Margaret Way - Home To Eden

“I didn’t have luggage, only an overnight bag,” Drake replied over his shoulder. “It’s with my driver. I’m flying out of Archerfield. The plane’s there. How are you getting home?”

No smile. Curt tone. Always the overtones of authority.

“I’m not ready to go home yet, Drake.” She studied his compelling face for a few seconds, then looked away. It made no sense to ache for what you weren’t allowed. “I’m too tired. Too much traveling. I can’t sleep on planes.”

“Neither can I.” He gazed down at her moodily. “So what’s the plan? Stay overnight at a hotel and fly on tomorrow?”

“Something like that.” She flipped back a stray tendril, conscious she was swaying slightly on her feet and unable to do much about it.

His hand shot out to steady her. “You look utterly played out.”

“Thank you, Drake,” she responded wryly, immediately aware of skin on skin, the crackling tension between them.

He dropped his hand abruptly. “Where are you staying?”

“The Sheraton.”

“Then I’ll give you a lift into the city.”

She shook her head, feeling extraordinarily close to tears. Exhaustion, of course. “You don’t have to do that, Drake.”

“I know,” he said, “but since I’ve known you all your life, I don’t feel right leaving you when you’re so obviously jet-lagged. My driver is waiting outside.”

She hesitated, hoping against hope the usual antagonism wouldn’t flare up. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“Right, well…I have to say yes and thank you. But I’m taking you out of your way, aren’t I?”

“It would hardly be the first time,” he said tersely. “I suppose I could change my plans to accommodate yours. It won’t matter much. We could fly back tomorrow. The alternative for you would be many more hours spent arranging connecting flights.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.” She spoke quietly, feeling all the distrust and conflicts just below the surface.

“Why not? It’s not as though you don’t have enough on your plate. I heard your father is back on Eden.”

She shrugged. “Heath Cavanagh?”

“There’s no remote possibility your father is anyone else.” The last time they’d met, they’d managed to fight bitterly about her paternity. Accusations full of impotence, despair and fury. The acridity still hung in the air between them.

“Don’t let’s go over that again.” Her breathing was ragged.

“It’d please me greatly never to hear you insinuate it again.”

“What do you know, anyway, Drake?” She stared directly into his dark eyes.

“I know you’re your own worst enemy.” As had happened so many times in the past, their conversation jumped to the deeply personal. No in-betweens. “You’re incredibly bitter about your father.”

“And you aren’t?” Her eyes blazed.

Briefly he touched her arm, a calming gesture that nevertheless had steel in it.

“No one could call us friends anymore, could they, Drake.” She made an effort to pull herself together, conscious that people were looking their way.

Drake moved to the relative privacy of a broad column. “Fate took care of that,” he said dryly, “but we’re still neighbors.”

“So we are. We get invited to the same places.”

“How else would I have seen you in the last five years?” he went on, looking into her face. “Christmas parties, a wedding or two, polo matches…the last time, a picnic race meeting. One has to be grateful for small mercies. Things could change if you really wanted them to, Nicole. You have one solution at hand for this ongoing cause of conflict.”

Hope spurted, died. “You’re talking my father, DNA?” She tipped her head. Tall herself, she still had to look up at him.

“It would settle the paternity issue once and for all.” There was challenge in his voice.

“I couldn’t bring myself to ask him.”

“You don’t have to ask him.”

“I need permission. That’s how it works.”

He kept his eyes on her. “You have a question. I have the answer. The decision is up to you. So far you’ve just made things hard for yourself. And me, too.”

She shrugged, conscious of the truth of his claim. “Have you seen him?”

“I don’t normally pop over to Eden to say hello.”

“Once you did.”

“Yes.” Images of her as a bright and beautiful young girl flashed into his mind. She’d been quite the tomboy, determined, adventurous, brave in her way. Never the sort of kid that tagged along like her cousin, Joel. She had a wonderful natural way with horses, too, which had created an additional bond between them, plus a great love of their awe-inspiring desert homeland.

“Heath is supposed to be dying,” she found herself confiding. “At least that’s what Siggy said.”

“Why does it sound like you doubt her?” He couldn’t help frowning.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” she said, stalling. “In fact, I don’t want to talk about Heath Cavanagh at all. He’s not a very nice man. He could have blood on his hands. You McClellands long believed it.” She drew a breath, and her next words held a conciliatory note. “I’m afraid of going home, Drake. That’s why I don’t go home.”

“Do you think you have to tell me that?” he responded, his voice rough with emotion. He wanted to reach out for her. Comfort her. Once he would have. “We’d better cut short this conversation,” he suggested. “You’re sagging on your feet. I can’t leave you here while I fly back home alone. I just can’t. I’d be abandoning you to a series of very tiring flights.”

“Indeed you would, but I’ve survived so far.” She straightened her shoulders.

“At this point I doubt much further.” He put a supportive hand under her elbow. “Let’s call a truce. We can go back to being sparring partners after I land you on Eden.”

NOTHING HAD CHANGED.

From the air Eden looked timeless. Primordial. Majestic. The homestead and its satellite buildings nestled in the shadow of the ragged escarpment that commanded the empty landscape. The colors were incredible. They reminded her of the ancient pottery she’d seen in museums. Orange and yellow, fiery red, molten cinnabar, indigo, the silvery blue of the mirage that danced over the spinifex plains. Vast areas that in the Dry resembled great fields of golden wheat. In the shimmering heat of the afternoon, the lawns and gardens that surrounded the homestead, fed by bores, were an oasis in the desert terrain.

“Eden!” All her love for it was revealed in the one word.

“Home of the Cavanaghs for one hundred and fifty years,” Drake said with a glance at her proud yet poignant expression. “No time at all compared to the Old World.”

“But plenty of time to put down roots.” She stared down at her desert home, knowing it might be already under siege from the very man who sat beside her at the Beech Baron’s controls. “Eden is our castle and we guard it from all comers.” Her voice was charged with emotion and more than a hint of warning. “The ruined tower…” Her voice faltered. That was a slip. She never mentioned the tower.

“Is a relic from the bad old days when it was used as a lookout and fortress against the marauding tribes.” He wouldn’t force her to bring up the personal significance of the tower. “That’s the story, anyway. Personally I think the Aborigines were only trying to defend themselves or cut out a beast for food.”

“We don’t really know. There were mistakes on both sides. Eden and Kooltar suffered several incidents in the same years, the mid 1860s. So did the McQueens farther to our north. A member of my own family and two of the station hands were speared to death barely a hundred yards from the tower door.”