Outback Man Seeks Wife

That was twenty years ago. The monthly Jimboorie Bulletin wasn’t any old rag featuring local gossip and kitty-up-the-tree stories. It was a professional newspaper, covering issues important to the Outback: the fragile environment, political matters, social matters, health matters, aboriginal matters, national sporting news, leavened by a page reporting on social events from all over the Outback. The rest of the time Carrie was kept busy with her various duties on the family station she loved, as well as running the home office, a job she had taken over from her mother.

Her work for the Bulletin stimulated her intellectually and she loved Paddy. He was the wisest, kindest man she knew whereas her father—although he had always been good to her in a material fashion—was not a man a daughter could get close to. A son maybe, but her parents had not been blessed with a son. She was an only child, one who was sensitive enough to have long become aware of her father’s pain and bitter disappointment he had no male heir. He had already told her, although she would be well provided for, Victory Downs was to go to her cousin, Alex, the son of her father’s younger brother. Uncle Andrew wasn’t a pastoralist at all, though he had been raised in a pastoral family. He had a thriving law practice in Melbourne and was, in fact, the family solicitor.

Alex was still at university, uncertain what he wanted to be, although he knew Victory Downs would pass to him. Carrie’s mother had fought aggressively for her daughter’s rights but her father couldn’t be moved. For once in her married life her mother had lost the fight.

‘You know how men are!’ Alicia had railed. ‘They think women can’t run anything. It’s immensely unfair. How can your father think young Alex would be a better manager than you?’

‘That’s not the only reason, Mum,’ Carrie had replied, thinking it terrible to be robbed of one’s inheritance. ‘Dad doesn’t want the station to pass out of the family. Sons have to be the inheritors. Sons carry the family name. Dad doesn’t care at all for the idea anyone other than a McNevin should inherit Victory Downs. He seems to be naturally suspicious of women as well. Why is that? Uncle Andy isn’t a bit like that.’

‘Your father just doesn’t know how to relax,’ was Alicia’s stock explanation, always turning swiftly to another topic.

It had been strange growing up knowing she was seriously undervalued by her father but Carrie was reluctant to criticise him. He was a good father in his way. Certainly she and her mother lacked for nothing, though there was no question of squandering money like Julia Cunningham, who spent as much time in the big cities of Sydney and Melbourne as she did in her Outback home.

People in the swirling crowd waved to her happily—she waved back. Most of the young women her age were wearing smart casual dress, while she was decked out as if she were attending a garden party at Government House in Sydney. Alicia’s idea. Carrie’s hat was lovely really, the wide dipping brim trimmed with silk flowers. She wore a sunshine-yellow printed silk dress sent to her from her mother’s favourite Sydney designer. Studded high heeled yellow sandals were on her feet. Her long honey-blond hair was drawn back into a sophisticated knot to accommodate the picture hat her mother had insisted on her wearing.

‘I want you to look really, really good!’ Alicia, a classic beauty in her mid-forties and looking nothing like it, fussed over her. ‘Which means you have to wear this hat. It will protect your lovely skin for one thing as well as adding the necessary glamour. Never forget it’s doubly essential to look after one’s skin in our part of the world. You know how careful I am even though we have an enviable tawny tint.’

Indeed they had. Carrie had inherited her mother’s beautiful brown eyes as well. Eyes that presented such a striking contrast to their golden hair. Carrie, christened Caroline Adriana McNevin had no look of her father’s side of the family. She didn’t really mind. Alicia, from a well-to-do Melbourne family and with an Italian Contessa as her maternal grandmother, was a beautiful woman by anyone’s standards.

‘You’re a lucky girl, do you realise that? Scott Harper for a fiancé.’ Alicia fondly pinched her daughter’s cheek. ‘I don’t think the Cunninghams will ever get over it. Julia worked so hard to throw Scott and Natasha together.’

As if you didn’t do the same thing with Scott and me, Mamma, Carrie thought but didn’t have the heart to say. Scott Harper was one of the most eligible bachelors in the country. His father’s property ventures were huge. Even Carrie’s father had been ‘absolutely delighted’ when she and Scott had become engaged. Obviously the best thing a daughter could do—her crowning achievement as it were—was to marry a handsome young man from a wealthy family. To prove it her father seemed to have a lot more time for her in the past few months. Could he be thinking of future heirs, not withstanding the fact he had already made a will in favour of Alex? It wouldn’t be so bad, would it, to pass Victory Downs on to someone like Scott Harper, rich and ambitious?

Sometimes Carrie felt like a pawn.

Clay was agreeably surprised by the number of people who made it their business to congratulate him. Many of the older generation mentioned they remembered his father and added how much Clay resembled him. One sweet-faced elderly lady actually asked after his mother, her smile crumpling when Clay told her gently that his mother had passed on. He hadn’t received any congratulations from the runner-up, the god in their midst, Scott Harper, and didn’t expect any. Leopards didn’t change their spots. Aged ten when his parents uprooted him from the place he so loved and which incredibly was now his, Clay still had vivid memories of Scott Harper, the golden-haired bully boy, two years his senior. Harper had treated him like trash when he’d never had trouble from the other station boys. For some reason Harper had baited him mercilessly about his parents’ marriage whenever they met up. Once Harper had knocked him down in the main street of the town causing a bad concussion for which he’d been hospitalised. His father, wild as hell, had made the long drive in his battered utility to the Harper station to remonstrate with Scott’s father, but he had been turned back at gunpoint by Bradley Harper’s men.

Clay’s taking the Jimboorie Cup from Scott this afternoon was doubly sweet. Soon the surprisingly impressive silver cup would be presented to him by Harper’s fiancé. He had been amazed to hear it was Caroline McNevin, whom he remembered as the prettiest little girl he had ever laid eyes on. How had that exquisite little creature grown up to become engaged to someone like Harper? But then wasn’t it a tradition for pastoral families to intermarry? His father—once considered destined for great things—had proved the odd man out, struck down by love at first sight. Love for a penniless little Irish girl now buried by his side.

There was a stir in the crowd. Clay turned about to see a woman coming towards him. He drew himself up straighter, absolutely thrown by how beautiful Caroline had become. Her whole aura suggested springtime, a world of flowers. Her petite figure absorbed all the sunlight around her.

She seemed to float rather than walk. For a moment an overwhelming emotion swept over him. To combat it, he stood very, very still. He wondered if it were nostalgia; remembrance of some lovely moment when he was a boy. The hillsides around Jimboorie alight with golden wattle, perhaps?

Now they were face-to-face, less than a metre apart, and he like a fool stood transfixed. He was conscious his nerves had tensed and his stomach muscles had tightened into a hard knot. She was tiny compared to him. Even in her high heels she only came up to his heart. She still had that look of shining innocence, only now it was allied to an adult allure all the more potent since both qualities appeared to exist quite naturally side by side.

He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her while she consolidated her hold over him.

Caroline had beautiful large oval eyes, a deep velvety-brown. They were doubly arresting with her golden hair. Her skin, a tawny olive beneath the big picture hat, was flawlessly beautiful. Her features were delicate, perfectly symmetrical. No more than five-three, she nevertheless had a real presence. At least she was running tight circles around him.

‘James Cunningham!’ The vision smiled at him. A smile that damn near broke his heart. What the heck was the matter with him? How could he describe what he felt? Perhaps they had meant something to each other in another life? ‘Welcome back to Jimboorie. I’m Carrie McNevin.’

Belatedly he came back to control. ‘I remember you, Caroline,’ he said, his voice steady, unhurried, yet he was so broadsided by her beauty, he forgot to smile.

‘You can’t!’ A soft flush rose to her cheeks.

‘I do.’ He shrugged his shoulder, thinking beautiful women had unbounded power at their pink fingertips. ‘I remember you as the happy little girl who used to wave to me when you saw me in town.’

‘Really?’ She was enchanted by the idea.

‘Yes, really.’

Her essential sweetness enfolded him. Her voice was clear and gentle, beautifully enunciated. Caroline McNevin, the little princess. Untouchable. Except now by Harper. That made him hot and angry, inducing feelings that hit him with the force of a breaker.

‘Well, it’s my great pleasure, James, or do you prefer to be called Clay?’ She paused, tipping her golden head to one side.

‘Clay will do.’ Only his mother had ever called him James. Now he remembered to smile though his expression remained serious even a little sombre. Why wouldn’t he when he felt appallingly vulnerable in the face of a beautiful creature who barely came up to his heart?

Carrie was aware of the sombreness in him. It added to the impression he gave of quiet power and it had to be admitted, mystery. ‘Then it’s going to be my great pleasure to be able to present you, Clay, with the Jimboorie Cup,’ Carrie continued. ‘We’ll just move back over there,’ she said, turning to lead the way to a small dais where the race committee was grouped, waiting for her and the winner of the Cup to join them. ‘They’ll want to take photos,’ she told him, herself oddly shaken by their meeting. And the feeling wasn’t passing off. Perhaps it was because she’d heard so many stories about the Cunninghams while she was growing up? Or maybe it was because Clay Cunningham had grown into a strikingly attractive man. She felt that attraction brush over her then without her being able to do a thing about it. She felt it sink into her skin. She only hoped she wasn’t showing her strong reactions. Everyone was looking at them.

Natasha might well continue to denounce her cousin, Carrie thought, but the family resemblance was strong. The Cunninghams were a handsome lot, raven haired, with bright blue eyes. Natasha would have been beautiful, but her fine features were marred by inner discontent and her eyes were strangely cold. Clay Cunningham had the Cunningham height and rangy build—only his hair wasn’t black. It was a rich mahogany with a flame of dark auburn as the sun burnished it. His eyes, the burning blue of an Outback sky, were really beautiful, full of depth and sparkle. He looked like a real man. A man women would fall for hook, line and sinker. So why wasn’t he married already, or actively looking for a wife? If indeed the rumour were true. Something she was beginning to doubt. He had to be four, maybe five years older than she, which made him around twenty-eight. He was a different kind of man from Scott. She sensed a depth, a sensitivity—whatever it was—in him that Scott lacked.

It had to be an effect of the light but there seemed to be sparkles in the space between them. Carrie never dreamed a near-stranger could have this effect on her. Her main concern was to conceal it. Up until now she had felt safe. She was going to marry Scott, the man she was in love with—yet Clay Cunningham’s blue gaze had reached forbidden places.

Their hands touched as she handed over the Silver Cup to the accompanying waves of applause. She couldn’t move, even think for a few seconds. She felt a little jolt of electricity through every pore of her skin. He continued to hold her eyes, his own unfaltering. Had her trembling transferred itself to him like a vibration? She hoped not. She wasn’t permitted to feel like this.

Yet sparkles continued to pulsate before her eyes. Perhaps she was mildly sun-struck? She had the unnerving notion that the little frisson of shock—unlike anything she had ever experienced before—was mutual. She even wondered what life might have in store if he decided to remain on Jimboorie? All around her people were laughing and clapping. Some were carrying colourful balloons. The thrill of the race had got to her. That was it! Her course was set. She was a happily engaged woman. She was to marry Scott Harper in December. A Christmas bride.

And there was Scott staring right at her. Too late she became aware of him. She felt the chill behind his smile. She knew him so well she had no difficulty recognising it. It came towards her like an ice-bearing cloud. He was furious and doing a wonderful job of hiding it. A triumphant looking Natasha was by his side, the two of them striking a near identical pose; one full of an over-bearing self-confidence. Maybe arrogance was a better word. Scott as Bradley Harper’s heir certainly liked to flaunt it. Natasha, as a Cunningham, did too.

Now Scott sauntered towards the dais around which the VIPs of the vast district milled, calling in a taunting voice, ‘You’ll absolutely have to tell us, Jimmy, where you learned how to ride like that? And the name of the guy who loaned you his horse. Or did you steal it?’ He held up defensive hands. ‘Only joking!’

As a joke it was way off, but Clay Cunningham held his ground, quite unmoved. ‘You haven’t changed one little bit, have you, Harper?’ he said with unruffled calm. ‘Lightning Boy was a parting gift from a good friend of mine. A beauty, isn’t he? He could run the race over.’

‘Like to give it another go?’ Scott challenged with an open lick of hostility.

‘Any time—when your horse is less spent.’ Clay Cunningham gently waved the silver cup aloft to another roar of applause.

Bruce McNevin, a concerned observer to all this, fearing a confrontation, moved quickly onto the dais to address the crowd. Even youngsters draped over the railings managed to fall silent. They were used to hearing from Mr. McNevin who was to say a few words then hand over the prize money of $20,000 dollars, well above the reward offered by other bush committees.

Her father was a handsome man, Carrie thought proudly. A man in his prime. He had a full head of dark hair, good regular features, a bony Celtic nose, a strong clean jawline and well defined cheekbones. He was always immaculately if very conservatively dressed. Bruce McNevin was definitely a ‘tweedy’ man.

While her father spoke Carrie stood not altogether happily within the half circle of Scott’s distinctly proprietorial arm. She was acutely aware of the anger and dented pride he was fighting to hold in. Scott wasn’t a good loser. Carrie didn’t know why but it was apparent he had taken an active dislike to Clay Cunningham.

Now Clay Cunningham, cheque in hand, made a response to her father that proved such a mix of modesty, confidence and dry humour that time and again his little speech was punctuated by appreciative bursts of laughter and applause. The crowd was still excited and the winner’s speech couldn’t have been more designed to please. The race goers had come to witness a good race and the Cup winner—a newcomer—had well and truly delivered. Not that anyone could really call him a newcomer. Heavens, he was a Cunningham! Cunningham was a name everyone knew. There was even a chance he might be able to save what was left of that once proud historic station, Jimboorie, though it would take a Herculean effort and a bottomless well of money.

‘Who the hell does he think he is?’ Scott muttered in Carrie’s ear, unable to credit the man ‘little Jimmy’ Cunningham, the urchin, had become. ‘And what’s with the posh voice?’

‘He is a Cunningham, Scott,’ Carrie felt obliged to point out. ‘It’s written all over him. And it may very well be he did get a good education.’

Scott snorted like an angry bull. ‘His father left here without a dime. Everyone knows that. Angus Cunningham might have sheltered them to spite the rest of his family but he couldn’t have paid his nephew anything in the way of wages. Reece Cunningham cut himself off from his own family when he married that little tramp.’

‘You know nothing about her, Scott.’ Carrie pulled away from him as discreetly as she could. ‘My mother says there was no proof whatsoever to any of the cruel stories that were circulated about her by the Cunninghams and the Campbells. Remember Clay’s father was expected to marry Elizabeth Campbell or Campbell-Moore as she is today.’

‘But the fool of a man didn’t,’ Scott retorted, staring down at her with a mixture of hurt and displeasure. ‘Whose side are you on anyway?’

She turned away from the glare in his eyes. ‘The side of fair mindedness, Scott. Now you’ll have to excuse me. Mamma wants me for more photographs.’

‘Go to her by all means.’ Scott bowed slightly. ‘I just hope Cunningham doesn’t plan on showing up tonight.’