NICOLE WAS NEARLY twenty minutes late arriving at the Bradshaws’ splendid East Side apartment, although, Carol had confided earlier, she was the guest of honor. Today was her twenty-sixth birthday and Carol had arranged one of her “little dinner parties,” which usually turned out to be sumptuous affairs with glamorous and often famous people in attendance and “someone special” for her to meet. Carol, who had all but adopted her as the granddaughter she’d never had, was determined to find her the right husband and thus keep her in New York, or at the very least within easy traveling distance. That didn’t include far-off Australia, the home of her birth. The Outback was worlds away from New York, the fabulous hub of the New World.
The Bradshaws had taken her under their wing almost from the time she’d arrived in New York two years before, fresh from a three-year stint in Paris where she’d been living and studying painting. As fate would have it, the Bradshaws were visiting a SoHo art gallery the same afternoon Nicole took shelter there. The rain was coming down in buckets with intermittent booms of thunder. As she’d removed her head scarf, Carol Bradshaw, standing nearby, had burst out with, “What lovely hair! Like a glass of fine wine held up to the light.”
From that chance meeting a genuine, mutually rewarding friendship had evolved. The Bradshaws had lost their only child, a brilliant young man with the expectation of a full life ahead of him, to a freak skiing accident when he was about Nicole’s age; now stepping in to fill that gap was Nicole, a young woman reared in the isolated Australian Outback but severed from her country by a family trauma about which she hardly spoke.
Just once in the early days did Nicole confide in Carol about her mother’s tragic death, saying only that she was killed in a car accident when Nicole was twelve. She never divulged that the accident was on her family’s huge historic cattle station. She never said it was she who had led her poor grandfather, now dead from shock and grief, to the four-wheel drive at the bottom of Shadow Valley; she who first sighted the bodies in the sizzling heat. Her beautiful mother thrown clear of the wreckage, body splayed over an enormous boulder, sightless eyes turned up to the scorching sun; the man’s body still behind the wheel of the vehicle, windshield smashed, blood all over his face, just as dead. The man was David McClelland, whom her mother had jilted, on the eve of their wedding to marry Heath Cavanagh, a distant cousin and the black sheep of the family.
So many lives ruined all in the name of love!
The coronial inquest had brought in an open finding, leaving both families to endure years and years of cruel speculation, not the least of it the tricky question: who was Nicole Cavanagh’s real father? Everyone knew about the old love triangle, comprising Corrinne Cavanagh and the two young men who’d loved and fought over her. Inevitably doubts about Nicole’s paternity were sown. Rumor had it the victims of the accident may have been arguing—which was likely, given the highly explosive situation that promised to get worse. Corrinne may have made a grab for the wheel, causing McClelland to lose control of the vehicle. The vehicle went over the escarpment plunging to the floor of Shadow Valley. Heath Cavanagh’s account of his movements was accepted—one of Eden’s stockmen vouched for him in any case—but the enmity between Heath and David was legendary. Two neighboring pioneer families, once the greatest friends, had been estranged for several years after Corrinne had jilted her fiancé, David McClelland. Somehow the families had patched it up in a fashion to accommodate Nicole, who was the innocent victim of all this unhappiness. This allowed her to form a deep attachment to the young scion of the McClelland family, Drake. But the early estrangement was nothing compared to the bitter war that broke out after the tragedy.
Without the evidence to prove it, everyone in Koomera Crossing and the outlying cattle stations held Heath Cavanagh responsible, as though he were a demon capable of being in two places at one time. Either that, or it had been a murder-suicide, which no one wanted to believe. Nevertheless no one was really satisfied with the theory of death by misadventure. As a result the speculation continued to run wild.
Nicole told her American friends none of this. Like her, they’d known family tragedy, but not so much as a whiff of scandal had touched their respected name. In the Bradshaws, Nicole saw two handsome, aristocratic people in their mid-sixties who were friends when she truly needed them, alone as she was in another country. They became like family to her.
It was the Bradshaws who had found her her light-filled SoHo loft with its vast industrial windows. The Bradshaws who had introduced her to their wide circle of friends, a good many with sons and daughters her own age. When the Bradshaws saw her paintings, they’d insisted on helping her to get them shown. Through his contacts, Howard Bradshaw had even engineered her TV appearance that afternoon. Brief but important. She’d been introduced as a “sunny, up-and-coming young Aussie artist.” As near-perfect a misnomer as Nicole could think of, for her background was too full of black trauma. One day she reasoned she would confide in Carol fully, but not yet. The past was too close. Too filled with grief. Grief was the worst illness of all.
Carol came to the door to greet her, her face warm and welcoming, shining with pleasure.
“Nikki, dear!” They kissed. Not air kisses, but real displays of affection.
“So sorry I’m late. Traffic, forgive me.”
“Of course. You’re here. We watched your guest spot. You came over wonderfully well. So beautiful and articulate. Howard and I are proud of you.”
“It would never have happened without you and Howard,” Nicole said, smiling, then arm in arm with Carol accompanying her across the spacious and sumptuous entrance hall. A magnificent neoclassical parcel gilt console stood along one wall, overhung by an equally magnificent black lacquer and gilt mirror with two antique English gilt figurine lamps to either side of an exquisite flower arrangement. The Bradshaws were wealthy on a scale that made her own family’s fortune modest by comparison. She could see the elegantly dressed people gathered in the living room, which Carol had recently had made over—God knows why, for it had been beautiful before. Several heads were already turned in their direction. A little knot of people broke up, parting to either side.
Shock sucked the breath from her lungs as she felt the color drain from her cheeks. She put out one hand, then the other. Her mother was staring at her intently from across the Bradshaws’ opulent living room. The most marvelous apparition, astonishingly young and beautiful, a half smile caught on her mouth, her whirling auburn hair floating around her bare white shoulders.
The long years were as nothing. Yesterday. Whoever said time heals all wounds? Someone incapable of great depths of emotion. True love is eternal. Unchanging. It endures beyond death.
The apparition was very slender and delicate, like a fine piece of porcelain. She was wearing Nicole’s favorite color—violet-blue—with an all-over glitter of silver. A beautiful, feminine gown. Shimmering, light as air. Romantic.
Just like hers.
Rapture drained away as pain and despair flooded in. The long wall facing her, she saw now, was set with tall mirrored panels to reflect the chandeliers, the museum-quality antiques and the paintings. There was no apparition. She’d had no miraculous acquisition of psychic powers. How ridiculous to think so.
What she’d seen was her own reflection. An outwardly composed, inwardly disturbed young woman. One who had suffered a shocking childhood trauma and had never broken free of its horror. All those years of therapy, futile. There was no hiding place from grief. The memory of her beautiful mother still held her in its spell. She wanted her back so badly she was capable of unconsciously conjuring her up.
“Nikki, darling, whatever is the matter?” Carol held her arm, gazing at her in dismay. “You’re not ill, are you?”
Howard, tall and distinguished, a worried frown on his face, hastened to their side. “Nikki, dear?” He bent his silver head solicitously to hers.
“I’m so sorry.” From long practice Nicole held herself together. Tried to smile. “I’ll be fine in a minute. I felt a little faint, that’s all. Too much rushing about and the excitement of appearing on the show.” How could she possibly say she thought she’d seen someone long dead?
“I imagine you haven’t taken time off to eat,” Carol scolded gently. “Never mind. I’ve got all your favorite things. There now, your color is back,” she exclaimed in relief. “Howard, be a darling and fetch us both a glass of champagne.”
“Of course.” He hurried off.
Steady, Nicole thought. Steady. She took a calming breath, aware that a silence had fallen over the huge living room. She ran the point of her tongue over her lips. Her mouth was bone dry. A reaction to what she thought she’d seen, no doubt. But Carol and Howard were so very kind, she knew she’d be able to get through the evening.
IN THE EARLY HOURS of the morning the phone woke her, shrilling her out of the tormented dreams that had ceased to plague her for many long months but had returned suddenly in full force. The brain had an extraordinary power to relive the past just as it chose to throw up impenetrable walls. Though she returned to Eden only twice a year—for a short visit at Christmas and for her grandmother’s birthday in June—she couldn’t drive out its demons. They walked with her, talked with her, slept with her, appeared in her paintings, but never, ever would they reveal their secrets.
Moaning softly, her head muzzy, mouth parched, she rolled to the right-hand side of the bed, picking up the receiver without bothering to turn on the bedside lamp. All these years she’d been unable to sleep in complete darkness, so it was her practice to leave a light on somewhere in the loft. The digital readout on the clock radio said 3:24 a.m. She could think of nothing but trouble.
She spoke into the mouthpiece, straining ineffectually at the top sheet that wrapped her like a mummy. “Hello?”
“Nicole?”
Her heart spasmed. She tried to focus on one of her paintings that hung on the opposite wall. A painting of the ruined tower on Eden. It was where her mother and her lover used to go. Hadn’t she followed them as a child, already tuned in to tragedy?
“Nicole, are you there?” Aunt Sigrid spoke across thousands of miles of underwater cable as though she were no more than a block away.
“Siggy, I was asleep. Do you know what time it is here?” She glanced again at the luminous dial of the clock.
“To hell with that!” Siggy, being Siggy, replied. “It’s the early hours, but I had no option.”
Knowing her aunt so well, Nicole snapped together, throwing off the nightmare that clung to her like a shroud. “Bad news?” Why ask when cold certainty assailed her?
“It’s not your grandmother,” Sigrid said, obviously following her niece’s line of thinking. “She’s fine. But you have to come home. Your father has found his way back to Eden.”
“Father? What father?” She felt it like an electrical jolt, kicking out wildly to free herself from the clinging sheet. That wicked man she’d once called Daddy? Never!
“Your father, Heath,” Sigrid reminded her curtly.
“I don’t know him as my father.” Nicole could hear the coldness in her voice.
“He’s your father, Nicole, much as you’ve disowned him.”
“Oh, that’s good!” Finally she was able to sit up, absolutely astounded by the way her aunt kept pulling the rug out from beneath her feet, championing Heath Cavanagh at the most inappropriate times. “I was raised to believe he was my father. That all changed the day they found my mother.” She lost control, finding herself shouting into the phone. “Your sister, Siggy.”
“Don’t try to rattle my cage, girl,” Siggy warned. “You’d feel sorry for this creature if you saw him. He’s come to Eden to die, Nicole. He’s got nowhere else to go. His whole life has been one terrible failure.”
Nicole rolled her eyes. “And you’re asking me to feel sorry for him? That’s one heck of a request. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the whole Outback believe he killed my mother and David McClelland? The McClellands sure did.”
Sigrid protested strongly. “There was absolutely no proof. It was a terrible accident. Your mother was known to have a hot temper just like you.”
“Don’t talk like that, Siggy!” Nicole cried. “My mother was a victim. Dead and not even yet thirty-five. A victim of either David McClelland or Heath Cavanagh. She was not suicidal. She would never have left me, I know it. But we’ll go to our graves with all the doubts they left behind. How dare that wicked man come back to Eden when Eden belongs to me.”
“You’d think you deserved it!” Her aunt’s voice rose as though she, too, had been dealt a rotten hand. “What right did I have to inherit, after all? I was only the other daughter, the plain one with the sharp tongue. What right Joel, my son? It had to be you, Corrinne’s daughter. And Heath Cavanagh’s. She was madly in love with him once, I can tell you that.”
“You could tell me lots, but you never have,” Nicole retaliated sharply. “I’m not coming, Siggy. He can stay if there’s nowhere else for him to go, but I never want to lay eyes on him again.”
Sigrid’s anger vibrated over the line. “What makes you think you can treat him like a leper?”
“Sure you weren’t in love with him yourself?” Nicole challenged, her mind in a chaotic whirl. “He’s not my father. And he’s the one who said that, not me.”
“He only said it because he was in a terrible state. He thought Corrinne had left him. He was obsessed with her from the moment he laid eyes on her.”
“So she betrayed her fiancé.” Her throat constricted. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. She swallowed and the awful feeling passed.
“Precisely! She couldn’t help herself. Heath was a magnificent lover.”
“And how would you know?”
“My sister told me,” Sigrid said, seemingly untouched by her niece’s implication.
For an instant Nicole hated her aunt utterly and completely. “No more than that?”
“No more. For God’s sake, Nikki, what are you on about?” Sigrid demanded furiously. “We’re talking about your poor father. He’s in dreadful shape, cirrhosis of the liver. He hasn’t got long. Your grandmother wants you to come home. It’s unforgivable the way you flit in and out, can’t wait to get back first to Paris, now New York. Anywhere else but Eden, where you belong. God knows we’ve all given you time. You should be here. That’s why my father left Eden to you.”
“But surely you enjoy playing boss, Siggy,” Nicole retorted, stripping away all pretense. “We’re made of the same stuff, aren’t we? We’re not crazy about men. We’re crazy about a grand historical station called Eden. When it suits you, you forget Dr. Rosendahl thought it crucial I get away. I was only twelve when I found my mother dead, not a great age to be crushed by horror, so hold on to your compassion.”
Sigrid’s harsh, impatient tone softened. “Do you think I don’t feel for you, girl? You’ve got plenty of guts. You were always strong, even as a child. More guts than my boy. Listen to me now. This is very, very important. I swear on your mother’s grave, David McClelland wasn’t your father. I beg you to believe me. Even the McClellands never entertained the idea you’re one of them, even if you liked to rouse the devil in Drake by suggesting you might be cousins.”
Nicole gave a brittle laugh. “Is he married yet?” She’d never be sufficiently free of her memories of Drake, so glamorous and charismatic in manhood; the boy she’d looked up to in childhood, though she’d had the companionship of her cousin, Joel, Siggy’s son, who’d harbored a nasty jealousy of Drake.
“Why would you be interested?” Sigrid asked dryly. “Hostility between the two of you is the norm whenever you chance to meet. But no, he’s not. Too busy buying up properties. You might consider this. He wants Eden.”
“Be serious, Siggy!” She spoke through clenched teeth. “He’ll never get it.” Yet wasn’t she plagued by that very fear? Siggy was right. Her real place was at Eden, guarding her inheritance.
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Sigrid snapped. “You’re no match for Drake McClelland, I can guarantee that. He’s as tough as they come and a brilliant businessman. He’s taken off like a rocket since he inherited Kooltar. It’s no secret, either, he has no love for us Cavanaghs. He could destroy us all.”
Nicole’s answer was unimpressed. “Let him try. I’m not in awe of Drake. We grew up together, remember? I mean, come on, once we were pals.”
“That’s quite a while ago, Nikki. The tragedy changed everything, even if his family couldn’t block him from seeing you. I know some sort of bond still exists, but Drake is the one person who can bring us down. You must know that in your heart.”
Nicole felt cornered by her aunt’s charges. She had seen Drake during her adolescence—they were both invited to every social function that came along as a matter of course—but past events had destroyed any chances of their sunny childhood relationship blossoming into something else. She was hated if only for her looks, which had once belonged to her mother. Still, like Siggy, she had the unshakable conviction Drake McClelland would play a major role in her life.
As the McClelland heir, he’d possessed a juggernaut drive toward achievement. It wasn’t just fame and fortune, and the power that went along with them; Drake wanted a real stake in the country’s future. He wanted to make a contribution, building on everything his forebears had achieved. Eden in anyone’s language was a rich prize.
“Are you there, Nicole, or have you gone into a trance?” her aunt asked testily.
“I’m here,” she answered. “Sorry, I did drift off.”
“And I’m almost out of strength.” Suddenly Sigrid’s voice had a weak flicker. “Are you coming home?”
“I don’t think I could with that man there.”
Sigrid didn’t pause. “Your father. He’s in a sorry plight even if he did bring it all on himself. But I’m sorrier for you, Nicole. You haven’t got a heart.”
Nicole was so shocked tears sprang into her eyes. “Thanks a lot, Siggy. If I don’t have a heart, how come I didn’t toss you and your dear husband out?” Now she didn’t fight the urge. She slammed down the phone, feeling intense pressure build up in her chest.
If only she could be perfectly happy with the life she’d made for herself here. Why she couldn’t was a great puzzle. She had the Bradshaws with their endless kindness. Through them she’d made her own circle of friends. Attractive, accomplished young people, full of hope and ambition. She’d even met someone tonight she felt it might be possible to fall in love with. But the passionate love her mother had inspired in two very different men had destroyed her. And them. Small wonder Nicole had a profound distrust of strong emotions.
She did have her painting, though. That was her release. And she’d been assured by people whose opinion she valued that she had a genuine gift. It was Dr. Rosendahl, healer and mentor, who’d first suggested she use her gift as therapy to exorcise her demons. Rosendahl who had actively encouraged her to continue further study in Paris. Her cup should be overflowing.
Except it wasn’t. Despite everything going so well for her, she was haunted by a strong sense of loss. She had frequent mental images of her desert home. The Timeless Land, where the ancient earth was a rich fiery red, where the sun looked down in unwinking splendor from a cloudless opal-blue sky. Birds were the phenomena of the Outback, and here great colonies of birds screeched their lives away: brilliant parrots, white cockatoos, the gray and rose-pink galahs, the myriad small birds of the vast plains, orange and red, the great flights of budgerigar wheeling and flashing green and gold fire. Endless varieties of waterbirds lived in the maze of waterways, lakes, swamps and billabongs that crisscrossed the vast inland delta that was the Channel Country, a region of immense fascination, rich in legend.
A desert yet not a desert. She knew all it needed was the miracle of rain to turn into the greatest garden on earth.
The station had been named Eden for the impossible, wondrous blossoming in that vast arid wilderness. To be there was an experience forever retained. In her SoHo loft she could almost smell the perfume of the trillions of wildflowers. She could see herself as a child swimming through infinite waves of paper daisies, pure white and sunshine yellow, rushing back to her beautiful mother, standing a little way off, with a chain of them she had fashioned to adorn her mother’s glorious hair.
She knew she wasn’t as beautiful as her mother. She couldn’t be. No one could be. Yet they had had to bury all that beauty on Lethe Hill. Had to leave it to the silence of the desert in plain sight of the eternal red sand dunes that ran to the horizon in great parallel waves.
Nicole settled back on the bed, running her hand through her auburn hair that fell in long loose locks over her shoulders and down her back. What was she to do? Siggy had confirmed her niggling fears. Drake wanted Eden. Why wouldn’t he? It was a strategic, important station with permanent deep water. Maybe he even wanted to raze the historic homestead to the ground and rebuild. Drake had worshiped his only uncle just as she had worshiped her mother. The friendship they’d once shared had proved impossible to sustain; it was as though each was constrained to blame the other for the sin that had been committed. Each had armed themselves with a long sword, letting fly whenever chance brought them together. Their relationship had been damaged beyond repair. These days she seldom surrendered to the luxury of giving her mind over to memories of Drake.
But he was there all the same.