Outback Surrender

“We’ve another party of Japanese tourists due in a month,” Shelley confirmed.

“Aren’t you an enterprising young woman? But I never thought you’d get into this business. If you’re ever pushed and you need help let me know. I mean that, Shelley.”

“I know you do, Miss Crompton. Thank you.” Shelley reached over the high counter and touched Harriet’s fragile wrist. “You’re a good friend.” She moved back as other diners approached the lobby.

“Don’t forget about our showing.” Harriet reminded Shelley of their discussion.

“When I’ve got time.”

“It’ll be fun! Come again!” Harriet called.

On their way back to the hotel they stopped to sit on a park bench. The sky was swept with stars, a huge silver moon bathing the little oasis in a dreamlike radiance. A white haze hung over the creek, the broad sheet of water filled with spangled reflections.

Shelley ran her hands down her arms. A cool wind from the desert, where it was always cold at night, rushed through the darkly coloured trees, sending long shadows and spent leaves dancing across the broad expanse of grass. They weren’t far off the street, with its old-fashioned lamps in full bloom, yet Shelley felt very much alone with Brock. It was as if no one and nothing existed but them. Even the noise of the town, tonight full of people, had faded away.

As Brock remained silent, obviously lost in thought, Shelley tilted her head towards the dazzling sky. The stars were like tiny blazing fires in that black velvet backdrop. She had no difficulty at all picking out her favourite constellations. The galaxy of the Milky Way, a broad diamond-encrusted avenue, Orion the mighty hunter, Pleiades, the Seven Sisters in the constellation Taurus, the Southern Cross, worshipped by the aboriginal people. These constellations had looked down on the Great South Land since the dawn of creation.

“What do the skies over Ireland look like?” she asked softly, unable to shake the feeling of a most wonderful isolation. Just the two of them.

It took a moment for Brock to reply. In truth, though he’d loved his time in Ireland, with its close family ties, his heart had hungered for his desert home. “Not like ours. They don’t have this immense clarity. Nothing can match our desert sky. By day a blazing cloudless blue, by night an overwhelming glory. A man can almost reach up and grasp a pocketful of fabulous jewels.

“Ireland is another world, Shelley. It’s teeming with a different kind of beauty. Australia would seem a stupendous size to an Irishman, as it would have to the early settlers. Our landscape, with an immense wilderness at its heart, is savage compared with theirs. Ours is vast in size, where theirs is small and contained.

“That country and its people inspire both love and sorrow. My grandmother’s relatives took us under their wing. They couldn’t have been warmer or more supportive, or more brilliantly funny. They’re great storytellers and they’re wonderfully skilled with horses. But as to the climate! Outback people like us would think we were on another planet. Unlike here, where a single downpour is a divine blessing, it actually rains all the time there. Not great torrential floods, like here, but a perennial fine mist. Consequently the countryside is always emerald-green. You’d be right at home there, Shelley. Like Leanan-Sidhe, the muse of poets.”

“Is she a water faerie?” she asked, with a sense of being caught up in something outside her control.

“No, but she’s a very lovely creature indeed, with long floating red hair and emerald eyes.”

“As long as she’s not a water sprite,” Shelley said, stabbed by a grief never far from her. “Their sole delight is drowning children.”

Instinctively Brock found himself encircling her shoulders. “How did I get onto that theme? Insensitive fool that I am.”

“No, it’s all right.” She shook her head. “Our grandmother, Moira, was forever filling our heads with fairy tales. Some of them were scary, but she used to tell them all the same. One of her stories was about the Asrai. They’re delicate little female faeries who swim up to the surface of lakes and waterholes and billabongs to capture your attention. But as soon as you put out your hand they melt away. I’ve often thought maybe Sean saw one. Some beautiful little creature, almost visible. He just had to lean in. Something pulled him down to a watery grave.”

“Don’t break my heart, Shelley,” Brock warned, drawing her closer to his body. This was no streamlined seduction, but an inherent tenderness he was mostly at pains to hide. “What heart I have left.” His tone dipped ironically.

“We’re damaged people, Brock,” she murmured as the thought came to her.

“Childhood trauma has abiding effects,” he agreed, total empathy in his voice. “But you should have been helped to find your way out of it.” Somehow her red-gold head had sunk onto his shoulder—or had he placed it there? Most probably, but she wasn’t pulling away. “My story’s not like yours, Shelley, though we both come from badly integrated families. Have you never spoken to anyone—a professional—about your childhood trauma and the time since?”

“Who could I speak to, Brock? I lead an isolated existence. I never even have need to see a doctor, though I admire and respect Dr Sarah at Koomera Bush Hospital. She tries hard to help my mother, but Mum has joined forces with her terrible depression. She won’t make the attempt to fight out of it. And Dad is very bitter about life. He lost his son. His only son. Sons are important to a man, especially a man like Dad. If it had come to choosing which twin had to be sacrificed it would have been me, no question.”

“How do you continue to love him when he leaves you out in the emotional cold?” he asked with a rush of impatience.

She stiffened slightly.

“Don’t go away.” His hand soothed her.

“My parents continue to suffer, Brock,” she pointed out, her body relaxing. “They don’t need me to hate them.”

“Which makes you a little saint?” His tone was dry.

“I didn’t say I don’t have my bad days when I’m faced with the question: What am I doing staying around, working so hard?” she retorted. “It’s such a struggle, yet no one seems to care. Far from being a saint—and I know you’re having a go at me—I have an underlying anger at the way I’m treated. But I guess the bottom line is I’ll never abandon my family.”

“Surely you’ll marry?” he asked crisply. “One wonders why some enterprising guy—which automatically excludes my cousin—hasn’t swept you off your feet already?”

“Perhaps he’d recognise I come with too much baggage to allow for any real development,” she suggested, straightening before she found herself lying against his chest.

“I saw Philip’s face tonight. I’d say he was very much in love with you. Just seeing you with me blew him apart.”

She was desperately aware of his closeness, his arm lying along the park bench just behind her shoulders, the glimmer of his pale shirt, the male scent of him. “I can’t help the fact Philip has formed an attachment. Ours is a relatively small community and he’s partnered me at dances. We see one another at every social occasion. We talk a lot. But, I repeat, there’s no love affair that I’m aware of.”

“You’d better tell him that,” he said bluntly.

“Anyway, his mother thinks he should drop me. I’m not good enough.” She said it with a trace of black humour.

“Then she’s got very poor judgement. Say, you’re shivering. Are you cold?”

She rubbed her bare arms. They were faintly chilled by the desert breeze. “When we start walking I’ll warm up. This blouse is quite sheer.”

“Just the sort of blouse I like.” His voice was a deep purr. “Listen, I’m sorry I don’t have anything to put around your shoulders. Except my arm, of course. So come along, Shelley.” He stood up, extended his hand. “We’ll make our way back to the pub.”

The friendly gallantry should have worked. They should have gone on their way with nothing sexual to complicate the evening. Only that never happened. Brock was a man on the edge, his hard desire for this spirited little redhead spiralling.

Even the wind was his co-conspirator. Gradually it had increased in strength, becoming a whirling force. It began to tug at her hair. Though she immediately put up her hand it had no difficulty loosening the pins that held the glittery loops in place. It slid and uncoiled through her fingers.

He hadn’t reckoned on this, so he wasn’t really to blame, was he? Her ability to move him, to capture his attention when he knew he should disengage, quite simply overrode his best intentions. He didn’t need or want involvement, but the sight of her with her arms behind her head, tussling with her beautiful long windblown hair, her slender body in a spin in an effort to throw off curling skeins that lashed her face with silk, played on his erotic imagination, giving him immense pleasure.

Her laughter was so young, so carefree, like ripples of silver. Surely it summoned any red-blooded man to pull her into his arms?

A tremble ran down his strong forearms. He imagined her in his embrace even before she was there. There was no question of pausing, of caution, or even catching his breath. He gave his passionate nature full rein, taking small comfort in the fact that he hadn’t planned any of it. This was a means to assuage his sick hunger, the griefs that could destroy him.

Heart torn, he hauled her to him so it was impossible for her to escape, stopping her laughing mouth with his own, feeling the impact run through his body like flame. For an instant her soft lips didn’t move beneath his—he’d shocked her—but he parted them with his tongue, whispering her name into her open mouth.

“Shelley!” It was a marvellous feeling. The child he had known the whole of her life had turned into a beguiling woman. A woman with enough power to bewitch him.

“What are you doing, Brock?” Shelley gasped, overcome by sensation. Even the moon and stars faded to nothing. There was only his body, his hands, his mouth. His physical presence so familiar to her, yet totally foreign.

“Kissing you,” he muttered, struggling with the torment to go further. He should stop, but he couldn’t. Not from the moment he found her lips.

Only she was so unprepared for it. “Wait.” She put a hand to his chest.

“Wait what? Am I going too fast for you?”

She ought to say, yes, but the mounting forces seemed colossal.

He pulled her back to him, drinking her in like a draught of wine.