Argentinian in the Outback

“Permit me to say you are very much on the defensive, Ava. You know perfectly well I do not.” The sonorous voice had hardened slightly. “Dev will surely offer you a place on the board of your family company?”

“If I want a place, yes,” she acknowledged.

He gave her another long, dark probing look. “So you are not really the businesswoman?”

She shook her head. “I have to admit it, no. But I have a sizeable chunk of equity in Langdon Enterprises. Eventually I will take my place.”

“You should. There would be something terribly wrong if you didn’t. You want children?”

She answered that question with one of her own. “Do you?”

He gave her his fascinating, enigmatic half-smile. “Marriage first, then children. The correct sequence.”

“Used to be,” she pointed out with more than a touch of irony. “Times have changed, Varo.”

“Not in my family,” he said, with emphasis. “I do what is expected of me, but I make my own choices.”

“You have a certain woman in mind?”

It would be remarkable if he didn’t. She had the certainty this dynamic man had a dozen dazzling women vying for his attention.

“Not at the moment, no,” he told her with nonchalance. “I enjoy the company of women. I would never be without women in my life.”

“But no one as yet to arouse passion?” She was amazed she had even asked the question, and aware she was moving into dangerous territory.

Her enquiring look appeared to him both innocent and seductive at one and the same time. Did she know it? This wasn’t your usual femme fatale. There was something about her that made a man want to protect her. Possibly that was a big mistake. One her husband had made?

“I don’t think I said that,” he countered after a moment. “Who knows? I may have already succumbed to your undoubted charms, Ava.”

She raised a white hand to wave a winged insect away—or perhaps to dismiss his remark as utterly frivolous. “It would do you no good, Varo. I’m still a married woman. And I suspect you might be something of a legend back in Argentina.”

“Perdón—perdonare!” he exclaimed. “Surely you mean as a polo player?” He pinned her gaze.

Both of them knew she had meant as a lover. “I’m looking forward to seeing you in action at the weekend.” She declined to answer, feeling hot colour in her cheeks. “It should be a thrilling match. We’re all polo-mad out here.”

“As at home. Polo is the most exciting game in the world.”

“And possibly the most dangerous,” she tacked on. “Dev has taken a few spectacular spills in his time.”

He answered with an elegant shrug of one shoulder. “As have I. That is part of it. You are an accomplished rider,” he commented, his eyes on her slender body, sitting so straight but easy in the saddle. Such slenderness lent her a deceptive fragility, contradicted by the firmness with which she handled her spirited bright chestnut mare.

“I should be.” Ava’s smile became strained as memories flooded in. “My grandfather threw me up on a horse when I was just a little kid—around four. I remember my mother was beside herself with fright. She thought I would be hurt. He took no notice of her. Mercifully I took to riding like a duck to water. A saving grace in the eyes of my grandfather. As a woman, all that was expected of me was to look good and produce more heirs for the continuation of the Devereaux-Langdon dynasty. At least I was judged capable of expanding the numbers, if not the fortune. A man does that. I expect in his own way so does Dev. Every man wants a son to succeed him, and a daughter to love and cherish, to make him proud. I suppose you know my grandfather left me a fortune? I don’t have to spend one day working if I choose not to.”

“Why work at anything when one can spend a lifetime having a good time?” he asked on a satirical note.

“Something like that. Only I need to contribute.”

“I’m sure you shall. You need time to re-set your course in life. All things are possible if one has a firm belief in oneself. Belief in oneself sets us free.”

“It’s easier to dream about being free than to accomplish it,” she said, watching two blue cranes, the Australian brolgas, getting set to land on the sandy banks of one of the lagoons.

“You thought perhaps marriage would set you free?” he shot back.

“I’m wondering if you want my life story, Varo?” Her eyes sparkled brightly, as if tears weren’t all that far away.

“Not if you’re in no hurry to tell me,” he returned gently, then broke off, his head set in a listening position. “You hear that?”

They reined in their horses. “Yes.” Her ears too were registering the sound of pounding hooves.

Her mare began to skip and dance beneath her. In the way of horses, the mare was scenting some kind of danger. De Montalvo quietened his big bay gelding with a few words in Spanish which the gelding appeared to understand, because it ceased its skittering. Both riders were now holding still, their eyes trained on the open savannah that fanned out for miles behind them.

In the next moment they had their answer. Runaway horse and hapless rider, partially obscured by the desert oaks dotted here and there, suddenly burst into full view.

De Montalvo broke the fraught silence. “He’s in trouble,” he said tersely.

“It’s a workhorse.” Ava recognised that fact immediately, although she couldn’t identify the rider. He was crouched well down over his horse’s back, clinging desperately to the flowing black mane. Feet were out of the stirrups; the reins were flailing about uselessly. “It’s most likely one of our jackeroos,” she told him with anxiety.

“And he’s heading right for that belt of trees,” De Montalvo’s expression was grim. “If he can’t pull up he’s finished. Terminado!” He pulled the big bay’s head around as he spoke.

The area that lay dead ahead of the station hand’s mad gallop was heavily wooded, dense with clumps of ironwood, flowering whitewoods and coolabahs that stood like sentinels guarding the billabong Ava knew was behind them. The petrified rider was in deep trouble, but hanging on for dear life. He would either be flung off in a tumble of broken bones or stay on the horse’s back, only to steer at speed into thick overhanging branches. This surely meant a broken neck.

“Stay here,” de Montalvo commanded.

It was an order, but oddly she didn’t feel jarred by it. There was too much urgency in the situation.

She sat the mare obediently while de Montalvo urged the powerful bay gelding into a gallop. Nothing Zephyr liked better than to gallop, Ava thought with a sense of relief. Nothing Zephr liked better than to catch and then overtake another horse. That was the thoroughbred in him.

The unfortunate man had long since lost his hat. Now Ava recognised the red hair. It was that Bluey lad—a jackeroo. She couldn’t remember his surname. But it was painfully clear he was no horseman. One could only wonder what had spooked his horse. A sand goanna, quite harmless but capable of giving a nervous horse a fright? Goannas liked to pick their mark too, racing alongside horse and rider as though making an attempt to climb the horse’s sleek sides. A few cracks of the whip would have settled the matter, frightening the reptile off. But now the young jackeroo was heading full pelt for disaster.

Ava held up a hand to shield her eyes from the blazing sun. Little stick figures thrown up by the mirage had joined the chase, their legs running through the heated air. She felt incredibly apprehensive. Señor de Montalvo was their guest. He was a magnificent rider, but what he was attempting held potential danger for him if he persisted with the wild chase. If he were injured … If he were injured … She found herself praying without moving her dry lips.

Varo had been obliged to come at the other horse from an oblique angle. She watched in some awe as he began to close in on the tearaway station horse that most likely had started life as a wild brumby. Even in a panic the workhorse couldn’t match the gelding for speed. Now the two were racing neck and neck. The finish line could only be the wall of trees—which could prove to be as deadly as a concrete jungle.

Ava’s breath caught in her throat. She saw Varo lean sideways out of his saddle, one hand gripping his reins and the pommel, the other lunging out and down for the runaway’s reins. A contest quickly developed. Ava felt terribly shaken, not knowing what to expect. She found herself gripping her own horse’s sides and crying out, “Whoa, boy, whoa!” even though she was far from the action. She could see Varo’s powerful gelding abruptly change its long stride. He reined back extremely hard while the gelding’s gleaming muscles bunched beneath its rider. Both horses were acting now in a very similar fashion. Only a splendid horseman had taken charge of them, bringing them under tight control.

The mad flight had slowed to a leg-jarring stop. Red dust flew in a circling cloud, earth mixed up with pulped grasses and wildflowers. “Thank God!” Ava breathed. She felt bad enough. Bluey was probably dying of fright. What of Varo? What an introduction to their world!

The headlong flight was over. She had a feeling Bluey wasn’t going to hold on to his job. She was sure she had heard of another occasion when Bluey had acted less than sensibly. At least he was all right. That was the important thing. There had been a few tragic stories on Kooraki. None more memorable than the death in a stampede of Mike Norton, Sarina Norton’s husband but not, as it was later revealed, Amelia’s actual father. Sarina Norton was one beautiful but malevolent woman, loyal to no one outside herself.

Ava headed off towards the two riders who had sought the shade to dismount. Her mare’s flying hooves disturbed a group of kangaroos dozing under one of the big river gums. They began to bound along with her.

It was an odd couple she found. Bluey, hardly more than a madcap boy, was shivering and shaking, white as a sheet beneath the orange mantling of freckles on his face. Varo showed no sign whatsoever of the recent drama, except for a slick of sweat across his high cheekbones and the tousling of his thick coal-black hair. Even now she had to blink at the powerful magnetism of his aura.

He came forward as she dismounted, holding the mare’s reins. They exchanged a measured, silent look. “All’s well that ends well, as the saying goes.” He used his expressive voice to droll effect. Far from being angry in any way, he was remarkably cool, as though stopping runaway horses and riders was a lesson he had learned long ago.

Ava was not cool. He was their guest. “What in blue blazes was that exhibition all about?” she demanded of the hapless jackeroo. She watched in evident amazement as the jackeroo attempted a grin.

“I reckon I oughta stick to motorbikes.”