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'Robyn needs you,' he said flatly.

The thought that he might have wanted her to stay was quashed as she realised that his concern was for his sister. Voices reached them from the living- rooms, indicating that the party was already under way, and she gave a sigh of defeat. 'I'd better finish getting ready. Robyn will wonder where I am.'

At the door, he stopped her. 'Keri?'

She turned and her awareness reawoke to the fact that he wore only his trousers. She felt an absurd urge to run her hands across his chest, and dismissed the notion as crazy. 'Yes?'

'How would it be if I had a talk with Rick after the party? I know he can be a bastard at times.' He frowned. 'I haven't called him that for years. I used to catch hell from Dad for saying it. He always said it wasn't Rick's fault that we had different fathers.'

She was fairly sure what life must have been like for Ben since his father died. He must have felt enormously guilty about being left the whole of the Champion empire. No wonder he tried so hard to redress the balance. Still, she felt moved to say, 'It wasn't your fault, either. You don't have to keep trying to make it up to him.' Fearing that she had said too much, she fled from the room.

By the time she finished doing her hair and makeup, the party was in full swing. At least fifty people were clustered in the living-rooms and out on the veranda. Knowing Robyn, another fifty had been invited and would arrive as the evening wore on.

Catching sight of Keri, Robyn gestured for her to join the group around the computer console. She fixed a smile on her lips as she recognised two of the people talking to Robyn. 'Mrs Redshaw, isn't it? And Daphne, I hardly recognise you now, you're so grown up.'

The neighbour's younger daughter was many years Keri's junior and had been in pigtails the last time they met. The chatted for a few minutes and Keri discovered that Persia Redshaw was still nursing her grandmother but would be home in a few more days. 'Rick will be pleased to hear that,' she said, inwardly adding that it wasn't too soon for her, either. She glanced around. 'Where is Rick?'

'I suppose he feels left out, without Persia being here,' Mrs Redshaw said indulgently.

Keri didn't bother telling the woman how her future son-in-law had been consoling himself. 'I suppose so,' she agreed and excused herself to circulate among the other guests. Many of them remembered her from the days when her father was with the Aerial Medical Service. Repeatedly, she explained that her father and mother were both well and were living in North Queensland now.

As she talked, her glance was drawn repeatedly to the french doors leading into the room. At last the entrance darkened as Ben's substantial figure filled it. Her heart gave an unexpected leap. Without even realising it, she had been waiting for him to appear.

She went to his side, aware of eyes following her progress. At the same time, she felt a quite unwarranted surge of pride knowing that as far as the others were concerned she had every right to monopolise him. She beckoned for him to bend so that she could speak into his ear. 'I owe you an apology for what I said just now. I had no right to interfere in your family life.'

'Don't apologise,' he returned. 'I took my time coming down because I was thinking over what you said. You could be right. Maybe my guilt over being made Dad's heir did blind me to a few things where Rick's concerned.'

'All the same, I had no business interfering,' she restated.

He looked down at her hand possessively gripping his arm, and covered it with his. 'We'll talk later.'

Ben's promise made it easier to get through the evening. There was still no sign of Rick but half the district had turned out for the party. 'You said you'd keep the numbers down,' she hissed to Robyn halfway through the evening.

Robyn swung her chair around to the keyboard and typed out, 'So sue me.'

Keri regarded her fondly. In the last few days, a little colour had returned to her cheeks and she had gained a few pounds in weight. The pale, gaunt creature who had greeted Keri when she arrived had thankfully almost vanished.

A steely-haired man saw her talking to Robyn and came over to join them. 'I don't know your secret but I wish I could bottle it to give to all my patients,'

he told Keri.

'I take it you're Doctor Syme,' Keri guessed. 'Robyn's told me a lot about you.'

'And all I hear about is Keri this and Keri that,' he said, laughing. 'Still, I can't fault your results.' He checked to see that Robyn's attention was held by another guest, then leaned closer. 'Before you came, it was touch and go whether we had to put her in hospital.'

Alarm showed on Keri's face. 'She's all right now, though, isn't she? She's looking better.'

'Looks can be deceiving,' the doctor informed her. 'She's fine as long as she continues to make progress. A woman with Robyn's problems needs more than the average will to overcome them. Losing her personal carer triggered a bout of depression which left her very run down. It will take her a while to get back where she was.' He patted Keri's hand. 'You're good for her, my dear. Keep it up, that's all I ask.'

Her eyes clouded, but she was careful to keep her party smile in place as the doctor walked away.

She had asked Ben not to make an official announcement about their supposed engagement, but she had reckoned without Robyn's good intentions. A little before midnight, Doctor Syme stood up and proposed a toast to 'the happy couple'. Keri wished the floor would open up and swallow her. Instead, she was forced to accept the good wishes of the guests who also offered Ben their congratulations.

He was the picture of the happy fiancé as he shook hands and bent his head for the ladies' kisses. Then he moved to Keri's side. 'Smile, this is a happy occasion.'

'It's difficult when you feel as much of a fraud as I do,' she hissed back.

'I told you, I'm quite willing to make it real,' he said equably. She could have strangled him. He knew she didn't want a business arrangement for a marriage, so he was quite safe in renewing his offer.

'You might have told me the doctor was still worried about Robyn,' she said over the rim of her champagne glass. 'You didn't have to manufacture a problem at your crocodile farm. I would have agreed to stay.'

'In that case there's no problem, is there?' he said with maddening mildness.

She felt like a bone being pulled this way and that between two dogs. Didn't she have any say in this? Angrily she put her glass down. 'If that's all the festivities, I'll say goodnight.'

Before he could respond she went to Robyn and whispered her goodnights. 'Thanks for a lovely party,' she said, squeezing her friend's hand.

Robyn nodded her pleasure and her cheeks glowed. But close up, Keri could see that the doctor was right. Robyn's flushed face didn't quite hide the violet shadows rimming her eyes, or the hollows which still marked her cheeks. Whatever Ben's reasons for keeping her here, Keri was suddenly glad she didn't have to leave just yet.

Alone in her room at last, she kicked off her shoes and moved over to the window. Beyond the veranda, the gardens were illuminated by moonlight. Palm trees laden with green bananas stood like sentinels over the display of orchids and bromeliads which were Robyn's pride and joy. Bougainvillaea, poincianas and mango trees flourished in the garden. Still, the oasis barely managed to hold back the limitless night.

Opening her doors wide, Keri sniffed the fragrant air. The steamy night reminded her of a rich woman's bathroom in which the moisture-laden atmosphere was redolent of countless expensive scents.

The party noises floated up to her and she heard the guests calling their goodnights as they walked across the gardens to the guest cabins, or retired to various parts of the homestead.

Soon, there was only the drone of the mosquitoes broken by the occasional shrill cry of a curlew in the paperbark trees. She began to relax. This was the Kinga Downs of her girlhood, the magical place she had returned to in dreams while she was studying to become a ranger.

Leaning against the doorpost, she had a vision of herself as a teenager, carefree and guileless. She had been completely taken in by Rick's charm, taking a long time to see him as he really was. She thought she had realised her mistake in time and had tried to tell Ben how she felt. But it was too late. By then he was convinced she had switched her affections because of Jake's will.

The moonlit garden reminded her of other moonlit nights when it was too hot to sleep. With Ben and Rick and some of the teenage children of the stockmen, she had gone down to the dam to cool off in the mile-long stretch of fresh water which supplied the homestead. Fed by an underground spring, it was always cool and clear.

At first she had been afraid to swim in the dam for fear of crocodiles, but Ben had assured her that there were none lurking in the shadowy, pandanus-fringed waters. 'Only the Johnston River crocs,' he had explained. The freshwater crocodiles only grew to six feet or so in length and were harmless to humans. It was the larger, more ferocious salt water crocodiles she had to fear.

Goaded by the others, she had dived into the water, keeping her legs well up in case Ben was wrong. But he wasn't, and she had come to love swimming in the cool green water. The teenagers, black, white and brown, swam in the minimum of clothing and she soon forgot her shyness at stripping down to her underwear, revelling in the feel of the silken water enveloping her.

When had that sense of ease vanished? It came to her that it was on the night she told Rick that she was going away to university. Like Ben, he had accused her of leaving because of the will, and nothing she said had made any difference.

She shuddered as she recalled how he had tried to kiss her, to show her what she was missing, as he put it. When she resisted, he had clawed at her clothing so that her blouse slipped down around her shoulders.

Alarmed by his behaviour, she had run into the bushes behind the house to wait for Rick to come to his senses. Then had come the moment she would remember for the rest of her life.

As she hid in the bushes, a bullwhip had whistled through the air out of nowhere. She could still hear the snap of its tip as it caught her across her bare shoulders. The shock of the blow had robbed her of the power to scream and her legs had collapsed under her. As she went down, a man's outline had etched itself on her brain.

There was no way she could tell anyone what happened without admitting what Rick had tried to do, and her pride wouldn't let her do that. She had made it to her room without anyone seeing her, and had concealed her injury under a sweater. Next day, her father had come to take her home, accepting her explanation that she felt she was in the way in the aftermath of Jake's death. Her parents must have been puzzled as to why she never suggested going back to Kinga Downs but they never queried her decision.

Today, the sight and sound of a man wielding a bullwhip was enough to make her flesh crawl as she remembered the hideous feel of the rawhide slicing through her shoulder.

As the memory of that experience came crowding back, the scar she still carried began to prickle and she rubbed it absently. She had managed to bury the memory of that night out of reach of her conscious mind. Why had it chosen tonight of all nights to surface again?

She glanced at the bed which one of Jessie's helpers had turned down invitingly, then she looked bade at the garden. Thinking of those carefree swims in the dam had made her long for a cooling dip now. There was no one around. Dared she risk a swim in the homestead pool?

Suiting the action to the thought, she changed and was soon tiptoeing through the now silent house. The pool was located behind the house where it was only overlooked by the family room and living-rooms. Most of the bedrooms were on the other side of the house.

Quietly, she let herself out on to the terrace and took in a deep breath of pure pleasure. How inviting the pool looked, silvered by moonlight and dappled by the shadows of surrounding trees.

Jake had wanted the pool to look as much like a natural billabong as possible. Spear grass and pandanus grew nearly to the water's edge, disguising the man-made shape. At one end there was a jetty made of old timber beams. This was used for diving and sunbathing, and had been a favourite spot with the teenagers at Kinga Downs.

At the shallow end, the pool tapered into a natural- looking pebble beach where one could stretch out on the hottest day. Green slate rimmed the pool and spilled on to ochre-coloured paving stones. More timber logs and lattice had been used to form a pergola where one could sit comfortably in the shade.

Since her return, she had watched Robyn exercising in the pool and had envied her the freedom to enjoy the water. Several times, Keri had been tempted to change into a swimsuit and join Robyn, but she didn't want to face the questions she knew her scar would provoke.

Now there was no one to see it. With a sense of liberation, she shed her towelling robe at the poolside. Then she arched her arms over her head and dived into the inviting water.

Feeling as free as a water nymph, she swam up and down a dozen times then turned over and floated on her back, staring up at the myriad stars dotting the dark blue canopy overhead.

'Enjoying yourself?'

The shock of hearing Ben's voice almost made her sink. Spluttering, she recovered and looked around to find him sitting on the timber jetty, watching her. His face was in shadow but there was no mistaking the broad set of his shoulders or the proud carriage of his finely sculptured head. To her horror, she realised that he was dressed in swimming trunks and intended to join her in the pool.

It was an effort to keep her voice steady. 'I didn't know you were there. I was just about to get out.'

He seemed to sense her reluctance to be there with him. 'Don't leave on my account,' he said. Then he jack-knifed off
the jetty,
cut a clean swathe through the water with his body, and surfaced a short distance away from her.

It was all she could do not to hoist herself out of the pool and huddle in her protective robe, but she reminded herself that he couldn't see anything in the moonlight. Her secret was safe for the moment.