the whole of the Bramble Downs homestead had come as something of a surprise to Francesca. Its facilities alone were impressive, considering how far away from anywhere they were, and represented the considerable amount of money that must have been spent to achieve the degree of comfort there was on a property that had no town water or electricity.
Then there was the house itself. Solid and comfortable, it was in a magical position overlooking a white beach, an island and reef-studded waters that changed colour from aquamarine to dark blue depending on the time of day and tide.
It was surrounded by lawn and smothered in bougainvillea, and its thick white walls, cool tiled floors, wide verandas and Spanish-flavoured interior suited the tropical climate perfectly—it could not have been more different from the virtually tin-shed accommodation on Wirra, and it was obvious the Stevensen family was not short of cash.
Some demon of curiosity had prompted Francesca to ask Sarah one day whether Jess’s mother had been responsible for the uncluttered interior, the lovely pieces of heavy wooden furniture and the occasional splash of colour in a rug or a painting or a giant pottery urn filled with dried flowers.
This had provoked a brief, sad look from Sarah, although no explanation of what had actually happened to Jess’s mother, before she’d composed herself and replied that no, not really, it had mostly been her and Raefe’s mother’s doing. Then she’d gone on rather deliberately to chat about the family history, and Francesca had got the distinct impression that the subject of Jess’s mother was taboo.
But she had discovered that Bramble Downs had been in the Stevensen family for eighty years. It had been taken up by Sarah’s grandfather, and the original residence had been nothing but a tin shed. Now, whilst cattle had always been and still was the largest part of their business, Banyo Air, started by Raefe, was growing most satisfactorily. It was obvious to Francesca that Sarah Ellery was very fond of her brother.
‘He was always fascinated by flying, although he’s a cattleman through and through,’ Sarah added dreamily, then grinned wryly. ‘He even used to try to construct wings. I remember the day he jumped off the water tank and broke his leg. And he couldn’t wait to get into the Air Force. He was one of their top guns,’ she said proudly.
‘Is that all he did?’ Francesca heard herself ask, and hoped the slightly cynical note she heard wasn’t obvious to Sarah.
Sarah blinked and said, ‘Well, he did some sort of aeronautical engineering degree at the same time as he trained to be a pilot. Then he left the Air Force and did a stint for a year as a private pilot for some sheikh. Now that was quite an experience. The man had four wives and fourteen concubines, would you believe, and he used to jet around the world as we might drive into town.’
‘It must be quite a change—I mean from that to running Banyo Air,’ Francesca said casually, and at the same time she thought, so that accounts for the savoir-faire.
‘But, you see, he’s his own boss now and Banyo Air is acquiring quite a reputation—it’s actually the perfect combination for a cattleman, especially now that so much mustering is done by helicopter. He has the experience of cattle—he was inducted into that almost before he could walk—he knows the peninsula and the gulf really well, and he’s a first-class flier. So contract mustering is the mainstay of Banyo Air, but he also runs scenic charter flights and so on.’
Francesca thought of the trim craft she’d flown in to Cairns, and indeed of the disparity between all the polished craft that had stood upon the apron that fateful day and the unprepossessing offices of Banyo Air. Her thoughts were tinged with bitterness—if the offices had been as trim and polished as the aircraft Raefe Stevensen flew, might she have been more restrained herself? So why did he operate out of a tinpot sort of office if Banyo Air was so highly regarded?
Sarah answered that right on cue. ‘His next project is upgrading the facilities at the airport he operates out of. It’s badly needed, believe me. But these things take time and money. And planning permission,’ she added with a grimace.
Francesca pondered all this anew as she was getting ready for bed that night. Her bedroom with its en suite bathroom was comfortable and pretty, with a double bed, a cool tiled floor and yellow sherbet coloured curtains and bedspread. She had a dressing table and a writing table, both made from silky oak, and one comfortable armchair, and it was into this she sank to examine, with a rather strange feeling, how well she’d slipped into the lifestyle of Bramble Downs.
Not only had she taken Jess over from the bead stockman’s wife, who had been helping Sarah out since she’d broken her wrist, but the cook’s disappearance had given her the opportunity to exercise her culinary skills. All of which had meant she’d had hardly a minute to herself, yet she felt curiously fulfilled and satisfied.
And, more than that, it was as if she was saying to Raefe Stevensen, yes, I can see that the way the Valentine millions are flaunted and the way I acted that day would be an affront to someone who comes from this quiet but solid, achieving and cultured background of yours—but you still misread me!
The one thing she couldn’t do was visualise his reaction to her presence at Bramble, although she told herself that he surely wouldn’t react too excessively in front of his sister and child. What she didn’t count on was that their first meeting would take place without anyone to witness it...
She woke just before dawn the next morning and listened to the birds saluting the new day for a few minutes—birds you didn’t hear down south, and ones that would always be inextricably linked in her mind with Far North Queensland, with its heat, its isolation, the thick mat of turf beneath your feet as you stepped off the veranda at Bramble, with the casuarinas and pandanus palms that rimmed the beach and the lovely waters of the Great Barrier Reef...
Just thinking of it prompted her to take the opportunity, while Jess still slept, to go for a dawn swim. She pulled on a violet bikini, brushed her hair, reached for a towel and slipped out of the house noiselessly as the first rays of light touched the sky.
Because of the proliferation of crocodiles in this part of the world since they’d become a protected species, as well as the prevalence of the deadly box jellyfish in summer, a wire-mesh and pole swimming enclosure had been built which extended into the water and up the beach. Francesca clicked open the gate, saw that the tide was high, which meant plenty of water to swim in, and ran down the beach to dive in.
It was heavenly—still cool enough to be refreshing, salty and with a gentle swell that lifted her rhythmically off her feet. After she’d swum up and down energetically for about ten minutes, she lay in the shallows and watched the sun rise in a symphony of apricot and lemon as the birds sang on. Then she heard the enclosure gate click open and, thinking it might be Jess, sighed lightly and stood up to start her daily duties.
But it wasn’t Jess, it was the girl’s father, with his shirt and shoes already off and his hands frozen on the waistband of his khaki trousers.
Francesca froze too, and they stared at each other over about six feet of sand, close enough for her to see the disbelief and then the sheer, deadly anger that came to his grey eyes, the way all the muscles of his strong, streamlined torso and arms bunched and the knuckles of his hands went white.
It crossed her mind with a genuine tremor of fear that she might be about to come to an early demise on this beautiful beach so far away from anywhere, but then his eyes changed to unreadable, those muscles relaxed and he unclamped his jaw to say roughly, ‘Fran something or other? What a fool I was not to connect the name when Sarah rang me about the gem of a new
