Joan Kilby - The Cattleman's Bride

She heard a step behind her and turned to find Luke with her suitcases in hand. “Thanks. Sorry, I should have helped bring those in. I was just so excited at seeing the house. I never thought it would affect me this much. Suddenly I’m reliving all sorts of memories—my mother’s memories, really—stories she’s told me through the years. I feel I know Burrinbilli almost as well as if I’d lived here myself.”

Luke gave her a dry glance and gestured her inside. “Make yourself at home.”

Oops, her pride of ownership was showing. Sarah stepped into the large entrance hall, her gaze rising to the high, ornate plaster ceiling before alighting on an impressive glass-encased display of butterflies.

“Of course, I couldn’t ever live here,” she assured him. “I’m an urban girl through and through. Bright lights, skyscrapers, the sound of traffic in the streets. To tell you the truth, all this quiet makes me nervous. Give me an apartment, a café and a view of the city over Puget Sound and I’m at home. Speaking of water, will you show me the lake?”

Luke hung his hat on a peg beside the door.

“Okay. But like I said, it’s not what you’re expecting.”

HE LED THE WAY to the other side of the house, through the biggest country kitchen Sarah had ever seen. She just caught sight of a stone fireplace you could stand up in enclosing a modern stainless-steel stove before Luke pushed open the sliding doors to the back veranda.

This section of the veranda was enclosed with fly screen and clearly used as an extension of the living space. At one end stood a child’s school desk and bookshelves, while at the other end wicker chairs padded with cushions were grouped around an outdoor table.

She gazed eagerly through the screen, past the sheds and the clothesline and the tall trees whose spreading boughs shaded the yard to—Huh? Where the lake should have been was nothing but a broad dent in the dry red earth. Tufts of salt grass grew here and there.

“That’s it?” Although he’d warned her, seeing the empty lake bed made her feel like crying. Anticipation of Lake Burrinbilli had sustained her through the long hours of the journey and now…It simply didn’t exist. “When did it last have water in it?”

“Three, maybe four years ago. It’s not really a lake, just a depression that holds water when it floods. It’s been six years since it was deep enough to paddle in.”

Sarah pressed two fingers to her closed eyelids and felt moisture seep beneath her lashes. Fatigue was sending her emotions up and down like a yo-yo. She was dying for a coffee, but even more than that she wanted to be alone with her disappointment. “I think I’ll take a shower and lie down.”

“It’s a different world when the rains come,” Luke said, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Green shooting up over the Downs, thousands of wildflowers. Frogs seem to spring right out of the mud. Flocks of birds so large they darken the sky.”

Sarah opened her eyes. He was gazing across the dry lake bed, looking into the past. Or maybe it was the future.

“I wish I could see that,” she said, blinking at the sun-bleached landscape. Faced with reality, she numbly realized that even her mother’s memories failed her.

“Life will flourish here again.” His eyes, locked briefly with hers, seemed to add, For those who stay.

He led her back through the kitchen and down a long hall. “This is my room. Becka’s room.” He gestured to closed doors. “Loungeroom’s out the front. Bathroom’s in there. And this—” he pushed open a door and stood aside “—is your room.”

Sarah stepped past him into a square room with faded floral wallpaper. The matching curtains were clean but frayed around the edges. A white coverlet lay across the iron single bed. On the opposite wall sat a dresser made of distressed pine that her antique-collecting friends in Seattle would pay big money for. In one corner stood a matching old-fashioned wardrobe. Overhead a ceiling fan whirred quietly.

Luke set her bags down beside the bed and returned to the doorway. “I was going to move out of the main bedroom while you’re here, but—”

“I wouldn’t want to put you out.”

“I reckon this was your mother’s room.”

“My mother’s room?” she said, glancing around with new interest. “What makes you think so?”

He nodded toward the dresser and a notebook lying on top. “I found her diary tucked under a loose floorboard beside the bed. Must have been there for years. I told your father about it, but he didn’t mention returning it. Don’t know why, but I kept it instead of throwing it out.”

Sarah moved across the room to pick up the notebook. Scrawled in a loopy, slanted hand on the front of the faded red cover were the words Anne’s Diary. Private. Keep Out. This means you!

Sarah smiled. The handwriting was more rounded and immature than nowadays, but it was definitely Anne’s. “Did you read it?”

Luke looked offended she would even ask. “Says right on the cover that it’s private. Anyway, I don’t have time to read girls’ diaries.”

Sarah flipped through the closely written pages and found herself tempted. Don’t even think it. She returned the diary to the dresser. “I’ll take it to her. She might find it amusing after all these years.”

“Right. Well, I’ll let you get settled.” He backed out of the room and shut the door.

Sarah put her clothes away, then flopped on the bed with her cell phone. She replaced the old batteries with the spares from her suitcase and dialed her mother’s number.

“Hi, Mom,” she said, disappointed when she got the answering machine. “I’m here. My God, what a trip! It’s so hot. How come you never mentioned the flies? And the lake that’s not a lake. But the homestead is beautiful. By the way, Luke found your old diary. Oh, and I’ve already met Len. What’s the deal with him? I’m going to rest now, but I’ll call you later. Love you. Bye.”

LUKE PACED the front veranda, his frowning gaze on the dirt track that cut across the Downs toward Murrum. The wide western sky was bloodred with the setting sun, yet still no cloud of dust heralded Abby and Becka’s arrival.

“Where do you suppose they are, Wal?”

The dog, who was never far from Luke’s side, pressed his cold nose against his master’s palm.

Luke heard a movement behind him and turned to see Sarah standing in the doorway. She’d put on a sleeveless cotton-knit dress, which hugged her curves and showed plenty of leg. Her damp auburn hair fell in long wispy spikes around her bare shoulders. His dormant libido stirred like a bear after a long winter, ravenous and on the prowl.

“Is something wrong?” She came forward, bringing with her the subtle fruity scent of her shampoo.

“It’s almost seven o’clock. Abby hasn’t brought Becka back yet.” Back in your cave, Sampson.

Sarah stooped to pat Wal. “Maybe she’s on her way.”

“Abby won’t drive out here in the dark. It’s too easy to stray from the track and get lost. She said she’d have Becka back in time for tea.”

“Tea? Oh, you mean dinner.” Sarah glanced down the track and stepped behind the screen of bougainvillea, her fingers brushing the glossy dark green leaves. “Maybe her car broke down or she got caught up in something.”

Luke strode back into the house to ring Abby again, realizing belatedly that he’d just walked off without a word. He wasn’t used to informing others of his movements. First Becka, and now Sarah.

“Hello?” Abby sounded pleasant, unconcerned.

“Why aren’t you here?” he demanded. “Is Becka okay?”

Outside the kitchen window, dozens of snowy white corellas screeched as they flapped home to roost in the river gums.