The Outback Engagement

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

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

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

“Fine, thanks, Darcy. And you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Really? Haven’t times changed.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Come with me,” Courtney begged.

Another pattern from the past.

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

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

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

“Don’t I get a kiss?” McIvor asked.

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

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

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