Margaret Way - The Cattleman

This was as good as it got. The fact that he was so striking in appearance didn’t come as a surprise. His father was an impressive-looking man. 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 tall, maybe six-three, with a great physique. The loose-limbed long-legged stride was so graceful it was nearly mesmerizing. He had thick, jet-black hair, strong distinctive features, his eyes even at a distance the bluest she had ever seen. She knew instinctively she had better impress this guy with her professional demeanor. No contract had yet been signed.

“Ms. Tennant?”

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’s the pity! she thought. 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.

Dear Reader,

It is with much pleasure I introduce to you the first in my four-book series MEN OF THE OUTBACK. The setting moves from my usual stamping ground, my own state of Queensland, to the Northern Territory.

The Northern Territory is arguably the most colorful and exciting part of the continent. Even today it is frontier country. The Territory comprises what we call the Top End and the Red Centre. The Top End has as its capital Darwin, the gateway to Australia and a hop, step and a jump from Southeast Asia. The chief town of the Red Centre is Alice Springs, which lies in the middle of the fantastically colored MacDonnell Ranges, the setting for one of the stories. The Top End lies well above the Tropic of Capricorn. The Red Centre is the desert, the home of our most revered monuments, Uluru and Kata Tjuta. Thus we have in a vast area two extreme climatic and geographical divisions. World Heritage–listed Kakadu National Park, crocodiles and water buffalo to the Top, the Dead Heart to the Centre (though not dead at all, only lying dormant until the rains transform it into the greatest garden on earth).

The pervading theme of the series is family. It can be a difficult and provocative subject because many highly dysfunctional families are out there—fighting, loving, hating, struggling, exploiting, betraying. Family offers endless opportunities for its members to hurt and be hurt, to love and support or bitterly condemn. What sort of family we grew up in reverberates for the rest of our lives. Were we blessed with a rock-solid foundation or left with memories that plague us? One thing is certain—at the end of the day, blood binds.

I invite you, dear reader, to explore the lives of my families. Not all of it is invention. Such people as I write about do inhabit families. What sort of family is yours? Now and then.

Margaret Way

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PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mokhani Station

Northern Territory, Australia

1947

ALL THE WHILE THEY WERE riding, Moira felt a stab of anxiety as sharp as a knife beneath her breastbone. She tried to tell herself not to be afraid, but it did no good. A sense of foreboding weighed on her so oppressively, she slumped in the saddle, her hands trembling on the reins. If her companion noticed, Moira saw no sign. It was another hot, humid, thundery day on the verge of the Wet, or the Gunummeleng, as the station Aborigines called it. There were only two seasons in the Territory, she’d learned. The Wet and the Dry. The Wet, the time of the monsoon, extended from late November to March, the Dry lasted from April through October. It was mid-November now. She had arrived on Mokhani in early February of that year to teach the Bannerman twins, a boy and a girl aged seven. Nearly ten months of sharing her life with extraordinary people; the ten most life-changing months of her life. Ultimately, they had turned her from just out of adolescence into a woman. Her great fear was she had chosen a tragic path.

Nearing eighteen and not long out of her excellent convent school, she’d craved adventure. Mokhani had offered it. After years of hard study and obeying strict rules, she’d been ready for a liberating experience. It was understood that at some time she had to continue her tertiary education, but if her parents hadn’t exactly encouraged her to take a gap year, they’d put up no great objection when they’d seen how much she’d wanted it. As a much-loved only child, “the wonderful surprise” of her parents’ middle years, their only wish was for her to be happy. The family solicitor, a good friend of her father’s, had come up with the answer. His legal firm handled many Outback clients’ affairs. It just so happened, the Bannerman family, pastoral pioneers with huge cattle interests in the Northern Territory and Queensland’s Gulf country, wanted a governess for their children, someone of good family and proven academic ability, a young woman preferably, to better relate to the children.

She qualified on all counts. Her father was a well-respected family doctor. Her mother, an ex-nurse, helped out several days at his surgery. Moira had been a straight-A student, winning a scholarship to university. The Bannermans, for their part, were rich, powerful, influential. The present owner and heir to the Bannerman fortune was Steven Bannerman—ex-Squadron Leader Steven Bannerman, seconded to the Royal Air Force during the war, survivor of the Battle for Britain, who’d returned home a war hero. His wife, Cecily, was a niece of the South Australian governor. In short, the Bannermans were the sort of people to whom her parents felt no qualms about sending her.

The great irony was, they might have been signing her death warrant.

Moira lifted one hand, pressing it hard against her heart to stop it from bursting through her rib cage. If her companion addressed a stray comment to her, she heard nothing of it. There were too many demons clamouring inside her head. She knew she wasn’t very far away from a breakdown. In a sense, it was another version of the Aboriginal kurdaitcha man, the tribal sorcerer, pointing the bone. Yet nothing had been said to her. Her throbbing fears were virtually without proof, but like all victims, she had the inbuilt awareness there was threat ahead.