gentle hold of her cousin’s arm. Love was the very devil! This had to be terrible for the proud Carina. ‘Twenty-six is no age. You’re so beautiful, so much admired. You have the world at your feet. There are plenty of good men out there.’
Carina gave a laugh to cover her distress. ‘Not the ones I’ve encountered. As long as I can save you. That’s all I care about. Don’t take a gamble on Bryn, Francey. You’ll never win.’ She opened the heavy door, then stepped into the wide carpeted corridor, totally ignoring Valerie Scott, who sat at her desk, head bowed so close to her work she had to be going crosseyed. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ she promised with a big smile. ‘Next time you take off I might come with you. Out there we can really bond.’
Francesca said nothing. Bonding wasn’t an activity Carina had paid much attention to in the past. But there was always hope. Wasn’t hope supposed to spring eternal? Could a leopard change its spots? The answer in nature was a resounding no! Applied to humans, the verdict wasn’t so reliable. What exactly had Carina come to tell her? Was this another one of her strategies? Changed spots or not, she didn’t fancy the idea of putting her head in a leopard’s mouth.
After Carina had gone on her way, leaving a minefield of possibilities, Francesca withdrew to her office, closing the door. It wasn’t her practice to do it all the time, but she did it now, directing a little sympathetic smile Valerie’s way. Poor Valerie! Carina had been very rough on her. Then again, there was the possibility Carina was in the early stages of turning herself around. Who could deny there were great life-changing forces constantly at work?
One good thing about being the official Forsyth heiress. If she disappeared, even in the Outback, people would notice.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEY flew into Daramba well before noon. Once over the vast station Bryn brought the King Air down low, so they could get a closer look at the condition of the land. The endless miles of wildflowers had all but vanished, ready to reappear with the next Wet Season’s good rains, but the ancient landscape—the infinite Inland Sea of pre-history—still frothed in blossom from the trees. Daramba was in prime condition, the fiery red earth thickly sown with thick Mitchell and Flinders grass, the ubiquitous spinifex, salt bush, hop bush and the succulent pink parakeelya cattle liked to feed on. There were clusters of billabongs, three or four linked, before a break of a few miles streaked away to the horizon, the iridescent blue of the sky holding a couple of white clouds, like giant cotton wool balls. No rain in them. No rain anywhere over a state more than twice the size of Texas.
The great system of water channels that ran like intricate lacework all over the Channel Country glittered in the sun, some silver, others dark green, with occasionally a cloudy opal-blue or lime-green, framed by the dark green fringing trees that grew along the sandy banks. It created a whole kaleidoscope of colour. And there was movement as well as colour. A mob of brumbies with a long-tailed bay at the front—tall and powerful for a wild horse—its harem behind, the half-grown foals alongside, suddenly shot into view from a thick screen of bauhinias, probably taking fright at the sound of the plane’s engines. They were a marvellous sight in flight, and because of easy access to feed and water in glossy condition.
Stockmen on the ground looked up and waved their dusty hats as they made their passes over campsites and holding yards where fat cattle were penned almost bumper to bumper. In the middle distance a big mob was moving like the giant Rainbow Snake of aboriginal legend, twisting and turning as they made their way to one of the billabongs with a couple of stockmen riding back and forth among them, urging the beasts on and keeping them in an orderly formation. They didn’t look as if they needed much urging, Francesca thought.
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