Outback Wives Wanted!: Wedding at Wangaree Valley / Bride at Briar's Ridge / Cattle Rancher, Secret Son

“I think you could be hypnotised,” he said gently. “Are you brave enough to let me?”

“I don’t think I’m ready …”

“Some part of you has always fought me.”

“I can’t deny it.”

He smiled. “But it hasn’t lasted. Are you going to enter The Naming?”

She dropped her head. “I like to keep a low profile. You know that. Besides, the competition is fierce. It’s not fair that Alex has never been able to enter.”

“Alex is family,” he explained. ‘Besides, she doesn’t need a prize trip.”

“But Alana Callaghan does?” She couldn’t prevent the flare of resentment.

“All I meant is, you ought to do something different, Alana. Win a trip overseas. Enjoy yourself.”

She didn’t look at him. She turned her luminous head away, unaware that even in the semi-dark it glowed. “ I couldn’t enter even if I wanted to. I couldn’t take up any prize even if I won—which is a long way from certain. I’m a working girl. I have to be around to give Dad and Kieran a hand. I have to keep my eye on Dad.”

“How is he?”

Although his voice was full of real interest and concern, she was immediately on the defensive. Guy was a man of immense kindness, who did things for people without drawing attention to it, but she didn’t want to talk about her father, burdened for so long with the worry, the hurt and humiliation of what he had become.

“You know darn well how he is, Guy,” she said, soft vehemence covering her compulsion to cry. “Dad’s a mess.”

“Don’t! I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry.” His hand shot out to encircle her wrist.

She didn’t have the strength to pull away. This man touched her in every way. “I’m not going to embarrass you!” Her pretty teeth were gritted. The light caught the sparkle of tears.

“Do I look like I’m embarrassed?” he challenged.

On the contrary, he radiated a richly sensual tenderness.

“I’m not ever going to cry in front of you,” she vowed.

“You’ll have to take the consequences if you do,” he said enigmatically, not releasing her hand, but stroking her palm with his thumb.

She swallowed hard. Consequences?

“Your father has always resisted grief counselling.” There was regret in his voice. “That’s a pity. There are very good people who can help him. One in particular I’d like him to at least meet.”

She bit her lip. “He won’t do it, Guy.”

“What if I talk to him one more time?”

She made a sad little face. “Dad thinks the world of you, Guy. And I have an awful suspicion you’ve been helping us out financially, but I know you won’t tell me. Even so, I don’t think your trying would do any good. Kieran and I have had to give up. Dad can be very stubborn. Sometimes I think he has a death wish.”

Guy’s hand tightened over hers, causing her to close her eyes at the mounting excitement.

“Don’t say that,” he told her quickly. “There’s been enough tragedy.”

How could she feel comforted and yet delirious with excitement at the same time? It was a fantasy. Did he know what it was doing to her, his thumb on her hand, skin on skin?

“My mother was tremendously upset when your father was killed.” Once again she had strayed into dangerous territory. “When I think back, it was like something deeply personal.”

“Your mother was a truly beautiful and compassionate woman. Leave it at that, Alana.” His striking features were taut.

“I wasn’t … Of course I wasn’t … I wouldn’t dream of …” A disdainful drawl came out of the shadows, causing them to break apart.

“So there you are, Lana,” Violette called. “Simon is looking everywhere for you.”

“Why? Is there some emergency?” Guy turned his dark head as Violette, emanating a powerful jealousy, stalked up to them.

She gave Guy a playful smile. “Why, Guy, you know Simon can’t let her out of his sight for a minute. He’s mad about the girl. Goodness, they already look married. And I’m not the only one to think so.”

“You are the busy little bee, spreading all these rumours,” he pointed out dryly.

“Darling!” Violette protesting took his arm. “I think it’s cute. Those two have been sweethearts almost from the cradle.”

A scream felt like an appropriate response to Alana. Instead she found a smile. “Pardon me if I just run along.”

Once she was inside the house, Simon dived back to her side. “How did the dance go?” he asked eagerly. “You and Guy were really, really good. Everyone was watching you.”

“I loved it,” she confirmed, in a massive understatement. “But actually I crave a cold drink.”

“There’s champagne,” Simon suggested, smiling helpfully. ‘It’s really flowing.”

“Cold water would do nicely.”

“I’ll get some. What about club soda?’

“Fine.” She nodded her head.

“There’s not a thing Guy can’t do.” Simon, his voice full of admiration, steered her towards the drinks table

“He’s The Man, all right!” she agreed laconically.

“He sure is. Look, do you suppose we could get out of here soon? It’s a lovely event, but I’m not much good with parties. I soon run out of chit-chat.”

“You want to go?” Alana looked around for her brother. She spotted him, yet again with Alex.

They obviously preferred talking to dancing, and it was no trivial chit-chat either. They might have been about to face a firing squad together. Another mystery there. She hadn’t seen them dancing together all night. But what perfect foils they were for each other! She supposed that might equally well apply to her and Guy. The striking difference in colouring, of course, the gold and the ebony. She had a presentiment that she should follow Kieran’s direction and take a separate path from the Radcliffes. It wouldn’t have escaped her so-proud brother’s attention that Alex was an heiress. It pretty well put a sign around her neck that read, strictly off-limits. Besides, when Alex was at home she was never without Roger Westcott in tow. A lot of people thought they would marry. The Westcotts were old squattocracy. It was the same old story. Money married money. People with a position in society married their own kind. It helped keep the family fortunes intact.

“Look, I’ll stay if you want to,” Simon was saying selflessly, though he didn’t really enjoy himself when Alana wasn’t around. And all the fellows he knew were looking their way, no doubt awaiting an opportunity to dance with her. “You’re so good with people. I envy you. I always get the feeling people don’t know what I’m saying. The only person in the world I can really relax with is you.”

Sadly, it was true. Rebecca’s brand of mothering had had a disastrous effect on him. Simon had made reticence an art form.

“And I worship Guy,” he tacked on, quite unnecessarily.

“Simon, dear, I don’t have the slightest doubt of that!” She wondered for the first time in her life if she didn’t worship Guy herself?

“Yet I always feel I should recharge the batteries when I’m around him. He’s so vital, so focused. And Alex is a lovely person, but I don’t really know her—she’s so deep. Kieran always gives me the impression he’d like to see me do a stint in the army. Little Rose, now, is sweet. I can see a little bit of you in her.”

Here was an opportunity. Alana seized it. “Well, isn’t that what I keep telling you? You have to get to know Rose better.”

“Let’s go. Let’s get out of here,” Simon said by way of an answer.

When they arrived at Briar’s Ridge, Simon, very properly, got out of the Range Rover to escort her to the door. “I won’t see you tomorrow if you’re going to Wangaree for lunch. You could come over for tea?” he suggested, giving her a beseeching look.

“Doesn’t your mother require a month’s notice?” Alana put up a hand and pinched his cheek, something she’d been doing since the First Grade.

“What about fish and chips down by the river?”

“My very favourite place! Down by the river it is.”

She reached up to kiss his cheek, before sending him on his way, only Simon decided it was his moment to act. The light of battle was in his sky-blue eyes.

“Simon!” she gave a warning wail, not wanting to hurt him, her dearest friend, yet at the same time possessed of a fierce urge to push him away.

But Simon wasn’t about to be put off. He was all buoyed up. “Lainie, I love you,” he declared. “I’ll kill myself if you don’t let me kiss you. You’re the most beautiful girl in the entire world!” He was almost choking with emotion. “Please … please … a proper goodnight kiss.” He placed his hands on her shoulders—she could feel his arms trembling as he gripped her—and dipped his dark head.

What followed was actually quite sweet. In fact Alana nearly thanked him. She’d had a lot of kisses worse than Simon’s. He could easily find a girl to love him, she thought, but no way were they on the cusp of a grand passion.

“I think I hear Dad,” she whispered, thinking that was a sure-fire way to get Simon mobile. Simon was marginally terrified of her father.

“I’d better go, then,” Simon whispered back. “Promise me I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll ring you.” Inside the darkened house there was a noise, as if something fairly light had toppled over. Alana latched on to it. “Could be Dad!” she warned, knowing full well it was most likely their cat.

“Night, then!” Simon took off down the short flight of front steps, then broke into a run.

CHAPTER THREE

BRIAR’S Ridge was into its first week of shearing. For most of the preceding week the brunt of getting the barracks ready for the shearing team had fallen on Alana. The men brought their own cook, and there was a kitchen, bathrooms, and a large communal shower room, but it all had to be cleaned, swept and dusted, mattresses aired, then beds made up with fresh sheets. Alana had had to dig deep to get through it all, but the last sheep was expected to be shorn by the end of the following week.

Wangaree, by far the biggest property in the valley, was already underway, with its shearing expected to go on for weeks.

Alana had loved shearing time from when she was a little girl, and the itinerant shearers—all regulars to Briar’s Ridge—had made a little mascot of her. An extra bonus for this week was the gratifying way her father had managed to remain sober and on the job.

When Alana wasn’t droving sheep to the shed, or taking shorn sheep back to the paddocks, part of her time was spent with the shearers—much to the delight of the men, in particular a newcomer to their ranks, with an excellent reference from a big Western Queensland station.

Even dressed in unisex jeans and a cotton shirt, there was no mistaking Alana for anything else but a beautiful, vibrant young woman with a powerful sex appeal that was entirely natural. Admiring glances came her way aplenty, but no man was fool enough to look at her directly with lust in his eyes. Alan Callaghan was still a daunting presence in the sheds and around the yards. There was her brother Kieran too, a great bloke, but fiercely protective of his sister. And then there were Alana’s dogs, a formidable pair. The upshot was that Alana went where she pleased without a moment’s hassle.

Apart from her golden beauty, the men admired her for her proven abilities and capacity for hard work. Alana could shear a sheep with the best of them. Maybe she didn’t have their strength and endurance, and she couldn’t keep up the count or the pace—she was a woman after all, very fit and in splendid shape but at the end of the day no match for a man—but she came into her own instructing her dogs to draft the sheep through the yards. It was fascinating to watch the dogs in action. Up, under, around, running along the sheeps’ backs. In the shed Alana worked hard, picking up the shorn white fleece the instant it was ready, then throwing it in a smooth arc onto a long slatted table.

That particular day when the men were more than ready for their mid-morning break—although there were no smokers any more, like in the old days, no pollution of human lungs let alone the wool—Thommo, their best and fastest shearer, even if he was the oldest, let her have a go finishing off the last sheep. Thommo had given her and Kieran lots of tips about shearing over the years, which they had taken on board.

“Come on, love. Your go,” Thommo said encouragingly.

“Thanks, Thommo.” There was still plenty to learn.

Beneath her blue shirt Alana was wearing a sports bra and a yellow singlet. All the exterior doors and windows were open, but it had grown very hot in the shed. Without a thought, unselfconsciously she ripped off her cotton shirt.

“Sheep-o!” Thommo yelled as he pulled a fairly hefty ewe from the pen. “You’re on the clock, love.”

And this, then, was how Kieran and Guy found her, when they walked down to the shed to check on how the wool was coming.

“Well under four minutes!” Thommo congratulated her, well pleased.

He took a closer look. She had freed the wool cleanly in one piece, nice and close to the loose kinky skin. He threw her a clean towel and she moved forward to catch it. Sweat was running down the side of her face from her temples, trickling into her cleavage. She was positively glowing.

Guy gave no indication of it, but he was deeply rattled. This wasn’t the Alana he had seen a few weeks back, at the party for the Hartmanns. She had been so beautiful then, in her golden-green dress, hair and make-up immaculate. This was the tomboy Alana Callaghan Guy remembered from only a handful of years before, but the luminosity she had inherited from her mother was a thousand times more potent. She didn’t seem at all uncomfortable, yet the tight yellow singlet drew attention to her small, beautifully shaped breasts, her taut midriff, tiny waist, and the slender strength of her arms. Her lovely, glossier-than-satin skin was dewed with sweat, the ponytail at her nape a damp honey-gold tangle. She looked incredibly erotic.

Guy felt a hard knot tightening in his chest. He felt a powerful impulse to strip off his own shirt and cover her up. His eyes whipped around the shed. Most of the men he knew. They were regulars on the circuit. One fellow he didn’t: young, heavy build, heavy wrists and shoulders, good-looking in a rough sort of way, dark overnight growth on his face. His response to Alana was showing only too starkly.

Guy found himself jamming his hands so they came together like fists. He loathed violence. He’d never had to employ it—he knew he commanded a lot of respect that precluded it—but he had a driving urge to run the shearer not only out of the shed but off a property that wasn’t even his. He had to force himself to calm. If he had his way, Alana would be barred from the shed.

His sister Alex had been treated like a princess from birth. Alex had never been allowed to wander at will around the shearing sheds when the men were there working. She certainly didn’t know how to shear a sheep and class the wool, much less work energetic sheep dogs. Alex’s place had been at the homestead with their mother. She had gone on to university, after which, armed with an arts degree majoring in Fine Art, she had been offered a job at arguably the best art gallery in the country, owned and run by a family friend. A smooth ride—as Alex would be the first one to admit.

Alana too had had her chance at university, but when her mother had been killed there had been nothing else for it but for her to come home. For the past three years she had been a full-time, hard-working farm girl, coping valiantly with a guilt-ridden father with a potentially fatal drinking problem. No easy life for a twenty-two-year-old girl. It came to Guy, not for the first time, that he was powerfully protective of her.

The shearers’cook, a wiry little Chinese man, entered a side door, calling out, “Smoko!” to the men. Morning tea was ready, which meant a mountain of sandwiches, fresh dampers with butter, golden honey or strawberry jam, and a gallon of billy tea.

As she towelled herself off, Alana caught sight of the two men in the main doorway. Their tall, lean figures, wide in the shoulders, narrow in the hips, were silhouetted against the brilliant sunlight.

Guy! He had only to appear and she came unstuck. Settle down, her inner voice advised. She shouldn’t let him do this to her, but so much of life just happened.

Totally unselfconscious only a few minutes before, now she threw the towel down and made a hasty grab for her shirt, pulling it on but letting it hang loose.

“Hey, Lana—want to organise some morning tea for us?” Kieran called to her in a cajoling voice. “I’ll have a few words with Thommo, then I’ll join you both back at the house. Don’t worry about Dad. He and Buddy are flat out at the Second Paddock.”

“Fine. I’ll wash up first.” She walked towards Guy, while Kieran followed the shearers outside into the sunlit courtyard.

“Morning, Guy,” she managed brightly, although her throat had gone bone-dry. “This is a surprise.” She led him off on the shortest route to the house.

Brilliantly enamelled parrots squawked overhead; and a fresh gust of wind sent spent petals flying from the seductive smelling flowers.

“I wanted to have a word with your father.”

“Oh?” She looked up at him quickly, trying to decipher what lay behind those fathomless dark eyes. He sounded very distant for Guy. Indeed, he looked daunting. His eyes were clouded—but with what? Some strong feeling, that was for sure. It unnerved her. Was it anger that overwhelmed him? If so, about what? She kept her head tilted towards him, feeling enormously heated—and it wasn’t just from her recent physical activity. Emotions were running dangerously high. She had never seen Guy this way. She tried to cover her inner agitation with whatever veneer she could muster. “What about?”

“We want to keep it to ourselves.” His expression lightened, but it still troubled her.

“Now you’ve got me really interested.”

“While keeping you out of the loop?” He gave her a faint sideways smile. “No, it’s just private stuff, Alana. Nothing to worry or concern you.” His glance swept her, increasing her jitters.

She was wearing some light gloss that made her heart-shaped mouth look moist and luscious, Guy thought. He knew there were many young men in the Valley in love with her, his own cousin included, but she wasn’t looking to get rescued from the farm. She loved Briar’s Ridge. She was a true country girl, but just too damned desirable to work with the men.

“Shearing is gruelling work,” he said, hearing it come out a lot more tersely than he’d intended.

“You mean you don’t approve of my taking part?” She stared up at him with a little questioning frown. His attitude had taken her by surprise.

He was silent a moment. “Actually, I don’t. There’s a new fellow on the team. What’s his name?”

She gave a little laugh. “Gosh, you worked that out pretty fast. He’s a New Zealander, and he’s good. Great co-ordination. I can’t remember his name. I think it’s Dean.”

“Then Dean had better keep his eyes off you.”

It was preposterous. He was jealous. “I never thought you so arrogant, Guy Radcliffe!”

His mouth compressed. “It’s not that I’m arrogant. To put it simply, I’m older and wiser than you.”

“Oh, yes! You’re my superior in every way.”

“At various times I might be. You should consider keeping your shirt on around the men.”

She made a sound of intense irritation. “What a sensible suggestion! You’re really jealous, huh?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “No, just concerned. Your father and Kieran can’t keep their eye on you all the time.”

Alana could feel her temper go from simmer to boil. “Gee, Guy, it’s so nice you called in. Don’t you think I can look after myself?”

“Sorry, Alana. You can—better than most. But I wouldn’t like to see anyone bothering you.”

“What would you do?” she challenged, thinking that the elegant Guy Radcliffe, who never raised his voice, wouldn’t be the man to cross. At that very moment the Lord of the Valley looked mighty tough.

He held a bougainvillaea bough freighted with hot pink blossom away from her head. “You’ve seen me cracking a whip haven’t you?” he asked. Whips were used by stockmen to assist in the mustering process. Alana knew better than most that it wasn’t anywhere as easy as it looked. Guy was wonderful to watch.

“I’ve got a big brother, Guy,” she pointed out sweetly.

“I don’t feel in the least brotherly.”

It took a full minute for her to respond. “How about cousinly?” she suggested.

“Not even close. Kieran is enormously protective of you, and he worries when he has to go away.”

It was the truth. “You Valley men are all so old fashioned. Don’t deny it. You are.”

He surprised her by coming to a halt, then turning her towards him. “Men have always been attracted to beautiful women, Alana. Most are civilised and keep their admiration within prescribed bounds. Some don’t.”

Her hazel eyes sparkled as she lifted her chin. “You sound like you want to sack my new man on the spot?”

“I’m going on instinct.” His dark gaze was very serious.

“What was he doing?” She broke away angrily.

“It’s called arousal,” he responded bluntly.

Alan couldn’t control her flush. “Listen, Guy,” she said tightly, “I’m confident I can handle the men, thank you very much. Our regulars wouldn’t let any new man get out of line. Besides, Dad is sober these days. He’s out and about, and Kieran is always around. I have three favourite men in my life. And, no, one of them isn’t you.”

“Lord of the Valley?” he queried, very dryly.

The fact he knew mortified her. “Okay I admit I call you that sometimes.”

“You’ve been calling me that for years,” he jeered softly.

“Be that as it may, my three favourite men are Dad, Kieran and Simon—in that order.”

He didn’t look in the least slighted. In fact he laughed, showing his beautiful even white teeth. “Then, Ms Callaghan, you’re in the best of all possible hands.”

Inside the house, Alana excused herself quickly. “I won’t be more than a few minutes. I’ll just wash up. Go into the living room. Make yourself at home.”

“Is that one of Kieran’s?” Guy made a beeline to the wall hung with a huge, unframed canvas. It was an abstract, yet unmistakably the light-filled Australian bush. It sang of it. It even seemed to smell of it. “Of course it is,” Guy muttered to himself. “Couldn’t be anyone else’s. It’s astonishing! It radiates!” He suddenly wanted to buy it, knowing if he suggested such a thing Kieran would have the painting off the wall in no time, gift-wrapped and delivered to him.

“Tell him that,” Alana called, dashing away.

God knew, Alex had tried often enough to tell him, Guy thought, studying the work of art even more intently. How did Kieran get so much light into it? Annabel Callaghan had not painted, to the best of his knowledge, but she had been a very “arty” woman, enormously gifted at craftwork. One of Annabel’s Denby cousins was a well-known painter, Marcus Denby, who had lived in England for the past thirty years. So it was in the genes, in their nature, Guy thought. Though it was only since his mother’s death that Kieran had found release in these riveting landscapes, “knocked up”—in his own words—in one of the farm sheds. Kieran painted. Alana read books. Alan drank himself to death.

Guy had known Kieran all his life. Kieran was clever, insightful, extremely hard-working but he wasn’t meant to be a sheep farmer. It was at Alex’s instigation that Guy had discovered Kieran Callaghan’s great gift. He simply hadn’t known. But Alex had. He knew Alex and Kieran, remarkably close in their teens, had long since gone their separate ways. Something hadn’t worked out, and he often felt that was a great pity. He had tried at one time to find out what the big rift had been, but both, independently of one another, had let him know he was breaching boundaries. After that he had backed off. Alex had more than her share of admirers anyway. He just hoped she wouldn’t settle for poor old Roger. Roger Westcott was a good man—they had gone to school and university together—but he wanted someone with a lot more going for him for his beautiful, artistic sister.