The Cattleman's Bride

Sarah moved the bead display to one side and hoisted her briefcase onto the counter. “Wait till you see what I’ve got for us.”

“Not another electronic gadget, I hope. I still haven’t figured out the clock radio-cum-coffeemaker you gave me last Christmas.”

“Oh, Mom.” Sarah handed her an instruction booklet. “How are you doing with the laptop?”

“Don’t ask.”

“It would make your business so much more efficient if you’d only let it.”

“I’m a Luddite, I’ll admit. But I don’t have room in my brain for programming instructions for a dozen different machines.” Anne flipped through the pages of the booklet. “What’s this, now?”

Sarah pulled two identical cellular phones from her briefcase. “Aren’t they great? They also do fax and e-mail. We’ll be able to communicate at all times.”

Anne took one and gingerly turned it over in her hands. “When someone invents a device that facilitates genuine communication between people it’ll be worth a fortune.”

“Mom. Don’t go all airy-fairy on me. Now watch. You press this button to make a phone call. That one to send a fax, and that and that for e-mail. Don’t worry about the Internet connection. I’ve hooked you up to my server.”

“I’ll never use it.”

“Try it,” she urged. “You’ll be surprised.”

Anne put the cell phone down and held up her desk phone. “You can call me on this. And you’ve already got a cell phone. Why do you need another?”

“I thought it would be fun. This is an updated model that’s compatible with Australia and Japan. The new digital system spans the Pacific. Cool, huh?”

“Amazing.”

Sarah ignored her mother’s dry tone and packed her phone back in her briefcase. “Why don’t you come with me to Queensland? It would be so much more fun going together.”

The bell over the door tinkled. Two teenage girls entered, smiled a greeting to Anne and disappeared behind a rack of cotton dresses from Ghana.

“I can’t leave the shop just now, darl’.” Anne gestured around her at the displays of colorful bric-a-brac.

To Sarah the store looked just as it always did—cluttered and colorful and a little too retro for her taste, but not desperate for attention. “Your friend Mandy would take care of the place for you.”

“She left last night for two weeks in Mexico.” Anne, her face suddenly troubled, reached out to stroke the hair away from Sarah’s cheek. “You’re the sweetest girl in the world, but are you sure you want to do this?”

Sarah gave her a tight smile. “Not entirely. I’d really miss you if you moved back there.”

“Then why don’t you sell your half of the station and buy the apartment you have your heart set on?”

Sarah dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “What would I want with an apartment? I’m too young to settle down.”

“What about what’s-his-name, Quincy—?”

“Quentin.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “He gets a rash every time the word marriage is mentioned and rushes off to phone his analyst.”

“I thought he was an analyst.”

“He is, but apparently Physician Heal Thyself doesn’t apply to shrinks. Anyway, I’ve decided I can’t marry him. I want a real man.”

Anne laughed. “And what is that, darl’?”

“I don’t know exactly, but it’s not Quentin.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m on my way to the travel agent. Are you sure you don’t want to come? I could book us two seats. You’ve never been back except for Pop’s funeral, then Nana’s, and that was years ago. We could have so much fun together.”

Anne’s eyes clouded. “There are too many ghosts, darl’, living and dead.”

Sarah studied her mother’s face, totally not understanding her reluctance and certain it was time those ghosts were laid to rest. “Mom, all my life you’ve sacrificed for me. At last I have a chance to do something really special for you.”

“I appreciate the thought more than I can say. You have a good time in Oz. You can tell me all about it when you get back. If nothing else you’ll have a break from work. It’s been what—two years since you’ve had a holiday?”

“Something like that. I’m looking forward to this trip. You know, discovering my roots and all.”

A tiny smile curled Anne’s mouth. “Maybe you’ll decide to stay.”

Sarah laughed. “Not a chance.”

“Make sure you pack lightweight clothing. It’s heading toward summer down there and it gets hot.”

“I’m going shopping right after I arrange for my ticket.”

“Take care, darl’,” Anne said, hugging Sarah close. “If you run into Len Johnson, tell him…” She trailed off, her cheeks tinged with pink.

Sarah didn’t think she’d ever seen her mother blush before. “Tell him what? Who’s Len Johnson?”

The teenage girls came up to the counter with an armload of scented candles. Anne nodded to them before replying, “Just someone I used to…know. On second thought, you don’t need to tell him anything.”

Sarah moved aside so the girls could lay their purchases on the counter. “This is going to be so cool,” she said. “Seeing your old stomping grounds, meeting your old friends…”

“Don’t expect too much,” Anne warned. “Compared with Seattle, Murrum is just a dusty little town in the back of beyond.”

“I’m going to love it! Anyway, it’s only for two weeks. I’ll be back before you know it.”

CHAPTER TWO

SARAH SHIFTED uncomfortably on the bus seat. The hem of her skirt had ridden up and her bare thighs were sticking to the vinyl. She’d been traveling for over thirty-six hours and she felt grimy and hot and sweaty. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d brushed her teeth.

The air-conditioning had broken down hours ago. The second-last passenger got out not long after. The sun was a yellow glare in a frighteningly immense blue-white sky. The flat red earth, sparsely covered with dry grass and dotted with cattle, spread to a distant horizon. With a shudder she pulled her gaze back inside the bus. Outside was too big, too empty, to look at.

Australians might affectionately call their country Oz, she thought moodily, but out here the yellow brick road was a dusty red track across hundreds of miles of nothing and it led away from Seattle, the Emerald City, not to it.

Out of the heat haze appeared the silhouettes of houses and stores. Oh, thank heavens, a town. Like the other towns she’d passed through, the shops had false fronts, wide streets and broad wooden awnings that shaded the sidewalk. They looked a little like towns of the Old West except for the occasional palm tree, which destroyed the illusion. The bus passed a tiny wooden church and a big, ornate hotel with a second-story veranda before slowing to a halt beside a boarded-up train station.

Murrumburrumgurrandah. The town’s moniker rattled along the sign above the platform like an old man’s phlegmy cough.

Shielding her eyes from the blinding sun, Sarah stepped off the bus onto the hard-packed red dirt beside the road. The heat hit her like a dry sauna, sucking the moisture from her skin and turning her ivory linen skirt and top as soft as dishrags.

While the driver retrieved her luggage Sarah stood in the shade of the corrugated-iron bus shelter and fanned herself with the magazine she’d bought in Sydney. It kept the flies off but didn’t provide much of a breeze. If she didn’t get to someplace cool right now she was going to expire of heat exhaustion.

“Someone meeting you?” The driver set her bags at her feet, then wiped the sweat off his forehead, smearing his skin with red dust.

“Yes, at least I think so. Is there a taxi service into the town center?” Second on her priority list was a long cool drink followed by a double latte with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon.

The driver tipped back his hat to scratch his head. “This is the center of town.”

That was what she’d been afraid of.

“Where is everybody?”

He shrugged. “Middle of the day, most folks stay out of the sun.”

“Do you know if there’s a telephone booth?” The batteries on her cell phone were flat from hours of talking to her mother in the airport and on the train trip.

“You can call from the petrol station up the road.”

“Thanks.”

The driver got back in his bus, made a U-turn in the middle of the wide empty street and pulled away in a cloud of red dust. When the pall had cleared Sarah gazed around her for anyone who might be Luke Sampson. There was no one in sight but a lone sheep chewing the stubble beside the road, its fleece as red and dusty as the dirt. Could this deserted place really be the bustling town of her mother’s childhood?

Panic fluttered in her breast. Spooky music echoed in her brain. She’d entered the twilight zone.

And not a drive-through coffee stall in sight.

Stop it, she told herself. Think. Petrol was gasoline. So the petrol station would be that low-slung building up ahead with the pumps. Looking closer, she saw that in the dappled shade of a gum tree, two men sat on a bench, drinking soda from bottles and watching her.

With the sun crisping the skin on her nose and the sweat dripping down the back of her neck, Sarah hitched up her bags, quashed her misgivings and set forth across the baking tarmac. Her spirits picked up a little when she saw the men wave. At least the locals were friendly. Her hands were full and she couldn’t wave back, so she smiled, instead. The men kept waving languidly. Sarah kept smiling. She smiled and smiled.

Until a fly buzzed around her nose and she shook her head to send it away. Another fly came and landed on her chin. Half a dozen more lit on her arms and on her hands, still wrapped around the suitcase handles. One landed on her upper lip and tried to fly up her nostril. Eeeuuww. She dropped her bags in the middle of the road and batted at the cloud of flies buzzing around her head.

The men weren’t being friendly—they were waving away the damn flies!

A once white Land Cruiser, now red with caked-on dust, motored around the corner and pulled in at the service station. A man in beige pants and a light-brown shirt with the sleeves rolled up got out. He lifted his broad-brimmed hat, revealing wheat-colored hair streaked with gold and ocher. “G’day. Sarah Templestowe?”

The voice from the telephone. “Luke. Hi.”

A large sun-browned hand enclosed hers in a callused grip. “Bus must’ve been on time for once.”

She shrugged and smiled, too hot and weary to make small talk. But not too tired to notice his piercing blue eyes.

He picked up her bags. “If you don’t need anything in town we’ll save the Cook’s tour for another day and head straight to Burrinbilli.”

“Fine.” She doubted there was a single thing in this godforsaken town she wanted. As for tourist attractions, the concept made her want to laugh. Which was maybe his intention, though it was hard to tell from that dry-as-dust tone.

They went past the men on the bench. The younger man, deeply tanned and not more than twenty, wore a large sheathed knife strapped to the belt of his dusty shorts, and an open shirt with the sleeves cut out. Around his neck was a choker of some carnivore’s teeth. He raised a smoothly muscled brown arm to tip back a leather hat with a feather stuck in the band. “Luke. How ya goin’, mate?”

“Could be worse.” Luke gestured to Sarah. “This is Sarah, from Seattle. She’s the new part owner of Burrinbilli. This is Bazza.” He indicated the young man. “And this is Len,” he added, nodding at the older man. “Len’s the mayor of Murrum and he owns the general store.”

Len. Sarah eyed him curiously. He looked about Anne’s age, and under his broad-brimmed hat his face was kindly and intelligent. A hearing aid was tucked discreetly behind one ear. He wore a blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up and navy twill pants. He was studying her, too.

She smiled at them both. “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

“I’ll be mustering in a week or so,” Luke said to Bazza. “Interested?”

“Yep. I reckon Gus and Kev’ll be interested, as well.” Bazza pulled out tobacco and rolling papers and leisurely prepared a cigarette. He glanced at Sarah. “You been to Hollywood?”

“Uh, no,” she said, caught off guard. “Although my mother took me to Disneyland on my tenth birthday.”

“I was in a movie some American blokes filmed out here last year.” He lit his rollie and squinted through a puff of blue smoke. “Outback Ordeal. Ever heard of it?”

Bazza’s drawl and thick accent forced her to listen hard to understand his words. Aware of Luke standing slightly behind her, waiting, she searched for a tactful remark. “I don’t get to a lot of movies.”

Len spoke. “You’re Anne Hafford’s daughter.”

“Yes,” she said, happily seizing on a link with reality. “Mom told me about you. Well, she didn’t actually tell me anything. Just that I should say hello if I saw you. It’s so cool to meet someone from her childhood. Did you know her very well?”

He smiled blandly. “A little. For a while.”

She couldn’t read his face so she just babbled on. “She’ll be so pleased I met you. And on my very first day, too. I’ll tell her you said hello, shall I?”

There was a long pause. “If you like.”

Behind her, Luke cleared his throat. She glanced back and he nodded toward the four-wheel-drive. Sure, Sarah thought, as she turned to follow him, why waste words? She’d used enough for all four of them. “Nice meeting you,” she said again over her shoulder to Bazza and Len.

When she was a few steps away she heard Bazza say in a low voice obviously not meant for her ears, “Not hard on the old peepers, but a bit of a dag, don’t you reckon?”

Sarah couldn’t make out Len’s softly spoken reply. Dag? she thought, and strode after Luke. What the heck was a dag? Or had he said dog? She’d never been called a dog before.

Luke was placing her bags in the back of the Land Cruiser. “Is he for real?” she asked.

“Bazza?” Luke smiled. “Ever since he got a bit part in that movie he’s been waiting for a call from Spielberg. Thinks he’s bloody Crocodile Dundee. Don’t pay any attention.”

“He doesn’t bother me,” she said. It was Len she found unsettling. She’d give anything to know what had gone on between him and her mother.

She climbed in on the passenger side and strapped herself in, noticing with dismay that her top and skirt were dusted with fine red earth. So much for first impressions. She tried to brush the earth off and it smeared, staining the pale fabric. Perfect.

She caught Luke staring at her. “It’s okay. Rust is my color. What’s a dag?”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Don’t worry about it.”

He started the vehicle and drove through town—a trip that took all of ten seconds.

Sarah flipped down the sunshade to reduce the glare and kept her gaze firmly fixed on the truck’s interior. Her discomfort at being surrounded by the wide-open spaces was increasing instead of easing. After this, Burrinbilli had better be good.

Be positive, she chided herself. Be the little Aussie battler your mother taught you to be.

After this, Burrinbilli would be damn good.

LUKE DROVE in silence, thinking about poor Wal, who’d been left at home in case Sarah Templestowe was afraid of dogs, and how pathetic his life must be if he felt less comfortable with a woman seated beside him instead of Wal. He rubbed his jaw, unused to being smooth-shaven in the middle of the day.

“Mustering is like a roundup, right?” Sarah asked.

Damn, he’d forgotten to put up the notice in Len’s store advertising for a muster cook. “That’s right. Normally we muster during winter, when it’s cooler. Cattle don’t like working in this heat.”

“Why the delay?”

“I broke my leg in a tractor accident a couple months back. Took a while to heal.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. What kind of cows do you—we—own?”

“Santa Gertrudis.”

“Oh.”

He glanced sideways and caught her mild frown. No doubt cows were like cars to a city-bred woman—identified by color rather than breed or model. “They’re the solid reddish-brown ones. Originated in Texas.”

“Oh. And the cattle yards you mentioned on the phone are…?”

“Where we hold the cattle after we bring them in from the run—for branding, drenching, cutting out the yearling bulls—whatever needs doing.” He realized she was actually listening. Maybe she was interested in the station. Well, it would justify her father’s hanging on to it all these years, but it didn’t bode well for him buying her out. “Do you ride?”

She hesitated, casting a lightning-swift glance out the window. “Er, once or twice at summer camp. I don’t suppose that counts.”

“I could find you a gentle mount.”

“You don’t have to worry about entertaining me,” she added quickly. “I’m only here for a short time and I’m sure I’ll have way too much to do to be a tourist.”

“Fine.” It was all he could do just taking care of the station and dealing with Becka.

“How far is it to Burrinbilli?” she asked.

“Eighty kilometers or thereabouts. This grassy plains country we’re driving through is called the Downs.” His gaze slipped sideways again, to see her lightly freckled nose wrinkle as she engaged in mental calculations. Her cheek was smeared with dust and her clothes a disaster. Her auburn hair was twisted up at the back, but the ends sprayed out in a spiky arc from the plastic thing that clamped it in place.

He smiled. Bazza was right. She did look a bit of a dag. Still, clean her up and she’d be bonza—tall, with long, strong limbs. He liked a woman who didn’t look as if she might snap in a stiff breeze. She had the warm coloring that went with auburn hair and the clearest green eyes he’d ever seen.

“Why, that’s…fifty miles!” she exclaimed. She whipped her head around to look through the rear window at the road down which they’d come. “Please don’t tell me Murrum is the nearest town.”

“Didn’t you know that?”

“I knew it was a long way from Burrinbilli to the town, but from what my mother said, Murrum was a bustling place.”

“Things have changed since your mother’s day.” He couldn’t keep the trace of bitterness out of his voice. “First the train stopped coming through. Then the banks pulled out. Then we lost the post office and the government offices were relocated. Wasn’t much left after that except the pub, the petrol station and the general store. Oh, and the church. They share that around the various religions.”

She shook her head sympathetically. “Economic rationalism strikes again.”

She was right, but something in him didn’t want her feeling sorry for the place he called home. “Some folks say Murrum’s picking up again. Tourism and such.”

There was the briefest pause. “I’m sure it is.”

Luke had spent enough time in cities to know what she must be thinking: why would anyone live out here? It wasn’t something city folk understood. Not many people who came from the “big smoke” stayed long to discover the attraction. Rose had stayed. But Rose had married Tony, the owner of the pub. Luke couldn’t see someone like Sarah settling down with anyone around here.

“How long did you say you were here for?”

“I’ve taken my two weeks’ annual leave. I’ve also got a few weeks’ worth of flextime owing me, but I’m hoping to be home before the end of the month.”

He reckoned she’d be long gone before that. Bazza and Len each had five dollars on the departure date. They’d wanted to cut him in, but seeing as she was staying at his house, he didn’t think it right to participate.

But it wasn’t just his house, he realized. Their house? That didn’t sound right. He and Warren had never felt the need to clarify who had rights to the homestead.

They passed a small wooden cottage set back from the road. Luke pointed it out with a nod. “That’s where my daughter’s great-aunt Abby lives. Becka’s visiting her this afternoon after school.”

“How old is your daughter?”

“Nine.”

“You didn’t mention a wife. Are you divorced?”

She inquired with such innocent directness he found it hard to take offense. But some people needed to understand that other people didn’t like to talk about their personal lives. He told her part of the truth. “I’ve never been married.”

“Oh.”

He could tell she wanted to know more, but this time she just nodded and pressed her lips together. There was nothing shameful about his relationship with Caroline. She just hadn’t wanted to get married, not even after she’d gotten pregnant. She’d said she didn’t want to marry anybody, but she’d died before it could be proven one way or the other.

“Are you going to have to go all the way back for Becka?” Sarah asked.

Luke shook his head. “Abby’s bringing her out later.”

Silence fell over the truck. She must be thinking up more questions, Luke thought. He stared straight ahead, not wanting to disturb the peace, and wondered if the fencing materials he’d ordered would arrive tomorrow. Halfway to the station turnoff the bitumen ended and they continued on a hard-packed red dirt road. A road that developed deep pockets of fine dust called bulldust in the Dry and became a red bog—and often a lake—in the Wet. When they had a decent Wet.

“I can’t wait to go for a swim,” Sarah said, plucking her damp top away from her chest.

He gave a short laugh. “Swim?”

“Yes, in Lake Burrinbilli.” Sarah leaned back with a dreamy smile. “When I was a little girl Mom told me how she and her brother, Robby, used to swim there. With this heat I can see why it’s important to have water nearby.”

“Your mother told you she swam in a lake?” He wanted to laugh, but it wouldn’t be nice.

“Everything sounded beautiful, the way she described it—the old Victorian homestead set among ghost gums, and out the back, not far away, Lake Burrinbilli. I am so hot and that water is going to feel so good.”

Ah, that lake. Luke wished he’d placed a bet with Bazza and Len after all. He would have cut Bazza’s estimate of four days in half. “The, ah, water level’s down a little. Not too good for swimming.”

Her mouth drooped, but only for a moment. “Oh, well, splashing around will cool me off.”

“There might be a water hole in the creek that hasn’t dried up.”

Her eyes widened. “But…?”

He caught sight of the old refrigerator they used as a mailbox and geared down. “Here we are.”

“Where?” She gazed around at the featureless landscape. He could swear he saw her shudder.

“The driveway,” Luke said, and turned off onto a rutted dirt track.

Sarah took another glance outside and this time he was positive about the look of revulsion.

“The driveway?” she repeated, aghast.

“Yep. Only thirty kilometers to the homestead from here.”

Sarah heard this with a sinking heart. By now she knew every detail of the dashboard as well as she knew the keyboard of her computer. She watched the digital speedometer with glazed eyes. Anything to take her mind off the weird feeling that stopped her from looking out the window. She’d never experienced anything like it before. But then, she’d spent all her life nestled between the mountains and the sea, swaddled in cozy enveloping clouds that lowered the sky and brought the horizon in close.

Just when she thought she couldn’t stand it another minute, she saw in the distance a stand of smooth white-limbed trees and the sloping roof of the homestead, half-buried among their leafy branches.

Burrinbilli at last.

She’d never been here and the landscape was completely foreign, but she’d heard so many stories that she felt a strange sense of homecoming. Here, her mother had lived as a child. Here, her grandmother had given birth to her mother. Here, her great-great-grandparents had built the homestead and run cattle.

Luke lived here now. Had for ten years. It probably felt like home to him, too, and for more tangible reasons than hers. She glanced sideways at him, wondering what he really felt about her visiting. His chiseled profile gave nothing away.

“Have you given any more consideration to my offer to buy you out?” she asked.