Eden after the rains. Today the mirage was working its cruel magic. The desert phenomenon had bedevilled many a past explorer and lost traveller luring them towards what they believed was pure fresh water. Water that shone like a polished mirror. This was the land of mirage. It gave the illusion there was no horizon. Land and sky merged into one.
As she gazed across some of the most starkly beautiful and forbidding land on the planet the speck in the cloudless blue sky swiftly transformed itself into a light aircraft. Darcy swept it with the binoculars that hung around her neck. The Berenger twin-engined Beech Baron. He was right on time.
A few minutes later she watched in admiration as Curt made a perfect touch-down in a brisk cross wind. He taxied up to Murraree’s silver hangar, made his after checks then disembarked covering the short distance between them in long loping strides.
One hell of a man was Curt Berenger. Darcy watched his progress with the tense, foolish, feverish, fascination she could never kill off. He was at once daunting and dazzling. Aware of his own power but rarely pressing it. He didn’t have to of course. Today, like all other days, she put herself on guard.
“Hi!” He bestowed his beautiful white smile on her. Next best, his dark timbred voice. It had a very attractive edge to it. Sexy was what women called it.
“Hello yourself!” She gave him a light ironic salute. Both of them had perfected the art of taking the mickey out of the other.
At close range he was even more stunning. Emphatically the cattle baron, a powerful and influential community leader, a target for women. She could never forget. They threw themselves at him. Worshipped at his booted feet. Around Curt Berenger adulation was the order of the day. His classic features were hard planed, damn nearly godlike. He had a firm but full lipped mouth, crystal clear green eyes that positively scintillated in his darkly tanned face. They stared at each other as they always did, way beyond the comfort zone.
She broke first, as ever, tossing her head which meant: Not me, Curt. Never again.
“Thanks so much for coming,” she said briskly, conscious she was breathing him in.
He started to walk with her to the jeep, adjusting his broad brimmed akubra over his eyes. “Given the brutal fact your dad and I have never got on—and we both know why—this is downright weird.”
Forbidden topic. “I agree but he trusts you.”
“Does he really?” Curt treated her to a sarcastic stare.
“It’s something to do with a new will,” she explained.
“Wha-a-t!” Curt did a double take.
“You heard me.” Tall as she was she had to tilt her head to look up at him. Something she found very satisfying.
“Hell, Darcy.” He registered his disgust. “Even now he’s playing with your emotions. What prompted this I wonder? And why me? It’s not making a lot of sense.” He didn’t wait to be invited, he slid behind the wheel of the jeep.
“People see things in a different way when they’re dying.” Darcy settled herself in the passenger side without comment. She was long used to Curt’s ways. “Whatever our history, underneath he respects you as a Berenger.”
“Does he, the old…so and so,” Curt swallowed on what he really wanted to call Jock McIvor. “Does he mean to include Courtney?” He put the jeep into gear, heading for the long unsealed track that led to the main compound.
“She is his daughter.” Darcy clamped her hands together. It was an automatic response to Curt’s closeness.
“She’s fairly well ignored that up-to-date. I wonder what he’s up to? For all his periodic bursts of charm your father is an unpredictable and ruthless man.” People’s view of Darcy was that she was a saint for putting up with her notoriously difficult father let alone loving him. But such was the parental bond. McIvor represented all Darcy knew since her mother had opted out at an age when Darcy had desperately needed her.
“I don’t really know what’s going on in his head,” Darcy said, pursing her lips in thought. “I don’t think I’ve ever known. As for Courtney, maybe she felt she’d be as unwanted here as I’d be unwanted there. My mother obviously decided she wanted nothing more to do with us.” She didn’t dare mention to Curt her father’s stunning confession her mother had wanted her to attend her second wedding. That would only give him more ammunition. Maybe there were more secrets in store for her? After all, didn’t she have her own?
“Probably it was all so painful she had to break the connection just to survive,” Curt looked into her eyes briefly. “Your mother needed love and admiration like the rest of us. She didn’t get it from your dear father. The thing that has always surprised me was your father didn’t let her have custody of both of you if only because of his lifestyle. He could have had you for the holidays. A compassionate man wouldn’t force such a traumatic separation. Children generally stay with their mother.”
“You seem to be forgetting. My mother didn’t want me. At least Dad did.” Darcy kept the pain and anger out of her voice. She was done with self-pity.
“That’s the line your father sold you. He drummed it into you from Day One. You were twelve years old. The unimaginable had happened. Your father was so desperate to hold onto you he shifted all the blame onto your mother. My mother insists to this day your mother adored you. You know that.”
“Strange way of showing it,” Darcy answered crisply. “Kath is just being Kath offering comfort.”
“Not only that,” Curt insisted. “Mum’s very fond of you of course, but she’s always been convinced your father had something on your mother he used as leverage. Or it was plain spite. You know what’s he like. She couldn’t have both of you. Come on, Darcy, your mother was a gentle, loving person. It must have been horrible for her. She wasn’t suited to station life but she tried for a long time. Your father was a big intimidating man. He made his wife suffer.”
“You mean with the affairs?” Darcy stared out at the sun scorched landscape, deriving comfort from its rugged grandeur. How she had hated it when her father had occasionally brought his girlfriends home. Though in all fairness most had tried to be kind to her.
“It must have been a tremendous threat to her self-esteem thus to the marriage.”
“He must have needed something she couldn’t give him,” Darcy sighed. “Sex was a very important part of Dad’s life. He couldn’t live without it.”
“Unlike you,” he said in a bone dry voice.
“Well, you could never lead a celibate life,” she retorted, turning her head away.
“What the hell are you talking about?” He picked up on that quickly. “I don’t know what fool image of me you’ve got in your head, but it’s certainly not based on reality. I am not your father, Darcy. How can you think that for a minute?”
She dug her nails into her palms. “Whenever you take your trips to the big cities I’m sure you don’t move around alone.” She had the proof. She had never spoken it aloud.
“Why because sometimes I get my picture in the paper?” he challenged.
Oh yes, she thought. You get your picture taken. “Let’s move off the subject,” she said. “I’m
