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‘Nobody does,’ Gary assured her.

‘Morgan does,’ said Katriona.

‘Then he must have suffered a mental block,’ Gary said emphatically. ‘He wasn’t pleased that you’d pranged his car when he spoke to me ... which is natural, you must admit. Forget it. You come over to the yard and watch me shower the sheep.’

‘You what? What will you be doing?’

Gary laughed, ‘Not your sort of shower, with talc behind the ears, and body lotion. Join us after you’ve had your breakfast.’

As he whistled his dogs Jeff offered with a pleasant grin, ‘Nivvy says your new car is coming today. Would you let me teach you to drive, Katriona?’

Katriona bit her lip nervously. ‘Oh, Jeff, I’ll never be able to drive after yesterday. But thanks, anyway.’

‘You’re going to let Carla win? What will you say to Ross when he asks how you liked his present? Give it a go. I can teach you.’

Katriona felt really sick at the thought of getting behind the wheel of another car, but Jeff was waiting. ‘Yes. I’ll try.’

‘We’ll make a good team, believe me,’ he winked, and left her standing open-mouthed. She had thought he was the quiet one!

Her heart was singing as she went up the path. She had felt so humiliated by her stupid behaviour yesterday, feeling that she had disgraced herself in everyone’s eyes, but Gary said they all knew Carla was to blame. Evidently making a fool of people was something Carla did well, but she wouldn’t try that on Morgan, so he’d never understand.

‘Would you like a cooked breakfast?’ Nivvy greeted her. ‘That one’s still in bed. She needs her beauty sleep, she’s older than you.’

‘Oh, Nivvy, you know she’s quite beautiful. Not liking her doesn’t change that,’ Katriona laughed gaily.

‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and when I look at her beauty is not what I see. You didn’t get hurt yesterday, did you? I wanted to rush to you, but I saw Tay get there and I knew you’d be all right.’

‘There’s hurt and hurt, but the bruises I got don’t show.’

‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Nivvy stated with feeling. ‘That one should have been drowned at birth ... and when I saw Morgan believing every lying word that rolled so smoothly off her tongue, I was so mad! I can tell you they got
very
skimpy servings for dinner, and I slapped the plates down in front of them. They could tell I wasn’t pleased.’

Katriona gurgled with laughter, imagining Nivvy in action. Then, becoming serious, she asked, ‘How do I tell Ross when he rings? How do I ever thank him for the car?’

‘I’ve told him about the smash ... my version, and I got in ahead of her ladyship too. About thanking Ross? Are you pleased with the present?’

‘Oh, Nivvy, how could you think otherwise?’

‘I’m glad you think like that. Tell him so and it will warm his heart.’ Nivvy beamed at Katriona with approval before answering the insistent ringing of the telephone. ‘There’s your opportunity now. Ross is on the blower. Take it in the study.’

As she walked through Katriona was wondering where she would get the courage to pick up the phone. Would her father also blame her for the crash? Would he be disgusted with her too? Would it bring his own accident back to him, and make him hate her?

‘H-hello.’

‘Ah, Katriona. I’m sorry I missed you last night. I did try. Did they tell you? Nivvy says you’re happy about the car. Is that so?'

‘Happy! I just don’t know how to tell you how happy I am. Carla said yesterday that it was a stupidly extravagant gesture on your part. I think so too, but it’s one I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.’

‘You don’t think I’m trying to buy your affection?’

Katriona laughed with real amusement. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

'No, I don’t. I’m just interested in your reaction. Do you feel it’s your due? Me easing my guilty conscience?’

‘Nothing is my due, here,’ Katriona said flatly. ‘As far as I’m concerned you have no reason to have a guilty conscience. You didn’t even know of my existence. I’m truly delighted, not to mention overwhelmed, with your present, and I’ll try to take great care of it while I’m here. Jeff Travers has offered to teach me to drive.’

‘Listen to me carefully,' Ross barked. ‘That's your car. If you want to pour gas over it and set it alight, that’s your business. If you drive it into a gateway and bend it, you don’t worry about it, or apologise for doing it, not to me, not to Morgan, not to
anyone.
Understood?’

‘Understood,’ Katriona repeated shakily. ‘I’m sorry about damaging Morgan’s car. I...’

‘I don’t give a damn what happened to Morgan’s car as long as you weren’t hurt. He deserved what he got, lending it to Carla, and I’ve told him so. I must go,’ he went on. ‘I’m due in at a conference in two minutes. They say the Lord loves a cheerful giver, but I’ll bet he’s got a soft spot for those who know how to accept a gift gracefully. I’ll ring tomorrow night. Take care, my girl.’

Katriona replaced the phone feeling curiously elated. Her father was pleased with her. It was a small thing, but how she longed for his approval. In a subtle way he had let her know that he was not blaming her for yesterday’s catastrophe. Was that how real fathers behaved, giving their children a feeling of being sheltered and protected even when they were in the wrong? And that ‘take care, girl’... she liked that. He had said it yesterday too, as if he meant it. He was trying to take any pressure off her that might block her learning to drive, telling her that it did not matter what she did to the car. If he thought she could still learn to drive after that fright, then she would give it a real try. She felt a real rush of gratitude towards Jeff. She would take him up on that offer.

She paused for a moment on her way out of the office to gaze at the aerial photograph of the station which took up almost one wall. Her fingers longingly traced the boundary lines, hungry to take that whole vast rugged high-country station to her heart, lakes, rivers, mountains and forests. They were all spread out enticingly on the map before her, but Morgan held the key. Her father had told her that the night he left and she had stupidly thrown away her chance to know Evangeline by telling Morgan he could teach her nothing.

On her way through the kitchen she offered to give Nivvy some help with the preserving.

‘No, off you go and enjoy yourself. You’ve little enough time. Did you enjoy your talk with Ross?’

‘Oh, yes, but it was so short.’ Katriona blushed, knowing she’d given away just how much it meant to her to speak with her father. ‘If you don’t need me I’ll be off to the sheepyards. Gary said he’d let me watch him showering sheep. Do they shower sheep, Nivvy?’

‘Certainly. Did you think he was kidding you? He’d do that too, but not so soon after yesterday. They were most upset to hear you’d got taken. I told you they were nice boys.’

‘I won’t be in for lunch, and I’m going to Amber’s for dinner tonight. Is that okay with you?'

‘You haven’t made your peace with Morgan, then?’

‘Well, he talked to me, which was unexpected, then he got mad, and I got mad, and I think I’m worse off than I was yesterday. I was just so stupid! ’

'You mean yesterday?
You
were stupid? I must have been out of my tiny mind to let you go with Carla. I should have known she was up to no good. That one does no favours, there had to be an ulterior motive. I overheard her telling Ross on the phone that you wouldn’t accept the car so he’d better cancel it.’

Katriona walked thoughtfully towards the sheep yards. So Carla was not content to ruin any chance of friendship between Morgan and herself, but she would drive a wedge in between Katriona and her father as well. Carefully avoiding the chance of meeting Morgan, she skirted round the woolshed and climbed over the fence to join Gary.

‘Tell me what you’re doing, so that I’ll know at least one operation on the farm.’

Gary looked at her eager enthusiastic face. ‘I’m not that crazy about the job, and I’ll be doing it for the next three days at least, so I’ll give it to you on an instalment plan. That way I’ll get your company part of each day. Are you ready? I will now enlighten you with all the facts pertaining to ridding the sheep of their lice, ticks, or whatever else is gnawing into them from the outside and keeping them from enjoying the quality of life to which they’re fully entitled.’

Katriona giggled, then became serious. ‘You won’t fool me, will you, Gary? I’m very ignorant and very easily fooled.’

‘So I’ve heard.’ He sounded angry. ‘No, I’ll give it to you straight. Later on when you’re not so fragile, it may be a different story. Now, see that tractor ... I’m using it to drive the pump with this belt here ... follow ... and I’m filling this four-hundred-gallon tank with water. Now, I’m adding two pints of dip, and I’ll test the shower to see it’s in working order. Come over and see.’ He walked to the huge circular tank and bent down, switching on a tap which sprayed jets of water up from the pipes in the bottom, then switched another lever and four overhead pipes started to revolve, sending down jets of water.

‘Happy? They get sprayed for two minutes from underneath, then two minutes from the top, then I switch off, release this gate, and they’re out in the yards. Seventy ewes at a time, or a hundred lambs, clean as a whistle. Right, you read that tin of dip if you really want to know what I’m killing and I’ll get the sheep in.’

Katriona watched entranced as Gary whistled and worked his dogs, three at a time, one along each side of the race and one in behind the sheep with him, moving the sheep forward. It was such a clever dog, running along the sheep’s backs, forcing them to move faster, and even dancing around on their backs as if on a wool carpet, when they got into the shower tank to make them crowd up, but always being fast enough to dash out just as the gate closed.

Gary switched on the water spray and moved the next pen sheep forward, closed the gate, moved the third pen one up, like a conveyor belt on an assembly line. Each time he moved a pen, he switched off either the top tap or the bottom one, or released a load of sheep. It seemed like perpetual motion to Katriona. The dogs answered the sharp whistled commands, barking, moving up and over the rails so fluidly and smoothly, making the whole job look effortless and easy. Yet it couldn’t be.

‘Don’t you ever get tired?’ Katriona felt the sun beating down on her head, making her feel dopey, but it had no effect on the hatless Gary.

‘Ask me this afternoon,’ Gary answered with a grin.

‘Where do you get all the sheep from?’

Gary waved towards the cookhouse end of the yards. ‘See, the shepherds keep bringing them in there from the different paddocks and blocks, then they get drafted down there where Morgan, Tay and Jeff are working. From there they go into the woolshed where the shearers crutch them, and out of those portholes into the counting out pen, from there into my race. I get last whack at them—well, almost. Later on Morgan or Tay will put these wet wonders through again to check for foot-rot.’

‘What’s foot-rot?’

Gary grinned wickedly. ‘You’ve had today’s lesson. Come back tomorrow for part two of this enthralling serial. I’ll tell you all about the bugs that gnaw at their insides and what we do to zap them. Of course you can stay here and admire me all day if you like. I doubt you’d find anyone more interesting on the whole of Evangeline, in my modest opinion. But I do suggest you go and borrow a hat, this sun is pretty fierce. Or else seek a bit of shade by going into the woolshed and watching the shearers.’

‘Would they mind?’ asked Katriona.

‘Of course not. Probably move twice as fast if you’re watching them. Be sure they see you go in, otherwise you may hear some language unsuitable for the ears of a gently reared lady.’

‘How do you know I’m gently reared?’ Katriona asked with a laugh.

'Oh, it shows. Just go in that door, they’ll notice you immediately. Well, they’d have to be blind if they didn’t. Morgan said something to them at smoko, so they’ll be expecting you.’

‘Doesn’t anyone move on this station without Morgan Grant’s permission?’ she demanded.

‘It’s always better to check with Morgan. That makes life easy. Ignore him ... that makes life hard.’

Katriona walked towards the woolshed, luxuriating in the warmth of the sun on her bare shoulders, glad she had changed into a sun-frock. She paused a moment to watch the men drafting the sheep, watching Morgan really. Gary had said that ignoring Morgan made life hard ... well, there was no danger that Katriona would ignore him. She couldn’t. He drew her eyes wherever he walked, whenever he spoke, but that did not make life easy for her. It was as if she was a robot with some inbuilt homing device which centred on Morgan, calling her, enticing her, luring her to him.

Fighting the powerful, almost irresistible urge to walk over to where he was working and just stand beside him left her physically shaken. She wanted to be near him now, this minute. Whether he hated her, whether he was angry, meant nothing. Just to be close to him meant everything. Her longing and desire mounted until her love for him became an unendurable vibrating living fire pounding through her slender body. She would gladly trade the rest of her arid empty life for the chance to be caught and held in his arms once more before she left Evangeline.

As if becoming aware of her, Morgan straightened up, turned and looked directly at her across the empty yard, holding the drafting gate shut, the sun glinting on his dark hair and bronzed body motionless and still. Katriona’s heart leapt within her as he seemed to take a half step towards her, as if answering the deep need in her.

Then he turned away and began working, and slowly her sanity returned and she lifted her eyes across the river to Horseshoe Hill, finding solace in the golden windswept tussocks and the purple-shadowed valleys. To be near him was pain and ecstasy, to be away from him was pain and desolation.

She continued on to the woolshed. Would she always feel like this? Or would the years soften and dim the memory of this month with him? And she knew the answer already. Twenty years could pass and still etched deeply in her mind, as vivid as it was this minute, would be the heat of the sun, the blue of the sky, the mountains and golden tussock hills, and herself standing in an empty yard. Standing there silently screaming her need of him, to the tall dark Morgan with his grey far-seeing eyes, and his arrogant pride, and that split second when he had almost answered her need with his ... but then had turned away.