The Shining Of Love

“Goodbye, Mr. Carew,” she said softly, hoping he would find solace for his pain with someone else.

“No. Not goodbye,” he rasped, then looked at her, his eyes burning with a conviction that defied barriers. “We’ll meet again, Suzanne Forbes. The timing isn’t right, here and now, but the day and the hour will come when it is.”

His words seemed to thump into her heart. He had felt it, too, she thought dazedly.

“Au revoir, Suzanne,” he said with very deliberate emphasis.

He closed the door on this encounter and walked out of her life. Until their paths crossed at another time and place. But when? And why? Suzanne wondered. Her hand reached out and picked up the solid glass paperweight. His fingers had dulled its natural gleam. It felt cold. She shivered and thrust it away from her.

I love Brendan, she thought fiercely. I’ll love him all my life. Leith Carew can’t change that. Nothing ever will.

A surge of totally irrational feeling made her snatch up the paperweight again and drop it into the bottom drawer of her desk. Out of sight.

CHAPTER TWO

THE PROBLEM of Leith Carew did not go away. Suzanne wished she had not met him. The memory of his powerful presence and personality kept sliding between her and Brendan, intruding on the natural intimacy they had built up between them.

Normally she talked to Brendan about everything of interest that happened at the clinic or the centre, but something held her back from relating the details of Leith Carew’s private visit to her. She even affected a disinterest in Brendan’s comments on the man, quickly turning the subject aside in favour of a less disturbing topic of conversation.

Rightly or wrongly, she felt Leith Carew was somehow a threat to the happiness of her marriage. He had left her with a sense of inevitability that could not be denied or repressed. The day and the hour would come when they would meet again. Suzanne was afraid of what it might mean to her, so she did her best to deny him any space in her life.

Three days after his visit to the medical centre, Leith Carew was on the evening news. His strong face leapt out at her from the television set, making her heart skip a beat. She could no longer view him as a two-dimensional person.

“I’ll start putting on dinner,” she said, leaving Brendan to watch the news alone while she raced off to the kitchen to busy herself with their evening meal.

He followed a few minutes later. “They’ve called off the search for Amy Bergen,” he said with a grimace that expressed his repugnance for any unnecessary loss of life.

“Why?” Suzanne cried in dismay. Her mind told her there had been no hope of survival for the little girl, yet as long as she wasn’t found, hope persisted anyway.

“They’ve recovered a piece of her clothing.”

“Not the child?”

Brendan shook his head. “Only the clothing. But it was close to a dingo’s lair.”

“Oh, God!” It instantly recalled the Azaria Chamberlain case, when a nine-week-old baby had been taken by a dingo from the camping site at Ayers Rock. “But Amy Bergen was two years old,” Suzanne protested. “Surely...”

“The police think it’s conclusive.”

“No other trace of her?”

“Apparently not. It’s hardly to be expected after this length of time, Suzanne,” he added softly.

Her shoulders slumped. “No. I suppose not.”

“Leith Carew isn’t prepared to accept it. Understandable enough.”

“Yes,” she bit out, concentrating fiercely on tearing up lettuce leaves. The Leith Carews of this world weren’t good at accepting anything they didn’t like. But he had to, she thought grimly, when he had no other choice.

Whether that triggered the next thought that came into her mind, Suzanne did not stop to consider. She turned impulsively to Brendan and the words spilled from her lips. “I think it’s time we started a family. Are you ready to be a father, Brendan?”

The change in his expression lifted Suzanne’s heart. His grin was a glorious beam of delight and his eyes sparkled with happiness. “More than ready if you are, my darling,” he said as he swept her into his arms.

There followed a night of sweet plans and intense loving that comprehensively wiped Leith Carew from Suzanne’s mind.

The idea of having a baby was still a warm glow inside her the next morning as she checked the progress of the babies brought to the clinic by their proud mothers. Suzanne had always loved this part of her work at the community services complex.

It had taken a while for the aboriginal people to accept her as someone who could give helpful advice on health problems. It had probably been easier for her than for any other nurse, because both she and Tom James had been adopted into the same family, and although there was no blood link between them, she was accorded the status of his sister.

They trusted Tom. It was he who had persuaded the government to build this facility, and he had been the driving force behind establishing the progressive programs that not only focussed on their present and future welfare, but kept their ancient culture a positive and proud force in their lives.

Here their art and folklore were practised and preserved for future generations. Community councils were held to settle disputes and set goals that concentrated on self-sufficiency rather than a reliance on government funds. In former years there had been much misunderstanding about the social system of the indigenous Australians but it was given more respect now, thanks to people like Tom, who formed a bridge between the old world and the new.

Since she had married Brendan, Tom had been teasing Suzanne about starting a family of her own, but it wasn’t something she had wanted to rush into. She enjoyed her work and the sense of sharing it gave her with Brendan. Now, the decision felt very right to her. She was twenty-six years old and ready to be a mother.

When the clinic was over, she couldn’t resist dropping by Tom’s office to tell him her plans for the future. He could stop teasing her from now on, and start looking forward to being an uncle. She was grinning over the pleasure that would give him as she entered his secretary’s office. Before she could inquire if Tom was free, Suzanne heard the raised voice of Leith Carew, its tone terse and angry.

“What’s this about?” she asked the secretary.

A shrug and a helpless gesture pleaded ignorance.

Suzanne looked at the door into Tom’s office. Every self-protective instinct urged her to leave right now, avoid any further involvement with Leith Carew. But anger meant he wasn’t getting his own way, and he probably didn’t realise that his way was not Tom’s way, and never would be. If he was looking for trackers to continue the search for his niece...

Suzanne shuddered. Despite the police interpretation of the clothing found near the dingo’s lair, she knew in her heart that if this was her family, she wouldn’t give up, either, no matter what the odds against finding the child alive. She could well imagine the endless torture of wondering if enough had been done to find her. Not to have a decisive resolution would be very hard to live with.

Compassion fought with common sense and won. Or perhaps something else drew her to the door, something Suzanne did not want to recognise or acknowledge. She was aware of her pulse quickening as she turned the knob and pushed. Fear, she told herself, fear of how her life might be irrevocably linked to Leith Carew’s.

As she stepped into the room Leith Carew’s hand slammed down on Tom’s desk. “What more do you want?” he thundered in frustration.

Tom’s face wore the imperturbable look that was so deeply etched in his heritage, and Suzanne instantly knew that Leith Carew had inadvertently attacked values and beliefs that were sacred to her adopted brother, sacred to the ancient Pitjantjatjara tribe to which he belonged. Leith Carew could rage at him all day and Tom would maintain his ageless dignity, as little bothered by the other man’s words as he would be by flies buzzing around his head.

He saw her in the doorway and rose from his chair to greet her. “Suzanne...”

Leith Carew spun around, the energy he was expending suddenly focussed on her, enveloping her with electric force. The initial incredulity on his face was swiftly replaced by a look of satisfaction as though her appearance in his life answered some question that had disturbed him.

I shouldn’t have come in here. The thought flashed through Suzanne’s mind. A ripple of panic coursed through her body as her gaze was caught and held by the man she didn’t want to know. The feeling was stronger this time, the feeling that they had to mean something to each other. It must have to do with the child, Suzanne reasoned frantically. She couldn’t let it be anything else.

She tore her gaze from his and quickly addressed her brother. “Tom, please do whatever is necessary to continue the search for the little girl.”

He gave Leith Carew a look that clearly said the man had no understanding of what was involved.

“Do it your way,” Suzanne urged. “Please, for me, for all of us. She’s a lost child, Tom.”

He knew what she meant. Each and every one of their brothers and sisters in the James family had been a lost child in one sense or another before being adopted. Tom was the only exception, and Suzanne was not sure the appeal would strike home.

No-one knew Tom’s exact age. He had possibly been as young as nine or as old as twelve when he had been spotted alone in the desert by a scouting aeroplane for the Bureau of Mineral Resources. He had not been lost. He had been at home in territory that was familiar to him. But government welfare officers had subsequently found him and taken him to the Warburton Mission, believing it was for his own good.

There he had observed and despised how the ways of his people were corrupted by government hand-outs. When Suzanne’s adopted parents offered him a home with them, Tom took the opportunity to get out of the mission, determined to learn the white man’s ways, then use them for the benefit of his people.

He was doing a marvellous job of it, too, Suzanne thought proudly, but whether his commitment to his ancient culture would be swayed by the underlying ethos of the James family, a caring response to those in need, despite colour, race or creed, she truly did not know.

Leith Carew would never emit that kind of need to a fellow man. He was too arrogant, too inured in the power of his family’s wealth. But Suzanne had not appealed to Tom for the sake of this man. It was for the child, the helpless, innocent child who was in the desert through no fault of her own.

Tom slowly nodded acceptance. “For you I will do it. What can be done will be done, Suzanne,” he promised her.

She gave him a brilliant smile of relief, then without so much as glancing at Leith Carew, she stepped back and drew the door shut after her. She pushed her shaky legs into a brisk walk. The need to get away as fast as she could was not logical, if her only link with Leith Carew was to be the recovery of his niece, but Suzanne did not stop to analyse the feelings he stirred in her.

She heard footsteps running down the corridor behind her and didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. Her heart pounded in panicky agitation. She hurried through the exit doors, fiercely willing Leith Carew to have second thoughts and go back to Tom. She had done all she could for him.

She was halfway to where her car was parked when he called to her. “Mrs. Forbes, please...would you wait a minute for me?”

It would be sixty seconds too long, Suzanne advised herself, yet her feet slowed as uncertainty clouded her mind. She did not want Leith Carew pursuing her to the medical centre. Better to deal with him here and now. Get it over with.

She stopped.

He caught up with her.

“I wish to ask you...thank you for what you just did.”

Suzanne steeled herself to meet his eyes and challenge any claim he might make on her. “Mr. Carew. I didn’t do it for you. It was for the child. I would have done it for anyone in such circumstances as these.”

“Why did you come? How did you know? Rarely am I surprised, but when you came through that door, you just seemed to appear out of nowhere like an angel sent to ease despair.”

“I’m not an angel, Mr. Carew, and I want to go now.”

“You can’t!” His green eyes warred with the guarded reserve in hers. “There’s something special happening between us. I sense it. I know it.”

“No. There’s nothing. Nothing at all,” Suzanne denied with vehemence, inadvertently revealing the inner turmoil he stirred.

“I’ve never been so drawn to any woman in my life before.”

She flushed, guiltily aware of the attraction he exerted over her. “You mustn’t say things like that. It’s wrong.”

She started to turn away. He grasped her arm to halt her. His fingers seemed to burn into her skin, making the heat of the day negligible in comparison.

“Do you love your husband?”

The question hurt. It jabbed totally unacceptable doubts into her mind. It squeezed her heart. She wasn’t sure she knew what love was anymore. Only that being with Brendan had never been like being with Leith Carew. This was so physical, so immediate, so terribly strong. Not a quiet growing together with many mutual satisfactions giving a sweet and satisfying depth to their feelings for each other.

She felt a dreadful sense of betrayal in even hesitating over her reply. Her eyes flashed wild defiance at Leith Carew. “What I share with my husband is...”

“Come with me. Be with me. Let what’s happening to us unfold in its own natural course.”

The urgent passion in his voice threw Suzanne into more emotional upheaval. “Have you no sense of morality?” she flung at him accusingly. “Of knowing right from wrong?”

“Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. To let it go without exploring it...” He shook his head, unable to express the compulsion burning through him. His eyes seared hers with blazing determination. “I won’t turn my back on it.”

“Then I will,” she bit out with equal determination. “Let me go, Mr. Carew. I will not be party to anything that hurts my husband.”

She tried to pull her arm out of his grasp. His hold on her tightened. “You can’t love him. I don’t believe it. We were meant for each other.”

“You don’t know anything about me!” Suzanne cried, desperate to break free of this soul-tearing encounter.

“I know how I feel.”

“And that’s all you care about, isn’t it?” she fired at him bitterly. “Never mind anyone else’s feelings! Did you stop to wonder why Tom didn’t respond to whatever you were offering him?”

He made a sharp dismissive gesture. Then as though struck by second thoughts, his eyes narrowed, and he asked, “Why did he respond to you as he did?”

She lifted her head proudly. “Because I’m his sister. And we share an understanding that you don’t have, Mr. Carew.”

“His sister?” Shock and puzzlement chased across his face.

“You see? You know nothing about me. Or Tom. Where we come from or who we are.”

“I know you can’t be any blood relation to him. Tom James is of the Pitjantjatjara tribe. I was told he lived in the Gibson Desert as a boy, and no-one knows it as well as he does.”

“That’s right! But you can’t go over the heads of the aboriginal trackers who assisted the police. Tom wouldn’t insult them by taking your offer. It’s a matter of respect. And sharing. Your best course is to give a donation that will benefit the whole community, and let Tom organise the search with the others. There are rules and customs that you’ll just have to be patient with if you want the best result. Listen to my brother and do as he says. And that advice is all I can give you, Mr. Carew.”

“No. It doesn’t end here,” he insisted, shaking off the distraction she had hit him with.

“Yes, it does!”

“I won’t let it.”

“Brendan Forbes is the most decent man I’ve ever met. Last night I hope I conceived his child. Does that tell you how I feel, Mr. Carew?”

She saw the colour drain from his face. The intense conviction in his eyes glazed to a look of tortured uncertainty. The strength of his grasp on her arm slackened. She pulled free and propelled herself towards her car, her whole body churning against the threatened violation of the life she knew, the life she had made for herself, the life she shared with Brendan.

She reached the car.

“Suzanne...please...”

His voice tugged at her. She fought against it, clutching at the door handle, yanking it, uncaring that the hot metal scorched her fingers.

“I beg you to reconsider.”

“No.” The word was torn from her. “No!” she repeated vehemently as she opened the door and stepped around it, ready to get into the car. Then she looked at Leith Carew for the last time, firmly enunciating the only involvement she had with him. “I hope Tom can help you. I hope they can find the child.”

Then she closed herself into her car and drove off.

It came as a shock when she found herself parking at the medical centre. She had no recollection of the trip across town. Not that it mattered now. She had arrived safely. And she had left Leith Carew behind.

Despite the oven-like heat of the car, Suzanne felt too drained to move. It was as though the encounter had sapped all her energy. She wished she could empty her mind of it. Wipe out the memory. Wipe out its impact on her.

She found herself wondering what might have been if she had met Leith Carew before she had met Brendan. A useless thought, with the unpleasant taint of disloyalty. She squashed it and pushed herself out of the car. A wave of dizziness caused her to sway. Her legs felt watery.

Get out of the sun, her mind dictated.

Get out of the heat.

Get on with your life.

CHAPTER THREE

AMY BERGEN WAS NOT FOUND.

Tom told Suzanne privately that the little girl had been taken from the scene of her parents’ tragic deaths, but not by a dingo. He had tracked as far as two aboriginal camp sites. The search had been defeated by limestone outcrops that made it impossible to pick up any direction. Who had taken the child and where they were now, weeks after the last trace of them had been left behind, was impossible to tell.

No more could be done. Not even an army could find aboriginal nomads who didn’t want to be found. The great outback held too many secret places for those who inhabited it.

A reward that ran into six figures was posted for any information that led to the recovery of the child.

Leith Carew left Alice Springs without making any attempt to see Suzanne again.

His departure lifted a weight off her mind.

* * *

EIGHTEEN MONTHS WENT BY, eighteen months that made devastating changes to Suzanne’s life.

The joy of becoming pregnant was shattered by a miscarriage at three months. Suzanne became obsessed with conceiving again. Somehow having a baby was all important. She did not allow herself to dwell on why. Subconsciously she knew it was connected to putting the insidious memory of Leith Carew behind her and making an absolute affirmation of her commitment to Brendan.

She became more and more desperate and uptight about it as month followed month and it did not happen. Brendan persuaded her that she needed to relax and forget about getting pregnant for a while. He decided to take her on a second honeymoon.

They flew to Sydney for a quick visit to relatives and a shopping spree. The plan was to fly on to Brisbane, then over to one of the Whitsunday Islands near the Great Barrier Reef. They didn’t make it past Brisbane.

Brendan became so ill on the flight that an ambulance was called to the airport to take him to the hospital. Suzanne could not believe it when the doctors told her he was a victim of a current variation of legionnaire’s disease. That was something that happened to other people. She and Brendan didn’t even live in Sydney. It had only been a brief visit.

Throughout her desperate worry over Brendan she was pestered by questions from health authorities who worked around the clock to pinpoint the source of the deadly bacteria. What shopping centres had they gone to? Had they stayed at a hotel? The bacteria was generally found in air-conditioning ducts or warm-water plumbing systems.

Suzanne answered automatically, questioning why she hadn’t caught the disease as well. No-one could explain. The incident of the disease, compared to the number of people exposed to it, was minuscule.

The doctors couldn’t make Brendan better. All they could do was treat the dreadful symptoms and ease the pain.

He died four days later.

Suzanne had stayed with him every hour she could, day and night, sitting by his bed, holding his hand, willing him to be one of the survivors.

It was her big American brother, Zachary Lee, who came to take her away. She couldn’t accept that Brendan was dead.

“He’s gone, Suzanne,” Zachary Lee told her, wrapping her in his gentle bear hug, enclosing her in the warm security of the caring he had always shown her. “There’s no more you can do.”

Somehow his soft words crumpled the hard shell of disbelief she had clung to in the shock of her bereavement. Nothing seemed real anymore. Only the firm solidity of her big brother gave substance to the truth she had to face.

It was Zachary Lee who had found her all those years ago amongst the bewildering crowd at the Calgary Stampede, alone and frightened and crying her eyes out because she couldn’t find her father. She clung to him now as she had clung to him then, a steady rock, emanating a comforting security that was totally dependable.

“I didn’t love him enough, Zachary Lee,” she sobbed in despair.

“Yes, you did,” he assured her.

“No. You don’t understand. I wanted a baby. We wouldn’t have made this trip if...”

“Don’t, Suzanne. You have nothing to blame yourself for. What happened was beyond your control. Anyone’s control. Don’t torment yourself with what might have been.”

Zachary Lee talked to her for a long time. But it didn’t help. It was one of those situations where no-one could possibly have foreseen the consequences, but in her heart of hearts, Suzanne had little doubt that if she’d never met Leith Carew, Brendan would not be dead.

The James family gathered to give their support to Suzanne, both at Brendan’s funeral and in the weeks and months that followed.

Nothing helped.

Her sister Rebel and Rebel’s husband, Lord Davenport, flew all the way from England to give her what consolation they could. Thirteen brothers and sisters of many different nationalities and backgrounds formed a cocoon of love and strength around Suzanne. The two people who had adopted them and welded them into a unique family remained close by, to be called on at any time.

There was a cold lonely place inside Suzanne that none of their warm caring could touch. She was grateful to them for being there for her, as she knew they always would be in times of need, but it did not make up for what she had lost.

The memory she held of Leith Carew became meaningless. Why did it take a disaster to reveal how much she cared for the man she had married? Brendan had been solid reality, Leith Carew a mere fantasy of what might have been in another time and place.

Her sister Tiffany and Tiffany’s husband, Joel, invited her to stay with them in their beautiful home on Leisure Island. “You need someone to look after you for a while,” Tiffany pressed, believing that her bright, optimistic nature could draw her sister out of her mental and emotional retreat from life.

Suzanne didn’t want to, but somehow it seemed mean to refuse when they were being so kind. Zachary Lee also urged her to accept. The island was close to Surfers Paradise, not far from Brisbane, where he lived.

Tom promised to look after her home in Alice Springs. Suzanne was not to worry about anything. The family would take care of whatever needed to be taken care of.