An Outback Affair/Runaway Wife/Outback Bridegroom/Outback Surrender/Home To Eden (41 page)

“So what?” Amanda looked at her sister in disgust. “It's money we're talking about. Position. That homestead. It's still pretty grand but run down. Frances has never been allowed to touch it, but you could. We're both very artistic. Phil can hire people—an overseer, manager—who could do all the work.”

“He has his cousin Brock,” Shelley said simply. “Brock is family. He too is a grandson.”

Amanda gave her a long, knowing look. “You don't really believe Kingsley will set Brock above Philip? Philip is the elder, and he's the one who stayed. If everything we've heard is correct Brock's not going to get a razoo.”

Shelley drank in the heavy scent of frangipani from the
garden. “One wonders why his grandfather got him home, then?”

For a moment the sisters regarded one another in silence. “One wonders why he came?” Amanda said finally.

“Why not? When it comes right down to it a lot of Brockway money was poured into Kingsley Holdings. Don't we all believe—and the facts bear it out—that Rex Kingsley talked his wife into handing over all her money?”

“Why wouldn't he?” Sarcasm from Amanda. “He's a truly greedy, manipulative man.”

“Brock has Brockway blood in his veins,” Shelley reminded her. “His grandmother adored him, but then she had to go and die.”

“Perhaps she was glad to.” Amanda laughed cynically. “I wouldn't want to be in Rex Kingsley's shoes right now. There's a final reckoning.”

“I believe there is,” Shelley said quietly. “Brock has been treated very badly. Philip told you about his mother?”

Amanda flapped at an insect buzzing around her buttery curls. “That she died?”

“Poor woman! She didn't have much of a life.”

“And whose fault was that?” Amanda suddenly challenged, oddly agitated. “You've got to want things out of life. You've got to have goals and go after them. You can't get yourself stuck in the bloody bush. Why did she and her husband return to Mulgaree? Okay, so she went back to her father, but she must have known what to expect.”

“She had a baby and no money, Amanda. She was young, more vulnerable than most, given how she was reared. The princess who was never let out of the castle. Kingsley saw to that.”

“She had a husband,” Amanda countered.

“I can't answer that question, Mandy. The poor woman is dead. But Brock is here once more, and he's the man for the job.”

“God, you'd better not let Philip or his mother hear you say that,” Amanda warned, hitching the skirt of her sun
dress over her pretty knees. “You hardly know Brock anyway. I know him better than you do. You were just a kid when he left. You really should have invited him over, but I suppose it didn't occur to you? Too harried with the shopping?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

“What?” Amanda sat bolt upright. “What did he say?”

“He said he'd come.”

“That's absolutely great!” Amanda's pert face lit up, blue eyes asparkle. “Just occasionally you do something right. I used to think going back a way that Brock was kind of interested in me.”

“You were interested in him, more likely.” Shelley corrected, a little more tartly than she'd intended. Brock and Amanda? No, no, no!

“Well, he wasn't interested in you, that's for sure,” Amanda responded, pouring on the acid. “What will happen when Phil finds out that you've got a soft spot for Brock? You'd be a real fool to jeopardize your relationship. Especially now, when he's right on the brink of his reward. You'd better tell him Brock's coming over to see
me
. He'll accept that. I'm very popular with the guys.” She adjusted the strap of her pink sundress, cut low in front and undeniably sexy.

“Maybe I'd better leave it to you to tell Dad that I've invited Brock,” Shelley said. “He accepts things much better from you.”

“No problem. Dad loves me. I'm his firstborn.” Amanda, as usual, was quite complacent about the open favouritism. She looked flushed, unable to suppress the sudden burst of excitement. “Besides, for all we know Brock might fall passionately in love with me.”

“I'll be amazed if he does,” Shelley said dryly.

“You should try to deal with your jealousy, Shel. I hate it when you get like that.”

“I'm just being realistic,” Shelley warned. “I don't know that you're Brock's type, Mandy.”

“He's a man, isn't he?” Amanda drawled, lacing her fingers and then stretching her arms above her head with voluptuous grace. “So we didn't hit it off in the old days? I've had quite a bit of experience since then. If Brock somehow gets himself back into Kingsley's good graces, in particular back into his will, then that will make all the difference in the world. We'll know I've found the right man to go after.” Amanda laid a cool hand on top of her sister's. “You know, Shel, this sounds strangely like fate.”

Shelley realized with a jolt that her sister was serious.

Here we go again, she thought. If and whenever Brock took time to visit, one thing was certain: Amanda was going to come on real strong. Fantasy fulfilment was Amanda's thing. For once in her life Shelley wasn't sure she could watch it.

 

Brock's grandfather lay in the massive oak bed, his once towering frame oddly slight beneath the tight coverings on the bed. It gave him no joy to witness this shocking deterioration. Like his cousin, he didn't care to see his larger-than-life grandfather so diminished. Even the stern, handsome face had changed. It had lost its forbidding expression. Despite the sudden sparseness, the matting of his pewter-coloured hair, the pronounced pallor and the deep grooves that ran from nose to mouth and down the chin, Rex Kingsley looked at peace with himself and his past.

A nurse in a white uniform sat composedly beside his bed, ankles touching, hands folded neatly in her lap. She was middle-aged and competent-looking, with narrow glasses perched on her nose.

“Oh, it's you, Mr Tyson,” she said, looking up, her face brightening.

“How is he?” he asked quietly.

“Not good today. But he's been hoping to see you.”

“Thank you, Nurse. I'll sit with him for a while. You can take a break.”

“Is there something I can get you?” she asked, almost whispering. “Tea, coffee?”

“Nothing. I'm fine.” He gave her a smile.

“I won't be far away.” Colour rose in her cheeks.

“Thank you.” He took her place in the chair beside his grandfather's extraordinary Victorian bed. It was Gothic in style, the rich claret-coloured hangings held in place by sumptuous tasselled tie-backs. This was the bed he'd die in for sure.

Things would change dramatically with his grandfather gone. Philip's mother, Frances, was already pushing herself forward as the mistress of Mulgaree, as mother to the heir apparent.

Oh, my God, what am I doing here? Brock thought, half covering his face with his hand. He hated this man. Not so much for what he had done to him, but to his mother. Why were you so cruel to her? Given you loved her once, why did you turn on her? For loving my father, a man you apparently despised?

Yet his mother had always insisted his father had been anything but a weak man. On the contrary, he'd felt outraged and angry trapped at Mulgaree. The only thing that had kept him there was the strength of his love for her and for his child.

What price had he paid?

He'd always believed his grandfather had been mixed up in his father's disappearance. There were layers and layers of treachery and cunning behind that grey near-sepulchral face on the pillow. How else could he have inflicted endless bullying on people he was supposed to care about? Finally, without quite knowing how, Philip and Frances had managed to turn Kingsley against them completely and they'd been out. Banished.

Now he knew it had really been an escape. He and his mother had retreated from an unwinnable battle. Yet his mother had always maintained “You are the future of Mulgaree, my darling. The power will be yours.”

He could hear her voice resonate in his head. So easy to believe it when love and reverence for the land ran through his blood. It was the one thing about him the old man had been able to understand.

My grandfather. My enemy. Why should I trust him to rewrite his will?

“I'll be looking out for you” was the last thing his mother had said. He wondered if anyone who passed over to the other side really could.

He wondered about Shelley Logan, who had offered him two things last night. An extraordinary relief from grief and a much too dangerous excitement. Shelley knew too much about pain for him to wish to hurt her further. And hurt her he would if he took over his grandfather's mantle.

Maybe he even had some of Kingsley's ruthlessness in him? Maybe he would take on some of Kingsley's personality if he stepped into the role? The years he'd been away from his grandfather and Mulgaree he'd had a good image of himself. Important people he'd admired had depended on him, trusted him. He had made many friends.

But now he was back and the old darkness had descended so quickly.

There was so much trauma surrounding the old man. Yet he knew which grandson must win if it came to a fight to inherit. Who had the stamina, the superior strength. Who could hold what he had built up together. It wasn't benevolence or contrition that had caused Kingsley to beg him to come home. It was the fear his dream might come to an end in the wrong hands. No matter how much he might loathe Brock, he needed him to govern his empire after his death. And now that he had him home Kingsley was going to die happy in the knowledge that his name and his life's work would survive. It was one of life's serious riddles how even the worst never dared go against blood.

Brock took his hand away from his head, suddenly realizing with a shock that his grandfather was staring at him.

“Who are you?” his grandfather demanded hoarsely. “Get away from me.”

His face was so stricken Brock couldn't control an instinctive pity. “I'm your grandson. You wanted me home, remember? Look long and hard. It's Brock.”

Kingsley continued to stare at him as if he were his mortal enemy. “Stay away!” he cried, looking terrified. “Get back.”

Brock released an explosion of breath, instantly rising to his feet. “Calm yourself, old man. I'm going.” It was obviously the painkilling drugs disturbing Kingsley's mind.

“Let me die in peace.”

Was it possible that tears squeezed out of the old man's eyes? “I won't bother you.” Brock, who worried he had a chunk of the old man in him, responded to the anguish. His grandfather looked already dead. “I'll send your nurse back.”

The sigh from the bed was like a death rattle. “I destroyed you.” For a moment Kingsley was lucid.

“Is that it?” Brock turned back to demand. “You mean to cut me out? Is that why you brought me back here? To continue our rift?”

“Where is my daughter? Where is Catherine?” Now Kingsley's face was alight with feverish anxiety.

“She's dead,” Brock answered harshly, trying to calm himself but tremendously upset at the sound of his mother's name. “Like you soon will be.” You killed her, he thought, but he didn't have the cruelty in him to say it. “She's free at last.”

“Dear God, Daniel.” The voice from the bed now issued so powerfully it caught Brock by surprise.

Rex Kingsley with a supreme effort cleared his brain. He was so full of pain. Pain that seared through his body like a licking, burning trail of fire. It was agonizing. The pain had all but defeated him. Another man would not have survived so long. The drugs that were meant to shut down the poker-hot agony were all but useless after the shortest time.

“Daniel—here. Come back here.” He had to end this battle. Buried deep inside him the love for his younger grandson was struggling to find a way out.

“What is it you want?” Brock moved back towards the bed. “You need me, don't you, Grandfather? How can you bear it?”

Astonishingly, Kingsley grabbed his hand, held on as though in human contact the terrible pain could be made bearable. “You were a boy who felt no fear at all. The grandson I always wanted. Not content to live an ordinary life. I knew I loved you.”

“Is that what caused you to treat me so badly?” Brock asked with deep bitterness. “Make or break?”

“You were wild.” Kingsley held onto his hand, though Brock made an attempt to withdraw it. “I was obliged to. But I was proud of you. Proud of the way you could disappear into thin air. I sent men looking for you, our best aboriginal trackers, but you were one with the desert.”

“Maybe they were deliberately looking where they knew they'd never find me,” Brock said, knowing a little of that was true. The men had been loyal to Kingsley out of fear. They'd always turned a blind eye to his escapades, essentially on his side.

“I know they tried to protect you, but they had no right. I am your grandfather. I had to do what I thought best. I had to stop you. Bring you back. Your father was a waster.”

“You'd do well to get off the subject of my father,” Brock said, his voice deep and daunting. “All my life I've thought there was something you could tell me about his disappearance.”

“He bolted. Left you and your mother.” Kingsley peered at him. “You've got his eyes, you know.”

“You don't seem to be able to deal with that.”

Kingsley moved his head on the pillow. “Catherine and I were so close. I idolised her. I gave her everything she wanted.”

“Except freedom.”

“She never loved your father so much she would leave me.” There was a strange triumph on the old man's face. “I forebade her to see Tyson. She defied me. Once she would never have contemplated doing such a thing. But I loved her.”

“And now you're looking for forgiveness before you stand before your Maker?”