The Australian Tycoon's Proposal
Margaret Way
Bronte's had enough of rich, ruthless men - she's just narrowly escaped marrying one! Now she's wary of all men, especially when six feet two inches of pure Australian male arrives on her doorstep with a business proposal….The chemistry between her and tycoon Steven Randolph is explosive - Bronte finds him impossible to resist, and begins to dream of a future with him. Only then does she discover Steven is not all he seems….
“So you don’t want an affair?”
“No.”
“What a pity!” Steven laughed. “You mightn’t be tough, Bronte, but you’re a great kisser.” He lifted a hand and gently caressed her cheek.
“And that’s the only one we’re going to share,” she told him crisply.
“Don’t panic. What a prickly, touchy person you are.” He slid his arm companionably through hers. “It’s a miracle I’ve warmed to you so quickly.”
Margaret Way takes great pleasure in her work and works hard at her pleasure. She enjoys tearing off to the beach with her family at 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.
The Australian Tycoon’s Proposal
Margaret Way
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
VOLCANIC red dust puffed up under Bronte’s every step. It found its way into her expensive sandals, irritating her toes and the soles of her feet. Obviously her feet had grown tender since she had last left the jungle. Grit the colour of dried blood, she thought mawkishly, coated the fine leather. But then who in their right mind wore high heeled sandals to trudge down a bush track?
“Damn!” She tottered to a stop, in the process wrenching her ankle. Moans gave way to muttered curses. She was about as irritable as she could get. What she should be wearing was lace up boots or at least a pair of running shoes. She set down her shoulder bag that had cost an arm and a leg. Never featherlight even when empty it had been growing heavier at every step. Her small suitcase followed. It weighed over a ton. Now she was able to shake the dust and grit first from the sole of one foot, then the other.
Ah, the relief! She gulped in hot scented air.
One of her bra straps had slipped off her shoulder. She fixed that. Her sunglasses needed propping back up her nose, a water slide of sweat. She was wearing a big wide-brimmed hat, yet the blazing tropical sun was burning a hole through the top of her head. Boiling and bothered she yanked at her designer label tank top. It was wet under the arms and glued to her back. She just knew her face was the colour of a ripe plum.
“No wonder you’re so darned unhappy. You’re a fool, Bronte.” She often talked to herself. She’d grown into that habit as a lonely and isolated little girl. She’d even had imaginary friends. Great friends they were, too. There was a girl called Em who grew along with her. A boy called Jonty who was a very gentle person and lived in the rain forest. Once Gilly claimed she saw Em and Jonty playing tag around a giant strangler fig. Gilly always spoke to her as if she were an equal even when she was seven! Of course Gilly was having a little joke. Bronte knew her friends existed only in her powerful imagination.
A whirlwind of dust blew up, rousing her to move off the track until it passed. It was her own fault that she had to walk. Death before dishonour was her motto. She was stuck with it. She hadn’t learned it. It had been passed out at birth. It got her into a lot of trouble, that’s all.
It wasn’t right for the taxi driver to call Great-Aunt Gillian with a hard G “a crazy old bat!” accompanied by hoots of laughter she was expected to join in. That had made her hopping mad. Not that Gilly of the copious snow-white hair, once blue-black like her own, black eyes and wicked grin didn’t communicate with their dead ancestors on a regular basis. As an imaginative child Bronte, actively encouraged in her psychic powers by Gilly, had sensed long dead members of the McAllister family hanging around the place. They spent their time wandering the old sugar plantation and the big patch of virgin rain forest bordering McAllister land. They’d even been seen up on the main road, scaring the tourists. The locals took no notice whatsoever.
Gilly, despite her solitary, secluded life, was right up there as a local character in an area that was legendary for its “characters.” Gilly was the Bush Medicine Woman. The plantation, the two hundred acres that remained from the original selection, would attract a lot of developers if it were ever put on the market, but Gilly lived a frugal life. Most of her inherited money had gone. “I’ve lived too long!” She supplemented what was left, by running a profitable little side-line selling herbal potions, concoctions, the odd aphrodisiac—said to work—facial and body creams guaranteed to alleviate the symptoms of every discomfort known to woman including the “infernal itches”. Gilly having been stood up at the altar fifty odd years ago didn’t give a hang what happened to the men. They could look after themselves.
Bronte didn’t love men either. She was amazed anyone did! Most of them turned out to be bitter disappointments. Not that she’d been stuck on her lonesome in front of the altar. She was the one who found commitment darn near impossible. To prove it, with one week to the Big Day, she’d recently called off her much publicised society wedding, bringing her mother’s and her demented stepfather’s fury down on her head. She’d made a fool of them but she had learned that she was a fool already. Her actions, apparently, put her on a par with some sort of a criminal. A mass swindler perhaps? The humiliation was not to be borne. The disgrace! Worse, it was bad for business.
Nat, her fiancé, had been angry enough to call her names, grinding his teeth as he did so. He wore not so much a devastated as totally baffled expression. What girl in her right mind would give him up? A girl could get tramped to death standing in line to meet Nathan Saunders.
Nat’s mother had been livid! In fact she’d been astoundingly crude. Bronte hadn’t realized Nat’s mother knew let alone used four letter words. “No breeding!” sniffed Gilly when she heard. Nothing like scorning a son to bring out the worst in a mother. No one stood up Thea Saunders’s—one of society’s leading lights—wonder boy. She had demanded the 3 carat diamond solitaire back, not that Bronte had ever intended to keep it. Her finger felt a whole lot lighter without it. Bronte had consoled herself with the knowledge that she wasn’t the first girl to have second thoughts about tying the knot. The big problem was she hadn’t been able to work up the courage to voice her concerns until the last minute. Pathetic really! For that, she despised herself but she knew the turbulence her decision would create.
Turbulence. Chaos. A tongue-lashing from the stepfather she detested. Nat had been hand-picked for her. She was ashamed to admit she was still trying to please her mother when let’s be straight about it, she never had. Her rejection of Nat Saunders had caused a huge scandal. Few of her so-called friends had sided with her. She was scolded and marvelled at at every turn. She had everything going for her and she blew it! What an idiot! The word had become an alternative to fool. Her mother had ended most sentences with one or the other.
The handsome and popular Nat was the scion of media mogul Richard Saunders, a close friend and partner in various enterprises—probably dodgy—of her stepfather Carl Brandt. Of course she lost her budding career. A swift retribution that did nothing to raise her spirits. Over the past year she’d swum into the limelight as a popular character in the award winning TV police drama Shadows. Two weeks ago she had met with a very bloody end. A shoot-out. Officer down. It had blitzed the ratings and caused a storm of protests from her fans—she never knew she had so many—but she wasn’t going to be allowed to get away with shaming two outstandingly rich families.
Her mother had given her hell, like it was her main aim in life to make Bronte’s existence intolerable.
“How can any of us hold up our heads?” Miranda had exploded. “After all Carl has done for you, you ungrateful little fool!”
What exactly had Carl done for her? He hadn’t adopted her. Her own father had left her enough money to cover her education through university, pay for her upkeep and her clothes. Her mother still beautiful and sexy at forty-five—never mind she had celebrated that birthday twice already—had not been her first husband’s beneficiary. Bronte had been that, her inheritance administered by her late father’s lawyer as executor of his will. Apparently Ross McAllister hadn’t trusted his wife to do that. Bronte found out years later her father had changed his will on the very day of his death. Her mother had got away with the family home, all the contents and her cache of jewellery, a veritable Aladdin’s Cave, otherwise she’d been cut out entirely. There was a story there, with in all probability grave implications, but nothing could bring her father back. She had loved him so much! She could still feel his hand patting the top of her head.
Her remarried mother sided with her new husband on everything. Perhaps she had no alternative? Bronte understood it was easier on her mother that way. Carl Brandt was a big shouldered, imposing looking man with heavy lidded, obsidian eyes and a very loud voice. No one would ever have to ask her stepfather to repeat himself. Yet for reasons totally beyond Bronte, her stepfather was positively magnetic to women who liked a touch of the brute. On the proviso, of course, he was powerful and had lots of money. Even age didn’t seem to come into it. Such men retained their attractions at over ninety unlike women who some believed started the downhill slide once they hit thirty.
Her mother had always been attracted to money and power. Never mind that Carl Brandt was a tyrant, with a tongue like a chain saw. Bronte’s own gentlemanly father had doted on her but he had been taken from her when she was only seven. Killed when his high powered sports car crashed into a tree. Her mother thereafter maintained Ross McAllister was a reckless driver with a thirst for speed. An opinion rejected by his many friends.
Bronte’s life had changed dramatically after that. Her mother had acted deranged for a couple of days, a tragic figure on the verge of a breakdown. Bronte had been sent to live with her maternal grandparents, an arrangement that lasted only a few months. Her grandmother—not the kindest granny in the world—decided she couldn’t tolerate Bronte’s “tantrums” any longer. Children should be seen, but not heard whereas Bronte had been given to creating disturbances. That’s when Gilly McAllister had come to the rescue. Gilly had offered to look after her. Good old “crazy” Gilly. Thank goodness for her! Gilly who privately called Miranda “shallow and egotistical.” Bronte was meant to stay with her great-aunt until Miranda felt more able to cope after her tragic loss.
Bronte stayed five years. She saw her mother rarely. As her husband’s property—Brandt owned people—Miranda had to be on hand at all times. Her grandmother she saw not at all. “I can’t believe our luck!” Gilly chortled. Neither of them were asked to Miranda’s and Brandt’s society wedding which took place an unseemly month or so after Ross McAllister’s tragic death. So much for the tragedy queen and the nervous breakdown that never was. Then again, perhaps it illustrated Miranda’s extraordinary resilience.
A suspiciously short period of time later Bronte’s half brother Max—poor little victimised Max—made his much gossiped about entry into the world though Bronte and Gilly locked away in the deep Far North didn’t get to hear about that happy event until at least a year later when Gilly read about Max’s existence in the newspaper.
On her twelfth birthday Bronte’s mother—no one saw it coming—made the decision to send Bronte to an exclusive boarding school back in Sydney. “We have to get you away from this primitive place!” Miranda had cried, accelerating away from the plantation so fast she sent up a dust storm. “You’re nothing but a savage. I was a fool to let Gilly look after you. She can’t even look after herself.” Miranda had appeared genuinely shocked at the run-down condition of the old plantation gone back to jungle and Bronte’s appearance which even Bronte had to admit in retrospect must have been a little on the wild side. With Gilly for a mentor Bronte had gotten used to wearing a sort of safari outfit—boy’s shirts and trousers with a thick belt and good stout boots. She’d have worn that outfit to school, where she shone academically, only the headmistress, Miss Prentice, wouldn’t have let her through the front gate.
The day Bronte left, her darling Gilly had cried, her tall, vigorous body bent over and shaking like she had a tropical fever.
Gilly who was as brave and fierce as the general in the family. General Alexander “Sandy” McAllister who’d risen to fame in India fighting for the British in the Afghan wars. “Sandy” was one of Gilly’s favourites from the family spirit world. After his long stint in India Sandy’s spirit had settled in well to the humid heat of the rain forest, unfazed by the cyclones that blew in from time to time.
Feeling a little rested Bronte slung her bag back over her shoulder then picked up her expensive suitcase. It was one of her mother’s discards. Her mother enjoyed enormously being the wife of a very rich man. Rich men ran the world! Wealth defined the man! Brandt pampered her mother for a good reason. Miranda was always on show as his wife. Her beauty and elegance were legendary and she had a wonderful flair for dressing. Why else would Brandt have married her? It all reflected wonderfully well on his taste.
Otherwise he was far from being a generous man. He had never been generous to Bronte. She would have been walking around in rags, uneducated, if not for the inheritance her own darling father had left her. Her mother didn’t believe in spoiling her either. Worse Brandt was downright mean to his own son. Poor Max who hadn’t inherited any of his father’s abominable skills and bully boy nature. The endless criticisms, the cutting sarcasm, the scorn the two of them had endured. It had been tough to leave fifteen-year-old Max behind, but at least Max had respite at boarding school. He’d even dug in his heels to stay at school through vacations. Something that had affronted their mother who laboured under the monstrous delusion she was a good mother.
My sad, dysfunctional family! Bronte thought. There was a crisis every day of the week. She was always amazed she could look so much like her mother yet be nothing like her in her nature and behaviour. It was Gilly who had taught her values, shown her love and understanding. Gilly was the woman of substance not her own mother whom she continued to love even as she despaired of ever having her love returned. Beautiful Miranda who at the drop of a hat—for instance a broken engagement—could turn into a shrieking virago. If Brandt was famous for his lung power, he could on occasion be equalled by her mother.
Bronte staggered on bravely, remembering how Gilly had always called her “plucky.” As a child it had made her laugh. Plucky. For some reason—the obvious clucky—she associated it with Gilly’s chooks. Despite Bronte’s multiple discomforts she was drinking in her surroundings. She loved this place. It was the Garden of Eden complete with the snakes. The countryside was glorious. The coastal corridor north of Capricorn was as lush and bountiful as the Interior across the Great Divide was arid. She adored the rampant blossoming of the tropics. The brilliantly plumaged birds. The colour!
Bougainvillea ran like wildfire on either side of the private track. You could hardly call it a road. It was near impassable in heavy rains. The magnificent parasite covered fences, climbed trees, old water tanks. Orange. Cerise. Scarlet. Pink. Blue-violet morning glories “the colour of your eyes, Bronte” Gilly had told her as a child, cascaded over the sides of one of those old water tanks that stood in an abandoned field.
Once these fields had been under sugar, at maturity towering higher than a man, but production had stopped on Oriole long before she’d been born and Gilly had inherited the old plantation that once had been a prolific money spinner. McAllister land bordered onto the gallery rain forest where the Yellow Orioles built their deep nests and sent their incessant choom-chalooms floating sheer across the forest. It was after these rain forest birds the plantation had been named in the late 1880s.
Once I knew this land like the back of my hand, Bronte thought. Gilly had taken her everywhere with her. Into the forest where she found the magical ingredients for her potions, to the river that had “salties” in it, big man-eating estuarine crocodiles, to the beautiful beaches with their white sand and turquoise waters, to the islands of one of the great wonders of the natural world, The Great Barrier Reef where they’d gone swimming and snorkelling and exploring the coral. Gilly had taught her to ride a horse—“you just hold on, Bronte! Show ’im who’s boss.” How to handle a .22 rifle. “Just in case!” Bronte really hoped Gilly had turned in her guns. She wouldn’t put it past her to have hidden one beneath the floor boards.
“By the time I reach the homestead I’ll be a wreck,” Bronte grumbled to herself. “Ready to throw myself head first into the lily lagoon, maybe cavort naked.” There was never anyone around. The homestead was at the far end of the track. She could see the tall vine-bedecked wall around the home grounds. The massive wrought-iron gates bore an elaborately scrolled Oriole picked out in bronze. Gilly wouldn’t be home until late. She had an appointment with a visiting eye specialist at the town clinic. Bronte worried about that. Was Gilly’s wonderful eyesight failing despite her disclaimers? Such things happened with age. Who needed to get old? Bronte had refused to let Gilly cancel her appointment. She wouldn’t get another for at least six weeks.
“A bad day, lovey, for me to have to go.”
Bronte had soothed her great-aunt by saying she’d catch a cab from the train station. She’d flown from Sydney to Brisbane, but decided to take “The Queenslander” north instead of continuing by air. She wanted a long time to think. The train was great for that. It was a long scenic trip through increasingly beautiful country as one crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. The Queenslander was comfortable. They served lovely meals and the sleeping arrangements were excellent. Lots of gazing out the window. Of course she’d fully expected to be dropped at the door until that crack about the “old bat!” She couldn’t let anyone get away with saying that about Gilly.
A bead of perspiration trickled into her eyes. It stung.
“Damn!” She dropped the suitcase so she could shove her straw hat further down on her head.
It was then she became aware of a car engine. She turned in time to see a vehicle turn off the bitumen road and head down Oriole’s private track.
Gilly! Her lifesaver! Wouldn’t she give her a great big hug! But why so early?
Bronte stood quite still, watching the 4WD approaching in a cloud of red dust. The problem was, Gilly didn’t have a 4WD. As far as she knew, Gilly still drove an ancient utility that had never broken down in twenty years. All Gilly ever had to do was kick the tyres. The 4WD was coming straight for her, insisting on right of way. Could you beat that? She was a McAllister. She wasn’t about to get off her own road. This would be her place when her darling Gilly was gone. She’d live up here and turn into a feisty self-sufficient medicine woman, like her great-aunt. Historically there had always been such women.
The driver of the vehicle, seeing her standing so confrontationally in the middle of the road, had the sense to detour onto the thick grassy verge. It was a godsend because the red dust settled before it could envelop her. Was it deliberate? Could the driver be considerate? On rainy days in the city as a pedestrian waiting at the lights she’d often been splashed by inconsiderate drivers who perversely picked up speed instead of slowing down in the grey conditions.
The driver was a man. A young man which greatly surprised her. What was he doing on McAllister land? Especially when Gilly wasn’t at home. In that instant Bronte thought of Gilly’s .22. For all she knew this man could be dangerous, on the run from the police. He was certainly trespassing and the plantation was very isolated. Bronte planted her sandalled feet with their ridiculous high heels firmly on the track. She was determined not to budge even if her self-esteem was stretched to twanging point.
Straighten your back, Bronte. Look right at him. Men sensed natural born victims. She’d learned that from life with her horrible stepfather.
The driver swung out of the vehicle, loping around the bonnet. Bronte watched him like she’d watch an approaching tiger.
Twenty-eight, maybe thirty. He was tall; a good six-two. Wide in the shoulders. Lean. A splendid body really. He had to be a fitness freak. He wore the kind of gear she used to wear herself. Jungle greens. A crocodile hunter, maybe? Even at a distance she noted the green, green eyes. His skin was a tawny gold. He looked just the sort of guy who could handle himself anywhere, anytime. Boldly, aggressively male. The sort of guy who considered male domination the natural order. He probably had a grip to fracture her hand.
He was also devilishly handsome. She wasn’t so blinded by the sweat in her eyes, she couldn’t see that. Straight nose, high cheekbones, curly mouth, determined jaw. If she’d been more impressionable she’d have fainted. As it was every instinct shrieked a warning. She stood ramrod straight even when her back was breaking. Her antagonism to the dominant male was deeply entrenched. It was one reason she had taken up with Nat, who, at bottom, was as soft as a marshmallow.
“Hi there!” Action Man’s smile was so warm and friendly it took her aback. That smile lit up his entire face.
Bronte stared in disbelief. She didn’t reply. She waited for him to come up to her, frowning darkly just in case he got any ideas.
“Steven Randolph. I’m a friend of your great-aunt’s.” He introduced himself, taking in every detail of her overheated appearance. Little sparks seemed to be flying around her tallish delicate frame.
Bronte stood her ground. Height was one of the assets Mother Nature had bestowed on her. His voice, at least, was something in his favour. It wasn’t loud. In fact it was smooth and mellow. Most women would find it a real turn-on. It struck her it was also the voice of money and education. His stance wasn’t arrogant, more an elegant slouch. There was no doubting he was very comfortable in his own skin.
“I know the names of my great-aunt’s friends,” she said, as coolly as she could in the blistering heat. “I’ve never heard of a Steven Randolph.”
“Perhaps Gilly was waiting to surprise you,” he suggested and smiled as though amused by her antagonism. Very white teeth. Straight. Strong. Why was he making her so angry? He was trying to be pleasant, while she was bristling like a porcupine.
“You’re Bronte, aren’t you.” It was a statement not a question.
“Congratulations.” It suddenly struck Bronte her stepfather’s abrasive manner might have brushed off on her. How terribly distressing!
Another smile. An engaging quirk of the mouth. “Gilly has photographs of you all over the house. Occasionally I even got to see you on the television. Very good you were, too. The shoot-out nearly broke my heart.”
Bronte winced. “Can we leave my ex-career out of the conversation?”
“Certainly. Could I say first what they did to you was rough. I expect you don’t want to talk about your broken engagement, either?”
She shielded her eyes with her hand. She was getting a crick in the neck just looking up at him despite her own height. “Are you trying to be cruel or does it just come naturally?”
He appeared surprised. “I thought you were the one to opt out. Did I get that wrong? If I did, I’m very sorry.”
“You’re not sorry at all,” she fired up.
“Of course I am. I’m not sorry for Saunders not that you’d have made him the perfect wife.”
Bronte almost choked. “Really? How can you tell?”
“I know of the family. You wouldn’t want to move in with them.”
Bronte frowned at him fiercely. “Thanks for the tip but you’re already too late. Anyway, I can save you a trip. Gilly isn’t home.”
“I know that, she’s at the eye specialist. I’ve brought her supplies home. They’re in the car. You look hot. You really ought to get out of the sun. What are you doing walking anyway? And in those high heels!” He all but clicked his tongue.
“I like the exercise,” she snapped.
Suddenly his demeanour changed from friendly to grim. “Don’t tell me the taxi driver left you at the road? Who was it? Describe him.”
“So you can beat him to a pulp?” she only half joked.
“Why ever would you say that? I can get my message across without violence. Please. Get into the car. I’ll drive you up to the house. Let me take your things.”
She wanted to be in the position to ignore him but sad to say she wasn’t. She had the feeling he wouldn’t take any notice anyway. Already he had her heavy suitcase in hand, stowing it in the back of the vehicle like it was a paper bag.
“Come along,” he coaxed. “Much more of this and you’d be badly sunburnt.”
“I don’t burn,” she told him, when she was seated in the vehicle and he was driving back onto the track. “I have olive skin. I spent years up here.”
“I know.” He grinned. “Bronte on horseback. Bronte feeding a joey that had lost its mother. Bronte holding a rifle of all things. You must have been ten?” He gave her a half amused half disproving glance. “Bronte in the rain forest amid the ferns. Bronte at speech night where she collected all the prizes.”
“Why would you bother to look at old photographs of me?” The air-conditioning was heaven! She closed her eyes briefly and arched her neck.
“They were kinda cute actually.” He allowed his eyes to rest on her. She was even more beautiful, more sensuous in the flesh than she was on television. And those eyes! What colour were they? The lilac-blue of the sacred lotus? The morning glories that decked Oriole’s fences? A crush of jacaranda blossom? “Gilly adores you,” he said.
“I adore Gilly.” She answered with a touch of belligerence as if he’d expressed doubts about her affection. “I would never have survived without her.” Immediately she made it she regretted the confidence.
“That’s a sad thing to say.” His voice, however, conveyed only empathy and genuine concern.
She didn’t need it. “I’m sorry I said it.”
“What is it about me you don’t like?” he asked, sounding like he wanted to get to the bottom of her antagonism.
Arrogant beast to keep challenging her! “I’m sure I have no opinion of you at all,” she lied. She’d been accumulating data from the instant she set eyes on him.
“Good grief! What will Gilly say when you tell her you can’t stand the sight of me. Do I remind you of someone?”
She felt her cheeks grow hotter with resentment. “Forgive me if I’m being rude.” She made a huge effort to get hold of herself. “It’s the heat.”
Her lovely skin was dewed with sweat. He found it incredibly erotic. He could see the tips of her nipples budded against her tight tank top with its low oval neck. A tiny trickle of sweat ran down between her breasts. Her yellow stretch jeans printed with flowers showed the length of her legs. “I thought you loved it?” he asked lazily.
“Not when I’m carrying a suitcase.”
“So the taxi driver offended you?”
“Determined to work this out?” She shot a quick glance at him. Bronte had never cared for cleft chins, and she hardened her heart against him to be on the safe side.
“Oddly enough I am.” He met her gaze with a slightly puzzled expression. She was being rather awful. His clear green eyes moved over her face and shoulders. It was a glance that didn’t linger. It wasn’t overtly sexual yet she felt a rush of something powerfully like sexual excitement. It would be the greatest folly to allow him to see it. A guy like that would only exploit the situation.
“I reacted—perhaps overreacted—to one of his remarks. He called Gilly a crazy old bat. When I think about it, it was more indulgent than anything. You know, the local character!”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure I don’t want you to go after him. What do you do around here, Mr. Randolph?”
“Steven, please,” he pleaded, mockery in his voice. “Steve if you like. Gilly calls me Steven. I’m a developer of sorts.”
She almost hunkered down in her seat. “Not one of those!”
He gave a short laugh. “I don’t go around destroying the environment, Bronte. I’m a conservationist as well as a developer.”
Her expression was highly sceptical. “I thought they were mutually exclusive. I can’t imagine how you got to be friendly with Gilly who’s been a conservationist all her life. Unless she has something you want?”
“And what would that be?” He flashed a glance at her.
He wasn’t supposed to have that sexy a voice, she thought irritably. Wives might leave their husbands for a voice like that. “Oriole, maybe?” she suggested. “It might be run-down but these days with a thriving tourist industry and so close to the Reef it’s become a very valuable parcel of land. You might like to get it rezoned and put a back-packer’s place on it for all I know. I should put you straight. Gilly has left it to me.”
“I know!” He dragged the word out. “You must love her for it?”
She ignored the sarcasm. “Gilly told you that?” The fact Gilly liked this guy threw her off-balance. Okay he had charisma. Was that enough to make Gilly confide so much? He’d taken his akubra off, throwing it on the back seat where it appeared to be cuddling up to her straw hat. His hair was a dark mahogany colour with copper highlights put in by the sun. It was thick, straight, well behaved hair. A touch too full and long, but sexy.
“You’d be surprised how much Gilly and I talk.” He confirmed her worst fears.
“No kidding! Like I said, she’s never mentioned you.”
“Well, you have had a great deal on your mind. If it’s any consolation, you did the right thing. If I were a girl I wouldn’t marry Nat Saunders, either. Not in a million years!”
“It sounds more like you know him rather than know of him. Do you?” It wasn’t impossible.
“Kind of.” He grinned.
“More like you’re having me on,” Bronte snapped.
He didn’t deny it.
They were driving through Oriole’s open gates. “Someone’s fixed the hinge, that’s good,” she mumbled to herself. The last time she’d visited Gilly which had to be six or seven months ago, the sagging left side of the gate was propped back with a brick.
“I come in handy sometimes,” he said.
Bronte scarcely heard him. She was staring about her in amazement. “Good grief, a huge clean-up has gone on since I was last here!” The jungle that had threatened to engulf the entire plantation as well as devour the timber homestead had been slashed right back. A good section was actually mown! “Amazing!” She stared out at the grounds which even under jungle were so wildly beautiful they took the breath away.
The gravelled driveway, flanked by an avenue of magnificent poincianas formed a broad highway up to the plantation house. The branches of the great shade trees had grown so massive they interlocked in the middle, forming a long cool tunnel leading up to the house. In a month or so they would burst into glorious flower. An unforgettable sight!
Ancient fig trees on her left. Giants! Festooned with huge staghorns and elkhorns grown as epiphytes, climbing orchids with strongly scented cascading sprays of white and yellow; lacey ferns. One of the rain forest figs she had named Ludwig as a child—after the famous early explorer Ludwig Leichardt—had fourteen foot high buttresses. When she had first come here Gilly had cleaned them out so she could use Ludwig for a cubby house. The greatest miracle of all was she had never been bitten by a snake though she had seen plenty and took good care to tread carefully.
On her right were the magnolias and palms galore. Fan palms with fronds four feet across. There were always shrubs blooming; oleander, frangipani, hibiscus, gardenia, tibouchina, Rain of Gold, the colourful pentas grown en masse, as were the great clumping beds of strelitzias—Bird of Paradise, and the agapanthus. The unbelievably fragrant but poisonous daturas, called the Angel’s Trumpets, were in flower, the enormous white trumpets dangling freely from the branches.
Through the trees she could see the dark emerald waters of the lily pond. A lagoon really, a natural spring. Dozens of glistening cup-like sacred lotus and their pads decorated the glassy surface. A small sturdy bridge had been built across the pond many years ago. Now the latticed sides hung with a delphinium-blue vine, the long trails of flowers dipping down to the water.
The banks of flowering lantana hadn’t been touched. The pink lantana attracted the butterflies, gorgeous specimens, lacewings, birdwings, cruisers, spotted triangles, the glorious iridescent blue Ulysses. They flew around the great sprawling masses of tiny clustered flowers, wings beating in a brilliant kaleidoscope of colour. In the back garden grew every tropical fruit known to man. Mangoes, paw-paws, bananas, loquats, guavas, passionfruit, custard apples, and all the citrus fruits, too, lemons, limes, mandarins, grapefruit, cumquats. There was even a grove of macadamias, the now native Queensland nut transported from Hawaii by an enterprising businessman.
“I love this place,” she breathed. “It’s always been my sanctuary.”
He glanced at her, taking in her dreamy expression. “We all need a sanctuary at certain times. Otherwise we have to get out there into the world.”
Her mood was broken. “Are you implying Gilly didn’t?”
“I was thinking more of you.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Don’t sound so cross,” he answered. “It just struck me in passing you might be harbouring thoughts of turning into a recluse.”
“I prefer to think of it as finding a life of Zen-like purity and simplicity.”
Bronte turned her head away pointedly.
“You’re a bit young for that yet,” he said. “Solitude is great from time to time, but there are hardships associated with living in isolation.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
The driveway opened out into a wide circle that enclosed a very charming three-tiered fountain, the largest bowl supported by four swans. The fountain had been out of action for years, now it was actually playing. “Have we you to thank for the massive clean-up?” She didn’t sound at all grateful and was rather ashamed of the fact. But she intended to stick to her guns.
“I feel better if I can do a good deed now and then,” he said. “I told you, Gilly is my friend. She’s remarkably sprightly but she’s seventy-six years old.”
Was that a dig? “No need to remind me. Did she pay you?”
His green gaze was lancing. “I told you, it was a good deed.”
“You mean it was a big project.” It must have taken weeks, even months.
“So? I could handle it. Are we going to get out? You first. I’ll follow.”
Ordering her around already. In the act of opening the door Bronte turned back sharply. “Are you coming in?”
“Fear not,” he mocked. “It’s only for a short time, I have Gilly’s provisions in the back. Cold stuff in the esky that needs to go into the fridge. I thought I told you?”
“I have a short attention span, I’m afraid,” she announced haughtily, standing out on the drive where her toes suffered another assault from the gravel. She stared up at the house. A green and white timber mansion. Of course it had been built for a large prominent family who had loved entertaining. These days its upkeep was a monstrous burden to Gilly though she’d rather die than admit it. The house was perched a few feet off the ground on capped stumps, a deterrent to the white ants. In her childhood one could scarcely tell where the jungle finished and the homestead started. Today the old colonial was revealed in all its enchantment.
Low set, with verandahs on three sides, twin bow windows flanked the front door. Their position was matched by the hips on the corrugated iron roof. The verandahs were enclosed by particularly fine white wrought-iron lace visible at long last because the rampant creepers that had obscured it for many years had been stripped off. The house had been recently repainted its original glossy white. The iron roof had been restored to a harmonious green matching the shutters on the French doors.
“Your work, too, no doubt?” She turned her head over her shoulder to where Action Man was unloading the 4WD.
“Like it?”
“I love it!” she muttered. “Either you’re a philanthropist on the grand scale or you have an ulterior motive.”
“Believe as you will, Bronte.” He shrugged as if he didn’t care a jot.
Picturesque as the homestead undoubtedly was, what made it so unique was the spectacular setting. In the background, on McAllister land was the unobstructed view of an emerald shrouded volcanic plug. It rose in a cone-shaped peak with a single curiously shaped hump. Gilly had always called it Rex as in Dinosaurus Rex. Rex stood sentinel over the house. The peak wasn’t high, only around four hundred feet but it looked magical against the peacock-blue sky.
“If you’re finished admiring your inheritance you might like to take a box or two,” he called. “Some of them aren’t heavy.”
“Let me get these sandals off first,” she responded tartly. “They looked great when I first set out. Now they’re killing me.”
He carried the bulk of the provisions in and he wasn’t even puffing. Sometimes it must be good to be a man. There were quite a lot of cardboard boxes. Obviously Gilly had stocked up for her visit. She never did remember Bronte didn’t eat nearly as much as she used to as a child when she’d been unfillable. Not that she’d ever put on an extra ounce. Of course as a child she’d been in touch with her legs. The modern child rode in cars and sat cross-legged in front of the television. She and Gilly had tramped the forest. Every morning, except in the rain, she had walked the track to catch the school bus. Every afternoon the bus driver left her at the same spot.
Yes, she was ideally suited to a Spartan existence.
“So, why don’t you freshen up while I put these away?” he suggested.
What a cheek! She swept her long wavy hair off her nape. “Go to the devil!”
He raised a mocking brow. “Do you mind! You’re a prickly little thing, aren’t you? Not a bit like our Gilly.”
“I’m not little at all,” she flashed. “And she’s not your Gilly. I just look little beside you. What are you, six-six?”
“Not even in high heeled boots. It’s a good thing you’re not in search of another husband, Bronte.”
More insults. “You don’t think I could get one?” She was amazed to see a man in Gilly’s kitchen. A man so at home there.
“Easily, for the pleasure of looking at you. But…”
She bristled at what he left unsaid. “Well, you don’t have to worry. Or are you married?”
“Married, no. But I’ve been Best Man.” His eyes swept over her. The high-bred face, so touchingly haughty, the delicate height, the silky masses of her long hair, curling up in the heat, the wonderful colouring. “I’m a committed bachelor at the moment. I have to notch up a few achievements before I’m ready to ask a woman to marry me.”
“Really?” She raised her brows. “I’m surprised you haven’t lots of achievements under your belt already?” The odd part, she actually was.
“I’m sorry the answer’s no. I have a law degree. Not much else.”
“Then why aren’t you practising?”
“I can make a lot more money as an entrepreneur,” he said bluntly.
She found herself pulling a face. “I hate men whose main aim in life is to make money. Seeing you’re so entrepreneurial you might like to make me a cup of tea. Much as I love Gilly I can’t drink her home grown, home roasted coffee. It tastes like the mud at the bottom of the lily pond. By the way, you shouldn’t take the eggs out of the carton. In the carton is the best way to store them not in the egg rack. What happened to Gilly’s chooks?”
He gave a surprisingly graceful shrug of his wide shoulders. “The things one learns!” He started to put the eggs back in the cardboard carton. “The chooks didn’t have much of a show with the snakes. Especially with the chook house fallen down. That’s one of the reasons I and my trusty workers got stuck into cleaning up the grounds.”
“You’re a saint!” said Bronte, giving him a little salute before disappearing down the hallway. “Saint Stephen. I can’t remember what happened to him.”
CHAPTER TWO
“WHAT did you think of Steven?” Gilly asked, looking with the greatest interest into Bronte’s face.
“What was I supposed to think of him?” Bronte parried, deadpan.
“Tell me, you little tease!” Gilly seized her hand. They were sitting in the kitchen over a cup of coffee. Gilly had only been home ten minutes, most of the conversation taken up with Gilly’s visit to the eye specialist. The problem could not be cured but thank goodness it was manageable. “Not as nice as mine!” Gilly sniffed critically at the rich fragrant brew beneath her slightly hooked nose.
Bronte had to laugh. “Which says a lot for your cast-iron stomach. Actually they’re very good Italian beans. I put them through the grinder.”
“I expect Steven was thinking of you,” Gilly said, quite fondly for a woman usually incapable of finding a good word for a man. “I must have told him you didn’t like your coffee as full bodied as my home grown roast. He’s nothing if not thoughtful.”
Bronte set down her near empty cup, with a feeling of astonishment. She stared into Gilly’s much loved face. It was seamed, the skin tanned to the texture of soft leather, stretched tight over the prominent cheek bones. Gilly’s eyebrows were still pitch-black making a piquant contrast to the abundant snow-white hair she had always worn in a thick loose bun. It was a very much out of the ordinary face, Bronte decided. “In love with him, are you?” she jibed.
Gilly responded with an unexpected sigh. “I’m ever so slowly realizing I could have wasted my life, Bronte, girl. Just because I burnt my fingers once, I shouldn’t have let it put me off men for good.”
“Gosh I thought you loved being a recluse,” Bronte looked at her great-aunt with as much surprise as if she had just expressed regret at not reaching the summit of Everest. “Why, you’re famous around here.”
“And I deserve to be. Every bit!” Gilly harrumphed. “Didn’t I clear up Hetty Bannister’s terrible leg ulcers when her doctor couldn’t? I’ve cured dozens of cases of psoriasis, eczema, rosacea, you name it, over the years. I’ve got a home remedy for everything.” Gilly leaned down to whack a mosquito that had the temerity to land on her ankle. “I hope you’re not interested in becoming a recluse yourself?”
Bronte grimaced. “I might have to, seeing I dumped the love of my life a week from the altar.”
“You’re not regretting it, are you, lovie?” Gilly’s black eyes sharpened over Bronte’s face. She was wearing new lenses in her old spectacle frames. Now she re-adjusted them on her nose.
“I’m regretting I was nuts enough to get mixed up with him in the first place,” Bronte confessed.
Gilly looked at her great-niece with loving sympathy. “That was your mother pushing you every step of the way. It was a wonder you didn’t have a breakdown. You always end up trying to please her.”
“She is my mother,” Bronte put her elbows on the table, resting her face in her hands. “You’re my fairy godmother. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Gilly. You’re my haven.”
“You bet your life I am!” Gilly frowned ferociously. “It’s not as though you were going to marry Prince Charming anyway. You can’t be too upset about it?”
“Gilly, I’ve had hell,” Bronte said simply. “I vow here and now I can’t go through it again. I’ve had to listen to Miranda’s rages—” Miranda had long since banned the word Mum “—then Carl’s, sometimes both together. It was like the start of World War III. A woman is a fool to marry for love, Miranda told me. A woman should marry for security.”
“And wasn’t she just the girl to arrange it. Though they do use the two words together,” Gilly attempted to be fair. “Marriage. Security. I think you were very brave getting out in time. The suicide rate is high enough!”
“You were telling me the truth about your eyes?” Bronte changed the subject to one of more pressing interest to her. She was sick to death of her own traumas.
“’Course I was,” Gilly said, sitting so upright her back was straight as a crowbar. “Routine pressure check for glaucoma. No sign of it. Glaucoma is hereditary anyway and there’s no family history as far as I know. I get a few flashing lights in my right eye, but nothing to worry about. Like I told you it’s manageable. I’ll see him every six months. All in all I’m a fit old girl with a strong constitution. The sort of person who lives to be one hundred, not that I want to last that long, the only way to go is down. Why don’t we take a stroll before sunset. Steven has worked wonders. I’m darn happy with that young man.”
“So I see!” Bronte despised herself for feeling jealous. “Surely he couldn’t have done it all for nothing? It would have been a very big job. He told me he had workers?”
“They’re from the croc farm,” Gilly announced casually over her shoulder, leading the way out onto the verandah.
“Croc farm? Croc farm!” Bronte shuddered. “What are you saying, Gilly? He doesn’t have a croc farm, does he?”
“It was a real smart business move if you ask me,” Gilly said, stomping down the short flight of steps. “The tourists love the crocs and the reptiles, especially the Japanese. Our world famous crocodile man is moving his whole operation closer to Brisbane. Chika Moran has been doing very nicely for years with Wildwood but he lost a partner as you know.”
“To a crocodile, I believe.”
“I guess he prodded that old croc one time too many,” Gilly said. “Anyway Steven’s not in on that side of it.”
“Thank goodness!” Bronte put a hand over her breast. Used to the sight of crocodiles for years of her life they still frightened the living daylights out of her.
“Steven will handle the business side,” Gilly said, waving a scented gardenia beneath her nose. “He knows all about environmental issues, and he’s good with people.”
“What is he, insane?” Bronte asked sarcastically.
“What do you mean, love?” Gilly halted so abruptly, Bronte all but slammed into her. “Steven isn’t about to arm wrestle the crocs, if that’s what you’re worried about. I told you he won’t be involved with that side of the business at all. He and Chika are considering expanding into a kind of zoo. There’s big money in it.”
“Like a few lions and tigers, a giraffe or two?” Bronte suggested in the same sarcastic vein. “Elephants are obligatory. Everyone loves elephants. A rhino would be nice. I believe in Africa rhinos happily consort with crocodiles. There’s a thought! Did you know white rhino is a misnomer. It was originally wide referring to the size of their mouths which are bigger than the black rhino, though who got to measure their lips I can’t imagine. A bit of trivia for you.”
“That’s interesting.” Gilly smiled on her much as she had when Bronte, the great reader, had come up with a piece of unusual information as a child. “Anyway Chika has the land to make the idea of a zoo feasible. His family pioneered the district.”
Bronte slapped a palm to her forehead. “He’s a fast mover, all right!”
Gilly demurred. “Well, he’s a nice bloke, but I always thought Chika was a bit slow.”
“I’m talking about Steven Randolph. Anyone who lost most of their fingers would be a bit slow.”
“Chika admitted what he did was very very stupid,” Gilly pointed out. “It was years ago anyway. Chika has his boys now, big, strapping fellows.”
“Sure. Neither of them over-bright, either. Who’d want to handle man-eating crocodiles for a living?”
“There’s an art in it, love,” Gilly told her cheerfully. “Anyway Wildwood is only one of Steven’s ventures. He and a partner put up a very nice motel with a good restaurant. They use the walls for exhibitions of young artists. A lot of them have migrated here. The North is a glorious place to paint. The motel-restaurant has been a big success. Steven put in a manager as he likes to move on to new projects.”
“I expect he thinks Oriole is lovely?”
“Yes, he does.”
Bronte smarted. She turned to look back at the emerald blanketed Rex, imagining it as a real dinosaur that had once roamed this land. No wonder Steven loved Oriole. It was a dreamscape! The wonderful fragrances of the fruits and flowers, the exotic character of the place. The North was unique for the luxuriance and diversity of the plant life. She was looking forward to the sunsets. Tropical sunsets were extravagantly beautiful, the sun going down in a great ball of fire, the brief lilac dusk, then star spangled nights with a low hanging copper moon. She turned back to Gilly. “So what’s he up to now?” she asked.
“Well I’ve been dying to tell you all about it,” Gilly said, in a deep confidential tone.
Oh, no! Bronte thought. Here it comes! “Does it have anything to do with Oriole?” She crouched down to get a close-up of a beautiful orchid that had taken root in a dead branch.
Gilly prickled slightly at Bronte’s tone. “Now, now, lovie. It was my idea.”
“What was?” Bronte stood up.
“It’s just that Oriole is so big, love. And my money is running out. I’d love this old place to come back to life. Steven thinks we can make it happen.”
“I bet!” Bronte answered darkly, twisting her head to catch a flight of parrots.
“It will always be yours, love. Or my share of it.”
“Share?” Bronte thrust her hair over her shoulder in sudden agitation. “You own Oriole outright, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. I’m talking about if Steven and I went into partnership?”
“You’re going to farm crocs in the lily pond?”
“This is worth listening to, Bronte.” Gilly’s black eyes glinted with seriousness. “I’m no fool.”
“Of course not, I never meant to imply that,” Bronte apologised. Gilly could do what she liked with her own property.
“And Steven is no con man.”
“How could either of us rely on that?” Bronte challenged. “Looks and charisma go hand in hand with chicanery.” Bronte’s concern was written clearly on her face. “Have you checked him out? There’s a big backlog in the courts prosecuting charming con men.”
“Bronte, dear, I’ve been fending off con men for years,” Gilly scoffed. “Real estate up here is getting hot! I haven’t been interested before, but mostly for your sake I think it’s time to cash in on what we’ve got.”
Bronte groaned, terrified Gilly could get herself into financial trouble. And over her! “Please don’t worry about me, Gilly,” she implored.
“Don’t be ridiculous! I’ve been worrying about you for years and years. I can’t stop now. Your mother may have married a rich man but I don’t think there’ll be any mention of you in his will. I’m sure Miranda had to sign a pre-nuptial agreement.”
Bronte nodded. “She did. Not that she ever told me just what it was.”
“You can bet your life she found it humiliating,” Gilly said. “I thought you’d be pleased?”
“Gilly, you’re free to do anything you want.” To calm herself Bronte moved closer to a magnificent stand of ancient ferns found only in the rain forest. Some of them had grown into trees with huge crowns standing twenty feet or more over her head.
“I won’t do anything that upsets you.” Gilly followed Bronte up.
“We don’t really know this man, Gilly,” Bronte pointed out as gently as she could when she wanted to yell: exactly who is he? “He said he has a law degree. I don’t know from where but it should be fairly easy to find out. Another odd thing, he said he knew of Nat’s family. He said I wouldn’t want to move in with them. He spoke like he actually knew them.”
Gilly’s expression turned thoughtful. She tucked a snow-white lock back into the loose coils. “Funny, he never said anything to me.”
“Yet you told him all about me?” Bronte tried not to sound upset. She knew how proud Gilly was of her.
“Lovie, you can’t turn around anywhere in the house without seeing a photo of you. You were on the television until that rotten Saunders struck back. Damned if I’m famous compared to you. Steven was interested. He thinks you’re very beautiful and a great actress.”
Bronte laughed that one to scorn. “I’m not a great actress. Great actresses are born, like my mother. I’ve got a little talent that’s all and I’m photogenic. I’m not a great anything!”
Gilly pulled her over and hugged her. “You’re too modest, that’s your trouble. Give yourself a chance. You won’t be twenty-three until the end of December. I thought your parents might have named you Noelle but Miranda had a thing about the Brontë novel Wuthering Heights.”
“I know. She’s often said it’s her favourite book though I’ve never seen her read anything else. Vogue, Harpers & Queens, Tatler, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest, that’s about it.”
“She wouldn’t have time to read,” Gilly said dryly. “That megalomaniac she married demands all her attention. But getting back to Steven!”
“How long have you actually known him, Gilly?” Bronte asked in a worried voice.
“I dunno.” Gilly broke off a dead frond. “It seems like forever. He’s been up here quite a while but I didn’t run into him until around June. It was after you left anyway. I’d taken a trip into town to do my shopping and Steven was walking out of the mall the same time as me. He asked if he could push my trolley.”
“Oh, right!” Bronte said with extreme sarcasm. “That’s one way to start up a conversation. He probably knew who you were.”
Gilly threw back her head and laughed, a sound that put a dozen brilliantly plumaged lorikeets to flight. “Hell, girl, who am I? Steven sure wasn’t after a fling. I mightn’t look it but I am an old lady. I have to keep reminding myself from time to time. Steven is a gentleman. He unloaded the trolley and put it all in the back of the ute for me. I said I had someone to unload it at the other end, the someone being me, but I didn’t let on to him about that.”
“So how did he get to visit?” Bronte had a sinking feeling.
Gilly eye-rolled her. “I seized my opportunity next time I saw him in town. I said if he was anywhere near Oriole Plantation sometime he might like to pop in.”
Bronte looked at her with eyes like saucers. “Gilly, do you realize how dangerous that was?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, girl. You of all people should know I can protect myself. Besides, eyes are the windows of the soul. That young man’s eyes are as clear as crystal. If I could go back forty years my ambition might be to marry him,” Gilly laughed, heading off towards the lagoon where thick banks of the Green Goddess lily and tall reeds grew around the boggy perimeter.
“I suppose it’s possible to become hooked in one’s seventies,” Bronte mused.
“Shows what you’d know,” Gilly said. “Seventy-year-olds are as enthusiastic about sex as seventeen-year-olds. The right man can melt a woman of any age like a marshmallow.”
“Good grief!” For some reason Bronte felt herself go hot. She bent in agitation selecting a river pebble and sending it skipping across the smooth sheet of water.
“I’m fooling, sweetheart!” Gilly guffawed. “I’m just trying to get something straight. I trust Steven Randolph like I trust you.”
That hurt. “You still haven’t told me what he wants you to do?”
Gilly bent, picking her own pebble. She threw it with gusto and it went further than Bronte’s. “If you can wait until tomorrow—I’ve asked Steven to dinner—he can tell you himself. He can explain it all so much better than I can. He knows his way around all the legalities and things like that. He’s right on side with the council and he does things properly, anyone in the town will tell you that. Wait until tomorrow night.”
Morning. The first rays of the sun filtered through the billowy lemon folds of the mosquito netting that cocooned the huge Balinese bed. A warm golden beam lay across Bronte’s dreaming figure, but it was the outpouring of bird song that woke her. She turned her dark head on the pillow. The pillow slips and the sheets had been scented with Gilly’s aromatic little sachets. It was a floral-woody smell, that was the closest she could come. Gilly never would reveal her secrets though she’d promised Bronte she’d left her her books of recipes in her will.
It was impossible to sleep with that powerful orchestra tuning up. There were all sorts of voices, violins, violas, cellos, flutes, oboes, trumpets, the occasional horn, even a bassoon. Whistles from those who couldn’t properly sing. A loud resounding choo from the whip birds. Miaows from the Catbirds. Beautiful singing from the robins.
Lovely! Bronte turned on her back, staring up at the sixteen-foot-high ceiling with its elegant plaster work and mouldings that badly needed restoring. She stretched her arms above her head, luxuriating in the morning and the brilliant performance. It was the first morning in fact she’d woken up not thinking of the terrible fiasco of her abandoned wedding. She fully appreciated now her involvement with Nathan had been engineered by her mother with the full support of her manipulative husband. Both understood the advantages of the match, social and financial. To them! Nat never had been interested in her really. Certainly not in her mind. He’d been far more interested in her body and the fact she could, when she put her mind to it, look as stunning as Miranda.
For so many years of her life Bronte had looked to her mother for some signs of love, of support, but mothering for Miranda was a closed book. All Miranda’s energies in life were directed towards pleasing her horrible husband and maintaining the ravishing looks that were the envy of her socialite friends. Looking back Bronte realized Miranda had been trying to marry her off from probably age eighteen. A girlfriend told her it was because her mother didn’t want Bronte around as competition. Gilly had brought her up to scorn vanity so Bronte never thought of herself in that way.
Her own mother jealous? Yet Miranda’s critical comments and hard stares whenever Bronte was dressed up to go out could have been interpreted as a kind of jealousy?
It didn’t matter any more. She couldn’t go home. She couldn’t even rent an apartment in Sydney. Like Carl Brandt owned her mother, Miranda thought she owned her daughter. And then there was poor Max, her half brother. She wondered if it would be possible to get Max up to Oriole for the Christmas vacation. He would love it! It wasn’t as though he had doting parents who required his presence although poor shy Max had knocked himself out for years trying to win a scrap of affection from either one of them.
What a pity no one could choose their parents, Bronte thought. Not that she didn’t cling to her love for her dead father. It ran like a river deep inside her. Her father couldn’t possibly have meant to end his own life as was rumoured. In doing so he would have left her, a defenceless little seven-year-old. Surely he would have thought of that? Ross McAllister, her dad. She just knew God was going to let her see her father again. She’d always been too sick at heart to allow herself to dwell on her mother’s relationship with Carl Brandt before their hasty marriage. Who in their right mind would want Carl Brandt for a lover let alone a husband?
Bronte threw back the single sheet, releasing yet another waft of delicious fragrance. Gilly was so clever, she should have been a celebrated parfumer—was there such a word?—capturing wonderful fragrances. Or at least a chemist, a botanist, a scientist.
Bronte pulled the mosquito net out from under the mattress then slid her feet to the cool polished floor. She felt like galloping bareback around the plantation but Gilly had been forced to sell Gypsy, her spirited and mischievous chestnut mare, and Diablo, the tall baby gelding, who was no devil at all, but sweet and even tempered. Gilly had always said Bronte and Gypsy were a perfect match, as it had to be if horse and rider were going to enjoy themselves. It was because of Gilly she was such a good rider. This had pleased Nathan. He liked the fact she was so knowledgeable about horses, especially at polo matches which he couldn’t really understand. But then she didn’t want thoughts of Nathan Saunders to sour her day. He was out of her life. The wonder was he was ever in it. She wouldn’t have even crossed his path had she lived a normal life instead of being Carl Brandt’s stepdaughter.
Bronte snatched up her silk kimono from the elaborate carved chest at the end of the bed, then padded across the hallway to the old-fashioned bathroom to take a quick shower. In her childhood big green frogs took up residence in the bath from time to time. Gilly hadn’t minded frogs any more than she minded snakes but Bronte hadn’t been so keen. She’d wanted the bath to herself. This morning she let the shower run refreshingly cold. It was going to be another hot day but she would soon acclimatize. Back in her room she pulled on some underwear, stepped into a pair of white linen shorts and topped them off with a blue and white striped singlet with a nautical motif. She pulled a leather belt around her waist and tied her hair back in a thick pigtail. The lightest touch of foundation for its high SPF, a slick of lipstick, trainers on her feet.
There, she was ready. All her items of dress were expensive but she’d have been just as happy in the sort of gear she used to wear. She remembered how she’d hated to wear dresses to school. Hated even more the uniforms she’d had to wear at boarding school. Some of the girls—they were all from rich families—had tried to torment her. “You’re such a primitive!” was an early taunt, until they found out when aroused she had a pretty caustic tongue. Gilly had always insisted she had to be articulate so she could defend herself in a tough world. Later, because she couldn’t stop herself wanting to learn, her fellow students discovered she was clever. Actually she’d sailed through her years at boarding school the smartest in her class. It was with human relationships she was such a dismal failure.
The morning was spent tidying up the homestead. Despite Gilly’s best efforts to keep order—she wasn’t at all domesticated—controlled chaos reigned. Gilly had always had a problem throwing anything out. Afterwards they careened around the plantation at breakneck speed in Gilly’s faithful old ute. It was a trip that evoked muttered prayers and many a shrieked, “Slow down!” from Bronte, not that Gilly took the slightest notice. Gilly considered herself to be an excellent driver. If anyone needed any proof, in over fifty years of driving she had never had an accident. This was something Bronte pointed out had more to do with having the rural roads mostly to herself than good driving practices. Gilly wouldn’t have lasted two minutes in the city without being waved down by a disbelieving traffic cop.
Much of the two hundred acres had gone back to an incredibly verdant jungle.
“I can imagine gorillas would be very happy here,” Bronte remarked, her feet quite jumpy from all the braking she’d been doing from the passenger seat.
“Are you serious, love?” Gilly swerved madly to ask.
“Of course I’m not!” Bronte laughed. “Listen, what about letting me drive?”
“No way, ducky. I know all the potholes and ditches. You don’t.”
“You must know them. You haven’t missed one.”
Gilly ignored that. “Once around sixty or seventy hectares were under sugar. A magnificent sight. And the burn offs! Spectacular! Great leaping orange flames against the night sky, the smell of molasses. These days a lot of cane growers have adopted green cane harvesting. That allows the trash to fall to the ground as organic mulch. It reduces soil erosion but in areas of high rainfall like here that method can contribute to water logging the fields. I miss all the drama of the old days.”
“Well, the kangaroos and the emus love it,” Bronte said, gazing out at a stretch of open savannah where the wild life was exhibiting mild curiosity at their noisy presence but mostly going on their serene way.
“You’re not really nervous, are you, Bronte?” Gilly had the grace to ask. “I can see your foot moving from time to time.”
“Pure reflex.” Bronte tossed back her plait.
“You’ll come to no harm with me,” Gilly said jovially, demonstrating her skills by ruthlessly sorting out the gears. “This is our world, Bronte.”
“Our lost world,” Bronte smiled. “I’d love to have seen Oriole in its prime.”
“Its prime could come again,” Gilly’s face wore an enigmatic smile. “World sugar prices peaked in the mid-seventies not all that long before you were born. I remember the Duke of Edinburgh—so handsome he was—attending a ceremony in Mackay in 1982 to mark twenty-five years of bulk handling. We led the world in the mechanical cultivation and handling of the crop. Oriole was right at the top in the 1970s, and it was a tropical Shangri-la years back when I was a girl. We lived like royalty in our own kingdom. Then came the war. You know the rest. McAllisters were among the first to enlist. Four of them. My father and his three brothers. Uncle Sholto was the only one to make it home. Such losses tore a great hole in our family.”
“They would have,” Bronte answered soberly, thinking how tragic it must have been for bereaved families all over the world.
“Uncle Sholto tried to do his best for us but he’d been badly wounded and suffered a lot of pain for the rest of his life. My brother, your grandfather, was so young when he took over. When we lost him in 1979 it was the end for Oriole. Your father had always wanted a different life. He was clever and ambitious, making his mark as an architect. I often think if he’d stayed at home he’d still be alive today.”
Bronte’s heart lurched. “Oh, Gilly, why do you say that?”
“Sorry, love, maybe I shouldn’t be saying it. I don’t want to hurt you but I’ll never forgive Miranda for what she did to my nephew.”
“What did she do?” Bronte asked quietly.
“She destroyed him.”
Bronte sucked in her breath. “You truly believe that?”
“No escaping the facts, lovey.” Sadly Gilly shook her head. “Miranda tried to pass off young Max as premature but you and I know differently. Not that I believe for a moment Ross threw away his life, he loved you far too much. It was an accident, tortured minds become careless. Your father never meant to leave you.”
“My mother said he loved speed.” Bronte looked off to the left where the trees of the rain forest met McAllister land. The savannah grasses had been scorched golden but the forest was in deep emerald shade.
Gilly’s voice vibrated with long suppressed anger. “She had to say something didn’t she? Speed may have been a factor but I’ll never believe any other explanation than Ross’s mind was elsewhere.”
“I was lucky I had you, Gilly.” Bronte’s voice lightly trembled.
“Darling girl, it was you who turned me back into a human. Around here I was becoming known as the witch of the North. I had to shake myself up with a child in the house. I came to love you so much I was devastated when you had to leave me.”
“I hated going away,” Bronte told her. “I’d been hoping my mother had forgotten about me. Why do you suppose she suddenly remembered she had a daughter?”
“I don’t know.” Gilly yanked on the gear stick. “Maybe she thought you might finally be an asset. You got prettier and prettier every time she saw you.”
“Which was like once a year,” Bronte’s mouth turned down. “I wanted to ask you. Would you mind if Max came to visit in his school holidays?”
Gilly shot her a slightly chastening look. “Of course I wouldn’t mind. But I can’t see your mother letting him come. Just for spite. She’d hate for him to enjoy himself up here.”
“Maybe she might.” Hastily Bronte adopted the brace position as Gilly floored the accelerator to tackle another ditch head on.
“Made it!” she whooped in triumph as they bounced high then plunged deep across. “Why don’t you write to the boy? I don’t suppose you can ring him at the school. We’ve got plenty of room. I suppose we’d better start getting back to the house. What are we going to give Steven for dinner?”
“What do you usually give him?” Bronte asked in a supercilious voice.
“Have you forgotten? I’m a terrible cook. I was hoping you would do the honours.”
“Really! You’ve got me up here to cook for Steven Randolph. In that case there’ll be a choice of cured kangaroo,” Bronte offered, deadpan, “or fricassee of baby crocodile’s tail with stir fried noodles.”
“You’re joking, aren’t you?” Gilly asked, alarmed. Gilly’s all time favourite was boiled eggs.
“Don’t you worry,” said Bronte. “I’ll put on a great meal. What time is Action Man arriving?”
“I know you’re going to be nice to him?” Gilly asked, mildly nervous. “I said, six-thirty for seven o’clock. Drinks on the verandah before we move in for dinner. Steven’s great company and you’re going to enjoy yourself, love. That’s a promise!”
Bronte looked at her sceptically. “I only know one thing for sure, I’ll be keeping a very sharp eye on Steven Randolph at all times.”
Bronte had difficulty deciding what to wear. She wasn’t going to dress up for the man, Gilly’s heartthrob or not. For one thing he might get the wrong idea. On the other hand she couldn’t offend Gilly who considered it impolite not to dress up for the rare guest. She’d only brought a couple of dresses with her anyway, trousers being de rigueur in the jungle. She looked at the two pretty summery dresses on the bed. One was a floaty white chiffon printed with big red flowers and swirls of green leaves. The other was a simple slip top with an asymmetrical skirt in imperial purple. Of course she’d bought it because of the colour. It did wonders for her eyes.
Steven Randolph was going to miss out on the pleasure of seeing her in those. She ought to be able to get away with what she called her pyjama outfit—a halter neck top with slinky long pants. The fabric was an understated gunmetal, but in certain lights it looked silver.
“What’s that you’re wearing?” Gilly asked, when she walked into the huge, old-fashioned kitchen. “You look gorgeous!” Gilly rolled expressive black eyes. “You’ve got just the right figure for trousers. I’ll have you know I had a great figure in my day. Great hair and skin, too. Hell, I don’t know why I lost my fiancé, I was a lotta woman.”
“You still are, Gilly,” Bronte smiled. “I love your caftan. Very Marrakech. Your fiancé couldn’t have been terribly smart.”
“He wasn’t,” Gilly snorted. “I think he’d planned to take me for every penny I had then found most of it was tied up with the land which I’d never sell. But I was in love with him at the time. He used to sing to me, you know, accompany himself on the guitar.”
“Good grief! That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” Bronte said, trying to visualize the young Gilly being serenaded by her caddish fiancé.
“Well I have to keep one or two things up my sleeve. Speaking of which, what are we having for dinner?”
“It’s a wonder we’re having anything,” Bronte said. “This kitchen might be as big as a football field but it wouldn’t thrill a serious cook. In fact, Gilly, the major appliances would make a serious cook seriously unhappy.”
“That’s all right, love,” Gilly said complacently. “Cooking isn’t my passion.”
“Whilst I on the other hand undertook an excellent cooking course to prepare myself for being a good wife to Nat.” Bronte moved over to the hob. “Controlling the heat on this is downright impossible. There’s no such thing as a simmer, no moderate heat, it’s all a raging boil. But I haven’t let you down. We’re having something nice but simple. The whole barramundi is in the oven as we speak. It should take around forty-five minutes. I’ve stuffed it with prawn meat, egg, cream, sherry, mushrooms, and surrounded it with cubed vegetables. It’s going to be delectable. The seafood certainly came in handy. Obviously your Steven knew he was coming to dinner. There’s a little dill sauce to finish. I couldn’t begin to tackle an elaborate dessert, but as the oven’s on, we’re having baked paw paw in coconut milk with toasted shredded coconut on top. There’ll be mango ice-cream, too, and I’ve already roasted a bowl of nuts, mostly our own macadamias to nibble on with drinks. Tomato and mozzarella for an appetizer with anchovies draped on top. I think he’ll go home a happy man.”
“Any complaints and we’ll push him out the door,” Gilly joked, obviously in high spirits. She placed a lovely pottery bowl full of avocados on the sideboard then made for the door, the dozen or more silver bracelets on her arm setting up a jingle. “When you do get really serious about someone, Bronte, you’ll make a wonderful wife.”
“That’s not my idea, Gilly,” Bronte called after her.
Not my idea at all!
Steven Randolph arrived bearing gifts. Wine, Belgian chocolates, and something in a cardboard box tied with a brown-gold striped ribbon.
“Thought it might come in handy,” he said, kissing Gilly on both cheeks and slanting Bronte a smile. Not a serious smile. A quirky one, that uptilted the corners of his shapely mouth. “I’ll take these into the kitchen, shall I?”
“You know you didn’t have to do that.” Gilly beamed on him.
“A pleasure, Gilly. You look great!”
Next he’ll be saying the two of us look like sisters, Bronte thought waspishly, leading the way to the kitchen. He certainly had Gilly hooked. Was he the second man in Gilly’s life trying to take her for every penny she had? Over my dead body, Bronte privately fumed.
“Don’t you want to see what it is,” Steven Randolph asked her, as Bronte set the cardboard box down on the long narrow pine sideboard. He was busy putting the wine away in the fridge. Gilly, excited and happy, had drifted out onto the candlelit verandah, no doubt pushing them together.
Bronte smarted. “Give me a minute, can’t you?”
“I’m sorry. How are you?” He allowed his eyes to move over her. She was so beautiful with those enormous black fringed blue-violet eyes but as spiky as a cactus. A cactus in an outfit like liquefied silver. It looked almost like lingerie. It took a huge effort not to reach out and caress it…her. But he’d never met a girl who so clearly signalled keep your distance!
“I’m fine, thank you.” Bronte fought her way through the ribbon which securely tied the box. “Gosh, this looks good!” The comment flew out of its own accord.
“Gilly loves chocolate.”
“I know that!” She flashed him an irritated glance which he met with a quirky one of his own. He looked really cool. She had to admit that. He was wearing a very smart black shirt with a cream stripe teamed with beige trousers. He really did have a great body. That aggravated her.
You better be darned careful, Bronte, she told herself. This man is dynamite!
“Why are you so desperate to put me in my place?” he was asking in an entirely reasonable voice.
“Put you in your place?” Bronte raised supercilious brows. “I thought I was only talking to you. Where did you get this scrumptious looking confection?”
“It’s a fruit and chocolate brandy cake, by the way.” He turned away to find a plate.
“Thank you,” she said pointedly, accepting it. He knew where everything was kept.
“Be careful getting it out.”
She knew he was trying to get a rise out of her. For a moment she considered dropping his offering. Instead she calmly and efficiently removed the large cake from the box. It was covered with a glistening chocolate icing and decorated with silver balls.
“I made it myself, actually,” he said, getting a finger to a tiny dollop of chocolate icing left inside the box and putting it slowly into his mouth.
She looked away from him, determined to keep her reactions on ice. “You did not!”
He laughed. “I had to say something to get you down off your high horse. The truth is, Bronte, I know a very nice lady I can turn to when I want something special.”
It wasn’t the question to ask, but she did. “Do you sleep with her?”
“What?” He rolled his clear green eyes upwards. “Bronte, you shock me. This lady makes cakes for heaps of people.”
“That’s all right then. The thing is we don’t know very much about you, do we, Steven Randolph.”
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