The Cattleman

“Hell, Tim, don’t say that to anyone else,” Brett begged. “What would people think?”

“Who cares what people think?” Tim said. “On the other hand people might agree if they’d been there. Those Olgas, they were fantastic, if kinda forbidding.”

“Look—” Brett tried to be patient “—forget the Olgas, okay? Incidentally, they’ve been renamed Kata Tjuta. A governess disappeared. A tragedy certainly, but no murder. An accident befell her some fifty years ago, but alas there was no body. Bannerman is perfectly respectable. He’s one of the richest, most influential men in the country. He’s not a drug lord. I’m certain Jass will be safe. I’d never let her go if I thought otherwise. She’s young for such a big commission, but that shouldn’t be a deterrent. She’s genuinely gifted and she’ll have plenty of backup. If for some reason Bannerman turns out to be straight out of a Stephen King novel, she can come home.”

“You want to do this, Jessica?” Tim still looked unsettled.

“Hey, of course I do.” She shook his arm. “I’ll be able to brag about it for the rest of my days. Don’t worry, Timmy. It should be quite an adventure.” She started to unwrap his little present. “Ooh, earrings. Aren’t they lovely?” She leaned over and kissed him. “Victorian.”

He nodded. “I knew you’d like them. I picked them up at Maggie Reeves. She has some really nice stuff.”

“You spoil her,” Brett said, sitting forward to look.

“You should talk!” Tim shot back.

“I’m her uncle.”

“And I’m her honorary uncle.”

“Stop, you two. These are lovely, Timmy. Thank you.” Jessica was delighted with the gift—drop earrings, peridots set in gold. She had a jewelery box filled with the little gifts Tim had given her since she was a child. Bracelets, gold chains, pretty pendants, a crystal-encrusted sea horse that she still loved and wore as a pin. “They’ll go beautifully with that vintage dress of mine. The green chiffon.” Sometimes she felt very sad that neither her uncle nor Tim would have children. They were loving, caring people. They had been wonderful to her.

“My pleasure, love.” Tim smiled, picking up Bannerman’s fax again. “They reckon there’s a dark side to this Bannerman?”

“Tim, dear, there’s a dark side to us all,” Brett responded. “Not even you are nice all the time. If you’re concerned, maybe you can fly up with Jass.”

“Both of us? I would go, but I’m sure they don’t want me.”

“Not to mention how having a babysitter would make me look,” Jessica protested. “What else do we know about this man?”

“Well—” Brett drew another piece of paper, hitherto unseen, from the pile on his desk “—he has a son, Cyrus. His mother was the heiress, Deborah Masters. Masters Electronics.”

“You said was? She’s dead?” Jessica inserted one of the earrings in her right earlobe, remembering Tim had gone along with her for support when she’d had her ears pierced a few years back and had been a little fearful of needles.

“A riding accident,” Brett informed them. “That was in the early 1990s. Bannerman remarried. A woman with a child of her own. A daughter, Robyn. Neither wife was particularly lucky. The second suffered from some rare syndrome—I don’t know exactly what. She died two years ago.”

“How very bizarre,” muttered Tim, trying to grapple with all this. “It’s right up there with the Olgas.”

“Don’t be silly, Tim.” Sternly, Brett held his partner’s gaze. “Tragedies happen.”

“Indeed they do. But Bannerman could be looking for a new wife. He could fall in love with Jessica on sight.”

Jessica laughed, but Brett blustered testily, “God almighty, Tim! I think you’re losing it. Bannerman has to be nearing sixty.”

“That’s not a good answer.” Tim resolutely dug in. “He could live for years and years. Aging men often turn to young women. Especially rich old men.”

“He’s hardly an old man,” Brett said caustically. “You’re nearly fifty.”

“Forty-eight, thank you. Same as you. Keep it up and you’ll really hurt my feelings.”

“Stop it, you two,” Jessica intervened again. “I’m not in the running for Wife Number Three.” She took Tim’s hand in hers. “Broderick Bannerman is old enough to be my father. Grandfather, if he were exceptionally precocious.”

“For all we know, temptation could be overwhelming in the Outback,” Tim said. “There’s a real shortage of women. Besides, men never get falling in love with the young and beautiful out of their system,” he warned. “I know I sound overanxious, but there’s something a little odd here, Jass. You know how intuitive I am. No matter how gifted you are, you’re young and inexperienced. I know you’ve won that nomination and you deserve to carry off the prize, but why not Brett, for instance? He’s a colossus in the industry. Well, he thinks so.”

“I know so.” Brett was pleased to see Jessica elbow Tim hard. “For God’s sake, Tim, what are you on about?” Brett was irritated that some of Tim’s concern was starting to rub off on him.

“I’m not sure.” Tim shook his head. “I live by my intuitions.”

“And your intuitions tell you Bannerman has an ulterior motive in choosing Jessica?”

“Amazing, but true. I should join a training class for psychics. Seriously, I just had to get it off my chest. I don’t actually know why.”

“Then why are you trying to put us off?”

“I’m not,” Tim protested. “I’m only trying to say Bannerman mightn’t be quite the man he seems. Sounds to me like he’s been struck by lightning.”

“Lightning!” Brett said irritably. “How you give yourself over to the sensational!”

“Sensational?” Tim protested. “Men have been making complete asses of themselves over young women since forever. Besides, what man ever thinks he’s too old?”

“Look, Timmy, I’ve dreamed about doing something like this.” Jessica sought to calm Tim down. “You know you tend to worry about me too much.”

“True.” Tim’s face broke out in his easy smile again. “I wouldn’t mind if you were working within shouting distance, or even Sydney. But the Northern Territory! Hell, you might as well be rocketing off to Mars.”

“Tim, dear, stop talking,” Brett advised. “It’s all fevered nonsense, anyway. Jass wants the job. I want her to have it. It’ll be a considerable step up the ladder. If the slightest thing happens to cause her concern, she’s to drop everything and come home.”

“Hear that, sweetheart? You get on the phone right away. I’ll be there like a shot. I wonder what the son’s like?” Tim asked speculatively, then answered his own question. “Probably a dead ringer for his godawful father.”

“Okay, enough’s enough!” Brett lunged to his feet. “Where are we going to hang this painting?”

“Maybe above the console in the entrance,” Jessica suggested, giving the painting a tender, welcoming look for its own sake and not because the subject bore an uncanny resemblance to her. “She’ll be right at home there.”

CHAPTER TWO

FROM THE TOP OF THE ESCARPMENT, Cy had a near aerial view of the valley floor, semidesert in the Dry except for the ubiquitous spinifex and the amazing array of drought-resistant shrubs, grasses and succulents that provided fodder for Mokhani’s great herd, one of the biggest in the nation and thus the world. Today, four of his men were working flat out to round up of some forty marauding brumbies that were fast eating out the vegetation they desperately needed for the cattle until the blessing of rain. The wild horses had to be moved on. Not only that, two of the station mares were running with the mob, seduced by the leader, a powerful white stallion the men had christened Snowy. Snowy was too nice a name for a rogue, Cy figured. More like Lucifer before the fall. The stallion was so clever, it had long evaded capture, though Cy doubted the wild horse could ever be broken. He’d been close up to Snowy when they’d both been boxed into the canyon, so he knew he was dealing with a potential killer. There were few station pursuits as dangerous as trying to cut off a wild horse from its precious freedom. Ted Leeuwin, the station overseer, had lived to tell the tale of his encounter with Snowy. Just as Ted had been attempting to rope the stallion, it had closed in, terrifying Ted’s gelding before biting Ted on the shoulder. Not once but several times. Vicious hard bites that forced Ted, as tough as old boots, to give up.

Cy was aware of his own excitement as whoops like war cries resounded across the valley. He knew the thrill of the chase. The men were right on target to herd the wild horses into the gorge. Two of the station hands were on motorbikes; jumping rocks and gullies with abandon, another two were on horseback. He’d put one of the station helicopters in the air to flush the brumbies out and guide the men.

He’d have to leave them to it. His father, known as B.B. wanted him to fly to Darwin to pick up the interior designer, Ms. Jessica Tennant if you please, he was hell-bent on hiring. As usual, they’d argued about it. Any suggestion that amounted to a differing opinion caused his father rage. B.B. wasn’t a man to listen. Not to his only son, anyway. Often after such arguments, his father hadn’t spoken to him for long periods, by way of punishment. But punishment for what? There could be a hundred things, and Cy had narrowed it down to two: for daring to cross a living legend and for being alive when his mother wasn’t. He understood his father loved him at some subterranean level, but the very last thing B.B. would do was show it. Needless to say, they weren’t close, but they were blood. That counted.

As far as this latest development went, his father had taken them all by surprise. What would a young woman of twenty-four be expected to know about furnishing from scratch what was virtually a palace? For that matter, what was wrong with the old homestead even if Livvy, his great-aunt, claimed it was haunted? He was sick to death of it all. The old story distressed him. He’d grown up with it, had been taunted about it in his schooldays. Poor tragic Moira, the governess, had most probably been taken by a croc or she had fallen, her body wedged into some rocky crevice in a deeply wooded canyon, never to be found. God knows it happened. People going missing wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence in the Outback. So why had journalists over the years continued to rake up the old story, when all the family wanted was to bury it? No one had ever been able to unearth any proof as to what had happened to her that fatal day.

His mind returned to Jessica Tennant. She might work for a top design studio, but surely there were many people more experienced and more qualified in that firm to do the job? He couldn’t figure it out. B.B., who only dealt with the top people, never underlings, a man renowned for always making smart moves, had done something totally un-smart. He had hired a mere beginner to take charge of a huge project.

“She’s coming here, Cyrus. I’m still making the decisions around here. As for you, Robyn—” B.B. had turned to his stepdaughter “—I don’t want to hear one unpleasant word pass your lips when she’s here. Is that understood?”

In that case, Robyn had better take a crash course on manners, Cyrus thought. For a moment he almost felt sorry for Ms. Tennant. She would be living in the same house as a very dysfunctional family. Perhaps not for long, though. Cy could still hope Ms. Tennant might decide the project was beyond her. There was no way, however, to avoid meeting her. He’d agreed to pick her up because he had business in Darwin, anyway. Otherwise, he’d have said he was far too busy, which not even B.B. could dispute. These days he ran Mokhani while regularly overseeing the other stations in the Bannerman chain. Unlike everyone else directly under B.B.’s control, he didn’t toe the line unless there was substantial reason to. He had to accept his father was different. Never relaxed, never friendly, as though in doing so he would diminish his aura. The older he got, the more controlling B.B. became. Cy couldn’t remember a time when he and his father had been in accord. Not even in childhood. The precious days when his mother, Deborah, had been alive. A few years back, after a particularly bad clash, he had stormed off, thinking his absence would solve the problem of their angst-laden relationship. In the process, he’d realized he could be throwing away his chance of inheritance. But what the hell! He had to be his own man, not the yes-man his father wanted. The sad fact was that B.B. liked grinding people into the ground. He had treated Robyn’s mother, Sharon, like the village idiot. His own mother, who had won the love and admiration of everyone around her, had apparently been highly successful at standing up to her autocratic husband—a man given to unpredictable bouts of black moods—but a riding accident had claimed her when Cy was ten and away at boarding school. A riding accident, when she’d been a wonderful horsewoman. Cy was constantly struck by the great ironies of life.

On that last bid for freedom he’d been gone only a couple of months when his father had come after him. It’d been a huge backing down for B.B., who’d come as close to begging as that man ever could. After he’d had a chance to cool down, B.B. had seen the wisdom of not letting him go. For one thing, for B.B. to deny his own son would go down very badly in the Outback. Even he, Outback legend though he was, was afraid of that. And for another, B.B. knew that Cy was not only the rightful heir to the Bannerman empire, but he was needed. Cy’s skills had been tested and proven. Many thought him the man of the future, serious, influential people who for years had muttered about B.B. and his ruthless practices. Things could be done right without throwing honesty and justice aside.

The conniving Robyn, though she was an excellent businesswoman and owned a very successful art gallery and a couple of boutiques in Darwin, couldn’t hope to replace him. Though she’d try. Robyn wasn’t a Bannerman, though she bore the name and fully took advantage of its clout. Robyn had a real father around someplace, but no one had heard of him for years. She was a year younger than Cy. She and Sharon had come to Mokhani two years after his own mother’s death. Sharon had been sweet and kind. Robyn was anything but, though she trod very carefully around B.B. It was no big secret to insiders that Robyn’s greatest ambition was to somehow usurp Cy and inherit Mokhani. He, the heir apparent, was the only obstacle in the way. Once, a good friend of his, Ross Sunderland, looking uneasily at Robyn, had suggested he watch his back. “Robyn likes shooting things, Cy,” he’d said.

Cy had responded with a practiced laugh. The reality was he’d been watching his back for years. Right from the beginning, Robyn had been a strange one. Cy had divined even as a boy that in Robyn he had an unscrupulous rival.

But for once, he and Robyn had joined forces against B.B.’s decision to hire Ms. Tennant. His decision had been based on Jessica Tennant’s age and inexperience, not her gender; his own mother, after all, had been a very creative woman. But Robyn was violently opposed to the idea of having another woman do the job she’d tried to convince B.B. she could do. She had reacted with the bitterest resentment not even bothering to conceal her hostility from B.B. A big mistake.

“Be careful, Robyn. Be careful.” B.B. had turned on her coldly. “I have hired this young woman. I don’t want second best.”

Finality in action.

THEY WERE MAKING their descent into Darwin airport when the slightly tipsy nuclear physicist beside Jessica leaned into her to confide, “We’re landing.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Darwin airport has one of the longest runways in the southern hemisphere.”

“Really? I’m not surprised to hear that.” She kept staring out the porthole. The guy had been hitting on her in an in-offensive way ever since they’d left Brisbane. At one point she’d even toyed with the idea of asking the flight attendant to move her, but the plane was full. In a few minutes she’d be able to make her getaway from Mr. Intelligence.

It was not to be. He followed her every step of the way into the terminal, making like an overzealous tour guide, pointing out areas already clearly marked. He topped it all off by offering to give her a lift to wherever she wanted to go.

“Thanks all the same, but I’m being picked up.”

“You never said that.” He turned to her with such an aggrieved look the image of Sean floated into her mind.

“No reason to,” she smiled. “Bye now.” If her luck held…

It didn’t. “At least I can help you with your luggage.”

Drat the guy! He was as hard to brush off as a bad case of dandruff.

“So what say we meet up for a drink sometime?” he suggested. “I live here. I can show you all the sights.”

“That’s kind of you, but I’ll be pretty busy.”

“Doin’ what?” He looked at her as though she were playing hard to get.

Irritation was escalating into her as much as the heat would allow when she suddenly caught sight of a stunning-looking guy, head and shoulders over the rest, maybe twenty-eight or thirty, striding purposely toward her.

It was to her, wasn’t it? She’d hate him to change his mind. What’s more, the milling crowd fell back as though to ease his path. How many men could carry that off?

“For cryin’ out loud, you know Bannerman?” Her companion did a double take, his gravelly drawl soaring toward falsetto.

Bannerman wasn’t Count Dracula surely? She nodded.

“He’s a friend?”

This was starting to belong in the too-hard basket. “He’s meeting me,” Jessica said.

“Well, I’m movin’ outta here.” Her annoying companion, a full six feet, all but reeled away. “I wouldn’t want to get in that guy’s way. Good luck!”

Jessica held her breath. So this is Cyrus Bannerman, she thought tracking his every movement. This was as good as it gets. The fact that he was so striking in appearance didn’t come as a surprise. Broderick Bannerman was an impressive-looking man—she’d seen numerous photos. Obviously good looks ran in the family. What she hadn’t been expecting was the charisma, the air of authority, that appeared entirely natural. Obviously Cyrus Bannerman was ready to take over his father’s mantle when many a son with a tycoon for a father finished up with a personality disorder. Not the case here, unless that palpable presence turned out to be a facade.

He was very tall, maybe six-three, with a great physique. The loose-limbed, long-legged stride was so graceful it was near mesmerizing. It put her in mind of the sensuous lope of a famous Pakistani cricketer she’d had a crush on as a child. Bannerman, as well he might be, given his lifestyle, was deeply tanned. In fact, he made everyone else’s tan look positively washed out. He had thick, jet-black hair, strong distinctive features, his eyes even at a distance the bluest she had ever seen. “Sapphires set in a bronze mask,” the romantically inclined might phrase it, and they’d be spot on. She knew instinctively she had better impress this guy with her professional demeanor. No contract had been signed as yet.

“Ms. Tennant?” Cyrus, for his part, saw a young woman, physically highly desirable, with a lovely full mouth and a mane of ash-blond hair springing into a riot of curls in the humid heat. Her tallish, slender body was relaxed. She had beautiful clear skin. Her large green eyes watched him coolly. Young she might be, but there was nothing diffident about her. She looked confident, clever, sizing him up as indeed he was sizing her up. They could have been business opponents facing each other across a boardroom table for the first time.

“Please, Jessica,” she said. Her voice matched her appearance, cool, confident, ever so slightly challenging.

“Cyrus Bannerman. I usually get Cy.”

“Then Cy it is.” Though every instinct shrieked a warning, she offered him her hand. It was taken in a firm, cool grip. Jessica let out her breath slowly, disconcerted by the thrill of skin on skin. “How nice of you to meet me.”

“No problem. I had business in Darwin.” The startling blue eyes continued to study her. She had already grasped the fact that, despite the smoothness of manner, he hadn’t taken to her. Was it wariness in his eyes? A trace of suspicion? More the pity! Anyone would think she had coerced his father into hiring her. Not that it mattered. She didn’t altogether like him. She did, however, like the look of him. A teeny distinction.

Baggage was already tumbling onto the carousel. He looked toward it. “If you’ll point out what’s yours, I’ll collect it. I’d like to get away as soon as possible. We’re going by helicopter. Hope that’s okay with you. You’re assured of a great view.”

So much for the big dusty Land Cruiser complete with a set of buffalo horns she’d been expecting.

THEY LIFTED OFF, climbing, climbing, into the blue June sky, climbing, climbing. Jessica tried to stay cool even though her heart was racing. This was a far cry from traveling in a Boeing 747. Outside the bubble of the cockpit, a mighty panorama opened up. Jessica caught the gasp in her throat before it escaped. Below them was the harbor. The immensity of it amazed her. She hadn’t been expecting that. Aquamarine on one arm of the rocky peninsula, glittering turquoise on the other. She knew from her history books that Darwin Harbour had seen more drama than any other harbor in Australia. The Japanese Imperial Air Force had bombed it during World War II turning the harbor into an inferno. Every ship, more than forty, including the U.S. destroyer Peary that had arrived that very morning, had been destroyed before the invaders had turned their attention to the small township itself, standing vulnerable on the rocky cliffs above the port. The invasion of Darwin had always been played down for some unknown reason. The town had been devastated again by Cyclone Tracy, Christmas Day 1974. Even her hometown of Brisbane, over a thousand miles away, had suffered the effects of that catastrophic force of nature.

Today, all was peace and calm. Jessica’s first impression was that Darwin was an exotic destination. A truly tropical city, surrounded by water on three sides, and so far as she could see the most multicultural city in the country. The Top End, as the northern coast of Australia was right on the doorstep of Southeast Asia, and there was a lot of traffic between the two. She was really looking forward to exploring the city when she had time. The art galleries, she’d heard, particularly the galleries that featured the paintings of the leading Aboriginal artists were well worth the visit.

The helicopter trip was turning into probably the most exciting trip of her life. As they banked and turned inland—Mokhani was a little over 140 kilometers to the southeast—just as Cyrus Bannerman had promised, she had a fantastic view of the ancient landscape. Such empty vastness! So few people! She’d read recently, when she’d been researching all she could about Broderick Bannerman, that although the Northern Territory was twice the size of Texas, it had one percent of the population. She’d also read that the population of Darwin was less than eighty thousand, while the Territory covered over two million square kilometers, most of which lay within the tropics. The Red Centre, fifteen-hundred kilometers south of Darwin and another great tourist mecca, was the home of the continent’s desert icons, the monolith of Uluru and the fantastic domes and minarets of Kata Tjuta, which had thrown such a scare into Brett and Tim. She realized in some surprise she knew more about overseas destinations, London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, New York on her last fabulous trip, than she did about the Top End and the vast interior of her own country.

That was about to change. She watched the rolling savannas and the vivid, vigorous pockets of rain forest give way to infinite flat plains, the floor of which was decorated with golden, dome-shaped grasses she knew were the ubiquitous spinifex that covered most of the Outback. The great glowing mounds made an extraordinary contrast to the fiery orange-red of the earth, and the amazing standing formations, she realized, were termite mounds. From the air, they looked for all the world like an army on the march.