her beautiful sister. Was it crazy to think at some stage Siggy might have indulged in some petty revenge by stealing Corrinne’s husband, if only one single time? Either that or she’d fallen under Heath Cavanagh’s spell and couldn’t help it. So much that couldn’t be spoken of. No wonder she’d been desperate to get away.
Her grandmother always understanding, never demanding, would love to have her home, though her grandmother had been the first to say the family should listen to Dr. Rosendahl’s advice and send her away from Eden. At least until such time as she felt she could cope.
Who said she could cope now, even after five years of living abroad? Was she strong enough to confront the lingering ghosts? To visit the escarpment, Shadow Valley? Basically she was scarred, and those scars weren’t going to go away. Sometimes she thought she would never be free to get on with her life until she had the answers to all the questions that plagued her.
Perhaps she could find them if she returned home. She was older, a survivor, albeit with unresolved grievances. In some ways it seemed the decision had been made for her. If she found Heath Cavanagh wasn’t in the terrible condition Siggy would have her believe, she’d send him packing. Then there was the threat of Drake and his ambitions. She needed to be home to keep an eye on him. She could see the big advantages that would open up for him and the McClelland cattle chain if Eden fell into his hands, but Eden was her ancestral home. He would never take it from her.
Nicole checked out Qantas flight schedules on the Internet. By the time she disconnected, her plans were already made. It may not have been exactly the thing to do, but she had no intention of notifying the family until the last moment. She’d arrive quietly, before Siggy could cover all bases.
A WEEK LATER she arrived in Sydney thoroughly jet-lagged but thrilled to be back in Australia. She’d left a subzero winter in New York and arrived to brilliant blue skies and dazzling sunshine of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. She always found it impossible to sleep on planes, so she was groggy with exhaustion, her body clock out of whack. She was in no condition to take a connecting flight to Brisbane, so she booked into a hotel and slept. The next day she awoke refreshed, ready for the hour’s flight to Brisbane midafternoon. That meant another night in a hotel and more phone calls before she could arrange a flight out west to the Outback that lay beyond the Great Dividing Range, and from there a charter flight to Eden.
Flying was a way of life in the Outback, with a land mass that covered most of the state of Queensland. The Channel Country where she was heading was home to the nation’s cattle kings. Her people. A riverine desert, it provided a vast flat bed for a three-river system that in the rainy season flooded the distinctive maze of channels that watered the massive stretch of plains. The Channel Country covered a vast area, one-fifth of the state, with the nearest neighbor—in Eden’s case the McClellands—one hundred and fifty miles away. Chances were she’d be completely played out by the time she got home.
AT EAGLE FARM AIRPORT in Brisbane, the same old routine, minus the intensive obligatory checks that had taken place when she’d arrived from overseas. A lengthy process she accepted without complaint in this new dangerous age. Passengers resembling a benign flock of sheep headed off to Baggage Claim, where they milled around waiting for the luggage to come through. When it did, within moments a crush of bodies appeared at the conveyor belt, all eyes glued compulsively on the flap. As the luggage made its way around, it was seized triumphantly and hauled away.
She couldn’t sight her matching Louis Vuitton bags, a going-away present from her grandmother years before. A young woman behind her suddenly rushed forward, nearly knocking her over, and heaved off a great canvas bag covered in travel stickers.
“Sorry!” A rueful grin.
“No problem.”
After a while she began to get worried. Everyone else was picking up their stuff, so where was hers? Maybe someone had taken a liking to her expensive luggage. Absurd to spend so much money on luggage when it got treated so roughly, she thought wearily. Just as she was starting to feel this was no joke and her luggage had been left in Sydney, the first of her cases tumbled out onto the conveyor belt.
Thank God! Still she’d have a battle to get two of the heavy suitcases onto the trolley. She moved forward, prepared to marshal her fading strength.
HIS DRIVER was a short round balding man who stepped forward to identify himself.
“Mr. McClelland?”
“Yes.”
“Jim Dawkins,” the man said cheerfully. “I’m here to drive you on to Archerfield. Mr. Drummond sent me.”
“Yes, I know. I spoke to Harry last night.”
“Just the one case, sir?”
Drake nodded briefly. “It was only an overnight trip.”
“I’m parked out front and down a bit.”
“We might as well get under way.”
“Right, sir.” Dawkins took charge of the overnight bag.
God knows what made Drake turn back to look around the airport terminal. And at that precise moment. But if he hadn’t, he’d have missed her. For a moment he stood immobilized by shock, feeling as if a hand had reached in and twisted his heart.
Nicole Cavanagh. He could count the days since he’d last seen her. June, when she’d returned briefly as she always did for her grandmother Louise’s birthday. June and Christmas, like clockwork before she flew away again.
She had her back to him, standing at the conveyor belt waiting for her luggage. He’d recognize her anywhere by that glorious mane. It was difficult to describe the color, but it always made him think of rubies. Today the familiar cascade of long curling hair was pulled into a loose knot. As she turned—a young woman keen on collecting her luggage surged forward and nearly knocked her down—he saw that flawless skin, milk-white with fatigue, large, blue-green eyes set at a faint slant. Even at that distance, he could see they were shadowed with exhaustion.
Not that anything could dim her beauty and the aura she gave off, a mixture of cool refinement and an innate sexiness he knew she was almost totally unaware of. Every woman he met fell short of Nicole. She was wearing a sleeveless, high-neck top in a shimmery golden-beige, narrow black slacks, high heeled sandals, a tan leather belt with an ornate gold buckle resting on her hips. She looked what she was. A thoroughbred. High-stepping, high-strung and classy. No matter their dark history, he found it impossible to quietly disappear, to simply go on his way and ignore her. He’d heard Heath Cavanagh was back on Eden. Obviously Nicole was returning home to assess the situation.
“Wait for me, could you?” he asked Dawkins who, as an employee of an employee was obliged to do whatever he wanted, anyway. “I’ve just spotted a friend.”
“Right, sir.”
A friend? he asked himself, feeling his nerves tighten. These days they were more like veiled enemies. Too much history between them, old conflicts aired whenever they came face-to-face, but the magnetic attraction that had grown out of their childhood bond somehow survived tragedy and loss. Probably the tensions between them would never go away. But Nicole, like her tragic mother, took hold of the imagination and never let go.
He moved toward her, glad for the little while she couldn’t see him but he could see her. Words would only tear them apart.
NICOLE HAD READIED herself to grab the first
