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'No, you mustn't even think it,' Keri insisted. 'Dad told me she died because a flood cut you off from medical help.'

'I was born in a boat,' Robyn's board explained. 'Nearly didn't make it.'

'Well, I'm glad you did,' Keri told her with fierce loyalty. The longer she knew Robyn, the more awed she was by the other girl's courage. The simplest tasks demanded almost superhuman concentration but it didn't stop her from attempting whatever she was able. Her elfin face twisted and she concentrated as if her life depended on it, sweat beading her brow.

Eventually she taught herself to paint with a specially adapted brush and easel. She created outback landscapes of such vibrant beauty that they moved Keri to tears. She sometimes had to remind herself that Robyn was confined to her wheelchair, seeing the landscapes she painted so vividly only from the homestead or through the windows of a Range Rover when one of her brothers took her driving around the property.

It was on one such outing that Keri had her first meeting with Ben Champion. She would never forget that moment.

Jake had left the girls fishing at a billabong along Crocodile Creek while he checked some fences. One minute Keri had been laughing over her clumsy attempts to cast a handline, and the next, she had been staring up at a face drawn from the same gene pool as Clint Eastwood. A thatch of wavy auburn hair strayed across his broad forehead which shaded a gaze that was as penetrating as any searchlight.

He stood with his legs braced apart and his arms loose at his side, the stance creating an impression of tremendous vitality, barely leashed. His taut body quivered with energy like a bowstring before the arrow is released. From Robyn, Keri knew Ben was younger than Rick, but he looked older and wiser with his air of mastery over his environment. Keri had never met anyone who exuded such self- possession. It fascinated and frightened her all at once.

'So you're Robyn's friend,' he said, looking her over as he might have done a new brood mare. 'I'm Ben Champion.'

'I know, I've seen you around the property. I'm Keri Donovan,' she responded, mastering her voice with an effort. Breathing had become difficult suddenly. Desperately she wished for something startlingly original to say but settled for, 'How are you?'

His brown velvet eyes roved over her and she
felt
their warmth as if he had touched her instead of merely looking. The sensation travelled over her breasts which thrust forward beneath a slightly outgrown T-shirt. Then he made a leisurely tour of her legs outlined in faded denim Levis. It was the most blatant inspection she had ever endured and she felt herself reddening.

'I'm fine, thanks,' he said as those devastating eyes returned to her face at last. 'How come we haven't met before?'

'You were too busy working, I suppose,' she babbled, confused by his attention. He managed to make her feel as if she was the only woman alive. She tried switching her gaze to his mouth instead of those disturbing eyes, but found no respite there either. His strong slanting jaw and wide mouth was saved from arrogance by a full, sensuous lower lip. Quickly, she looked away towards the river.

He chuckled softly, making her jerk her head back in surprise to find him still watching her with that infuriating, all-knowing look. 'I'll try not to be so busy from now on,' he said. Then he thrust his battered Akubra hat on to his head, swung himself on to his work horse and cantered away, leaving her staring after him, mouth agape.

She felt a tug at her T-shirt and looked down. Robyn was watching her, an expression of glee on her face. 'What are you laughing at?' she demanded.

Robyn reached for her alphabet board and spelled out, 'You two—too much,' then collapsed into helpless giggles.

True to his word, Ben had spent much more time at the Kinga Downs homestead from then on. He was usually busy mending saddles, tinkering with a motor-bike or breaking a newly caught brumby, but his eyes inevitably found Keri and lingered there until she felt his gaze and looked back at him. He was never too busy to stop and chat with her.

'Are you in love with Ben?' Robyn spelled out one day on her alphabet board.

Keri shot her a startled glance. 'No! What makes you ask?'

'You're the first,' Robyn responded, her fingers busy on the board.

'The first girl he's taken an interest in?' Keri queried. When Robyn nodded, she shook her head. 'I don't believe it. He thinks of me as another sister, that's all.'

'You'll see,' came Robyn's cryptic response.

Ben's interest in her, if that was what it was,-had an unexpected side-effect. After barely noticing her existence for two years, Rick Champion began to pay her more attention. The two men were a study in contrasts. Where Ben was serious and hardworking, Rick was fun-loving and adventurous. He was always ready to leave his chores and take the two girls swimming or drive them into town to shop.

He couldn't compare with Ben in looks, Keri acknowledged, but then few men could do that. But Rick was fun to be with and she found herself spending more and more time with him.

When she was with Rick, Keri noticed that Ben became moody and withdrawn. The discovery bothered her for some reason. But he never said anything, and she found herself agreeing with Rick's assessment that Ben objected to them enjoying themselves. Still, it disturbed her that Ben no longer looked at her in a special way and seemed to have taken a dislike to her. It hurt because she wanted to be his friend. 'I don't understand Ben at all,' she confessed to Robyn one day.

'Funny. He says the same about you,' Robyn spelled back.

'Oh, does he?' If he spoke about her to Robyn, he couldn't dislike her so much, could he? 'What else does he say about me?' she asked.

'Not much. Rick says plenty,' Robyn explained through her board. 'He told Ben he would marry you. Ben got mad.'

'Oh, did he?' she repeated thoughtfully, as intrigued by Ben's reaction as by Rick's assurance that they would marry. In the outback, when two people spent as much time together as she and Rick had, marriage usually followed. But was it what she wanted? Granted, Rick was fun to be with and a suitable husband by most social standards, but how did she feel about him as a lifetime partner?

When he finally proposed, she still had no answer ready but told him she would think it over. Unbeknown to her, he had already told Ben that they were engaged. When she sought out Ben to ask his advice, he was coldly uninterested.

'You're old enough to know what you're doing,' he had said before swinging himself into the saddle and riding away. Desolately she had watched him go, feeling as if something important was going out of her life.

For the next few days she didn't see or hear anything from Ben. She wished Rick hadn't told him they were engaged when she felt so uncertain. Rick treated her like a fiancée, feeling free to kiss her when he felt like it. But when she waited for the response she was sure his kiss should provoke, it was curiously absent.

Then had come the dreadful day when Jake Champion was felled by a fatal heart attack and everything changed. Rick disappeared, leaving Ben to take over the running of the properties. He was so busy that Keri didn't have a chance to talk to him until after his father's funeral when they gathered for the reading of Jake's will. Ben sat as far away from her as possible but she was as aware of him as if they had been touching. At that moment she understood why she had avoided giving Rick an answer. Compared to Ben, he paled into insignificance. But how was she to undo the damage she had done by letting him think she had accepted Rick's proposal? She could tell Rick that she had made a mistake, but could she convince Ben that it was really him she cared for?

'Very convenient, isn't it?' he sneered at her when they were finally alone and she could put her feelings into words.

'What do you mean?' she asked, shaken by the derision in his voice. He had never spoken to her like that before.

'Would you have dumped me as readily if Rick had been the one to inherit instead?' he demanded.

'What does that have to do with anything?' she asked, baffled. She had been so busy planning what she would say to Ben that she hadn't heard any of Jake's bequests. She had only attended to help Robyn through the ordeal.

'When you thought Rick was the heir to Champion Holdings, you were happy to marry him. Now you know that he gets nothing except through me, you've decided that your love was misplaced. As I said, very convenient.'

'You're wrong,' she breathed, fighting tears. 'I don't care about the will. I had other things on my mind.'

'Like your future,' he sneered. 'Well, allow me to enlighten you. Although Rick was not Jake's son, he never made any distinction between us. It was only when he began to worry about Rick's free-spending habits that he changed his will to leave Kinga Downs and Casuarina to me. I'm to provide a home and income for Rick but he doesn't inherit any land until he settles down, which leaves his future in my hands.'

'That's not why I can't marry Rick,' she persisted, although the leaden feeling in her stomach told her he didn't believe her. 'I'm not in love with Rick and never was. I was stupid not to tell you before.'

'You're right about one thing,' he observed. 'You were stupid. Stupid to think I'd believe such a tale when the truth is obvious. Rick only has wealth through me, so you want to go where the real money is. I'm disappointed in you, Keri. When you came here I thought you were special. You seemed to care for Robyn and you fitted in here like one of the family. But you're not a Champion and never could be. You don't have the integrity.'

His words had flayed her like a lash, laying open emotional wounds which would take years to heal, if they ever did. If only she had spoken to Ben sooner about her feelings, he might have believed her. Now, she looked like a gold-digger, courting him because Rick had lost his inheritance.

Rick was no kinder to her. He also believed that she was deserting him because he hadn't inherited a fortune. 'A rat deserting a sinking ship,' he called her and worse. When she tried to walk away, he had grabbed her by the shoulders and enveloped her in a cruel travesty of an embrace. What happened next she had buried so deeply in her subconscious that it was still a blur. Her only clear memory was of radioing her father and asking him to collect her on his way back to town. She had vowed never to return to Champion land.

Although it broke her heart to desert Robyn, she
had kept her vow. She told Robyn she was leaving to attend university and gain a degree in environmental science, leading to a career as a ranger with the Conservation Commission. Robyn didn't understand why Keri didn't return even on holidays, but somehow their friendship had survived through letters.

Then Robyn had written with
an
urgent plea
for
Keri to come back and help her through the turmoil of Rick's marriage to a neighbouring property heiress, Persia Redshaw. Keri remembered Persia as a frothy, good-natured girl and wondered how Rick could have persuaded her to marry him.

At the same time, Robyn's personal carer of many years' standing had left because of a family crisis and they had not yet been able to replace her. The Champions' housekeeper, Jessie Finch, was happy to look after Robyn, but was finding it a strain on top of running the household. 'I really need you,' Robyn had written, leaving Keri with little choice but to come back.

When the Crocodile Task Force asked her to survey Crocodile Creek which divided the two properties, it seemed like the ideal solution. She wrote to Robyn and told her she would be working close enough to the homestead to enable them to see a good deal of each other.

Gentle probing revealed that Ben spent little time at either homestead, preferring to be out with his men, so there wasn't much chance that Keri would run into him. And with Rick safely married, she managed to quell her apprehension sufficiently to camp oh Champion land, where she had never
expected to set foot again.

She should have known she would be unable to escape her memories once she was here. Nugget's visit had opened the floodgates.

She was thankful when a disturbance at the edge of the billabong shattered her reverie. Grabbing her camera, she returned to her observation post on the grassy bank. Maybe this time she would get a good photo of one of the giant crocodiles which claimed this billabong as their territory.

There it was. She shuddered involuntarily as a massive scaled head lifted and two clawed forepaws dug into the mud, hauling the creature out of the water like some prehistoric vision. It was huge, at least sixteen feet long she estimated, and she raised her camera.

Before she could take a picture, she was hauled to her feet and thrown backwards. Luckily she landed in thick grass so she was only winded. Her mind functioned at lightning speed, registering the presence of a man with a high-powered rifle levelled at the crocodile.

'Stop, don't shoot it,' she ordered and matched the command with a swift forward motion which pushed the gun aside. With a flick of its tail, the crocodile spun around and slid back into the water. The hunter's breath escaped in a hissing outrush of rage. 'What the hell?'

Her anger was equal to his, but for different reasons. 'Don't you know it's illegal to shoot crocodiles in this state?'

'It's legal when someone's life is in danger,' he snapped back. 'You were within feet of being eaten.'

'I was nothing of the sort. I was doing my job perfectly well until you came along.'

Her head jerked upwards and her eyes met his. Only then did she realise whom she had thwarted, and she went cold from head to foot. He realised her identity at the same moment and they said as one, 'You!'

'Ben Champion, I might have known,' she gasped.

'Keri Donovan, I should have known,' he echoed. 'What were you doing, trying to get yourself killed?'

'I'm conducting a survey for the Crocodile Task Force of the Conservation Commission,' she said haughtily, drawing out each syllable.

If she had hoped to impress him, she was disappointed. His tawny gaze raked the wedge- tailed eagle insignia on her shoulder patch then returned to her face. His expression was chilly. 'You still need the owner's permission to be on this land. I don't recall giving it.'