endurance from her.

Directly after the funeral, when the will had been read, she'd been surprised to discover shares in the station had been left to her, but once the financial situation was sorted out she would hand them over to David. He'd need every resource at his disposal to keep the property, let alone farm it, and once he'd completed his agricultural diploma, she meant to see that he got his chance.

Methodically, she checked the tractor's diesel tank and refilled it ready for the morning. With fingers that were annoyingly clumsy, she reversed the pouring spout on the diesel container, screwed on the lid, and stored it in the corner of the shed. Picking up a rag, she wiped her hands, nose automatically wrinkling at the strong smell of the diesel.

Blankly, she stared at her hands. Her fingers were long, the shape of her hands elegant. As hard as she'd tried she could never get comfortable with the acrid smells, or with what the oil and diesel did to her skin and nails. Every now and then she rebelled and put on a coat of nail polish, only to go through the anger/denial thing when the next day the colour gradually chipped, peeled or dissolved away. Lately, she'd stopped bothering. Like her life, her beauty regime was pared down to the basics.

Absently, she strolled back to the house, taking a circuitous route through the vegetable garden. On the way she stopped to pick a lettuce, sprigs of basil and several ripe tomatoes for dinner—the habit of never walking anywhere without a purpose ingrained.

A practical task or not, for long moments she simply soaked in the pleasure of the garden, her arms filled with salad vegetables, eyes half-closed as she listened to the sound of the wind sifting through the trees and the melodic whistle of tui birds.

A faint click, as if a door had just been softly closed, jerked her head around.

Frowning, she studied the corrugated iron back of the barn, which provided a wind-shelter for the garden. The main doors, which were around the other side, were open, and usually stayed open unless the weather was wet.

On Galbraith Station theft had never been a problem; it was too isolated for casual thievery and, in any case, Jackson's Ridge was hardly a breeding ground for criminals. The town itself was small and sleepy—a coastal hideaway that attracted a few regular holidaymakers each summer and little else. Added to that Galbraith Station was a good twenty-minute drive out of town on a dusty dirt road. Apart from the occasional boatload of picnickers who landed on the beach below the house, Dani was lucky to see a stranger. Consequently, the house and shed doors were seldom locked.

With a silent tread, she walked around the barn, straining to listen and separate the sounds that were always there: the roar of the surf, the creak as one of the branches of the flame tree in the home paddock sawed against another, the metallic clank when the wind came from the southwest and lifted a loose piece of roofing iron on the barn. This one hadn't been a product of Mother Nature, it had been a definite click.

Her tension mounted as she examined dusty farm implements and a towering pile of hay, the spurt of fear wiping out almost two decades of a measured, safe existence, abruptly transporting her back to a time when every sound had been suspect. Nothing appeared to be missing or out of place, and there was no sign that anyone, or anything had been in the barn but dust, birds and maybe a few mice. Shaking her head, she skimmed the dark reaches of the barn.

Something flickered in the shadows. A split second later a dark form arrowed past her, narrowly missing her head. Dani ducked, adrenaline rocketing through her veins as tomatoes and herbs scattered on the dusty concrete floor.

Nesting swallows.

Letting out a breath, Dani eased the pressure on the lettuce, which was crushed against her chest, bent and retrieved a tomato. A second swallow dove down from the rafters, slicing close as it flew through the doors.

Automatically, her gaze followed the tiny bird as it arced into the sky then wheeled for another run into the barn. Grabbing the rest of the bruised tomatoes and the basil, she retreated back out into the sunlight.

“Okay, okay…I haven't disturbed your babies.”

And nobody else had, either. The swallows were aggressive. If anybody had been in the barn the birds would have been in the air, flying, before she had gotten there. The sound she'd heard must have been either the birds or some small animal, perhaps a rat, upsetting something.

Shrugging, she started toward the house. As she reached the veranda the distinct sound of a car hitting potholes stopped her in her tracks. Opening the screen door, she deposited the vegetables on the bench and turned to see who her visitor was.

The car was shiny beige and unfamiliar. Frowning, she studied the sleek expensive lines. She was used to cars pulling up at the clinic, which was further down the drive, but not this late. Clinic hours were normally ten until three, which fitted in with her work routine and suited clients who wanted to make an appointment during their lunch break.

Dust rose in a cloud around the vehicle as she walked to meet the visitor. After the scare just moments ago, she felt tense and a little jittery. It wasn't likely that someone arriving at her front door in daylight would give her trouble, but since Ellen had died she'd become acutely aware of her vulnerability on the isolated farm.

Lifting a hand to shade her eyes, Dani studied the man who climbed out from behind the wheel. He was tall, dark and physically imposing, with the kind of smooth good looks that would make most women look twice.

He was wearing a suit. Her stomach dropped. He wasn't a real estate agent, his car was too clean and he didn't have any advertising slapped on his number plate. That meant he had to be with one of the stock and station agents—or the bank.

As soon as she caught a whiff of the subtle expensive cologne he was wearing, she crossed off the stock and station agencies.

“Ms. Marlow?”

“That's right.”

She didn't miss the quick, male once-over he gave her. Even in a small place like Jackson's Ridge, she had gotten used to that look long before she'd turned sixteen. Deliberately, she turned her head so he caught the scar on the right side of her jaw, the narrow slash courtesy of the accident. She generally found that took some of the icing off the cake. She might look a certain way, but that didn't mean she was.

He introduced himself as Roger Wells, the new branch manager of Jackson's Ridge's only bank and slipped a business card from his wallet. “Nice place you've got here.”

Dani tucked the card in her jeans pocket and tried not to notice how grubby her fingers were despite the wipe with the rag. Machine oil took no prisoners. “It's been a lot nicer in the past.”

Galbraith used to be a showplace, with a six-bedroom homestead and extensive gardens. Now the house was in need of a coat of paint and repairs to the roof and verandas, and the gardens needed a lot more care and energy than she could expend.

He shoved both hands in his pants pockets, going for the casual
GQ
look and achieving it. “I just took a drive down to the beach. The views are really something.”

Dani's spine tightened. She hadn't heard a vehicle until just now, which wasn't surprising, because the Dinosaur made so much noise, but even so she should have heard him sooner. That meant he must have driven down one of the stock roads at the far end of the farm, turned onto the beach road then back up onto the plateau via another stock road, bypassing most of the driveway to the house. Lately she'd heard more than the usual traffic along the beach road, and some of it at night. Despite the fact that it was trespassing, normally she didn't worry about the unauthorised access, because occasionally locals liked to surf-cast off the beach, but with the syndicate people sniffing around, she was extra wary. “Jackson's Bay is beautiful.”

Even that was a mild understatement: it was spectacular—lonely and a little wild—a long, smooth crescent that curved into the distance and took a big bite out of the local coastline. Lately, owing to the syndicate's interest in Jackson's Ridge, she'd been inundated with more than the usual amount of real estate agents, all wanting her and David to sell. “So what can I do for you, Mr. Wells?” As open and pleasant as Wells seemed, it was after six, the sun was setting, and she wasn't inclined to trust him.

White teeth gleamed. “This is just a quick call to introduce myself and let you know it's business as usual with the bank. I like to take a personal interest in my clients.”

She just bet he did. Maybe she was being oversensitive, there was nothing in the statement to take offence at, but Roger Wells was a stark change from Harold Buckley, the previous manager. Mr. Buckley had been with the bank for as long as Dani could remember, and she'd liked him. In all those years, he had never once bothered to take a drive out to Galbraith, let alone take an uninvited tour of the property. If there was any business to be done, it had always been completed in his office during business hours.

Wells made a few bland observations about the severity of the drought and the state of the economy—nothing that Dani hadn't tortured herself with a thousand times over already—then finally got to what really interested him, Galbraith's stock numbers.

Setting her jaw, Dani reeled off the figures. A year ago that many head of cattle would have represented a slim, but comfortable return, but with the price of beef falling to a ten-year low, her profit margin was gone and Wells knew it. “Is there a problem with the bank financing farm mortgages? I hear Tom Stoddard's looking at selling up.”

The blunt tactic didn't net a return. “The bank's commitment to farmers hasn't changed.”

Dani kept her face expressionless. She'd seen the ad on T.V.—something about the “friendly bank.” From what she'd heard, lately, the Jackson's Ridge bank was as friendly as a rottweiler. They had squeezed Tom so tight his options were gone.