of thousands of people had depended on it for their livelihood, but various factors contributed to falling world prices and a downturn in the industry. Planters who had long enjoyed an enviable prosperity had had to learn to diversify to survive.
Havilah had led the way.
Before Jason had betrayed her and she’d been forced to leave home she had always taken the greatest interest in Harry’s wide business portfolio. He had encouraged her, proud of her acumen and her ability to act with grace and style as his hostess. There were always guests at Havilah, some of them quite important. She’d learned a great deal about the running of the plantation and the mill, the diversification into tropical fruits; Harry’s other share holdings in coffee, tea, cotton. Harry was not a man to invite risk in his ventures—he was a careful man by nature—sticking mostly to blue chip, but Harry would have been a wealthy man by any standards. He’d always bought her the most wonderful presents, spoiled her terribly. For her twenty-sixth birthday he’d bought her exquisite ruby and diamond drop earrings. She felt like a princess every time she wore them.
It was Jason who had all the potential to be a high flyer. Jason had often tried to talk Harry into going further afield with his diversification. Jason had been very interested in mining and mineral exploration. He had tried to persuade Harry to take a chance on a new Central Queensland gold mine but at the last minute Harry had backed off. Of course the operation had rocketed to success. To this day she couldn’t help noticing its soaring share prices in the financial pages.
Megan’s pregnancy had altered so many lives. She’d been forced away from Havilah to rebuild her life in Brisbane. Jason too had changed course, moving almost as far away as she had, across the Great Dividing Range that separated the vast sun scorched Outback from the lush coastal strip. She’d never understood why he had taken up the position of manager on an Outback cattle station. He didn’t know all that much about cattle—the owner could count on him to learn quickly—but he did have a brilliant business brain. He’d graduated top of his class in Commerce and Business Administration. Probably like her he’d wanted to get as far away as possible—try something entirely different. Or that was all that was offering with a wife and child to support. There hadn’t been any money in the Corey family. Jason had won his academic scholarships. She suspected Harry who’d always been very fond of Jason had helped out. In those days Jason had deserved to be helped to have his ambition applauded. Then came the fall.
Jason may have slept with Megan and made her pregnant but Olivia on the evidence had to accept it must have been a drunken, deplorable, one-night stand. That was what Jason had claimed. He had even confessed he couldn’t for the life of him remember what had happened. Even so she could never forgive him. At least he’d done the honourable thing and married Megan. He didn’t love her. The great irony was Jason had never really liked Megan claiming there was something secretive about her.
Now it seemed Jason and his family had returned home to their birthplace—who knew why—and it was Jason of all people who had found Harry dead. There seemed no way Jason Corey would remain in her past. As Olivia had learned to her cost there were no certainties in life. With Harry gone, she would have to face Jason again.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS scorching out in the fields. Jason, clad in a navy singlet and jeans, his skin sheened with sweat, sat in the ute draining off a soda and watching the bright red self-propelled harvesters cutting a swathe through the purple tipped ripe crop. The harvest reached an impressive four metres, stretching clear away to the indigo line of the ranges. The harvesters were lurching like dinosaurs along the rows removing the leafy tops of the cane stalks, cutting the stalks off at ground level and chopping the canes into small lengths called billets. The billets would be loaded into the wire bins that were being towed alongside by workers in tractors. Harvested cane deteriorated rapidly so it was imperative to get the crop to the mill for crushing as quickly as possible. Sixteen hours was the ultimate but on Havilah he’d seen to it no bin was in transit for more than a few hours. Computers tracked progress along the network of cane railways to the crush. The plantation and mill were run with the utmost efficiency, Harry depended on him. He wasn’t about to let Harry down. Harry had given him a second chance.
He’d spent the morning organising another big planting of the so called miracle fruit, a member of the Sapotacea family which was proving very popular for both the home and export market. The fruit which came from a small compact evergreen tree had the unusual characteristic of making sour and bitter fruit taste sweet. A piece of miracle fruit made eating a lemon easy. The mature trees were covered in a profusion of small bright red, olive shaped fruits with white flesh and a shiny seed. They’d moved on from the familiar tropical fruits such as mangoes, bananas, pawpaw-papayas and lychees to jaboticabas, sabotillas, rambutans, jackfruit, star apple, sapote and sapodillas, the very distinctive star-shaped succulent carambola, and the mangosteen to name a few. They all grew rapidly and thrived in the tropics. Havilah Plantation tropical fruit was much in demand.
Harry had asked him to join him at the homestead for afternoon tea. He wasn’t a tea man himself though Harry was part owner in both tea and coffee plantations on the Tableland. These days with Harry not as active as he used to be, it was part of Jason’s job to oversee them. He liked to keep Harry company and Harry despite everything still enjoyed his. In his heart he had to admit being with Harry made him feel Liv somehow was still part of his life.
How he’d loved her! It still made his heart swell to think about the rapture she inspired in him, though he tried not to think about Liv often. He’d grown used to a life of quiet desperation apart from his work. He’d thrown himself into that. In the two years he’d been back with Harry the people of the district seemed to have forgotten or at least forgiven him his crime of jilting the much loved Olivia Linfield, Harry Linfield’s heiress. Olivia had been and probably still was in a class of her own. She’d been the brightest, the most beautiful and the most popular girl in a district famous for beautiful and exotic women from a mixture of ethnic backgrounds. Great waves of immigrant Italian families, for instance, had opened up the North, contributing greatly to the prosperity and importance of the sugar industry. Italian blood ran through his veins, though his colouring was almost entirely his father’s whose background was Irish.
Olivia Linfield was their version of a princess. She enjoyed a privileged status. A prize for any man, yet she had chosen him. A princess wooed and won by a young man born on the wrong side of the tracks.
At sixteen, his father had started his working life as a cane cutter like his father before him. Those were the days before mechanical cane harvesters replaced manual labour. His mother had been a domestic up at the Big House—not that there was any sort of shame in that. In many ways it had been considered a plum job for those who hadn’t been in the fortunate position to go on to higher education. When Jason was twelve and almost a man his father had deserted his mother and him. One day he was there, a man of uncertain moods and temper, the next he was gone.
“Good riddance!” Jason’s Italian grandmother had cried, shaking her fist at the heavens. His grandmother was full of drama. “All he was, was a savage!” It was true his father had sometimes struck his mother. Those were the times he was drunk—not a happy drunk but ready to explode. Not that he was a bad man. There had been plenty of good times. But his father was a complicated man who detested living his life as an underdog. Basically he didn’t fit into the labourers’ scene. Surely he had been clever? And handsome. Jason remembered how handsome his father had been. Mesmerizing, his mother said. Tall, muscular, graceful like a sleek jungle cat. His father had loved to read. He devoured books, always eager to learn. His grandmother, jealous of her daughter’s love for the man, had called him a savage. He’d never been that.
Towards the end his father told them he had an urge to paint. Time was running out. He had much to learn. Niall Corey had always been able to draw. People. Animals. Birds. Whatever one wanted. He’d left a note for his wife saying he was
