Outback Bachelor / The Cattleman's Adopted Family

Chapter Three

BIRDS shrieked, whistled, zoomed above their heads, filling the whole world with a wild symphony of sound. They had left the main compound far behind, driving the horses, initially unsettled and hard to saddle, at full gallop towards the line of sandhills, glowing like furnaces in the intermittent, blinding flashes of sun. Aboriginal chanting so ghostly it raised the short hairs on the nape at first floated with ease across the sacred landscape. Now the sound was fading as they thundered on their way.

From time to time crouching wallabies and kangaroos lifted their heads at their pounding progress, taking little time to get out of the way of the horses. Manes and tails flowing, they raced full pelt across the plains, their hooves churning up the pink parakeelya, the succulent the cattle fed on, and sending swirls of red dust into the baked air.

The heat of the day hadn’t passed. It had become deadly. Thunderclouds formed thick blankets over a lowering sky. But as threatening as the sky looked—a city dweller would have been greatly worried they were in for an impending deluge—Skye, used to such displays, realised there might be little or no rain in those climbing masses of clouds. A painter would have inspiration for a stunning abstract using a palette of pearl grey, black, purple and silver with great washes of yellow and livid green.

Probably another false alarm, she thought, not that she cared if they got a good soaking. Any rain was a blessing. Her cotton shirt was plastered to her back. Sweat ran in rivulets between her breasts and down into her waistband. There could be lightning. There was a distant rumbling of thunder. She had seen terrifying lightning strikes. A neighbouring cattle baron had in fact been killed by a lightning strike not all that many years previously. Yet oddly she had no anxiety about anything. She was with Keefe.

Half an hour on, as if a staying hand had touched his shoulder, Keefe reined in his mount. Skye did the same. Riders and horses needed a rest. In a very short time the world had darkened, giving every appearance of a huge electrical storm sweeping in. It confirmed to her distressed mind this had been a very sad day. Wasn’t that the message being carried across the vast reaches of the station by an elaborate network of sand drums? The chanting and the drums acted as powerful magic to see Byamee, Broderick McGovern, safely home to the spirit world.

Keefe took the lead, in desperate need of the quiet secrecy and sanctuary of the hill country. He loved and respected this whole ancient area, with all its implications. The ruined castles with their battlements had a strange mystique, an aloofness from the infinite, absolutely level plains country. It was as though they were secure in the knowledge it was they that had been there from the Dreamtime, created by the Great Beings on their walk-abouts. The hill country exerted a very real mystical force that had to be reckoned with. Many a Djinjara stockman, white or aboriginal, had over the years claimed they had experienced psychic terror in certain areas, a feeling of being watched when there was no other human being within miles. Keefe knew of many over time, including the incredibly brave explorers, who had tasted the same sensation around the great desert monuments that had stood for countless aeons, especially the Olgas, the aboriginal Katajuta. Ayer’s Rock, Uluru, sacred to the desert tribes, was acknowledged as having a far more benign presence, whereas the extraordinary cupolas, minarets and domes of Katajuta projected a very different feeling.

They dismounted, their booted feet making deep footprints in the deep rust-red loam. They saw to the horses, then began moving as one up a sandstone slope to where stands of bauhinia, acacia, wilga and red mulga were offering shade. The powerful sun was sending out great sizzling golden rays that pierced the clouds and lit up the desert like some fantastic staged spectacle.

Skye knew this place well. She had been here many times, mostly with Keefe, at other times on her own to reflect and wonder. This was Gungulla: a favourable place. A place of permanent water and a camping spot for white man and aborigine alike. Up among the caves there were drinking holes in the form of big rock-enclosed bowls and basins. There was bush tucker too, all kinds of berries and buds packed with nutrition. One could survive here. She turned to witness a thrilling sight. The summits of the curling, twisting, billowing clouds were rimmed with orange fire.

Keefe had pulled a small blanket from his pack, letting it flap on the wind before spreading it on the sand beneath the clump of orchid trees. He looked up at Skye, standing poised above him, twirling a white bauhinia blossom with a crimson throat in her hand. She had picked the orchid-like flower off one of the trees as she had passed beneath. Keefe indicated that she should sit beside him. She did so, feeling a blend of longing and trepidation. Immediately the little sandhill devil lizards scurried for cover.

“I can’t get my head around the fact my father is dead.” Keefe spoke in an intense voice. “He was only in his mid-fifties. No great age these days. There’s Gran eighty. Dad was needed.”

Sympathy and understanding were in her blue eyes. “His death has put a huge burden on you, Keefe. I know that. You thought you would have more years to grow into the job but the truth is you’re ready. You can be at rest about that.”

“Well, I’m not!” He wasn’t bothering to conceal his grief from her. This was Skye. He was letting it out. “The numbers of us killed in light plane crashes!”

She couldn’t argue with that. “But it can’t prevent you from flying. Out here flying is a way of life. You were able to come for me.”

He made a short bitter sound, more a rasp than a laugh. “I’d come for you no matter what.”

She had to press her eyes shut. Block him out. “Don’t fill my head with impossible dreams, Keefe.” Goaded, she pitched the bauhinia blossom aside. He had hurt her so deeply the wounds would never heal. Yet here she was again defying all common sense.

“Do you dream of me?” he asked abruptly.

It took her breath.

“I dream of you,” he said, lying back on the rough grey blanket and staring up at the sky.

She looked down at his dark, brooding face. “If we weren’t who we are, would you marry me?” How absurd could she get? She waited. He didn’t speak so she answered her own question. “I think not.” All these years wasted. Only they were unforgettable years. She would remember them to her last breath.

“Who are we exactly?” Abruptly he pulled her down to him in one swift, fluid motion.

She allowed him to do it even when she knew she could ill afford the least sign of surrender. To prove it, high emotion kicked in in a heartbeat. Keefe’s sexual magnetism was unquestioned, and so proprietorial. He knew he owned her. That alone aroused a certain female hostility. Being owned was wrong. “Are you saying there are secrets, Keefe?” She turned on her side to challenge him. They were so close, the pain was scarcely to be borne. Whatever had happened between them, they could never truly lose the old unifying bond. In his own way he needed her. But never as much as she needed him. There was nothing really normal about their relationship, she thought.

Again he didn’t speak. Groaning with frustration, she flung her arm across his hard, muscled chest, feeling the rhythmic thud of his heart beneath her hand. Sometimes she thought she would simply expire with the pain of loving Keefe, when there seemed to be no resolution to the matter. It was here, almost this very spot, where he had first made love to her. Taken her virginity. Captured her heart. Held it so fast he had denied her the freedom to enjoy another lover for a long time. Even then, those few relationships had never taken real shape. There was no one like Keefe. The way he made love to her. The things he did. The things he said. It was magic and music. Unforgettable.

“Secrets, yes,” he muttered. With a strong arm he fitted her body to him, as though her proximity gave him all the comfort this world could offer. “But does every secret need to be told?”

Her vulnerable flesh was pulsing with desire, causing deep knife-like sensations in her groin. He hadn’t asked a rhetorical question. He needed an answer. “You’re saying not every secret needs to be exposed to the light? Are you worried I’m family, Keefe?” Finally she threw her hidden anxieties into the ring.

“Isn’t that the fear locked away in your own Pandora’s box?” he countered, a correspondingly sharp note in his voice. “Let it out and who knows what will happen? Family!” he groaned. “There’s nothing family about the way I feel about you.”

Such an admission, yet she had a fierce desire to lash out at him. “Feel, certainly. Never act on those feelings. They could be taboo.” Why not hurt him as he always managed to hurt her? “Just give me a simple answer. What do you feel?” She stared at him with her black-fringed radiant blue eyes.

He brushed the question aside as if she had wasted her breath asking it. “Is that some kind of a joke? Neither of us can let go of the other. More to the point, I need to ask, is it a safe time for you?” There was a great urgency in him she couldn’t fail to miss.

“Safe?” She considered that with a brittle laugh. “No time is safe with you.” She didn’t think she could withstand the heat of his scrutiny. “Oh, Keefe!” Her breast rose and fell with her deep troubled sigh. Impossible to sustain the illusion she was her own woman. She was a woman who couldn’t let go. Worse, he wouldn’t let her go.

He shifted position, half pinning her beneath his powerful body but withholding most of his weight. “I want to make love to you. Tell me you’ll let me?” The very first sight of her at the airport had triggered a desperate need in him for the mind-bending pleasure of knowing her body again. He needed her to lessen the pain of this dreadful chaotic day. Make it bearable.

“It’s always what you want,” she said. “Shades of the old droit de seigneur!” Tears sparkled in her eyes.

“Never heard of it,” he darkly mocked, lifting skeins of her golden hair then letting them slide through his fingers. “I said, only if you want it.”

“What a concession, Keefe!” Hostility was coming off her like steam. She knew it had its genesis in status. His. Hers. Though successive generations were easing up on the status war. Once it would have been considered a disgrace for the scion of a great pastoral family to become involved with the daughter of a lowly employee. But she was an educated woman living in the twenty-first century. She could take her place anywhere. Except, it seemed, at Djinjara.

“Do I want it?” She considered his question bleakly. With a tremendous effort of will she exerted enough strength to break free of him. High time she made it perfectly plain she was her own woman. “Do you really believe I’m happy to think of myself as a woman possessed?” A high flush of colour had come to her cheeks.

“Possessed and possessing,” he answered bluntly. His hand, with a life of its own, moved up to caress her breast, shaping its contours within his palm, his thumb teasing the berry-ripe nipple. “I can feel your heart racing. It beats for me.”

The truth of it cut her to the bone. One had an intellectual life. And one had an emotional life. Sometimes the two were at war. “So arrogant!” she lamented. “I exist only to worship at your feet?” Deliberately she removed his hand from her breast. She knew about love. She knew about total seduction. He had long since mastered the art.

“Maybe I am arrogant,” he agreed flatly. “Maybe that’s what you do to me, Skye.”

He resumed his position, in all probability waiting for her to come round. Instead, she sat rigid with self-control, watching an eagle hawk swoop on its prey. “Are you ever going to free me, Keefe?” she asked eventually. “Or are you just holding onto me until you find someone else?”

He didn’t appear to be listening to her. As though what she was saying made no sense to him. “This is almost the precise spot where I first made love to you,” he said in a quiet, serious voice, an element of—was it regret?—in his tone.

“The heir to Djinjara having sex with the young daughter of a station employee.”

Again he didn’t choose to hear her. “The world was perfect that day. You made me feel like a titan. Capable of taking on the world. Sweet, funny little Skye with her ceaseless questions grown into a beautiful woman.”

“You always took the time to answer those questions.”

“They were always so intelligent. You had a great thirst for knowledge.”

Her released breath had a soft, shaken sound. “You were so kind to me in those days. Then overnight you drew back. You kept your distance.”

His handsome features tightened. “What would you have had me do? Keeping a distance between us was the only course open to me.”

“Of course.” There was brittle acceptance in her tone. “Keefe McGovern and Skye McCory. What a no-no! That was never going to work.” Her gaze went beyond him. “It’s going to storm.”

He didn’t move. “Right this minute I don’t care if we’re heading for Armageddon. I want to crush you. You won’t let me. I want to take every little particle of you into me.”

“That would seem to be our misfortune,” she said with the greatest irony.

“I call it destiny.” Abruptly he sat up. “I’ve missed you so much, Skye. You were supposed to come in August.”

To be here with him, remote from everyone and everything, and hold herself aloof was an excruciating test of her resolve. “And sow more discord?” she challenged. ‘No, Keefe, I couldn’t. What was the point? Besides, you might have found yourself a fiancée by then.”

His expression hardened. “Be damned to that! Haven’t you forgotten something?”

“And what is that?” She spoke in a strung-out voice, knowing she was coming close to tumbling over the edge.

“You’re the only woman I want.”

The admission was like a blinding illumination.

Isn’t that your lifetime passion? said the voice in her head. To be Keefe’s woman?

When she spoke she spoke sadly. “The things you say are enough to blow my mind. I’m the only woman you want? If that’s true—if I can possibly believe you—what in heaven or hell is wrong with us both?”

“Nothing good, it seems.” On a wave of agitation he reached out to pull her back into his arms.

He was strong…so strong…the male scent of him the most powerful aphrodisiac. Pride made her put up a struggle of sorts, her blonde head lolling away from him, her eyes glistening with tears. Was there something missing in her that left her so vulnerable?

“Skye, please. Don’t fight me,” he begged.

“Can’t you see I must?” She had to find it within herself to pull back from this point of no return.

“No, don’t!” He lowered his head, hungrily covering her mouth with his own. His tongue lapped the moistness that slicked her full lips like it was the most luscious of wines. “Don’t, don’t, don’t!”

Her heart contracted; her senses reeled. Desire came at her in an annihilating rush. This was black magic at its highest level. Keefe was the magician, ready to transport her to a different world. All she had to do was give herself up to his stunning sexual supremacy. His hands were moving down over her body. Soon she would stop thinking altogether. Mind and body would become two entirely separate regions.

Only…she couldn’t shed all her painful memories like a snake shed its skin. Memories had the power to come crashing through. She wanted him desperately—she was starving for what only he could give her—yet she gathered herself sufficiently to pull away. Perhaps she should have pulled away that first time. Said No, Keefe, instead of Yes, Keefe and saved herself a whole world of pain. Memory opened up like a book…

Second-year exams were over. She thought she had done well. She had promised her closest girlfriend Kylie Mitchell—a fellow law student—she would spend part of the long summer vacation with her and her family at their beautiful beach hide-away on one of the Great Barrier Reef islands, but she was to spend Christmas and the New Year with her father. He was so looking forward to seeing her it was impossible to disappoint him, even if she knew she was going back into the lion’s den. She hadn’t forgotten Scott’s near-assault on her. Mercifully it had never been repeated. In his heart Scott knew his brother would destroy him if he ever hurt her. From her sixteenth year, she had become off limits to Scott and his attentions. But from that day on she had never trusted him. On the surface they managed to get by quite well. There were pleasantries and jokes, but Skye thought she always saw at the back of Scott’s eyes a familiarity bordering on insolence that exposed what was really at his heart.

Scott still fancied her. The only thing that stopped him from doing something about it was fear of swift retribution from his brother. From time to time Skye had rather horrible nightmares about Scott coming after her. Then, when it seemed he was about to physically overcome her, Keefe was always there to rescue her.

Keefe, her knight in shining armour. Only confusion reigned. Keefe remained her knight, but his whole attitude towards her had changed. It was as though she had lost her sweet innocence and turned into some sort of siren. In short, Keefe kept her at a distance. Just as he made sure his brother maintained a safe distance from her, he maintained that distance himself. What had happened that summer years ago had caused Keefe to shut a door on her.

A big Christmas Eve party was being held at the House. Lady McGovern herself had issued Skye an invitation.

“I won’t take no for an answer, Skye,’ she said, gauging from the expression on Skye’s face she was about to make some excuse. “Your father won’t mind in the least. You’re a beautiful, clever young woman. A credit to us all. Quite a few young members of the family will be here. You’ll enjoy yourself. Have you something pretty to wear?”

Luckily the perfect get-out had been handed to her on a plate. “Nothing to wear to a party, Lady McGovern, I’m afraid. You must excuse me, but thank you so much for thinking of me. I know you’ll understand I’d feel awkward and out of place in the one dress I’ve brought with me. It’s a cotton sundress. I’m sure Rachelle and her cousins will be beautifully turned out.”

“So they will,” Lady McGovern agreed with an unsmiling nod. Rachelle’s cousins, all from wealthy families, were out earning their own money, carving out careers, not relying on trust funds like Rachelle. Nothing she said made any difference to her granddaughter. Rachelle lacked drive. Worse, she had no sense of reality. Her feet didn’t even touch the ground. That’s what wealth did to some people. Why bother earning money when you had plenty? Here in front of her was young Skye McCory—the image of her mother—taking up life and developing her character. At the end of Skye’s first year of law she was among the top five students. Lady McGovern fully expected she would repeat or even gain standing when the results for year two were posted in the New Year.

“Don’t worry about that,” she said, fixing Skye with her regal stare. “I took the opportunity of having something appropriate for you to wear sent in from Sydney. Think of it as an extra Christmas present.” Djinjara’s staff were given suitable Christmas presents. It was a long-standing tradition, as was their big New Year’s Eve party held in the Great Hall. “Come along with me and I’ll show it to you.” The civility of the tone didn’t conceal the fact it was an order. “Shoes to match so don’t worry about them either. I have countless evening bags. I’m sure you can pick out something from among them.”

Skye, at twenty, felt overwhelmed. “But Lady McGovern—”

“No buts about it!” The old lady turned on her, her tone so sharp it was like a rap over the knuckles. “Come along now.”

Skye knew better than to argue.

As always, Rachelle was on hand to upset her.

She was almost at the front door when Rachelle tore down the grand staircase. “What have you got there?” she demanded, her dark eyes riveted to the long, elegant box in Skye’s hands with its distinctive packaging and label.

Normally poised in the face of Rachelle’s obvious dislike, Skye felt acute embarrassment. Colour swept hotly into her cheeks. “Lady McGovern has been kind enough to give me my Christmas present,” she said.

“A dress?” Rachelle’s upper-crust voice rose to a screech. “How come you rate a dress from Margaux’s?” She advanced on Skye, looking shocked to her roots. Margaux’s was arguably Sydney’s top boutique, carrying designer labels from all over the world.

“Yes, a dress, Rachelle.” Skye was recovering somewhat. “I’m thrilled.”

“So you should be!” Rachelle’s tone lashed. “Gran hasn’t asked you to come to the Christmas Eve party surely?”

Skye held her temper. “She has. I’m sorry if that upsets you, Rachelle. I’ll endeavour to keep out of your way.”

Rachelle’s face registered a whole range of emotions, fury uppermost. “I don’t believe this!” she cried. “How could Gran do this to me?” Her eyes abruptly narrowed to slits. “I believe you begged her for an invitation. That’s it, isn’t it? You’d have the hide!”

“Wrong again.” Skye shook her blonde head. “If you ask your grandmother, you’ll learn the truth. But do remember to ask nicely. You’re losing all your manners.”

“I hate you, Skye McCory.” As if she needed to, Rachelle laid it on the line. A McGovern to a McCory. A McGovern with a streak of vengeance.

“You have no right to,” Skye replied, keeping her tone level, although she felt sick to her stomach. She was sick of Rachelle’s drama. In fact, she wanted to pitch the elegant box at this appalling young woman’s head.

She had to walk away.

Right now.

The McGoverns still had her in their power, even if she was subsidising her own way with two part-time jobs. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. But she had long since made the vow she would repay every last penny she owed them, even if it took years.

Surely her skin had never looked so luminous? Her thick, deeply waving honey-blonde hair formed a corona around her excited flushed face, animated to radiance. She couldn’t help but be thrilled by the way she looked. She had never expected to own a dress like this. Not for years yet, and then she would have to be earning a darned good salary. It was gossamer light, the most beautiful shade of blue that, like magic, turned her eyes to blue-violet. The fabric was silk chiffon, with jewelled detailing, the bodice strapless, draped tightly around her body to the hips, from where it fell beautifully to just clear of her ankles. Her evening sandals—like the dress a perfect fit—were silver, as was her little evening bag that inside bore a famous Paris label.

“Oh, my darling girl, aren’t you dolled up!” her father exclaimed in pride and pleasure when she presented herself for his inspection. “You look every inch a princess! I’m enormously proud of you, Skye. If only your mother was here to share this moment!”

Always Cathy, her mother. For her father there had never been any other woman. “I’m enormously proud of you, Dad,” she countered, giving him a hug. “I suppose we’d better get going.” Her father was to drive her up to the homestead, which was blazing with light.

“You enjoy yourself, hear me,” her father urged as she alighted from the station Jeep. “Don’t let that Rachelle get under your skin. Poor girl has problems.”

Skye, blessed with a generous heart, hoped Rachelle would one day solve them.

Days later she was still in a daydream, her head crammed with the long silent looks Keefe had given her that splendid Christmas Eve. All the other looks and stares. Many had looked for a very long time at Skye McCory in their midst, but the close attention had slid off her like water off a duck’s back. What she hadn’t realised was she had the arresting air of someone not conscious of her own beauty. Her looks were simply a part of her. Part of her genetic inheritance. She wasn’t and never would be burdened by personal vanity. Rachelle of the patrician features was a beauty. But Rachelle brought to mind the old saying that beauty was only skin deep. Far better a beautiful nature. A beautiful nature could not be ravaged by time.