SHELLEY hit the pavement with a fast light step that belied her tiredness. It was late Friday afternoon and she’d all but completed her list of “must-dos” in the town of Koomera Crossing. Her first meeting, with the bank manager, hadn’t gone too badly, but the meeting with her father’s solicitor—the only one in the town—had not been so good. She’d then ordered fresh food supplies from the general store, where they always did a marvellous job. That had been the most important and most pressing need. Supplies had to be ordered in to accommodate a small party of Japanese guests due in a month’s time. Those supplies would be airfreighted out to the station before the tourists’ arrival.
She’d stocked up on all the non-perishable items, and now she was going to buy a few little treats for herself, just to keep her spirits up. Toiletries, mainly. Soaps, shampoos, creams, a bit of make-up and the like. Usually she spent very little on herself, only peanuts on clothes and cosmetics, but she made sure she looked after her hair and skin. Those precious assets had to last her a lifetime, after all.
She was dog-tired even for a girl with plenty of go, and she had to force her legs to see out the distance. She’d started out from home, Wybourne Station, in the pre-dawn, making a fairly quick trip—some three hours over rough Outback roads—before she hit Koomera Crossing, the nearest thing to civilisation in this part of the world.
South-West Queensland really was the Back O’Beyond, but she loved her desert home with a passion. Nowhere else could offer her such peace and freedom, such vast open spaces. This was the Timeless Land, sacred to all aborigines. Shelley too revelled in her extraordinary environment—the living desert, with its vivid pottery colours, undulating red sands and surreal rock monuments. There was nowhere quite like the Outback for mystique. Its very antiquity gripped the soul.
It also kept her close to Sean, her guardian angel, her twin brother. Sean had drowned when they were six. Even now she remembered the sound of his sweet voice calling to her as she’d run madcap in the homestead’s rambling, overgrown garden…
Shel…Shel…Shel…
Sean had always run to her, his twin, for love, for reassurance and comfort, rather than to their older sister, Amanda, or even their mother. And even after the terrible day of the accident, of which Shelley had no clear recollection but of chaos and high, screaming voices, Sean had still accompanied her on her childhood adventures. Hadn’t he woken her every dawn of her life, patting her forehead and pulling her ear? “Wake up, Shel. The sun’ll burn a hole in you.”
Sean! Always destined to remain a beautiful little boy, Titian curls his halo, rosebud lips moving soundlessly, his eyes like shining jewels, a gauzy white radiance all around him.
That was what twins were like. They shared a bond that meant they were never parted, not even in death. Still, heartbreak was never far from Shelley. Her memories of her little brother were bittersweet, but the power and magic of their love for each other sustained her even now.
She walked on briskly, calling a pleasantry here and there. Nearly everyone in the town was as well known to her as she was to them.
She had no intention of returning to Wybourne tonight. She couldn’t possibly find the strength for the long drive after hoofing around the town for hours, always trying to find shelter under awnings from the dry, burning sun.
It was the greatest mystery to her and to everyone else—and sometimes she thought her older sister Amanda was secretly outraged by the fact—but she didn’t have a single freckle. She the redhead with the untameable firewheel mop. Her skin was often referred to as “porcelain”. She had to thank her darling now deceased maternal grandmother Moira, born in County Kerry, Ireland, for that. Ditto the rose-gold mane, the green eyes and, it had to be said, the Irish temper when aroused.
She was staying at the town’s only pub, run by Mick Donovan. The food was fine and the accommodation was comfortable and spotlessly clean. She couldn’t wait to run a bubble bath—what a luxury—and just soak. But first she’d have to buy the bubbles.
She was standing in the town’s pharmacy, deciding between two—jasmine-scented or gardenia—when a hand tweaked one of her curls. And not all that gently, she thought in surprise. She was sure in the course of the day she’d spoken to just about everyone who was out and about in town. Station born and bred, she’d been coming into Koomera Crossing all her life.
She was so quick on her feet she caught the telltale trace of devilry on a handsome mouth.
Excitement welled up so fast it made her dizzy. There stood Brock Tyson, right there in the flesh. His bearing held the same fiery male pride, the same high-mettled look that put her in mind of a powerful plunging stallion. As a full-grown man he was magnificent, but the dark brooding hadn’t died in him. She sensed it plainly as she faced him. The town, indeed the entire Outback, hadn’t seen or heard of him in years, though he was one of their own.
Daniel Brockway Tyson had been one of the wildest and most daring young men the vast South-West had ever known. Brock had found all sorts of marvellous ways of living on the edge. Sometimes as a boy he would go off into the desert for days, giving no account of his adventures when he finally got home to Mulgaree, where he had been met by the predictable whipping. Mulgaree was the flagship of the Kingsley chain of cattle stations. Old man Kingsley, Brock’s grandfather, ran it like a private fiefdom. It was he who had administered the whipping, but he’d never broken Brock’s spirit.
“Why, if it isn’t sweet little Shelley Logan,” Brock exclaimed, his remarkable light eyes moving over her. “You haven’t changed at all.”
“I certainly have!” She allowed him to steer her out of the aisle. “All it takes is time.”
“Give me a minute and it’ll become more apparent.” He grinned, continuing his inspection. “How are you?”
Shelley Logan had been just a kid when he’d left. So pretty, so innocent, so bruised by fate. Brock hadn’t forgotten the enchanting little Logan twins and their tragedy. There wouldn’t be a soul for thousands of miles around who wasn’t familiar with the sad story of how little Sean Logan had lost his life.
“I’m fine, Brock.” Shelley was completely unprepared for the onrush of surprise and delight. “Where in the world did you spring from? I’ve been in town all day, yet not a single soul mentioned you were back, let alone right here in Koomera Crossing.”
His features, which might have been chiselled by a master sculptor, tightened. “It was not my idea but my beloved grandfather’s. It seems he can no longer endure our estrangement. Can you beat that? He kicked me out almost five years ago to the day; now he relays such an impassioned plea I simply couldn’t turn him down.”
“He’s ill?” The thought sprang immediately to her mind. “People start thinking of family reconciliations at those times.”
“He’s dying in the way of mere mortals,” Brock told her caustically. “Of course he never thought he was one. I’m not letting any cat out of the bag; it’ll only take a day for it to be all over town.”
Shelley looked up at him. She had to tilt her head back. Brock was easily six-three. She was vertically challenged at five-two. “I don’t know what to say, Brock. I always thought your grandfather was very cruel to you.” The whole Outback was in agreement on that.
“Sure he was,” he said carelessly. “But I used to get my own back. I had the rare pleasure of telling him off. Not so my poor mother.”
“How is she?” Shelley asked, eager for news.
He glanced beyond her, out into the mirage-stalked street, his finely cut nostrils flaring. The look in his eyes was very complex and disturbing. “She didn’t come home with me, Shel. I buried her in Ireland—the land of her ancestors. She was taken by cancer.”
“Brock!” Tender-hearted Shelley found her eyes stinging. “I am so sorry. I know how close you were to your mother. And she to you.” Shaken, she took a deep breath of air.
“So I’m alone in the world,” he said simply. “My dad simply vanished like a puff of smoke when I was six, and I can’t count the rest of my family as family. They’re more sworn enemies—or plotters at the very least. Cousin Philip and his mother, dear Frances. She’s always hated me.”
Shelley’s expression clouded. “Deep down I swear she admires you.”
“Really? I’ve never heard it.” His eyes, a lovely lustrous silver, such a foil for his dark colouring, strayed over her.
She felt her whole body flush. Brock Tyson’s sex appeal was enormous. Once she’d had the mother of all crushes on him—he a charismatic, experienced twenty-one to her virginal sixteen. He’d even kissed her once. Not that he would ever remember. It had been at a bush dance. Her first. He’d swooped on her in an excess of high spirits, flirting, reckless, whirling her off her feet with a whoop of laughter. She’d never forgotten the hardly-to-be-borne excitement of her first kiss—hitherto unsurpassed, worst luck! Brock had always loved the girls, and they’d all loved him.
“In some ways you were Philip’s hero,” she mused. “He longed to be like you. Brave and daring. Unafraid of your grandfather. You two cousins should have been great friends.”
“That was impossible, Shelley.” He shook his black head. “Kingsley and dear Aunt Frances set us head to head. Who was to be the heir? The one who challenged or the one who toed the line? Is Phil still sweet on you?” He said it suddenly, as though he didn’t much like the idea.
“Relax, we’re only friends. We’ve known one another forever. My parents approve of him, which is kind of a plus. It’s wonderful to see you, Brock. I’m terribly, terribly glad you’re back again.”
He smiled down at her, clearly amused by her obvious pleasure and sincerity. “You always were a sweet little thing.” Looking at her wide, sensitive mouth, he had an unexpected flash of memory. “I seem to remember kissing you once. Did I?”
“It was normal for you to kiss all the girls,” she said drolly.
“I don’t recall kissing your sister. Is she married yet?”
“No. And how do you know I’m not?” She tilted a brow in mock indignation.
“You still look like a rosebud.” He gave that lazily sexy smile. “People tell me you’re running some sort of tourist venture out at Wybourne?”
“I am, and I’m very proud of it.” Her tone was calm and self-assured, belying her girlish appearance. “It’s taken time, but we’re getting off the ground. A lot of the planning has fallen on me. My poor parents never did recover from Sean’s death. It’s left them rather tired of life.”
“I know what it’s like to mourn. I bet Amanda is a big help to you,” Brock said with a touch of sarcasm, remembering all too clearly Shelley’s pretty, highly flirtatious and self-centred sister.
“Couldn’t do without her,” Shelley said loyally, Martha to Amanda’s Mary and so well used to it, it had become second nature. “Amanda shines where I don’t.”
“Where might that be?” he asked sceptically.
“She plays the piano and she has an attractive singing voice. Country and western—that sort of thing. Guests like it. Plus she’s very pretty, as I’m sure you’ll remember.”
“And you’re not?” He upped the excitement with a lingering gaze.
“Stop flattering me, Brock Tyson,” she said mock severely. “I don’t know how to deal with it.”
“I bet you do. In fact, you’ve acquired so much poise you might be getting on for middle-aged,” he joked. “How on earth do you manage to keep the freckles at bay?”
Sex appeal simply oozed out of this man. With those eyes of his on her Shelley felt like splashing herself with cold water. “I can’t take the credit, Brock. Just genes, I suppose. How long are you going to stay with us?”
“As long as I can tolerate it,” he said, all of a sudden moody, but still so charismatic he took her breath away. “Kingsley, about to face his Maker, thinks it’s time to get a few things straightened out. My mother was his only daughter. He was supposed to have adored her. That was before my father came along to claim her heart. I never saw any sign of love or affection from my grandfather towards my mother. He just found ways to upset and humiliate her. And hey, Shel, it’s not all his money. Grandma Brockway brought a fortune to the marriage. It was Brockway money that kept my mother and me in the beginning. After that I was able to pay our way. Kingsley sent us off penniless. As you say, he was a cruel man. It’s just that I found his cruelty easier to endure than my poor mother.”
“Surely in asking you to return home he’s begging your forgiveness?” she suggested, feeling the bitterness and anger coming off him in waves.
“Then he’s going to be disappointed,” he clipped off. “Judgement Day is coming for Rex Kingsley.”
“Pray God he accepts it,” she said quietly. “What did you do all the time you were away?” Rex Kingsley had never mentioned his daughter or his grandson from the day they left.
“Work.” He shrugged. “I had to, as we were pretty much broke. I’ve been involved in breeding and training racehorses at a top stud in Ireland. Impossible to imagine a place more different to our Outback!”
“Ireland!” she echoed. “So that’s where you got to! So far away. I often wonder what our ancestors thought of their strange new land. Ireland. How exciting! I’m going to go one day. That’s a promise I’ve made to myself. You always were marvellous at handling horses, Brock. You’ve even developed an Irish lilt. Did you like it?”
“Loved it.” His silver eyes sparkled. “You know how us outbackers are with horses. The Irish are the same. The instant rapport paid off. I did a good job. I made good money, and earned respect from people I admired. I kept my mother secure until she died.”
“No one here knew where you went.”
“Kingsley cut us off completely. I returned the favour. More than anything I blame him for turning his back on my mother. Why would I want to notify him when she died?”
“I’m surprised you came home,” she ventured. Brock, always vivid, had developed a very commanding not to say daunting presence mixed in with the familiar charm.
“Just occasionally I remember I’m a Kingsley on my mother’s side. If dear old Grandpa wants to reinstate me in his will—and he seems to want to—I’m not going to stop him. My mother was owed. I’m owed.” The silver eyes took on a hard glitter. “They call it atonement.”
“So you’re staying at Mulgaree? That can’t be easy.” She remembered how Philip and Frances had always been so jealous of Brock, with his energy and effortless skills, the way he stood up to his domineering grandfather.
“It’s not as though I have to see anyone if I don’t want to.” He gave a brief laugh. “Heaven knows the old barn is big enough.”
“You used to love it,” she reminded him dryly.
“And I still do, Emerald Eyes.”
Shelley Logan was no longer the cute little teenager he remembered. She’d matured. She had a woman’s sensitivity and perception and she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Back then she’d been way too young for him, but in the interim the rosebud had opened up velvety perfumed petals.
He continued to stare at her, holding her gaze captive. Despite the poise he hadn’t been prepared for, she was flushed with colour. Her wild red-gold hair lay loose around her shoulders. Her beautiful eyes were large and lustrous, her mouth sensitive and her chin prettily pointed. If it wouldn’t jeopardize their old easy friendship he would have told her she looked damned sexy.
“So what’s the verdict?” she asked dryly, with a tilt of her chin.
“Just checking,” he drawled. “All right, Shel. You’ve changed. You’ve grown up. So what are you doing right now? On your way home to your family?” He recalled the bleakness of Wybourne, the Logans’ loss of all joy.
“Tomorrow. I can’t make the return trip the same day.”
“God, I would think not. Look at you! The wind could pick you up and blow you away. Still giving you hell, are they?” In his experience nothing really ever changed.
She shook her head, her tone mildly chastening. “You shouldn’t talk like that, Brock. I love my family. We survive. I guess I’ll always bear the pain for surviving when Sean didn’t.”
“You should have said blame. But it was a terrible accident, Shelley. You were a very young child when it happened.”
“I know, but it doesn’t seem to help.” She looked away.
“Not when you’re not allowed to forget. Hell,” he burst out explosively, as though the small space couldn’t contain him—as indeed it couldn’t. “Let’s get out of here.” He’d been aware from the moment he’d greeted her that every head was turned in their direction, the well-oiled gossip machine getting underway.
“Where? I need to get something here.” She glanced in the direction of the counter.
“Then do it,” he ordered briskly. “You must be staying at the pub?”
“As it happens, I am.” Brock was still pure flame. Which gave cautious old Shelley an excellent chance of getting burned.
“Then so am I. I was going to sleep in the truck, but Mick can sort me out a room. What do you say we have dinner? I see Koomera Crossing’s redoubtable schoolmarm Harriet Crompton has opened up a restaurant. No doubt about Miss Crompton! She always was a woman of many talents.”
“That would be lovely, Brock.” After her earlier fatigue excitement had started to run at full throttle.
“We have lots to catch up on. The fact is Phil advised me—maybe it was a heavy warning—that you were his girlfriend?” Silver eyes emitted sparks.
“Why hasn’t he told me that, then?” she said flippantly.
“You’re too good for him, Shelley.” Brock’s antagonism towards his cousin spilled out.
She stared up at him for a moment before she answered. Even in misty green Ireland his skin must have seen plenty of sunshine. His olive skin was like polished bronze.
“Isn’t that a little cruel? I feel sorry for Philip. Your grandfather is very hard on him, and his mother has such high expectations. Philip is under constant pressure to perform. Not that your grandfather allows him any real responsibility.”
“Just keeps him on a tight leash. Must be hard for Phil. He was a dopey kid.”
“Whereas you were as bad as you could get.” She softened the charge with a smile. “Philip, unfortunately, is still very much under the influence of his mother. Now, I’ll pay for this, Brock, if you can wait.” She settled hurriedly on the gardenia-scented bath gel.
“I think you’re right.” He gave the nod to her choice. “Gardenia goes with your beautiful skin.”
Of course she didn’t have a dress. She should have thought of that before. But Brock’s off-the-cuff invitation to have dinner with him had chased all thought from her mind. For the first time since she’d attended the wedding of her friends Christine and Mitch Claydon she had a deep desire to look pretty.
How? She took another look at herself in the old-fashioned, slightly speckled pier mirror. It stood in a corner of the small room where fresh cotton sheets, pillowslips and towels smelled deliciously of boronia.
Trim and tidy. If called on that was the way Shelley would have described herself. Unlike her sister Amanda she had no wardrobe of pretty dresses. Her day-to-day dress was a practical work uniform—jeans and a cotton shirt. She stared at herself dreamily. Brock Tyson had always been kind to her, for all his dashing but undeniably moody nature. These days he looked like a man well able to handle himself in any situation. Tough. A bit like Rex Kingsley himself, who was as harsh and unyielding as the very terrain of his desert kingdom.
Finally she decided on a dash half a block away to the town’s little dress shop, where she’d seen a very pretty blouse displayed in the window. The only reason she’d resisted it was that she had too few occasions to wear anything so frivolously pretty. Basic denim was her scene. This top was a kind of patchwork of yellow cotton and lace, with little ribbons and rosettes for a trim. The owner assured her it could be worn successfully with her white jeans.
Très chic! She’d have to take her word for it. At least she had some make-up and a fairly new pair of white leather trainers she’d brush up.
Shelley felt wildly excited, but tried to bring the whole thing back into focus. By taking her out tonight Brock was probably trying to ward off the tensions of being home. Besides, she’d always associated Brock Tyson with excitement and—it had to be said—danger. It seemed to swirl around him like smoke.
He was a young man who had sustained many psychological wounds, even if the scars from his physical beatings had healed. The assaults by his autocratic grandfather had stopped with one fist-to-fist bout when Brock was fifteen and already topping six feet. One of the station hands who had witnessed it, open-mouthed and secretly overjoyed, had told the story to a mate, who’d told it to another mate in the Koomera Crossing pub. The gossip had spread like wildfire and the whole town had known within twenty-four hours.
“Old bastard Kingsley took a beating! And about time. I tell ya, it was something to see!” This along with plenty of chortles that hadn’t lasted long. The informer had been promptly sacked, finding it very difficult to get station work within a huge radius.
Brock had earned his badge of courage, but had shown that he had a dark side. It would pay Shelley to remember that now.
The last thing Brock had thought he would be doing this evening was socializing. Truth was, he’d been feeling incredibly bad since he’d buried his mother—as though her early death had been somehow his fault. He’d certainly given her plenty of grief by being always at loggerheads with his grandfather. Not that she had ever blamed him or breathed a word of it. But the wound would never heal; the grief would never be buried. He hated his grandfather, who had cast them off all alone. Hated him and wasn’t about to beg God’s forgiveness. Once he’d even accused his grandfather of getting rid of his own father, Rory, who supposedly had “run off like a cur”, to disappear without trace. But men in the Outback went missing all the time.
Was that what happened to his father? Knowing his grandfather, he could see him shooting anyone who challenged his authority in cold blood. He was that type. A megalomaniac. Having so much power and money could do that to an already mean man. His grandfather had been enraged by his only daughter’s runaway marriage. He had tried to have the marriage annulled, but failed. His mother had already been pregnant with him. God knew why his parents had allowed Kingsley to dictate to them, bringing them back to Mulgaree, where Brock had been born in an upstairs bedroom.
His father had stuck it out, enmity and harsh treatment notwithstanding. All for his mother, who had felt too helpless to know what to do. But six years on Rory Tyson had disappeared, leaving a note his grandfather had burned after showing it to Koomera Crossing’s police constable, who had been sent to investigate the disappearance.
After that—nothing. And there had been no news from Rory for all these years. Brock had investigated but drawn nothing but blanks trying to trace his father. He would get square with his grandfather for that. Getting square was important.
With a muffled oath Brock fought out of the bleak thoughts that threatened to swallow him up. He turned back to the task of getting dressed. His black hair was still damp from the shower, but already drying in the heat. He felt it was too curly, too long, though women always told him how much they liked it. In his experience women were always ready to say something nice. Men were the bastards.
Swiftly he pulled on a clean shirt. Lucky he had it with him. What the hell was he doing? These days he wanted to be by himself, to lick his wounds. So why a night out in town? The thing was he’d always found something endearing about the little Logan girl, who had grown into quite a woman. Her twin, Sean, had been the image of her. The drowning had been a terrible tragedy that had left the boy’s parents half mad; the sadness had affected the entire town and the outlying stations. The mother, it was said, still lay in bed crying all day, and the father, Paddy Logan, had allowed no one to forget that tragic day. Least of all his younger daughter.
They had been beautiful little creatures, those Logan twins. Everyone had thought it wonderful the way Shelley looked after Sean like a little mother. It wasn’t right the way she’d been treated since his death. She’d taken far too much punishment from her family. Like Brock had. It created a bond between them. Come to that, he hadn’t really forgotten kissing her at some dance. She’d been no more than sixteen but it had stuck in his memory, like a tune. He had a feeling that Shelley Logan with her lovely smile, on the outside so calm and collected, was bottling up a lot of passion. She was a redhead, after all. Red was nature’s fire sign.
But what sort of a person was her sister, Amanda? Sitting at the piano playing and singing while Shelley was probably toiling away in the kitchen, preparing a meal for her parties of tourists. He doubted if she’d get much help from her poor mother. The few people in town he’d spoken to about the Logans had assured him things were as bad as ever for the family—except for Shelley’s new venture, which had taken off. Everyone admired her. Shelley Logan was a capable, hard-working young woman with plenty of guts. That was the word according to Koomera Crossing.
All Brock knew was that sweet little female creatures like Shelley Logan eased a man’s soul. And Lord knew how he thirsted for some area of peace. But romance wasn’t on the agenda for him. Not even a brief affair. Certainly not with the girl he’d watched grow up. He couldn’t plan anything. Not with his future so undecided.
He knew he wouldn’t find peace at Mulgaree. But fronting up to his grandfather was a fierce necessity. Mulgaree was where he had been born, and his mother and his uncle Aaron, Philip’s father, before him. Philip, on the other hand, had been born in a private maternity hospital back in Brisbane, because Frances had been terrified of having her child on an isolated Outback station. Uncle Aaron, who he sort of remembered as kind, had been killed on the station, handling a wild steer, when Philip was just a little boy. The steer had gored him. Aaron had died without uttering a cry.
After that they had all lived in hell.
“Well, don’t you look pretty!” Brock stood in the open doorway staring down at Shelley, the delicate fastidiousness of her. She had braided her beautiful red hair so it coiled and glinted around her small head like loops of flame, complementing flawless skin smooth as a baby’s. A slick of bright colour decorated her mouth, and her green eyes were so big and mysterious they dominated her face. She looked as if he could cast spells if she so chose at any moment—even on him.
Watch out!
The thought made him laugh aloud. “‘Light she was and like a fairy!’ Brock spoke with an exaggerated Irish accent. “That’s an extremely pretty blouse.” Extremely pretty breasts. He felt a sudden wave of desire that made his stomach tighten into a hard knot. But he was obsessively involved with regaining his birthright, remember? Hadn’t he already decided he couldn’t get involved with Shelley Logan? Yet in the space of half an hour he had developed quite a taste for her.
Brock’s gaze moving over her left Shelley with a sensation of shivery excitement. He had one arm lazily resting above her head on the doorjamb, and was just staring down at her. He was so tall.
“I’m glad you like it.” It cost an effort but her voice came out normally. “I didn’t have anything suitable to wear so I raced down to the local dress shop. I found this in the nick of time.”
“My good fortune.” He grinned. “Shall we go? I’ve made reservations. They tell me Harriet’s menus are so great people have to book ahead.”
“Did you speak to Harriet herself?” She had to break through this confusion, this spell, otherwise the excitement would be impossible to stop.
He took the key of the door from her fingers. “That’s how we’ve managed to get in. Harriet told me she’d look after us. Harriet’s a big fan of yours.”
“That works both ways.” She looked at the span of his shoulders as he closed her door, suddenly bedevilled by the memory of what it was like to be swept up in his arms. Yet something about Brock Tyson, for all his macho image, made her heart break. What a dreadful penance it must have been for his mother and him, having to remain on Mulgaree after his father had deserted them. It was such a sad house. Like her own.
“I’ve not been to Harriet’s since it opened,” she remarked, pitching her tone to conversational. “I was invited to the gala night, but Amanda wanted to go and I wasn’t happy leaving my mother. You wouldn’t believe the migraines she gets.”
He took her arm as they walked the corridor, so slender, so delicate, he felt he could encircle it. “How we sacrifice our lives to misery.”
“My mother is afraid to be happy. She believes that it would be a disloyalty to Sean.”
“Sounds a terrible waste. It’s depressing, but I can’t say I don’t understand,” he replied sombrely.
They had to move past a sea of smiling, highly interested faces on their way out of the pub. Everyone seemed thrilled to have Brock back. Brock was quite calm with it all, returning shouted greetings from the bar. Shelley felt herself blush. What was she doing on Brock Tyson’s arm? Just being with him seemed a tremendous event.
They walked in a vaguely fraught silence until they reached Harriet’s, where lights from the restaurant spilled out onto the pavement. Inside it was lovely and cool, the décor green and white, with feathery stands of bamboo in pots, graceful arches, and old sepia photographs of the town’s past decorating a wall. From the night it had opened Harriet’s had been a very popular gathering place for the locals as well as people from the outlying stations.
Harriet, looking marvellous in a mandarin-yellow Thai silk caftan that flowed softly around her slim body, came forward to greet them jauntily.
“Welcome, welcome!” She bent forward to kiss her ex-pupil Shelley’s cheek. “Where have you been all this time, Brock? We’ve really missed you.”
“Ireland.” He looked into Harriet’s eyes, finding them kind and very shrewd. He named a famous stud farm.
She nodded, having heard of it. “The life must have agreed with you. You look marvellous. But someone told me as I came up that you lost your dear mother?”
For a minute he couldn’t answer, grief and wildness spoiling in him. “She’s where she wanted to be, Harriet. The home of her ancestors. There was no home for her here.” Pain and bitterness played about his chiselled mouth.
“My heart aches for you, Brock. You’ve taken a hard blow.” Harriet pressed his arm, looking with great sympathy into his brilliant eyes. “We’ll talk of this again, but for now you’ll be wanting to find some peace and comfort. I have a good table for you in the courtyard. Come through. You look lovely, Shelley.”
Harriet smiled with great encouragement at her. Shelley was a young woman she very much admired. A brave person of high intelligence, Shelley Logan could have gone far in any one of the big cities, but she had stuck with her highly dysfunctional, unappreciative family. What it was to be tied by the bonds of love and loyalty! And a quite un-deserved feeling of guilt, Harriet thought.
“Great to see you, Brock!”
Brock’s hand was caught and held over and over, slowing their progress, but finally they were seated at a secluded table for two in the courtyard, with its white rattan glass-topped tables and white rattan chairs and huge golden canes in glazed pots. The comfortable upholstery was in white Indian cotton with a pattern of green bamboo leaves to continue the theme, while near them white ceramic elephants held pots of colourful flowers on their backs. It all looked enormously attractive.
The restaurant was only open three times a week—after all Harriet was well into her sixties and couldn’t risk burn-out—on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, for lunch and dinner. But far from stretching her to the limit, Shelley thought affectionately, Harriet looked years younger and on top of the world.
“An experience awaits you,” Harriet was saying with a flourish, passing them what looked like a fairly extensive menu for a small restaurant. “Oriental-style cooking is the speciality of the house, but if you would like something else we can whip it up for you.”
“You’re a wonder, Miss Crompton,” Brock told her, his face respectful but still holding more than a trace of that wicked daring that had so distinguished him as a boy.
“Tell me that when your meal is over.” Harriet smiled. “Now, I must return to the kitchen—but one of my girls will be here shortly to take your order. Would you care for a drink in the meantime?”
“Shelley?” Brock looked across the table at his companion, so pretty he had no desire to look anywhere else.
“May I have a glass of white wine?”
“Certainly. Why don’t we push the boat out and have champagne?” It had been a rotten day. He could do with a few bubbles, and Shelley might like it. “Okay?”
“Perfect,” Shelley agreed.
Harriet smiled. “I’ll have someone bring it over.”