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

Buddy gave a funny little whoop. “Me?”

“Yes, Buddy,” Guy confirmed. “You must be starving by now.”

“I am a bit hungry,” Buddy admitted. Actually, he had a growling stomach. But the Radcliffe Estate restaurant! He’d only poked his head in a couple of times. Never been in there, of course. It was way too grand for the likes of him. Could he really order up a three course meal? Maybe oysters and a fillet steak? Some crazy wicked chocolate dessert? Mr Radcliffe said he could, and Mr Radcliffe owned the place. Cool!

Alana knelt beside her father’s armchair. Alan Callaghan sat in it, looking hellish, one large brown hand resting on the top of her shining head.

“Guy!’ Recognition leapt into the bleary red-rimmed eyes as Guy approached. “God, I’m sorry.” Her father’s normally attractive voice was nothing more than a slurred croak.

“Why don’t we get you to bed, Alan?” Guy said, calm as a stone Buddha on the outside, deeply perturbed on the inside. He stripped off his checked jacket.

“Sall right!” Alan Callaghan made a pathetic attempt to heave himself out of the armchair and fell back, looking worse than ever.

“Come on—we’ll help you, Dad.” Alana fiercely wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

“It’s okay, Alana. Just get out of the way,” Guy told her, in a kindly but authoritative tone.

She didn’t argue. Guy said he could do it. Simple. She did what she was told, running ahead to make sure her father’s bed was ready and the room was fit to be seen. She was agonisingly embarrassed, but at least she always did her best to make sure her father’s bolt hole—for that was what it was—was clean.

They came slowly down the hallway, Guy supporting her father by the shoulders as though Alan Callaghan were a drunken dancing partner. Both dark heads were bent towards their feet. Her father was muttering incoherently to himself. Guy wasn’t even breathing hard. It only took a few minutes for Guy to lower the older man onto the narrow bed.

“What is he doing in here?” Guy looked about him. “It’s a monk’s cell.”

“With Dad the penitent?” Strain and mortification were showing on Alana’s face. “I’m only surprised he doesn’t scourge himself.”

“I’ll undress him,” Guy said. “Or at least make him more comfortable. No problem. Go along now.”

Alana turned, but hesitated near the door. Her father blew out a harsh, spluttering moan, then seemed to come alive. He lifted one still powerful arm and began to wave it with a vigour that surprised her.

“She was in love with him, you know,” he said, in voice that was almost normal. “I’m telling the truth here. I made her pregnant. I made my beautiful Belle pregnant. Can’t say anything in my own defence. I did it. I did it. “ Alan Callaghan made a futile grab for the front of Guy’s shirt. “You’re a gentleman, aren’t yah? And your dad was a gentleman. I’m just a bog Irishman. Anything to say?”

Guy’s expression transfixed Alana. It had turned from compassionate to granite. Would this man who had always been so kind to her father now turn and condemn him for being a pitiful drunk? “You’re shocking your daughter, Alan,” Guy said quietly.

Alan Callaghan stared blearily past Guy, the full weight of what he had just said seeming to fall on him. “Are yah still here, darlin'?” he asked in dismay.

Alana didn’t answer. She stood frozen on the spot, more vulnerable than she had ever been in her life.

“Leave this to me, Alana,” Guy repeated, putting his tall rangy body between her and her father.

“What?” She stared at him dazedly. “You know what Dad’s saying. You know—don’t you, Guy. And my uncle knows. That’s why he hates us.”

“Doesn’t he just?” Alan Callaghan suddenly bellowed. “He’s never tried to conceal it. Idolised her, he did, his beautiful sister. Loved his dear friend David. But I didn’t care how I got her. I was mad for her. Just couldn’t back off. I always had a touch of the prize fighter in me.”

“You’re not putting up any fight now, Alan.” Guy’s dark eyes were blazing with light. “I see no sign of the fighter. Look at you. A big man—what? Fifty-five, fifty-six years of age?—collapsed in your bed like you’ve been defeated.”

Alana was seized by agitation. “Dad’s no coward, Guy!” she cried. “He has courage.” Or once he had had it, she thought mournfully. But now her father had lost all direction.

Guy bent his gaze on her. “Someone once said courage in a man is enduring in silence whatever heaven sends him.”

“What about what heaven takes away?” she retorted fierily. “Takes away so you can never get it back?”

Guy sighed deeply. “We all bear the weight of our losses, Alana. I miss my father every day. He was a fine upstanding man. The finest.”

At that, Alan Callaghan’s broken laugh exploded. “That he was!” he roared, and then, as though all played out he rolled away without another sound. Face to the wall.

It was the worst of all possible scenarios. Alana sat rigid, arms clasped around her, in the living room, waiting for Guy to come out of her father’s room—the cell of the condemned man.

What had her father done all those years ago? What tricks had he used to get the woman he had always looked at so adoringly? How had her mother agreed to marry him, have his baby, when she’d been meant for somebody else? Had loved somebody else? Or was there little truth in that either? What else could she hope to find out when her father was drunk?

Guy had known what had been hidden from her and Kieran all along. He had never breathed a word. Surely other people in the Valley knew of the old love triangle? Why had everyone, including her uncle, kept the old story so deeply hidden? And the stark way Guy had spoken! Should he have rubbed in her father’s defeat? Could she forgive or forget that? The real nightmare was that Guy himself might hate them underneath. How would she know? What really lay in the depths of his unfathomable dark eyes? And what of Guy’s mother, always civil, but maintaining her distance? Guy loved his mother. Sidonie would have known about an old love affair of her husband’s, surely? It hadn’t gone as far as an engagement, but it now appeared to have been serious. Maybe her mother and David Radcliffe had never patched up a violent quarrel? It happened. Maybe they had argued about the Irishman Alan Callaghan? Was the truth more shocking yet? Whatever it was, it haunted her father—maybe to the grave. It was his choice to walk a self-destructive path.

“He’s dead to the world,” Guy announced when he returned.

It couldn’t have sounded more grim. “Who? The coward?” she retorted, feeling the stinging heat of humiliation.

“I didn’t use that word, Alana,” he said almost wearily. “You did. But isn’t he, in a fashion?” Guy’s tone was extraordinarily bitter for him.

He sank onto the leather sofa opposite her, the teak chest that served as a coffee table between them.

“And I thought you were a compassionate man.” She stared at him with deeply wounded eyes.

“Compassion isn’t working, Alana,” he responded bluntly, finally convinced of the fact. “Your father has taken a tremendous blow in life, losing his beloved spouse. But so have others in the Valley—including my own mother. The world is full of people who have had massive blows to overcome. Your father calls himself a fighter? Well, as a fighter, he has hit the mat. Anyone can forgive him that. But he’s never tried to get up, Alana. That’s the thing. He has you and Kieran. He has Briar’s Ridge. He’s as good as lost it.”

Her voice shook with emotion. “You think I don’t know that?’

He leaned forward, focusing on her distressed face with its large expressive eyes. “You’ve put your heart and soul into the farm, Alana. Don’t you deserve some consideration? And Kieran has worked like a slave. Though Kieran will fall on his feet. Kieran has inherited the Denby gift.”

“No sign of any gift in me?” She flashed him a look that was more poignant than bitter. Did he despise her?

“Alana, you’re beautiful, and gifted in so many ways,” he said with a curious sadness. “What I hate is that so much weight has been put on your shoulders. You should be enjoying a better life, not spending your time fighting off ruin.”

The humiliation of it all rendered her abruptly furious. “I love my life, Guy!” she said, leaping to her feet. “The last thing I need from you is pity! I hate it! And never, never from you!” Easier that the entire world should pity her.

His response came fast. In a single explosive movement he was on her side of the table, towering over her, his own disturbed emotions in full view. “That’s how you see it? Pity?”

She stared up at him with a thudding heart, knowing that a challenging answer would change everything in one indelible second. Still she threw out the challenge. “What else is it?” She lifted her chin, trying to hold her nerve, yet knowing she was in some kind of jeopardy.

Black eyes that smouldered caught fire. “Well, here’s where we find out!”

She couldn’t look away The intensity of his expression chopped off her breath. She had set herself against him for years now, but he was about to prove who was in control.

He hauled her to him so her head snapped back, then seemed to fall in slow motion into the crook of his arm. Her hair spilled everywhere in a wild golden mass.

She had the disorienting sensation she was falling … falling … toppling from a very high place with no way to stop. Or would he save her? But this was a wholly different Guy. One she had barely glimpsed. She was confronted by the dominant male pushed that little bit too far. The hunter in him was about to take what he wanted. She couldn’t get her breath for the overwhelming excitement.

“Guy—please don’t!” It would be the end of their relationship as she had known it.

“Stop me if you can!”

Pulses of electricity were running up and down her thighs, pooling in the delta of her body, alive with raw nerve-endings.

“Guy!” Her voice shook with panic. She felt the force of him, the inner energy, the demands he was going to make on her. Everything about him gave her to understand beyond any possible doubt that he desired her above anything else.

Her heart beat as if wings were unfurling in her chest. It was as though she had never been up close to a man in her life, had never known the violent eroticism of a man’s hard body, so powerful, so aggressive, so very different from her own.

He was deaf to her involuntary cry—if he even heard her. This was all about getting what he wanted. His mouth, poised over hers, abruptly came down, opening her lips beneath his, pressing without crushing, gaining control and then mastery. She had no defence against him. Not even the desire to protect herself. What was happening was ravishing, far from gentle, and deeper than hunger. What could it be? The only possible answer was passion. She had no recourse but to yield to it—because in the end wasn’t this what she craved? All she could do was cling to him, trapped by a sexual pleasure that was nigh on unbearable.

The scent of him was in her nostrils. She felt the indescribable warmth of his mouth and his mating tongue, the taste, the texture, the faint rasp from his tanned polished skin on her tender flesh. She thought dazedly that their mouths were refusing to part. Refusing to surrender the fabulous thrill. Her back arched at the same time as she let out a whimper. What she feared that was she would lose all coherent thought.

His voice, strangely laboured, came from above her head. “Not much pity there, Alana,” he said, with unfamiliar harshness.

She thought if he took his encompassing arms away she would simply fold. “No …” She couldn’t deny it. There were tears in her eyes. “What was your intention?” she whispered. “To teach me a lesson?”

His spread fingers pressed along her spine. “I don’t want to discuss it.”

“You’re so very good at it. Would you like to feel my heart?”

She hadn’t believed for one moment that he would respond to what was no more than a taunt. Instead he confounded her. He pushed his hand inside the printed silk of her shirt, the palm of his hand taking the weight of her breast, thinly covered by her bra.

She gasped, instantly suffused in heat. His fingers, manlike, sought her naked flesh. She gripped his wrist tight. She had to stop him, even though she desperately wanted him to keep going. It filled her up with a reckless passion she had never experienced before. Where was her life going? She thought wildly. She had never thought of him as a lover.

Liar, said that inexorable voice inside her.

“Your heart’s racing,” he murmured, continuing to caress her. His expression was drawn taut, intent, as if he had started on a long-awaited voyage of discovery of her body.

Speech was impossible. Indeed, how could they ever speak to each other after this? The tips of his fingers had found her sensitised nipple, full of colour, were rolling it between them so it became a swollen bud of pure want. With one arm he brought her closer into him, staring down into her flushed face.

“You’re a beautiful, beautiful woman, Alana!”

“One you shouldn’t be putting at risk.”

“Close your eyes. I won’t hurt you,” he promised. “I only want to make love to you a little.”

Couldn’t he see her agitation? Her flesh was threatening to catch fire. “And if I say you can’t?”

“I know I can.” His kisses moved to her throat. “Your father will sleep well into the morning. I want to take you home with me.” His voice was so low and seductive it could have melted stone.

She knew if she went with him it would be momentous turning point in her life. “Don’t think I’m so foolish.” Caution welled. She was a virgin. She had no protection.

“I won’t do anything you don’t want. Instinct tells me you’re a virgin?” He came at it directly.

A groan escaped her. “What am I, anyway? An open book?” She tried to pull away, but he held her tighter.

“A book I desperately want to read,” he said, the note in his voice making her senses swim. “I’ll call the house. You’ve had nothing to eat. I’ll get Gwen to make us something.”

“And for the rest of the night?” She threw back her golden head, the spirit of challenge showing in her eyes.

‘I’ll make love to you a little,” he said softly. “Though the time’s fast approaching to make it real.”

“It’s real enough for me now,” she said, feeling her every last defence had been shaken loose. “Besides, I’m not in such a hurry. I should stay here—where I belong.” Her feelings were so intense, so out of control, she felt she had little option but to push the panic button.

“You’re too frightened to come with me?” He looked deeply into her eyes.

Insane as it was, it was true. “I have to think ahead, Guy,” she answered, grappling with her heart’s desire. “If I go to Wangaree with you, the whole Valley will know by the morning.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “My people will see you for exactly what you are. A lifelong friend.”

“Of course—you would command absolute loyalty. Is that how I’ve never heard even a whisper about my mother and your father? Were they lovers?” She stepped closer, staring into his eyes.

“What would be the point of discussing it?” he said sombrely.

“Point being some people are feeling the shock waves to this day. How did your mother manage to live her life with such a secret in the background?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, his striking face taking on a daunting expression. “Why don’t we leave my mother out of this, Alana?”

“I’m sorry,” she apologised. “But can’t you see I have a need, indeed a right to know? I’m not a child. I can’t be kept in the dark. You wouldn’t accept being shut out for a half a minute. Why should I? Your mother must have known. For that matter, when did you first find out? Does Alex know? Or was she kept in the dark like me?”

“Keep probing and you’ll finish up in a dark forest,” he warned, reaching for his jacket. “For the last time—are you coming?”

She braced herself against the intolerable weight of longing. She knew she couldn’t resist him. And, to make her position even more vulnerable, she knew of the powerful forces that had gathered in him.

“No, Guy,” she said, as though she had sworn an oath. She turned away with a little broken laugh. “I can’t think any woman has said no to you before.”

“Is that why you’re doing it?” he asked, his black eyes glittering.

She struggled to frame the right words. “You know why I’m doing it, Guy. You say you don’t want to hurt me, but I fear somewhere deep down inside of you, you do!”

CHAPTER SIX

KIERAN returned from Sydney, strained and on edge. Although he apologised to Alana for having disappeared on the day of the sales, the name of his mystery woman remained a secret.

So many secrets, Alana thought, herself so troubled in her mind that she left her brother well alone. Kieran would confide in her when he was ready, she reasoned. Until then she would keep out of his private affairs. They only appeared to hold anger and pain. Besides, hadn’t her own life turned into a mess?

Like Kieran, she couldn’t bring herself to discuss it. She couldn’t imagine what Kieran would think if she suddenly confided she was totally in love with Guy Radcliffe. She thought after the initial shock he would advise her to leave well alone. That was the way it must have been with him and Alex. Leave well alone. Clearly Kieran believed the Radcliffes were out of reach. The Radcliffes were rich folk. The Callaghans were battlers.

Their father had fought his way out of his binge, but he had lost so much weight for a man previously so strongly built that Alana began to worry his alcohol addiction over the past three years had done significant damage to his body—in particular, his liver. She began to read up all she could about the chronic liver disease cirrhosis, and found her way to an important medicinal herb, St Mary’s Thistle, which had been used to good effect for liver ailments, indeed all sorts of ailments, since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Her father refused point-blank to see a doctor and undergo any tests, but he did consent to swallowing the liquid extract the long-established village pharmacist recommended.

“Your dad really needs to see one of the doctors at the clinic, Alana.” Kindly eyes were fixed on her. “Don Cameron is a good man. This Milk Thistle here could be no help at all.”

Alana thought it was worth a try.

Out of the blue her cousin Rose rang to invite her to lunch at the hugely popular Radcliffe Estate Restaurant.

“I have some news for you!” Rose trilled excitedly down the phone. “I’m up in the air about it, actually. See you Tuesday—say about one p.m.? My shout. I’ll make the reservation. It’s usually packed out.”

Tuesday morning, Alana dressed with care in a brilliantly white linen shirt with a small stand-up collar, over narrowly cut black pants. She had just the legs for the cut, and the right kind of derrière. Around her waist she slung a wide patent leather black belt with a big silver buckle, and she slipped on a pair of high heeled black sandals—her best. Her mother’s black bag was dateless, never out of fashion. She thought she looked pretty good. She had inherited her mother’s chic, and that actually meant a lot. Money wasn’t synonymous with style.

She was looking forward to seeing Rose. All dressed, she presented herself to her father, who was sitting aimlessly in a planter’s chair out on the verandah, staring up at the blue hills.

“How do I look?” She struck a model’s pose, trying to get a smile out of him. Off the wagon, Alan Callaghan was more morose than on it.

“Beautiful!” he said, putting his arm out to her and gathering her in around her slender hips. “Remember me to little Rosie. Some people just suit their names.”

Alana remained in her father’s embrace. “Like some people look exactly what they are.” Of course she was thinking of Guy—The Man. “What are you going to do with yourself, Dad?”

He grimaced. “Well, let’s see. Where shall I start? I thought I might go into town.”

“Really?” Alana was pleasantly surprised. Her father rarely wanted to go anywhere. “Why didn’t you say? I could have run you in and picked you up later.”

“Only just thought of it,” he said. “Might call in on Father Brennan. Make me confession.”

“Dad?” Alana bent to stare into her father’s face, feeling a shock of alarm.

“Only jokin', darlin'.” He raised the ghost of a grin. “I haven’t been to confession for many years. Hardly time to be starting up again now. But I like Terry Brennan. He’s a good bloke.”

“Mum thought so.” Her mother had been raised a Catholic.

“God bless her!” Alan Callaghan sighed. “She was a saint to put up with me.”

“You weren’t so bad!” Alana shook him lightly. In fact in the old days their father had been full of fun and good cheer—the most affectionate of fathers. “Mum loved you.”

“Did she?”

That struck a badly discordant note. “What are you saying, Dad? Of course she did.”

“There’s love and there’s love,” Callaghan pronounced flatly.

“So what are you trying to tell me?” Alana asked in distress. Oh, God!

“I let a dream rule my life, me darlin'. The dream that your mother loved me. I know she settled for me. I know she was absolutely loyal to me. But I wasn’t what she wanted.”

Pain slashed all the way through her. “Who was? I’m really confused about all this, Dad. We were a happy family. It wasn’t a dream. It was a reality. And Mum did love you. She had to. She laughed at all your jokes. Don’t shatter what we had with maudlin thoughts. Maybe she was in love with David Radcliffe at some stage, when they were very young. But she didn’t marry him, did she? She married you.”

Alan Callaghan let out a strangled sigh. “Things happen, Alana.”

“Tell me.” She waited, breathless. “It’s obviously eating away at you, whatever it is.”

“Sorry, darlin'!” Her father sat up straight. “I’m a bit hazy on it myself. You go off now and enjoy yourself. God knows, you deserve a bit of pleasure.”

Alana glanced at her watch. She had to go, or she would be running late. She had intended taking the car—the air-conditioning in the ute was on the blink—but now she changed her mind. “I’ll take the ute. You take the car,” she suggested, in her usual generous fashion. Her father didn’t know the air-conditioning in the ute was shot. There was so much he didn’t know or care about.

“Doesn’t matter to me, darlin',” Alan Callaghan said. ‘You’re all dressed up. You take it.”

“The car will suit you better,” she replied. Alan Callaghan was six-three, like his son, and his skin had a peculiar flush. “I’m fine in the ute.” She bent to kiss his cheek, resting one hand on his shoulder. “You have clean shirts in your wardrobe, all ironed. Blue always looks so nice on you. Take care now, Dad. Love you.”

“Love you too, my darlin',” Alan Callaghan said, rising to his feet, then going to the verandah balustrade to wave her off.

Alana saw pleasure leap into Rose’s eyes as she walked towards her. Rose was already seated at the table, having arrived some minutes earlier. She jumped up to hug and kiss her cousin.

“Oh, isn’t this great? I’m so happy to see you, Lana,” she said in her affectionate way. “You look gorgeous—as usual. Très chic! You’re easily the most stunning girl in the Valley. It puts Vi’s nose out of joint I can tell you.” She giggled.

“Is it any wonder I love you so much?” Alana asked indulgently. Rose herself looked a picture, in a designer dress that must have cost the earth. Her Italian handbag alone would have set her trust fund back a few thousand dollars. With maybe another thousand or more tied up in the shoes. The Denby girls weren’t cheap dressers. They were fashion icons. In fact Alana rarely saw them in the same thing twice.