Shelley Logan was no longer the cute little teenager Brock remembered.

She’d matured. She had a woman’s sensitivity and perception and wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Back then she’d been way too young for him, but in the interim the rosebud had opened up velvety perfumed petals.

Brock continued to stare at her, holding her gaze captive. Despite the poise he hadn’t been prepared for, Shelley was flushed with color. Her wild red-gold hair lay loose around her shoulders. Her beautiful eyes were large and lustrous, her mouth sensitive and her chin prettily pointed.

If it wouldn’t have jeopardized their old easy friendship, Brock would have told Shelley she looked damned sexy!

Dear Reader,

Shelley’s story is the fourth book in my KOOMERA CROSSING miniseries, which chronicles the lives of people who live and love in Australia’s great Outback. The setting for my series is Queensland’s Channel Country, a riverine desert and the home of the nation’s cattle kings and big mobs. It’s a fabulous place, rich in aboriginal Dreamtime legends, full of stark, truly mystical grandeur—bleached cruelty under drought and heart-stoppingly beautiful after the rains when the desert blazes into the greatest gardens on earth.

Shelley Logan and Brock Tyson are both rebels, both hurting from their families’ power struggles. Both forever reaching up and outward, reaching for one another and what ultimately is life’s greatest prize—enduring love. This is their story. I had to write it.

The first book in my KOOMERA CROSSING miniseries was the Harlequin Superromance® title Sarah’s Baby. This was followed by Runaway Wife and Outback Bridegroom in Harlequin Romance®. Look for Home to Mara, a further KOOMERA CROSSING novel, coming soon in Harlequin Superromance.

Outback Surrender
Margaret Way

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

SHELLEY hit the pavement with a fast light step that belied her tiredness. It was late Friday afternoon and she’d all but completed her list of “must-dos” in the town of Koomera Crossing. Her first meeting, with the bank manager, hadn’t gone too badly, but the meeting with her father’s solicitor—the only one in the town—had not been so good. She’d then ordered fresh food supplies from the general store, where they always did a marvellous job. That had been the most important and most pressing need. Supplies had to be ordered in to accommodate a small party of Japanese guests due in a month’s time. Those supplies would be airfreighted out to the station before the tourists’ arrival.

She’d stocked up on all the non-perishable items, and now she was going to buy a few little treats for herself, just to keep her spirits up. Toiletries, mainly. Soaps, shampoos, creams, a bit of make-up and the like. Usually she spent very little on herself, only peanuts on clothes and cosmetics, but she made sure she looked after her hair and skin. Those precious assets had to last her a lifetime, after all.

She was dog-tired even for a girl with plenty of go, and she had to force her legs to see out the distance. She’d started out from home, Wybourne Station, in the pre-dawn, making a fairly quick trip—some three hours over rough Outback roads—before she hit Koomera Crossing, the nearest thing to civilisation in this part of the world.

South-West Queensland really was the Back O’Beyond, but she loved her desert home with a passion. Nowhere else could offer her such peace and freedom, such vast open spaces. This was the Timeless Land, sacred to all aborigines. Shelley too revelled in her extraordinary environment—the living desert, with its vivid pottery colours, undulating red sands and surreal rock monuments. There was nowhere quite like the Outback for mystique. Its very antiquity gripped the soul.

It also kept her close to Sean, her guardian angel, her twin brother. Sean had drowned when they were six. Even now she remembered the sound of his sweet voice calling to her as she’d run madcap in the homestead’s rambling, overgrown garden…

Shel…Shel…Shel…

Sean had always run to her, his twin, for love, for reassurance and comfort, rather than to their older sister, Amanda, or even their mother. And even after the terrible day of the accident, of which Shelley had no clear recollection but of chaos and high, screaming voices, Sean had still accompanied her on her childhood adventures. Hadn’t he woken her every dawn of her life, patting her forehead and pulling her ear? “Wake up, Shel. The sun’ll burn a hole in you.”

Sean! Always destined to remain a beautiful little boy, Titian curls his halo, rosebud lips moving soundlessly, his eyes like shining jewels, a gauzy white radiance all around him.

That was what twins were like. They shared a bond that meant they were never parted, not even in death. Still, heartbreak was never far from Shelley. Her memories of her little brother were bittersweet, but the power and magic of their love for each other sustained her even now.

She walked on briskly, calling a pleasantry here and there. Nearly everyone in the town was as well known to her as she was to them.

She had no intention of returning to Wybourne tonight. She couldn’t possibly find the strength for the long drive after hoofing around the town for hours, always trying to find shelter under awnings from the dry, burning sun.

It was the greatest mystery to her and to everyone else—and sometimes she thought her older sister Amanda was secretly outraged by the fact—but she didn’t have a single freckle. She the redhead with the untameable firewheel mop. Her skin was often referred to as “porcelain”. She had to thank her darling now deceased maternal grandmother Moira, born in County Kerry, Ireland, for that. Ditto the rose-gold mane, the green eyes and, it had to be said, the Irish temper when aroused.

She was staying at the town’s only pub, run by Mick Donovan. The food was fine and the accommodation was comfortable and spotlessly clean. She couldn’t wait to run a bubble bath—what a luxury—and just soak. But first she’d have to buy the bubbles.

She was standing in the town’s pharmacy, deciding between two—jasmine-scented or gardenia—when a hand tweaked one of her curls. And not all that gently, she thought in surprise. She was sure in the course of the day she’d spoken to just about everyone who was out and about in town. Station born and bred, she’d been coming into Koomera Crossing all her life.

She was so quick on her feet she caught the telltale trace of devilry on a handsome mouth.

Excitement welled up so fast it made her dizzy. There stood Brock Tyson, right there in the flesh. His bearing held the same fiery male pride, the same high-mettled look that put her in mind of a powerful plunging stallion. As a full-grown man he was magnificent, but the dark brooding hadn’t died in him. She sensed it plainly as she faced him. The town, indeed the entire Outback, hadn’t seen or heard of him in years, though he was one of their own.

Daniel Brockway Tyson had been one of the wildest and most daring young men the vast South-West had ever known. Brock had found all sorts of marvellous ways of living on the edge. Sometimes as a boy he would go off into the desert for days, giving no account of his adventures when he finally got home to Mulgaree, where he had been met by the predictable whipping. Mulgaree was the flagship of the Kingsley chain of cattle stations. Old man Kingsley, Brock’s grandfather, ran it like a private fiefdom. It was he who had administered the whipping, but he’d never broken Brock’s spirit.

“Why, if it isn’t sweet little Shelley Logan,” Brock exclaimed, his remarkable light eyes moving over her. “You haven’t changed at all.”

“I certainly have!” She allowed him to steer her out of the aisle. “All it takes is time.”

“Give me a minute and it’ll become more apparent.” He grinned, continuing his inspection. “How are you?”

Shelley Logan had been just a kid when he’d left. So pretty, so innocent, so bruised by fate. Brock hadn’t forgotten the enchanting little Logan twins and their tragedy. There wouldn’t be a soul for thousands of miles around who wasn’t familiar with the sad story of how little Sean Logan had lost his life.

“I’m fine, Brock.” Shelley was completely unprepared for the onrush of surprise and delight. “Where in the world did you spring from? I’ve been in town all day, yet not a single soul mentioned you were back, let alone right here in Koomera Crossing.”

His features, which might have been chiselled by a master sculptor, tightened. “It was not my idea but my beloved grandfather’s. It seems he can no longer endure our estrangement. Can you beat that? He kicked me out almost five years ago to the day; now he relays such an impassioned plea I simply couldn’t turn him down.”

“He’s ill?” The thought sprang immediately to her mind. “People start thinking of family reconciliations at those times.”

“He’s dying in the way of mere mortals,” Brock told her caustically. “Of course he never thought he was one. I’m not letting any cat out of the bag; it’ll only take a day for it to be all over town.”

Shelley looked up at him. She had to tilt her head back. Brock was easily six-three. She was vertically challenged at five-two. “I don’t know what to say, Brock. I always thought your grandfather was very cruel to you.” The whole Outback was in agreement on that.

“Sure he was,” he said carelessly. “But I used to get my own back. I had the rare pleasure of telling him off. Not so my poor mother.”

“How is she?” Shelley asked, eager for news.

He glanced beyond her, out into the mirage-stalked street, his finely cut nostrils flaring. The look in his eyes was very complex and disturbing. “She didn’t come home with me, Shel. I buried her in Ireland—the land of her ancestors. She was taken by cancer.”

“Brock!” Tender-hearted Shelley found her eyes stinging. “I am so sorry. I know how close you were to your mother. And she to you.” Shaken, she took a deep breath of air.

“So I’m alone in the world,” he said simply. “My dad simply vanished like a puff of smoke when I was six, and I can’t count the rest of my family as family. They’re more sworn enemies—or plotters at the very least. Cousin Philip and his mother, dear Frances. She’s always hated me.”

Shelley’s expression clouded. “Deep down I swear she admires you.”

“Really? I’ve never heard it.” His eyes, a lovely lustrous silver, such a foil for his dark colouring, strayed over her.

She felt her whole body flush. Brock Tyson’s sex appeal was enormous. Once she’d had the mother of all crushes on him—he a charismatic, experienced twenty-one to her virginal sixteen. He’d even kissed her once. Not that he would ever remember. It had been at a bush dance. Her first. He’d swooped on her in an excess of high spirits, flirting, reckless, whirling her off her feet with a whoop of laughter. She’d never forgotten the hardly-to-be-borne excitement of her first kiss—hitherto unsurpassed, worst luck! Brock had always loved the girls, and they’d all loved him.

“In some ways you were Philip’s hero,” she mused. “He longed to be like you. Brave and daring. Unafraid of your grandfather. You two cousins should have been great friends.”

“That was impossible, Shelley.” He shook his black head. “Kingsley and dear Aunt Frances set us head to head. Who was to be the heir? The one who challenged or the one who toed the line? Is Phil still sweet on you?” He said it suddenly, as though he didn’t much like the idea.

“Relax, we’re only friends. We’ve known one another forever. My parents approve of him, which is kind of a plus. It’s wonderful to see you, Brock. I’m terribly, terribly glad you’re back again.”

He smiled down at her, clearly amused by her obvious pleasure and sincerity. “You always were a sweet little thing.” Looking at her wide, sensitive mouth, he had an unexpected flash of memory. “I seem to remember kissing you once. Did I?”

“It was normal for you to kiss all the girls,” she said drolly.

“I don’t recall kissing your sister. Is she married yet?”

“No. And how do you know I’m not?” She tilted a brow in mock indignation.

“You still look like a rosebud.” He gave that lazily sexy smile. “People tell me you’re running some sort of tourist venture out at Wybourne?”

“I am, and I’m very proud of it.” Her tone was calm and self-assured, belying her girlish appearance. “It’s taken time, but we’re getting off the ground. A lot of the planning has fallen on me. My poor parents never did recover from Sean’s death. It’s left them rather tired of life.”

“I know what it’s like to mourn. I bet Amanda is a big help to you,” Brock said with a touch of sarcasm, remembering all too clearly Shelley’s pretty, highly flirtatious and self-centred sister.

“Couldn’t do without her,” Shelley said loyally, Martha to Amanda’s Mary and so well used to it, it had become second nature. “Amanda shines where I don’t.”

“Where might that be?” he asked sceptically.

“She plays the piano and she has an attractive singing voice. Country and western—that sort of thing. Guests like it. Plus she’s very pretty, as I’m sure you’ll remember.”

“And you’re not?” He upped the excitement with a lingering gaze.

“Stop flattering me, Brock Tyson,” she said mock severely. “I don’t know how to deal with it.”

“I bet you do. In fact, you’ve acquired so much poise you might be getting on for middle-aged,” he joked. “How on earth do you manage to keep the freckles at bay?”

Sex appeal simply oozed out of this man. With those eyes of his on her Shelley felt like splashing herself with cold water. “I can’t take the credit, Brock. Just genes, I suppose. How long are you going to stay with us?”

“As long as I can tolerate it,” he said, all of a sudden moody, but still so charismatic he took her breath away. “Kingsley, about to face his Maker, thinks it’s time to get a few things straightened out. My mother was his only daughter. He was supposed to have adored her. That was before my father came along to claim her heart. I never saw any sign of love or affection from my grandfather towards my mother. He just found ways to upset and humiliate her. And hey, Shel, it’s not all his money. Grandma Brockway brought a fortune to the marriage. It was Brockway money that kept my mother and me in the beginning. After that I was able to pay our way. Kingsley sent us off penniless. As you say, he was a cruel man. It’s just that I found his cruelty easier to endure than my poor mother.”

“Surely in asking you to return home he’s begging your forgiveness?” she suggested, feeling the bitterness and anger coming off him in waves.

“Then he’s going to be disappointed,” he clipped off. “Judgement Day is coming for Rex Kingsley.”

“Pray God he accepts it,” she said quietly. “What did you do all the time you were away?” Rex Kingsley had never mentioned his daughter or his grandson from the day they left.

“Work.” He shrugged. “I had to, as we were pretty much broke. I’ve been involved in breeding and training racehorses at a top stud in Ireland. Impossible to imagine a place more different to our Outback!”

“Ireland!” she echoed. “So that’s where you got to! So far away. I often wonder what our ancestors thought of their strange new land. Ireland. How exciting! I’m going to go one day. That’s a promise I’ve made to myself. You always were marvellous at handling horses, Brock. You’ve even developed an Irish lilt. Did you like it?”

“Loved it.” His silver eyes sparkled. “You know how us outbackers are with horses. The Irish are the same. The instant rapport paid off. I did a good job. I made good money, and earned respect from people I admired. I kept my mother secure until she died.”

“No one here knew where you went.”

“Kingsley cut us off completely. I returned the favour. More than anything I blame him for turning his back on my mother. Why would I want to notify him when she died?”

“I’m surprised you came home,” she ventured. Brock, always vivid, had developed a very commanding not to say daunting presence mixed in with the familiar charm.

“Just occasionally I remember I’m a Kingsley on my mother’s side. If dear old Grandpa wants to reinstate me in his will—and he seems to want to—I’m not going to stop him. My mother was owed. I’m owed.” The silver eyes took on a hard glitter. “They call it atonement.”

“So you’re staying at Mulgaree? That can’t be easy.” She remembered how Philip and Frances had always been so jealous of Brock, with his energy and effortless skills, the way he stood up to his domineering grandfather.

“It’s not as though I have to see anyone if I don’t want to.” He gave a brief laugh. “Heaven knows the old barn is big enough.”

“You used to love it,” she reminded him dryly.

“And I still do, Emerald Eyes.”

Shelley Logan was no longer the cute little teenager he remembered. She’d matured. She had a woman’s sensitivity and perception and she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Back then she’d been way too young for him, but in the interim the rosebud had opened up velvety perfumed petals.

He continued to stare at her, holding her gaze captive. Despite the poise he hadn’t been prepared for, she was flushed with colour. Her wild red-gold hair lay loose around her shoulders. Her beautiful eyes were large and lustrous, her mouth sensitive and her chin prettily pointed. If it wouldn’t jeopardize their old easy friendship he would have told her she looked damned sexy.

“So what’s the verdict?” she asked dryly, with a tilt of her chin.

“Just checking,” he drawled. “All right, Shel. You’ve changed. You’ve grown up. So what are you doing right now? On your way home to your family?” He recalled the bleakness of Wybourne, the Logans’ loss of all joy.

“Tomorrow. I can’t make the return trip the same day.”

“God, I would think not. Look at you! The wind could pick you up and blow you away. Still giving you hell, are they?” In his experience nothing really ever changed.

She shook her head, her tone mildly chastening. “You shouldn’t talk like that, Brock. I love my family. We survive. I guess I’ll always bear the pain for surviving when Sean didn’t.”

“You should have said blame. But it was a terrible accident, Shelley. You were a very young child when it happened.”

“I know, but it doesn’t seem to help.” She looked away.

“Not when you’re not allowed to forget. Hell,” he burst out explosively, as though the small space couldn’t contain him—as indeed it couldn’t. “Let’s get out of here.” He’d been aware from the moment he’d greeted her that every head was turned in their direction, the well-oiled gossip machine getting underway.

“Where? I need to get something here.” She glanced in the direction of the counter.

“Then do it,” he ordered briskly. “You must be staying at the pub?”

“As it happens, I am.” Brock was still pure flame. Which gave cautious old Shelley an excellent chance of getting burned.

“Then so am I. I was going to sleep in the truck, but Mick can sort me out a room. What do you say we have dinner? I see Koomera Crossing’s redoubtable schoolmarm Harriet Crompton has opened up a restaurant. No doubt about Miss Crompton! She always was a woman of many talents.”

“That would be lovely, Brock.” After her earlier fatigue excitement had started to run at full throttle.

“We have lots to catch up on. The fact is Phil advised me—maybe it was a heavy warning—that you were his girlfriend?” Silver eyes emitted sparks.

“Why hasn’t he told me that, then?” she said flippantly.

“You’re too good for him, Shelley.” Brock’s antagonism towards his cousin spilled out.

She stared up at him for a moment before she answered. Even in misty green Ireland his skin must have seen plenty of sunshine. His olive skin was like polished bronze.

“Isn’t that a little cruel? I feel sorry for Philip. Your grandfather is very hard on him, and his mother has such high expectations. Philip is under constant pressure to perform. Not that your grandfather allows him any real responsibility.”

“Just keeps him on a tight leash. Must be hard for Phil. He was a dopey kid.”

“Whereas you were as bad as you could get.” She softened the charge with a smile. “Philip, unfortunately, is still very much under the influence of his mother. Now, I’ll pay for this, Brock, if you can wait.” She settled hurriedly on the gardenia-scented bath gel.

“I think you’re right.” He gave the nod to her choice. “Gardenia goes with your beautiful skin.”

Of course she didn’t have a dress. She should have thought of that before. But Brock’s off-the-cuff invitation to have dinner with him had chased all thought from her mind. For the first time since she’d attended the wedding of her friends Christine and Mitch Claydon she had a deep desire to look pretty.

How? She took another look at herself in the old-fashioned, slightly speckled pier mirror. It stood in a corner of the small room where fresh cotton sheets, pillowslips and towels smelled deliciously of boronia.

Trim and tidy. If called on that was the way Shelley would have described herself. Unlike her sister Amanda she had no wardrobe of pretty dresses. Her day-to-day dress was a practical work uniform—jeans and a cotton shirt. She stared at herself dreamily. Brock Tyson had always been kind to her, for all his dashing but undeniably moody nature. These days he looked like a man well able to handle himself in any situation. Tough. A bit like Rex Kingsley himself, who was as harsh and unyielding as the very terrain of his desert kingdom.

Finally she decided on a dash half a block away to the town’s little dress shop, where she’d seen a very pretty blouse displayed in the window. The only reason she’d resisted it was that she had too few occasions to wear anything so frivolously pretty. Basic denim was her scene. This top was a kind of patchwork of yellow cotton and lace, with little ribbons and rosettes for a trim. The owner assured her it could be worn successfully with her white jeans.

Très chic! She’d have to take her word for it. At least she had some make-up and a fairly new pair of white leather trainers she’d brush up.

Shelley felt wildly excited, but tried to bring the whole thing back into focus. By taking her out tonight Brock was probably trying to ward off the tensions of being home. Besides, she’d always associated Brock Tyson with excitement and—it had to be said—danger. It seemed to swirl around him like smoke.

He was a young man who had sustained many psychological wounds, even if the scars from his physical beatings had healed. The assaults by his autocratic grandfather had stopped with one fist-to-fist bout when Brock was fifteen and already topping six feet. One of the station hands who had witnessed it, open-mouthed and secretly overjoyed, had told the story to a mate, who’d told it to another mate in the Koomera Crossing pub. The gossip had spread like wildfire and the whole town had known within twenty-four hours.

“Old bastard Kingsley took a beating! And about time. I tell ya, it was something to see!” This along with plenty of chortles that hadn’t lasted long. The informer had been promptly sacked, finding it very difficult to get station work within a huge radius.

Brock had earned his badge of courage, but had shown that he had a dark side. It would pay Shelley to remember that now.

The last thing Brock had thought he would be doing this evening was socializing. Truth was, he’d been feeling incredibly bad since he’d buried his mother—as though her early death had been somehow his fault. He’d certainly given her plenty of grief by being always at loggerheads with his grandfather. Not that she had ever blamed him or breathed a word of it. But the wound would never heal; the grief would never be buried. He hated his grandfather, who had cast them off all alone. Hated him and wasn’t about to beg God’s forgiveness. Once he’d even accused his grandfather of getting rid of his own father, Rory, who supposedly had “run off like a cur”, to disappear without trace. But men in the Outback went missing all the time.

Was that what happened to his father? Knowing his grandfather, he could see him shooting anyone who challenged his authority in cold blood. He was that type. A megalomaniac. Having so much power and money could do that to an already mean man. His grandfather had been enraged by his only daughter’s runaway marriage. He had tried to have the marriage annulled, but failed. His mother had already been pregnant with him. God knew why his parents had allowed Kingsley to dictate to them, bringing them back to Mulgaree, where Brock had been born in an upstairs bedroom.

His father had stuck it out, enmity and harsh treatment notwithstanding. All for his mother, who had felt too helpless to know what to do. But six years on Rory Tyson had disappeared, leaving a note his grandfather had burned after showing it to Koomera Crossing’s police constable, who had been sent to investigate the disappearance.

After that—nothing. And there had been no news from Rory for all these years. Brock had investigated but drawn nothing but blanks trying to trace his father. He would get square with his grandfather for that. Getting square was important.

With a muffled oath Brock fought out of the bleak thoughts that threatened to swallow him up. He turned back to the task of getting dressed. His black hair was still damp from the shower, but already drying in the heat. He felt it was too curly, too long, though women always told him how much they liked it. In his experience women were always ready to say something nice. Men were the bastards.

Swiftly he pulled on a clean shirt. Lucky he had it with him. What the hell was he doing? These days he wanted to be by himself, to lick his wounds. So why a night out in town? The thing was he’d always found something endearing about the little Logan girl, who had grown into quite a woman. Her twin, Sean, had been the image of her. The drowning had been a terrible tragedy that had left the boy’s parents half mad; the sadness had affected the entire town and the outlying stations. The mother, it was said, still lay in bed crying all day, and the father, Paddy Logan, had allowed no one to forget that tragic day. Least of all his younger daughter.

They had been beautiful little creatures, those Logan twins. Everyone had thought it wonderful the way Shelley looked after Sean like a little mother. It wasn’t right the way she’d been treated since his death. She’d taken far too much punishment from her family. Like Brock had. It created a bond between them. Come to that, he hadn’t really forgotten kissing her at some dance. She’d been no more than sixteen but it had stuck in his memory, like a tune. He had a feeling that Shelley Logan with her lovely smile, on the outside so calm and collected, was bottling up a lot of passion. She was a redhead, after all. Red was nature’s fire sign.

But what sort of a person was her sister, Amanda? Sitting at the piano playing and singing while Shelley was probably toiling away in the kitchen, preparing a meal for her parties of tourists. He doubted if she’d get much help from her poor mother. The few people in town he’d spoken to about the Logans had assured him things were as bad as ever for the family—except for Shelley’s new venture, which had taken off. Everyone admired her. Shelley Logan was a capable, hard-working young woman with plenty of guts. That was the word according to Koomera Crossing.

All Brock knew was that sweet little female creatures like Shelley Logan eased a man’s soul. And Lord knew how he thirsted for some area of peace. But romance wasn’t on the agenda for him. Not even a brief affair. Certainly not with the girl he’d watched grow up. He couldn’t plan anything. Not with his future so undecided.

He knew he wouldn’t find peace at Mulgaree. But fronting up to his grandfather was a fierce necessity. Mulgaree was where he had been born, and his mother and his uncle Aaron, Philip’s father, before him. Philip, on the other hand, had been born in a private maternity hospital back in Brisbane, because Frances had been terrified of having her child on an isolated Outback station. Uncle Aaron, who he sort of remembered as kind, had been killed on the station, handling a wild steer, when Philip was just a little boy. The steer had gored him. Aaron had died without uttering a cry.

After that they had all lived in hell.

“Well, don’t you look pretty!” Brock stood in the open doorway staring down at Shelley, the delicate fastidiousness of her. She had braided her beautiful red hair so it coiled and glinted around her small head like loops of flame, complementing flawless skin smooth as a baby’s. A slick of bright colour decorated her mouth, and her green eyes were so big and mysterious they dominated her face. She looked as if he could cast spells if she so chose at any moment—even on him.

Watch out!

The thought made him laugh aloud. “‘Light she was and like a fairy!’ Brock spoke with an exaggerated Irish accent. “That’s an extremely pretty blouse.” Extremely pretty breasts. He felt a sudden wave of desire that made his stomach tighten into a hard knot. But he was obsessively involved with regaining his birthright, remember? Hadn’t he already decided he couldn’t get involved with Shelley Logan? Yet in the space of half an hour he had developed quite a taste for her.

Brock’s gaze moving over her left Shelley with a sensation of shivery excitement. He had one arm lazily resting above her head on the doorjamb, and was just staring down at her. He was so tall.

“I’m glad you like it.” It cost an effort but her voice came out normally. “I didn’t have anything suitable to wear so I raced down to the local dress shop. I found this in the nick of time.”

“My good fortune.” He grinned. “Shall we go? I’ve made reservations. They tell me Harriet’s menus are so great people have to book ahead.”

“Did you speak to Harriet herself?” She had to break through this confusion, this spell, otherwise the excitement would be impossible to stop.

He took the key of the door from her fingers. “That’s how we’ve managed to get in. Harriet told me she’d look after us. Harriet’s a big fan of yours.”

“That works both ways.” She looked at the span of his shoulders as he closed her door, suddenly bedevilled by the memory of what it was like to be swept up in his arms. Yet something about Brock Tyson, for all his macho image, made her heart break. What a dreadful penance it must have been for his mother and him, having to remain on Mulgaree after his father had deserted them. It was such a sad house. Like her own.

“I’ve not been to Harriet’s since it opened,” she remarked, pitching her tone to conversational. “I was invited to the gala night, but Amanda wanted to go and I wasn’t happy leaving my mother. You wouldn’t believe the migraines she gets.”

He took her arm as they walked the corridor, so slender, so delicate, he felt he could encircle it. “How we sacrifice our lives to misery.”

“My mother is afraid to be happy. She believes that it would be a disloyalty to Sean.”

“Sounds a terrible waste. It’s depressing, but I can’t say I don’t understand,” he replied sombrely.

They had to move past a sea of smiling, highly interested faces on their way out of the pub. Everyone seemed thrilled to have Brock back. Brock was quite calm with it all, returning shouted greetings from the bar. Shelley felt herself blush. What was she doing on Brock Tyson’s arm? Just being with him seemed a tremendous event.

They walked in a vaguely fraught silence until they reached Harriet’s, where lights from the restaurant spilled out onto the pavement. Inside it was lovely and cool, the décor green and white, with feathery stands of bamboo in pots, graceful arches, and old sepia photographs of the town’s past decorating a wall. From the night it had opened Harriet’s had been a very popular gathering place for the locals as well as people from the outlying stations.

Harriet, looking marvellous in a mandarin-yellow Thai silk caftan that flowed softly around her slim body, came forward to greet them jauntily.

“Welcome, welcome!” She bent forward to kiss her ex-pupil Shelley’s cheek. “Where have you been all this time, Brock? We’ve really missed you.”

“Ireland.” He looked into Harriet’s eyes, finding them kind and very shrewd. He named a famous stud farm.

She nodded, having heard of it. “The life must have agreed with you. You look marvellous. But someone told me as I came up that you lost your dear mother?”

For a minute he couldn’t answer, grief and wildness spoiling in him. “She’s where she wanted to be, Harriet. The home of her ancestors. There was no home for her here.” Pain and bitterness played about his chiselled mouth.

“My heart aches for you, Brock. You’ve taken a hard blow.” Harriet pressed his arm, looking with great sympathy into his brilliant eyes. “We’ll talk of this again, but for now you’ll be wanting to find some peace and comfort. I have a good table for you in the courtyard. Come through. You look lovely, Shelley.”

Harriet smiled with great encouragement at her. Shelley was a young woman she very much admired. A brave person of high intelligence, Shelley Logan could have gone far in any one of the big cities, but she had stuck with her highly dysfunctional, unappreciative family. What it was to be tied by the bonds of love and loyalty! And a quite un-deserved feeling of guilt, Harriet thought.

“Great to see you, Brock!”

Brock’s hand was caught and held over and over, slowing their progress, but finally they were seated at a secluded table for two in the courtyard, with its white rattan glass-topped tables and white rattan chairs and huge golden canes in glazed pots. The comfortable upholstery was in white Indian cotton with a pattern of green bamboo leaves to continue the theme, while near them white ceramic elephants held pots of colourful flowers on their backs. It all looked enormously attractive.

The restaurant was only open three times a week—after all Harriet was well into her sixties and couldn’t risk burn-out—on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, for lunch and dinner. But far from stretching her to the limit, Shelley thought affectionately, Harriet looked years younger and on top of the world.

“An experience awaits you,” Harriet was saying with a flourish, passing them what looked like a fairly extensive menu for a small restaurant. “Oriental-style cooking is the speciality of the house, but if you would like something else we can whip it up for you.”

“You’re a wonder, Miss Crompton,” Brock told her, his face respectful but still holding more than a trace of that wicked daring that had so distinguished him as a boy.

“Tell me that when your meal is over.” Harriet smiled. “Now, I must return to the kitchen—but one of my girls will be here shortly to take your order. Would you care for a drink in the meantime?”

“Shelley?” Brock looked across the table at his companion, so pretty he had no desire to look anywhere else.

“May I have a glass of white wine?”

“Certainly. Why don’t we push the boat out and have champagne?” It had been a rotten day. He could do with a few bubbles, and Shelley might like it. “Okay?”

“Perfect,” Shelley agreed.

Harriet smiled. “I’ll have someone bring it over.”

CHAPTER TWO

OVER the leisurely meal Brock left the soul-destroying world of Mulgaree with all its bleak memories behind him. Shelley was lovely enough for any man—so interested in what he was saying, asking such intelligent questions that he found his whole body, for months coiled tight as a spring, relaxing. And dinner rated highly. He’d had some fine, unforgettable meals in the gourmet restaurants of Ireland and France, where he’d visited constantly on the stud farm’s business, but the well-travelled Harriet was right up there with them. No mean feat for a small Outback town on the edge of nowhere.

They’d opted for Thai food, as it was the speciality of the house: magnificent chilli prawns, flown in from the tropical north, garnished with crispy curry leaves and served with a wonderfully flavoured cream sauce, followed by a chicken dish in a peanut sauce, accompanied by shredded cucumber, carrots and spring onions. Then they’d enjoyed little jellied fruits, beautifully arranged, to finish. Delicious, imaginative and innovative, when most dishes were done to death.

“That was superb!” Brock said with satisfaction and not a little surprise.

“I’ve never had such a wonderful meal in my life!” Shelley agreed. “I’ve been flat out trying to master a few Japanese dishes for my guests.”

“Have you succeeded?” He was deriving a lot of pleasure from watching the swift changes of expression on her mobile face. In the candleglow from the frangipani-ringed lamp her eyes had little flecks of gold suspended in the emerald. Fascinating!

“It’s taken time,” she said. “I’ve certainly mastered sushi rice, but the rice only lasts a day. You can only serve it once. The biggest problem is getting in fresh fish—frozen simply won’t do. Most times I have to make do with canned salmon and crab, but our plentiful beef is the basis for sukiyaki, teriyaki, kushi-age. I’ve even bought special serving ware—bowls, plates, platters. They’re white. Food always looks good on white. Not to mention accessories like omelette pans. Japanese omelettes need a special rectangular pan. I’m good with thin and thick omelettes, and I’m not bad with presentation.”

He smiled at her enthusiasm. “I’ll have to visit some time,” he said, making a decision to do just that. “I seem to recall you had an artistic streak at school. Didn’t Miss Crompton keep all your drawings?”

“She did.” Shelley felt a tingle of pleasure. “Fancy your remembering that. I still have my drawing and my watercolours, whenever I get the time for relaxation. I’m a thwarted botanical artist. You’d be surprised at the remote areas I’ve ventured into when all the wildflowers are out.”

“You sound like you really love what you do.” She looked so happy he wanted to reach over and take her hand. Seemingly so fragile, she sizzled with life.

“Of course. I’m not as certain as Miss Crompton my watercolours are that good, but she seems to think so. She taught me art and its appreciation in the first place. Encouraged me every step of the way. Told me I was way better than she was years ago! She’s been trying to get me to mount an exhibition. She even offered to have it here.” Shelley glanced about the courtyard and into the packed main room. “Imagine my watercolours all over her walls, like a gallery.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea.” Brock realized with surprise he was getting a considerable lift out of Shelley’s company, when beautiful, experienced women with languorous eyes had come close to boring him. “I’m quite sure Miss Crompton is an excellent judge.”

Shelley smiled. “That’s what gives me confidence. Harriet has done me such a lot of good. I love painting on silk as well. One of these days I’m going to find my way up to the Daintree. I want to paint the rainforest flora and the butterflies. The brilliant electric blue Ulysses and all the lacewings. Butterflies are so romantic! But, there; you’re making me talk too much.”

“Believe me, I’m enjoying it. Keep going.” The tension had all but drained out of him. He might even see if he couldn’t organise a trip to the Daintree for her some time.

“Stop me at any time,” she advised. “I’ll never run out of things to paint. There’s a whole world of tropical birds, and all the fruits of the rainforest.”

“How are you going to fit all this in?” he mocked.

“Heaven knows! Most times I’m run off my feet.”

“There’s certainly nothing of you.” He controlled his tone, but he could tell just by looking at her she’d be exquisite to make love to. He had a finely honed instinct about such things.

“Don’t be fooled,” she replied. “I’m strong and I eat properly—as you can see. It’s a lot of work, but I really enjoy the tourist parties. I get a huge amount of pleasure out of my work, too. It was a Japanese lady who spent a lot of time showing me how to wield a vegetable knife to make all the beautiful garnishes that adorn Japanese food platters. Now, she was an artist. She could make anything of simple vegetables, flowers, leaves, little ornaments—you name it. Just give her a lemon or a lime, a cucumber, a radish, mushroom, zucchini, baby squash. It was marvellous just to watch her.”

“I expect it took her years to master the technique.”

She nodded. “Getting to know the Japanese and their language has been a real experience. Learning to prepare Japanese food is one good way of entering the culture.”

“So you’re open to all outside influences? Though Australia nowadays is very much part of Asia. You really are the hostess with the mostest!”

“I try to be. We desperately need our paying guests. I’ve been trying to talk one of our aboriginal stockmen, a tribal elder, into taking the guests for bush walks to the Wybourne caves. They’re so careful and appreciative of the fragile environment. So far Dad has kept him busy, but it would take a lot off me.”

“It sounds like you relish a challenge, Shelley?” Brock tilted his wine glass, watching the fine beads rising.

“Especially when the challenge pays off. I suppose it’s far too early for you to formulate any plans—unless you intend to return to Ireland?” She prepared herself to be tremendously disappointed if he said yes.

“My plan is to take over the Kingsley chain.”

At his tone she inhaled deeply. There was such bitterness in his brilliant eyes. “Forgive me, Brock, but is that possible?” she dared ask. “There’s Philip after all.”

“I don’t take partners,” he said, with a very sardonic expression.

Something about him scared her. “Then I’ll pray for you.”

“Do that.” Suddenly he smiled, an illuminating flash like a ray of sunshine through storm clouds. “I may need it. Please don’t look at me with fear in your eyes, Shelley Logan.”

“I’m fearful for you,” she said. “How could your grandfather possibly change?”

He gripped the stem of the wine glass so tightly she though it might shatter. “Maybe he’s discovered he’s got a conscience after all.”

“You believe he means to reinstate you in his will?” She was very aware of the shift in his mood.

He nodded, though his mouth had a sceptical twist. “I’m always troubled by my grandfather’s motives, Shelley. On the face of it he’s told me he wants a reconciliation, but he’s always been the most devious of men. Maybe it’s another cruel joke. Maybe he’s a little mad these days. Pain is tearing his body to pieces. Guilt his mind. He was even talking of going to Ireland to visit my mother’s grave. He’ll never get there.”

“He’s that bad?” Shelley waited quietly for his reply.

“Even if he survived the journey he knows what kind of a reception he’d get from my mother’s people and all the friends we made. He put my mother through dreadful anguish. Though she eventually found peace I’m sure all those terrible years took their toll.”

“He must have loved her once.”

His answer was suave and cutting. “My grandfather knows nothing about love, Shelley.”

“I’m so terribly sorry, Brock. Maybe you shouldn’t have come back when there’s so much turbulence inside you.”

“There was no alternative,” he answered, as though her comment had touched a raw nerve. “Can you see it? The turbulence?”

“I’m sad to say yes!” She spoke truthfully, even if it wasn’t something he cared to hear. “I’ve been watching you all night.” It was there in the tautness of his features, the way his hands tended to clench whenever his grandfather’s name was mentioned.

“Then no doubt you’re right!” His voice was suave. “There’s no help for my bitterness, I’m afraid, but Mulgaree is part of me. It’s my turn to close in. And no way am I going to allow Philip and Frances to cut me out.”

“Am I saying the wrong thing every time I open my mouth?” she asked wryly. “I do understand your feelings, Brock, but you must have considered Philip has a legitimate claim? He’s Rex Kingsley’s grandson too. You really couldn’t tolerate sharing Mulgaree?”

He reached out suddenly and grasped her hand. It sent shock waves racing down her arm. “Philip, my dear Shelley, isn’t competent to run Mulgaree, let alone the whole chain. Consider that. I’ve only been back a couple of days and it’s perfectly plain Philip can’t manage. He doesn’t know how to use his power, position or money. He’s no good with the men. You can’t demand respect; you have to earn it. It wouldn’t take him long to lose what Kingsley has built up. Using part of the Brockway fortune, I’ll remind you.” His jaw looked tight enough to crack.

“Brock, you’re hurting me.”

“I’m sorry.” He released her hand immediately, still with the glint in his eyes.

“How bad is your grandfather?” She well remembered a big, handsome, scowling, arrogant man.

He glanced away. “He tells me his heart has got a hell of a big leak in it, his brain’s on the edge and cancer is eating away at his stomach. His death could be any time, damn him.”

She gave an involuntary little shudder. “That sounds so harsh and unforgiving.”

His eyes burned over her. “If it is, it’s the result of his treatment of me and my mother. Sorry, Shelley.” He shrugged. “I’m too far gone for a sweet little thing like you to reform me.”

“I’m not all that sweet,” she said briskly. “Not for a long time. Like you, I’m capable of holding deep resentments. I’m only saying don’t let your grief and your bitterness gobble you up. Then your grandfather will win. You could even end up like him.”

“What a thought!” he said tautly. “And yet you can say it to my face!”

“The truth isn’t always what we want to hear. I’m sorry if I upset you, Brock. It wasn’t my intention.”

His handsome mouth twisted. “It wasn’t? For a little bit of a thing you pack quite a punch. But then I expect you know as much about bitterness as I do. Didn’t your family condemn you?”

It was her turn to suffer. “You have a cruel streak.” She gazed at him with expressive green eyes.

“So be warned.”

“And don’t you intrude upon my inner world either,” Shelley continued, doing her best to ignore the sexual tension that simmered between them.

He answered in an ironic voice. “Shelley, both our lives might just as well have been splashed across the front pages of the town gazette. Everyone knows our history.”

“How could they not?” she countered, with a touch of his own bitterness. “Sometimes I think I’ll never be free. Losing my twin in such tragic circumstances has coloured my life grey.”

“Then you have to change it.” He spoke emphatically. “No one with flame-coloured hair should ever lead a dull life. You can’t let your family cage you. You’re entitled to a life of your own. But hopefully not with my cousin. That would be too, too awful.”

Brock looked up, and as he did so vertical lines appeared between his black brows.

“Speak of the devil!” he groaned. “You’re not going to believe this, but Philip is on his way over to our table.”

“No!” Mechanically she turned her head. “Oh, my goodness!”

“Exactly,” Brock muttered, a hard timbre to his voice.

Philip Kingsley made it to their table. He was a tall, sober young man, his shoulders slightly stooped, as if under a weight. He had the well-cut Kingsley features that would have been striking had they had some edge to them. As it was he was merely good-looking. Beside his cousin Brock, with his dark, handsome smoulder, Philip looked decidedly soft.

He looked down at her with an expression like betrayal in his hazel eyes. “Evening, Shelley! You’re the very last person I expected to see here with Brock!” He employed an accusatory tone that irritated Shelley immensely, then, without being asked, pulled a spare chair to the table and sat down. “Why in the world would you be having dinner with Brock?” he asked, looking at her in dismay.

She reacted with a lick of temper. “Philip, do me a favour. It’s none of your business.” The air was so electric it crackled with static.

“I thought you’d given me to understand it was?” he retorted, moving his chair even closer.

“I certainly have not.” She spoke quietly, but through clenched teeth.

“I’m sorry. I thought you had,” he persisted, which she knew was his way. Persistence would win the day.

Brock held up a silencing hand “For heaven’s sake, Phil, stop hassling the girl. You heard what Shelley said. What would she want with a pompous stuffed shirt like you? Come to that, what in hell are you doing here? I don’t recall inviting you to sit at our table.” There was a distinctly aggressive edge to Brock’s voice, a warning darkening his expression.

“Is something wrong at home, Philip?” Shelley swiftly cut in. “Is that it?” Clearly there was no love lost between the cousins.

Philip looked directly at her, his soul in his eyes. “Grandfather has had a bad turn. He’s asking for Brock. I would have explained if you’d given me time.”

Shelley’s sparkling gaze softened. “You should have spoken right off, instead of taking me to task. So that’s the purpose of your trip?”

“If it’s true.” Brock shrugged. “It’s probably Kingsley’s way to get me back to the house. He wants us all closed up together. Preferably at each other’s throats.”

Philip shook his narrow head. “Can’t you try to be a little bit more compassionate towards Grandfather?” he said, his face flushed.

“No, sorry. He used up all the compassion I had long ago.”

“The great wonder is that he wants you home at all,” Philip said with a censure Shelley found quite bizarre and certainly dishonest. Every time she and Philip had been together Philip had been very vocal regarding his own load of resentment against his grandfather. He had always seemed desperate to win her sympathy—which, up until now, he’d received in good measure.

Brock treated his cousin to a cynical smile. “Phil, you old hypocrite!” he scoffed.

“We’re talking about our grandfather.” Philip lifted a sanctimonious hand. “He was a Colossus. Now he lies in bed, just staring at the ceiling. I hate to see him cut down like that. He’s been so strong. Invincible. It’s awful to see him so terribly reduced.” His voice was low and husky. “It’s killing me.”

Brock’s mouth twitched. “Hell, it’s a wonder you’re not gushing tears.”

“You’re such a heartless bastard!”

“And you’re such a phony you make me want to puke.”

“You have no sense of family,” Philip flashed back, as though Brock had left a black stain on the Kingsley good name. “It’s no wonder Grandfather sent you and Aunt Catherine packing.”

The colour seemed to drain from Brock’s dark polished skin, and for a ghastly instant Shelley wondered whether he would leap for his cousin’s throat.

“Take no notice, Brock.” She made a grab for his hand, holding it as tightly as she could. “Why don’t you leave, Philip? You’ve delivered your message.”

Philip’s whole body stiffened. “I can’t believe you’re taking Brock’s part against me. You’re my friend. Not his.”

“You make that sound like Shelley’s your property,” Brock drawled, somehow moving back from furious anger. Who would have thought a small, feminine hand could hold him in such a hard crunch? Shelley Logan had to be taken seriously, he thought, abruptly amused.

“We have plans for the future,” Philip announced. “I’m very different to you, Brock. I want to make something of my life.”

A look of disdain came into Brock’s eyes. “Then you’ll have your work cut out, because you’re a gutless wonder. You hate that man just as much as I do. He’s made your life hell, but here you are trying to portray yourself as his noble, grieving grandson. No bets on what you and your mother are after. Kingsley Holdings. That’s why you set out to discredit and undermine me. God knows how you can shake off the guilt and the shame.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Philip said sharply, but he was unable to meet his cousin’s challenging stare.

“The plotting, Phil. The stories you carried to Kingsley. What did it matter that you couldn’t prove them? God, you two must have held a big party when we left.”

“Got kicked out, don’t you mean?” Philip sneered. “Grandfather gave you every chance. No one plotted against you. It was you who deliberately set out to anger and upset him. The sooner you realize that, the better. You didn’t know how to conduct yourself as a Kingsley should. You were wild. Wild from childhood.”

“Then you and your mother had nothing to worry about, did you? Except she had the brains to cotton on that you couldn’t measure up. Wild old me was cramping your style. I had to go. In retrospect, I’d call it an escape. It seems to me you’re the one who’s led the soul-destroying life. And thoroughly deserved it, don’t you think?”

“Grandfather wants you home,” Philip replied doggedly, his face stiff and expressionless.

“Surely you’re not here to collect me?” There was a shade of amusement in Brock’s eyes.

“I have the helicopter.” Philip glanced at Shelley, and then swiftly glanced away, as if the sight of her gave him pain.

“I’ve no intention of going back with you.” Brock was direct. “I’ll come back to Mulgaree when I’m ready. That’ll be tomorrow.”

“What if tomorrow’s too late?” Philip was roused to ask, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.

“C’est la vie!” Brock gave a truly Gallic shrug, his accent confirming he’d devoted time and attention to learning the French language. “But I don’t imagine that it will be. Kingsley will chose his exact moment to die. Only a handful of people can do that,” he added, with grudging admiration.

“You realize what it cost me to make this trip?” Philip complained. “To track you down here?” He threw another despairing glance in Shelley’s direction, as though she were guilty of serious disloyalty.

“Why the desperation?” Brock’s luminescent eyes narrowed. “Wouldn’t it be in your interests to report that I’ve said I’ll come when I’m good and ready?”

“Don’t think I won’t. You’ve got a strange way of trying to engineer a reconciliation,” Philip said.

“And you’re still doing your mother’s dirty work.” Brock was clearly running out of patience.

Not even thick-skinned Philip could stay any longer. He raised himself up from the table, shaking his head dismally. He turned to Shelley imploringly.

“Looks like you’re finished. Could I walk you back to the hotel, Shelley? There’s something I need to talk to you about privately.”

Brock leaned back in his chair. “Is he serious?” he asked, directing a sparkling glance at Shelley. “Goodbye, Phil.”

Philip leaned down, speaking very quietly. “And you can go to hell.”

“I’m not going to hell, Phil.” Brock lifted clear, daunting eyes. “I’m putting my house in order. But give me one good reason why you shouldn’t.”

“I’m just as big a victim as ever you were,” Philip said, very bitterly for someone who’d just avowed love and concern for his grandfather.

“I know that, Phil.” Brock waved his hand in dismissal.

“Don’t think I’ll let you win. I haven’t slaved all these years for nothing. I won’t take it.”

“Me neither.”

Philip continued to stand, obviously struggling for control. Shelley felt a thrust of pity. “Just go, Philip. Don’t say any more. People are looking this way.”

“Let them,” Philip said, body rigid, face bitter. “I thought I was certain of you, Shelley. Certain of the sort of person you were. Now I’m less certain.”

“That could be a plus,” she said crisply. “Please go.”

“I will.” His tone suggested she had fallen far in his estimation. “Don’t be fool enough to trust my cousin. Brock and his reputation with the girls go back a long way.”

“I always made sure I didn’t hurt anyone,” Brock remarked, having the last word.

Harriet was seated on a white lattice-backed chair behind the cash register, attending to the bills of her departing guests. When his turn came Brock pulled out a handful of dollars and handed it to her. “That was an outstanding meal, Miss Crompton. We thoroughly enjoyed it.”

Harriet smiled back, but her grey eyes were searching. “Everything all right? I’m sorry, but I had to tell Philip where you were.”

Brock shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

“He told me your grandfather’s condition is worsening,” Harriet said quietly into the lull, including Shelley in her glance.

“I guess I’ll find out when I get back.”

“I hope things go well for you, Daniel.”

Brock laughed. “Gosh, doesn’t that take me back! I think you’re the only person in Koomera Crossing who ever called me Daniel.”

“You look like a Daniel,” Harriet said. “Daniel in the lions’ den. I’ve got to warn you. Nothing’s changed.”

“You mean with the old man?”

“And the rest of the family.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, Miss Crompton.”

“That’s not much, I imagine,” Harriet said wryly, thinking the striking young man in front of her had had a very rough childhood and adolescence. Far worse than his cousin, Philip, who never did a solitary thing to try his grandfather’s very limited patience.

“How are things on Wybourne, Shelley?” Harriet asked as they settled up. “I hear you can’t keep up with business?”

“We’ve another party of Japanese tourists due in a month,” Shelley confirmed.

“Aren’t you an enterprising young woman? But I never thought you’d get into this business. If you’re ever pushed and you need help let me know. I mean that, Shelley.”

“I know you do, Miss Crompton. Thank you.” Shelley reached over the high counter and touched Harriet’s fragile wrist. “You’re a good friend.” She moved back as other diners approached the lobby.

“Don’t forget about our showing.” Harriet reminded Shelley of their discussion.

“When I’ve got time.”

“It’ll be fun! Come again!” Harriet called.

On their way back to the hotel they stopped to sit on a park bench. The sky was swept with stars, a huge silver moon bathing the little oasis in a dreamlike radiance. A white haze hung over the creek, the broad sheet of water filled with spangled reflections.

Shelley ran her hands down her arms. A cool wind from the desert, where it was always cold at night, rushed through the darkly coloured trees, sending long shadows and spent leaves dancing across the broad expanse of grass. They weren’t far off the street, with its old-fashioned lamps in full bloom, yet Shelley felt very much alone with Brock. It was as if no one and nothing existed but them. Even the noise of the town, tonight full of people, had faded away.

As Brock remained silent, obviously lost in thought, Shelley tilted her head towards the dazzling sky. The stars were like tiny blazing fires in that black velvet backdrop. She had no difficulty at all picking out her favourite constellations. The galaxy of the Milky Way, a broad diamond-encrusted avenue, Orion the mighty hunter, Pleiades, the Seven Sisters in the constellation Taurus, the Southern Cross, worshipped by the aboriginal people. These constellations had looked down on the Great South Land since the dawn of creation.

“What do the skies over Ireland look like?” she asked softly, unable to shake the feeling of a most wonderful isolation. Just the two of them.

It took a moment for Brock to reply. In truth, though he’d loved his time in Ireland, with its close family ties, his heart had hungered for his desert home. “Not like ours. They don’t have this immense clarity. Nothing can match our desert sky. By day a blazing cloudless blue, by night an overwhelming glory. A man can almost reach up and grasp a pocketful of fabulous jewels.

“Ireland is another world, Shelley. It’s teeming with a different kind of beauty. Australia would seem a stupendous size to an Irishman, as it would have to the early settlers. Our landscape, with an immense wilderness at its heart, is savage compared with theirs. Ours is vast in size, where theirs is small and contained.

“That country and its people inspire both love and sorrow. My grandmother’s relatives took us under their wing. They couldn’t have been warmer or more supportive, or more brilliantly funny. They’re great storytellers and they’re wonderfully skilled with horses. But as to the climate! Outback people like us would think we were on another planet. Unlike here, where a single downpour is a divine blessing, it actually rains all the time there. Not great torrential floods, like here, but a perennial fine mist. Consequently the countryside is always emerald-green. You’d be right at home there, Shelley. Like Leanan-Sidhe, the muse of poets.”

“Is she a water faerie?” she asked, with a sense of being caught up in something outside her control.

“No, but she’s a very lovely creature indeed, with long floating red hair and emerald eyes.”

“As long as she’s not a water sprite,” Shelley said, stabbed by a grief never far from her. “Their sole delight is drowning children.”

Instinctively Brock found himself encircling her shoulders. “How did I get onto that theme? Insensitive fool that I am.”

“No, it’s all right.” She shook her head. “Our grandmother, Moira, was forever filling our heads with fairy tales. Some of them were scary, but she used to tell them all the same. One of her stories was about the Asrai. They’re delicate little female faeries who swim up to the surface of lakes and waterholes and billabongs to capture your attention. But as soon as you put out your hand they melt away. I’ve often thought maybe Sean saw one. Some beautiful little creature, almost visible. He just had to lean in. Something pulled him down to a watery grave.”

“Don’t break my heart, Shelley,” Brock warned, drawing her closer to his body. This was no streamlined seduction, but an inherent tenderness he was mostly at pains to hide. “What heart I have left.” His tone dipped ironically.

“We’re damaged people, Brock,” she murmured as the thought came to her.

“Childhood trauma has abiding effects,” he agreed, total empathy in his voice. “But you should have been helped to find your way out of it.” Somehow her red-gold head had sunk onto his shoulder—or had he placed it there? Most probably, but she wasn’t pulling away. “My story’s not like yours, Shelley, though we both come from badly integrated families. Have you never spoken to anyone—a professional—about your childhood trauma and the time since?”

“Who could I speak to, Brock? I lead an isolated existence. I never even have need to see a doctor, though I admire and respect Dr Sarah at Koomera Bush Hospital. She tries hard to help my mother, but Mum has joined forces with her terrible depression. She won’t make the attempt to fight out of it. And Dad is very bitter about life. He lost his son. His only son. Sons are important to a man, especially a man like Dad. If it had come to choosing which twin had to be sacrificed it would have been me, no question.”

“How do you continue to love him when he leaves you out in the emotional cold?” he asked with a rush of impatience.

She stiffened slightly.

“Don’t go away.” His hand soothed her.

“My parents continue to suffer, Brock,” she pointed out, her body relaxing. “They don’t need me to hate them.”

“Which makes you a little saint?” His tone was dry.

“I didn’t say I don’t have my bad days when I’m faced with the question: What am I doing staying around, working so hard?” she retorted. “It’s such a struggle, yet no one seems to care. Far from being a saint—and I know you’re having a go at me—I have an underlying anger at the way I’m treated. But I guess the bottom line is I’ll never abandon my family.”

“Surely you’ll marry?” he asked crisply. “One wonders why some enterprising guy—which automatically excludes my cousin—hasn’t swept you off your feet already?”

“Perhaps he’d recognise I come with too much baggage to allow for any real development,” she suggested, straightening before she found herself lying against his chest.

“I saw Philip’s face tonight. I’d say he was very much in love with you. Just seeing you with me blew him apart.”

She was desperately aware of his closeness, his arm lying along the park bench just behind her shoulders, the glimmer of his pale shirt, the male scent of him. “I can’t help the fact Philip has formed an attachment. Ours is a relatively small community and he’s partnered me at dances. We see one another at every social occasion. We talk a lot. But, I repeat, there’s no love affair that I’m aware of.”

“You’d better tell him that,” he said bluntly.

“Anyway, his mother thinks he should drop me. I’m not good enough.” She said it with a trace of black humour.

“Then she’s got very poor judgement. Say, you’re shivering. Are you cold?”

She rubbed her bare arms. They were faintly chilled by the desert breeze. “When we start walking I’ll warm up. This blouse is quite sheer.”

“Just the sort of blouse I like.” His voice was a deep purr. “Listen, I’m sorry I don’t have anything to put around your shoulders. Except my arm, of course. So come along, Shelley.” He stood up, extended his hand. “We’ll make our way back to the pub.”

The friendly gallantry should have worked. They should have gone on their way with nothing sexual to complicate the evening. Only that never happened. Brock was a man on the edge, his hard desire for this spirited little redhead spiralling.

Even the wind was his co-conspirator. Gradually it had increased in strength, becoming a whirling force. It began to tug at her hair. Though she immediately put up her hand it had no difficulty loosening the pins that held the glittery loops in place. It slid and uncoiled through her fingers.

He hadn’t reckoned on this, so he wasn’t really to blame, was he? Her ability to move him, to capture his attention when he knew he should disengage, quite simply overrode his best intentions. He didn’t need or want involvement, but the sight of her with her arms behind her head, tussling with her beautiful long windblown hair, her slender body in a spin in an effort to throw off curling skeins that lashed her face with silk, played on his erotic imagination, giving him immense pleasure.

Her laughter was so young, so carefree, like ripples of silver. Surely it summoned any red-blooded man to pull her into his arms?

A tremble ran down his strong forearms. He imagined her in his embrace even before she was there. There was no question of pausing, of caution, or even catching his breath. He gave his passionate nature full rein, taking small comfort in the fact that he hadn’t planned any of it. This was a means to assuage his sick hunger, the griefs that could destroy him.

Heart torn, he hauled her to him so it was impossible for her to escape, stopping her laughing mouth with his own, feeling the impact run through his body like flame. For an instant her soft lips didn’t move beneath his—he’d shocked her—but he parted them with his tongue, whispering her name into her open mouth.

“Shelley!” It was a marvellous feeling. The child he had known the whole of her life had turned into a beguiling woman. A woman with enough power to bewitch him.

“What are you doing, Brock?” Shelley gasped, overcome by sensation. Even the moon and stars faded to nothing. There was only his body, his hands, his mouth. His physical presence so familiar to her, yet totally foreign.

“Kissing you,” he muttered, struggling with the torment to go further. He should stop, but he couldn’t. Not from the moment he found her lips.

Only she was so unprepared for it. “Wait.” She put a hand to his chest.

“Wait what? Am I going too fast for you?”

She ought to say, yes, but the mounting forces seemed colossal.

He pulled her back to him, drinking her in like a draught of wine.

She sounded a tiny bit frightened. A man could never assume anything and he was carrying her along too fast. But the male drive to know the female was vibrating through him, subduing her to the extent she seemed at a loss to stop him.

He held her face up to his, his tongue plunging deeper, drinking her in like a draught of wine. Heat sizzled along his veins like a fever, but it was a fever he was eager to suffer.

She was so beautiful. So sensitive. So right. He wanted to lift her. Carry her away. Show her what lovemaking was all about.

His hand moved to the porcelain skin of her throat, where a pulse beat so full and fast it betrayed her. Her delicate neck was flushed with agitation and excitement. His hands were frantic to move lower, to take full possession of her breasts, to find the rosebud nipples swollen in arousal. He forced them to stay where they were, when they wanted to range over her body, stroke naked skin. In a moment he would go too dangerously far when all he’d meant to do was walk her back to the hotel and the safety of her own bed.

This was Shelley Logan he was plying with fierce, insistent kisses and caresses. Had he forgotten? Her body was rippling now, at his every stroke. She was panting a little, leaning into him, her beautiful hair all over her face, his face. He could inhale its clean scent. He knew he had only to apply a little more pressure, but a kind of purity attended her.

He released her so abruptly Shelley was obliged to make a grab for his shirt.

“Brock!” She held tight to him, disoriented, genuinely worried for a moment that she might faint. She didn’t feel solid at all, but floating. Every part of her he had touched was scintillating, aglow.

“I didn’t mean that to happen.” His own speech was rough with emotion.

“I never dreamed you did.” This was far beyond anything she had experienced before.

“But you wanted me to.”

“Did I?” She pressed a hand to her breast. Her heart was beating crazily. “I thought you were going to kiss me until morning.”

“Believe me, I want to,” he said edgily. “But I had to decide against it.”

She tried hard to adjust to his abrupt change of mood. “Would it be too much to ask why?”

“You want the truth?” He stared down at her with intensity. “You’re simply too sweet, too soft, too succulent. And I’m too hungry. I couldn’t have it ending in tears.”

In brief seconds Shelley found the strength to stand clear of his lean, powerful body. “You won’t be getting any tears from me, Brock,” she said, putting a lot of fire into it. “Your innumerable conquests have gone to your head. It’s not the first time you’ve kissed me, anyway, and I’ve managed to survive.”

“Well, was that better or worse than the last time?” He took a step towards her, but she took a corresponding step back.

“Let’s say it was marginally better than shaking hands.”

“That’s why you couldn’t stand by yourself for a few moments?” he taunted. “I don’t want to upset you, but now’s not the time to run off the rails—even if I’d like nothing more. My future is under threat.”

“Not from me,” she rejoined.

He gave a wince. “That was as sharp as a slap.”

“You deserved it!” Finally she managed to subdue her hair. “Let’s forget about it, shall we? I know I can.”

His laugh was mocking. “Don’t get mortally offended, but I don’t think you’ll find it as easy as all that.”

“Won’t I?” She put out a flat hand and pushed him in the chest. “I’m a very disciplined person, Brock Tyson, you devil.”

“Really? A devil?” He locked his fingers around her wrist. “Think about it. I could have taken that further.”

“I bet you do that a lot!”

“Well, tonight I just couldn’t handle it.” He spoke with so much self-mockery she blushed. “Have you any idea how beautiful you are?”

This was a man who could melt a woman without laying a hand on her. “You’re the one having difficulties, not me,” she countered. “Are you going to let go of me?”

“No.” He raised her hand lingeringly to his mouth. “But I am going to walk you back safely to the pub. Isn’t that the decent thing?”

“Next you’re going to tell me I’m different to every other girl you’ve ever met,” she said tartly.

“Well, of course you are.” He sounded amused. “You’re the only girl I’ve ever kissed who doesn’t keep her eyes closed.”

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