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‘I have to agree,’ James said. ‘For example, do you or do you not think I’ve enriched your lives, girls?’
Daisy masked her expression almost immediately, but Lydia saw her sheer horror at the thought of never having known their father, and she felt like cheering at the same time as she wondered whether her father had also divined Daisy’s dilemma…
She said, ‘Dad, you’ve not only enriched our lives but your wisdom never ceases to amaze me—when you’re not driving me mad with your forgetfulness, your inability to find your glasses, even when they’re on top of your head, and the way you persistently wear odd socks—when you remember to wear them at all.’
‘Well, that brings me to you, Lydia, my younger and most practical daughter,’ James said humorously. ‘We’re going to miss you, my dear. Who else will we have to fix fuses and start our cars when they break down? You know how hopeless I am at that kind of thing.’
‘I do.’ Lydia grinned. ‘Heaven alone knows where that expertise came down to me from, but if you just look in the Yellow Pages you’ll find there are electricians, mechanics, plumbers and so on galore—on second thoughts, I’d better write you out a list.’
‘Now that makes us feel really small,’ James Kelso admonished, ‘but I’d be much easier if you did! And I know I speak for the rest of us when I say we’re all happy to think of you enjoying a new challenge, a new experience—may it be a wonderful one!’ He raised his glass again.
‘Hear, hear!’ Chattie and Daisy echoed.
‘So let’s think up a suitable limerick,’ James went on.
It was a game they’d played ever since Lydia could remember…
‘Lydia Kelso is going to Queensland,’ Daisy started.
‘To…look after cows…with a magic hand,’ Chattie supplied.
‘Not for too long,’ James said.
‘You won’t know I’m gone!’ Lydia laughed.
There was silence until Daisy said frustratedly, ‘The last line is always the hardest! What rhymes with Queensland? We’ve got hand…’
‘Wedding band?’ Chattie suggested.
‘Oh, no!’ Lydia protested. ‘There’s not the least likelihood of that happening, and anyway, I didn’t like to interrupt the creative flow, but I’m actually going to the Northern Territory.’
Everyone groaned. ‘Oh, well,’ James murmured, ‘that’s right next door, so we won’t start again—and you never know! So… And she’ll come home complete with a wedding band.’
‘Very amateurish,’ Lydia said. ‘But thank you all for your good wishes!’ And she looked round the dining room, with its heavy old oak table, dark green walls, examples of her aunt’s sculpting and some lovely gold-framed paintings on the wall. ‘I’ll miss you,’ she added. ‘Just promise me you’ll all be good!’
It struck her as she got ready for bed that she could go away with a much easier mind, now. A quiet word with Chattie had revealed that she was aware of Daisy’s dilemma and would keep a weather eye out for her.
‘We won’t tell your father,’ she’d said. ‘He’s liable to go and want to have things out with this Joe Jordan.’
Lydia had confessed that she’d already done that, but that Daisy was unaware of her actions.
‘What’s he like?’ Chattie had asked curiously.
‘Interesting, but not serious about her—nor, I suspect, did he stand much chance. She made the running, so to speak.’
‘So she is sleeping with him?’
‘She hasn’t actually admitted to that, but she looks, well, you know…’
‘I do. But he could have knocked her back. How like a man!’
They’d looked at each other, then grinned simultaneously.
‘Daisy, in full flight, is a sight to behold,’ Chattie had acknowledged. ‘Perhaps I was being a bit hard on him. What about you?’
Lydia had blinked. ‘What about me?’
‘When are you going to lay Brad to rest and start living again?’
‘Not you too!’
‘Your father been giving you a hard time?’
Lydia had shaken her head. ‘Daisy. But I am living, and enjoying myself and really looking forward to this job!’
‘All right.’ Chattie had looked as if she’d been about to say more, but had desisted and hugged her niece instead. ‘Leave them to me; I’ll look after them!’
Lydia took off her pinstriped trouser suit, donned a velvet housecoat and sat down at her dressing table to brush her hair, after removing a few very dark strands from the brush.
She’d returned to this room and this single bed after a year of marriage, and some days it was hard to believe she’d ever left it.
She and Brad had met at university, he’d been studying economics, and the first thing to draw them together had been their common although unusual surname. But the attraction had been almost instantaneous, and mutual. It had also been a revelation to Lydia, because he’d been her first serious boyfriend, and to find someone she clicked with so completely had been totally unexpected.
To fall so much in love when she’d expected to spend her university years working hard to achieve her career goals had also been disconcerting, but that had been another wonderful part of their relationship. They’d been quite happy to allow each other the space to study.
So, after two years, and before she had graduated—although he had, and had joined an eminent firm of stockbrokers—they’d got married, got themselves a small flat and had a year of idyllic happiness.
It had been a matter of surprise to many, her family included, that she should have been the first sister to marry, and so young.
He’d been such fun, she thought sadly, the night before she went—not to Queensland, although via it to the Northern Territory. Not that you’d necessarily have known that behind his glasses and his computer-like brain there had lurked a delicious sense of humour. And he’d handled her growing ardour with surprising passion for a man who had always been able to tell you how many points the All Ordinaries or the Dow Jones had gained or dropped overnight.
It wasn’t fair. She’d thought it so many times, when her body had ached physically for him, and her mind had yearned for the warmth, tenderness and laughter they’d generated together.
She’d also suffered the growing conviction it would never happen for her that way again. So that, despite their good intentions, she hated it when people told her it was time to think of falling in love again—even her own sister.
She brushed steadily for a few minutes, trying to compose herself, and finally found some relief from her sad thoughts coming from an unusual direction…Joe Jordan and his hints that she was not as feminine as her gorgeous sister.
She put the brush down and studied herself in the mirror. What would he have thought, she mused, if he’d known that under her suit she’d been wearing—these?
‘These’, beneath her velvet robe, were a midnight-blue silk camisole deeply edged with lace and a matching pair of panties.
She stood up, opened her robe and, putting her hands on her hips, twirled slowly in front of the mirror. True, she conceded to her image, she was not like Daisy, who had an hourglass figure, but—how had Brad put it? Beneath her clothes she was slim, sleek and surprisingly sensuous, and her legs were to die for.
Of course, she told herself as she sat down again and grinned at herself, what appeals to one man may not appeal to another! And although her clothes were sometimes mannish it was only for comfort, and they were beautifully made. She also had a passion for shoes and bags and the finest lingerie.
So there, Mr Jordan, she thought, and was tempted to stick out her tongue at a mental image of him.
Then she sobered and wondered what on earth she was thinking. Only minutes ago she’d been consumed by sadness and the unfairness of fate—how could she be thinking of another man? A man her sister might be in love with—might even have slept with, moreover.
She closed her eyes and clenched her hands until Brad came back to her in her mind, and she remembered how he’d loved to cook, but had been quite hopeless at clearing up after himself…
CHAPTER TWO
SEVERAL days later she was winging her way to Katerina Station in the Victoria River District of the Northern Territory, five hundred kilometres south of Darwin. She’d flown first to Townsville, to spend two days with Brad’s parents in North Queensland, then on to Darwin to spend a day in the veterinary science department of the Northern Territory University.
The vet she was filling in for, although not precisely as a vet, was a friend from university, Tim Patterson. They’d kept in touch over the years, and several months ago he’d written to tell her that he was taking a break from his practice and doing something he’d always wanted to do—joining a mustering team on a cattle station where not only his horsemanship but his veterinary expertise would be useful.
Then, a few weeks ago, he’d written again to say that he was having the time of his life mustering cattle, that it was also wonderful experience for a vet interested in large animals, but for business and personal reasons he needed to take six weeks off and would she be interested in filling in for him? He’d assured her that the Simpson family, who ran Katerina Station, would welcome her enthusiastically and provide accommodation for her in the main homestead—when she wasn’t sleeping under the stars with the rest of the mustering team.
That had done it. She’d gone, cap in hand, to the senior partner of the practice she was working for in Sydney and showed him the letter. He’d given her six weeks’ leave and added enviously, ‘Half your luck, Lydia!’
She was now staring down at the grassy plains, rolling savanna and rocky outcrops of the Victoria River District, known locally as the VRD, as it glided past below. It was a fine, clear day and the sky was huge, so was the panorama beneath it, giving Lydia a sense of the vastness and the emptiness of the ancient continent she called home.
The VRD supported one of the most successful grazing enterprises in northern Australia, but to look down upon it you wouldn’t think a soul lived in it.
The station pilot was young and friendly, and he smiled at her wonderment and took an extra ten minutes to show her the various sets of cattle yards and bores as proof that cattle did exist in large numbers, then he buzzed the Katerina homestead to alert the occupants of his imminent arrival.
He also filled her in about the Simpson family. ‘Sarah is a daughter of the pioneering family that started Katerina,’ he explained. ‘She and her brother inherited it, but when she married she divided her share with her husband, Rolf, and he actually manages the place.’
‘What about the brother?’ Lydia asked.
‘He spends time here, he’s still the major shareholder, but he doesn’t live here—look, there’s a mob on the way to the main yards.’
Lydia stared down at the dust being raised by a mob of cattle as they were moved along by horsemen.
‘Do you only muster by horseback?’ she asked. ‘I thought most of it was done by chopper these days.’
‘Used to be, for a time, but the ringer’s coming back into fashion nowadays. You can’t educate a bunch of cows from a chopper.’
‘Does that mean you’ll be out of a job?’ He’d already told her he piloted a Bell 45 helicopter too.
‘Nope! We work in conjunction. Choppers still have their uses in really difficult terrain and for moving large mobs. OK, here we go.’
He set the light plane down on a grass airstrip in what looked like the middle of nowhere until a large shed came into view.
Lydia emerged as the dust settled. She breathed deeply and looked around. Tim had confided that being a vet did not necessarily confer any special status on a member of this mustering team. They did most of their vet work themselves, and how you rode and handled cattle was the prime consideration—although some of the bigger stations did employ vets as vets.
She’d found this amusing, because he’d also told her that Katerina Station covered a million acres. What was big if not that? she’d pondered. But he’d gone on to say that once they’d realised you knew what you were talking about and doing, you’d find them deferring to you. So, she would have to prove herself first, she reflected. It would be a nice kind of challenge.
She turned as she heard a vehicle approaching, expecting either Sarah or Rolf Simpson. But as another cloud of dust started to subside as it skidded to a stop beside her, a pale gold Labrador dog leapt off the back of the battered utility and raced towards her, only to sit down in front of her and extend a paw.
‘Hello!’ Lydia squatted down in front of the dog and shook the paw gravely. ‘And who might you be? I have to tell you I think you’re gorgeous, and so well-mannered.’
The dog grinned widely and a voice above Lydia said, ‘Glad you approve of my dog. OK, Meg, back in the ute.’
Meg obeyed, but not before giving the owner of the voice a loving lick as he put his hand down to her.
Lydia straightened dazedly. Because there was no mistaking that voice, nor any chance of mistaking the tall man standing in front of her, although he looked so different from the last time she’d seen him.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ It came out before she could help herself as she took in the stained, dusty clothes he wore and the battered felt cowboy hat he dangled—none of which diminished the impact of that ‘well-knit’ tall body and ‘interesting’ face beneath his brown hair…
‘Good morning to you, Miss Lydia Kelso—or rather Mrs,’ Joe Jordan drawled, and leant casually against the bonnet of the vehicle as he allowed his hazel gaze to run over the olive-green stretch moleskins and cream shirt she wore with a sleeveless quilted olive vest and brown boots. Her hair was tousled, but he couldn’t imagine it any other way, he found himself thinking, and it was a gloriously free head of hair, that framed those delicate features admirably.
Lydia, on the other hand, shook her tousled head and looked around, blinking experimentally. ‘Am I on Katerina Station in the Northern Territory run by the Simpson family, or have I been kidnapped?’ she queried.
‘Not at all—’
‘So how did you get here from Balmain?’
‘As I was about to explain, Sarah Simpson is my sister,’ he said mildly.
‘You’re the brother who owns half of the place?’ Lydia stared at him incredulously.
‘None other. I don’t usually trade on it,’ he added modestly, ‘but after you left me the other day, I suddenly thought to myself—Didn’t Rolf let me know that Tim had to go away for six weeks but he’d found someone to take his place who also happened to be a vet? My next thought was that it would be an interesting coincidence should you be the person replacing him.’
‘I’m speechless,’ Lydia said, in a parody of what he’d said to her three days ago.
Joe Jordan straightened. ‘You weren’t exactly speechless the other day.’
Lydia gestured futilely. ‘So what are you doing here now?’
‘Decided to come up for a bit of R&R at the same time as I check out how the new vet handles herself, amongst other things.’
Lydia muttered something beneath her breath.
‘That doesn’t recommend itself to you?’ he asked, with the most wicked spark of mischief in his eyes.
‘No, it does not. You’re the last person I want peering over my shoulder all the time!’
‘Now why would that be?’ he asked ingenuously. ‘I thought anything taking me out of reach of your sister would meet with your approval.’
Lydia stared at him. ‘Because the circumstances in which we met were not exactly auspicious,’ she said deliberately. ‘And did you just walk out on my sister?’
His eyes glinted with irony now. ‘As a matter of fact, no. I told her that I had to be out of town for a while.’
‘Was she devastated?’ Lydia demanded.
‘If so she gave no hint of it. I had actually prepared a sort of—not exactly farewell address, but a letting-down-lightly kind of thing, as you so thoughtfully recommended—only it never got said because she took the words right out of my mouth. She said that she thought it would be an excellent idea if we had a bit of a break from each other.’
Lydia digested this, then swore beneath her breath this time.
‘Which indicated to me,’ Joe Jordan said, with a wryly raised eyebrow, ‘that she’s losing interest in me and the idea of me fathering her child.’
No, she’s not, she’s playing hard to get!
Lydia didn’t say it, she bit the words off on the tip of her tongue, but she experienced a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that generally indicated she was right about her lovely sister Daisy’s state of mind.
‘I can’t believe this,’ she said instead. ‘I was really looking forward to this experience.’
