Outback Fire

“I used to hero-worship you,” Storm found herself saying haltingly.

“Then all at once things changed,” Luke replied. “I’m here for you, Storm. Any chance we could start again?”

“No, I just can’t,” she said in a passion. “Too many years have gone by.”

“What are you frightened of, Storm? Why are you so frightened of me?”

“Such arrogance!” Her voice rang out caustically. “I’m not frightened of you at all. What do I have to do to prove it?” She stood there in an attitude of defiance he had witnessed countless times over.

“Why don’t you let me show you?”

“Don’t you dare touch me, Luke,” she warned.

He gave a challenging shake of his head. “I’m genuinely amazed I haven’t tried it before. For years you were too young, but you’re old enough now.”

Margaret Way takes great pleasure in her work and works hard at her pleasure. She enjoys tearing off to the beach with her family at weekends, loves haunting galleries and auctions and is completely given over to French champagne “for every possible joyous occasion.” She was born and educated in the river city of Brisbane, Australia, and now lives within sight and sound of beautiful Moreton Bay.

Outback Fire

Margaret Way

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

THEY rode out at dawn. Their mission was specific. To hunt down “Psycho” the wild bull camel that was harassing the herd and attacking anybody unfortunate enough to come on it unawares. The situation had become so dangerous it was now necessary to kill the beast. Only a few days before one of the stockmen mustering clean skins on the desert fringe had encountered the raging animal and paid the price. Psycho had attacked without provocation kicking the stockman in the chest. The consequences had been serious. The man had to be airlifted to hospital and was still in a critical condition. He would have been dead only for the arrival of three of his mates who had startled the ferocious beast into slewing off.

When the rogue came on season, for it was the male camel instead of the female that came on heat, Psycho would pose even more of a threat. He had a fearful reputation for attacking other male camels with passionate fury, his strength and wildness driving them away to leave him with a harem usually twenty or more females he jealously guarded and impregnated.

Of recent times Psycho had taken to making open-mouthed dives at the tribal people who crisscrossed the station on walkabout. McFarlane had been informed of the attacks. His people were frightened and wanted protection.

Camels weren’t indigenous to Australia. They and their Afghan handlers had been imported into the country in the early days of settlement to transport goods all over the dry trackless regions of the Outback; camels were ideal beasts of burden in just such conditions. Their wild descendants, some quarter of a million and they lived several decades, were a dreadful menace. They roamed the desert from one end to the other doing considerable damage to the fragile environment. McFarlane tolerated them. By now they were part of the Outback and there was a certain romance to the sight of them silhouetted on top of a sand dune at sunset. Unfortunately the time had come for Psycho to be destroyed before he turned killer.

Six of them made up the party that morning. McFarlane, his overseer, Chas Branagan, Garry Dingo, the station’s finest tracker, two of his best stockmen and the boy, Luke. Fourteen years old but already judged by the others to be a man. The boy stood six feet, a superb athlete, with an excellent head on his shoulders. He was a fine shot, a talent he had been born with, as well as having extraordinary endurance for his age. In fact he was well on his way to becoming a consummate bushman like his father, Chas. He had the same remarkable sight, hearing and sense of smell. Skills that would be needed on the hunt.

McFarlane realised he had become very fond of the boy. Indeed he was coming to look on him as the son he might have had. The tragedy was his wife; the one woman he had ever truly loved had died in childbirth leaving him with the precious legacy of a daughter. His beautiful Storm. While her mother slipped prematurely out of life, Storm had come into the world at the height of one of the fiercest tempests that had ever passed over his land.

Tragedy and triumph. Sometimes the two went hand in hand. Like Storm and high drama. Storm had never been an easy child. Tempestuous and outspoken she spent her young life rebelling against his dictates when he had only put them in place to protect her. Freedom was what she wanted. Total freedom. The right to roam the station at will. “Like Luke does.” That was the catch cry “Like Luke does.”

There were always outbursts against Luke. Big flare-ups of jealousy and resentment.

“You treat him like a son! He’s not your son. He’s not my brother.”

How many times had he heard that? Storm fought his affection for Luke every step of the way. She overplayed her little princess and the pauper act most times the two of them were together. Luke being Luke, was gentle and tolerant with her, unfazed by her histrionics.

As for Storm, the light of his life, didn’t she know her father adored her? When Storm was sweet, she was very, very sweet, irresistible like her mother. If she’d had her way she’d have joined them this morning. Imagine! A girl barely twelve, even if she could ride all day. Storm couldn’t accept the confines of her femininity. She lived in a man’s world and she wasn’t about to come to terms with it. His difficult little Storm. How could it be otherwise? This was a child reared without a mother’s gentling touch.

They skirted around the lignum that rose up like jungle walls, the party dividing up as they rode into the desert, ringed by heat waves that danced in the blinding glare. No tracks so far but then they had to contend with the rising wind that wiped them out almost as soon as they were made. Such a place of desolation this no man’s land! The great flights of budgerigar that flashed green and gold overhead and the marauding hawks were almost the only living things. The grazing cattle had stripped the perennial cover from the slopes here and the blood-red sand moved at will.

Sand and spinifex.

This year of drought, even the spinifex wasn’t so dense. Other years it covered the sand like a bright golden carpet.

After two hours or more of fruitless search the party broke up, frustrated but not willing to give up. Psycho should have been spottable but he wasn’t. Wild animals had a way of disappearing into the landscape. Chas and two of the stockmen took off for the low eroded foothills, shimmering in the quicksilver light of the mirage. McFarlane, Luke and Matt, the other stockman, worked the undulating dunes, so red they were alight. It was getting hotter and hotter, the sun scorching out of a cloudless blue sky. So hot in fact McFarlane knew he was losing concentration. Not yet fifty he had lived a hard, dangerous life, and it was taking its toll. Broken ribs, a bad leg injury years back in Vietnam that still gave him a lot of pain especially if he was too long in the saddle. A tired man became careless. Matt had dropped back, skirting the mounds of dried up springs. He rode ahead with Luke a few feet from his shoulder.

Everything was silence. Infinity. The blood-red dunes ran on forever in great parallel waves; the tall seed stems of the spinifex called up glittering aboriginal spears. Nothing to signal the presence of the camel as it watched them, its shaggy, dull ginger coat an excellent camouflage. It stood within its crude shelter of desert acacias, its dark crested humped outline hidden by the thick gnarled trunks and weight of branches. McFarlane saw the wild camel as his quarry. Psycho in a particularly vicious mood saw McFarlane as his.

With extraordinary cunning the rogue camel waited for the optimum moment to break cover. It gathered itself for the charge then galloped directly at McFarlane with terrifying speed, its hump grown massive over the years, swaying, drumming through its nostrils its blind rage at the threat to its territory. In the crystal clear air of the desert the sound was deafening, travelling far. McFarlane slumped half sideways in the saddle trying to ease the pain in his leg, felt the hairs at the back of his neck stand up. For an instant he was deadly afraid then he wheeled his horse sharply but that stout hearted animal quailed in the face of the camel’s blazing charge. It reared then thundered to the ground throwing the unsettled McFarlane out of the saddle and onto the sun-baked earth.

The boy, Luke, looked on in horror, a cry caught in his throat. For a split second he was frozen, then all thoughts of his own safety left him. He was ice cool, bracing himself for what lay ahead. This wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. Every lost second almost certainly meant tragedy. There was only time for one shot. It had to be perfect. Clean. Humane. Conclusive.

Eye to the sight, finger on the trigger Luke waited…waited…his handsome young face strong and resolute. He was already beginning to squeeze the trigger. The camel was slobbering hugely, saturated in foaming fury. Its rank smell pervaded the air.

The shot cracked away echoing across the desert and bouncing off the boulders strewn about like giants’ marbles. The camel died in mid-flight. It crashed to the ground, thrashed for an aftermoment then rolled motionless to one side, its body making a deep impression in the sand.

Urgently Luke dismounted and rushed to McFarlane’s prone figure. Perfectly in control one minute, he was now uncertain. Anxiously he went down on one knee, eyes checking. “Mr. McFarlane?” he cried hoarsely. Every last man, woman and child on the vast station depended on this man. To many of them he was their guardian.

McFarlane lay for a moment, racked in pain and panting, thick dark hair and deeply tanned skin clogged with red dust, his grey akubra lying a foot away. Eventually, with air in his lungs, he managed a quiet “I’m fine, boy. Fine. No need to worry. That was a close one.”

Luke nodded, shoving his hat to the back of his dark auburn head. “Any closer and you’d have been trampled.” Now the danger was over, his voice broke with emotion.

“No way! Not with you around. You’re a man and I’m proud of you.”

McFarlane heaved himself into a sitting position, wincing as he reached for his wide-brimmed hat. He settled it on his head, then allowed the boy to help him up. A fine boy. Brave and loyal. “I guess you could say you saved my life,” McFarlane pronounced, his deep voice showing an answering emotion. He rested one large, strong hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You stood your ground in the face of fear. I promise you I won’t forget it.”

The colour flushed into the boy’s dark cheeks. He murmured something inaudible. Nevertheless it was one of those moments in life that are never forgotten.

CHAPTER ONE

BY THE time they finished yarding the brumbies every crinkle, every crevice of his face was ingrained with red dust. After a day of intense heat and real feats of riding through the rough country Luke was desperate for a shower and a long cold beer. He was due up at the homestead this evening for dinner and a game of chess. The Major loved his chess. He loved the right company. They were both accomplished players and they had long enjoyed an easy companionable relationship.

Nowadays Athol McFarlane, for so long a lion of a man, was going downhill right in front of the younger man’s eyes. It deeply pained him. After the deaths of his parents Athol was all he had. He owed everything to the Major. Everyone on the station called him that. A carryover from his early days as a much decorated army officer in Vietnam. It was a term of affection now. No one was sure who started it. It certainly hadn’t been Athol McFarlane. Those were the days he didn’t care to talk about. Ever. Still only in his early sixties the Major had ongoing problems with his leg, an injury he had sustained in the war. What exactly those problems were, Luke never could find out, and he sure as hell had tried, but the Major didn’t like to talk about his state of health although it was obvious to everyone who cared about him that he was deteriorating. And Luke suspected in constant pain, though there was never a word of complaint. The only complaint that passed the Major’s lips were: “When is Storm coming home?”

He knew the old man missed her terribly. He missed her, too. Sometimes he thought like a hole in the head. Other times like a hole in the heart. He never could contend with his feelings about Storm. He only knew it didn’t pay to delve too deeply. She was beautiful. He had a vision of her out riding, cloud of sable hair flying—she hated wearing a hat even in the intense heat—not that it had affected her flawless ivory complexion, green cat’s eyes sparkling with life and health.

He knew she was clever. She designed and made exclusive jewellery that sold as far away as New York. Necklaces, pendants, bangles, rings. You name it. And the beautiful people flew from all over just to have a piece designed by Storm McFarlane. Not bad to have an enviable reputation at twenty-seven. No husband. Two fiancés that never managed to get her to the altar. High time she was married, the Major said. He wanted to set eyes on his grandchildren before he died. So far Storm hadn’t obliged. What was she waiting for? Superman? Only a rare man could satisfy her, he thought with black humour. Storm always had been damned near impossible to please. Certainly he had never succeeded except for those odd times when they acknowledged a bond. More than a bond. God knows what it was.

When he reached the comfortable overseer’s bungalow that had once housed his small happy family, Luke went straight to the bathroom, stripped off his dusty clothes and ran a warm shower. After such a day, it took a while to feel completely clean. He had to soap his hair as well to rid it of the dust, then he allowed the water to run cold, luxuriating in the blessed sensation of feeling cool. Here he was twenty-nine and one of the greatest things in life was a shower!

My God!

Not that he hadn’t had his own little romantic flutters. A few months of thinking maybe this is it, then the initial burst of interest and excitement drained away like the water in a clay pan. A few of his ex-girlfriends still hung in there. That was the amazing thing. He hadn’t really lost a one. Carla was the most persistent without a doubt. He really liked Carla. She was good company, good-looking and she was good in bed. What the hell was the matter with him? Like Storm it was high time he was married. Deep inside he mourned the loss of his family. He had to make a family for himself. With the right woman. But who? A woman like Storm, who never failed to move and outrage him was out of the question. Storm McFarlane was trouble with a capital T.

Luke towelled himself off and slicked back his hair. Now and again he caught glimpses of his father in his mirrored reflection—the high cheekbones, the set of the eyes and mouth. But his colouring was purely his mother’s. Though the worst of the pain had banked down to liveable he missed his parents every day of his life. He remembered as though it were yesterday getting the message to go to the headmaster’s office. He sensed it was something important but never in a million years did he expect to see the Major, handsome and dignified seated in the headmaster’s study.

The Major had come personally to break the terrible news. His parents had been killed in a three-car collision driving back from Alice Springs. One of the cars driven by a tourist was found to have been travelling on the wrong side of the road. His parents had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was then fifteen years old and a boarder at one of the country’s most prestigious private schools. His parents had been determined he would have a good education but they could never have afforded that particular school with its proud tradition, splendid amenities and brilliant alumni that read like a Who’s Who. The Major had seen to it. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Wore Luke’s dad down.

After the accident the Major had flown Luke and Storm back to the station for the funeral. Storm had insisted she be picked up from her boarding school so she could be there. Although her hang-ups had always centred on Luke she had been great friends with his mother and father. Particularly his mother who thought the world of “the little princess.”

As a mark of deep respect his parents had actually been buried in the McFarlane family cemetery on Sanctuary Hill, some five kilometres from the homestead. He remembered how Storm had stood white-faced beside him holding his hand. He remembered how she had given him real comfort for once, hostilities set aside. He hadn’t forgotten. Although Storm had to return to school he had stayed up at the Big House with the Major trying to master his terrible grief, but never coming to terms with it, then he, too, had to return to boarding school. After that, university.

Luke had graduated from college with an OP1, the top score, something else that had set Storm off. She had scored an excellent OP3. After that, the Major insisted he, along with Storm, go on to higher education which after all he had wanted himself. Luke’d worked hard and made the Major proud, picking up an honours degree in Economics. He’d been free to choose his own life after that but all he had ever wanted was to be a cattleman like his dad. Running a huge operation was big business these days, not just learning the game. Luke revelled in Outback life. It was in his blood and he had never felt truly at home in the city. He’d told the Major this in a long discussion. It was then the Major had confounded him by offering him his father’s old job. Overseer of Winding River Station. A top job with big responsibilities. The two outstations now came under his jurisdiction.

These days he was the Major’s right hand man. Visitors to the station, those not in the know, often mistook him for McFarlane’s son. His rise had been meteoric but no one in a tough competitive world had ever questioned his ability. To prove it the Major was leaving more and more to him to the point where he was virtually running the whole operation.

Dressed in a clean shirt and jeans he walked up to the Big House pausing outside to admire it. He always did. It was a magnificent old house completed in the late 1870s by Ian Essex McFarlane a wealthy pastoralist who had come from the colony of New South Wales to take up this vast holding in South West Queensland. The house had been planned on a grand scale, all the more extraordinary for its remote desert setting, two storeyed, built of warm golden sandstone with a slate roof, its deep verandahs supported by slender white pillars with unusual lotus capitals forming a striking colonnade, the upper verandahs encased in white wrought-iron lace with very attractive fretwork. Semicircular stone steps led to the deeply recessed front door and he took them two at a time, passing into the spacious entrance hall its parqueted floor strewn with oriental rugs. Noni Mercer, the housekeeper, came out to greet him, smiling up into his face. “Hi there, Luke. Hot old day!”

“You want to try running down brumbies,” he answered, returning her smile. Noni was a thoroughly nice woman. He was fond of her and had good reason to be. In her late fifties, short and compact, with a great heart, she had a bubble of grey curls and contrasting snapping dark eyes. “I have to tell you, Noni, I’m ready for your cooking.”

“Aren’t you always!” Noni blushed with pleasure. She ran her eyes appreciatively over Luke’s rangy figure. He stood straight and tall, superbly built, a few inches over six feet. She had watched him grow up. Watched him turn into this almost unbelievably handsome young man with hair like a dark flame and those miraculous blue eyes. His lovely little mother, Rose, God rest her soul, had had just that marvellous colouring.

Noni had a very soft spot for Luke Branagan who never once used his high standing with the Major for his own gain. Straight as a die was Luke. How he and Storm weren’t the greatest friends Noni could never understand. She had an idea Luke secretly carried a torch for the tempestuous Storm, though he would never let on, even under torture. Sadly, in Noni’s opinion, and she cared deeply for Storm, that young woman had her feet set on a different path. Yet when she saw them together? Noni heaved a soft sigh, which made Luke dip his handsome head to look into her eyes.

“What’s up?”

For such a big strong, dynamic guy Luke was in touch with women’s feelings. “Nothing, dear,” Noni evaded, then felt compelled to burst out with what was on her mind. “When is Storm coming home?”

His handsome face tautened. “Hell, Noni, why ask me? I’m not one of Storm’s favourite people. You know that.”

“She’s been running with that for a long time,” Noni gruffly scoffed. “Personally I don’t think it’s true.”

“Well she sure doesn’t love me,” Luke’s vibrant voice deepened. “And she doesn’t confide in me, either.”

“More’s the pity!” Noni regretted. “The Major hasn’t been terribly well today, but he’s so looking forward to seeing you. You’re not far off the son he never had.”

“Maybe that’s the problem, Noni,” Luke’s expression turned a shade bleak. “Storm hates to see it that way.”

Noni couldn’t do other than nod her agreement. “I just wish she’d come home.” She turned her head quickly as slow, heavy footsteps sounded along the upper gallery. “That will be the Major now,” she said softly. “I know Storm has a busy life. She’s so successful and that’s wonderful. She always was a clever little thing. Remember how she used to collect all those little bits of opal and quartz around the station?”

Luke’s handsome mouth compressed. “I distinctly remember finding a lot of it for her. She was in heaven when the Major used to organize those prospecting trips to the gemfields for us. I made quite a few finds myself but I always handed them over to Storm.”

“You would,” Noni said. For all her tantrums Luke had always been honey-sweet to that little girl. Sweet and calm and understanding. Maybe he should have told her off. He was well capable of telling off the toughest and the roughest.

“Agate, amethyst, carnelian, garnet, sapphire, topaz, beryl,” Luke was saying, his brilliant blue eyes reflective. “That’s what started her off on her career. The Major always encouraged her. Now she’s getting to be a big name.”

“It’s marvellous,” Noni a recipient of several beautiful little pieces, smiled. “Storm is delighted when people fall in love with her work.”

“She’s not happy with guys falling in love with her,” Luke commented dryly. “Two fiancés to date. Neither could get her to the altar.”

“You’re not married, either,” Noni pointed out slyly. “You’re quite a pair!” Personally she thought each had ruined relationships for the other.

As they were speaking Athol McFarlane appeared at the top of the central staircase then came very slowly down towards them. He was leaning very heavily on his stick but Luke and Noni knew better than to go to his assistance. The Major scorned help. He was independent to a fault.

“Well, Luke,” he boomed, and his gaunt face lit up. “Come tell me all about your day. Noni has been fussing for hours lining up all the things you like to eat.”

“She spoils me,” Luke grinned, knowing it was true.