Outback Man Seeks Wife Read online

  She didn’t answer for a moment. She took a long draft of the lemonade, moving her tongue into a curl. It was delicious and refreshingly cold. ‘I was very angry with Scott last night. I’m still not happy about him, but he came to me this morning and—’

  ‘Swore he’d never use force on you again?’ he interjected. ‘You believed him?’

  She had the strong impression he was disgusted. ‘May I ask why it’s any of your business, Clay?’

  ‘You may ask but I might be less inclined to answer.’ He gave a humourless laugh. ‘Think of it as I’m catching up with a friendship that never had a chance to get started. I was a pretty lonely kid, living on the fringe of things. My father dishonoured by his own people. My mother spoken about as if she were nothing more than a wayward little tramp. In reality she had more class than any of them. But it broke her as time went on. It might seem like a small thing but I saw the way little Princess McNevin always gave me a wave as a bright spot in my blighted childhood.’

  ‘I can’t remember.’ She stared at him out of sorrowful doe eyes.

  ‘Sounds like you’ve been trying?’ His voice had a tender but challenging note.

  ‘I know I will remember,’ she said, clinging to the idea. ‘It’s going to happen all at once.’

  ‘When can you come to Jimboorie?’ he asked, with some urgency because Caroline was never on her own for long.

  ‘It’s not a good idea.’ In fact it could cost her a good deal.

  ‘Caroline, you promised,’ he reminded her, his eyes a blazing blue against the bronze cast of his skin.

  ‘Scott hates you.’

  His handsome face bore an expression of indifference. ‘That’s okay. I can live with it. I don’t exactly admire him. He’s a bully. Man and boy. What days do you come into town for Pat Kennedy?’

  She could see he wasn’t going to let this alone. If the truth be told she badly wanted to accept his invitation. ‘Make it next Friday,’ she said. ‘I’ll meet you at the Bulletin office at 10:00 a.m. Would that suit?’

  ‘No, but I’ll be there.’ He gave her a smile that made a lick of fire run right down to her toes.

  ‘Then another day?’ she suggested quickly.

  He shook his head, his thick mahogany hair, lit by rich red tones. ‘Friday’s fine. The sooner the better. Are you going to tell your folks?’

  She laughed as if it were an insane thing to ask. ‘Oh, Clay, they won’t even notice I’ve gone. Well, my father won’t.’

  He wanted to touch her cheek but he knew he shouldn’t. ‘What’s the problem with your father? There appears to be one.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll tell you sometime,’ she said. ‘Oh, God!’ she muttered, under her breath. ‘Here he comes now with Scott.’

  Clay rose immediately to his impressive height. ‘Don’t panic, I’ll go. You will turn up?’

  She trembled and he saw it. ‘Yes. 10:00 a.m. at the office,’ she repeated.

  ‘What I’d really like to do is stay and meet your father. Ask him why he turned against the man who was once his friend?’

  ‘Now’s not the time for it, Clay!’ She looked at him with a plea in her eyes.

  ‘Don’t walk into the trap,’ he warned, touching a forefinger to his temple before striding away.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THEY had been driving for well over an hour. There hadn’t been much conversation between them, rather an intense awareness that made any comment deeper than normal, a potential minefield. She had not removed her engagement ring. She offered him no explanation and he didn’t ask for one, yet she carried the conviction he would before the day was over.

  She’d told her mother where she was going…

  ‘Darling, is that wise?’ Alicia had shown a level of concern, bordering on alarm.

  ‘Wise or not I’m going,’ Carrie had replied. ‘I really want to see the old house. When I was little I thought it was a palace like the Queen lived in.’

  ‘And you want to see Clay Cunningham.’ Alicia didn’t beat about the bush.

  ‘I like him,’ Carrie said. What she failed to say was he had an extraordinary effect on her. It was something she had to keep secret. Even from herself, but Alicia’s expression suggested she knew all the same.

  There was Jimboorie House rising up before them. Once the cultural hub of a vast region, it stood boldly atop a rise that fell away rather steeply to the long curving billabong of Koona Creek at its feet. It was to Carrie, far and away the most beautiful homestead ever erected by the sheep barons who became the landed gentry. It was certainly the biggest, built of sandstone that had weathered to a lovely soft honey-pink. It lofted two tall storeys high, the broad terrace beneath the deep overhang of the upper level supported by imposing stone columns, which were all but obscured by a rampant tangle of vines all in flower. The great roof was tiled with harmonising grey slate that had been imported all the way from Wales. The whole effect was of an establishment that would be considered quite impressive in any part of the world, if only one narrowed one’s eyes and totally ignored the decay and the grime.

  The mansion was approached by a long driveway guarded by sentinel towering gums. This in turn opened out into a circular driveway with a once magnificent fountain, now broken, in the centre. The gardens, alas, were no more but the indestructible bouganvilleas climbed over every standing structure in sight. A short flight of stone steps led to the imposing pedimented Ionic portico.

  Clay drove his 4WD into the shade of the flowering gums, the low trailing branches scraping the hood.

  ‘What it once must have been!’ Carrie sighed. ‘It’s still beautiful even if it’s falling down.’

  ‘Come see for yourself,’ he invited, with a note in his voice that made her doubly curious.

  Carrie stepped out onto the gravelled driveway, a petite young woman wearing a white knit tank top over cropped cotton drill olive-green pants, a simple wardrobe she somehow made glamorous. Their arrival disturbed a flock of rainbow lorikeets that had been feeding on the pollen and nectar in the surrounding eucalypts, bauhinias, and cassias all in bloom. The birds displayed all the colours of the spectrum in their plumage, Carrie thought, following their flight. The upper wings were emerald-green, under wings orange washed with yellow, beautiful deep violet heads, scarlet beaks and eyes. They presented a beautiful sight, chattering shrilly to one another as they flew to another feeding site.

  A sprightly breeze had blown up, tugging at her hair which she had tied back at the nape with a silk scarf designed by aboriginal women using fascinating traditional motifs. ‘What does it feel like to be back?’ she asked him, filled for a moment with a real sadness for what might have been.

  ‘Like I’ve never been away,’ Clay answered simply, though his face held myriad emotions. ‘This is precisely the place I belong.’

  ‘Is it?’ His words touched her deeply. She looked across at his tall, lean figure. He was dressed simply as she was, in everyday working clothes—tight fitting jeans, and a short sleeved open necked bush shirt. Dark, hand tooled boots on his feet gave him added stature. He had a wonderful body, she thought, starting to fear the effect he had on her. At her deepest level she knew a man like this could push over all her defences as easily as one could push over a pack of cards. It was something entirely new in her life. She wondered could she resist him as she was so able to resist Scott? At heart, she was beginning to question herself. Was her decision to remain a virgin until marriage brought about by sheer circumstance? It seemed very obvious to her now she didn’t love Scott in the way a woman should love the man she chooses to marry. Everyone else saw him as a solid choice. Did that automatically make for a good marriage?

  As for Clay Cunningham? She didn’t have a clue where their friendship would lead. In short he presented a dilemma. Carrie’s nerves stretched taut as her memory was overrun by images of her father and Scott as they joined her yesterday only moments after Clay had moved off. Both handsome faces wore near identical expressions. Anger to the point o
f outrage. It chilled her to the bone. She wasn’t a possession, a chattel. She was a grown woman with the right to befriend anyone she so chose.

  Her father didn’t think so and made that plain. ‘Better you don’t have anything to do with him, Carrie,’ he’d clipped off, his grey eyes full of ice.

  ‘Why not?’ She had never in her life answered her father quite like that before. A clear challenge that brought hot, angry colour to his cheeks.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought I had to tell you,’ he reprimanded her. ‘He’s bad news. Just like his father before him. You’re an engaged woman yet it’s quite obvious he has his eye on you.’

  She had waited for Scott to intervene but he hadn’t. Best not get on the wrong side of Mr McNevin. At least until he and Carrie were safely married.

  ‘That’s carrying it a bit far, Dad,’ Carrie had said. ‘Clay just came across to say hello. I like him.’

  Her father looked pained. ‘People talk, Carrie. I don’t want them to be talking about you.’

  ‘You’re very quiet today, Scott?’ She hadn’t bothered to hide the taunt. ‘Nothing to add?’

  He shook his golden head. ‘As far as I’m concerned your father has said it all.’

  That earned him Bruce McNevin’s nod of approval.

  Clay took her arm as they climbed the short flight of steps to the portico and on to the spacious terrace. ‘Careful,’ he said, indicating the deep gouges between the slate tiles. ‘Just stay with me.’

  Guilt swept through her. Why, why, why did she want so much to be with him? This was all too sudden. She had the mad notion she would have gone with him had he asked her to take a trip to Antarctica.

  The double front doors towered a good ten feet. They were very impressive and in reasonably good condition. When she had really looked from the outside, she had seen the large numbers of broken or displaced tiles on the roof and the smashed glass in the tall arched windows of the upper level. Some of the shutters, once a Venetian green, were hanging askew. Panels of glass in the French doors of the lower level were broken as well and replaced with cardboard.

  The effect was terrible. Some of the damage could have been caused by vandals. The smashed glass in the doors and windows for example. Six months had elapsed since Angus Cunningham’s death and the arrival of his great-nephew. It could have happened then although the talk in the town was Jimboorie House was haunted by the late Isabelle Cunningham. No one had the slightest wish to encounter her.

  Clay opened one door, then the other, so that long rays of sunlight pierced the grand entrance hall.

  As far as Carrie was concerned, the entrance hall said it all about a house. ‘Oh!’ she gasped, as she stepped across the threshold. She stared about her with something approaching reverence. ‘I’ve always wanted to see inside. It’s as noble as I knew it would be.’

  Her face held so much fascination it was exquisite! Clay thought. ‘I’m glad you’re here, and you’re not disappointed.’

  Something in his tone made Carrie’s heart turn a somersault in her breast. She didn’t look back at him—she didn’t dare—but continued to stare about her. After the mess of broken tiles on the terrace she was thrilled to see the floor of the entrance hall, tessellated with richly coloured tiles was intact. In three sections, the design was beautiful, circular at the centre with equally beautiful borders.

  ‘What a miracle it hasn’t been damaged.’

  ‘The house isn’t in any where near as bad condition as everyone seems to think,’ Clay commented with a considerable amount of satisfaction. ‘Which is not to say a great deal of money won’t be spent on its restoration.’

  She stood in the sunbeams with dust motes of gold. ‘It would be wonderful to hear your great-uncle actually left you some money?’

  ‘He had it,’ Clay said, surprising her.

  ‘He couldn’t have!’ Carrie was completely taken aback. ‘How could he have had money and let the homestead fall into ruin let alone allow the station to become so rundown?’

  ‘He no longer cared,’ Clay told her, shrugging. ‘Simple as that. He cared about no one and nothing. He only loved one person in his entire life. That was his wife. After she died he slowly sank into a deep depression. She’s supposed to haunt the place, incidentally. My mother claimed to have seen her many times. Isabelle died early. Thirty-eight. No age at all! I wouldn’t like to think I only had another ten years of life. She was carrying Angus’s heir who died with his mother. Their daughter, Meredith, the firstborn, spent most of her time at boarding school, or with her maternal aunt in Sydney who, thank the Lord, loved her. Meredith was never close to her father after her mother died. No one was. Uncle Angus locked everyone out.’

  ‘Yet he took you in? You and your parents?’

  ‘It was only to spite the rest of the family, I assure you,’ Clay said, the hard glint of remembrance in his eyes. ‘My father worked like a slave for little more than board for us all. Angus kept my father at it by telling him he was going to inherit Jimboorie. Meredith didn’t want the place. Mercifully she married well. Her aunt saw to that. When Angus finally admitted he fully intended to sell up, my father decided it was high time to move on.’

  ‘What happened to your father?’ Carrie asked, positioning herself out of the dazzling beam of light so she could see him clearly.

  His face became a tight mask. ‘He was helping to put out a bushfire, only he and the station hand working with him became surrounded by the flames.’

  ‘Oh, Clay!’ Carrie whispered, absolutely appalled. No one knew this. At least she hadn’t heard anything of Reece Cunningham’s dreadful fate. ‘How horrible! Why should anyone have to die like that?’

  The corners of his handsome mouth turned down. ‘To save the rest of us I suppose. I had to concentrate on his heroism or go mad. My mother spent the rest of her life having ghastly nightmares. The way my father died left her not only bereft but sunk in a depressive state she couldn’t fight out of. That fire destroyed her, too. I know she actually prayed for the day she would die. She truly believed she would see my father again.’

  ‘Do you?’ she asked with a degree of trepidation.

  ‘No.’ Abruptly he shook his burnished head. ‘Still I can’t help but wonder from time to time.’

  ‘Mystery, mysteries, the great mystery,’ she said. She lifted her head to the divided staircase. Of polished cedar and splendid workmanship it led to the richly adorned overhanging gallery. The gallery had to have a dome because natural light was pouring in. Either that or there was a huge hole in the roof. The plaster ceilings, that once would have been so beautiful, were badly in need of repair.

  ‘Does the gallery have a dome?’ she asked, hoping the answer was yes.

  ‘It does,’ he said, ‘and it’s still intact. The bedrooms are upstairs of course. Twelve in all. The old kitchens and the servants’ quarters are the buildings at the rear of the house. We’ll get to them. Let’s move on. There are forty rooms in the house all up.’ He extended his arm to the right.

  More tall double doors gave on to the formal dining room on their left, the drawing room to their right. Neither room was furnished. The drawing room was huge and classically proportioned. The once grand drapes of watered Nile-green silk were hanging in tatters.

  She was both appalled and moved by the badly neglected state of the historic homestead. ‘Where do you plan to start first?’ she asked, her clear voice echoing in the huge empty spaces. ‘Or are you going to leave that to your wife?’

  ‘I’ll have to,’ he said, amusement in his voice. ‘I’ll be too busy getting the station up and running.’

  ‘So what are you going to run?’ Her voice lifted with interest.

  ‘A lean commercial operation geared for results,’ he answered promptly. ‘Jimboorie’s glamour days are over. Beef is back. There’s a strong demand. I’m going to run Hereford cattle. Angus couldn’t envisage any other pursuit than running sheep even when the wool industry was in crisis.’

  ‘Are
you going to tell me where you acquired your skills as a cattleman?’

  He nodded. ‘I actually got to Agricultural College where I did rather well. Then I worked on a cattle station rising to overseer.’

  ‘Would I know this station?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Caroline,’ he gently taunted her. ‘You would if I told you.’

  ‘So you think if you confide in me I’ll tell everyone else?’ She was hurt he didn’t trust her but she made a huge effort to hide it.

  ‘I don’t think that at all. Not if I told you not to. It’s just that it’s difficult to talk about a lot of things right now.’

  She turned away from him. ‘That’s okay. It’s not as if we’re friends.’

  ‘It’s not easy to make a true friend,’ he said sombrely. ‘What are we exactly?’

  ‘We’re in the process of becoming friends,’ she bravely said.

  ‘So you’d befriend me and rebuff your fiancé? It’s back on again, I take it?’ His tone was sardonic, if not openly critical.

  ‘It’s just a mess, Clay,’ she said, that tone getting to her.

  His brilliant blue eyes seemed to burn over her, making her skin flush. ‘Well you can’t disregard it. It’s your life’s happiness that’s on the line. Are you so afraid of increasing the discord between yourself and your father?’ he asked with considerable perception. ‘He’s obviously an extremely difficult man to please?’

  She glanced away through the French doors at the abandoned garden. The wildflowers, shrubs and flowering vines that had survived lent it colour as did the hardiest of climbing cabbage roses, a magnificent deep scarlet, in full bloom over an old pergola. She had seen many pictures of Jimboorie House in its prime so she knew there had been a wonderful rose arbour. ‘My father is difficult about some things,’ she answered at length. ‘He’s a good father in others. I don’t know why I’m telling you. I feel I know you.’

  ‘You do know me,’ he replied. ‘You’re the little girl who used to deliver the sweetest smile and the wave of a little princess, remember?’