Marion Lennox: Rescued By A Millionaire

© 2005

The Indian Pacific Railway is a wonderful train ride from the east coast of Australia to the far west. It takes three days from coast to coast, and it leaves daily. For the purpose of this book I’ve played with the timetable and the train runs only twice a week.

HIS overwhelming sensation was relief.

Wasn’t he supposed to feel fury? Desolation? Bitterness? That was what he’d felt in the past when people he loved had walked away. As Riley Jackson loaded the last of his lovely wife’s possessions into his best friend’s Lear jet he expected at least an echo of that pain.

It didn’t happen. The plane was now a sliver on the horizon and he felt no desolation at all.

Maybe he was cured of this love business. He obviously didn’t have what it took to hold a relationship together and he no longer cared.

‘What do you reckon, boy?’ he asked his dog, and Bustle nosed his hand in gentle query. Bustle wouldn’t miss Lisa either. Lisa had no time for dogs.

‘We’re on our own now, mate,’ Riley told him as he turned to walk back to the house. The old dog limped beside him. Unlike his wife, Bustle would be loyal to the end.

Losing Bustle would be real heartache, Riley thought. That would be the real end of loving.

Bustle nosed his fingers again, and Riley stooped to give his ancient collie a gentle hug.

‘I know. I don’t have you for much longer, boy, and I’ll miss you like crazy. But I’ll miss nobody else. No one is going to get close to me, ever again.’

MISTAKE. Major mistake. On a mistake scale of one to ten, this ranked at about a thousand.

For as far as Jenna could see there was red dust and railway track. A few low-growing saltbushes grew along the line. In the distance, the train was fading into shimmering heat.

There was nothing else.

Jenna stood motionless, trying to take in the enormity of what she’d done.

When the announcement had been made that the train would stop at Barinya Downs, Jenna had assumed it was some sort of town. She’d glanced out the window and half a dozen trucks had been pulled up at the platform. Staff from the train had been unloading goods, and wide-hatted, farming-type men and women had been tossing the unloaded goods into the backs of their trucks.

It had to be a settlement at least, she’d decided, which was infinitely preferable to two more days on the train watching Brian humiliate his little daughter.

But she hadn’t checked. She’d been so angry that she’d hurled their suitcases from the train and told Karli they were getting off. They’d stepped out onto the platform just as the train had started to move.

So where were they?

Barinya Downs.

The name meant nothing.

Worse. The trucks she’d seen a few minutes ago had now disappeared in a cloud of red dust.

There was nothing here at all.

She stared about her in horror, taking in her surroundings with sickening disbelief. What had she done? Where had she landed them? They were a day and a half’s train journey from Sydney and two days from Perth.

They were nowhere.

‘Where are we?’ Karli asked, in the scared little voice that was all she ever used within Brian’s hearing. It was the only tone Jenna had heard for the last two days.

‘We’re at Barinya Downs,’ she said, speaking loudly into the hot wind, as if naming the place with gusto would give it substance.

It didn’t. Barinya Downs seemed to consist of a concrete platform and a tin roof. That was it. There wasn’t a tree. There wasn’t a telephone. Nothing.

And Karli was standing by her side, waiting for her to tell her what to do.

Good grief, Jenna, you’ve really done it now, she whispered to herself. You king-sized twit. Dad always said you were stupid and he’s been proved right.

But what her father thought no longer mattered. Charles Svenson was in America.

Maybe her father was even acting in collusion with Brian.

The thought was unbelievable, but it was certainly possible. She and Karli shared a mother, but their different fathers-Brian and Charles-had to be the most unscrupulous men she knew.

So Charles was no help, and Brian was on the train that was drawing further away by the minute.

Jenna closed her eyes, remembering Brian’s face as she’d prepared to alight.

‘Get off, then,’ he snarled. ‘See if I care. I’ve won.’ His expression as she and her little half-sister stepped off the train was pure triumph.

Had he realised what this place was? Jenna’s breath caught in horror as the thought struck home. Had Brian realised what she was doing? Had he known that Barinya Downs was nothing?

Surely even Brian wouldn’t wish his daughter to be so desperately stranded.

Surely nothing. She sat down on her suitcase and tried to fight panic. She’d been so stupid. Five-year-old Karli was looking at her in concern, and she tugged the little girl down onto her knee and hugged her hard.

Calm down, she told herself. Make yourself think.

‘Will someone come and get us?’ Karli asked, her tone totally trusting, and Jenna struggled to find an answer.

‘Maybe,’ she told her. ‘I need to figure things out.’

Karli obediently subsided into silence-a feat she was all too good at. Karli had spent her whole five and three-quarter years being seen and not heard. Jenna was determined her silence had to end, but for now she was grateful for Karli’s silence. She had to think what to do.

Which was hard.

As well as being panic-stricken, Jenna was almost unbearably hot. They’d emerged from an air-conditioned train into an outside world so scorching it could almost bake bread. It was the middle of the day in the Australian Outback.

Forget the heat. Think, she told herself.

When would the next train come through?

She forced herself to remember the timetable she’d studied back in England. Brian’s suggestion that they take the long train journey across the centre of Australia had been a surprise, and she’d looked the train’s route and timetable up on the internet.

Think, she told herself desperately once more. I must be wrong.

She wasn’t. She was sure she wasn’t. The train ran across the continent only twice a week. As well as unloading goods, the stop at Barinya Downs had been to allow the train running in the opposite direction to pass them. It had rumbled through ten minutes ago.

There’d be no more trains for three days, she thought. This was Thursday. There was no train until next Monday.

Feeling sicker by the minute, Jenna hauled her cell phone from her bag and stared at the screen.

No host.

She was out of range of any of the communication carriers. Of course. What did she expect?

But she’d seen those guys in the trucks. They have to live somewhere, she told herself. She put Karli gently aside and walked to the edge of the platform. That was another mistake. The force of the midday sun hit her like a blast from a furnace. She recoiled into the shade, and Karli snuggled back against her, finding security in the curves of her body.

Great security she was.

‘We’ll be fine, Karli,’ she whispered. She narrowed her eyes against the glare, gazing around in a three-sixty-degree sweep. Surely somewhere there had to be something.

There were rough tracks leading in half a dozen directions from the siding. Nothing else.

No. Something.

There was definitely something, she thought as she came to the end of her sweep. Buildings? She wasn’t sure. It was too far to see.