An Outback Affair/Runaway Wife/Outback Bridegroom/Outback Surrender/Home To Eden Read online

  Christine’s height and her weight—she had been much heavier then—had made her mother especially very unhappy. Her mother had never mentioned her now famous smile, or her perfect teeth which had landed her a lucrative toothpaste ad in the early days. Her mother had despaired—and had been quite vocal: Christine would never find a man who could sweep her off her feet. She’d survived on the love of her father and the brother she adored.

  On her eighteenth birthday she had been able to access the income from her trust fund. It had provided her with the means for escape. She would live where she chose; be her own woman. She had started in Sydney where a top model agency, instantly seeing her potential, had taken her on to their books, promising her big things if she’d follow their advice. She had—to the letter.

  A short year later she had moved with their blessing to New York, where things had really begun to happen.

  A few months back she’d even been offered a feature role in a big budget action film, but when it was all said and done her life, exotic and crammed to the brim with her choice of endless parties and functions, wasn’t making her as happy as her fans might have thought. Neither was her succession of relationships.

  All her life, from adolescence, what she’d wanted to do was get married and settle down with her prince—her golden-headed blue-eyed Mitch. Mitchell Claydon, heir to Marjimba Station. She’d always loved Mitch, as Kyall had loved Sarah.

  God knew Kyall had been through hell for years because Sarah had chosen a career as a doctor over becoming Kyall’s wife. Clever Sarah! Sarah had been a good friend to her when they were kids. Sarah had never laughed unkindly. Sarah had always told her that one day, when her looks settled, she was going to be so beautiful.

  “It will happen, Chris!”

  Sarah had been beautiful even as a kid. She remembered the great bond that had existed between Sarah and her brother; between her and Mitch.

  So here I am at the high point of my career, and nowhere near as happy with my life as I should be, Christine thought as someone knocked, then pushed open the door of her trailer—her home on the set. She and Sylvie Chadwick, her favourite hairstylist, turned in mild surprise to see who it was.

  “I thought we were supposed to be having a bloody break!” Sylvie exploded. “God knows, Chris is just a saint, putting up with bloody Malcolm’s demands.”

  “It’s not Malcolm. Not this time.” Annie, one of the photographer’s young assistants, apologised, grinding her hands together. She addressed the nicer-natured Christine directly. Sylvie was so fiery. Like her hair. “Sorry to barge in, Christine, but there’s someone trying to get a message to you urgently. A lawyer, but I missed his name. Security wouldn’t let him past. But here’s a note.” She produced a crumpled piece of paper that the protective Sylvie immediately snatched and passed to Christine unread.

  “The amount of rubbish Chris has to put up with,” Sylvie complained. “What’s it say, Chris? Let me guess. He’s a big fan? I can deal with it.”

  “Not this time, Sylvie,” Christine said in a very quiet voice. “This is a message from home. From Australia.”

  “Bad news, luv?” Sylvie saw how Christine’s colour had changed.

  “I’m afraid so,” Christine responded in the same quiet, unemotional voice. “My grandmother has died.”

  “Oh, that’s rough!” The British-born Sylvie grasped Christine’s shoulder sympathetically. “You never talk much about your life back in Oz, but I bet you loved her?”

  “There was no one like her, actually.”

  “Ah, luv!” Sylvie, seared by images of her own darling grandmother, now passed away, quite missed the irony in Christine’s voice.

  No miraculous reconciliation there, Christine thought staring sightlessly at her own reflection. Even as she sought to take the news in she had to recognise that at this point in her life she wanted to go home. Not only to see her family.

  Mitch would be there.

  Laura let herself into the Endeavour Theatre, which also doubled as the concert hall, using the key Evan had given her. After day after day of brilliant sunshine, cloudless cobalt blue skies, the quick silver of mirage, her eyes had to adjust to the gloom.

  This was her second visit. She had spent most of yesterday afternoon practising, all her disciplines coming back to her as she had tried out the beautiful, very responsive piano. She was highly impressed with it. She would never have thought to find an instrument so fine in a small Outback town, but then McQueen money had provided it for the town and the McQueens apparently didn’t do things by halves.

  Tomorrow was Ruth McQueen’s funeral. It had been set for mid-week, allowing time for Kyall’s sister, Christine, their cousin Suzanne, a student in Sydney, and the extended family to arrive.

  She still didn’t know if she was going. She had no connection with the McQueens except through Sarah, who was marrying into the family. Though as far as the town was concerned she and Sarah were long-standing friends. Both of them had allowed the town to believe that. It was easier, and it had ensured Laura’s quick acceptance. Evan thought she should go to support Sarah, and Evan was a very compelling man.

  The interior of the theatre was very quiet and half dark, faintly musty from being closed up, almost ghostly, though the black grand piano had illuminated the moment she’d turned on some lights.

  It was wonderful she’d been allowed access. She was very grateful and she owed it all to Evan. He had consulted the powers that be—Enid Reardon, Kyall’s mother, the Mayor, and conductor of the town’s orchestra guild, Alex Matheson.

  Evan had told her Matheson was a brilliant musician who’d had to give up a promising career because of his erratic eyesight that sometimes left him half blind. A sad story and one that had really affected her. Evan said she would have her chance to thank Alex at the funeral, if she went along. It might seem strange if she didn’t, given her friendship with Sarah.

  She really didn’t have any suitable clothes. Maybe she could find something.

  The funeral was to take place at the McQueens’ historic station Wunnamurra. Ruth McQueen was to be buried beside her husband in the family cemetery. She hadn’t seen Sarah since it had happened, but they had spoken briefly on the phone. Sarah had sounded shocked, but strangely as though a great burden had lifted. Or so Laura had thought. She didn’t really know what she had based that idea on. Nothing Sarah had actually articulated. More thoughts communicated through the mind.

  Laura stared at the piano for a few moments without stirring. Then she went to it, opening it up, letting her fingers drift across the strings. No Colin to upset and undermine her, make her jittery with nerves. She sat down on the piano seat—she had already adjusted it—beginning to limber up with a technical exercise from her student days. That had been the best time of her life.

  If only…if only…her father hadn’t died. Her father would have seen through Colin’s civilised exterior to the harshness beneath.

  “My God, will you stop that?” Colin, venting his extreme irritation at her practice, his menacing undertone. “It’s enough to make one plug one’s ears. If you must play the piano, can’t you choose something that falls a lot easier on the ear? Chopin, or something? Though your touch sounds to me all wrong. I’m shocked someone your size can make so much noise.”

  His opinion hadn’t touched her. She was sure of her own gift. She had been judged by her peers. She knew Colin had no critical ear. His aim had been to paralyse her talent. The reason was simple. She must have no interest outside him.

  Nevertheless, in no time at all she had learned not to play when Colin was around. It wasn’t a good idea. She, who was full of music, had hungered for it, but had finally found herself shutting down her beautiful Kawai concert grand, turning the key. It had been her father’s gift to her at age sixteen, after she had won a national concerto competition.

  So her music had been silenced. Her dissenting voice silenced. Her spirit, if not broken, subdued. She had judged herself a total failure in
her marriage. Of course that was what Colin had intended. He’d wanted her totally under his control.

  She had prayed for help. Someone had listened. One liked to think of a guardian angel at times like that.

  Why had she allowed herself to be so intimidated? Why had she crumbled under the weight of his hand? Why had she given him the twisted pleasure of her sob-strangled entreaties? She should have resisted and resisted. Become a warrior.

  Perhaps been killed?

  She had come to understand with a man like Colin it just could happen. Something could snap. Then the ambulance. The police. The shocked neighbours. How could anything like that have happened in such a house? To such beautiful people? With Colin’s immaculate reputation it might even have been thought she had caused it, brought it all down on herself.

  Abruptly Laura broke off the intricacies of the technical exercise she was performing on autopilot, allowing her hands to come to rest on the comforting keys. How she loved the feel of them, the pads of her fingers compulsively smoothing the surface. Such emotions washed through her when she played. Yet Colin had almost had her believing she was a woman who knew nothing about passion.

  She understood her music thoroughly. She understood passion. What she hadn’t understood was the terrible way Colin had tried to communicate passion through violence. Ugly raw violence.

  In retrospect it shamed her deeply. Their marriage hadn’t undergone a process of disintegration. There had been no marriage from day one. The rest had cast her into such a state of fear and deep confusion about her life that she had run. At the time she had thought of it as self-rescue. Now she knew she was as trapped as ever. She would never be free until she had confronted Colin.

  That was definitely scary, but she was determined to muster all her resources, and some she didn’t know she had, to win this big battle in life.

  It wasn’t the time to think about it now, but how she’d feared that vein that had used to pump in Colin’s temple. More often than not it had been the forerunner of some violent outburst against which she’d had no defence short of murder. Some men used their physical strength, so much superior to a woman’s, to keep their womenfolk subdued. It was the highest form of cowardice.

  She just couldn’t imagine Evan Thompson raising his hand in anger to a woman. He would find that despicable. She had come to think of Evan as a mysterious dark knight who had come into her life when she so badly needed one. He stirred so much in her, enriching her mind and her spirit, though the rhythm that was beating and building up between them felt only too sexual.

  The truth, and she had faced it, was that he attracted her powerfully. He both excited and calmed her—brought an awareness of herself as a woman she had never experienced with Colin. She loved the look of him—the sculptured features, the perfectly straight nose, the broad brow, the strong jaw, his mouth, his muscular frame. She loved his strength and the pile-up of energy that was in him, the sound of his deep voice.

  She wondered if he knew how he affected her by the way she watched him. There was peril in that. It was the wrong time, even if all her emotions were right. She was a married woman, for all her marriage was a farce, but only half of her remembered that. The other half was fascinated by her neighbour. She loved the way he called out to her if he saw her in the garden. She loved the way their eyes met. After Colin’s cold azure stare it was wonderful to burn herself in the eloquent beauty of a man’s brilliant dark eyes.

  She had to pull herself out of her abstraction. Keep her little fantasies to herself. She knew what her heart and body craved but it was far too dangerous. Her fingers began to move on the keys, selecting a Chopin nocturne at random…but it was predictably romantic.

  She was not only technically brilliant, she was brilliantly expressive. He had known she’d be good. Even then she had surprised him. How foolish to assume because she was so small she couldn’t produce a wonderful big tone.

  He hadn’t thought it a good idea to intrude on her yesterday, but he hadn’t been able to resist the impulse to come today, virtually sneaking into the theatre by a side door.

  She was so engrossed in a Rachmaninoff étude that went like the wind she didn’t hear the slight noise made by the door. Just as well. He wanted to listen to her without her being aware of it. He wanted to look at her—God, had he ever seen a woman pianist look so beautiful?—without breaking her concentration or making her in any way self-conscious.

  He knew everything she played until the little piece at the end. A mournful little piece that had him thinking of his father. The melody wound this way and that, circling like a lost bird, until it suddenly opened out, spreading its wings. It struck him that it was like a soul proceeding to heaven. He would have to ask her the name of the composer. He would have to ask her to play it again. She had a beautiful singing tone.

  He moved unconsciously and immediately the spell was broken. His chair turned into a squeaking machine.

  “Laura, I’m sorry,” he called. “I was enjoying that so much.”

  She collected herself instantly, overcoming the inevitable moment of sheer panic. Would she ever be free of the anxiety? Even here?

  “Evan!” She stood up, peering out into the gloom. “I can’t believe I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “You were too deep into the Rachmaninoff.” He moved into the aisle, walking up towards the stage. “Want my opinion?”

  “I really need more practice. I’m rusty.”

  “You’re wonderful! That last piece broke my heart. What is it? I’ve never heard it before.”

  Her heart was a throb in her throat as she watched him mount the stairs, slowly walk towards her. Careful, careful, she cautioned herself. Every time he looked at her it was as though a switch had been thrown, sparking a dazzle of lights. She couldn’t look any more. She half turned away, touched the piano.

  “Did it speak to you?” she asked.

  “It did.” He studied the way the soft colour rose to her cheekbones. “So sad—until the end, when it was absolutely transcending. I might have been watching a soul travelling to heaven.”

  She drew in a sharp breath, frankly fighting the urge to cry. “How extraordinary you should say that. I composed it in memory of my father. I loved him so much. I wanted to express it. He was a good man. A fine man. I felt if anyone deserved a reward when life was over he did.”

  There’s a limit to what a man can take, he thought. Something about her was restoring his faith in life. He wanted to hold her hand. It was a beautiful hand. The same hand that had an extraordinary affinity with the keyboard. Now it seemed she was a composer.

  “That’s almost silenced me, Laura,” he said gently, thinking of the great love he’d had for his own father, so tragically and traitorously cut down. “How very gifted you are.”

  “If only I could lay all my sorrows to rest that way.”

  There was a haunting little smile on her mouth. Not the slightest hint of sexual provocation, yet he found it intoxicating. He dug his hands in his pockets in case he reached for her, pulled her into the shelter of his arms, dipping his head so he could cover her mouth with his own.

  “You seem to have an infinite capacity for feeling pain. Probably as a musician it’s inherent. Then again, something has happened to you to cause a lot of damage.”

  “You really wouldn’t want to know, Evan.” Quietly she closed the keyboard.

  “I think I would.” He moved to lower the heavy lid for her.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I take it the recital is over?”

  “I’ve been playing for quite a while. One day you might hear my life story, I promise.”

  “Not now?” he asked quietly.

  “I have to get clear in my mind what to tell you.”

  “You mean you’re going to edit it? Cut out the bits that might be of vital importance?”

  “You’ve not told me your story either,” she countered. “I haven’t heard about your life.”

  “Why w
ould you care?”

  “For all you know I might care an awful lot,” she surprised him by saying. “You’ve been very kind to me, Evan. I have a sense of security when you’re around, like a shining shield. I’m very grateful to you too for arranging for me to practise like this. I hadn’t expected such a beautiful instrument.”

  “Just about the best. As soon as Harriet finds out how gifted you are you’ll be roped in for concerts.”

  “Oh, no!” She brushed a nervous hand down the lilac cotton skirt that she wore with a matching cotton and lace camisole. She’d quickly found she had to dress for the heat.

  “Are you a nervous performer?” he asked, with a quirk of the brow.

  For a big strong man he could be unbearably sweet. “Who isn’t?” She shrugged.

  “Too nervous to go on? I did know a very good cellist who was too nervous to perform in public. Just among friends. Fellow musicians.”

  “I can understand that.” It was easier than saying she couldn’t possibly draw public attention to herself. Easier than saying that before her marriage she had performed many times in public. Always nervous, but focused the instant her hands touched the keys.

  “But you could play for me?”

  His deep voice touched a chord. “I have. You’re a very good listener.”

  “On the contrary, I can’t listen unless the performer is special.”

  “I guess I’m a bit like that too. One knows perhaps too much about it. The critical faculty is always in place.”

  He nodded. “What about a coffee?”

  “I’d like that.” She turned to hunt up the keys to the theatre. “The little coffee shop with the pink and white ruffled curtains? It has such a cheerful atmosphere.”

  “Then Pamela’s it is. We might as well go out the side door. It’s easier.”

  “I’ll turn off the lights.”

  “Right.” He walked down the short flight of steps to the auditorium, waiting for her to join him.