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“And the homestead?” Sarah twined the phone cord around her finger.
“Bloody shame about the homestead.”
Her heart sank, but only for a moment. Something in his voice didn’t quite ring true. “If it’s that bad you should be glad I’m willing to take it off your hands so you can buy one of those other stations you were talking about.”
“Well,” he said slowly, “I guess we won’t bulldoze it just yet.” After a pause, his voice deepened. “The truth is, I’ve invested ten years and my life savings in this place. I don’t intend to sell.”
“I’ll pay you whatever you want.” It was a stupid thing to say, but she might do it if she could raise the money.
“Be careful, I could take you up on that—except I know you’re probably in shock over your father’s death.”
“There was no love lost between me and my father.”
“Fair enough. But I don’t want money. I want the land. And I’ll only pay the market value.”
Sarah popped a red Gummi Bear in her mouth and pondered her next move. He sounded like one determined dude, but everyone had a weak point. However, she wouldn’t find out his on the telephone. She hated traveling but… “I guess I’d better come down and check it out.”
“Do you have some notion of running this place yourself?” he asked warily.
“Goodness, no! I wouldn’t have the first idea. My home is here in Seattle. Would you have room for me to stay at the homestead if I come for a brief visit?”
“Plenty. Just my daughter and I live here. But we’re coming up to the annual cattle muster,” he warned. “And we’re late this year, so I’ll have my hands full.”
“I won’t disturb you. Promise.” She’d only bug him a little, just enough to get him to sell. “I’d better go for now. Sorry for waking you.”
“No worries.”
“I’ll let you know my flight number.”
“Hop a train from Brisbane, then take the bus from Longreach. We’re at the end of the line.”
The end of the line? Oh, God. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Right, then. Cheers.”
Sarah hung up. Her gazed drifted back to the faded photo of Burrinbilli. It seemed to call to her. Or was that Luke’s voice echoing in her imagination?
LUKE RAN WATER into the kettle. Through the window above the sink the predawn sky was paling in the east. A new owner for Burrinbilli—he’d thought it would be him. Bloody oath, it would be him. He was thirty-three and too old to be moving on.
Becka appeared in the doorway in her nightgown, clutching her doll. “You woke me up. Why are you having breakfast in the middle of the night?”
Luke forced himself not to react to her accusing tone. Was this hostile nine-year-old really his daughter? Where was the loving child who used to swing on his knee? And when had the emotional distance between them, as vast as the desert, sprung into existence? Maybe he should have taken her to live with him right after Caroline died, instead of leaving her with Caroline’s aunt Abby. But how could he have cared for a baby when he was out on the cattle run all day?
“Go back to bed,” he told Becka. “I’ll be in around nine for morning tea. I’ll make you breakfast then.”
“I don’t want to go back to bed. I want breakfast now.” She dropped into a wooden chair at the long jarrah-wood table in the middle of the kitchen and twined a finger through her sleep-tangled blond hair.
Luke exhaled through flared nostrils. It’d only been a week since he’d brought her here; things were bound to get better. Meantime, he didn’t have a clue how to discipline her. So he turned his back and set about making breakfast, cracking half a dozen eggs into one pan and frying strips of lean steak in another.
“I don’t see why I had to leave Aunt Abby’s to live out here in the middle of nowhere,” Becka whined. “I want to go home.”
“This is your home now. Abby and I agreed when you were a baby that when you turned nine you’d be old enough to live out at the station.”
He hadn’t realized then that the move would be such a huge emotional wrench for all of them. For most of Becka’s life their only contact had been the few days a month he could get away from the station to spend with her. Was it any wonder she didn’t want to be here with him now?
But she was his daughter, his flesh and blood, and he loved her. If Caroline hadn’t drowned when that rust bucket Thai ferry sank he might have convinced her to marry him and move out to the station. They could have been a family.
Luke placed a plateful of steak and eggs in front of Becka and sat opposite. She stared at it, then at him, silent and incredulous.
He motioned to her plate with his fork. “Eat.”
“I can’t eat that! Why did you give me steak? Aunt Abby never cooks steak for breakfast.”
“You’re not at Aunt Abby’s anymore. Better get used to it.” He’d never liked Abby overly much; she was fussy and irritating and spoiled the girl something chronic. Although, to her credit, she loved Becka and had given the child the time and attention that Luke couldn’t have.
His harsh tone made Becka’s face crumple. She turned to the doll still cradled in her arms. “Don’t worry, Suzy, we’ll visit Aunt Abby soon.”
Ah, hell. Luke laid a gentle hand on her arm. “Sorry if I sound a bit rough, possum. I’m not used to having a lady in the house. I’ll have to learn to mind my manners.”
“I want Coco Pops.”
He pulled back his hand, muscles tense. “Next time we go into Longreach for supplies we’ll get Coco Pops. Till then, eat up.”
Still holding her doll, Becka picked up a fork and poked at the fried egg. “Couldn’t I have stayed in Murrum at least until school ended?”
“The bus runs right by here. I’ll drive you down to the road every morning.”
“What about during the Wet when the road floods and I can’t get to school? And I’ll never be able to play with my friends on the weekends. Station life sucks.”
Luke rapped the butt of his knife on the table. “Watch your mouth.” Then he made an effort to soften his tone. “Summer holidays are coming up in December. You can have a friend out to stay.”
Becka sullenly began to eat. A minute later she started in on him again. “You’re out with the cattle all day. What am I going to do by myself? Who will help me with my lessons?”
“We’ll sort something out. I’ll help you in the evenings.”
The situation was rough on her, he had to admit, moving away from town and the aunt she loved to the isolated station. Probably he should have let her finish the school year in town, but he hadn’t thought, didn’t have the experience to know, these things were so important to kids.
“You can come out on the motorbike with me this morning to check the water bores.”
Her miserable glance of disdain told him what she thought of that idea. Luke carried his dishes to the sink, his love for his daughter like a knot of pain in his chest.
“Station life isn’t so bad,” he said, rinsing off his plate. “You can ride Smokey whenever you want.”
“Aunt Abby was going to get me a puppy.”
“We’ve got Wal, the Wonder Dog.” In the corner by the stove, Wal raised his speckled black-and-white head and thumped his tail.
“He’s not mine.”
Luke had had enough of trying to appease her for one morning. “Listen, miss, your attitude had better change. We’re going to have a guest shortly. The other part owner of the station is coming from America to see the property. I expect you to be polite and cheerful around her.”
“Why would she want to come to this dump? If I were her I’d rather stay in America.”
“She wants to bring her mother down here to live.”
“Oh, great. Does that mean we’ll have strangers living with us?”
Luke stopped short. He hadn’t had time to consider all the implications. If he couldn’t persuade Sarah Templestowe to sell her half of the station to him the situation could be tricky. “It might mean we’ll move into the manager’s cottage.”
Her face fell. “Not that awful place.”
“We’ll soldier on, Becka, even if it means living in the jackaroo’s quarters. Now, when you’re finished your breakfast you can get dressed and help me feed the chooks.”
Luke went through the sliding glass doors onto the veranda. The rising sun had gilded the silvery limbs of the river gums down by the dry creek bed. From their towering branches, a flock of white corellas lifted, screeching as they flapped noisily away, their snowy crests spread against the deep-blue sky.
He loved Burrinbilli as much as if he had grown up here. And he’d been that close to having all of it.
He took his battered Akubra hat off the peg beside the door, clapped it on his head and headed toward the milking shed, whistling for Wal. Soldier on.
SARAH PUSHED THROUGH the door of her mother’s import store, setting the brass bell to tinkling. The scent of ylang-ylang wafted from the oil burner on the windowsill beneath colored crystals and ornaments of stained glass. Anne was seated on a stool behind the counter, head bowed, as she entered accounts by hand into a ledger. Wisps of short auburn hair curled around her temples and a pair of half glasses sat midway down her nose.
“Hi, Mom.”
Anne glanced up and smiled. “Sarah, darling, what brings you out on this awful day?”
“I had a meeting with the executor of Warren’s estate last night.” She dropped her briefcase on the floor and shed her wet coat onto the horns of a carved wooden rhinoceros. “I’ve been trying to call you all day. Where’ve you been?”
“The phone was off the hook,” Anne said, folding shut the ledger. “It was hidden under a pile of papers and I didn’t notice until a little while ago.”
Sarah laughed. “Only you would do something like that. Anyway, I’m glad you didn’t have to be there. The way he swindled you out of Burrinbilli after your divorce was so unfair.”
Anne adjusted the dark purple shawl draped over her black turtleneck sweater, her oval face expressing her resignation. “Let it go, darl’, it’s in the past. Anyway, he didn’t swindle me out of it. I sold it to him.”
Sarah tilted her head impatiently. “For a song.”
“It allowed me to buy this shop, which was all I wanted back then—a place where I could work and care for you at the same time.”
“But he left you with nothing.”
“He left me you.”
“Oh, Mom,” Sarah said, her voice softening, and she stepped behind the counter to hug her mother. “I will never understand how anyone could walk out on you.”
Anne’s gaze shifted uncomfortably. “Since I wouldn’t have met and married Dennis otherwise, I consider myself lucky your father and I split up. As for Burrinbilli, I always regretted letting it go, but…I’ve made my peace with the loss.”
Sarah smiled, hugging her secret to herself a few minutes longer. “But you’d go back if you could, right?”
Anne got down from her stool and walked to the window to gaze out at the rain streaming down on the gray city streets. “I still dream about Burrinbilli,” she said in her faintly accented voice. “The sun, the heat, the wonderful open country of the Downs—” her voice caught “—the homestead my great-grandfather built after he came out from England.” She sighed and pulled her shawl tighter. “What’s that saying—’You can’t go home again’?”
Sarah laughed, unable to contain herself any longer. “But you can! Warren did one decent thing before he died. He left Burrinbilli to me.”
Anne turned, surprise and delight widening her dark brown eyes. “You mean he still had it? I never would have thought he’d keep it all these years. That’s wonderful!”
“Don’t get too excited,” Sarah cautioned. “I don’t own it completely. Apparently Warren ran into financial difficulties a few years ago and sold half to the station manager.”
“Oh, dear.” Anne came back to the counter. “And now it’s too late to buy him out.”
“He wants it, too. I’m going down to Australia to convince him to sell me his half. And when the place is entirely fixed up you can retire and move back there.”
“I beg your pardon?” Anne’s voice sounded strangled.
“You can move to Burrinbilli,” Sarah repeated. Her voice softened and she took her mother’s hand. “Dennis has passed on. You can go home. You’ve always said how much you missed Australia.”
“Yes, well…” Anne pulled her hand away to run her slender fingers over a string of colored beads from Nepal. “Are you actually traveling all the way to Burrinbilli?”
“You make it sound like the end of the earth. Not that that would worry you.” Every year Anne practically begged her, in vain, to come along on her yearly buying trips to Third World countries.
Sarah moved the bead display to one side and hoisted her briefcase onto the counter. “Wait till you see what I’ve got for us.”
“Not another electronic gadget, I hope. I still haven’t figured out the clock radio-cum-coffeemaker you gave me last Christmas.”
“Oh, Mom.” Sarah handed her an instruction booklet. “How are you doing with the laptop?”
“Don’t ask.”
“It would make your business so much more efficient if you’d only let it.”
“I’m a Luddite, I’ll admit. But I don’t have room in my brain for programming instructions for a dozen different machines.” Anne flipped through the pages of the booklet. “What’s this, now?”
Sarah pulled two identical cellular phones from her briefcase. “Aren’t they great? They also do fax and e-mail. We’ll be able to communicate at all times.”
Anne took one and gingerly turned it over in her hands. “When someone invents a device that facilitates genuine communication between people it’ll be worth a fortune.”
“Mom. Don’t go all airy-fairy on me. Now watch. You press this button to make a phone call. That one to send a fax, and that and that for e-mail. Don’t worry about the Internet connection. I’ve hooked you up to my server.”
“I’ll never use it.”
“Try it,” she urged. “You’ll be surprised.”
Anne put the cell phone down and held up her desk phone. “You can call me on this. And you’ve already got a cell phone. Why do you need another?”
“I thought it would be fun. This is an updated model that’s compatible with Australia and Japan. The new digital system spans the Pacific. Cool, huh?”
“Amazing.”
Sarah ignored her mother’s dry tone and packed her phone back in her briefcase. “Why don’t you come with me to Queensland? It would be so much more fun going together.”
The bell over the door tinkled. Two teenage girls entered, smiled a greeting to Anne and disappeared behind a rack of cotton dresses from Ghana.
