Her Outback Protector

They were into March now. The Wet, the Gunemeleng as the aboriginals called it, was all but over. Two cyclones had threatened the tropical North, one extremely dangerous. It had put Darwin, destroyed in Cyclone Tracy in 1974, on high alert. Mercifully cyclone Ingrid had taken herself off into the Timor Sea, but not before dumping torrential rain over the coast and the hinterland. That same deluge, more than they had seen in decades, had brought life-giving water to the Red Centre. The Finke, the oldest river on earth, ninety-nine per cent of the time dry, was now flowing bank to bank. These days it thrilled him to fly over it rejoicing in all the waterfalls that ran off the ochre coloured rock faces into serene green gullies.

Born in tropical North Queensland not far from the mighty Daintree rain forest he had become used to the desert environment. It was very, very special. Maybe the girl would think so, too. After all she had been born on Moondai and spent enough years there to remember it.

“Dan!” A voice boomed.

A passenger off the Brisbane-Darwin flight, a big affable looking man, pushing sixty with keen blue eyes threw out an arm. It was Bill Morrissey, a well respected member of the Northern Territory Administration.

“How are you, sir?” Respect and liking showed in Daniel’s face.

They shook hands. “Hot and tired.” Morrissey wiped his forehead with a spotless white handkerchief. “What brings you into Darwin?”

No harm in telling him. “I’m here to pick up Alexandra Kingston and deliver her to her family.”

“Lordy!” Morrissey put a hand to his fast thinning hair as though to check it was still there. “Wouldn’t like to be that poor child! Not with those relatives. Rigby’s will would have totally alienated his son and grandson and let’s not forget the second wife, Elsa. I have to see it as an angry man’s last response. Rigby cut his family out of the main game even when it’s a fact of life dynasties die out without sons to take over. Daughters tend to walk off with some guy out of the family field.”

“True,” Daniel acknowledged, having witnessed that scenario first-hand. “But in all fairness to Mr. Kingston, Lloyd and Berne aren’t cut out to be cattlemen. Maybe Mr. Kingston made demands on them they simply couldn’t cope with, but they have no taste for the job on their own admission.”

“Well, they could never be carbon copies of him,” Morrissey replied. “A lot of rich families produce at least a couple of offspring who have no head for big business. Now the girl’s father, Trevor, was shaping up to be a chip off the old block. Tragedy he was killed. It happens in our way of life. You’re still going to be around, though, aren’t you, Dan? Can’t see how they could possibly do without you. You might be young, but you’re up there with the best.”

Daniel heard the sincerity in the older man’s voice. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, sir. I’m committed to one year at least under the terms of Mr. Kingston’s will.”

Morrissey clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Trust Rigby to ensure the transition would be smooth. With you at the helm, or guiding the girl into getting a professional manager they might be able to get by. How old are you now, son? Twenty-seven, twenty-eight?”

“Twenty-eight.” Sometimes it seemed to Daniel he had to be at least double that age, he had seen so much of life.

“Do you have any idea how well regarded you are?”

Daniel gave his very appealing, crooked grin. “If I am I’m very glad. I’ve worked hard.”

“That you have!” Morrissey agreed, knowing the full story.

“Rigby certainly thought so and we all know how demanding he was.”

“He wasn’t loved, that’s for sure!” Daniel agreed wryly, “but I always found him fair enough and willing to listen. One of the things that made him so successful I guess. He never had a closed mind, even for a relative newcomer to the game like me. Besides I’ve learned to love the Territory. It’s my home now.”

“And the Territory needs young men like you,” Morrissey said, comfortable with the mantle of mentor. “Young men of brains and vision. You’ve got both.” He thrust out his hand for a final shake. “Best go now. Can’t keep the chauffeur waiting. When you’re next in Darwin come and see me. When your twelve months are up I guarantee I’ll find you something to suit your talents.”

“Might hold you to that, sir.” Daniel grinned.

Morrissey began to move away, then paused, looking back.

“By the way, Joel Moreland has expressed a desire to meet you. Not for the first time I might add. The Big Man’s heard about you. Now he wants to take a good look at you. You could be in luck, there, my boy. Moreland is a Territory icon. I’ll set it up for lunch. Just the three of us.”

“That’s great!” Daniel was surprised and deeply flattered. It never hurt to have friends in high places he thought as he strode off. Joel Moreland was known in the Territory as the man with the Midas touch. Not one of his many ventures stretching back forty years and more had failed. Not that the man with the Midas touch hadn’t known his own tragedy. Moreland’s son and heir, Jared, had been killed in a freak accident at an Alice Springs rodeo well over twenty years before. Apparently he had put his own life on the line to save a cavorting teenager from a maddened bullock. The Grim Reaper no more spared the lives of those rolling in money than he did the poor.

Well he knew all about being poor but strangely he’d never developed any lasting complexes about it. He was a fighter. He’d spent much of his childhood fighting for the honour of his pretty little mother and the good name some callous guy had stripped from her without looking back. People didn’t label the illegitimate bastards any more. It was politically incorrect. When he was a kid growing up in a small, redneck Queensland town, they didn’t give a fig about that.

From very humble beginnings he had made something of himself. He’d had help. Everyone needs a little help. Even the strongest couldn’t do it on their own. A Channel Country cattleman called Harry Cunningham had given him and his mother that helping hand when they were so down on their luck he’d been filled with fear his vulnerable mother would resort to taking her own life. Harry Cunningham had been their saviour, the man behind his education.

“You’ve got to have an education, Dan. You’re smart as they come, but education is everything. Get it. Then you can pay me back.”

Well he had paid Harry back, reviving the fortunes of Harry’s run-down station only to have Harry’s daughter, his only child, sell the valuable property within a month. Some sons-in-law proved themselves to be eminently capable as substitute sons but as Bill Morrissey had pointed out this particular daughter had married a city slicker who had shied away violently from the prospect of taking on a cattle station. Far easier to take the money and run.

It was Harry’s glowing recommendations that had come to the ears of his late employer, Rigby Kingston. That’s what had gained him a job on Moondai, rising to the rank of overseer. It was he Rigby Kingston had looked to. Not his remaining son, Lloyd, or Lloyd’s son, Bernard. It wasn’t often a man bypassed the males of his family to leave the bulk of his estate to a granddaughter, moreover one who had been banished. What was his reasoning? Did Kingston secretly want his heirs to fail? Having been robbed of his favourite son, Trevor, the girl’s father, the rest could go to hell? Rigby Kingston had been a very curious man. Yet tyrannical old Kingston had left him, Daniel Carson, a nobody, however dramatically he had risen, a handy little nest egg of $250,000, on top of his salary, on the proviso he remain on Moondai as overseer for a period of twelve months after Kingston’s demise.

It was all so damned bizarre!

It didn’t take him a minute more to spot the Kingston heiress. All five feet two of her. Her slight figure, standing brolga-like on one leg, was a few feet from the check-in counter, booklet on the Territory in hand. He didn’t know what he had been expecting. An ultra smooth city girl in expensive designer gear. There were plenty of them about. It surely wasn’t this! A cute little teenager—okay she was twenty, nearly twenty-one, but what the heck, she didn’t look a day over sixteen and she was showing at least five or six inches of baby smooth skin between the end of her T-shirt and the top of her tight jeans. He took in the delicate coltish limbs, jeans sinking on nonexistent hips, the T-shirt blue with a silver logo on the front of her delicate breasts, gentle little rises beneath the clingy fabric. She shifted one hand in her hip pocket, apparently searching for something but as he closed in on her she raised her cropped head and literally jumped.

What the hell! He wasn’t such a dangerous looking character, was he? Maybe his hair was overly long. It was very thick and it grew at a helluva rate and there weren’t too many hairdressers around Moondai. He had lived with his image so long he couldn’t really tell how he presented. Perhaps seen through those saucer eyes staring at him he looked a touch wild; eyes that were so big and radiant a blue they dwarfed her other small features. Except maybe the mouth. Not a trace of lipstick so far as he could see, but then makeup was a mystery to him, but beautifully shaped. He had a notion he was staring back, but she was such a surprise packet.

Obviously she didn’t agree with the notion that a woman’s hair was her crowning glory, either. Hers was cut to within an inch of its life. Buttercup-yellow, curling in the humid heat into a cap of pretty petals. A few escaped onto her forehead. What was the definition of sexy for God’s sake? Against all the odds Miss Alexandra Kingston, looking like she wasn’t all that long out of school, fell into that category.

He collected himself enough to tip a jaunty forefinger to the brim of his black akubra. It felt like he towered over her all the more so because he was wearing high heeled riding boots. He scrutinised her shoes, soft moccasin kind of thing. “Ms Kingston?” he asked, trying to keep all trace of dryness out of his voice and not succeeding all that well.

“Sandra, please.” She cleared a husky throat. “No one calls me Ms Kingston.” Her hand rose defensively to her neat little skull as though to check on an unfamiliar hair style.

Probably just cut it, he thought. Unceremoniously with a pair of nail scissors like an expression of rebellion.

“I am an employee,” he pointed out.

“Hey.” She shrugged. “I said you can call me Sandra.”

“How very egalitarian. Dan Carson.” He introduced himself. “I’m your overseer on Moondai and your chauffeur for the day. I’m here to transport you to the station.”

“Transport?”

He saw her gulp. “Now why make it sound like you’re going on a road train?” he chided gently. Road trains that transported anything from great numbers of cattle to petrol were an awesome sight on Outback roads.

“I was worried about the word, transport,” she said smartly.

Her voice all of a sudden had an unexpected bite to it, an adultness that had him re-evaluating her. “Set your mind at rest. We go by helicopter,” he told her. Could there be a trace of hostility in those bluer than blue eyes? “I had to drop my leading hand into RDH for a minor op so it was convenient to pick you up and bring you home.”

“How kind.” The expressive voice turned sweetly acid.

“Only Moondai’s no home of mine, Mr. Carson.”

“Please—Daniel.” He dipped his head. “I’m not in my element with Mr. Carson.”

“Great! I’m glad we’ve got that sorted out.”

So it was antagonism.

“Actually I thought Christian names might be beneath you.” She was desperate to cover up the fact she felt as if she’d been struck by lightning. Daniel Carson, her overseer, was a marvellous looking guy with Action and Adventure emblazoned all over him. He’d make the perfect hero in some epic movie, she thought. Dark, swashbuckling good looks, splendid body, commanding height. The aura was mesmerising, but his manner was definitely nonthreatening.

“Nothing so old-fashioned,” he mocked gently, looking towards the luggage carousel. It was ringed by passengers all staring fixedly towards the chute as though willpower alone would cause the luggage to start tumbling through. Every last one appeared to be in a desperate hurry to be somewhere else.

“The baggage hasn’t started to arrive as yet,” he commented, unnecessarily, just making conversation. “How many pieces do you have?’