The Cattleman

“Maybe, but it took me a while to see it.”

“At least you have,” Brett said dryly.

“Next time I’ll go for a Rhodes scholar,” she joked. “I’m not ready to settle down yet. I’m enjoying my life just the way it is.”

“Until the right guy comes along,” Brett murmured, sitting back and making a steeple of his long, elegant fingers. “Then you’ll change your mind. Have you managed to get that truly silly woman who never shuts up on side?”

“Ever so slowly,” she sighed. “The trouble with having too much money is it opens up too many options. Mrs. Siegal spends her time trolling through design magazines to the point she simply can’t decide whether she wants classical, traditional grandeur, lots of drama, ultramodern or a hybrid of the lot.”

“Give her pure theatre,” Brett advised. “The only trouble with that is De Vere’s puts its name to it. Maybe I should make an attempt to help her decide?”

Jessica looked at him. Her uncle was an elegant, austerely handsome man with fine features and an air of detachment. Extremely intelligent, he was inclined to be sharp-tongued, even caustic at times. His eyes were green. Like hers. His hair ash blond, again like hers. They shared the family face. Alex’s face. Alex’s coloring.

“Well?” he prompted breaking into her brief reverie.

“Why not? She fancies herself in love with you.” Indeed Brett’s air of unattainability drove some women wild.

“A lot of good that will do her,” he said with biting self-mockery.

“What I don’t get is they know you’re not interested, yet they fall in love with you all the same.”

“A bitter pill no woman worth her salt can swallow,” he returned. “It’s the Liz Taylor–Montgomery Clift syndrome. Women always want the man they can’t have.”

“Is that what it is?” Jessica swiveled a quarter turn in her black leather chair. “Be that as it may, at this point I need help.”

“Surely not the talented young woman short-listed for Best Contemporary Residential Project!” Brett raised a brow.

“It would be quite a coup to win it.”

“A coup, yes, but not beyond you. You’re good, Jass,” he said, giving his professional, uncompromised opinion. “I haven’t handed over a client who hasn’t been delighted with your services. In fact, I could say with some confidence that my mantle, when I go to the angels, will fall on you. You’re developing a following with your watercolor renderings of our clients’ favourite rooms. They love them. Single-handedly you’re reviving the old genre. Oh, and remember it was my idea.”

“Don’t I always give you credit?”

“Of course you do.”

It was Brett who had encouraged Jessica to turn her hobby of painting interiors in watercolors, an art project carried on from her student days, into a lucrative sideline. For the past year, she’d worked very successfully on half a dozen commissions, along with the major commission of designing the stage sets for the Bijou Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Maybe one day she would follow her uncle into designing stage and movie sets.

“Is that what you wanted to speak to me about, the Siegals?” she asked.

“That was the second thing. First—” Brett ruffled through his papers again, this time finding a long fax “—what do you know about Broderick Bannerman?”

“Bannerman…Bannerman…rings a bell.” Jessica sorted through her memory bank. “Hang on. Don’t tell me.” She held up a hand. “He’s the cattle baron, right? Flagship station, one of a chain, by name of something starting with an M…M…M…Mokhani, that’s it. Bannerman always figures in the Bulletin’s Rich List.”

“The very one.” Brett looked at her with approval. He leaned forward to hand over the fax, murmuring something complimentary about her powers of recall. “And he remembers you! He saw that interview on TV with the ubiquitous Bruce Hilton when he so easily could have missed it. That was just after you’d been short-listed for your award. Apparently he was so impressed he wants you to handle the interior design for his new temple in the wilds—‘temple’ is how some magazine described it. Lord knows what’s wrong with the original homestead. I’m sure I read somewhere it was magnificent, or at the very worst, eminently livable.”

Jessica, busy concentrating on the contents of the fax, lifted her head in amazement. “I don’t get this. With all the established interior designers in the country, let alone you, purely on the basis of the proverbial fifteen minutes of fame on a talk show, he’s singled out little ol’ me with scant history in the business and only twenty-four?”

“It would appear so,” Brett replied blandly. “Obviously he’s a man who can sum up someone on the spot. Remember, you’re a sophisticated twenty-four with natural gifts.”

“How could he want me when he could have you?” Jessica asked in some wonderment.

“How sweet you are, Jass.” Brett smiled. “In addition, you’re respectful. Look, just believe in yourself. Take risks. I’ve taught you everything you know. Between you and me and the paper bin, I’m the best in the business. If I tell you you’re ready, you’re ready. I’m thrilled he wants De Vere’s. I’m thrilled he wants you. For one thing, I love you, for another, there’s no way I’m heading off for the Northern Territory. The great Outback isn’t my scene, splendid though it is. Parts of it are downright eerie. Tim and I were quite spooked on our trip to the Red Centre. Wandering around the Olgas was a thoroughly unnerving experience. I could have sworn we were being watched by guardian spirits none too happy we were invading their territory. It was an extraordinary feeling and I’m told it’s not that unusual.”

“Well, it is sacred ground,” Jessica commented, having heard numerous tales about the Outback’s mystical ability to raise the hairs on the back of one’s neck. “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” she quoted. “Getting back to the cattle baron, or should I say, king? Did you know Nicole Kidman is a descendant of Sir Sydney Kidman, the original Cattle King?”

“Few of us have your mastery of trivia, Jass. No, I didn’t. Neither of them short of a bob.”

“Unlike us, Nicole has a wonderfully supportive family,” Jessica said. “Do you really think I’m ready for a project of this size?” she asked very seriously. The word had got around she was good, but she never thought an immensely rich Territorian would seek her services. Not for years and years.

Brett interlocked his hands behind his head, stretching his long, lean torso. “Are you doubting yourself?”

“I’m doing my best not to, but as I recall, Mr. Bannerman has a reputation for being ruthless. Who knows? Some of my designs mightn’t suit him. He could turn nasty. I read an article about him a year or two ago. A lot of people interviewed weren’t very fond of him, though most wisely insisted on having their names withheld. Word was, he did terrible things to them in business. His cattle stations represent only a fraction of Bannerman holdings. He’s into everything.”

“Don’t let that worry you. As long as he’s not into drugs. Then we’d have a problem.” Brett straightened, shoving a file across the table. “On the plus side, he makes large donations to charity. Might help with his tax, but apparently he wants to, so he can’t be all bad. He owns Lowanna Resort Island on the Great Barrier Reef. High-rise apartment blocks on the Gold Coast and the tourist strip in North Queensland, mining and exploration developments, foreign investments. He’s loaded.”

“Excessively rich clients are a pain in the neck,” Jessica said from very recent experience. “We must consider he might be even more impossible to work with than Chic Siegal.”

“Surely you’re not going to turn the commission down.” Brett shifted position, apparently trying, ineffectually, to make himself comfortable in his antique captain’s chair.

“I have no intention of turning it down. I want lots and lots of commissions. Still, before I sign up, there’s the small matter of crocodiles. They insist on getting their long snouts into the news.” In a recent event on a remote beach in far North Queensland, one had waddled up from the water, crossed the sand and entered a camper’s tent, dragging him out. All that had saved the hapless man was the incredibly brave action of a fellow camper, a grandmother in her sixties, who without hesitation had jumped on the crocodile’s back, then another camper had shot it.

Brett grimaced. “It was a remote beach. One must treat crocodiles with respect like the Territorians do. We talk about their crocs. They talk about our traffic accidents. I don’t imagine Bannerman has given crocs an open invitation to waddle around the station, anyway. Just think what could happen.”

“You don’t have to look so ghoulish. Speaking of which there was a big mystery on Mokhani many years ago.” Jessica frowned, dredging her memory for more information. “Surely it’s been the subject of articles over the years?”

“‘The Mokhani Mystery,’ as it came to be called,” Brett said, having read a few of the articles.

“Didn’t a governess disappear?”

“So she did,” Brett said briskly, apparently not really wanting to talk about the old story. “It made front-page news at the time. But for years now everything about it’s been quiet, though I’m surprised someone hasn’t written a book about it. Horrible business, but not recent. It must be all of fifty years ago. Which reminds me my big five-oh is coming. Aging is not fun.”

“Don’t take it to heart. You’ve never looked better.” Jessica was sincere. “Anyway, you can always do what Becky does. Birthday every three years like the elections.”

“Women can get away with these things. What’s the old saying? ‘If a woman tells you her age, she’ll tell you anything.’ I look after myself and I don’t smoke. At least not for years now. Couldn’t do without my wine cellar, but wine in moderation is good for you. I’ll be very angry if the medical profession suddenly disputes it. But back to Bannerman. You can be sure he’s put up plenty of signs warning visitors about nomadic crocodiles.”

“You think a crocodile may have taken the governess?” Jessica asked with some horror.

“How can one not hate them?” Brett shuddered. “Poor little soul. I can just see her picnicking without a care in the world beside a lagoon and up pops a prehistoric monster. There have been a few cases of that in North Queensland in recent times.”

“More likely in one particular case the husband pushed her into the lagoon,” Jessica offered darkly, having come to that conclusion along with a lot of other people, including the investigating police officer, who just couldn’t prove it. “I can’t believe you’re sending me up there.”

“Sweetie, you’re at no risk.” Brett took her seriously when she was only teasing. “I’ll be very surprised if you even lay eyes on a crocodile. I understand the station is a good way inland.”

“I hope so, but I’m sure I’ve read it’s within striking distance of Kakadu National Park, World Heritage area, reputed to be fabulous and home of the crocodile.”

“I’m quite sure you’ll be safe. The very last thing in the world I want is to have my favourite niece vanish into the wilderness. I love you dearly.”

“I love you, too,” Jessica answered. She resumed reading the fax. “He’d like me to be in Darwin by Monday, the twenty-second where I’ll be picked up at Darwin airport and taken to the station. The twenty-second! That’s two weeks away.” Her green eyes widened.