Darcy watched in amazement as Curt and Courtney moved toward each other as if drawn by powerful magnets. It hit her right between the eyes. Curt and her radiant little sister?

Well, it didn’t have her blessing. He bent his shapely head and kissed Courtney’s apple-blossom cheek. He hugged her. He did hug her.

Courtney went very sweetly into Curt’s arms, not even reaching his heart. Darcy’s own heart gave a great sick lurch. Some trembling voice inside her began to shriek. Don’t take him. He’s mine. He’s mine. He’s always been mine.

Darcy felt herself flush a hot red. It was all her own fault. She had blundered through her love life. Maybe Courtney was in search of a husband? No woman in her right mind would overlook Curt. But Curt was her rock and she couldn’t bear to see another woman in his arms. Even her own sister. Her own sister worst of all!

Margaret Way takes great pleasure in her work and works hard at her pleasure. She enjoys tearing off to the beach with her family at weekends, loves hunting galleries and auctions and is completely given over to French champagne “for every possible joyous occasion.” She was born and educated in the river city of Brisbane, Australia, and now lives within sight and sound of beautiful Moreton Bay.

Look for the continuation of The McIvor Sisters in Marriage at Murraree

Harlequin Romance® #3863

The Outback Engagement
Margaret Way

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

DARCY walked quietly across the Persian rug towards the still figure in the massive canopied bed. The bed was a monstrosity really, elaborately carved and wide enough to sleep a half a dozen but her father was very attached to it. It had once been the property of a McIvor Scottish ancestor. Her father’s eyes were closed, his face the dreadful grey that spoke of severe physical trauma. A fuzz of mottled grey and marmalade coloured hair showed at the neck of his pyjamas lending a peculiar vulnerability. The once powerful hands that could handle anything from the wildest brumby and the biggest bullock to every kind of station machinery rested like fleshless talons on the folded top sheet.

Splendid health had accompanied Jock McIvor all the days of his life now he was a wraith of his former self. Almost overnight, the flesh had dropped off his impressive frame. His nurse, Wilma Ainsworth, an angular white-clad figure, competent but not particularly motherly or compassionate had been and gone taking with her the tray that held the medicines and syringes to bring temporary relief to her suffering patient.

Big Jock McIvor had not recovered from his first heart attack as everyone had expected. Jock McIvor was dying. Of that there could be no doubt. As she leaned over his prone figure Darcy hardly dared draw breath for fear of waking him out of his drug induced slumber. She withdrew to the wide verandah that enclosed the homestead on three sides. Like everyone experiencing a crisis she desperately wanted to change things. To turn back the clock. To insist on her father having regular medical checkups, knowing he had never been ready to listen to her anyway. Jock McIvor was a law unto himself. It was a strategy that in the end hadn’t worked in his favour.

Darcy stared out over the extensive homestead grounds with their magnificent date palms and diverse array of desert plants. The palms had been planted well over a century before by a Afghan camel driver her great great grandfather Campbell McIvor had befriended. Midafternoon the grounds were shrouded in the quivering white fire of a heat haze. It caused a legion of parrots in their glorious colours to descend on the lagoon at the foot of the homestead for a drink. Otherwise the home compound bore a strangely deserted air. Jock McIvor was no longer in charge and it was manifestly obvious. She had been neglecting her duties while she attended her father after that first frightening heart attack. In these last stages despite his agitated protests she’d been forced to call in a full time nurse.

Curt had flown over from Sunrise to urge her to do it. Curt Berenger was another one who was a law unto himself especially since the death of his own father in a helicopter mustering accident leaving Curt master of Sunrise Downs and the entire Berenger chain. Though she found numerous ways of telling him how interfering he was, the truth was Curt followed his family’s tradition of looking after his friends and neighbours in time of need. Not that he was an admirer of Jock McIvor. Their relationship was as strained as it could be with her in the middle. Curt saw her father as a tyrant who’d had far too much influence shaping her life. Part of her recognised that. Her father was very controlling but the things Curt said cut her to the quick. Things do when there’s a basis in truth.

Now Jock McIvor was dying and she was about to be abandoned again. What a long terrible struggle she’d had with that first abandonment. A double whammy. Mother and sister. She could never put the wrenching psychic separation, the painful moods of loneliness and not being loved behind her. She still saw their tearful faces in her dreams. She had loved Courtney with all her heart assuming they were going to be the closest, dearest friends forever. Her mother had always promised her a baby sister. Everything should have been perfect but in the end the dream had been shattered. Childhood innocence had been replaced by painful moods of sadness and loneliness. How had she lived through her adolescence with no mother present? By becoming what her father wanted. She had lived off the dollops of affection he handed out like the desert flora survives on rare showers.

Anxiety was having the effect of a steel band tightening around her head. Fit as she was, many long sleepless nights had exhausted her. Nurse Ainsworth always urged her to go to bed saying she would wake her if she saw the need, but Darcy was not happy with that. This was her father. He was all she had. Didn’t the woman realize that? She had to be there at her father’s side. She sensed she would know the exact moment when all life would leave him.

What then?

What will my life become? She sought to push back all thoughts of freedom as a betrayal but it continued to hover on the periphery of her mind. She had never known real freedom. By fair means or foul—she became agitated when she thought about it—her father had tenaciously kept her tied to his side. After his marriage break up he had made it a purpose in life. She could understand it in a way. He was a proud man who had suffered bitter losses. Worse, he had been publicly humiliated. Now he was waiting to die and the atmosphere was charged with powerful emotions.

She couldn’t run Murraree by herself. It was a big job, not an Outback adventure. Her father had been King of the Castle. The Boss. Jock McIvor always made the decisions. As efficient as he had trained her to be, essentially she carried out orders. What would happen to Murraree with her father gone? She knew the men liked and respected her. Some of them had watched her grow up. She knew how to handle herself, but she wasn’t a hard, tough man in a hard, tough man’s country.

“You can’t cure yourself of being a woman, Darcy,” Curt had told her, a kind of pity in his eyes. “Don’t you realize you define yourself in relation to your father? It’s high time you started being your own person, your own woman.”

Curt refused to allow her to avoid issues. Just one of the reasons their arguments were legion. Fighting was a protection against feeling. A way of protecting herself against the pain of a dream that had never come true. Sometimes she didn’t know if she loved Curt or hated him. He made her so angry, upset, mad, excited. Wide swings of mood from turmoil to elation. It was like being on a swing, soaring skywards then falling back to earth. Too often she submerged her tempestuous feelings in defying him. It made it that much easier for her to keep control. That was her lot in life. Keeping control.

Now she had to watch her father make his exit from life. It was an eerie experience, rather like a nightmare from which she would surely wake up. Jock McIvor’s heart attack at fifty six had not only rocked her to her core, it had rocked the entire Outback. Jock McIvor was in his way a legend. Millionaire cattle man, lady killer, sportsman (only a year before he had still been enjoying his favourite game of polo), raconteur, owner of an historic cattle station with its rambling old homestead that had in its heyday, to be strictly honest, her grandfather’s day, hosted many a visiting dignitary and V.I.P. Her father was a true bush identity though Darcy was painfully aware some people described him as a ruthless bastard. Still Jock McIvor was known the length and breadth of Outback Queensland and into the Northern Territory.

Unbelievably only six months before he had been a marvellous looking man, still outrageously handsome with flashing blue eyes, wonderful white teeth and a leonine mane that had slowly turned tawny from its once copper glory. Darcy had many fond memories of sitting around the camp fire listening to her father recount his stories to a fascinated audience who hung on his every word. On the down side it had to be said her father had been a hard-drinking, hard-living womaniser. There was no getting away from it. He was a big man with big appetites. It had been a problem. It once caused a crisis when photos surfaced of Jock and a well-known station wife caught in a public display of affection for want of a better word. The wronged husband had threatened a shotgun solution. Jock who had a lawless streak in him had only laughed when his daughter had been saddened and deeply embarrassed.

Yes, Jock McIvor had generally been acknowledged to be larger than life. Darcy had thought him invincible.

“When no man is!” Curt again. The entire Outback community knew Darcy and Curt had a powerful attachment both sought to play down. People argued there didn’t seem to be any rational explanation for why they were not together. Except maybe Jock McIvor’s running interference. They all knew Jock wasn’t a man to share.

A small sound from the bedroom tore Darcy from her troubled reverie. Her father was stirring, a whistling moan on his breath.

“Dad!” For once she didn’t bother with the “Jock” her father preferred her to call him. In the stress of the moment she didn’t care. She was a woman. Damn it! Emotional.

By the time she reached the bed her father’s eyes were opening slowly, painfully, as though it cost him a great effort. “Darcy.” His brow puckered. “Here as usual?”

Something about the way he said it took her aback. “Where else would I be?” She touched his hand tenderly willing herself not to cry. Her father hated tears so much sometimes she thought she had almost lost the ability to cry. She had been brought up to be brave, ignoring her sensitive female side as she tried to turn herself into the heir her father had always wanted yet somehow for all his dalliances had failed to produce.

“I’m finished, girl.” It was said flatly, without acceptance. More a hard digust that in former days would have been rage.

She was helpless to deny it. “Dad, I love you so much.”

“That’s the way you are. Loyal.” He fixed his sunken eyes on a life size portrait across the room. It had been painted not long before the inexorable break-up of the family. Two young girls about twelve and ten in immaculate riding gear, white silk shirts and fitted jodhpurs leaned towards a ravishingly pretty, blonde woman who was seated on a burgundy leather couch, similarly attired.

Dress for the portrait had been decided upon by Jock. Marian McIvor hadn’t cared for horses or riding. Courtney had followed suit. Courtney, an adorable miniature version of her mother had her arm around her mother’s waist. Darcy was perched like some long legged brolga on the arm of the couch, long straight dark hair falling over one shoulder, slanting aquamarine eyes staring gravely out at the viewer.

It had always seemed to her her colouring looked startlingly out of place beside Jock’s benchmark of beauty, the enchanting gold and blue of her mother and sister. From family photographs she knew she resembled her long dead paternal grandmother who had been famous for her stoic resilience and everyday heroisms in a vast lonely harsh environment. She even bore her grandmother’s maiden name, D’Arcy.

“You were always the serious one.” Her father gave a muffled groan, the marks of suffering all over him. “Look at you there. Poker faced. Beside your mother and sister you look damned nearly plain. But you were always as smart as a tack and you’ve been good. So good. I haven’t appreciated you enough. You were the one I could always trust.”

Sometimes the things her father said Darcy found horribly wounding. Anything but vain, she knew she was far from plain but her father had never wanted to accept her attractiveness or femininity. Perhaps as Curt continually pointed out her father saw great danger in allowing her to realise her womanly potential.

Father and daughter continued to stare at the portrait, one feeling a sense of attachment, the other, God knows what! “Why have you always kept the portrait in your room?” Darcy felt driven to ask. Her father’s harsh views were entrenched in her consciousness. Jock had always claimed he despised Darcy’s mother for leaving him, yet he opened his eyes on her first thing in the morning and closed his eyes on her at night.

“It’s the way it’s got to be!” A grim smile lifted the corner of Jock McIvor’s mouth. “I keep it, Darcy, to remind me what Marian did to me. She sucked all the love from my system. She should never have left me. It was cruel and it was wrong.”

“You didn’t try hard enough to get her back, Dad. You let them go.” The words were torn from Darcy like a bandage from a wound.

“It was your mother’s duty to return to me.” The gaunt face worked, the talons on the white sheet tensed. “When she refused I was finished with her. No woman makes a fool of Jock McIvor. A wife should follow her husband everywhere. She knew what she was getting into when she married me, what she had to accept. She was a bad wife.” His expression was at once bitter and bereft.

“Why didn’t she want to take me?” Darcy’s plaintive eyes were fixed upon her mother’s painted face. How many million times had she asked herself the question?

Her father shot her a peculiar glance. One she missed. “She wanted Courtney, the pretty one made in her own image. That was the deal. You were the changeling with your dark hair and those slanty eyes. Your mother and your sister subjected us to a massive betrayal, girl. Then she had the hide to punish me with an outrageous divorce settlement when she was the one to move out. Remarried, the faithless bitch. You know she wanted you to go to the wedding?”

For a minute Darcy looked at him blankly. “Oh…Dad, you’ve never mentioned this before.” The admission devastated her. She was left with the sick hollow feeling there might be many things her father had never told her when she had given him all her loyalty and trust.

“For God’s sake, be your age!” he said, anger seething behind his eyes. “There are lots of things I never told you. Because you didn’t need to know. The two of us had to cast your mother and sister aside to survive. Your mother was the enemy. We had to resist her with all our strength. Fact is, Courtney still remains my child. Your mother destroyed our relationship but now I’m dying I’ve had to confront certain issues. Because you’ve been the one to stay with me doesn’t mean I’m going to leave you Murraree, girl. It would take more than a woman to run it.”

Darcy took a deep breath, feeling like she had been plunged headfirst into a powerful disbelief. “What are you saying? Murraree is my home. My heritage. I know you’ve always wanted a son but haven’t I demonstrated my love for the land? I’ve worked long and hard. I carry my weight. If I can’t handle the station all on my own, there’s always a good overseer.” The idea of losing her birthright was absolutely intolerable.

“Overseer!” Jock McIvor rallied to spit out the word. “Damn it all, girl. When I’m gone men will try to take advantage of you. Don’t you realise that? How are you supposed to protect yourself? They’ll be after you like vultures, not for you, but the station.”

Darcy studied her father with the shutters all but fallen from her eyes. “I’m confident I can manage my own life, Dad. Murraree might be a top station but I haven’t been short of marriage proposals these past years. For me alone. You were supposed to live forever.”

“Never got one out of Berenger.” There was deliberate cruelty in the taunt.

Darcy came perilously close to cutting her father down. But it could have the profound and damaging effect of snuffing the life out of him. All too often he’d been wrong. Then again it was typical of him to try to catch her out, to goad her into revealing what he was too fearful to face.

“Curt and I would never have worked,” she said, holding in the anger she had controlled for years. Outwardly calm, inwardly she was dealing with the old desolation. It was essential she keep a lock on her tongue. She had survived. Her father was dying.

Jock spluttered cruelly. “What the hell do you take me for, girl? You’ve been hooked on Berenger since you were a kid. Any other woman would have taken him into her bed. I counted on you to resist him.” He treated her to a searching stare.

“Don’t let’s get into this, Dad,” she said deciding he hadn’t earned the right to her most private thoughts. “It causes too much upset and you can’t be upset.” Always the placator she feared the onset of another bad turn. “Besides.” She gave him what he needed to hear. “I gave my heart to you. You’re all I’ve had.” She said it with an enigmatic smile, finally forced to consider all the loving had been on her side.

“Exactly.” Jock McIvor nodded, convinced her wholehearted devotion was his due. “As for me, I have no son to take over from me.” His breathing hissed with impotent rage. “Just girls. Can you believe it? With my incredible strength. My virility. The women I’ve had! I want you to get Berenger over here,” he announced with a sudden vigour.

Darcy shook her head in utter confusion. “You want Curt?” Considering the role her father had played in breaking them up this came as a revelation.

“Oh I know we’ve always had our differences,” he grunted, catching sight of her shocked expression. “I know he hasn’t any regard for me—glimpses of his old man there—but I’ve never known a Berenger not to show integrity. Despite all this infernal suffering and pain Doc Robertson tells me I have a little time to go. I want to discuss something with Berenger. Barely thirty and he’s building a name for himself,” he said grudgingly.

“He’s got a name, Dad,” Darcy bluntly corrected. “He was born with it. Berenger. A proud name. It’s on the record. A name he lives up to. What can you possibly discuss with Curt of all people you can’t discuss with me?”

“Important business, that’s what!” There was a momentary flash in McIvor’s eyes. “I know you’ve got a good head on your shoulders but I need to speak to a man, that man being Curt Berenger.”

Darcy’s saddened eyes looked steadily into her father’s. “Do you love me, Dad?” Please God let him say it just once. “You’ve never told me. You’ve said a few times you were proud of me, especially when I won that big endurance race, but love has never been mentioned.”

Incredibly a tear trickled from Jock McIvor’s eyes. “My fault, Darcy girl. I sometimes think I’ve never known what real love is. Apart from my mother. I’m convinced I loved her. Named you after her, didn’t I? I was passionately in love with Marian for a while or at least I thought I was. She was so pretty and amenable. It’s possible I loved you girls, I don’t know. Maybe loving isn’t in my nature. Fidelity either. Now that was beyond me. All I know is I care about you, Darcy. You’ll be a remarkable woman in later life. By and large you’re pretty remarkable now. Your interests will be well protected. You don’t have to worry your head about that.”

“You’re changing your will?” Shock upon shock ground her down.

“Just let’s say I’m moving away from the original. I’m on the brink of meeting my Maker. Curiously I’ve rarely given Him a second thought but now I have a pressing need to straighten things out.”

Attonement it seemed was a powerful factor when it came time to die. “You want to include Courtney? I understand that.” Courtney who had gone with her mother. Courtney who had abandoned her only sister among other things. Did Courtney deserve to be rewarded? Darcy began to wonder what she had done with her life.

“You’re too understanding for your own good,” her father gave a rasping cough. “But you’ve got guts and you got them from me. Get Berenger over here. I’m not that dumb I don’t know he’ll still do what you ask.”

After a long sleepless night battling fresh demons, Darcy drove down to the airstrip midmorning to pick up Curt and deliver him to the homestead. She realized he was putting himself out for her. Curt was a very busy man with many calls on his time and attention. She counted her blessings he remained her friend.

In front of her and to either side, the vast ancient plains spread out as far as the eye could see. Horizon to horizon. The indomitable land under whose influence she had fallen, glowed molten red. She knew without the protection of her sunglasses the fiery sands, ridged like old washboards, would have been blinding to the naked eye. Studded here and there were white boled ghost gums, the pretty little minareechies with their light green leaves and feathery acacias with swarms of little birds, finches and red throats hopping around the branches. Clumps of spinifex, like giant pincushions glinted gold as wheat. Mile after mile of them. A never ending supply of stockfood.

Spinifex and sand. Space, freedom, a million acres to roam. Why wouldn’t she love her desert home? In times of severe drought it was like taking a walk on Mars, but all that was forgotten when the heartland blazed into the Garden of Eden after the rains. Today the mirage was working its cruel magic. The desert phenomenon had bedevilled many a past explorer and lost traveller luring them towards what they believed was pure fresh water. Water that shone like a polished mirror. This was the land of mirage. It gave the illusion there was no horizon. Land and sky merged into one.

As she gazed across some of the most starkly beautiful and forbidding land on the planet the speck in the cloudless blue sky swiftly transformed itself into a light aircraft. Darcy swept it with the binoculars that hung around her neck. The Berenger twin-engined Beech Baron. He was right on time.

A few minutes later she watched in admiration as Curt made a perfect touch-down in a brisk cross wind. He taxied up to Murraree’s silver hangar, made his after checks then disembarked covering the short distance between them in long loping strides.

One hell of a man was Curt Berenger. Darcy watched his progress with the tense, foolish, feverish, fascination she could never kill off. He was at once daunting and dazzling. Aware of his own power but rarely pressing it. He didn’t have to of course. Today, like all other days, she put herself on guard.

“Hi!” He bestowed his beautiful white smile on her. Next best, his dark timbred voice. It had a very attractive edge to it. Sexy was what women called it.

“Hello yourself!” She gave him a light ironic salute. Both of them had perfected the art of taking the mickey out of the other.

At close range he was even more stunning. Emphatically the cattle baron, a powerful and influential community leader, a target for women. She could never forget. They threw themselves at him. Worshipped at his booted feet. Around Curt Berenger adulation was the order of the day. His classic features were hard planed, damn nearly godlike. He had a firm but full lipped mouth, crystal clear green eyes that positively scintillated in his darkly tanned face. They stared at each other as they always did, way beyond the comfort zone.

She broke first, as ever, tossing her head which meant: Not me, Curt. Never again.

“Thanks so much for coming,” she said briskly, conscious she was breathing him in.

He started to walk with her to the jeep, adjusting his broad brimmed akubra over his eyes. “Given the brutal fact your dad and I have never got on—and we both know why—this is downright weird.”

Forbidden topic. “I agree but he trusts you.”

“Does he really?” Curt treated her to a sarcastic stare.

“It’s something to do with a new will,” she explained.

“Wha-a-t!” Curt did a double take.

“You heard me.” Tall as she was she had to tilt her head to look up at him. Something she found very satisfying.

“Hell, Darcy.” He registered his disgust. “Even now he’s playing with your emotions. What prompted this I wonder? And why me? It’s not making a lot of sense.” He didn’t wait to be invited, he slid behind the wheel of the jeep.

“People see things in a different way when they’re dying.” Darcy settled herself in the passenger side without comment. She was long used to Curt’s ways. “Whatever our history, underneath he respects you as a Berenger.”

“Does he, the old…so and so,” Curt swallowed on what he really wanted to call Jock McIvor. “Does he mean to include Courtney?” He put the jeep into gear, heading for the long unsealed track that led to the main compound.

“She is his daughter.” Darcy clamped her hands together. It was an automatic response to Curt’s closeness.

“She’s fairly well ignored that up-to-date. I wonder what he’s up to? For all his periodic bursts of charm your father is an unpredictable and ruthless man.” People’s view of Darcy was that she was a saint for putting up with her notoriously difficult father let alone loving him. But such was the parental bond. McIvor represented all Darcy knew since her mother had opted out at an age when Darcy had desperately needed her.

“I don’t really know what’s going on in his head,” Darcy said, pursing her lips in thought. “I don’t think I’ve ever known. As for Courtney, maybe she felt she’d be as unwanted here as I’d be unwanted there. My mother obviously decided she wanted nothing more to do with us.” She didn’t dare mention to Curt her father’s stunning confession her mother had wanted her to attend her second wedding. That would only give him more ammunition. Maybe there were more secrets in store for her? After all, didn’t she have her own?

“Probably it was all so painful she had to break the connection just to survive,” Curt looked into her eyes briefly. “Your mother needed love and admiration like the rest of us. She didn’t get it from your dear father. The thing that has always surprised me was your father didn’t let her have custody of both of you if only because of his lifestyle. He could have had you for the holidays. A compassionate man wouldn’t force such a traumatic separation. Children generally stay with their mother.”

“You seem to be forgetting. My mother didn’t want me. At least Dad did.” Darcy kept the pain and anger out of her voice. She was done with self-pity.

“That’s the line your father sold you. He drummed it into you from Day One. You were twelve years old. The unimaginable had happened. Your father was so desperate to hold onto you he shifted all the blame onto your mother. My mother insists to this day your mother adored you. You know that.”

“Strange way of showing it,” Darcy answered crisply. “Kath is just being Kath offering comfort.”

“Not only that,” Curt insisted. “Mum’s very fond of you of course, but she’s always been convinced your father had something on your mother he used as leverage. Or it was plain spite. You know what’s he like. She couldn’t have both of you. Come on, Darcy, your mother was a gentle, loving person. It must have been horrible for her. She wasn’t suited to station life but she tried for a long time. Your father was a big intimidating man. He made his wife suffer.”

“You mean with the affairs?” Darcy stared out at the sun scorched landscape, deriving comfort from its rugged grandeur. How she had hated it when her father had occasionally brought his girlfriends home. Though in all fairness most had tried to be kind to her.

“It must have been a tremendous threat to her self-esteem thus to the marriage.”

“He must have needed something she couldn’t give him,” Darcy sighed. “Sex was a very important part of Dad’s life. He couldn’t live without it.”

“Unlike you,” he said in a bone dry voice.

“Well, you could never lead a celibate life,” she retorted, turning her head away.

“What the hell are you talking about?” He picked up on that quickly. “I don’t know what fool image of me you’ve got in your head, but it’s certainly not based on reality. I am not your father, Darcy. How can you think that for a minute?”

She dug her nails into her palms. “Whenever you take your trips to the big cities I’m sure you don’t move around alone.” She had the proof. She had never spoken it aloud.

“Why because sometimes I get my picture in the paper?” he challenged.

Oh yes, she thought. You get your picture taken. “Let’s move off the subject,” she said. “I’m sorry I started it. Just say you’re very macho. Our way of life promotes it.”

“For goodness’ sake, Darcy!” Curt grunted. “I swear I don’t know what you’re on about some times. I suppose you can’t help it given the life you’ve led. I admit men are in control out here, if that’s what you call macho. Men determine the industry. As for your father, sex for him must have been like his drinking. An appetite. Maybe a form of recreation. Think about it. Was anyone really special to him? I know this is one hell of an explosive issue between us, but you’re forever locked into making excuses for your dad. It’s become second nature. I can’t believe he has ever really loved anyone in his entire life.”

It was a claim she desperately wanted to deny, but it was probably true. Darcy lifted her eyes to a squadron of budgerigars that flew in emerald and gold formation alongside the speeding vehicle. It was one of the great sights of her homeland. “Dad said he loved his mother,” she offered quietly.

“Well that’s one person,” Curt’s mouth tilted at the corners with dark humour. “I’m not saying he doesn’t care about you, Darcy. You’re his prize possession. The one that didn’t get away. I understand your allegiance even if it drives me nuts. You’ve only had him to turn to at a crucial time of your life. Every young girl needs her mother.”

“To develop right?” She was aware she had been severely damaged by her mother’s abandonment.

“Absolutely! Your dad even if he’d been a loving dad couldn’t have taken over that role. Darcy, he treated you—mistreated you if you like—like a boy. The son he never had. You give him everything. What does he give to you? Now a new will. What does that mean? Could it put your interests at risk in some way? Your interests must be protected. Maybe his choice of daughter goes back to the fact you’re said to resemble his mother. The mystical bond, perhaps?”

“Go to hell,” she said quietly.

“I’m trying to live my life to make certain I won’t,” he clipped off. “Your father was prepared to let Courtney go. He couldn’t keep your mother against her will but you were the one he wanted. You were the one he needed. Even at twelve you were brave, resourceful, competent, loyal. You loved the land when your mother and sister didn’t. You were fearless. You stood out and Courtney was a babe in arms beside you. She wasn’t a physical child in the sense you were. There was her fear of horses. Your father was to blame for that with his bluster and bullying. Instead of using a gentle hand he seemed to go out of his way to frighten her. They just didn’t come more rambunctious than your old man.”

“Rambunctious?” She gave a bitter little smile. “That’s a good word. He’s not so rambunctious now.”

Curt eyed her purely cut profile, the small straight nose, the delicately determined chin, the swan’s neck. Her lustrous mane of sable hair hung down her back in a thick plait. Her olive skin glowed with good health. No make-up save the usual token touch of lipstick. She was beautiful and ludicrously unaware of it. Inevitable perhaps when her father made a point of ignoring her feminine attractiveness. “I’m sorry, Darcy,” he said gently, and he was, though sometimes he wanted to shake the living daylights out of her. “I know what your father means to you. We’re predisposed to love our parents no matter what. What I don’t know is what he wants with me now? Given he’s done everything in his power to drive a wedge between us it’s damned odd. I don’t want to be put into the position of advising on wills. He has a team of lawyers for that. Maxwell and Maynard. Adam Maynard is a man of integrity with a fine legal brain. Your father has spoken to Adam hasn’t he?”

She pulled a face. “You know Dad never took to Adam any more than Adam took to Dad.”

“Your father isn’t an easy man to like.”

“How unkind.” She bit her lip.

“The unvarnished truth. Lots of people have been taken in by Jock. Women in particular. Some women will always be attracted to dangerous men.”

“You’re pretty dangerous yourself.” Her profound feelings for him spilled over, as on rare occasions they did.

His green eyes sought hers. “Rubbish!” His tone was a mix of disgust and wry humour. “I’m just a pussy cat.”

“A jaguar.” She didn’t smile. “We’ll never see eye to eye, Curt.”

He turned his head. “That wouldn’t stand up to examination. What about the land which we love more than anything else. The land and everything that goes with it. Then there’s our love of horses and horsemanship, of books and music. We share the same sense of humour. We like the same people. Our political leanings are the same, our world view. Apart from that we don’t have a darn thing in common. I agree. There’s quite a gap.”

Jock McIvor had foregone his medication so his mind would be clear. With difficulty he lifted his head as his daughter and Curt Berenger were shown into his bedroom by the incredibly dull and dour Ainsworth woman. Berenger stood inches over the head of his tall daughter, making her look darn near fragile. Funny he had never thought of Darcy as being fragile before. Darcy could handle rough work with the best of them.

“Good of you to come, Curt.” It came out in a hoarse bark.

Berenger inclined his handsome head.

As arrogant as his father McIvor thought, but it was the arrogance of achievement.

“Anything I can do to help Darcy, sir,” Curt said formally, moving to the bedside to take the withered hand that was extended to him. Curt recalled how big and powerful that hand had once been.

He was shocked by the deterioration in McIvor’s condition. McIvor looked very close to death. That inevitably stirred feelings of pity. However devious and demanding, Jock McIvor had been a giant of a man. To be reduced to this wasted hulk! It was cruel. Terminal illness was a down-casting fact of life.

“You don’t need to stay, Darcy,” McIvor rasped. “I need to talk to Curt alone.”

“Surely there’s nothing Darcy can’t hear?” Curt questioned, looking briefly over his shoulder towards Darcy. He hoped she’d insist on staying but her father had such a hold on her.

Darcy returned Curt’s challenging green gaze briefly then dipped her head. “I’ll go see about lunch. You’re staying, Curt?”

He nodded. “Don’t go to any trouble. Make it simple.”

“See you later then.” Darcy turned and moved quietly out of the room.

“Don’t like me much do you, Curt?” McIvor rubbed a hand still rough with a lifetime’s callouses against the smooth sheet.

Understatement of the year. “You’ve never done anything to make me like you, Jock. Then I don’t think it has ever mattered to you if you were liked or not.” Curt brought up a chair to the bed.

“Your dad didn’t care for me either. I suspect your parents thought I was responsible for Marian’s running off?”

“Were you?” Curt asked bluntly.

McIvor’s frown was fierce. “She threatened to destroy me if I didn’t let her go.”

“How could she do that?” Curt struggled to understand.

“She knew where the bodies were buried.”

“I didn’t know she played any role in your business affairs?” It was well known McIvor barely recognised women outside their sexual desirability.

“She didn’t play any role,” he huffed. “Didn’t have a brain in her fluffy blonde head. Like all women.”

“That’s not true, Jock,” Curt said. He wasn’t about to start an argument with a desperately ill man. “Women just didn’t get the opportunities. They were kept busy raising children. Anyway your own daughter gives the lie to that. Darcy’s had increasing input into the station affairs. I’d trust her anytime.”

“That’s because I trained her.” McIvor coughed and tried to get his breath back. “But she’s a woman. Women are weak, vulnerable. They’re putty in a man’s hands.”

“No way does that apply to Darcy.” Curt fixed his eyes steadily on McIvor’s. “She knows how to take care of herself.”

“That’s because I’m around.” McIvor, the confirmed chauvinist, was convinced of it. “What about when I’m not? I’ve got a lot to leave, my boy. I’ve looked after my affairs so well. Darcy will sure as hell be a mark as an heiress.”

“Perhaps she will but she can handle it,” Curt returned confidently.

“You sure about that? Life’s a bloody jungle. She’s been protected so far. The two of you have grown up together. I know you’ve got strong feelings for her.”

“Which you did your best to crush,” Curt didn’t hesitate to say. “You’ve been absolutely against Darcy and me but it’s much too late to talk about it now. What were you about to suggest, Jock? We do a complete about face? I marry Darcy to protect the most important thing in the world to you? We all know what that is. Murraree. Only neither Darcy nor I could be bought out.”

“It might turn out that way all the same,” McIvor was moved to predict, his bitter expression betraying he was not entirely coming to terms with it even when he was dying.

“Why don’t you cut to the chase, Jock,” Curt suggested, feeling like getting up and walking away. “What have you really got me here for?”

McIvor gave a dry cough, trying to ignore the pain over which he had no control. “Now, now, remember I’m a sick man. No matter what you say, you make it your business to look out for Darcy.”

Curt admitted as much with an abrupt nod of his head.

“She must be protected.” McIvor gave another harsh cough. He stared past Curt’s mahogany head to the portrait across the room. “I have to settle my life, son. Do you understand that?”

“Of course I do.” Curt was straightforward with his answer. “I understand from Darcy you now wish to consider Courtney?”

McIvor swallowed on a throat that was perpetually parched. “Some women find it the simplest thing to give a man sons. Others can only manage giving a man in my position daughters.”

“Hang on, Jock, are you sure of that?” Curt pressed.

“Don’t listen to rumours, son. They’re not true. I have no son, a curse which even now when I’m dying I can’t adjust to. Your dad was the lucky one.”

“My dad lost his life prematurely.” Curt commented sombrely, still grieving for the father he idolized.

“I know and I’m sorry but he had you. He had an heir to take over the reins.” McIvor’s grey face was thwarted and angry.

“You have Darcy,” Curt answered him. “Tom McLaren is a good manager. Darcy has friends. She’s much admired in the community.”

“Course she is, but she’s a woman. Running a big cattle station is a man’s job. It’s endless back breaking work. You know that. Then she’d have to cope with the men. They behave when I’m around, but there are those that eye her off. I see ’em. If they ever went near her I’d shoot ’em. Darcy is an Outback woman to the core. She loves the land like we do. She’s the eldest, the first born. She’ll get the lion’s share.”

“I should hope so. She deserves it,” Curt looked closely at the dying man. McIvor was so unpredictable.

“Always on her side,” McIvor snorted. “It’s a bizarre relationship you two have. I almost regret now the things I’ve done.”

Curt almost laughed aloud. “I’ve always blamed you, Jock. Make no mistake about that. But to get back to why I’m here. You want to draw up a new document recognizing Courtney? Is that it?”

“Yes.” A shudder shook McIvor’s wasted frame.

“Are you all right? Clearly you’re in a lot of pain.” Curt half stood up.

“Maybe a drink of water.”

Curt poured it, assisting McIvor to drink. “I was thinking of a trust fund,” McIvor managed eventually when he was resting back on the pillows. “I want you to play a part in that. Trustee now your dad’s gone. I would have asked him.”

“Jock! Do you want to give Darcy another reason to resent me?” Curt groaned. “She can handle her own affairs.”

McIvor looked back with genuine scorn. “In my judgment it would be best if a man like you kept a careful eye on things.”

“There are good reliable responsible professionals who could do that.” Curt argued. “Your solicitors Maxwell & Maynard. You should be discussing this all important issue with them. I would have thought time was critical.”

McIvor frowned. “I wanted to talk to you first. No matter what you think of me—what I’ve done—and I admit I took every opportunity to cause trouble—I trust you. Besides you Berengers have more than enough money and property of your own. Maybe things between you and Darcy went sour but I’ll stake my life—what’s left of it—you’ll look out for her.”

Curt’s expression was not encouraging. “Why didn’t you discuss this with Adam Maynard when he was last here?”

McIvor beetled his brows. “He’s not a favourite of mine. He’s not one of us. You’re the man I trust. You’re a cattle man just like me and you’re familiar with the whole situation. Darcy needs you as an adviser, a man who can help her plan for the future. I don’t want to see all us McIvors have worked for go down the drain.”

“That I understand.” Curt nodded his agreement. “But let me get Darcy in here, Jock. You wanted my advice. That’s it. Get her in here. Don’t leave her in the dark. She’s not a child. She’s a responsible adult.”

McIvor pressed back against the pillows. “I can’t handle it,” he barked, looking pathetically ill. “Darcy being Darcy will launch into one of her little tirades. Don’t think she’s not above telling her own father off. I’m not saying she doesn’t have the business acumen to handle the McIvor fortune if it weren’t for the fact she’s a woman. You know as well as I do men stalk women with money.”

Curt knew better than most inheriting a fortune was a heavy responsibility. “So you figure setting up a family trust will protect Darcy and presumably Courtney?”

“Who’s probably a complete ninny like her mother and just as beautiful. There’ll be plenty of men around to exploit her. Mark my words! There’s marriage, divorce. These things happen. Hell, I should know. Some bloody con man could go off with my money. No wonder there are prenuptial agreements. It’s the only way to go.”

Curt forced himself to sound as calm as possible. “So Darcy and Courtney are the main beneficiaries?” He wondered if there weren’t somebody else in the woodwork given McIvor’s numerous liasons.

McIvor cleared his throat several times. “Yes,” he managed hoarsely.

“The trust administers the estate and apportions income to your daughters. You’d have to decide how much.”

“They’ll have enough!” McIvor muttered irritably.

“I think you should line up another couple of trustees,” Curt suggested.

“Okay, okay.” McIvor waved a withered hand. “I’m telling you Curt it’s the only way I’ll die happy. I need a man of impeccable reputation who has more than enough interests of his own to act as the main trustee and executor of my estate. I believe I’ve come up with the right man. You. And if you won’t do it I’ll have to get someone else,” he added with grim determination. “Someone who mightn’t always act in the best interests of the beneficiaries.”

That forced Curt to reconsider. McIvor’s expression told him he meant exactly what he said. “Jock, you’re putting a lot on me. Darcy won’t like this idea.”

“It’s not Darcy’s money!” McIvor glared, his voice suddenly strong. “Murraree belongs to me. If she wants to make trouble she mightn’t be named as a beneficiary at all. Now I’m tired,” he announced gruffly. “Get that dratted Ainsworth woman in here, will you? She’s plain, poor bitch. No woman should be as plain as that and she stinks of disinfectant. I don’t want to hurt Darcy but I won’t tolerate any stubbornness. Explain that to her.”

CHAPTER TWO

CURT left McIvor’s bedroom feeling like he was wading through quick sand. The nurse was hovering nearby and he lost no time telling her Mr. McIvor was in need of his medication. He then went in search of Darcy, finding her in the kitchen, washing a head of lettuce at the sink.

“Ham and salad okay?” she asked in a way that suggested her mind wasn’t on fixing lunch at all.

“Fine.” His voice too came out more clipped than he intended. “Make it a sandwich and a cup of coffee, Darcy. I have to talk to you.”

“Of course you do and from the expression on your face you know I won’t like it. Dad is selling Murraree to you. At the right price, of course.” Although she was joking Darcy’s golden skin had turned pale. Anything was possible with her father.

Curt gave a harsh laugh. He pulled out a chair and sat down. “That’d be one for the books!” The kitchen was enormous and very old-fashioned. Like the rest of the rambling old homestead it was badly in need of updating and refurbishing. For all his money McIvor was notoriously tight fisted. “Let’s make this clear. I don’t want Murraree, Darcy,” he said, aware of her loss of colour. “I have enough on my hands.”

She shook her gleaming head. “You wouldn’t knock it back if it came on the market?”

“I’m not getting into any hypothetical discussions. Come here and sit down.”

“I’ll make you a sandwich first. The coffee will only take a minute. I’ll put it on the stove.” For a few moments neither spoke as she worked quickly putting together a plate of ham and salad sandwiches. “So what did Dad suggest?” she asked finally, setting the plate before him along with a clean white linen napkin.

“This looks good,” he said, realizing he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten since dawn. “You’re going to have something surely?” He looked up at her.

“I seem to have lost my appetite.”

“You can’t afford to. You’re downright skinny.” The expression in his green eyes changed, as they travelled over her.

Sometimes he slipped back into doing that so the blood raced through her veins. “Why do you do it, Curt?” she asked, thoroughly rattled.

“Call you skinny?” he half smiled.

“You know darn well. Look at me like that?”

He sat back, considering. “Well apart from being skinny you’re just beautiful even with a pigtail hanging down your back. I can’t remember the last time I saw your hair out.”

“You do too,” she reminded him shortly. “The last polo ball.”

“That’s right. Damn near a year ago. Sunset hosts it this time around. I remember you spent most of the night with Rob Erskine,” he referred to a member of his team who had always been painfully in love with Darcy and unbeknown to him had actually proposed to her.

“So I did.” She shrugged. “While you gave Beth Gilmour the best night of her life. Both of them now out of the picture.”

“Oh yeah?” he mocked. “I saw Beth only the other day.”

“Actually she’d make you a good wife.”

Curt gave her a disgusted look. “We’ve been through this before, Darcy. I’m allergic to having a wife picked out for me by you!”

The tantalizing aroma of perking coffee filled the kitchen. “You always taunt me about my single state. Why can’t I have a go at you?”

“Taunt away,” he invited, waving a careless hand. “You, my dear Darcy, are an open book. You want a review? It’s as I always tell you. You’re terrified of giving your heart away. You construct defences that make you feel safe, presumably against loss. Unfortunately loss is inevitable in life. You’ve been a victim. That’s why you’re compelled to act as you do.”

“You should have taken up psychiatry.” She raked an escaped lock of hair off her face.

He shrugged. “Anyone could see your conflicts.”

“Loving you a woman could get hurt badly.” She risked a glance at him, determined to keep her sensual self closed off when obviously she couldn’t.

“A woman meaning you. Don’t sound so miserable. Eventually you’ll work it out. I just hope you don’t leave it until your child bearing years are over. I think you’d make a great mother. I see you when you’re around little kids, teenagers come to that. Remember those so called problem kids we took on at Sunset last year? They thought you were great. You handled them so well. Firm but gentle, ready to listen, encouraging them. You interacted better than anyone else. Including my mother. I recall an eternity ago I had high hopes for us.”

For a few seconds she had difficulty continuing with what she was doing. Her hands shook. “I wouldn’t have been good for you, Curt. Nor you for me. We’d have ruined each other’s lives by now. I thought we’d established that.” Once she and Curt had been lovers—one of those great desperate romances that ended very badly. There was danger in even stirring over the ashes.

Determinedly she switched the conversation. “So what did Dad say?”

The corners of Curt’s firm mouth turned down. “That’s right, change the subject. I messed up, didn’t I? I should have made allowances for your insecurities instead I frightened you away. Maybe you saw it as self-preservation. But Darcy, I thought you were ripe for loving.”

She sought sanctuary at the kitchen sink. “Was I wrong or did we take our loving to extremes? If you’d asked me to run off to the other side of the world with you I would have. Then what would have happened to Dad? It was bad enough trying to keep all my feelings locked away despite having plenty of experience.”

“Don’t you realise the fact you felt compelled to lock your feelings away indicates a serious problem,” Curt asked with a hint of severity. “Your father has been the cause of much unhappiness, Darcy. I think you provide the clearest illustration.”

The truth of that gripped her. “Please, Curt, let it go. It’s all ancient history anyway. I might look tough but underneath I’m mighty vulnerable.”

“You’re telling me? You project your mother’s problems on to yourself. As far as looking tough? You might be a fighter, Darcy, but look tough, you don’t. I’ve had so much time to consider. You ran from me because you felt threatened. Is that it? You never attempted to explain. Poor mug me, was on top of the world. I just floated through life then, on Cloud Nine. I know you were frightened of your own sex drive let alone mine. Anyone would think our lovemaking had corrupted you.”

She could never forget the intensity. “It was incredibly passionate.” She lowered her head, not allowing him to see her eyes. “Maybe I thought your idea of me wasn’t the real me. How could you have professed to love me so much? You could have had anyone. All the blue-blooded society girls. Not tormented old me. I was paralysed by the fear you’d eventually cast me aside and I needed to get out before then. Maybe what you’re saying is true. I can’t differentiate between myself and my mother. What happened between us got way out of control. Isn’t the word passion derived from the Greek penthos to grieve? Strong passions can cause suffering.”

“So your answer was to escape? I never knew you were such a coward.”

“There’s lots you don’t know,” she said, suddenly wanting to run. “How could I cope with being Curt Berenger’s wife? Now that’s a big job. Who knows some time down the track I could be sent packing.”

He put his hands flat on the table and stared at her. “It all comes back to your own family. I don’t care to be lumped in with your father.”

Darcy shook her head. “Aren’t you both alpha males?”

He reacted vehemently to that. “The only similarity is we’re both cattle men, extraordinarily successful at what we do. In your father’s case, did. I do not have a callous hand with women. I am not a womaniser despite your quite insulting ideas. I am not bloody mean and shockingly selfish and I’m fairly certain I don’t have the reputation for being a bastard. I’m intelligent, good natured and dare I say it, attractive. You’re the only woman I know who goes into panic mode at the very sight of me. Don’t bother denying it. I can see through the smoke screen.”

“Maybe you can,” she expressed a sigh. “But what’s in it for us, Curt, but high risk? For a while there you had me body and soul. It’s something I can’t allow.”

“Fearless in so many ways, timid in others,” he accused.

Darcy shook her head. “You say timid. I say keeping myself together.”

“You won’t stay together long with all this hard physical labour,” Curt retorted. “And for goodness’ sake, sit down.” He waited until she did before resuming. “What you do is much too hard for a woman though your father has allowed it. It has to stop. It will stop.”

Colour stained her high cheekbones. “You mean when you take over? Are you trying to tell me it’s a possibility?”

He looked angry at the question and the deep resentment in her tone. “I don’t have to tell you running a cattle station involves excessive hard work seven days a week. I don’t know how you’ve been able to keep it up but it can’t last. It will steal your youth and your strength. You need help Darcy. What’s more, you’re going to get it.”

“Dad has elected you the new Boss.” She brought out bitterness like a weapon.

“Give me a break, Darcy.” They were at it again. “I’m not going to ruin things for you. I’m going to help you.”

“Wouldn’t I be lost without you?” She was becoming increasingly angry and confused.

“Well we’re sitting here together, aren’t we?” he shot back.

“So it seems.” Darcy tried to get a rein on herself but the pressure was too much. “Would you like another cup of coffee?” she asked bleakly.

“Please. It’s excellent.” He presented his empty cup, thinking what he was saying was having little effect.

“You were the one who brought the beans back from the city for me,” Darcy reminded him, refilling their cups. “So let it out. What have you got to say that’s going to surprise me?”

Curt didn’t beat about the bush. “You know your father’s views. He is without question a chauvinist.”

“Yes,” she answered sharply, betraying her worry over what was coming.

“In the original will you were the sole beneficiary apart from a few minor bequests.”

“I know.”

“You were right in thinking your father wants to acknowledge Courtney.”

Darcy sighed deeply. “She is his daughter. I have no real problem with that providing she has no say in running Murraree about which she knows nothing.”

“Your father wants to set up a trust fund.” Curt took a long swallow of the hot steaming coffee and set down the cup.

Darcy’s aquamarine eyes flashed. “A trust fund. C’mon?” she jeered.

“He doesn’t think you could run Murraree by yourself. You can’t, without help. I know you’re that realistic. His big concern, however, is you and Courtney will become targets for unscrupulous suitors.”

“So he wants to set up a trust fund with you the trustee?” Darcy looked angry, contemptuous and humiliated all at the same time. “I knew it. He wants you to run the bloody place.”

“I knew exactly your reaction.” He too gave way to anger.

“When you come right down to it, who else?” She shoved her plate away. “You’re the right man for the job.”

“You mean I’m the last person you’d want in the job?” He leaned a fraction closer tall and rangy with those wide shoulders. “The last man you’d want.”

“Why should I have you or anyone?” she demanded to know.

“Because you need someone better than Tom McLaren, your present manager,” Curt ground out. “Tom’s a good man, experienced at what he does, but he can’t take control, much less do your father’s job. It’s your father’s station and it’s your father’s money. You’ll be a rich woman when he dies. Better yet, a free woman. So will Courtney. Though as I understand it you’ll have the lion’s share.”

“I should bloody hope so,” she swore again without apology. “I can imagine Courtney will be thrilled. She’ll probably decide to come out here to inspect her property. She might even bring my mother and her second husband. After all, they’d have nothing to fear anymore. Dad will be gone. How does this trust fund work?” Her slanting eyes with their winged black brows glittered her anger was so apparent.

“The usual way. The trustees, probably three, two from Maxwell-Maynard—”

“Adam?” she interrupted.

“He’d be a good choice.”

“You being in charge of course. You’re the man to take control.”

He gave her a look of total exasperation. “This wasn’t my idea.”

“I wonder?”

His handsome features tightened into severity. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said sharply. “I expect an apology.”

“Okay. I apologise.” Her voice was so brittle it crackled. “I wasn’t thinking about your splendid ethics. Correct me if I’m wrong. You hold the reins. You make the decisions. You decide what Courtney and I as beneficiaries get. I have to go to you cap in hand whenever I want something in relation to the running of the station.” As she spoke she shoved back her chair and stood up, beginning to pace about the kitchen

Curt was unsurprised by her anger. He studied her willowy figure clad in its everyday garb of tight fitting jeans and T-shirt. Today it was a bright scarlet T-shirt that suited her complexion, the manufacturer’s logo stitched across the front in navy. She had small, but beautifully shaped breasts, just the right butt and long legs for jeans. The kind of body that made riding gear look damn near haute couture. “Take pity on me. I’m not spoiling for a fight.”

“Well I am,” she said fierily. “Murraree is none of your business.”

“If you were a horse you’d have your ears flat against your head and you’d be baring your teeth. As usual, you’re not thinking about me. Why should I want more work? The fact of the matter is, if your father doesn’t appoint me he’ll find someone else. He told me so in no uncertain terms. That’s what swayed me. Do you want someone else? All I’m going to be, Darcy, is a guiding hand. A friend. Nothing more.”

“It’s an outrage. It’s awful,” Darcy cried.

“Don’t look so martyred. You’re not being thrown off.”

Darcy ignored him. “I am an experienced, responsible woman, not an idiot. I grew up on a cattle station unlike Courtney who doesn’t know a thing about it.”

“Spare yourself a lot of grief, Darcy,” Curt advised her. “Don’t fight your father on this. He’s determined on taking this course. His aim however much you disagree is to protect his fortune. Courtney mightn’t be as level-headed as you.”

“This document doesn’t even exist,” Darcy said hopefully.

“No, but Jock wants the lawyers back.”

“He could die at any time,” Darcy looked skyward. As if her father had already taken off on wings.

Curt sighed. “I’ll bet whatever you like he survives until after a carefully prepared will is drawn up.”

“I could argue he wasn’t of sound mind.”

“I doubt you’d get anyone to agree with you. I didn’t fly over here this morning to do your father’s bidding and in doing so anger you. Jock is set on his course. He has a perfect right to do whatever he wants with his money. And with Murraree. It’s a wonder he doesn’t want it sold up after he’s gone. He’s of the opinion he’s the last of the line. No woman could run the station on her own. It’s killing work. Your husband according to Jock might well be a waster.”

Reluctantly Darcy returned to her chair, a wash of tears over her eyes. “Maybe the reason for this decision is Dad is now reconciled to the notion I might end up marrying you?”

“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” Curt said with a flash of contempt. “However, for all my unbridled lust which so frightened you, I never got around to asking you to marry me though I went to the city to buy you an engagement ring. Don’t look so shocked. Some fiancée you’d have made never trusting me. These days there are just too many suitable girls around without your problems and unresolved conflicts. But at a professional level I think we could work together very well.”

She blinked furiously, fighting the impulse to do something—anything—to relieve the intense pressure his admission had put on her. An engagement ring? My God! “I’m dead against this,” she said.

“Tell your father.” Curt was acutely aware of her sense of betrayal. “That’s if you’re prepared to thoroughly antagonise him. I hardly think Jock McIvor is the man to change his mind once it’s made up.”

CHAPTER THREE

IN THE middle of the broad flight of stone steps leading up to the homestead’s verandah, stood a small graceful figure.

Her sister.

A few feet behind her, impressively tall and elegant, Adam Maynard, the solicitor, his dark hair in the sunlight glossy as a crow’s wing. Adam had arranged the charter flight from Brisbane. He would be staying a few days. The young woman, enchantingly pretty, moved forward blindly. Tears flowed from her large azure blue eyes.

“Darcy!”

Darcy’s heart gave a great jolt that wasn’t apparent from her sober expression. It wasn’t hard to reconcile this lovely apparition with the image of the ten-year-old-girl Darcy carried in her head. Her sister, Courtney, was still the image of their mother.

Darcy put out her hand. “So you finally got here, Courtney?”

Courtney ignored the outstretched hand and the cool, regal demeanour. As a little girl she had adored her big sister. She ran up the steps and hugged her sister hard. “Oh, Darcy! Oh, Darcy!” she cried, like she had been drowning and Darcy was her saviour.

Though it cost her the greatest effort for she too was in a highly emotional state, Darcy remained enormously guarded. She gazed over her sister’s blonde head—she couldn’t have been more than five-two—at the lawyer. “How are you, Adam?”

“Fine, thanks, Darcy. And you?”

“A bit shaky. Dad’s life is hanging by a thread.”

“It must be very difficult for you, Darcy,” Adam said, feeling an uprush of sympathy for this gutsy young woman whom he had come to admire. At the best of times he found Jock McIvor a devious, controlling sort of man but clearly Darcy loved him so there had to be some good in him.

Adam stood there, allowed his perceptive dark eyes to record the momentous meeting of those two young women parted for so long. Physically they couldn’t have been more different. Darcy, taller than most women, slim as a reed, athletic, long shining dark hair pulled back in the familiar thick plait and those incredible slanting aquamarine eyes; her younger sister Courtney her blue eyes huge with tears as adorable as a Persian kitten with all a kitten’s cuddly charm. She should have been intimidated by her older sister’s manner—Darcy was on her home ground—but there wasn’t the slightest awkwardness about her. She appeared genuinely overcome by emotion, thrilled to be reunited with her sister.

It could, however, be an act, Adam found himself thinking cynically. He had seen a lot of duplicitous behaviour over the past years. Especially from the beneficiaries of wills. Remarkably Jock McIvor still clung to life, claiming he wouldn’t shut his eyes forever until he had seen his daughter, Courtney once more. This could be Courtney’s big chance to effect a highly rewarding reconciliation.

“Come in,” Darcy invited, extending her arm. She might as well have added, since you’re here. She glanced at her watch. “Curt is flying in. He should be here soon. There are matters he wants to discuss with you, Adam, I understand?”

“We do have things to discuss,” Adam confirmed looking back over his shoulder towards the jeep. A station hand had been detailed to drive them up to the homestead from the airstrip. Now this man with the bow legs of someone scarcely ever out of the saddle, was setting several pieces of luggage on the circular drive.

“Don’t worry about your things, Adam,” Darcy said. “Gordon will bring the luggage up to your rooms.” Darcy’s eyes touched on her sister briefly when she really wanted to stare and stare, familiarize herself with Courtney the adult. “Dad is anxious to see you the moment you arrive, Courtney. I expect you’d like to freshen up first?” She already looked as fresh as a newly sprung flower.

“Thank you, Darcy. My heart is pounding.” Courtney stared tentatively into the shadowy cool of the house. “I can’t believe I’m here. It’s like the recurrent dream I had for years. I still have it from time to time. But this is reality!”

For a fraction of a second Darcy felt like bursting into tears but she’d been too well trained. It would take quite a while for her to re-trust her sister again. “How many years is it?”

“An eternity,” Courtney replied, impetuously sliding her hand into her sister’s. Just like the old days, Darcy thought, stiffening against the warm soft pressure. “I’ve missed you all my life.”

Darcy needed all her strength to resist that gentle grasp. “You handled it,” she pointed out in a dry tone. “So what was the big problem? Did your mother forbid you to come out here? She might have been able to when you were a child. But you’re twenty-four.”

“All that wasted time,” Courtney acknowledged the resistance in her sister’s hand by letting it go. “The answer is simple, Darcy. Our father didn’t want me here. He made that very, very, plain.”

“Really? Haven’t times changed.”

“At the end people do change, Darcy,” Courtney said quietly. “The prospect of death is bigger than even Jock McIvor it seems. He must want to make amends.”

“It would seem so.” There was no bitterness in the way Darcy said it. In truth, though she was at great pains to hide it, she was trembling with emotion inside. Her little sister was lovely, immensely graceful, feminine in a way she could never be. Courtney wore a very chic white ruffled shirt with little insets of cotton lace and turquoise detail, turquoise cotton jeans with a pretty belt slung around her tiny waist. Her hair was cut medium short and brushed into a sunburst of curls around her small featured face. Her expression was as sweet as Darcy remembered. There was a purity about her that was extremely engaging.

Yet her sister had betrayed her, Darcy reminded herself. Who wouldn’t come running when they were offered a few million dollars?

“This is beautiful! You’ve gone to a lot of trouble.” Courtney wandered in a kind of dream around what had been her mother’s bedroom. Her parents had never shared the master suite. That had been their father’s exclusively not that their mother had been relegated to a lesser suite. Although this bedroom wasn’t as huge as the master bedroom it shared the same splendid view of the home grounds with the magnificent pink lady waterlily lagoon. It was filled with a collection of French furniture and many beautiful things that to Courtney’s dazzled eyes had never been moved since her mother’s time.

Sunlight streamed in from the verandah across the Aubusson rug, the soft silks and brocades, the Louis chairs, the pink roses in a porcelain vase.

“You’ve never used this room?” Courtney asked her sister gently.

“Why would I?” Darcy returned more sharply than she intended. It was because inside she was so upset. “I had to try to forget I had a mother. It was hard work.”

“Mum wasn’t the villain, Darcy.” Courtney hung her head. “She left here in despair. We both did.”

“You left though, didn’t you?” Darcy went on the attack. “You didn’t take me with you.”

“Don’t you think we paid for it?” Courtney moaned softly. “Dad was a dangerous man. Surely you’ll allow that? Mum was very fearful of him.”

“So how did she manage to get away? Not on her own, either. With you!”

The tears weren’t far from Courtney’s eyes. She couldn’t get over how beautiful her sister was. And how angry. “Mum told me right from the start she was only allowed to take one of us.”

“Naturally it was you,” Darcy said in a deeply disturbed voice. “The ten year old version of her mother.”

“Dad made the choice for her.” Courtney whispered it, as though it was too painful to be said out loud.

Darcy’s gem coloured eyes flashed. “I don’t believe that.”

“I believe Mum.” Courtney shook her golden head. “She was scared of him, Darcy. I remember he used to take out his temper on her. You must remember too, because you were the one who risked sticking up for her. Lots of people were scared of him. You saw him through different eyes. You could do all the things I couldn’t do. You were the one Dad wanted. Make no mistake about it.”

“That’s what your mother wanted you to believe.” Darcy lifted a shaky hand to rub at her temple. It wasn’t the time now to lose all faith in her father.

“She’s your mother too, Darcy.” Courtney reminded her.

“She’s a hard, uncaring woman!” Darcy said in ringing tones. “She threw me away like a rag doll when I most needed her.”

Courtney gave a profound sigh. “Mum must have been desperately unhappy in her marriage. We were too young to understand. Dad ruined life for her. She was in an awful situation. She believed she could get away with the two of us but Dad is a vengeful man. He must have convinced her he’d destroy her if she didn’t leave you behind.”

Darcy laughed that to scorn. “What was she so afraid of? He couldn’t commit murder.”

“Who knows what he had in mind,” Courtney said, obviously believing anything to be true. “I was a child, Darcy. Younger than you. I didn’t understand anything. I’d done nothing wrong.”

“Neither had I.” All these years she had borne the scars. Courtney, at least, had had the loving comfort of their mother. The gentleness, the female tenderness and sharing. Whatever her deep feelings for her father Darcy knew she hadn’t had that.

Courtney was unashamedly crying. “Mum lost the battle, Darcy. She was right to be afraid.”

“So afraid she left me in the firing line,” Darcy countered passionately. “Why did she let you come out here now?”

Courtney took a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose, as Darcy expected, daintily. “She could hardly stop me. I live my own life. I share an apartment with a girlfriend, but I see Mum and Peter all the time. Mum didn’t want me to come. She tore up the letter the solicitor sent me. She didn’t want me to have anything to do with Dad even when he was dying. I don’t think she really believed he was dying. Like it was all a trick to get me here.”

“So why did you come? The money? I guess Dad owes you. You are his daughter.”

“I came to see you,” Courtney said simply. “I wanted desperately to see you more than anything else in life. You’re a woman and you’re so beautiful.” Courtney’s blue gaze was full of the old love and admiration.

“Pleeze!” Darcy was desperate not to display an ounce of softness. She didn’t know her sister. She didn’t know if the sweetness was real or assumed to make Courtney’s short stay on Murraree easier.

“You’re like Grandma.” Courtney let her eyes move over her sister’s face and the willow delicacy of her tall frame. “The colouring, the set of your eyes and brows.” She found she was trembling so much with emotion, she had to settle herself into an armchair. “Mum would do anything to make it up to you, Darcy. So would I.”

“Well that’s nice of you, but it’s too late now, my dear.” Darcy stuffed her hands into her jeans pockets in case she reached out to her sister. “The damage has been done, Courtney. To you and to me. We grew up apart. I loved you once but we can never get back to that. The results of separation have been too profound.”

They went into their father’s bedroom together, but Jock McIvor only had eyes for his younger daughter. Darcy might not have existed so blinkered was his vision.

I should have taken a bet on it, Darcy thought. I love him but people are right. He’s one son of a gun. I’ve heard it for years but I did everything I could to block it out. Just how many times had she found McIvor lacking and forgiven him?

“Courtney!” Now McIvor was gesturing with his withered hand for her pretty as a picture sister to come close.

Last minute bonding, Darcy thought bleakly. McIvor was obviously desperate to get on the right side of God.

“Father,” Courtney answered, her voice trembling. She was still afraid of him from the look in her eyes, even though McIvor seemed as though his heart could stop at any moment.

“He wants you to go to the bedside,” Darcy prompted, dead set against showing protectiveness but protective all the same. It was as if they had moved back in time. The big sister with the little sister who had to be protected from her blustering father. “It’s okay.” She nodded reassuringly. “He’s failing very fast.”

“Come with me,” Courtney begged.

Another pattern from the past.

“It’s you he wants,” Darcy murmured, absolutely beyond jealousy. Such were life’s ironies she was fast learning.

“What are you two whispering about?” McIvor demanded querulously, a frown gathering. “Always whispering. No need to stay, Darcy. I’m not going to eat her.”

“I want Darcy to stay,” Courtney spoke up. She crossed the Persian rug with its rich glowing colours to stand beside the bedside.

“Don’t I get a kiss?” McIvor asked.

It was frightfully hypocritical. McIvor was giving a perfect imitation of the loving father with the prodigal child.

Does he really deserve a kiss? Darcy thought, standing well back so she could ponder life’s mysteries. One thing was certain. This was Courtney’s fifteen minutes of fame.

Courtney bent over him gracefully like a daffodil on a stalk, planting a quick kiss on McIvor’s deeply scored forehead. “I’m sorry you’re so desperately ill,” she said, as pity consumed her. The wasted figure in the bed bore no resemblance to the man she remembered. None! That man had been a giant, splendidly fit and handsome, with brilliant blue eyes and a deep booming voice. This man’s voice was a hoarse whisper. His lips were blue. There was even a blue tint to his grey skin. His hands on the coverlet trembled. He looked ready to expire.

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