Dear Reader,

It is with much pleasure that I welcome you to my four-book miniseries, MEN OF THE OUTBACK. The setting moves from my usual stamping ground, my own state of Queensland, to the Northern Territory, which is arguably the most colorful and exciting part of the continent. It comprises what we call the Top End and the Red Center—two extreme climatic and geographical divisions. This is what makes the Territory so fascinating. The tropical, World Heritage–listed Kakadu National Park, with crocodiles and water buffalo to the Top, and in the Center the desert—the “dead heart” that’s not actually dead at all—only lying dormant until the rains transform it into the greatest garden on earth.

The pervading theme of the series is family. Family offers endless opportunities for its members to hurt and be hurt, to love and support, or bitterly condemn. What sort of family we grew up in reverberates for the rest of our lives. One thing is certain: at the end of the day, blood binds.

I invite you, dear reader, to explore the lives of my families. My warmest best wishes to you all.

MEN OF THE OUTBACK launched with The Cattleman, Superromance #1328

Look for

Her Outback Protector, Harlequin Romance, #3895

“The moment I saw you…” Ross stopped dead before she prized it out of him.

“Yes?” Samantha caught her breath as if on the brink of a revelation.

There was a recklessness in his blood he knew was getting the better of him. She had insinuated herself into his dreams.

He looked at her through the mask he affected. “I knew then I’d have need of protective armor.” He turned away, knowing he was leaving her baffled.

“I’d love to know what you were really going to say.”

“The fact I even said that makes me wonder.”

“It would be really something to see. You losing control. You are such an enigma, Ross Sunderland.”

“And you’re desperate to solve the mystery.”

The seductive note in his voice roused her so much he might have suddenly begun to trail a hand over her body.

The Cattle Baron’s Bride
Margaret Way

MILLS & BOON

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Margaret Way takes great pleasure in her work and works hard at her pleasure. She enjoys tearing off to the beach with her family on weekends, loves haunting galleries and auctions, and is completely given over to French champagne “for every possible joyous occasion.” She was born and educated in the river city of Brisbane, Australia, and now lives within sight and sound of beautiful Moreton Bay.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

BY THE light of the stars alone in a situation fraught with difficulties and dangers Sunderland and his tracker Joe Goolatta led a traumatised jackeroo missing since late afternoon the previous day back through dense tropical jungle to the safety of the savannah. The forest floor was alive with activity. All sorts of nocturnal creatures, some with malevolent eyes, pounced on prey or scuttled under foot hunting for food. Forest debris crashed to the ground as the countless legions of possums with their thick pelts ripped up leaves and twigs or made their prodigious leaps from tree to tree sending down a hailstorm of edible berries and nuts. Huge bats hung upside down assuming the appearance of vampires. Other dark forms flapped over head. Monstrous amethyst pythons growing to twenty feet long wrapped themselves around branches close over head, while the brown snakes and their brothers the deadly black snakes moved slowly, sinuously through the trees guided not by sight but smell as they stalked sleeping birds. Now and again a night bird shrieked an alarm at their presence as they trekked through the forest galleries. Giant epiphytes clung to the buttresses of the rain forest trees, staghorns and elkhorns; all kinds of climbing orchids glimmered in the starlight. Now and again Sunderland slashed at something. Probably the Stinging Tree. Brushing up against the leaves could inflict extreme pain. Sunderland and the tracker scarcely made a sound. They might have spent their whole lives living in this overwhelming stronghold of Nature among the community of rain forest animals. Ben Rankin, the jackeroo, seventeen years old moaned and groaned, his every movement jerky and slow as he stumbled over thick woody prop roots and fallen branches, vines that grew in wild tangles, letting out high pitched nervous cries to rival the shrieks of the night bird.

“Get a hold there, Rankin,” Sunderland clipped off, not impressed by the lad’s behaviour. He grasped the boy’s arm for perhaps the hundredth time giving him a helping hand. “We’re nearly there.”

How could he possibly know? Ben marvelled. The Boss’s night vision was awesome.

Finally they emerged into a clearing having walked unerringly to the very spot where a station jeep was parked. Who would believe it?

“Made it!” The old aboriginal stockman spoke with satisfaction. “Must be four, thereabouts,” he growled, looking up at the lightening sky. “Not far off sunrise.”

“Almost time to start work again,” Sunderland said wryly, pushing the hapless jackeroo into the back seat of the jeep where the youngster collapsed into a heap. Ben’s whole body was shuddering. He was physically and mentally spent now his ordeal was over. “Oh God, oh God!” he sobbed, covering his head with his hands. “I’m such a fool.”

“Too right, little buddy!” the old aboriginal said, making his disgust clear.

Sunderland showed no emotion at all as though it were a sheer waste of time. He put light pressure on the boy’s shoulder. “You’ve had a bad experience. Learn from it.”

“Yes, sir.” Ben’s breath came out like a hiss his jaw was clamped so tight. “Kept thinking a bloody great croc would get me.”

Goolatta snorted.

“We’re nowhere near the river. Or a billabong for that matter,” Sunderland pointed out matter-of-factly, not having a lot of time for the boy’s distress either. Rankin like all the other recruits had been obliged to sit in on lectures regarding station safety. He had been warned many times never to hare off on his own. Most had the sense to listen. Territory cattle stations were vast. Some as big as European countries. It was dead easy to get lost in the relatively featureless wilderness. Obeying the rules made the difference between living and dying. A few over the years had disappeared without trace.

“When you realised you were lost you should have stayed put instead of venturing further into the jungle,” Sunderland told him. “We would have found you a whole lot quicker.”

“I’m sorry. Sorry,” the jackeroo moaned, appalled now at his own foolhardiness. “What a savage place this is. Paradise until you step off the track.”

“Remember it next time you fell like pulling another dare-devil stunt.” Sunderland told him bluntly. “Joe and I won’t have the time to come after you. You’ll have to find your own way home.” Sunderland raked a hand through his hair, looked up at the sky. “Let’s move on,” he sighed, listening carefully to something crashing through the undergrowth. A wild boar? “You can rest up this morning, Rankin. Back to work this afternoon. That’s if you want to hold onto your job.”

The jackeroo tried desperately to get a grip on himself. To date he had never found anyone better. Action. Adventure. A fantastic guy for a boss. A real life Indiana Jones. Sunderland never showed fear not even in the middle of a stampede that could well have been Ben’s fault though no one blamed him. Well maybe Pete Lowell, the overseer. Not too many chances left he thought, his heart quaking. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” he muttered. The last thing he wanted was for Sunderland to get rid of him. All the same it had been terrifying his endless hours all alone in the jungle. The ominous weight of the silence that was somehow filled with sound. He had actually felt the presence of the mimi spirits greatly feared by the aboriginals in this part of the world. Not that he was ever going to tell anyone about his brush with psychic terror. It had seemed so real. All that whispering and gibbering, ghostly fingers on his cheek. He would never be such a fool again. He just hoped Sunderland would never find out about the bet he’d had with his fellow jackeroo Chris Pearce.

“Want me to drive, boss?” Joe asked quietly, as always looking out for the splendid young man he had watched grow to manhood.

Sunderland shook his head. “Grab forty winks if you can, Joe,” he advised, slinging his lean powerful frame behind the wheel. “It’s going to be one helluva day and I have an appointment in Darwin tonight.”

“The photographer guy? Big shot.”

“That’s the one. A showing of his work. I’ve actually seen some at a gallery in Cairns. Wonderful stuff. Very impressive and very expensive. The asking price for many of the prints was thousands. He was getting it too. Photography is supposedly so easy especially these days but I’ve never seen images quite so extraordinary or insightful. It must have been difficult trying to get the photographs he did. Difficult and dangerous in untouched parts of the world, waiting around for the precise time and conditions, hoping the weather will stay fine.”

“So what’s he want to do now? The Top End?”

“Why not? The Top End is undoubtedly the most exotic part of Australia. It is even to other Australians a remote and wild world, frontier country, a stepping stone away from Asia. The Territory is the place to wonder at the marvels of nature. Kakadu alone would keep him busy. It’s a world heritage area, of international significance as are the cultural artworks of your people, Joe. I don’t know if he wants to get down to the Red Centre, Uluru, Kata Tjuta and the Alice but if it’s the whole Territory he intends to cover then the Wild Heart is on his itinerary.’

“Nobody could be that good they’d capture my country,” Joe Goolatta said, fiercely proud and protective of his heritage.

“I guess you’re right, Joe,” Sunderland said.

They swept across the rugged terrain the jeep bouncing over the rough tracks heading towards North Star homestead. The first streaks of light lay along the horizon, lemon, pink and indigo prefacing dawn. Soon the little Spinifex doves would start to call to one another, music from thousands of tiny throats and the great flights of birds would take to the skies.

“Think you’ll help him out?” Joe asked, after a pause of some ten minutes. He was leaning his head, covered in the snow white curls that contrasted so starkly with his skin, against the headrest. He was bone tired, but well into his sixties he was still hard at it.

“Don’t know yet,” Sunderland muttered, still toying with the idea. “His first choice for a guide was Cy.” Sunderland referred to his good friend Cyrus Bannerman of Mokhani Station. “But Cy is still in the honeymoon phase. He can’t bear to be away from his Jessica. Can’t say I blame him.” He saluted his friend’s choice. “It was Cy who suggested me.”

“Couldn’t be anyone better,” Joe grunted. “However good Cy is and he is I reckon you’re even better.”

“Prejudiced, Joe.” A beam from the head lights picked up a pair of kangaroos who shot up abruptly from behind a grassy mound, turning curious faces. Sunderland swerved to avoid them muttering a mild curse. Kangaroos knew nothing about road rules.

“Thing is whether you’ve got the time,” Joe said, totally unable to fall asleep like the kid in the back who was snoring so loudly he wished he had ear plugs.

“If I did go I’d take you with me,” Sunderland said glancing at his old friend and childhood mentor.

“Yah kiddin’?” Joe sat up straight, an expression of surprise on his dignified face.

“Who else will take care of me?” Sunderland asked.

Joe’s big white grin showed his delight. “I was afraid you might be thinkin’ I’m getting too old.”

“Never!” Sunderland dropped down a gear for a few hundred metres. “You’re better on your feet than a seventeen-year-old. Besides, no one knows this ancient land like you do, Joe. Your people are the custodians of all this.”

“Didn’t I teach you all I know?” Joe asked gently, thrilled their friendship was so deep.

“It would take a dozen lifetimes,” Sunderland said, his eyes on a flight of magpie geese winging from one lagoon to another. “But we’re learning. This land was hostile to my people when we first came here. Sunderlands came to the wild bush but managed to survive. As cattle men we recognize the debt we owe your people. North Star has always relied on its aboriginal stockmen, bush men and trackers. Elders like you, Joe, have skills we’re still learning. I only half know what you do and I’m quite happy to admit it. In the beginning my people feared this land as much as it drew us. Now we love it increasingly in the way you do. We draw closer and closer with every generation. There’s no question we all occupy a sacred landscape.”

“That we do,” Joe answered, deeply moved. “So you think you could go then?” Now that he knew he might accompany the young man he worshipped he was excited by the idea.

Sunderland’s smile slipped. “I’m a bit worried about leaving Belle at home. She’s had a rotten time of it. I can’t just abandon her, even if it’s only for a couple of weeks.”

“Take her along,” Joe urged. “Miss Isabelle is as good in the bush as anyone I’ve seen. She could be an asset.”

Sunderland shook his dark head. “I don’t see Belle laughing and happy any more, Joe. Neither do you. I know your heart aches for her as well. My sister is a woman who feels very deeply. It’ll take her a long time to get over Blair’s death. She’s punishing herself because his family, his mother in particular, appeared to blame her for his fatal accident.”

“Cruel, cruel woman,” Joe said. “I disliked that woman from day one.” He stopped short of saying he hadn’t taken to Miss Isabelle’s husband either. Good-looking guy—nothing beside Miss Isabelle’s splendid big brother—but as big a snob as his mother—aboriginal man too primitive to look at much less to speak to. No, Joe hadn’t taken to Miss Isabelle’s dead husband who had died in a car crash after some big society party. Miss Isabelle should have been with him but the awful truth was they had had a well publicised argument at the party before Blair Hartmann had stormed out to his death.

“Dad and I never took to her either,” Sunderland sighed. “Incredibly pretentious woman. But Blair was Belle’s choice. You know what she was like. As headstrong as they come. Blair was such a change from most guys she knew. A smooth sophisticated city guy, high flyer, establishment family, glamorous life style, family mansion on Sydney Harbour.”

“Dazzled her for a while,” Joe grunted. “But that wasn’t really Miss Isabelle.”

“No,” Sunderland agreed with a heavy heart. “I expect she was acting out a fantasy. She was too young and inexperienced and he was crazy about her. So crazy he practically railroaded her into it. I somehow think she’d never choose someone like Blair Hartmann again though she won’t hear a word against him. I don’t think I could convince her to go although I know she can handle herself. Hell she was born to it but on principle I don’t like women along on those kind of trips. Most of them are trouble. They can’t handle the rough. They put themselves and consequently others at risk. It makes it harder for the men.”

It took another few minutes before he came out with what was really bothering him. “If Langdon suggests his sister comes along I’m walking.”

“Langdon? That’s the photographer right? And the sister was the bridesmaid at Cy Bannerman’s wedding?” Joe flashed him a shrewd glance. Joe had never met the young lady but unlike everyone else Joe found it easy to read the man he had known from infancy. “I thought you took a real shine to her?” He chuckled and stretched but Sunderland refused to bite.

“How would you know?”

“I know.” Joe smiled.

“Pretty weird the way you read my mind. You’re a sorcerer, Joe Goolatta.”

Joe nodded. “Been one in my time.”

“Think I don’t know that.”

Joe closed his eyes.

The memory was seared into his brain like a brand.

The first time he laid eyes on Samantha Langdon she was running down the divided staircase at Mokhani homestead one hand holding up the glistening satin folds of the bridesmaid dress she had just tried on. He and Cy had picked that precise moment to walk in the front door after a long back breaking day. He’d been helping Cy out with a difficult muster, riding shot gun from the helicopter to frighten a stubborn herd of cleanskins out of the heavy scrub. That’s what friends were for. He and Cy went back to the toddler stage. He was Cy’s best man. Cy would be his if he ever got around to getting married. The floating apparition—that was the only way he could describe her—was a close friend of Cy’s bride to be, Jessica, a beautiful young woman, clever, funny with something real to say. Samantha Langdon was the chief bridesmaid. One of four. They were to have a rehearsal later on after the men had washed up and had time to catch a cold beer…

The vision laughed, spoke, the words tumbling out as if she were unable to help herself.

“Oh goodness, we didn’t think you’d be back so soon!”

She spoke the words at Cy, but rather looked at him as though he possessed some kind of uncommon magnetism. He remembered he just stood there, in turn, mesmerized. In the space of a few seconds he was overcome by feelings he had never experienced before. Hot, hard, fierce. They swirled around him like plumes of smoke. The sweat on his body sizzled his skin. It wasn’t just her beauty, so bright he felt he had to shield his eyes; it was the way she moved. Grace appropriate to a princess and something more. Something that arrested the eye. He supposed ballerinas had it. He wanted to reach for this gilded creature. Close his arms around her. Find her mouth, discover the nectar within.

Then all at once he pulled himself together, regaining his habitual tight control, shocked and wary at her impact. Lightning strikes didn’t feature in his emotional life. Why would they? He knew what sorrow a man’s obsession bred. He couldn’t trust a creature as fascinating as this. The lovely laugh. The teasing voice. The grace and femininity she used to marvellous effect. Not after what had happened to his family. He and Belle had been devastated by their parents’ divorce. Their much loved and revered father had never recovered. The wrong woman could destroy a man. He had long assured himself it would never happen to him.

The vision came towards them in her lovely luminous gown, the power to captivate men probably born in her, a creature of air and fire. Her shoulders were bare, her hair a glorious shade of copper streamed down her back. She had beautiful creamy skin, the high cheekbones tinted with apricot almost the colour of her heavy satin gown. He had to tear his eyes away from the slope of her breasts revealed above the low cut bodice. This was a powerful sexual encounter. Nothing more.

“It’s Ross, isn’t it?”

Not content to hold him spellbound her charm and breeding was about to reduce him to an oaf.

Cy smiling, started to introduce them with his engaging manner. He on the other hand must have appeared an ill mannered boor by contrast, stiff and standoffish. A consequence he knew of his strong reaction A man could drown in a woman’s eyes. Large, meltingly soft velvety brown eyes with gold chips in the iris. He knew the colour in her cheeks deepened when he looked down at her. Stared probably, not doing a good job of covering his innate hostility. He remembered he made some excuse about not taking her hand, standing well back so the dust and grime off his work gear wouldn’t come into contact with her beautiful gown. He knew he looked and felt like a savage. He found out later there was a dried smear of blood on his cheek bone.

She had endured his severity well. Right through that evening and the great day of the wedding. It was all so damned disturbing. He wasn’t usually like that. Looking back on his behaviour he cringed, cursing himself for his own susceptibility. It was a weakness and it pricked his pride. Maybe the Sunderlands weren’t fated to have happy emotional lives. His dad, then Belle. The very last thing he needed was to be enslaved by a woman. The secret he was convinced was never to lose sight of himself.

“Hey, where dja go?”

Joe’s voice broke into his troubled reverie, sounding a little worried.

“Just thinking.”

“About that girl?” Joe studied the strong profile in the increasing light.

“About Belle.” He had no trouble lying.

Joe took it Ross didn’t want to talk about it. “Hell, man, better Miss Isabelle don’t mope about the homestead,” he said. “Is she gunna go with you tonight?”

Sunderland shrugged as if to say he wasn’t sure. “My sister at the great age of twenty-six has reached a crisis point in life. I’m just grateful she chose to come home. It was bad enough losing Dad the way we did. Two years later Belle loses her husband.”

Joe wondered as much as anyone else what exactly that last argument between husband and wife had been about. Miss Isabelle hadn’t just been grieving when she returned to the Sunderland ancestral home. She was and remained in a deep depression which led Joe to remembering what a glorious young creature she had been. The apple of her father’s eye, Ross his great pride. The Sunderlands had become a very close family after the children’s mother, Diana, who had been a wonderful wife and mother to start with fell in love with some guy she met on a visit to relatives in England. In fact a distant cousin. Within a month Diana had decided he meant more to her than her husband back home in Australia. She’d had high hopes of gaining custody of her children but they had refused to leave their father. Ewan Sunderland was a wonderful, generous, caring man. An ideal husband and father. He had idolised his beautiful wife. Put her on a pedestal. At least it had taken her all of fourteen years to fall off, Joe thought sadly. Such a beautiful woman! She laughed a lot. So happy! Always bright and positive. Wonderful to his people. Then all of a sudden put under a powerful spell. Love magic. Only this time it was black magic.

All these years later Joe’s eyes grew wet. Her defection had severed Ewan’s heart strings. The children had suffered. Three years apart. Ross, twelve, Isabelle only nine. Joe still couldn’t fathom how Diana had done it. The cruelty of it! Now Ewan Sunderland lay at peace struck down by a station vehicle that got out of control. A bizarre double tragedy because the driver, a long time employee had died as well, a victim of a massive heart attack at the wheel. The shock had been enormous and none of them had really moved on. Ewan Sunderland was sorely missed by his son and daughter and his legion of friends.

Isabelle woke with a start. For a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. The room was dark. There was no sound. Her heart hammering she put out a hand and slid it across the sheet. Nothing. No one. A stream of relief poured through her.

Thank God! She pressed her dark head woven into a loose plait back into the pillow, her feeling of disorientation slowly evaporating. She lay there a few minutes longer fighting off the effects of her dreams, so vivid, so deeply disturbing she felt like crying. The same old nightmares really. She could feel the familiar fingers of depression starting to tighten their grip on her, but she knew she had to fight it. No one could cure her but herself. There were still people who loved her—her brother most of all—but she had to solve her problems on her own. Another approach might have been to talk to a psychologist trained to deal with women’s “problems” but she was never never going to tell anyone what her married life had been like. The truth was too shocking.

Her bedroom was growing lighter, brighter. Soon the birds would start their dawn symphony. Did those wonderful birds know how much emotional support they gave her. The beauty and power of their singing cut a path through her negative feelings, the grief, the anger, the guilt and at bottom the disgust she directed at herself.

Determinedly she threw back the light coverlet and slid out of bed her bare toes curling over the Persian rug. A glance at the bedside clock confirmed what she had guessed: 4:40.

Oh God! So early, but there was no way she could go back to sleep. In her dreams Blair slept with her, a hand of possession on her breast. That’s what she had been to him. A possession. Some kind of prize. He put a high value on her. Her looks and her manner. He had even insisted on coming with her to buy her clothes. Only the best would do. Roaming around her, viewing back and front, giving his opinion while the sales-woman beamed at him, no doubt fantasizing what life would be like with a rich handsome loving husband like that.

If only they knew!

Fully awake now, she tried to shrug off the memory of Blair’s voice. It still had the power to resound in her ears. So tender and loving, so full of desire. That alone had filled her with trepidation. Then as predictably as night followed day, full of a white hot fury and the queerest anguish, berating her. His hand against her throat while she froze in paralysis.

You make me do this. You just don’t understand, do you? What it’s like for me. You cold neurotic bitch! What have I got to do to make you love me? What, Isabelle, tell me. I can’t put up with any more of your cruelty. You will understand, won’t you? I’ll make you!

Then a blow that made her double over. Who could have dreamed such a charming young man could be capable of such behaviour? Cushioned in normality, the love of her father and brother and then Blair. In a single day everything changed.

What have I got to do, Belle, to make you love me? For all the very public displays of loving and remarked generosity Blair was what her grandmother would have called “a home devil.” Correction. Blair had been a home devil. Blair was dead and a lot of people blamed her. Probably they always would. Certainly his family, especially his mother, Evelyn, who had bitterly resented being ousted as the number one woman in her only son’s life. But then, she was to blame. How could anyone think otherwise? Maybe things in her own past—her mother’s destruction of a marriage and the childhood trauma she had suffered had played a part in the calamity of Blair’s death. Maybe her mother had passed on her destructive genes to her? This feeling was especially strong in her. A sense of guilt. Yet it could be argued she was being very unfair to herself. She used to be such a positive person. Not now. Being with Blair had poisoned her. She had never told a soul of his psychological cruelties, the little mind games, much less the unpredictable rages when he had resorted to physical blows, trying to pummel her until she found the courage to fight back. Sometimes it happened he came off second best. She reminded herself she was a Sunderland. She told him it had to stop. It was so demeaning. She wouldn’t tolerate it. She would leave him.

No joke, Blair, she told him when he began to laugh, swinging around on him, picking up a knife. No joke!

Something in her eyes must have warned him she was in deadly earnest. After the confrontations, the usual deluge of apologies. Van loads of red roses. Exquisite underwear and nightgowns he loved to tear off. Blair down on his knees begging her to forgive him. He idolised her. She was everything in the world to him. He despised himself when he lost his temper. Hated what he did to her. But didn’t she realise it was her fault she made him so angry? She deliberately provoked him, always trying to score points like a skilled opponent with an inexperienced adversary. It hurt him desperately the way she flirted with other men. People talked about it.

How could they? She never did…

And why did she have to go on about a baby for God’s sake? Wasn’t he enough for her? She had already stopped talking about a baby. Honest with no one else—her damnable pride again, her blind refusal to admit she had made a terrible mistake—she was honest with herself. The days of her marriage were numbered. Almost three years on, she wondered how she had married Blair in the first place.

Well, she had paid the price. Far better that they had never come into one another’s lives. She knew Ross thought she had been in deep mourning these past months. Well she had in a sense. Mourning the waste of a life. What might have been. It was her failure to be able to mourn Blair’s removal from her life that was the problem. She hadn’t deserved his treatment of her—no woman did—but she did deserve her crushing feelings of guilt. It was what she had said to Blair that last night of his life that had sent him on his no return journey to death.

Isabelle showered and dressed then went downstairs to prepare breakfast for her brother. The best brother in the world. She loved him dearly. When she thought about it they had never had a single fight right through their childhood and adolescence which wasn’t the norm in a lot of households. Ross’s aim had been to love and protect her just as it had been their father’s. Both men in her life had tried their hardest to make up for the painful loss of a mother. They couldn’t bear to see her cry and after a while she had stopped. She was a Sunderland.

So many losses she thought. Mother, father, husband. Losses aplenty. Plenty of bad memories. Plenty of scars.

She heard Ross come in and moved into the hall to greet him, wiping her hands on a tea towel. “Find the boy?”

He nodded. “I don’t think he’ll pull that stunt again. Had some bet with young Pearce he could make it back to camp on his own. The only thing is he headed in the wrong direction.”

“Easy enough to do if you’re stupid.” Isabelle gave a half smile. “Ready for breakfast?”

“In about ten minutes okay?” Ross needed a shave and a shower. Out all night he showed no signs of strain or tiredness. “You don’t have to get up this early, you know,” he turned back to tell his sister gently.

“My sleeping habits aren’t what they used to be,” Isabelle answered. In truth she was immensely grateful to sleep alone.

Her brother heard the sorrow behind the words and misconstrued it.

Isabelle let him make inroads on a substantial breakfast, sausages, bacon, eggs, tomatoes a couple of hash browns, toast, before starting any conversation. She smiled at the enthusiasm with which he attacked his meal. She couldn’t fill him. Never could. A big man like their dad. Six three, whip-cord lean with a wide wedge of shoulders. His down bent head gleamed blue black like her own. His fine grained skin was a dark gold. His eyes like hers were a remarkable aqua. Their mother’s eyes. Otherwise they were Sunderlands through and through. When they were just little kids people had often mistaken them for twins, but Ross grew and grew while she stopped at five-eight, above average height for a woman.

“So have you made up your mind about tonight?” She poured them both a cup of really good coffee—a must—hot, black and strong the way they liked it. None of that milky stuff.

He didn’t answer for a moment, absently chewing a piece of toast. “I don’t know.”

“Hey, they’re expecting you,” she reminded him, knowing full well he didn’t like to leave her. “Cy and Jessica will be there. After all, Jessica was the one who arranged it all. It’s Robyn’s gallery.” Robyn was Cy’s rather difficult stepsister married to a big developer. “You’ll see Samantha again.”

His lean handsome features tautened. “Who said I wanted to?”

“Sorry. I don’t mean to pry.” Isabelle considered for a moment. “She got under your skin didn’t she?”

“Yes,” he said bluntly. “I don’t like women getting under my skin.”

It was no revelation to his sister. “We’ve paid heavily for our past, haven’t we?”

“Sure have.” His eyes reflected the grimness of his thoughts.

“The past can spoil relationships.”

“I know. It’s all patterned and planned and destined.” He looked at her. Always slender Belle was close to fragile. There were shadows under her eyes from many hours of lost sleep and probably bad dreams but she was indisputably beautiful. That was the main reason Hartmann had wanted her. For her beauty. It had woven a spell around him. With so many other things about Belle to appreciate and admire, her intelligence, her talent, her sheer quality Hartmann had seemed to ignore all that. If indeed he even saw it. Poor Belle! She had rushed in to a marriage that probably wouldn’t have endured even if Blair had lived.

“Talk to me, Belle,” he found himself pleading. “I’m here to listen. Tell me what went so terribly wrong in your marriage?”

“I’m a tough nut like you. I keep it all locked up.” Isabelle stirred a few more grains of raw sugar into her coffee.

“It might help to talk don’t you think?”

What could she say? Good-looking, softly spoken, Blair had been abusive? What an upsurge of rage that would arouse! It was unthinkable to tell her brother, just as she had never been able to tell her father. It was all so demeaning. Both Sunderlands big strong tough men living a life fraught with dangers and non stop physically exhausting work, would have cut off a hand before lifting it in anger to a woman. Her father had never so much as given her a light slap even when she got up to lots of mischief. Ross was intensely chivalrous. An old word but it applied to him and a great many Outback men who cherished women as life’s partners and close friends. Blair could have considered himself done for if she had ever told her father or brother of her treatment at his hands. But for all his insecurities, cunning Blair had known she would never expose him. In exposing him she would be devaluing herself. Pride, too, was a sin. There was just no way she could tell her brother her terrible story. He would wonder if she had been in her right mind not seeking her family’s protection.

“Well?” Ross prompted after a few moments of watching the painful expressions flit across his sister’s face. “He adored you, didn’t he? I mean he was really mad about you. It might seem strange but Dad and I never thought he plumbed the real you. Was that it? Terrible to speak ill of the dead and the tragic way he died so young, but Blair gave the impression he was extraordinarily dependent on you. Needy I suppose is the word. You couldn’t walk out of the room ten minutes before he was asking where you were. Who you were with. You don’t have to tell me but I know he was terribly jealous. Even of our family bond. Did it become a burden?”

She couldn’t meet her brother’s eyes. “We had problems, Ross.” She concentrated on the bottom of her coffee cup. “I imagine most married couples do, but we were trying to work them out.”

“What problems?” Ross persisted, knowing there was a great deal his sister wasn’t telling.” I know you wanted to start a family. You love children. Every woman wishes for a baby with the man she loves.”

Only I didn’t love him. Blair was the baby. Blair wanted a real baby to stay away. His mania was her sole attention.

“There’s no point in talking about it now, Ross,” she sighed. “I feel terrible Blair had to die the way he did. Such a waste of a life!”

His brows drew together in a frown. “Surely you mean you find it unbearable to be without him?”

“Of course. We both know what it’s like to lose someone we love.”

“But you can’t despair, Belle. You’re young. In time you’ll meet someone else.” Someone worthy of you, Ross thought. “I realise the fact the two of you had an argument before Blair left the party is weighing heavily on you. His mother’s attitude didn’t help but she was so intensely possessive of her son she would have blamed any woman who was his widow. Grief made her act so badly.”

By and large Evelyn Hartmann was right. She had sent Blair to his death.

“Evelyn wasn’t the only one to assign the blame to me. Blair’s whole family did. A lot of our so called friends looked at me differently afterwards. There was a lot of talk. I couldn’t defend myself. I was the outsider. Everyone looked on Blair as the most devoted of husbands.”

“But wasn’t he?” Ross asked, hoping he could get to the truth. Did the truth set you free or make matters worse?

“He adored me just as you say, Ross.” Isabelle spread her elegant long fingered hands. “I know you’re trying to help me but can we get off the subject.” Stay away from it entirely. “Samatha Langdon now. I’d like to meet her. I missed out on Cy’s and Jessica’s wedding. Impossible to go under the circumstances.”

“Cy and Jessica understood,” Ross assured her. “If you really want to meet Samantha Langdon why not come along with me tonight? We’ll take the chopper into Darwin late afternoon. You’ll need to book an extra room at the hotel. I think it might do you good to get out of the house.”

Would it? All the hurtful rumours and she supposed she hadn’t heard the half of them had given her a strong feeling of being separated from other people. Her problem—early widowhood and ugly spate of rumours—wasn’t their problem, thank God. She knew all the gossip would be doing the rounds of Darwin but then she wouldn’t be on her own. Nevertheless she said: “It’s just that I don’t think I can, Ross.” She began to gather up plates remembering how Blair in one of his moods had smashed their wine glasses, deliberately dropping them on the kitchen tiles, then laughing as she shrunk back wondering seriously if he were mad. Certainly there had been a demon in him.

“Look Belle, I’m not pressing you but I know there’s a heck of a lot you’re not telling me. Just remember, you’re not alone. A lot of people love you. You’re my baby sister. I’d lay down my life for you.”

Tears rushed into her eyes and she turned away.

“So it would mean a great deal to me if you made the effort to come. Jessica likes you a lot.”

Isabelle had composed herself enough to turn back. “We’ve only met a couple of times but Jessica is a lovely person and Samantha is a close friend. Would Jessica have a friend who wasn’t a nice person?”

Ross stood up, shoving his chair beneath the table. “I never said she wasn’t nice.” God, nice hardly described her. “It’s David Langdon we’re there to meet anyway. Say you’ll come, Belle.”

“You need protection?” She gave a glimmer of a smile.

“Nope.” He moved his wide shoulders restlessly. “Getting hooked on a woman like that would be as dangerous as catching a tiger by the tail.”

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