Heart of the Outback (10 page)

Gareth had obviously not minced his words in announcing exactly who he was and why he was here. Gareth Morgan did what had to be done. Alida silently cursed herself for not realising he would leave no stone unturned to find his son. She should never have told him. It had been a crazy thing to do. Her mind frantically sought escape routes from the consequences of her reckless revelation.

Could she lie? Could she say she had flung her child in his face to hurt him as he had hurt her? Could she say Andy wasn’t his at all? Would Gareth accept that and go away before Andy returned home?

Not Gareth Morgan, she decided. He had flown all the way up here to see the child. He would want to see. He would check dates. He would arrive at certain conclusions, then he would stake his claim.

Alida heaved a defeated sigh and forced her feet forward and up the steps to the veranda. “I’m sorry, Mum,” she murmured as she kissed her cheek. Then she managed an apologetic smile. “I didn’t mean to bring this trouble on you.”

“What’s done is done, Alida,” Mary Rose replied, her eyes soft with understanding. It was another simple rule. Accept what cannot be changed. Do the best you can from here.

She patted Alida’s cheek in a comforting gesture. “I’ll make you a cup of tea while you talk to your visitors.”

Which left Alida facing Gareth and his daughter. Stacey, in T-shirt and jeans, looked younger and more vulnerable than she had in her tailored school uniform. Gareth looked more formidable than ever. He had discarded the leather jacket he had worn yesterday, and his strong physique was all the more evident with only a fine white shirt and the fawn moleskins covering him. Despite everything that had happened, Alida still could not deny the force of his attraction. It was wrong, all wrong, she thought, but an ache started in her stomach and spread to her limbs.

Andy’s father…

Stacey’s father first and foremost, she reminded herself savagely.

She eyed both father and daughter with bitter mockery. “Who told you I was coming here? I can’t believe you found your way by instinct.”

“I persuaded Jill Masters to reveal your whereabouts,” Gareth replied matter-of-factly. “Since she would only tell me that your family lived on a station somewhere beyond Meekatharra, I flew to the airport there and made some inquiries at the Flying Doctor base. One of their pilots located the homestead on a map forme.”

“Elementary,” Alida conceded drily. For someone like him. “I’m amazed that your daughter is with you. Hasn’t she already witnessed enough, Gareth?”

“Miss Rose.” Stacey answered for herself, her vivid face flushed with what looked like agonised self-consciousness. “I wanted to…to apologise for the way I behaved yesterday. It was very mean.”

“Yes, it was mean, Stacey.”

“I’m sorry. Truly, desperately sorry.”

Alida silently but sceptically challenged the apology. The girl held her gaze unflinchingly, the dark eyes pleading forgiveness. It was Alida who looked away, her emotions beginning to churn in turmoil again. Her eyes sought familiar landmarks around the homestead, instinctively wanting to find the sense of peace and harmony this place had always instilled in her. But there was no peace with Gareth and his daughter here.

“Alida, you knew I had to come,” Gareth said softly.

“Yes. I suppose I knew that,” she murmured. But not here. Not so soon. She wasn’t ready to deal with the consequences of yesterday’s raw disclosure. She had locked it out of her mind, wanting, needing to believe it didn’t change anything.

She watched two pink-breasted galahs swoop down to the water trough next to the well that serviced the house. The birds led a simple life, following a natural cycle, she thought. Water, food, nesting, mating. Why couldn’t her life be that simple?

But she herself had made his mess, and there was no escaping from it. Such a destructive loss of control, leaving Andy open to the same kind of hurt she had suffered at the Morgans’ hands! How best to protect him from it? That was the question now. It was paramount that she stay calm, not lose her head again, not let them get under her skin. She had to keep control of this encounter.

She turned to Gareth, an ironic little smile curling her lips. “Just as I know you haven’t come to see me. Either of you.” She gestured towards the chairs. “But please sit down. The Rose family prides itself on generous hospitality. We won’t treat you any differently.”

“Will you sit with us?” Gareth asked, his blue eyes trying to probe the depth of her hostility towards them.

“Of course. We don’t turn anyone away here. Not even the scoundrels,” Alida answered, her eyes mocking his concern.

They both waited until she had seated herself. The cane furniture was old and squeaky. Alida remembered her father buying it for her mother the Christmas she was ten years old. The wide veranda was a favourite place to sit and watch the sunset when the day’s work was done. It had been a good year, the year she was ten.

“When did you arrive?” she asked.

“A couple of hours ago,” Gareth answered.

“I expect you’ll be staying the night, then.”

“Your mother kindly offered us rooms.” He paused, then slowly added, “She’s been telling us about your life here, Alida.”

“If you’d looked at what I create, my life here is woven into every design,” Alida said, not letting him see her bitter resentment at his lack of interest and his lack of perception in branding her a loose-living city woman. “The geometrical pattern on the culotte I’m wearing is derived from Aboriginal drawings in one of the caves on this station. The grey-green of my pullover is the colour of the spinifex that is the main vegetation of the inland.”

“I’m sorry. I hadn’t noticed that kind of detail,” he said quietly.

Alida dismissed his answer with a shrug. “Most men don’t.”

“It’s… it’s very clever,” Stacey offered nervously.

Alida found it difficult to look at Gareth’s daughter with any semblance of equanimity, but she forced herself to acknowledge the comment. “There are obviously some people who think so.”

The words came out so coldly that the girl shrank back into her chair and bit her lips. Her eyes darted to her father, imploring his guidance. He had undoubtedly coached her for this meeting, Alida cynically decided. Stacey was obviously frightened of putting any foot wrong today.

Gareth, however, wasn’t watching his daughter. His gaze was fastened on Alida, seeing the hard pride on her smooth beautiful face, the flat rejection in her green eyes, the wall she was putting between them.

“How far is it to the eastern run?” he asked.

Alida regarded him balefully. “Thinking of walking, Gareth?”

“No. I was thinking of driving. The vehicle you came in should take us wherever we have to go. The sooner we get this situation sorted out, the better.” He stood up. “I suggest you come with me so that we can discuss what’s best to be done before you introduce me to our son.”

Alida came out of her chair, fighting mad at his arrogant assumption of authority. “You think you can commandeer my Range Rover? Just like that? Order me around as though you’re in charge of everything? Well, let me tell you, Gareth Morgan, you’re going to have very little say in my son’s life!”

The determination carved on his face remained rocklike. There was not one flicker of uncertainty in the blazing blue eyes. “You prefer to sit around all afternoon, Alida?” he challenged. “What good purpose will that serve? Do you want our son to walk into the kind of hostile atmosphere you’re creating here?”

“I’m not creating it,” she denied hotly, but he had a point, Alida privately conceded. She was still off-balance at being confronted by Gareth and his daughter in her own home. She hadn’t even begun to think ahead to their meeting with Andy.

“I realise you must be tired of driving,” Gareth pressed on. “It will be easier on you if you sit in the passenger seat and direct me.”

“Fine! I have quite a lot of direction to give you, Gareth,” Alida bit out, determined to regain the initiative.

He turned to his daughter. “Stacey, stay here. I wish to get things settled with Alida.”

“Yes, Dad,” she muttered in a tone of flat resignation.

No joy there, Alida thought. No joy anywhere. “If you’ll excuse me for a few moments,” she said coldly. “I’ll let my mother know what we’re doing.”

She turned her back on both of them and strode inside the house. As well as informing her mother, she needed to go to the bathroom before setting out on another rough trip. A splash of cold water might also help to bring her to her senses.

Her pulse was thrumming in her temples. Her stomach was fluttering with nerves. All at the thought of being alone with Gareth Morgan! It was crazy to feel this way about him. Crazy to let him get to her on any level whatsoever. She had to stop it somehow, or the future was going to consist of a long line of bitter miseries.

Alida grudgingly conceded that Gareth drove with instinctive competence over the treacherous terrain that took them to the eastern run. He automatically avoided the red sand dunes where they might have bogged. He skirted potholes and rocks without abusing the steerage or the brakes, and managed to keep a steady pace overall. With his experience of the Outback, it was only to be expected, but Alida was still niggled that he handled the vehicle as well, if not better, than she did.

“You said you wanted to talk to me,” she reminded him after they had travelled for twenty minutes with nothing forthcoming from him and only terse navigational instructions from her.

“I’m thinking about it,” he replied. Which did nothing to ease the thick tension in the cabin.

“It doesn’t seem to be very productive,” Alida sniped, impatient and frustrated with his prolonged silence.

“It’s about time to take a little detour,” he said enigmatically but decisively.

Alida threw him a vexed look, but his eyes were concentrated on picking the best route ahead. Then, contrary to her directions, he swung the Range Rover towards the creek bed to the north of them.

“You’re off track,” she snapped.

“It’s always rather peaceful, looking at water,” he replied in a maddeningly calm voice.

Alida opened her mouth to tell him that this creek bed was a dry one, except when it rained. She promptly shut her mouth again when she realised precisely where he was heading. With unerring judgment Gareth had picked out the one permanent waterhole.

It was where the ghost gums grew the tallest, where there was a profusion of tea-trees, where the deep green vegetation was backed by a freakish rock strata, which ran in great buttresses and giant steps. It was, coincidentally, one of her favourite places on the station.

Gareth brought the Range Rover to a halt well short of the sandy creek bank. He grabbed one of her blankets from the back of the vehicle before coming around to open Alida’s door. She eyed the blanket with heart-pumping suspicion. Did Gareth have more in mind than talking?

“This might take some time,” he said drily. “We can sit in the shade by the water.”

“There are rocks we can sit on,” she informed him just as drily.

A taunting amusement glittered in his eyes. “Not for me, thank you, Alida. But you make your own choice.”

“I intend to,” she warned him.

She consciously kept a comfortable distance between herself and Gareth as they walked to the waterhole. All her instincts were shrieking that this was a dangerous situation and she had to keep her head. When Gareth spread out the blanket she moved aside, leaning her back against the trunk of the largest tree, watching him from under her lashes.

He was not as relaxed as he looked, she decided, despite the graceful economy of his every movement. He had rolled up his shirt sleeves, and the muscles in his forearms were taut as he straightened the blanket. His powerful thighs strained against the cloth of his trousers. She looked away, remembering all too well the feel of those thighs against her own.

The waterhole was about fifteen metres long and seven metres wide. She and her brothers had often swum and played here in the heat of the day, but this was no time for playing. What was about to transpire between Gareth and herself was deadly serious. Alida had to protect her rights as Andy’s mother and the only parent her son had known up until now.

“What’s Andy like, Alida?” Gareth asked quietly.

She flicked a glance at him. He had not sat down. Nor had he stepped towards her. He stood with his legs apart, his hands resting loosely on his hips. There was an animal quality of stillness about him, his whole being concentrated on watching every minute response from her. Watching and waiting for his moment to move in on her, Alida thought wildly.

She looked at the rocks on the other side of the waterhole, as old as time and just as unfeeling, sentinels to the futility of fighting what cannot be changed. Accept it, Alida, she told herself. Gareth was not going to go away. Ever. Not for her, nor for all the restless yearnings he evoked in her, and not for Andy, who should be allowed to love his father.

“A normal four-year-old,” she said shortly.

He looked at her patiently, waiting for more.

“He’s beautiful,” she said at last, truthfully. A smile teased at her lips as she thought of her son. “Endlessly inquisitive, too adventurous for his own good, noisy, full of the excitement of life.”

“Has he asked about me?”

Alida grimaced. “He asked why he doesn’t have a father.”

“What did you reply?”

She shot Gareth a defensive look but found no aggressive resentment in his eyes, only a patient watchfulness. “I pointed out that he had a grandfather and two uncles and not everyone can have a father as well. He seemed content with that answer. He spends a lot of time up here so it’s not as if he hasn’t had any male companionship and caring.”

She hoped Gareth got the message that Andy wasn’t in need of him. He was perfectly happy with the family he had.

“Jill Masters said that you retreat here for four months of the year.”

“At a minimum. More than that usually. Andy loves the life on the station,” Alida added with a touch of defiance. Gareth couldn’t offer her son anything that she didn’t already give him. Andy was certainly not a deprived child in any sense whatsoever.