Kitabı oxu: «Outback Bachelor / The Cattleman's Adopted Family: Outback Bachelor / The Cattleman's Adopted Family»
Praise for the author:
‘Margaret Way has over 80 books in print, all with a few things in common: glorious scenery, strong characters, and a powerful style of writing that keeps the reader turning the pages to see how it will end.’
—Diane Grayson, www.theromancereader.com
‘With climactic scenes, dramatic imagery and bold characters, Margaret Way makes the Outback come alive…’
—RT Book Reviews
Outback Bachelor
By
Margaret Way
The Cattleman’s Adopted Family
By
Barbara Hannay
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Praise
Title Page
Outback Bachelor
About the Author
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
The Cattleman’s Adopted Family
About the Author
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Preview
Copyright
Outback Bachelor
By
Margaret Way
Margaret Way, a definite Leo, was born and raised in the subtropical River City of Brisbane, capital of the Sunshine State of Queensland. A Conservatoriumtrained pianist, teacher, accompanist and vocal coach, she found her musical career came to an unexpected end when she took up writing—initially as a fun thing to do. She currently lives in a harbourside apartment at beautiful Raby Bay, a thirty-minute drive from the state capital, where she loves dining al fresco on her plant-filled balcony, overlooking a translucent green marina filled with all manner of pleasure craft: from motor cruisers costing millions of dollars, and big, graceful yachts with carved masts standing tall against the cloudless blue sky, to little bay runabouts. No one and nothing is in a mad rush, and she finds the laid-back village atmosphere very conducive to her writing. With well over one hundred books to her credit, she still believes her best is yet to come.
PROLOGUE
THE night before she was to make her sad journey back to Djinjara, after a self-imposed absence, Skye’s dreams were filled with vivid childhood memories of life on the great station. Those had been the halcyon days when Djinjara had been the centre of her universe, the days before she had become overpowered by the McGoverns, cattle barons prominent among the nation’s great landed families. Broderick McGovern had been master of Djinjara when she had been growing up; a man with tremendous obligations and responsibilities, greatly respected by all. Keefe, his elder son, had been the heir. Scott, next in line, the difficult one, burdened with sibling rivalry issues, always making it his business to stir up discord. Rachelle, the youngest, was rather good at stirring up trouble herself, but happily for the McGovern dynasty Keefe was everything he was supposed to be. And much more.
By the time she was five she had fallen totally under his spell. She couldn’t imagine life without Keefe in it! A deprived child, struggling with the loss of a mother and a mother’s love and guidance, she found Keefe to be a source of continual comfort, delight and admiration. He commanded her world. It was a role her hard-working, grieving father didn’t seem able to fill. At least not for a long time. Skye’s father, Jack McCory, was a man who had never come to terms with losing his beautiful young wife Cathy in childbirth. Thereafter, he lamented it would never have happened only Cathy had insisted on having her child on the station instead of at Base Hospital.
By such decisions was our fate determined.
In her early years Skye couldn’t understand her father’s deep melancholy, neither as a child could she be expected to, though she always tried to ease it by being a good girl and putting her mind to her lessons at the station school. Her teacher, Mrs. Lacey, always embarrassed her, instructing the other children, offspring of station employees, “Let Skye be an example to you!”
With Mrs. Lacey, an excellent teacher, she could do no wrong.
“Why shouldn’t she praise you?” Keefe commented lazily when she complained. “You’re one bright little kid. And you’re really, really pretty!” This with a playful tug on her blonde curls. Keefe was six years her senior. From age ten he had been sent as a boarder to his illustrious private school in Sydney. The times he was home on vacation were, therefore, doubly precious to her.
Times changed. People changed with them. It wasn’t unusual for the bonds of childhood not to survive into adulthood. By the time Keefe became a man he was no longer the Keefe who had laughed at her, listened to her, tolerated her showing-off, taken her up on his shoulders while she squealed her pleasure at the top of her lungs. The adult Keefe not only filled her with awe, he came close to daunting her. Even when he was looking straight at her she imagined he was looking through her. Something absolutely fundamental between them had changed. What made it all that much harder to bear was it seemed to happen overnight.
Their respective roles became blindingly clear.
She could never, not ever, enter Keefe McGovern’s adult world.
Despite her strenuous efforts to distance herself, and make her own way in life, Keefe continued to live on in her mind and her dreams. He was her shooting star, with all a star’s grandeur. Not with the best will in the world could she change that. Obsessions, unlike many friendships, remained constant.
It had been devastation of a kind after she had made the break to go to university. It had become very important for her to separate herself from the McGoverns. Separate from Keefe, her hero. Even the thought made her weep, but her tears fell silently down the walls of her heart.
Keefe! Oh, Keefe!
Had it really happened those few years ago, or had she imagined it all? Remember. Oh, yes it had happened.
No young men she had met thereafter—and she had met many who were attracted to her—could measure up to Keefe. Now twenty-four she was making a success of her life even if she continued to feel deeply obligated to the McGoverns. Their interest in her had secured her bright future. McGovern money had paid for her expensive education. Her father explained years later that Lady McGovern, grandmother to Keefe, Scott and Rachelle, had insisted that fact be keep quiet.
“Skye is not to know. But she’s such a clever child she must be given the best possible chance in life.”
Although Lady McGovern had always been a majestic figure, as aloof as royalty, in all truth she had been oddly protective of a lowly employee’s young daughter. That alone had caused the ever-deepening rift between Rachelle and herself. Rachelle had a jealous nature. She loved both her brothers, but it was Keefe she adored. It was Keefe’s attention Rachelle always fought for. If it were true that some mothers couldn’t give up their sons to girlfriends and wives, it was equally true that some sisters were unwilling to take a back seat in their brother’s affections. Rachelle hung in there, determined Skye would never be allowed to stake a claim on the family. Skye was always “the pushy little daughter of—can you believe—a station hand? Always trying to ingratiate yourself with our family.” Reading between the lines, that meant Rachelle’s adored brother, Keefe. These were just a couple of the insults Rachelle tossed off like barbed arrows.
Over time, the insults worsened.
“You’re to be pitied. You may be chocolate-box pretty, but you’re so disadvantaged by your background. You’ll never be accepted into our world. So don’t even try!” The tone Rachelle employed was so caustic she might have been trying to skin the younger girl alive. Skye learned early in life all about jealousy. It was to her credit such jealousy hadn’t crushed her. Rather, the reverse. She learned to stand up for herself. McGovern wealth, status and their pastoral empire gave them uncommon power. They certainly had power over her. Even in her dreams Keefe and Djinjara didn’t let go.
As she lay sleeping on that heated and stormy November evening, with the air-conditioner running full blast, she became trapped in that idyllic past as images began to flood her mind. So vivid were they, they brought into play all five of her senses. She could actually smell things, feel things, hear things, taste things. She could see all the rich colours, observe the legions of tiny emerald and gold budgies that flew overhead in their perfect squadron formations. It was stunning how clearly she was able to open a window on the past, a traveller in time…
She was five and back on Djinjara. Her father Jack was then a Djinjara stockman, later a leading hand, rising to overseer by the time she was ten. It was around about puberty that life abruptly became different. Suddenly out of nowhere she felt the weight of strange longings; an urgency and a hunger for sight and sound of Keefe, a pressing need for his company. She only saw him when they came together in the school vacations. It was way too long in between. What she was feeling, had she known it, was desire, but she was too young to recognise it. That was as well, for it was ill advised. Whatever Skye desired, it was never going to happen. Her intuitive response was to modify her warm, open manner to avoid embarrassing herself and, God forbid, Keefe.
In the academic year following her twelfth birthday she was stunned to learn she was to be sent away to Rachelle’s prestigious girl’s school. She had never thought such a thing could happen. The fees alone were way, way beyond her father’s modest means; the choice of such a college not even considered by a parent in Jack McCory’s position in life. This was a school for the social elite.
It took Skye years to find out the McGoverns had paid the fees. But back then, to make her father proud, she had worked very hard, graduating five years later with a top score. That score had enabled her to go to the university of her choice and study law. Her driving interest had become women’s affairs. She wanted to be in a position to help women facing serious legal problems, especially women facing such problems alone.
In her dream that hot, humid night, she was a child again, standing transfixed, holding fast to Keefe’s hand. They were looking out on an enchanted world of wildflowers. Never in her short life had she seen such an extraordinary spectacle! It was so beautiful it made her heart ache.
“The miracle after years of drought!” Keefe’s voice lifted on a note of pride and elation. “The desert wildflowers have arrived, little buddy!” He often called her “little buddy” in those days. It was like real affection flowed between her and this Outback prince. That year, when she turned five, the flowers were out in their millions. They came in the wake of a major cyclone in the tropical Far North. The run-off floodwaters poured in great torrents down the interior’s Three Rivers System. They reached right into the Red Heart, spilling out of the infinite maze of intricate, interlocking waterways of the Channel Country, bringing great rejoicing even though station after station was left stranded in an inland sea.
In her dream, the flowers blazed their way across the great golden spinifex plains, climbed the fiery red pyramids of the sand dunes, spread right to the feet of the distant hills that always appeared to her child’s eye like ruined castles full of mystery and past splendours. The flowers were dazzling white, bright yellow, all the pinks and oranges, mauve into violet, vibrant reds, their colours dancing in the breeze. They were the loveliest creations she had ever seen, their beauty hazy under the golden desert sun.
“Thought you might like to see them.” Keefe smiled down at her, pleased with her evident excitement, an excitement he shared. Marvellously handsome and clever, he was home for the long Christmas-New Year vacation.
“Oh, Keefe, it’s magic!” She clapped her hands, transported out of herself with joy. Even at that age she felt deeply. “Thank you, thank you, for bringing me.”
In retrospect it was a very strange thing for him to say, though as a five-year-old she accepted it as a joke. In return she gave him her purest little girl smile, thrilled and excited he had thought of her. Really, she was just another little kid on the station, yet he had actually come in search of her, taking her up before him on his beautiful, fleet-footed thoroughbred mare, Noor, one of the finest in Djinjara’s stables. Keefe could ride her. Keefe could ride anything. He was tall for his age, with the promise of attaining over six feet in manhood.
In her dream he was holding firmly to her hand lest she run excitedly into the shimmering sea of paper daisies that could easily shelter a dragon lizard that might not take kindly to being disturbed. Keefe was there to protect her as well as show her the wild flowers. He was no ordinary boy. He didn’t look it. He didn’t sound it. Even then he had been one of those people with enormous charisma. And why not? He was Keefe McGovern, heir to Djinjara.
Her father was often required to go away on long musters, leaving Skye for days, sometimes weeks. She was almost an orphan, except everyone on the station looked out for her. She even had a nanny called Lena, a gentle, mission-educated aboriginal lady appointed by Lady McGovern, stern matriarch of the family. When her father was away on those long musters Lady McGovern allowed her and Lena to stay at the Big House. That was the name everyone on the station called Djinjara homestead. It was a palace, so grand and immense! She and her dad lived in a little bungalow that would have just about fitted into Djinjara’s entrance hall. Her dad had impressed on her that it was a “great honour” to be allowed to stay at the Big House. So she had to be a good girl.
It was easy. No one upset or frightened her. Well…Rachelle did, but she was finding her way around that. There was something nasty about Rachelle, two years her senior. But even though she was little, Rachelle didn’t intimidate her. It was her duty to be a good, brave girl and not worry her father, who worked so hard.
In her dreamscape she was weaving her small fingers in and out of Keefe’s strong brown hand. “I really love you, Keefe.”
He smiled, his light eyes like diamonds against his tanned skin. “I know, little buddy.”
“Will you marry me when I grow up?”
At this point Skye woke abruptly. It was then the tears came.
Chapter One
FOLLOWING instructions, she took a domestic flight to Longreach, where she was to be met by Scott who would fly her back to the station. She was none too happy about that. She hadn’t forgiven Scott. And she had tried.
The news of Broderick McGovern’s death had been broken to her by her father, who had worshipped the man. A short time later the news broke on radio, T.V. and the Internet. Broderick McGovern, billionaire “Cattle King”, had been killed in a helicopter crash while being ferried to a McGovern outstation on the border of the Northern Territory. He, the pilot and another passenger, a relative and federal politician, had been killed when the helicopter, flown by an experienced pilot, simply “fell out of the sky”, according to a lone witness who had been rounding up brumbies at the time.
No one had been prepared for this violent assault by Fate.
Keefe McGovern, 30, Broderick McGovern’s elder son, was now master of Djinjara, the historic Outback station. Mr McGovern could not be reached for comment. The family was said to be in total shock. Broderick McGovern had only been 55 years of age.
Such had been his stature, not only as one of the country’s richest men, a philanthropist and premier cattle producer, that the Prime Minister announced with genuine regret, “This is a man who will be sorely missed.”
Skye stood under a broad awning, waiting for Scott to arrive. Scott was another one who had a hold on her memory. She wondered if he had matured at all since she had last seen him; wondered if his fierce jealousy of his older brother had abated over time. Both Scott and Rachelle were very much affected by having a brother like Keefe. Instead of making their own mark, they chose to remain in Keefe’s long shadow. Scott, who had been trained in the cattle business and played an active role, sadly lacked Keefe’s extraordinary level of competence, let alone the leadership qualities necessary in a man who had to run a huge man-orientated enterprise. Still he raged, secretly secure in the knowledge he would in all probability never be called upon. Rachelle, the heiress daughter, made no effort at all to find her own niche in the world. She preferred to live on Djinjara and take numerous holidays at home and abroad whenever she found herself bored.
To Skye it was an empty, aimless life. She had no idea what would have happened had Scott been his father’s heir instead of Keefe. Instead, Scott and Rachelle acted as if their lives had been mapped out for them.
Goodness, it was hot! Far, far hotter than it ever was in subtropical Brisbane, but this was the dry heat of the Outback. Oddly its effects on her were invigorating. She had grown up in heat like this. Even the slight breeze was bringing in the familiar, tantalising scent of the bush. She drew in a breath of the aromatic fragrance, trying to calm herself and unravel the tight knots in her stomach. It wasn’t easy, returning to Djinjara, but it was unthinkable not to attend Broderick McGovern’s funeral. He had always been kind to her and to her father, who was in genuine mourning.
It wasn’t the time to wish it was Keefe who was coming for her. She knew perfectly well Keefe wouldn’t be able to get away. He had taken on his dead father’s mantle. But she still had many reservations about Scott. He had always been a chameleon when they had been growing up. Sometimes he had been fun, if a bit wild, other times a darkness had descended on him. He idolised his brother. No question. But to Scott’s own dismay he’d had to constantly battle a sometimes overwhelming jealousy of Keefe, the heir. It had made him angry and resentful, ready to lash out at everyone on the station who couldn’t answer back without the possible risk of getting fired. That included her father who felt pity for Scott McGovern, the classic second string with all its attendant problems.
When Scott was in his moods, especially as he grew older, station people learned to steer clear of him until the mood passed. Skye in later years realised she was perhaps the only one who had missed out for the most part on Scott’s sharp, hurtful ways. It had taken a while for her to become aware that Keefe had always appeared to keep a pretty close eye on them.
Why?
She had found out. And a lot sooner than she had ever imagined. When she had been around sixteen and Scott almost twenty he had fancied himself either in love with her or determined to take advantage of her. Either way, it was the cause of an ongoing simmering tension between the two brothers. One that stemmed from a single violent confrontation.
Over her.
All these years later, Skye remembered that traumatic episode as though it were yesterday…
As she stepped into the deep emerald lagoon, catching her breath at its coldness, Skye became aware someone was watching her. She spun about, calling, “Who’s there?”
She wasn’t nervous. She felt perfectly safe anywhere on the station. She knew everyone and everyone knew her. There wasn’t a soul on the station who hadn’t kept an eye on her as she was growing up. They had all known her beautiful mother. They worked alongside her father. The entire station community had as good as adopted her. No one would harm her. She called again, startling a flock of sulphur-crested, white cockatoos that set up a noisy protest. A few seconds later, lanky Scott appeared. He had the McGovern height but not Keefe’s great shape. He was dressed in his everyday working gear—skin-tight jeans, checked cotton shirt, riding boots. His hat was tipped down over his face. He had the McGovern widow’s peak that looked so dramatic on his older brother but vaguely sinister on him.
“Why didn’t you speak?” she asked in surprise. How long had he been watching her from the cover of the tree—three minutes, four? She had stripped down to her turquoise and white bikini, leaving her clothes neatly folded on the sand.
He didn’t move. Didn’t respond. He remained where he was at the top of the sloping bank, the loose sand bound by a profusion of hardy succulent-type plants with pockets of tiny perfumed white and mauve lilies in between.
“Scott?” she questioned, shading her eyes with her hand. “Is something wrong?”
Suddenly he smiled, spread out his long arms, then half ran, half skidded, like they had done when they had been kids, down the bank to the golden crescent of sand. “Boy, oh, boy, you should get a look at yourself,” he whooped. “That’s some bikini, girl!”
It wasn’t the words, normal enough, but the way he said them that caused her first ever flurry of unease. “Like it?” She answered in a deliberately casual voice, nothing that could remotely sound like a come-on in her tone. “It’s new.” This was Scott. This was a McGovern. Much was expected of them.
“You have a beautiful body, Skye, baby,” he drawled, his eyes moving very slowly and insolently over her. “Beautiful face. That blonde mane of hair and those sparkly blue eyes!”
He moved closer, tossing his wide-brimmed hat away. “I’m coming in.”
She wanted to shout, No! Some expression on his face was causing her alarm. Instead she managed, “Don’t, Scott.”
For answer he began to strip off his shirt. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do, Skye McCory.”
It sounded remarkably like a threat. That put the fight into her. “Well, you’ll have to swim alone,” she announced crisply. “I’m coming out. I have things to do.”
“What things?” He spoke disparagingly, sounding a bit too much like his sister for comfort. “Don’t try to disappear on me,” he warned.
Now he was stripping off his jeans.
A voice inside told her things had changed. In his briefs, she couldn’t avoid seeing he was sexually aroused. Immediately she decided to change tack and strike out for the opposite bank. What then? She was a good swimmer with a lot of pace. Scott was coming after her. What was his plan, to trap her? Not only cold water washed over her. She felt the icy finger of panic. She couldn’t help knowing males got intense pleasure from looking at her these days. Even her friends at boarding school teased her all the time about the crushes their brothers had on her.
She reached the jade shallows, pulling herself up out of the water, her heart banging against her ribs. Swiftly she shook back her long hair. It had come free of its plait. Where to now? Take one of the trails?
Scott pulled himself out of the water seconds after her, his grin tight. “What’s the matter with you?” he challenged.
She put her arms around herself, shielding her small breasts, their contours enhanced by the snugly fitting bra top from his view. “What’s the matter with you is more to the point?” she said sharply. “You’re upsetting me, Scott.” Indeed, he was changing her perception of him.
His answer was to lurch towards her, fixing her with a look that dismayed her. He easily pinned her wrists, because he was very much taller and stronger. “I want to kiss you. I want you to kiss me back.”
Part of her brain searched for words to stop him but couldn’t find them. He was overstepping the boundaries and he knew it. “Are you mad?” She got ready to aim a well-deserved kick at his groin. She was an Outback-bred girl. She knew all the ways a lone woman could defend herself.
“Mad for you.” There was the fierce glow of lust in his eyes.
She looked around her quickly. On this side of the lagoon the trees grew more thickly. There was sunlight coming in streams through the canopy, lighting up the trails taken by horses and riders. This particular lagoon was her favourite swimming spot, one of many on the vast station, but today the whole magnificent wild area seemed threatening and deserted. “Take a deep breath, Scott,” she cautioned, wishing Keefe would miraculously ride that way. “Stop this now.”
“Stop what?” He leaned closer to her.
“What you think you’ve started. It’s not on. So get yourself together. Remember who you are.”
Scott set his jaw, his handsome face turning grim. “I’m not Keefe. Is that it? I’ll never be Keefe. Keefe is the one you want.” His grip on her wrists became punishingly hard as his pathological jealousy grew.
She responded with heat. “You’re hurting me, Scott.” She wasn’t about to show her fear. She stood her ground, even if inwardly she cringed.
Abruptly he released her, but just as she relaxed, one of his hands reached out to caress her breast. He wasn’t toying with her. He was dead serious.
She flung herself backwards and dashed a tear from her eye. Surely she wasn’t crying? She never cried. A small fallen branch lay on the sand. She bent sideways to pick it up. If she had to defend herself, she would. She knew with Scott in this mood something bad could happen to her.
He found it too easy to create fear in her. Scott appeared to be enjoying her efforts at evasion. “Give up,” he advised with a brittle laugh. “I’m really mad about you, Skye. That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. Don’t you care?”
There was a hard knot at the base of her breastbone. “I care that you’re making a huge mistake, Scott.” Her voice was tight with strain. “You’re my friend. You’re Scott. You can’t be anything more to me.”
He struck like lightning. She landed a stinging lash on his arm. The tanned skin reddened immediately but he didn’t look at the welt, or appear to feel it. No matter how much she wished otherwise, there was no mistaking her imminent danger and his raw intent. Scott meant to have his way. Kiss her? Or take her forcibly? Anything was possible. Who was she to him anyway? Only the overseer’s daughter. Dozens of girls would gladly have swapped places with her, no matter the risk. Scott McGovern mightn’t be his brother, but he was still a great catch.
“Now, what makes you think that?” he asked with slow menace. “I tell you, Skye, you’ve turned into the sexiest thing on two legs.”
I’m scared but I can’t show it.
Find me, Keefe. Find me.
She concentrated on sending her message out into the great plains. “This isn’t going to work, Scott. You’d better find someone else.”
“I don’t want anyone else.” He cut her off with a chopping motion of his hand. “And when I make up my mind, I don’t change it.”
“Then go to hell!” she shouted, adrenalin flooding into her blood. “You’re acting like a bully and a coward.”
It was a mistake.
Scott reached for her, wrapping one arm around her. “This can work, Skye if you let it.”
“No. No. And no!” She fought back, digging in her nails.
“Too ordinary for you, am I? I’m not Keefe.”
She threw back her head. “Keefe would never force a woman,” she cried with utter conviction.
“Wouldn’t have to, would he? You’d let him take you in a minute!” There was rage and bitter resentment in Scott’s blue eyes as he repeated his resentment of his older brother. He went to kiss her and she turned her face, both of them recoiling abruptly as a familiar voice came from behind them in a barely contained roar of ferocity.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Keefe’s tall, wide-shouldered, lean figure came stalking along the narrow sunlit corridor. His body language was wrathful. He looked blazingly angry, angrier than Skye could ever have imagined. Keefe was famous for keeping his cool.
Now it was Scott’s turn to be intimidated. Instead of attempting an answer, he appeared ludicrously shocked, while Skye found herself moaning her relief. With no thought to her actions, she ran to Keefe’s side, grasping his hard, muscled arm, feeling the heat of rage sizzle off his skin.
“Okay, I guess I know what was happening,” he rasped, shoving Skye bodily behind him. “You can’t help yourself, can you, Scott? The only thing that concerns you is getting what you want.”
“And I would have got it if you hadn’t turned up. Skye has the hots for me.”
“Believe that, and you’ll believe anything,” Keefe bit off with disgust. He closed the short distance to where his brother stood, grabbing hold of his bare shoulder with such force Scott winced. “Goddammit, Scott,” Keefe groaned in a kind of agony. “I’m repulsed by you. Where’s your sense of decency? Your sense of honour?
“You got the lot,” Scott retorted with sudden venom, trying unsuccessfully to break his brother’s iron grasp. “You want her yourself.”
Keefe’s expression was daunting. “What you’re saying is what I want, you must take for yourself.”
“Well, she is one alluring little chick!”
That was when Keefe hit him. Scott dropped to the sand with blood streaming from his nose. He tried to get up, fell back again, moaning. “Can’t say I didn’t have that coming,” he wailed, as unpredictable as ever.
“You bastard!” Keefe raged with a mix of horror and regret. “You never can deal with the consequences of your actions. Why do you let your dark side take you under?’
Skye, who had been frozen to the spot, now rushed to Keefe’s side. She had to make an attempt to allay his rage. “Don’t hit him again, Keefe. Please. Nothing happened.”
“Keep out of this,” Keefe warned, with the blackest of frowns. “Get dressed and go home.”
His anger sparked an answering anger in Skye. “Don’t treat me like a child.”
He turned on her, his silver-grey eyes so brilliant they bored right into her. “A child?” he ground out. “You’re no longer a child, Skye. You’re a woman, with all a woman’s power. My brother isn’t such a monster.”
“She’s temptation on legs,” Scott offered from his prone position on the sand. To his mind that exonerated him from all blame.
“Shut up!” Keefe violently kicked up the sand near him,. “Apologise to Skye. Tell her you were acting crazy. Tell her such a thing will never happen again. And it won’t, believe me. This is your one and only warning. You’ll have me to deal with.”
Scott wilted beneath his brother’s fury and disgust. “You won’t tell Dad,” he choked, his hand pressed to his bleeding nose.
“Dad?” Keefe roared. “Apologise to Skye. How could you begin to betray her trust?”
Shaking all over, Skye fervently wished for her clothes, which were lying in a tidy pile on the opposite bank. As it was, she had to stand there, receiving the attention she didn’t want. Her brief bikini barely covered her. Even now she couldn’t believe what Scott had done. A woman’s beauty came with inherent dangers. Beauty brought fixations and unwelcome attention. The last thing in the world she wanted was to rouse the brute in a man. Now Scott! She had never dreamed she would be in this position, coming between the two brothers. She was the innocent party here, yet Keefe appeared to be so furious with her she might as well have been as guilty of wrongdoing as Scott.
Scott took the opportunity to stagger to his feet, gingerly feeling his jaw. Pain lanced up into his head. “I’m sorry, Skye,” he mumbled. “You know a lot about me so you know from time to time I run off the rails. I would never hurt you. I just wanted a kiss.”
“A kiss and the rest!” Keefe shouted, hooked into his rage.
“You sure pack a punch, Keefe. You really hurt me.” Unbelievably Scott appeared to be feeling sorry for himself.
“You’re lucky I didn’t pummel you into the ground,” Keefe cried.
“Damn! Damn everything,” Scott moaned. “So what am I supposed to do now, avoid her?”
“What you’re supposed to do is what you’ve been reared to do. Treat Skye—all women—with respect. You think Dad would be angry? What about Gran? She’d have you horsewhipped.”
“She would, too.” Scott suddenly grinned.
“Oh, please, please, stop,” Skye begged.
Only then did Keefe turn to stare at her. “Are you okay?”
She was caught in that diamond-hard star, so fierce she almost felt terror. “I told you. He didn’t touch me.” All she wanted was for this dreadful episode to be over.
Keefe’s laugh was a rasp. “Only because I turned up. I’ll never know why I came this way. I thought I heard you calling me.”
She had been.
The part of him beyond reason had clearly heard her.
A few minutes elapsed before a small airport runabout swept into sight. It pulled up beside her and the driver got out, coming around the rear of the vehicle. Skye gave a convulsive gasp. Some emotions were so extreme they couldn’t be put to rest.
Keefe.
The world she had tried hard to build up for herself started to disintegrate and turn to rubble.
All you’ve got to do is breathe in and breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
It was the voice of reason, only it took several seconds before she could even swallow. Inside she felt a piercing thrill of the old excitement. Outside a near-paralysis. Focusing hard, she drew a deep calming breath into her lungs. It didn’t quell the clamour. Her nerves were bunched tight. How did she hide her enormous vulnerability when it was pitted against a towering wave of pleasure?
He was even more handsome in maturity, but harder, tougher, severe of expression. All traces of that wonderful tenderness had gone. Some might say his arresting good looks were a bit on the intimidating side, given the air of gravitas and authority he projected. She knew strangers had sometimes mistaken that aura for arrogance. They were wrong. It was Keefe’s heightened sense of responsibility, of being who he was, instilled in him from childhood. He looked stunningly fit from a lifetime of hard physical activity. His darkly tanned skin glowed richly. His thickly curling sable hair worn longer than was usual—hairdressers were few and far between in the bush—was swept back from his forehead in the manner of some medieval prince. Strong and distinctive as his features were, they were dominated by his remarkable wide-set eyes. They were a mesmerising silver-grey, brilliant, crystal clear, yet impossible to read.
He didn’t smile. Neither did she.
The air crackled as it did when an electrical storm approached. They stood there studying one another in silence. Skye felt a deep, sharp sadness. As for Keefe, she couldn’t read him. As in everything, for so long now, he was an enigma. He had distanced himself from her as she had distanced herself from him. But what did he really want of her? What did she want of him? What were the changes each one of them saw in the other? She was ill prepared for this confrontation. Had she known Keefe was to come for her, she could have worked on some defence strategy.
Don’t kid yourself, girl. Such a strategy doesn’t exist.
There was always drama around the McGoverns. Instead of Scott, Keefe had appeared. The man she dreamed about, so often and so vividly, that it was as if he was in bed with her. He was dressed in a khaki bush shirt with epaulettes and buttoned-down pockets, close-fitting jeans, beaten-copper-buckled leather belt, glossy riding boots on his feet. Everyday wear, but quality all the way. There was something utterly compelling about a splendid male body, she thought raggedly, the height, the width of shoulder, the narrowness of waist and hip descending into long, long straight legs.
“It’s good to see you, Skye.” Finally he spoke. “Weren’t waiting long?”
She readied herself. His voice, like the rest of him, carried a natural command. It had become more and more like his father’s; the timbre deep and dark, the accent polished and slightly clipped. “No more than five minutes,” she said with admirable composure. She had to force the adrenalin rush down. “I wasn’t expecting you, Keefe. I was told Scott was coming.”
“Well, I’m here,” he said, looking directly into her eyes.
He was so beautiful! All strength and sinew with an intense sexual aura. Her entire body leapt to vivid life, sparks coursing like little fires along her veins. What she felt for Keefe couldn’t be easily governed. Even her nerves were like tightly strung wires humming and vibrating inside her. How long had it been since she had felt this mad surge of excitement? Not since the last time she had been with him. Years of loving Keefe. Years of unfinished business. It was like they were tied together against their wills. She pulled in a deep breath, keeping her tone neutral.
“And thank you. I appreciate it.” No way could she betray the tumult in her heart. “I’m so very sorry about your father, Keefe. I know how hard it must be for you.”
His glittering gaze moved to the middle distance. “Forgive me, Skye. I can’t talk about it.”
“Of course not. I understand.”
“You always did have more sensitivity than anyone else,” he commented briefly, reaching for her suitcase. It was heavy—she had packed too much into just one case—but he lifted it as though its weight was negligible. “We’d best get away. As you can imagine, there’s much to be done at home.”
She shook her head helplessly. “You didn’t have to come for me, Keefe.”
He paused to give her another searing glance. “I did.”
Ah, the heady magnetism of his gaze! She moved quickly, letting her honey-blonde hair cascade across one side of her face. Anything to hide the wild hot rush of blood. She opened the passenger door, then slid into the seat. All the years she had spent mounting defences against Keefe…!
You still have no protection.
Their flight into Djinjara couldn’t have been smoother. Keefe was an experienced pilot. But, then, his skills were many, all burnished to a high polish. He had been groomed from childhood to take over leadership from his father.
They were home.
Djinjara was still—would always be—the best place in the world. The vastness, the freedom, the call of the wild. There was a magic to it she had never found in the city, for all the glamour of her hectic life there. She had made many friends. Some of them in high places. She was asked everywhere. She had a stack of admirers. She knew she was rated a fine, committed advocate. Her clients trusted her, looked to her to get them through their difficult times. Her career was on the up and up. Yet, oddly, though she had hoped to gain great satisfaction from it all, that hadn’t happened. Sometimes she felt disconnected from her city life. Other times she felt disconnected from everything. Successful on the outside, when she allowed herself time for introspection, she felt curiously empty. Starved of what she really wanted.
Such was the pull of love; the elation, the sense of completion in being with Keefe. But along with it went long periods of loneliness.
On the ground, beneath a deliriously blue sky, she marked the familiar spectacular flights of birds, the shadows beneath the rolling red sand dunes that stretched across the vast plains. The sands were heavily embossed with huge pincushions of spinifex scorched to a dark gold; in the shimmering distance the purple of the eroded hills with their caves and secret, crystal-clear waterholes.
Skye drew the unique pungent aromas of the bush into her lungs, realising how much she had missed Djinjara. The mingling wind-whipped scents, so aromatic like crushed and dried native herbs, to her epitomised the Outback. She had a very real feel for the place of her birth, even though her mother had died here giving her life. Not everyone fell under the spell of the bush but Djinjara, from her earliest memories, had held her captive.
They were met by her father. He had been lolling against a station Jeep, a tall whipcord-thin man with a lived-in, interesting sort of face and love for his daughter shining out of bright blue eyes.
“Skye, darling girl! It’s marvellous to see you.” Jack rushed forward, his hard muscled arms wide stretched in greeting.
“Marvellous to see you, Dad.” Skye picked up her own pace, meeting up with her father joyously. She went into his embrace, kissing his weathered mahogany cheek. He smelled of sunlight, leather and horses. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“Missed you.” Jack looked down into his daughter’s beautiful face, revelling in her presence, the glorious grace of her. She was so like his beloved Cathy. The way she smiled. The way she shone.
“Sad about Mr McGovern,” Skye spoke in a low voice.
“Tragic!” her father agreed, dropping his arms as Keefe, who had given father and daughter a few moments alone, came towards them.
Keefe was a stunning-looking man by any standard, Skye thought. Quite unlike any other man she had ever seen. “I’ll take you up to the house first, boss,” Jack called. “Then I’ll drop Skye off.”
“Fine,” Keefe responded. The force field around him was such it drew father and daughter in. “I know you’ll want to spend this first night together, Jack. You must have much to catch up on—but I thought as the bungalow is on the small side, Skye might be more comfortable up at the house for the rest of her stay.” He looked from one to the other. “It’s entirely up to you.”
Skye’s heart leapt, then dropped like a stone. She had no stomach for the rest of the family, other than Lady McGovern. “I’ll stay with Dad,” she answered promptly, “but thank you for the kind thought, Keefe.” Despite herself, a certain dryness crept into her tone.
“You might want to change your mind, my darling,” Jack said wryly, looking at his beautiful daughter. He was immensely gratified she wanted to stay with him, but worried the bungalow really was too small.
“Well, see how it goes,” Keefe clipped off.
“It’s very good of you, Keefe.” Jack looked respectfully towards the younger man.
“Not at all.” Keefe turned his splendid profile. “My grandmother will want to see you, Skye.”
“Of course.” She couldn’t miss out on an audience with Lady McGovern, who would be devastated by the loss of her son. Pity rushed in. Besides, she could never forget what she owed the McGoverns for what they had done for her. Albeit without her knowledge.
Jack watched on, sensing an odd tension between the boss and his daughter. It hadn’t always been like that. Skye had adored Keefe all the time she had been growing up. Keefe had been there for her, like an affectionate and protective big brother. It was only half a joke, suggesting Skye might change her mind. His beautiful girl, his princess, belonged in a palace, not a bungalow. Keefe was right. The bungalow wasn’t a fitting place for her now she had grown into a lovely accomplished woman. A lawyer no less! At home in her city world. His Skye, far more than the caustic Rachelle, the McGovern heiress, looked and acted the part, Jack thought with pride. Skye’s beauty and her gifts came from her mother. They certainly didn’t come from him. He was just an ordinary bloke. He still couldn’t believe Cathy, who had come into his life as Lady McGovern’s young visitor, had fallen in love with him and, miracle of miracles, agreed to marry him. It had been like a fairy-tale. But, like many a fairy-tale, it had had a tragic end.
Chapter Two
GRIEF was contagious. The faces of the hundreds of mourners who attended Broderick McGovern’s Outback funeral showed genuine sadness and a communal sense of loss. There was no trace of mixed emotions anywhere. This was a sad, sad day. He had been a man of power and influence, but incredibly he had gone through life without attracting enemies. The overriding reason had to be that he had been a just man, egalitarian in his dealings; a man who had never wronged anyone and had never been known to go back on his word. Broderick McGovern had been a gentleman in the finest sense of the word.
All the men and most of the women, except for the elderly and the handful of young women who were pregnant, had elected to make the long walk from the homestead to the McGovern graveyard set down in the shadow of a strange fiery red sandstone monolith rising some hundred feet above the great spinifex plain. The McGovern family from the earliest days of settlement had called it Manguri, after one of the tribal gods. The great sandstone pillar did, in fact, bear a remarkable resemblance to a totem figure, only Manguri was the last remaining vestige of a table-topped mountain of prehistory.
Like all the desert monoliths, Manguri had the capacity to change colour through the day, from the range of pinks commencing at dawn, to the fiery reds of noon, to the mauves and the amethysts of evening. It was a fascinating phenomenon. Generations of McGoverns had been buried in Manguri’s shadow. Curiously, Skye’s own mother was buried in an outlying plot when the custom was for station employees right from the early days to be buried at another well-tended graveyard. In the old days there had been some talk of Cathy being distantly related to Lady McGovern. The rumour had never been confirmed. Certainly not by the McGoverns. As a lawyer, Skye could have checked out her mother’s background had she so chosen. Instead, she found herself making the conscious decision not to investigate her mother’s past. She didn’t know why, exactly, beyond a powerful gut feeling. Was she frightened of what she might find? She would admit only to an instinctive unease. Her father had always said her mother had been an orphan Lady McGovern had taken an interest in. Much like her own case.
She wasn’t the only young person on the station the McGoverns had sent on to tertiary education either. Most of the sons and daughters of station employees elected to live and work on Djinjara. It was home to them. They loved it and the way of life. But others, of recent times, all young men of exceptional academic ability, had been sent on to university by the McGoverns. One was a doctor in charge of a bush hospital. The others were engineers working in the great minefields of Western Australia.
All three were present today.
Keefe had made it perfectly plain she was expected to come up to the house afterwards, even if her father was not. Jack held an important position as overseer but he knew and accepted his place in the social scheme of things. It was the last thing Skye wanted to do, but her father had urged her and she was painfully aware of her obligations. The scores of ordinary folk who had made the long hot overland trek in a convoy of vehicles were being catered for in huge marquees set up within the extensive grounds of the home compound. The more important folk, the entire McGovern clan, fellow cattle barons and pastoralists along with their families, and a large contingent of VIPs crowded their way into Djinjara’s splendid homestead, which had grown over the years since the 1860s when Malcolm James McGovern, a Scottish adventurer of good family, had established his kingdom in the wilds. Oddly, Djinjara with its fifty rooms looked more like an English country mansion that anything else, but Malcolm was said to have greatly admired English architecture and customs and had kept up his close ties with his mother’s English family. The bonds remained in place to the present day. Lady McGovern was English, and a distant relative. She had come to Australia, a world far removed from her own, as Kenneth McGovern’s—later Sir Kenneth McGovern—bride. In her new home, despite all the odds, she had thrived. And, it had to be said, ruled.
Try as she did to move inconspicuously about the large reception rooms and the magnificent double-height library, Skye was uncomfortably aware that a great many people were looking at her. Staring really. She had to contend with the fact she would never melt into a crowd. Not with the looks she had inherited from her mother. Some people she recognised from her childhood but she wasn’t sure if they recognised her. Others acknowledged her with genuine warmth and kindly expressed admiration for her achievements. She was dressed in traditional black but she couldn’t help knowing black suited her blonde colouring. She had discarded the wide-brimmed black hat that had protected her face and neck from the blazing sun, but she still wore her hair in a classic French pleat. As a hairstyle it looked very elegant, but the pins were making her head ache.
She had sighted Scott with a dark-haired young woman always at his side. She was rather plain of face, conservative in her dress for her age—the black dress was slightly too large for her—but she had a look of intelligence and breeding that saved the day. Jemma Templeton of Cudgee Downs. Skye hadn’t seen her for a few years but she was aware Jemma had always had a crush on Scott. Rachelle, stick thin, fine boned and patrician-looking—the McGoverns were a very good-looking family—kept herself busy moving from group to group, carrying her responsibilities, it could be said, to the extremes. Rachelle was more about form than feeling. Doing what was expected. The show of manners. She had never shown any to the young Skye. Skye knew Rachelle had spotted her but had determined on not saying hello unless forced into it. Rachelle didn’t have friends—hadn’t even at school. As a McGovern she only had minions.
I bring out the worst in her, Skye thought regretfully. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Rachelle will never make peace with me. She resents me bitterly. And it’s all about Keefe.
She turned away just as a rather dashing young man with close-cropped fair hair rushed to stand directly in front of her, obscuring her view. “Skye, it is you, isn’t it?” he burst out with enthusiasm. “Of course it is! Mum said it was. That blonde hair and those blue eyes! You’re an absolute knockout!”
Skye had to smile at such enthusiasm. “Why thank you, Robert.” Robert Sullivan was one of the McGovern clan, the grandson of one of Broderick McGovern’s sisters. He had had three. There had been a younger brother too. But he had died tragically when he had crashed his motorbike on the station when he was only in his early twenties. “You look well yourself. It’s been a long time.” The last time she had seen Robert had been at a McGovern family Christmas Eve party some years back.
“Too long.” He gave an exaggerated moan. “I say, why don’t you come and sit with me? I’ll find somewhere quiet. Look at this lot!” His hazel glance swept the room. “They’re knocking back food and drink like it was a party. Terrible about Uncle Brod.”
“Indeed it is,” Skye lamented. “He always seemed so indestructible. The family will miss him greatly.” She broke off as her eyes fell on Lady McGovern, who was seated in an antique giltwood high-backed chair not unlike a throne. She was indicating with a slight movement of her hand that she wanted Skye to come over. “Rob, would you excuse me one moment?” she said, placing a hand on Robert’s jacket sleeve. “Lady McGovern is beckoning me. I haven’t had a chance to offer my condolences as yet.”
“Tough old bird,” Robert murmured, with not a lot of liking but definite respect. “Not a tear out of her. Stiff upper lip. Straight back. Father was a general, don’t you know?”
“Yes, I do,” Skye answered a trifle sharply. Robert’s words had annoyed her. “Because Lady McGovern doesn’t cry in public, it doesn’t mean she’s not crying inside, Robert. I know she will be grief stricken even if it’s her way not to show it.”
“Okay, okay.” Robert held up placating hands. “Training and all that. She’s always made me feel as though I’m not quite up to scratch. Of course, no one could be beside Keefe. Come back to me when you’ve finished paying your respects. I want to hear all about what you’ve been doing, you clever girl! Mother is very impressed. She spotted you the instant you walked into the room. You do stand out. ‘Why, that’s little Skye McCory all grown up! And she looks simply stunning! One would never know she had such a humble start.’”
Skye hadn’t forgotten how patronising the McGoverns were.
“There you are, my dear,” Lady McGovern said, indicating with her heavily be-ringed hand an empty chair beside her. Lady Margaret McGovern was a diminutive woman but she had enormous presence. Even at eighty it was easy to see she once had been a beauty. The bone structure was still there. Her skin stretched very tight over those bones was remarkably soft and unlined.
Skye obeyed. “I’m so very sorry, Lady McGovern,” she murmured as she sat down. “I couldn’t get to you before with so many people wanting to offer their condolences. I know how much pain you’re in. I feel so sad myself. Mr McGovern was a wonderful man. He was always very kind to me.”
“Who could not be?” Lady McGovern said. She took Skye’s two hands in her own, her face carefully in control of emotions. “Welcome home, Skye.”
It was so unexpected, so enormously comforting, that tears sprang to Skye’s eyes. Home? With an effort of will she forced the tears away. Too many people were watching.
“Let me look at you,” Lady McGovern said, turning her full scrutiny on Skye. “You’re even more beautiful than your mother. But the colour of your hair is exactly the same. The same radiant blue eyes full of expression. She would have been very proud of you.”
“Oh, I hope so!” Skye released a fluttery breath. “But I wouldn’t be where I am today without you, Lady McGovern. I will never forget that.”
“Enough of the Lady McGovern!” The old lady spoke as if she were heartily sick of the title. “I want you to call me Margaret, or Lady Margaret if you feel more comfortable with that. Margaret is my name. It’s a name long in my own family. I would like you to use it. I rarely hear it any more. It’s Gran and Nan, Aunt and Great-Aunt and, I dare say, the Old Dragon. Don’t try to tell me you can’t do it. I look on you as family, Skye.”
That touched a finger to an open wound. Some things would seem to be hidden, but they couldn’t be hidden for ever. “I’ve always felt something of it,” she confessed. “But why? Can’t you tell me?” The plea came straight from the heart. “Who was my mother really? I never knew her, which is the tragedy of my life. Dad always said she was an orphan.” Skye’s frown deepened. “He said she spoke beautifully. Not an educated Australian accent, but an English voice. Like you. Was she English?” There was something in Lady McGovern’s fine dark eyes that was making Skye very uneasy.
“As a solicitor, Skye, you’ve made no attempt to trace your mother’s background?” Lady McGovern asked with a grim smile. Could it be pain or disapproval?
“Very oddly, no, Lady Margaret.” Now that she had said it, “Lady Margaret” came surprisingly easily to her tongue.
“You had concerns about what you might find?” Again the piercing regard.
Skye shook her head. “After all, my mother had a connection to you.” Though she didn’t expect to be answered, Skye prepared herself for whatever might come.
In vain. “I was very fond of her,” Lady McGovern said briefly, then changed the subject. “Your use of my name comes sweetly to my ear. Kindly continue to use it, no matter what. I’m fully aware my granddaughter has always been jealous of you. Jealous of Keefe’s affection for you. That is her nature. She’s going to find it very hard to find a husband if she’s expecting someone like Keefe to come along. It won’t happen.”
“No,” Skye agreed quietly. “Rachelle loves both her brothers, but she adores Keefe.”
“Exactly.” Lady McGovern brushed the topic aside. “I want you to know Cathy herself chose your father.”
“But of course!” Skye was startled. “She fell in love with him.” She knew she was supposed to hold her tongue but it got away from her. “But how did they find the opportunities to meet? She stayed at the house on her visits. My father at the time was a stockman. Times have changed somewhat, but there was a huge social divide.”
“Of course,” Lady McGovern acknowledged, as if the divide was still firmly in place. “Nevertheless, Cathy knew Jack McCory was the man for her. And a fine man he is too. He mourns your mother to this day. As do I. Let’s not talk any more about this, Skye. It upsets me. I don’t know if Jack ever told you, but Cathy knew the baby she was carrying was a girl. She had the name Skye already picked out for you. And doesn’t it suit you! Somehow she knew you would have her beautiful sky-blue eyes.”
Skye stayed a few minutes more talking to Lady McGovern, but it was obvious others wanted the opportunity to express a few words of sympathy to the McGovern matriarch. She no sooner moved away than Robert Sullivan made a beeline to her side.
“I don’t really know why but you and my great-aunt look more comfortable together than she and Rachelle,” he announced. “Why is that, do you suppose?”
“I have no idea, Robert,” she responded calmly.
“Neither do I. Just one of those quirky things.” Robert took her arm and began to lead her away. “Look, how long are you staying?” He stared down at her smooth honey-blonde head.
“No more than a week.” Actually, she had weeks of her leave left. “I only came for the funeral.”
“But we’ve got to meet up.” Robert spoke with extraordinary determination. “I’ve thought of asking Keefe if I can spend a little time here. I’m sure he won’t mind. The house is big enough to billet an army.”
“But won’t you be expected back home?” Robert worked for his father, a well-known pastoralist running both sheep and cattle on a large property on the Queensland/New South Wales border.
“I could do with a break. I’ll check it out with Dad. He was as impressed with you as Mother. I want you to come over and say hello. That’s if I can find them in this crush. Even in this huge house there’s hardly room to move. And just look at Keefe!”
Look at him! Skye couldn’t drag her eyes off him. Everything about him pierced her to the heart.
“The minute he enters the room, he’s the stand-out figure,” Robert said with undisguised envy. “And it’s not just his height. He really takes the eye. He’s a man with power. And money. Poor old Scott is still as jealous of him as he ever was. Scott really ought to go away and make a life for himself. Rachelle, too, though she spends plenty of time in Sydney and Melbourne.”
Pulsuz fraqment bitdi.
