Home To Eden

He didn’t answer for a few moments, apparently preferring to concentrate on collecting her heavy suitcases and depositing them on the trolley, a task he made look effortless. “Like you I’m a traveler returning home. You are returning home, Nicole?”

She ran her tongue over her dry lips. “Yes. Were you on the flight from Sydney? I didn’t see you.”

“Maybe I didn’t want you to,” he found himself saying unkindly, for he hadn’t sighted her, either.

She winced slightly in response to his tone. “So things haven’t changed, it seems.” The last time she’d seen him, in June, it was at a picnic race meeting when inevitably their conversation, civil to begin with, had degenerated into passionate confrontation. Grievances were ageless.

“No.” His features hardened, but there was also a kind of sadness there.

“Have you picked up your luggage yet?” she asked, simply for something to say. She was unnerved, amazed it was so, when for some years now they had lived in different worlds, coming into contact only when she was home. The place of her birth, though vast in size, was populated by a relative handful of people. Station people all knew one another. They were invited to the same functions and gatherings as a matter of course. She rarely refused an invitation when she was home, even if she knew perfectly well Drake would be there.

“I didn’t have luggage, only an overnight bag,” Drake replied over his shoulder. “It’s with my driver. I’m flying out of Archerfield. The plane’s there. How are you getting home?”

No smile. Curt tone. Always the overtones of authority.

“I’m not ready to go home yet, Drake.” She studied his compelling face for a few seconds, then looked away. It made no sense to ache for what you weren’t allowed. “I’m too tired. Too much traveling. I can’t sleep on planes.”

“Neither can I.” He gazed down at her moodily. “So what’s the plan? Stay overnight at a hotel and fly on tomorrow?”

“Something like that.” She flipped back a stray tendril, conscious she was swaying slightly on her feet and unable to do much about it.

His hand shot out to steady her. “You look utterly played out.”

“Thank you, Drake,” she responded wryly, immediately aware of skin on skin, the crackling tension between them.

He dropped his hand abruptly. “Where are you staying?”

“The Sheraton.”

“Then I’ll give you a lift into the city.”

She shook her head, feeling extraordinarily close to tears. Exhaustion, of course. “You don’t have to do that, Drake.”

“I know,” he said, “but since I’ve known you all your life, I don’t feel right leaving you when you’re so obviously jet-lagged. My driver is waiting outside.”

She hesitated, hoping against hope the usual antagonism wouldn’t flare up. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“Right, well…I have to say yes and thank you. But I’m taking you out of your way, aren’t I?”

“It would hardly be the first time,” he said tersely. “I suppose I could change my plans to accommodate yours. It won’t matter much. We could fly back tomorrow. The alternative for you would be many more hours spent arranging connecting flights.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.” She spoke quietly, feeling all the distrust and conflicts just below the surface.

“Why not? It’s not as though you don’t have enough on your plate. I heard your father is back on Eden.”

She shrugged. “Heath Cavanagh?”

“There’s no remote possibility your father is anyone else.” The last time they’d met, they’d managed to fight bitterly about her paternity. Accusations full of impotence, despair and fury. The acridity still hung in the air between them.

“Don’t let’s go over that again.” Her breathing was ragged.

“It’d please me greatly never to hear you insinuate it again.”

“What do you know, anyway, Drake?” She stared directly into his dark eyes.

“I know you’re your own worst enemy.” As had happened so many times in the past, their conversation jumped to the deeply personal. No in-betweens. “You’re incredibly bitter about your father.”

“And you aren’t?” Her eyes blazed.

Briefly he touched her arm, a calming gesture that nevertheless had steel in it.

“No one could call us friends anymore, could they, Drake.” She made an effort to pull herself together, conscious that people were looking their way.

Drake moved to the relative privacy of a broad column. “Fate took care of that,” he said dryly, “but we’re still neighbors.”

“So we are. We get invited to the same places.”

“How else would I have seen you in the last five years?” he went on, looking into her face. “Christmas parties, a wedding or two, polo matches…the last time, a picnic race meeting. One has to be grateful for small mercies. Things could change if you really wanted them to, Nicole. You have one solution at hand for this ongoing cause of conflict.”

Hope spurted, died. “You’re talking my father, DNA?” She tipped her head. Tall herself, she still had to look up at him.

“It would settle the paternity issue once and for all.” There was challenge in his voice.

“I couldn’t bring myself to ask him.”

“You don’t have to ask him.”

“I need permission. That’s how it works.”

He kept his eyes on her. “You have a question. I have the answer. The decision is up to you. So far you’ve just made things hard for yourself. And me, too.”

She shrugged, conscious of the truth of his claim. “Have you seen him?”

“I don’t normally pop over to Eden to say hello.”

“Once you did.”

“Yes.” Images of her as a bright and beautiful young girl flashed into his mind. She’d been quite the tomboy, determined, adventurous, brave in her way. Never the sort of kid that tagged along like her cousin, Joel. She had a wonderful natural way with horses, too, which had created an additional bond between them, plus a great love of their awe-inspiring desert homeland.

“Heath is supposed to be dying,” she found herself confiding. “At least that’s what Siggy said.”

“Why does it sound like you doubt her?” He couldn’t help frowning.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” she said, stalling. “In fact, I don’t want to talk about Heath Cavanagh at all. He’s not a very nice man. He could have blood on his hands. You McClellands long believed it.” She drew a breath, and her next words held a conciliatory note. “I’m afraid of going home, Drake. That’s why I don’t go home.”

“Do you think you have to tell me that?” he responded, his voice rough with emotion. He wanted to reach out for her. Comfort her. Once he would have. “We’d better cut short this conversation,” he suggested. “You’re sagging on your feet. I can’t leave you here while I fly back home alone. I just can’t. I’d be abandoning you to a series of very tiring flights.”