The Cattleman's Bride. Joan Kilby
from her suitcase and dialed her mother’s number.
“Hi, Mom,” she said, disappointed when she got the answering machine. “I’m here. My God, what a trip! It’s so hot. How come you never mentioned the flies? And the lake that’s not a lake. But the homestead is beautiful. By the way, Luke found your old diary. Oh, and I’ve already met Len. What’s the deal with him? I’m going to rest now, but I’ll call you later. Love you. Bye.”
LUKE PACED the front veranda, his frowning gaze on the dirt track that cut across the Downs toward Murrum. The wide western sky was bloodred with the setting sun, yet still no cloud of dust heralded Abby and Becka’s arrival.
“Where do you suppose they are, Wal?”
The dog, who was never far from Luke’s side, pressed his cold nose against his master’s palm.
Luke heard a movement behind him and turned to see Sarah standing in the doorway. She’d put on a sleeveless cotton-knit dress, which hugged her curves and showed plenty of leg. Her damp auburn hair fell in long wispy spikes around her bare shoulders. His dormant libido stirred like a bear after a long winter, ravenous and on the prowl.
“Is something wrong?” She came forward, bringing with her the subtle fruity scent of her shampoo.
“It’s almost seven o’clock. Abby hasn’t brought Becka back yet.” Back in your cave, Sampson.
Sarah stooped to pat Wal. “Maybe she’s on her way.”
“Abby won’t drive out here in the dark. It’s too easy to stray from the track and get lost. She said she’d have Becka back in time for tea.”
“Tea? Oh, you mean dinner.” Sarah glanced down the track and stepped behind the screen of bougainvillea, her fingers brushing the glossy dark green leaves. “Maybe her car broke down or she got caught up in something.”
Luke strode back into the house to ring Abby again, realizing belatedly that he’d just walked off without a word. He wasn’t used to informing others of his movements. First Becka, and now Sarah.
“Hello?” Abby sounded pleasant, unconcerned.
“Why aren’t you here?” he demanded. “Is Becka okay?”
Outside the kitchen window, dozens of snowy white corellas screeched as they flapped home to roost in the river gums.
He listened to Abby’s excuses— “Low on petrol, the station’s closed for the night, tried to call you earlier.” She was unapologetic, unrepentant, plausible. He wanted to rant and rave and tell her how worried he’d been, but that would be overreacting.
“Okay. Okay,” he said, reassuring himself rather than her. “I’ll pick Becka up tomorrow.” He wasn’t taking any chances on more excuses.
He found Sarah on the side veranda, watching the corellas perform acrobatics in the branches, swinging upside down and cracking gum nuts between their strong hooked beaks as they squabbled among themselves. Luke’s attention, though, was drawn to the curve of Sarah’s neck, lengthened by her upturned face and repeated in her wide smile as she turned her delighted gaze upon him. “Aren’t they gorgeous!”
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Want something to eat?”
“Yes, please.” She followed him back inside. “Did you get hold of Abby?”
Luke smoothed his face into an expressionless mask. “Becka’s staying overnight. I’ll pick her up tomorrow.”
Sarah’s green eyes probed his. “Are you all right with that?”
No, he was not “all right” with that. He’d barely had his daughter with him a week before she was back at Abby’s. What really rankled was that he’d had no choice but to let Becka stay, unless he wanted to make the long trip back into Murrum. Abby must have known he’d be reluctant to do that on Sarah’s first night. He felt bamboozled by Abby and oddly uneasy about leaving Becka.
“She’ll be okay,” he assured Sarah, but the catchall phrase was meaningless in the present context. “Come and have some tucker. Hope you like steak and potatoes.”
“Steak! I haven’t had a steak since 1989.”
“We eat the odd one around here. You a vegetarian?” He was amused that the owner of a cattle station might not like beef.
“No, I just don’t usually eat big chunks of meat.”
“I reckon we can find you a knife.” But first he opened the bottle of cabernet sauvignon he’d been saving for a special occasion. He twisted the cork off, not even wanting to think about what was prompting him to serve his best wine.
“That’s an interesting corkscrew,” Sarah said, examining the implement. The handle was fashioned out of a cow’s horn, with a large nail driven through and twisted into a tight spiral.
“My grandfather made it. He made or grew just about everything he owned and used. He was so self-sufficient he even made his own coffin and dug his own grave.”
She grinned. “And this is something you aspire to?”
“Self-sufficiency, yes, but I’m not turning the sod just yet.” His answering smile felt rusty through disuse. He hadn’t exactly wanted her to come here, but at least she was taking his mind off Abby and Becka.
After dinner they carried their coffee out to the side veranda. Luke settled into a creaking slung canvas squatter’s chair. Before Sarah’s arrival he’d wondered what kind of a person she would be and what arguments he could use to convince her to sell him her half of the station. It had never occurred to him that he might find himself attracted to her. He propped his booted feet high against the pillar and tried not to dwell on it. She wasn’t even that pretty, he told himself. Her nose had a slight bump and her jaw was a touch strong….
Sarah remained standing, her hands wrapped around her cup. “It sure is quiet.”
“You think so? Sounds pretty noisy to me, what with the cicadas down by the creek and the possums crashing around in the gums….”
“Doesn’t it get lonely out here all by yourselves?”
Only at night, going to a solitary bed.
“There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely,” he said. “Anyway, we get plenty of visitors passing through. I catch up with friends at race meetings or dances.”
Luke rubbed a thumb around the rim of his cup. Compared with town, it was isolated. He was used to it, but Becka wasn’t. If only she were an outdoor sort of kid she might be happier at spending time with him out on the cattle run. Abby had turned her into a townie.
He glanced up to see Sarah sip her coffee and grimace. “Coffee okay?”
“Fine.” She smiled brightly. “Just fine.”
Like hell, he thought, but it was the best he had. Suddenly he wished he had something better to offer. But she was a townie; probably nothing would seem good enough. “What do you do back in Seattle?”
“I’m a computer programmer. I design educational software for a large company. Are you on the Internet?”
Luke snorted. “I’d rather cross the Simpson Desert than venture into cyberspace.”
“Really?” Sarah paced down the veranda. “I don’t know how you stand all this emptiness.”
“It’s not empty. It’s full of life if you know where to look. I’d go off my nut cooped up in a city.”
She wandered back and leaned against a pillar, gazing down at him. “What did you do before you came to Burrinbilli?”
“I was a stockman in far north Queensland on a station owned by a large pastoral company.”
“And before that?”
“Did some traveling.