Outback Wives Wanted!: Wedding at Wangaree Valley / Bride at Briar's Ridge / Cattle Rancher, Secret Son

She knew if she went with him it would be momentous turning point in her life. “Don’t think I’m so foolish.” Caution welled. She was a virgin. She had no protection.

“I won’t do anything you don’t want. Instinct tells me you’re a virgin?” He came at it directly.

A groan escaped her. “What am I, anyway? An open book?” She tried to pull away, but he held her tighter.

“A book I desperately want to read,” he said, the note in his voice making her senses swim. “I’ll call the house. You’ve had nothing to eat. I’ll get Gwen to make us something.”

“And for the rest of the night?” She threw back her golden head, the spirit of challenge showing in her eyes.

‘I’ll make love to you a little,” he said softly. “Though the time’s fast approaching to make it real.”

“It’s real enough for me now,” she said, feeling her every last defence had been shaken loose. “Besides, I’m not in such a hurry. I should stay here—where I belong.” Her feelings were so intense, so out of control, she felt she had little option but to push the panic button.

“You’re too frightened to come with me?” He looked deeply into her eyes.

Insane as it was, it was true. “I have to think ahead, Guy,” she answered, grappling with her heart’s desire. “If I go to Wangaree with you, the whole Valley will know by the morning.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “My people will see you for exactly what you are. A lifelong friend.”

“Of course—you would command absolute loyalty. Is that how I’ve never heard even a whisper about my mother and your father? Were they lovers?” She stepped closer, staring into his eyes.

“What would be the point of discussing it?” he said sombrely.

“Point being some people are feeling the shock waves to this day. How did your mother manage to live her life with such a secret in the background?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, his striking face taking on a daunting expression. “Why don’t we leave my mother out of this, Alana?”

“I’m sorry,” she apologised. “But can’t you see I have a need, indeed a right to know? I’m not a child. I can’t be kept in the dark. You wouldn’t accept being shut out for a half a minute. Why should I? Your mother must have known. For that matter, when did you first find out? Does Alex know? Or was she kept in the dark like me?”

“Keep probing and you’ll finish up in a dark forest,” he warned, reaching for his jacket. “For the last time—are you coming?”

She braced herself against the intolerable weight of longing. She knew she couldn’t resist him. And, to make her position even more vulnerable, she knew of the powerful forces that had gathered in him.

“No, Guy,” she said, as though she had sworn an oath. She turned away with a little broken laugh. “I can’t think any woman has said no to you before.”

“Is that why you’re doing it?” he asked, his black eyes glittering.

She struggled to frame the right words. “You know why I’m doing it, Guy. You say you don’t want to hurt me, but I fear somewhere deep down inside of you, you do!”

CHAPTER SIX

KIERAN returned from Sydney, strained and on edge. Although he apologised to Alana for having disappeared on the day of the sales, the name of his mystery woman remained a secret.

So many secrets, Alana thought, herself so troubled in her mind that she left her brother well alone. Kieran would confide in her when he was ready, she reasoned. Until then she would keep out of his private affairs. They only appeared to hold anger and pain. Besides, hadn’t her own life turned into a mess?

Like Kieran, she couldn’t bring herself to discuss it. She couldn’t imagine what Kieran would think if she suddenly confided she was totally in love with Guy Radcliffe. She thought after the initial shock he would advise her to leave well alone. That was the way it must have been with him and Alex. Leave well alone. Clearly Kieran believed the Radcliffes were out of reach. The Radcliffes were rich folk. The Callaghans were battlers.

Their father had fought his way out of his binge, but he had lost so much weight for a man previously so strongly built that Alana began to worry his alcohol addiction over the past three years had done significant damage to his body—in particular, his liver. She began to read up all she could about the chronic liver disease cirrhosis, and found her way to an important medicinal herb, St Mary’s Thistle, which had been used to good effect for liver ailments, indeed all sorts of ailments, since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Her father refused point-blank to see a doctor and undergo any tests, but he did consent to swallowing the liquid extract the long-established village pharmacist recommended.

“Your dad really needs to see one of the doctors at the clinic, Alana.” Kindly eyes were fixed on her. “Don Cameron is a good man. This Milk Thistle here could be no help at all.”

Alana thought it was worth a try.

Out of the blue her cousin Rose rang to invite her to lunch at the hugely popular Radcliffe Estate Restaurant.

“I have some news for you!” Rose trilled excitedly down the phone. “I’m up in the air about it, actually. See you Tuesday—say about one p.m.? My shout. I’ll make the reservation. It’s usually packed out.”

Tuesday morning, Alana dressed with care in a brilliantly white linen shirt with a small stand-up collar, over narrowly cut black pants. She had just the legs for the cut, and the right kind of derrière. Around her waist she slung a wide patent leather black belt with a big silver buckle, and she slipped on a pair of high heeled black sandals—her best. Her mother’s black bag was dateless, never out of fashion. She thought she looked pretty good. She had inherited her mother’s chic, and that actually meant a lot. Money wasn’t synonymous with style.

She was looking forward to seeing Rose. All dressed, she presented herself to her father, who was sitting aimlessly in a planter’s chair out on the verandah, staring up at the blue hills.

“How do I look?” She struck a model’s pose, trying to get a smile out of him. Off the wagon, Alan Callaghan was more morose than on it.

“Beautiful!” he said, putting his arm out to her and gathering her in around her slender hips. “Remember me to little Rosie. Some people just suit their names.”

Alana remained in her father’s embrace. “Like some people look exactly what they are.” Of course she was thinking of Guy—The Man. “What are you going to do with yourself, Dad?”

He grimaced. “Well, let’s see. Where shall I start? I thought I might go into town.”

“Really?” Alana was pleasantly surprised. Her father rarely wanted to go anywhere. “Why didn’t you say? I could have run you in and picked you up later.”

“Only just thought of it,” he said. “Might call in on Father Brennan. Make me confession.”

“Dad?” Alana bent to stare into her father’s face, feeling a shock of alarm.

“Only jokin', darlin'.” He raised the ghost of a grin. “I haven’t been to confession for many years. Hardly time to be starting up again now. But I like Terry Brennan. He’s a good bloke.”

“Mum thought so.” Her mother had been raised a Catholic.

“God bless her!” Alan Callaghan sighed. “She was a saint to put up with me.”

“You weren’t so bad!” Alana shook him lightly. In fact in the old days their father had been full of fun and good cheer—the most affectionate of fathers. “Mum loved you.”

“Did she?”

That struck a badly discordant note. “What are you saying, Dad? Of course she did.”

“There’s love and there’s love,” Callaghan pronounced flatly.

“So what are you trying to tell me?” Alana asked in distress. Oh, God!

“I let a dream rule my life, me darlin'. The dream that your mother loved me. I know she settled for me. I know she was absolutely loyal to me. But I wasn’t what she wanted.”

Pain slashed all the way through her. “Who was? I’m really confused about all this, Dad. We were a happy family. It wasn’t a dream. It was a reality. And Mum did love you. She had to. She laughed at all your jokes. Don’t shatter what we had with maudlin thoughts. Maybe she was in love with David Radcliffe at some stage, when they were very young. But she didn’t marry him, did she? She married you.”

Alan Callaghan let out a strangled sigh. “Things happen, Alana.”

“Tell me.” She waited, breathless. “It’s obviously eating away at you, whatever it is.”