Home To Eden

Howard, tall and distinguished, a worried frown on his face, hastened to their side. “Nikki, dear?” He bent his silver head solicitously to hers.

“I’m so sorry.” From long practice Nicole held herself together. Tried to smile. “I’ll be fine in a minute. I felt a little faint, that’s all. Too much rushing about and the excitement of appearing on the show.” How could she possibly say she thought she’d seen someone long dead?

“I imagine you haven’t taken time off to eat,” Carol scolded gently. “Never mind. I’ve got all your favorite things. There now, your color is back,” she exclaimed in relief. “Howard, be a darling and fetch us both a glass of champagne.”

“Of course.” He hurried off.

Steady, Nicole thought. Steady. She took a calming breath, aware that a silence had fallen over the huge living room. She ran the point of her tongue over her lips. Her mouth was bone dry. A reaction to what she thought she’d seen, no doubt. But Carol and Howard were so very kind, she knew she’d be able to get through the evening.

IN THE EARLY HOURS of the morning the phone woke her, shrilling her out of the tormented dreams that had ceased to plague her for many long months but had returned suddenly in full force. The brain had an extraordinary power to relive the past just as it chose to throw up impenetrable walls. Though she returned to Eden only twice a year—for a short visit at Christmas and for her grandmother’s birthday in June—she couldn’t drive out its demons. They walked with her, talked with her, slept with her, appeared in her paintings, but never, ever would they reveal their secrets.

Moaning softly, her head muzzy, mouth parched, she rolled to the right-hand side of the bed, picking up the receiver without bothering to turn on the bedside lamp. All these years she’d been unable to sleep in complete darkness, so it was her practice to leave a light on somewhere in the loft. The digital readout on the clock radio said 3:24 a.m. She could think of nothing but trouble.

She spoke into the mouthpiece, straining ineffectually at the top sheet that wrapped her like a mummy. “Hello?”

“Nicole?”

Her heart spasmed. She tried to focus on one of her paintings that hung on the opposite wall. A painting of the ruined tower on Eden. It was where her mother and her lover used to go. Hadn’t she followed them as a child, already tuned in to tragedy?

“Nicole, are you there?” Aunt Sigrid spoke across thousands of miles of underwater cable as though she were no more than a block away.

“Siggy, I was asleep. Do you know what time it is here?” She glanced again at the luminous dial of the clock.

“To hell with that!” Siggy, being Siggy, replied. “It’s the early hours, but I had no option.”

Knowing her aunt so well, Nicole snapped together, throwing off the nightmare that clung to her like a shroud. “Bad news?” Why ask when cold certainty assailed her?

“It’s not your grandmother,” Sigrid said, obviously following her niece’s line of thinking. “She’s fine. But you have to come home. Your father has found his way back to Eden.”

“Father? What father?” She felt it like an electrical jolt, kicking out wildly to free herself from the clinging sheet. That wicked man she’d once called Daddy? Never!

“Your father, Heath,” Sigrid reminded her curtly.

“I don’t know him as my father.” Nicole could hear the coldness in her voice.

“He’s your father, Nicole, much as you’ve disowned him.”

“Oh, that’s good!” Finally she was able to sit up, absolutely astounded by the way her aunt kept pulling the rug out from beneath her feet, championing Heath Cavanagh at the most inappropriate times. “I was raised to believe he was my father. That all changed the day they found my mother.” She lost control, finding herself shouting into the phone. “Your sister, Siggy.”

“Don’t try to rattle my cage, girl,” Siggy warned. “You’d feel sorry for this creature if you saw him. He’s come to Eden to die, Nicole. He’s got nowhere else to go. His whole life has been one terrible failure.”

Nicole rolled her eyes. “And you’re asking me to feel sorry for him? That’s one heck of a request. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the whole Outback believe he killed my mother and David McClelland? The McClellands sure did.”

Sigrid protested strongly. “There was absolutely no proof. It was a terrible accident. Your mother was known to have a hot temper just like you.”

“Don’t talk like that, Siggy!” Nicole cried. “My mother was a victim. Dead and not even yet thirty-five. A victim of either David McClelland or Heath Cavanagh. She was not suicidal. She would never have left me, I know it. But we’ll go to our graves with all the doubts they left behind. How dare that wicked man come back to Eden when Eden belongs to me.”

“You’d think you deserved it!” Her aunt’s voice rose as though she, too, had been dealt a rotten hand. “What right did I have to inherit, after all? I was only the other daughter, the plain one with the sharp tongue. What right Joel, my son? It had to be you, Corrinne’s daughter. And Heath Cavanagh’s. She was madly in love with him once, I can tell you that.”

“You could tell me lots, but you never have,” Nicole retaliated sharply. “I’m not coming, Siggy. He can stay if there’s nowhere else for him to go, but I never want to lay eyes on him again.”

Sigrid’s anger vibrated over the line. “What makes you think you can treat him like a leper?”

“Sure you weren’t in love with him yourself?” Nicole challenged, her mind in a chaotic whirl. “He’s not my father. And he’s the one who said that, not me.”

“He only said it because he was in a terrible state. He thought Corrinne had left him. He was obsessed with her from the moment he laid eyes on her.”

“So she betrayed her fiancé.” Her throat constricted. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. She swallowed and the awful feeling passed.

“Precisely! She couldn’t help herself. Heath was a magnificent lover.”

“And how would you know?”

“My sister told me,” Sigrid said, seemingly untouched by her niece’s implication.

For an instant Nicole hated her aunt utterly and completely. “No more than that?”

“No more. For God’s sake, Nikki, what are you on about?” Sigrid demanded furiously. “We’re talking about your poor father. He’s in dreadful shape, cirrhosis of the liver. He hasn’t got long. Your grandmother wants you to come home. It’s unforgivable the way you flit in and out, can’t wait to get back first to Paris, now New York. Anywhere else but Eden, where you belong. God knows we’ve all given you time. You should be here. That’s why my father left Eden to you.”

“But surely you enjoy playing boss, Siggy,” Nicole retorted, stripping away all pretense. “We’re made of the same stuff, aren’t we? We’re not crazy about men. We’re crazy about a grand historical station called Eden. When it suits you, you forget Dr. Rosendahl thought it crucial I get away. I was only twelve when I found my mother dead, not a great age to be crushed by horror, so hold on to your compassion.”

Sigrid’s harsh, impatient tone softened. “Do you think I don’t feel for you, girl? You’ve got plenty of guts. You were always strong, even as a child. More guts than my boy. Listen to me now. This is very, very important. I swear on your mother’s grave, David McClelland wasn’t your father. I beg you to believe me. Even the McClellands never entertained the idea you’re one of them, even if you liked to rouse the devil in Drake by suggesting you might be cousins.”

Nicole gave a brittle laugh. “Is he married yet?” She’d never be sufficiently free of her memories of Drake, so glamorous and charismatic in manhood; the boy she’d looked up to in childhood, though she’d had the companionship of her cousin, Joel, Siggy’s son, who’d harbored a nasty jealousy of Drake.

“Why would you be interested?” Sigrid asked dryly. “Hostility between the two of you is the norm whenever you chance to meet. But no, he’s not. Too busy buying up properties. You might consider this. He wants Eden.”

“Be serious, Siggy!” She spoke through clenched teeth. “He’ll never get it.” Yet wasn’t she plagued by that very fear? Siggy was right. Her real place was at Eden, guarding her inheritance.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Sigrid snapped. “You’re no match for Drake McClelland, I can guarantee that. He’s as tough as they come and a brilliant businessman. He’s taken off like a rocket since he inherited Kooltar. It’s no secret, either, he has no love for us Cavanaghs. He could destroy us all.”

Nicole’s answer was unimpressed. “Let him try. I’m not in awe of Drake. We grew up together, remember? I mean, come on, once we were pals.”

“That’s quite a while ago, Nikki. The tragedy changed everything, even if his family couldn’t block him from seeing you. I know some sort of bond still exists, but Drake is the one person who can bring us down. You must know that in your heart.”

Nicole felt cornered by her aunt’s charges. She had seen Drake during her adolescence—they were both invited to every social function that came along as a matter of course—but past events had destroyed any chances of their sunny childhood relationship blossoming into something else. She was hated if only for her looks, which had once belonged to her mother. Still, like Siggy, she had the unshakable conviction Drake McClelland would play a major role in her life.

As the McClelland heir, he’d possessed a juggernaut drive toward achievement. It wasn’t just fame and fortune, and the power that went along with them; Drake wanted a real stake in the country’s future. He wanted to make a contribution, building on everything his forebears had achieved. Eden in anyone’s language was a rich prize.

“Are you there, Nicole, or have you gone into a trance?” her aunt asked testily.

“I’m here,” she answered. “Sorry, I did drift off.”

“And I’m almost out of strength.” Suddenly Sigrid’s voice had a weak flicker. “Are you coming home?”

“I don’t think I could with that man there.”

Sigrid didn’t pause. “Your father. He’s in a sorry plight even if he did bring it all on himself. But I’m sorrier for you, Nicole. You haven’t got a heart.”