found him lying crippled and unconscious out in the desert.” The vibrancy of his voice had been damped right down. “It was the big muster. Somehow Dad and Mark became separated from our group. We all thought Mark had packed it in. He had a habit of doing that. Dad had probably gone after him, to pull him back into line. Anyway, Mark galloped frenziedly into the lignum swamps, where we were flushing out unbranded cattle, yelling near incoherently that Dad was dead. Duchess, my father’s very special mare, had thrown him and then trampled him into the ground. Mark had taken his rifle and shot the mare in a fit of grief and rage.”
He remembered how wave after wave of waterfowl had risen in fright and outrage at the racket Mark was making. How every last man had stood in a devastated gut-wrenching silence at the drastic news. Everyone had confidently expected Desmond Kilcullen to live for many more years, liked and respected by the entire Outback community.
His pain was so palpable it stabbed at her. “How horrendous!” Sienna was about able to visualize the tragic scene.
“Horrendous, indeed.” He underscored her comment. “I damn nearly dropped dead myself from shock. According to Mark, Duchess had kicked Dad in the head. Accidents always will happen around horses, but my father was a consummate horseman. And Duchess was a wonderful one man horse. Something unexplained must have freaked the mare out. If terrified she would have reacted convulsively, throwing my unprepared father. Mark shot the mare on the spot. Dad spent the few remaining years of his life in a wheelchair, his memory of that terrible day blasted from his mind.” He didn’t add that any semblance of family life had been shattered.
Sienna sat horrified. “I’m so sorry Mark mistook your father’s condition.”
“I don’t know how, but he did,” he told her bleakly. “He was in a massive panic.”
“It’s such a terrible story.” She considered a moment. “Do you think it could have caused Mark’s subsequent behaviour? Could he have felt some measure of guilt? I mean in the sense that he was the one to find your father.
He had to shoot the mare. Was the mare a very temperamental animal?”
The handsome features visibly tightened, highlighting his fine bone structure. “Duchess was a very special horse, so of course she was a spirited animal. Something must have badly spooked her, as I’ve said. Mark was nearly off his head at the time. No one could get much sense out of him—especially me. He acted like I was accusing him of something. Dad could recall nothing of that day, although much of his past memory came back over time.”
“So you never could piece the exact sequence of events together?”
“No.” His expression grew darker.
Two tragic accidents that had claimed father and now son. “When did Mark abandon his family and fiancée, exactly?”
“Far too soon.” He didn’t tell her Mark had shied clear of visiting their father in hospital. Mark had been long gone before their father’s second unsuccessful back operation.
“Mark must have been crushed, given what had happened,” she offered, as some sort of mitigating circumstance.
“It was my father who was crushed.”
“Sorry, sorry—wrong word,” she apologized. “But Mark could well have felt guilt. Would you have shot the mare?’ She waited, wanting his answer.
“No.” His reply was emphatic. “My father wouldn’t have wanted it. I have to see it this way: something spooked the mare. An encounter with a camel in heat is a possible explanation. They can be ferocious. Male camels come on heat, not the female. They can’t be avoided. They’re part of the Outback now. They were brought in by Afghan traders in the early days of settlement. They thrived.”
“So it could have been a rogue camel, then?” she asked.
He shot her a searching look. “There was any number in the area. But we were all well aware of that. Dad had handled plenty of rogue camels. I have myself. One doesn’t waste a moment getting away. Or, if forced to, one takes the camel out. They come at full charge.”
“So there remains a question hanging over that dreadful day?”
He took his time to answer. “A question that will never be answered, Sienna. Dad is dead. A disaster that fell like an impenetrable fog over our lives. It has never lifted. Now Mark is dead too.”
“How much sadder could that be?” She bowed her head.
“Sienna, I must appeal to you to speak to Amanda on my behalf.” He spoke more urgently. “This is no time for inaction. Mark was her husband. I want her to come back to Australia with me. She won’t be alone in her grief. Hilary loved her son. She missed him every single day he was gone.”
“Of course she would, as his mother.” She well understood the strength of the bond. She was very close to her own mother. “And he did write to her, if only to inform her of his marriage. But his twin? Marcia? You seem to have avoided mentioning her much?”
She was proving very insightful. “Strangely enough, the twins didn’t get on all that well. They could be antagonistic, although they understood one another completely. Marcia isn’t feeling her twin’s loss like their mother. Which is not to reduce the close bond entirely—Marcia is deeply distressed. I’m afraid Mark’s behaviour put us all off side. Marcia and Joanne remain good friends. Marcia felt Joanne’s pain of betrayal. If Mark thought he was abandoned it wasn’t true. Leaving was Mark’s choice. It was his family and his fiancée who felt abandoned. I think it’s time now to bring closure. If Amanda can’t do it on her own, you’re the one who can help her.”
Some strong communication was passing between them. She couldn’t begin to speculate on what it was. All she knew for sure was that he had made it sound as if her very destiny hinged on her going to Australia.
CHAPTER TWO
SIENNA was hardly inside the door of her apartment when the phone rang. She didn’t hurry to answer it. It could only be Amanda, wanting a second-by-second account of how the evening had gone. That was Amanda! It was well after midnight. But time—everyone else’s time—meant nothing to her cousin. Maybe some time soon the family could start treating Amanda like a woman instead of an ever needful little girl. It was a role Amanda had settled into as the best and easiest way to get her through life. Now her husband’s tragic end. No one could have foreseen that. Amanda needed support. It always had been Sienna’s job to prop her cousin up. At such a time as now it would be cruel not to.
“Hell, Sienna, have you only just got home?” A slurred and highly irritable voice greeted her.
Amanda’s modus operandi was to put her on the back foot. Sienna drew a calming breath. “Hi, Mandy. Calm down, now. I fully intended to ring you first thing in the morning. Can’t it wait? It’s well after midnight.” Blaine Kilcullen had insisted on seeing her home. They’d had to wait for a cab. Despite all her earlier misgivings time had flown. One could even say on wings. The man was so charismatic a woman might well need to build protective walls.
“No, it can’t!” Amanda retorted. “I’m ill with grief.”
Of course she was. Sienna softened her stand. “I’m sorry, Mandy. I truly am. But drink won’t help.”
“Always the role model!”
