Home To Eden

“They should have sent her to one of her relatives in Sydney or Melbourne,” Siggy said sternly. “Opened up her life. Station living is too isolated. We’re too much in one another’s pockets. Callista was positively fixated on her brother. A byproduct of a lonely life. I tell you, if he hadn’t been her brother, she’d have tried to bag him. She was too close. A bit kinky, I’d say.”

“Like Joel is too close to me?” Nicole shocked her by saying.

Sigrid, on the voluptuous side when young, now bone thin, let out a swearword that made her mother wince. “That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard. It’s not at all the same. Tell her, Mother.”

Louise sighed deeply, flapping her right hand helplessly. “I’m not sure if Nicole isn’t right.”

A worse swearword escaped Sigrid. “You’ve only just come home, Nicole, and you’re already stirring things up.”

“I’m trying to understand what’s going on in my life, Siggy,” Nicole responded hotly. “I don’t want to upset you, especially when you let fly like a station hand. This may not be the time to ask, either, but why did you get rid of Dot?”

“Why talk about bloody Dot?” Sigrid made a gesture as though she was swatting a fly. “It was time she retired. She wanted to live on the coast.”

“I never, ever heard her express that desire.” Nicole lifted her eyebrows.

“It seems she did, darling,” Louise intervened gently.

“She said that to you, Gran?” Nicole was amazed. “She said nothing to me and I was here in June. Why so sudden?”

“I don’t know, darling, but she seemed quite happy to leave. I was most surprised. I thought Dot was a fixture on Eden.”

“If you give me her address, Siggy, I’d like to contact her.” Nicole turned to her aunt.

Sigrid nodded stiffly. “I’m sure I’ve got it somewhere. If you don’t trust me, Nicole, to make decisions…”

“Of course I trust you, Siggy.” Nicole felt free to lie. “You should have told me, all the same. Dot was devoted to Joel and me when we were children. How much severance did you give her?”

“Certainly not a blank check.” Sigrid pulled a long face. “But enough to keep her comfortably for the rest of her life. That’s if she’s careful.”

“If you don’t want to say it, Siggy. Write it,” Nicole suggested acidly.

“All right, twenty thousand.” Sigrid compulsively smoothed her thick caramel-colored hair, her best feature for all her tendency to hack at it with nail scissors.

Nicole shook her head in dismay. “That was supposed to be generous? She could live for another twenty years unless she meets up with a bus.”

“I don’t think so,” Sigrid replied briskly. “Dot smokes like a chimney. I thought anyone who smoked was a leper these days. No one could stop her, though she didn’t dare smoke in the house. She’ll probably finish up with lung cancer.”

“Dot, poor Dot, what a vulnerable soul!” Nicole moaned. “This isn’t the end of it, Siggy. I have to ensure Dot is secure. That’s the least I can do. I suppose I can even meet Heath Cavanagh if I put my mind to it. If he’s not as ill as you’re saying, I’ll put him on the first plane out of here.”

“What about Zimbabwe?” Sigrid challenged. “Is that far enough?”

“You won’t want to when you see him, my darling,” Louise promised very quietly.

CHAPTER FIVE

WHERE WAS the handsome, rather bullish man she remembered? Where was the bulk of chest, the width of shoulder? The florid patches in darkly tanned cheeks? The voice like an erupting volcano? The intimidating demeanor? The glitter in large, mesmerizing, black eyes? Gone, all gone. His illness had reduced him to a haggard shell.

“Hello, Heath,” she said softly, venturing into the large elegant room this man had once shared with her mother. Even with fresh air streaming through the open French doors, it had a sickly fug.

“Nicole.” He moved to stand up, but fell back coughing into the deep leather armchair someone must have brought in for him. Siggy, probably. Nicole didn’t remember its being there.

“You look ill.” He looked far worse than ill. Despite herself she felt badly shaken.

“I am ill, bugger it, but the heart is still pumping.” A faint echo of the bluster. “How beautiful you are, girl. Aren’t you going to kiss your dear father?”

“That’s one heck of a question to ask. No, I’m not. You’re lucky I have such a sweet nature, otherwise I wouldn’t have come to visit you.” She didn’t have the heart to say she half believed her real father was dead.

“Don’t blame you,” he mumbled. “Terrible father. No skills for it. No skills for husbanding. The only bloody thing I was ever good at was bedding women. And on my good days backing the right nags. Please sit down. I hope you’re going to stay a while.”

“So we can chat?” The animosity was unfolding. Nevertheless she did as he asked, taking a chair several feet away, facing the balcony.

“Sarcastic little bitch!” he grunted, his near-affectionate tone defusing the insult. “All right, so I’m a beast and a brute, but I care about you, Nicole. In my own miserable, insensitive way. Didn’t have much to give after your mother— Adored her. The plain truth.”

“I expect you’ve convinced yourself that’s true.”

“What do you know about passion, girl?” The sunken eyes flashed.

“Not much, but it’s nice of you to be concerned. Most days I walk about frozen inside. That comes from finding the bloodied and smashed bodies of my mother and her lover in the desert with the carrion circling. Some people might call that a fairly seismic trauma. And the name’s Nicole, by the way. I don’t answer to girl. It’s on my say-so that you’ll be staying on Eden.”

He looked amused. “Pardon me, but is that a threat, my lady?”

“It sure is,” she answered laconically.

“Even as a kid you knew how to crack the whip. Granddad’s little princess.”

“All destroyed.”

“Yes.” His sigh rattled. “I beg your pardon most humbly, Nicole, even if you were reared an uppity little madam. Not my doing.”

“Maybe you never knew how to speak to me properly, you cruel man.”

“When was I cruel to you?” He appeared genuinely taken aback.

“You used to take swings at me all the time.”

“When did one land?”

“I was too quick.”

He started to laugh, stopped, hand on chest, as though it pained him greatly. “You never told on me to your granddad. I admired that. I’d like to stay here, Nicole, if you can stand me. I haven’t got a lot of time…”