hope and expectancy about the place rather than the sad feeling of whistling against the wind that had pre- vailed before it was sold.
It also became evident that Cliff Wyatt was not all sweetness and light, as Sarah could have told them, but an exacting boss who expected everyone to give their best and who could be coldly, cuttingly and sar- donically unpleasant in a devastatingly accurate manner when they didn’t. Nevertheless, this on the whole engendered a spirit of respect, she judged—and discovered that that irritated her as well.
All in all, she thought with a sigh once, the wretched man has contrived to set me on an uneven keel and I can’t seem to right myself. If I didn’t have to hear so much about him it might help and, of course, if I didn’t have to see him at all, that would help even more…
But it was not so easy to avoid seeing Cliff Wyatt although it was generally at a distance, but, even so, his height and easy carriage made him unmistakable, as did his air of authority, and, whether he was riding a horse, climbing into the helicopter which he piloted himself sometimes or simply striding to and from the homestead, she not only saw him often but felt the same stupid impact as she had the first time she’d laid eyes on him.
Of course it has to go away, she told herself more than once. I’m twenty-six! I’m not a giddy girl—and I don’t like him. You simply can’t be a rational adult and be obsessed with a man you don’t like…
That was how, unfortunately, as it turned out, on one of the occasions when she did come into contact with him briefly she also came to be more friendly than usual towards Tim Markwell, the vet, who was with him when they all met as she was shepherding the children back from a ramble they’d taken as part of a nature-study class.
Tim was not as tall as Cliff Wyatt but good-looking in a quiet way with a kind, gentle manner towards animals and humans alike. He flew his own plane from Longreach where he was based and his surgery covered hundreds of square miles. He was in his early thirties, she judged, and it was only after she’d bestowed a particularly warm smile upon him that she found herself hoping against hope that Mrs Tibbs had been wrong, and remembering uneasily that she’d been right about Wendy Wilson, though.
‘Hi, Sarah,’ Tim said easily but with a faint tinge of surprise in his eyes. ‘Been studying the local flora and fauna?’
‘Yes,’ she said wryly, ‘and I’m all talked out on the subject.’ In fact she did feel a bit tired, she realised, but for no real reason that she could fathom.
‘Why don’t you give them an early day?’ Cliff Wyatt suggested after subjecting her to a penetrating scrutiny.
‘Oh, no.’ Sarah looked shocked. ‘I couldn’t do that!’
‘Ah, but I could,’ he said, and turned to address the group of kids, who, delighted at their stroke of good fortune, needed no further invitation to scamper off delightedly.
‘How could you do that?’ Sarah said incredulously.
‘It was quite simple,’ he replied gravely but with a tinge of irony.
‘Well, you shouldn’t have!’
‘Why not? A couple of hours off isn’t going to harm them and it might even do you a bit of good.’
‘But it’s undermining my authority!’
‘I doubt it,’ he drawled. ‘Don’t you think you’re over-reacting?’ he added politely but in a way that somehow caused her to squirm inwardly and feel shrewish, and also added force to his point that she needed a break.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said abruptly and turned away.
‘Oh, by the way, Sarah,’ Tim said. ‘That sick wombat that I took to the surgery has recovered com- pletely and is in a fair way to becoming the bane of my life! He eats shoes and socks.’
Sarah turned back with a smile lighting her face. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased, Tim! Not about the shoes and socks but that he’s recovered. What will you do with him?’
‘I’ve got the feeling I’m stuck with him,’ Tim said ruefully. ‘Unless you’d like him back?’
Sarah grimaced. ‘I’m not sure that I could cope with a naughty wombat on top of—well, some naughty kids.’
‘Then I’ll spare you that fate!’
She spent that afternoon working on Cindy’s dress and taking herself to task over the image she ap- peared to be projecting of a slightly rattled teacher.
Three days later she was summoned to the home- stead and arrived to find Amy in tears, Wendy still in residence and Cliff Wyatt in an unpleasant, cutting mood.
‘Sit down, Sarah.’ They were assembled in the main lounge-cum-dining-room, a large, graceful room with a high ceiling and a wooden archway dividing it. The furniture, she noted in a quick glance around, was beautiful; there was a round mahogony dining-table with a central pedastal and eight chairs, a studded leather lounge suite and two exquisite Persian carpets on the restored wooden floor.
‘We’ve asked you to come up and give us your opinion as to whether Sally and Ben can be left here for a couple of weeks without their mother,’ Cliff Wyatt said.
Sarah blinked and Amy said tearfully, ‘Do you have to make it sound so awful? As if I really am aban- doning them?’
‘I’m not doing anything of the kind,’ he replied in clipped tones.’ What would be quite ridiculous, to my mind, is the idea of you carting them off for an in- definite period, upsetting their schooling and gen- erally unsettling them all round while you try to get
your life back together. Sarah—’ he turned to her
‘—as if it isn’t obvious, how are they settling in?’
Sarah said slowly, ‘Very well. Ben can be a bit of a handful at times but that’s nothing unusual for little boys, especially bright little boys. And now I’ve dis- covered he has quite a flair for art and loves to paint I’ve been giving him some extra art lessons, which he loves. As for Sally, she’s made a friend, they’re in- separable actually, and got over a lot of her shyness. I’d say they’re both happy and well-adjusted at the moment.’
‘And we can’t lay much of the responsibility for that at your door these days, Amy,’ her brother said pointedly.
The result was inevitable. Amy started to sob con- vulsively and Wendy murmured, ‘Cliff, I don’t think this is helping much.’
Sarah stood up. ‘I’ll—’
‘Sit down,’ Cliff Wyatt ordered.
But Sarah stood her ground with a little glint of anger in her eyes. ‘This has nothing to do with me,’ she replied evenly, and in truth, although she couldn’t help feeling some impatience with the ever-tearful Amy, she also couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for her.
‘It has in the sense that if Amy could be assured of your interest in Sally and Ben she might go with a clearer conscience.’
Sarah returned his hard, probing look with a rather old-fashioned one of her own. ‘Naturally I’m interested in them,’ she
