Читать книгу The Australian Tycoon's Proposal - Margaret Way - Страница 7

VOLCANIC red dust puffed up under Bronte’s every step. It found its way into her expensive sandals, irritating her toes and the soles of her feet. Obviously her feet had grown tender since she had last left the jungle. Grit the colour of dried blood, she thought mawkishly, coated the fine leather. But then who in their right mind wore high heeled sandals to trudge down a bush track?

“Damn!” She tottered to a stop, in the process wrenching her ankle. Moans gave way to muttered curses. She was about as irritable as she could get. What she should be wearing was lace up boots or at least a pair of running shoes. She set down her shoulder bag that had cost an arm and a leg. Never featherlight even when empty it had been growing heavier at every step. Her small suitcase followed. It weighed over a ton. Now she was able to shake the dust and grit first from the sole of one foot, then the other.

Ah, the relief! She gulped in hot scented air.

One of her bra straps had slipped off her shoulder. She fixed that. Her sunglasses needed propping back up her nose, a water slide of sweat. She was wearing a big wide-brimmed hat, yet the blazing tropical sun was burning a hole through the top of her head. Boiling and bothered she yanked at her designer label tank top. It was wet under the arms and glued to her back. She just knew her face was the colour of a ripe plum.

“No wonder you’re so darned unhappy. You’re a fool, Bronte.” She often talked to herself. She’d grown into that habit as a lonely and isolated little girl. She’d even had imaginary friends. Great friends they were, too. There was a girl called Em who grew along with her. A boy called Jonty who was a very gentle person and lived in the rain forest. Once Gilly claimed she saw Em and Jonty playing tag around a giant strangler fig. Gilly always spoke to her as if she were an equal even when she was seven! Of course Gilly was having a little joke. Bronte knew her friends existed only in her powerful imagination.

A whirlwind of dust blew up, rousing her to move off the track until it passed. It was her own fault that she had to walk. Death before dishonour was her motto. She was stuck with it. She hadn’t learned it. It had been passed out at birth. It got her into a lot of trouble, that’s all.

It wasn’t right for the taxi driver to call Great-Aunt Gillian with a hard G “a crazy old bat!” accompanied by hoots of laughter she was expected to join in. That had made her hopping mad. Not that Gilly of the copious snow-white hair, once blue-black like her own, black eyes and wicked grin didn’t communicate with their dead ancestors on a regular basis. As an imaginative child Bronte, actively encouraged in her psychic powers by Gilly, had sensed long dead members of the McAllister family hanging around the place. They spent their time wandering the old sugar plantation and the big patch of virgin rain forest bordering McAllister land. They’d even been seen up on the main road, scaring the tourists. The locals took no notice whatsoever.

Gilly, despite her solitary, secluded life, was right up there as a local character in an area that was legendary for its “characters.” Gilly was the Bush Medicine Woman. The plantation, the two hundred acres that remained from the original selection, would attract a lot of developers if it were ever put on the market, but Gilly lived a frugal life. Most of her inherited money had gone. “I’ve lived too long!” She supplemented what was left, by running a profitable little side-line selling herbal potions, concoctions, the odd aphrodisiac—said to work—facial and body creams guaranteed to alleviate the symptoms of every discomfort known to woman including the “infernal itches”. Gilly having been stood up at the altar fifty odd years ago didn’t give a hang what happened to the men. They could look after themselves.

Bronte didn’t love men either. She was amazed anyone did! Most of them turned out to be bitter disappointments. Not that she’d been stuck on her lonesome in front of the altar. She was the one who found commitment darn near impossible. To prove it, with one week to the Big Day, she’d recently called off her much publicised society wedding, bringing her mother’s and her demented stepfather’s fury down on her head. She’d made a fool of them but she had learned that she was a fool already. Her actions, apparently, put her on a par with some sort of a criminal. A mass swindler perhaps? The humiliation was not to be borne. The disgrace! Worse, it was bad for business.

Nat, her fiancé, had been angry enough to call her names, grinding his teeth as he did so. He wore not so much a devastated as totally baffled expression. What girl in her right mind would give him up? A girl could get tramped to death standing in line to meet Nathan Saunders.

Nat’s mother had been livid! In fact she’d been astoundingly crude. Bronte hadn’t realized Nat’s mother knew let alone used four letter words. “No breeding!” sniffed Gilly when she heard. Nothing like scorning a son to bring out the worst in a mother. No one stood up Thea Saunders’s—one of society’s leading lights—wonder boy. She had demanded the 3 carat diamond solitaire back, not that Bronte had ever intended to keep it. Her finger felt a whole lot lighter without it. Bronte had consoled herself with the knowledge that she wasn’t the first girl to have second thoughts about tying the knot. The big problem was she hadn’t been able to work up the courage to voice her concerns until the last minute. Pathetic really! For that, she despised herself but she knew the turbulence her decision would create.

Turbulence. Chaos. A tongue-lashing from the stepfather she detested. Nat had been hand-picked for her. She was ashamed to admit she was still trying to please her mother when let’s be straight about it, she never had. Her rejection of Nat Saunders had caused a huge scandal. Few of her so-called friends had sided with her. She was scolded and marvelled at at every turn. She had everything going for her and she blew it! What an idiot! The word had become an alternative to fool. Her mother had ended most sentences with one or the other.

The handsome and popular Nat was the scion of media mogul Richard Saunders, a close friend and partner in various enterprises—probably dodgy—of her stepfather Carl Brandt. Of course she lost her budding career. A swift retribution that did nothing to raise her spirits. Over the past year she’d swum into the limelight as a popular character in the award winning TV police drama Shadows. Two weeks ago she had met with a very bloody end. A shoot-out. Officer down. It had blitzed the ratings and caused a storm of protests from her fans—she never knew she had so many—but she wasn’t going to be allowed to get away with shaming two outstandingly rich families.

Her mother had given her hell, like it was her main aim in life to make Bronte’s existence intolerable.

“How can any of us hold up our heads?” Miranda had exploded. “After all Carl has done for you, you ungrateful little fool!”

What exactly had Carl done for her? He hadn’t adopted her. Her own father had left her enough money to cover her education through university, pay for her upkeep and her clothes. Her mother still beautiful and sexy at forty-five—never mind she had celebrated that birthday twice already—had not been her first husband’s beneficiary. Bronte had been that, her inheritance administered by her late father’s lawyer as executor of his will. Apparently Ross McAllister hadn’t trusted his wife to do that. Bronte found out years later her father had changed his will on the very day of his death. Her mother had got away with the family home, all the contents and her cache of jewellery, a veritable Aladdin’s Cave, otherwise she’d been cut out entirely. There was a story there, with in all probability grave implications, but nothing could bring her father back. She had loved him so much! She could still feel his hand patting the top of her head.

Her remarried mother sided with her new husband on everything. Perhaps she had no alternative? Bronte understood it was easier on her mother that way. Carl Brandt was a big shouldered, imposing looking man with heavy lidded, obsidian eyes and a very loud voice. No one would ever have to ask her stepfather to repeat himself. Yet for reasons totally beyond Bronte, her stepfather was positively magnetic to women who liked a touch of the brute. On the proviso, of course, he was powerful and had lots of money. Even age didn’t seem to come into it. Such men retained their attractions at over ninety unlike women who some believed started the downhill slide once they hit thirty.

Her mother had always been attracted to money and power. Never mind that Carl Brandt was a tyrant, with a tongue like a chain saw. Bronte’s own gentlemanly father had doted on her but he had been taken from her when she was only seven. Killed when his high powered sports car crashed into a tree. Her mother thereafter maintained Ross McAllister was a reckless driver with a thirst for speed. An opinion rejected by his many friends.

Bronte’s life had changed dramatically after that. Her mother had acted deranged for a couple of days, a tragic figure on the verge of a breakdown. Bronte had been sent to live with her maternal grandparents, an arrangement that lasted only a few months. Her grandmother—not the kindest granny in the world—decided she couldn’t tolerate Bronte’s “tantrums” any longer. Children should be seen, but not heard whereas Bronte had been given to creating disturbances. That’s when Gilly McAllister had come to the rescue. Gilly had offered to look after her. Good old “crazy” Gilly. Thank goodness for her! Gilly who privately called Miranda “shallow and egotistical.” Bronte was meant to stay with her great-aunt until Miranda felt more able to cope after her tragic loss.

Bronte stayed five years. She saw her mother rarely. As her husband’s property—Brandt owned people—Miranda had to be on hand at all times. Her grandmother she saw not at all. “I can’t believe our luck!” Gilly chortled. Neither of them were asked to Miranda’s and Brandt’s society wedding which took place an unseemly month or so after Ross McAllister’s tragic death. So much for the tragedy queen and the nervous breakdown that never was. Then again, perhaps it illustrated Miranda’s extraordinary resilience.

A suspiciously short period of time later Bronte’s half brother Max—poor little victimised Max—made his much gossiped about entry into the world though Bronte and Gilly locked away in the deep Far North didn’t get to hear about that happy event until at least a year later when Gilly read about Max’s existence in the newspaper.

On her twelfth birthday Bronte’s mother—no one saw it coming—made the decision to send Bronte to an exclusive boarding school back in Sydney. “We have to get you away from this primitive place!” Miranda had cried, accelerating away from the plantation so fast she sent up a dust storm. “You’re nothing but a savage. I was a fool to let Gilly look after you. She can’t even look after herself.” Miranda had appeared genuinely shocked at the run-down condition of the old plantation gone back to jungle and Bronte’s appearance which even Bronte had to admit in retrospect must have been a little on the wild side. With Gilly for a mentor Bronte had gotten used to wearing a sort of safari outfit—boy’s shirts and trousers with a thick belt and good stout boots. She’d have worn that outfit to school, where she shone academically, only the headmistress, Miss Prentice, wouldn’t have let her through the front gate.

The day Bronte left, her darling Gilly had cried, her tall, vigorous body bent over and shaking like she had a tropical fever.

Gilly who was as brave and fierce as the general in the family. General Alexander “Sandy” McAllister who’d risen to fame in India fighting for the British in the Afghan wars. “Sandy” was one of Gilly’s favourites from the family spirit world. After his long stint in India Sandy’s spirit had settled in well to the humid heat of the rain forest, unfazed by the cyclones that blew in from time to time.

Feeling a little rested Bronte slung her bag back over her shoulder then picked up her expensive suitcase. It was one of her mother’s discards. Her mother enjoyed enormously being the wife of a very rich man. Rich men ran the world! Wealth defined the man! Brandt pampered her mother for a good reason. Miranda was always on show as his wife. Her beauty and elegance were legendary and she had a wonderful flair for dressing. Why else would Brandt have married her? It all reflected wonderfully well on his taste.

Otherwise he was far from being a generous man. He had never been generous to Bronte. She would have been walking around in rags, uneducated, if not for the inheritance her own darling father had left her. Her mother didn’t believe in spoiling her either. Worse Brandt was downright mean to his own son. Poor Max who hadn’t inherited any of his father’s abominable skills and bully boy nature. The endless criticisms, the cutting sarcasm, the scorn the two of them had endured. It had been tough to leave fifteen-year-old Max behind, but at least Max had respite at boarding school. He’d even dug in his heels to stay at school through vacations. Something that had affronted their mother who laboured under the monstrous delusion she was a good mother.

My sad, dysfunctional family! Bronte thought. There was a crisis every day of the week. She was always amazed she could look so much like her mother yet be nothing like her in her nature and behaviour. It was Gilly who had taught her values, shown her love and understanding. Gilly was the woman of substance not her own mother whom she continued to love even as she despaired of ever having her love returned. Beautiful Miranda who at the drop of a hat—for instance a broken engagement—could turn into a shrieking virago. If Brandt was famous for his lung power, he could on occasion be equalled by her mother.

Bronte staggered on bravely, remembering how Gilly had always called her “plucky.” As a child it had made her laugh. Plucky. For some reason—the obvious clucky—she associated it with Gilly’s chooks. Despite Bronte’s multiple discomforts she was drinking in her surroundings. She loved this place. It was the Garden of Eden complete with the snakes. The countryside was glorious. The coastal corridor north of Capricorn was as lush and bountiful as the Interior across the Great Divide was arid. She adored the rampant blossoming of the tropics. The brilliantly plumaged birds. The colour!

Bougainvillea ran like wildfire on either side of the private track. You could hardly call it a road. It was near impassable in heavy rains. The magnificent parasite covered fences, climbed trees, old water tanks. Orange. Cerise. Scarlet. Pink. Blue-violet morning glories “the colour of your eyes, Bronte” Gilly had told her as a child, cascaded over the sides of one of those old water tanks that stood in an abandoned field.

Once these fields had been under sugar, at maturity towering higher than a man, but production had stopped on Oriole long before she’d been born and Gilly had inherited the old plantation that once had been a prolific money spinner. McAllister land bordered onto the gallery rain forest where the Yellow Orioles built their deep nests and sent their incessant choom-chalooms floating sheer across the forest. It was after these rain forest birds the plantation had been named in the late 1880s.

Once I knew this land like the back of my hand, Bronte thought. Gilly had taken her everywhere with her. Into the forest where she found the magical ingredients for her potions, to the river that had “salties” in it, big man-eating estuarine crocodiles, to the beautiful beaches with their white sand and turquoise waters, to the islands of one of the great wonders of the natural world, The Great Barrier Reef where they’d gone swimming and snorkelling and exploring the coral. Gilly had taught her to ride a horse—“you just hold on, Bronte! Show ’im who’s boss.” How to handle a .22 rifle. “Just in case!” Bronte really hoped Gilly had turned in her guns. She wouldn’t put it past her to have hidden one beneath the floor boards.

“By the time I reach the homestead I’ll be a wreck,” Bronte grumbled to herself. “Ready to throw myself head first into the lily lagoon, maybe cavort naked.” There was never anyone around. The homestead was at the far end of the track. She could see the tall vine-bedecked wall around the home grounds. The massive wrought-iron gates bore an elaborately scrolled Oriole picked out in bronze. Gilly wouldn’t be home until late. She had an appointment with a visiting eye specialist at the town clinic. Bronte worried about that. Was Gilly’s wonderful eyesight failing despite her disclaimers? Such things happened with age. Who needed to get old? Bronte had refused to let Gilly cancel her appointment. She wouldn’t get another for at least six weeks.

“A bad day, lovey, for me to have to go.”

Bronte had soothed her great-aunt by saying she’d catch a cab from the train station. She’d flown from Sydney to Brisbane, but decided to take “The Queenslander” north instead of continuing by air. She wanted a long time to think. The train was great for that. It was a long scenic trip through increasingly beautiful country as one crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. The Queenslander was comfortable. They served lovely meals and the sleeping arrangements were excellent. Lots of gazing out the window. Of course she’d fully expected to be dropped at the door until that crack about the “old bat!” She couldn’t let anyone get away with saying that about Gilly.

A bead of perspiration trickled into her eyes. It stung.

“Damn!” She dropped the suitcase so she could shove her straw hat further down on her head.

It was then she became aware of a car engine. She turned in time to see a vehicle turn off the bitumen road and head down Oriole’s private track.

Gilly! Her lifesaver! Wouldn’t she give her a great big hug! But why so early?

Bronte stood quite still, watching the 4WD approaching in a cloud of red dust. The problem was, Gilly didn’t have a 4WD. As far as she knew, Gilly still drove an ancient utility that had never broken down in twenty years. All Gilly ever had to do was kick the tyres. The 4WD was coming straight for her, insisting on right of way. Could you beat that? She was a McAllister. She wasn’t about to get off her own road. This would be her place when her darling Gilly was gone. She’d live up here and turn into a feisty self-sufficient medicine woman, like her great-aunt. Historically there had always been such women.

The driver of the vehicle, seeing her standing so confrontationally in the middle of the road, had the sense to detour onto the thick grassy verge. It was a godsend because the red dust settled before it could envelop her. Was it deliberate? Could the driver be considerate? On rainy days in the city as a pedestrian waiting at the lights she’d often been splashed by inconsiderate drivers who perversely picked up speed instead of slowing down in the grey conditions.

The driver was a man. A young man which greatly surprised her. What was he doing on McAllister land? Especially when Gilly wasn’t at home. In that instant Bronte thought of Gilly’s .22. For all she knew this man could be dangerous, on the run from the police. He was certainly trespassing and the plantation was very isolated. Bronte planted her sandalled feet with their ridiculous high heels firmly on the track. She was determined not to budge even if her self-esteem was stretched to twanging point.

Straighten your back, Bronte. Look right at him. Men sensed natural born victims. She’d learned that from life with her horrible stepfather.

The driver swung out of the vehicle, loping around the bonnet. Bronte watched him like she’d watch an approaching tiger.

Twenty-eight, maybe thirty. He was tall; a good six-two. Wide in the shoulders. Lean. A splendid body really. He had to be a fitness freak. He wore the kind of gear she used to wear herself. Jungle greens. A crocodile hunter, maybe? Even at a distance she noted the green, green eyes. His skin was a tawny gold. He looked just the sort of guy who could handle himself anywhere, anytime. Boldly, aggressively male. The sort of guy who considered male domination the natural order. He probably had a grip to fracture her hand.

He was also devilishly handsome. She wasn’t so blinded by the sweat in her eyes, she couldn’t see that. Straight nose, high cheekbones, curly mouth, determined jaw. If she’d been more impressionable she’d have fainted. As it was every instinct shrieked a warning. She stood ramrod straight even when her back was breaking. Her antagonism to the dominant male was deeply entrenched. It was one reason she had taken up with Nat, who, at bottom, was as soft as a marshmallow.

“Hi there!” Action Man’s smile was so warm and friendly it took her aback. That smile lit up his entire face.

Bronte stared in disbelief. She didn’t reply. She waited for him to come up to her, frowning darkly just in case he got any ideas.

“Steven Randolph. I’m a friend of your great-aunt’s.” He introduced himself, taking in every detail of her overheated appearance. Little sparks seemed to be flying around her tallish delicate frame.

Bronte stood her ground. Height was one of the assets Mother Nature had bestowed on her. His voice, at least, was something in his favour. It wasn’t loud. In fact it was smooth and mellow. Most women would find it a real turn-on. It struck her it was also the voice of money and education. His stance wasn’t arrogant, more an elegant slouch. There was no doubting he was very comfortable in his own skin.

“I know the names of my great-aunt’s friends,” she said, as coolly as she could in the blistering heat. “I’ve never heard of a Steven Randolph.”

“Perhaps Gilly was waiting to surprise you,” he suggested and smiled as though amused by her antagonism. Very white teeth. Straight. Strong. Why was he making her so angry? He was trying to be pleasant, while she was bristling like a porcupine.

“You’re Bronte, aren’t you.” It was a statement not a question.

“Congratulations.” It suddenly struck Bronte her stepfather’s abrasive manner might have brushed off on her. How terribly distressing!

Another smile. An engaging quirk of the mouth. “Gilly has photographs of you all over the house. Occasionally I even got to see you on the television. Very good you were, too. The shoot-out nearly broke my heart.”

Bronte winced. “Can we leave my ex-career out of the conversation?”

“Certainly. Could I say first what they did to you was rough. I expect you don’t want to talk about your broken engagement, either?”

She shielded her eyes with her hand. She was getting a crick in the neck just looking up at him despite her own height. “Are you trying to be cruel or does it just come naturally?”

He appeared surprised. “I thought you were the one to opt out. Did I get that wrong? If I did, I’m very sorry.”

“You’re not sorry at all,” she fired up.

“Of course I am. I’m not sorry for Saunders not that you’d have made him the perfect wife.”

Bronte almost choked. “Really? How can you tell?”

“I know of the family. You wouldn’t want to move in with them.”

Bronte frowned at him fiercely. “Thanks for the tip but you’re already too late. Anyway, I can save you a trip. Gilly isn’t home.”

“I know that, she’s at the eye specialist. I’ve brought her supplies home. They’re in the car. You look hot. You really ought to get out of the sun. What are you doing walking anyway? And in those high heels!” He all but clicked his tongue.

“I like the exercise,” she snapped.

Suddenly his demeanour changed from friendly to grim. “Don’t tell me the taxi driver left you at the road? Who was it? Describe him.”

“So you can beat him to a pulp?” she only half joked.

“Why ever would you say that? I can get my message across without violence. Please. Get into the car. I’ll drive you up to the house. Let me take your things.”

She wanted to be in the position to ignore him but sad to say she wasn’t. She had the feeling he wouldn’t take any notice anyway. Already he had her heavy suitcase in hand, stowing it in the back of the vehicle like it was a paper bag.

“Come along,” he coaxed. “Much more of this and you’d be badly sunburnt.”

“I don’t burn,” she told him, when she was seated in the vehicle and he was driving back onto the track. “I have olive skin. I spent years up here.”

“I know.” He grinned. “Bronte on horseback. Bronte feeding a joey that had lost its mother. Bronte holding a rifle of all things. You must have been ten?” He gave her a half amused half disproving glance. “Bronte in the rain forest amid the ferns. Bronte at speech night where she collected all the prizes.”

“Why would you bother to look at old photographs of me?” The air-conditioning was heaven! She closed her eyes briefly and arched her neck.

“They were kinda cute actually.” He allowed his eyes to rest on her. She was even more beautiful, more sensuous in the flesh than she was on television. And those eyes! What colour were they? The lilac-blue of the sacred lotus? The morning glories that decked Oriole’s fences? A crush of jacaranda blossom? “Gilly adores you,” he said.

“I adore Gilly.” She answered with a touch of belligerence as if he’d expressed doubts about her affection. “I would never have survived without her.” Immediately she made it she regretted the confidence.

“That’s a sad thing to say.” His voice, however, conveyed only empathy and genuine concern.

She didn’t need it. “I’m sorry I said it.”

“What is it about me you don’t like?” he asked, sounding like he wanted to get to the bottom of her antagonism.

Arrogant beast to keep challenging her! “I’m sure I have no opinion of you at all,” she lied. She’d been accumulating data from the instant she set eyes on him.

“Good grief! What will Gilly say when you tell her you can’t stand the sight of me. Do I remind you of someone?”

She felt her cheeks grow hotter with resentment. “Forgive me if I’m being rude.” She made a huge effort to get hold of herself. “It’s the heat.”

Her lovely skin was dewed with sweat. He found it incredibly erotic. He could see the tips of her nipples budded against her tight tank top with its low oval neck. A tiny trickle of sweat ran down between her breasts. Her yellow stretch jeans printed with flowers showed the length of her legs. “I thought you loved it?” he asked lazily.

“Not when I’m carrying a suitcase.”

“So the taxi driver offended you?”

“Determined to work this out?” She shot a quick glance at him. Bronte had never cared for cleft chins, and she hardened her heart against him to be on the safe side.

“Oddly enough I am.” He met her gaze with a slightly puzzled expression. She was being rather awful. His clear green eyes moved over her face and shoulders. It was a glance that didn’t linger. It wasn’t overtly sexual yet she felt a rush of something powerfully like sexual excitement. It would be the greatest folly to allow him to see it. A guy like that would only exploit the situation.

“I reacted—perhaps overreacted—to one of his remarks. He called Gilly a crazy old bat. When I think about it, it was more indulgent than anything. You know, the local character!”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure I don’t want you to go after him. What do you do around here, Mr. Randolph?”

“Steven, please,” he pleaded, mockery in his voice. “Steve if you like. Gilly calls me Steven. I’m a developer of sorts.”

She almost hunkered down in her seat. “Not one of those!”

He gave a short laugh. “I don’t go around destroying the environment, Bronte. I’m a conservationist as well as a developer.”

Her expression was highly sceptical. “I thought they were mutually exclusive. I can’t imagine how you got to be friendly with Gilly who’s been a conservationist all her life. Unless she has something you want?”

“And what would that be?” He flashed a glance at her.

He wasn’t supposed to have that sexy a voice, she thought irritably. Wives might leave their husbands for a voice like that. “Oriole, maybe?” she suggested. “It might be run-down but these days with a thriving tourist industry and so close to the Reef it’s become a very valuable parcel of land. You might like to get it rezoned and put a back-packer’s place on it for all I know. I should put you straight. Gilly has left it to me.”

“I know!” He dragged the word out. “You must love her for it?”

She ignored the sarcasm. “Gilly told you that?” The fact Gilly liked this guy threw her off-balance. Okay he had charisma. Was that enough to make Gilly confide so much? He’d taken his akubra off, throwing it on the back seat where it appeared to be cuddling up to her straw hat. His hair was a dark mahogany colour with copper highlights put in by the sun. It was thick, straight, well behaved hair. A touch too full and long, but sexy.

“You’d be surprised how much Gilly and I talk.” He confirmed her worst fears.

“No kidding! Like I said, she’s never mentioned you.”

“Well, you have had a great deal on your mind. If it’s any consolation, you did the right thing. If I were a girl I wouldn’t marry Nat Saunders, either. Not in a million years!”

“It sounds more like you know him rather than know of him. Do you?” It wasn’t impossible.

“Kind of.” He grinned.

“More like you’re having me on,” Bronte snapped.

He didn’t deny it.

They were driving through Oriole’s open gates. “Someone’s fixed the hinge, that’s good,” she mumbled to herself. The last time she’d visited Gilly which had to be six or seven months ago, the sagging left side of the gate was propped back with a brick.

“I come in handy sometimes,” he said.

Bronte scarcely heard him. She was staring about her in amazement. “Good grief, a huge clean-up has gone on since I was last here!” The jungle that had threatened to engulf the entire plantation as well as devour the timber homestead had been slashed right back. A good section was actually mown! “Amazing!” She stared out at the grounds which even under jungle were so wildly beautiful they took the breath away.

The gravelled driveway, flanked by an avenue of magnificent poincianas formed a broad highway up to the plantation house. The branches of the great shade trees had grown so massive they interlocked in the middle, forming a long cool tunnel leading up to the house. In a month or so they would burst into glorious flower. An unforgettable sight!

Ancient fig trees on her left. Giants! Festooned with huge staghorns and elkhorns grown as epiphytes, climbing orchids with strongly scented cascading sprays of white and yellow; lacey ferns. One of the rain forest figs she had named Ludwig as a child—after the famous early explorer Ludwig Leichardt—had fourteen foot high buttresses. When she had first come here Gilly had cleaned them out so she could use Ludwig for a cubby house. The greatest miracle of all was she had never been bitten by a snake though she had seen plenty and took good care to tread carefully.

On her right were the magnolias and palms galore. Fan palms with fronds four feet across. There were always shrubs blooming; oleander, frangipani, hibiscus, gardenia, tibouchina, Rain of Gold, the colourful pentas grown en masse, as were the great clumping beds of strelitzias—Bird of Paradise, and the agapanthus. The unbelievably fragrant but poisonous daturas, called the Angel’s Trumpets, were in flower, the enormous white trumpets dangling freely from the branches.

Through the trees she could see the dark emerald waters of the lily pond. A lagoon really, a natural spring. Dozens of glistening cup-like sacred lotus and their pads decorated the glassy surface. A small sturdy bridge had been built across the pond many years ago. Now the latticed sides hung with a delphinium-blue vine, the long trails of flowers dipping down to the water.

The banks of flowering lantana hadn’t been touched. The pink lantana attracted the butterflies, gorgeous specimens, lacewings, birdwings, cruisers, spotted triangles, the glorious iridescent blue Ulysses. They flew around the great sprawling masses of tiny clustered flowers, wings beating in a brilliant kaleidoscope of colour. In the back garden grew every tropical fruit known to man. Mangoes, paw-paws, bananas, loquats, guavas, passionfruit, custard apples, and all the citrus fruits, too, lemons, limes, mandarins, grapefruit, cumquats. There was even a grove of macadamias, the now native Queensland nut transported from Hawaii by an enterprising businessman.

“I love this place,” she breathed. “It’s always been my sanctuary.”

He glanced at her, taking in her dreamy expression. “We all need a sanctuary at certain times. Otherwise we have to get out there into the world.”

Her mood was broken. “Are you implying Gilly didn’t?”

“I was thinking more of you.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Don’t sound so cross,” he answered. “It just struck me in passing you might be harbouring thoughts of turning into a recluse.”

“I prefer to think of it as finding a life of Zen-like purity and simplicity.”

Bronte turned her head away pointedly.

“You’re a bit young for that yet,” he said. “Solitude is great from time to time, but there are hardships associated with living in isolation.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

The driveway opened out into a wide circle that enclosed a very charming three-tiered fountain, the largest bowl supported by four swans. The fountain had been out of action for years, now it was actually playing. “Have we you to thank for the massive clean-up?” She didn’t sound at all grateful and was rather ashamed of the fact. But she intended to stick to her guns.

“I feel better if I can do a good deed now and then,” he said. “I told you, Gilly is my friend. She’s remarkably sprightly but she’s seventy-six years old.”

Was that a dig? “No need to remind me. Did she pay you?”

His green gaze was lancing. “I told you, it was a good deed.”

“You mean it was a big project.” It must have taken weeks, even months.

“So? I could handle it. Are we going to get out? You first. I’ll follow.”

Ordering her around already. In the act of opening the door Bronte turned back sharply. “Are you coming in?”

“Fear not,” he mocked. “It’s only for a short time, I have Gilly’s provisions in the back. Cold stuff in the esky that needs to go into the fridge. I thought I told you?”

“I have a short attention span, I’m afraid,” she announced haughtily, standing out on the drive where her toes suffered another assault from the gravel. She stared up at the house. A green and white timber mansion. Of course it had been built for a large prominent family who had loved entertaining. These days its upkeep was a monstrous burden to Gilly though she’d rather die than admit it. The house was perched a few feet off the ground on capped stumps, a deterrent to the white ants. In her childhood one could scarcely tell where the jungle finished and the homestead started. Today the old colonial was revealed in all its enchantment.

Low set, with verandahs on three sides, twin bow windows flanked the front door. Their position was matched by the hips on the corrugated iron roof. The verandahs were enclosed by particularly fine white wrought-iron lace visible at long last because the rampant creepers that had obscured it for many years had been stripped off. The house had been recently repainted its original glossy white. The iron roof had been restored to a harmonious green matching the shutters on the French doors.

“Your work, too, no doubt?” She turned her head over her shoulder to where Action Man was unloading the 4WD.

“Like it?”

“I love it!” she muttered. “Either you’re a philanthropist on the grand scale or you have an ulterior motive.”

“Believe as you will, Bronte.” He shrugged as if he didn’t care a jot.

Picturesque as the homestead undoubtedly was, what made it so unique was the spectacular setting. In the background, on McAllister land was the unobstructed view of an emerald shrouded volcanic plug. It rose in a cone-shaped peak with a single curiously shaped hump. Gilly had always called it Rex as in Dinosaurus Rex. Rex stood sentinel over the house. The peak wasn’t high, only around four hundred feet but it looked magical against the peacock-blue sky.

“If you’re finished admiring your inheritance you might like to take a box or two,” he called. “Some of them aren’t heavy.”

“Let me get these sandals off first,” she responded tartly. “They looked great when I first set out. Now they’re killing me.”

He carried the bulk of the provisions in and he wasn’t even puffing. Sometimes it must be good to be a man. There were quite a lot of cardboard boxes. Obviously Gilly had stocked up for her visit. She never did remember Bronte didn’t eat nearly as much as she used to as a child when she’d been unfillable. Not that she’d ever put on an extra ounce. Of course as a child she’d been in touch with her legs. The modern child rode in cars and sat cross-legged in front of the television. She and Gilly had tramped the forest. Every morning, except in the rain, she had walked the track to catch the school bus. Every afternoon the bus driver left her at the same spot.

Yes, she was ideally suited to a Spartan existence.

“So, why don’t you freshen up while I put these away?” he suggested.

What a cheek! She swept her long wavy hair off her nape. “Go to the devil!”

He raised a mocking brow. “Do you mind! You’re a prickly little thing, aren’t you? Not a bit like our Gilly.”

“I’m not little at all,” she flashed. “And she’s not your Gilly. I just look little beside you. What are you, six-six?”

“Not even in high heeled boots. It’s a good thing you’re not in search of another husband, Bronte.”

More insults. “You don’t think I could get one?” She was amazed to see a man in Gilly’s kitchen. A man so at home there.

“Easily, for the pleasure of looking at you. But…”

She bristled at what he left unsaid. “Well, you don’t have to worry. Or are you married?”

“Married, no. But I’ve been Best Man.” His eyes swept over her. The high-bred face, so touchingly haughty, the delicate height, the silky masses of her long hair, curling up in the heat, the wonderful colouring. “I’m a committed bachelor at the moment. I have to notch up a few achievements before I’m ready to ask a woman to marry me.”

“Really?” She raised her brows. “I’m surprised you haven’t lots of achievements under your belt already?” The odd part, she actually was.

“I’m sorry the answer’s no. I have a law degree. Not much else.”

“Then why aren’t you practising?”

“I can make a lot more money as an entrepreneur,” he said bluntly.

She found herself pulling a face. “I hate men whose main aim in life is to make money. Seeing you’re so entrepreneurial you might like to make me a cup of tea. Much as I love Gilly I can’t drink her home grown, home roasted coffee. It tastes like the mud at the bottom of the lily pond. By the way, you shouldn’t take the eggs out of the carton. In the carton is the best way to store them not in the egg rack. What happened to Gilly’s chooks?”

He gave a surprisingly graceful shrug of his wide shoulders. “The things one learns!” He started to put the eggs back in the cardboard carton. “The chooks didn’t have much of a show with the snakes. Especially with the chook house fallen down. That’s one of the reasons I and my trusty workers got stuck into cleaning up the grounds.”

“You’re a saint!” said Bronte, giving him a little salute before disappearing down the hallway. “Saint Stephen. I can’t remember what happened to him.”