Outback Fire

My country! She thought as she gazed out the window. This infinite red land shimmering beneath the blazing blue vault of the sky. The liberating feel of it! The scent of the bush, the sunlit trees, the sight of horses and stockmen, working dogs, great herds of cattle. This was where her heart was and she had been driven away. It was like a great weight on her heart the way her father had cut her out of what she always thought of as her heritage. He had excluded her from all station business. He’d never discussed with her anything pertaining to the McFarlane operations, which were big. Women weren’t supposed to bother their pretty little heads with such things. A woman’s job was to look after her man. Have the babies. Run the homesteads. There a woman could reign supreme. She could be as active as she liked in women’s affairs, but she shouldn’t aspire to learning the business.

For years she had tried, bewildered by her father’s attitude in this day and age. She had a good brain—she had to accept there were a few limitations attached to her sex—but letting her into the charmed circle, the men’s club, would have made life tolerable. Why were heirs much more valued than heiresses? she agonized. She couldn’t understand it. For years it had made her singularly unhappy. Sometimes when she faced the naked truth she saw clearly that Luke had always treated her as an equal. Maybe even put her up on pedestal. Instead of being a comfort, it had made her resent him. Other feelings she had for him were so subterranean she had even managed to keep them from herself.