Heart of the Outback (47 page)

“Perhaps he was right. I’m so damned busy these days. I get up at six, go full pelt all day and stumble into bed at midnight, or later, sometimes. Where would I get the time to fit Steve, or any other man for that matter, into my present life?”

“But it will not always be like this,
cara
,” Lucia said. “
You
must control the pace, find time to relax. Otherwise you will snap, like this,” and to make her point she picked up a bread stick and broke it in half.

Francey nodded her agreement. “Yes. Once I get the next two projects under way, I’ll definitely take some time off. That’s a promise.” She watched her father yawn — he was usually in bed at 8.30 p.m. when he had to go to the markets at Flemington the next day. She pretended to stifle a yawn too. “It’s getting late. Come on, I’ll see you home.”

“There’s no need. We can get a taxi.”

“I want to. There’s something in my old room I want to take back to Murrundi.” She had just stopped herself from calling it “home” — she’d come to think of the outback homestead as her home — but stopped herself in time. Besides, it wasn’t strictly true about the object, the subterfuge was necessary because of her parents’ independent streak. It was hard enough convincing them that her expense account was paying for their sumptuous meal let alone anything else.

It was almost ten thirty by the time they arrived back at Glebe.

Meredith O’Connor met them in a rush of movement at the side entrance to the flat at the back of the fruit shop. “Thank goodness,” she said breathlessly as she approached. “I’ve been waiting here for an hour and a half.”

“What’s wrong? Brett? Mitchell?”

Meredith shook her head. Obviously trying not to alarm Francey’s parents she muttered, “I just need to talk to you before you fly back.”

“Come inside and I’ll make us a coffee,” Lucia offered.

“No, Mrs Spinetti. It’s late, I don’t want to impose. Ten minutes of Francey’s time is all I need.” And so saying she half pulled Francey towards her parked car.

“What’s this about?” Francey said with a laugh as she sat in the passenger seat of Meredith’s ageing Corolla. “What a drama. Mum will be dying with curiosity to know …”

“Sorry. I tried to get you at your hotel. They didn’t know where you were dining so rather than
lurk about the lobby of the Regent, I thought I’d wait here in case you turned up.”

“Well, here I am. What’s up?”

“This.” Meredith unfolded a copy of
New Idea
and turned the car’s internal light on. “Read page four.”

Shaking her head with amusement at Meredith’s cloak-and-dagger air, Francey did as instructed. Her breath caught in her throat as she read the headline and scanned the photos in the two page article.

There were photos of herself and CJ, taken at the party. One of her and Bryan Steinberg — God knows where they’d got that from — and a photo of a woman in a wheelchair. Francey recognised the woman instantly, Cathy, Bryan’s wife. In heavy silence she read the article. It was a subtle character assassination of herself with implied references that she had inherited her father’s, “the man with the golden touch’s” temperament by ruthlessly destroying the Steinberg’s marriage and causing his wife’s stroke.

“Where did you get this?” Francey asked finally.

“I’ve a friend at ACP. She sneaked me an advance copy. It’ll hit the newsstands tomorrow.” Meredith placed a hand over Francey’s. “I thought you’d like to know, so you can be prepared.”

Francey’s head rested back against the car seat and, turning sideways, she looked at her friend. “Thanks, I think.” She sighed. “I guess I now go into damage control. Damn it, I don’t need this in my life right now. I wonder how they found out.”

“Did you notice that there’s no by-line on the piece? My guess is that the author wanted to remain anonymous. It might be interesting to find out why,” Meredith suggested.

“It might.” Francey sat up straight, deciding. “Well, I guess I’d better show it to Mum and Dad. I don’t want them to find out through customers talking about it.”

“Are you going to be all right?”

“Sure. I’m a chip off the old block, didn’t you know?” Francey’s eyes were suspiciously bright. “Tough as my father.”

“What would CJ do in such cases?” Meredith wanted to know.

Francey thought for a moment. She knew her father pretty well and it wasn’t hard to guess how he would react. “He’d probably weather the storm of public debate, do his best to ignore it, then he’d find the little shit who wrote it and give them hell.”

“Sounds like a good prescription to me.”

CJ Ambrose was furious. Shellie had shown him the article on Francey and his temper had risen to the boil instantaneously. Through his contacts it didn’t take long to track down the writer of the piece — Trish Pentano, the sly, conniving little bitch. She’d rue the day she chose to tangle with an Ambrose … Subsequently he’d summoned Natalie back to Murrundi for a showdown, his gut feeling telling him that she had orchestrated the entire incident. But for what purpose? The answer to that question eluded him.

As he stood on the verandah waiting for the Learjet to land on the airstrip he noticed Mike Hunter foraging around the shrubs near the pool.

“What’s up, Mike?”

“Oh, CJ. Hi.” Mike looked up and shielded his gaze against a bright wintry sun. He walked over and stood at the bottom of the verandah to look up at his boss. “I’ve misplaced my Swiss army knife. Can’t find it anywhere. Thought it might have fallen out of my pocket the night of the party.”

CJ grinned. “You and your bloody Swiss army knife. Feel naked without it, eh?”

Mike flushed. “Sure do. It’s a little beauty. The things it can do …”

CJ held up his hands in supplication. “Don’t tell me again. You’ve extolled its virtues often enough in the bunkhouse, it’s a wonder every stockman on the station hasn’t bought one.”

“Yeah,” Mike grinned cheekily at CJ, “maybe I should take up some kind of franchise with the company.”

“Not on my time, you won’t.” CJ’s gaze scanned the horizon and saw a flash of metal glint in the sky. “When the jet lands tell Natalie I want to see her in my study, immediately, will you?”

“Sure.”

Natalie closed the study door and leant against it as she studied CJ sitting behind his desk. His head downcast, he appeared to be reading something while he rubbed his temples with his fingertips. She noted that the colour of his skin, usually a ruddy tan, had taken on a rare pallor. And the scar on his scalp, over
which a light grey fuzz was trying to grow, was quite noticeable.

His head jerked up as the door clicked shut and without preamble he attacked. “Why did you do it? What did you hope to gain from letting your weak-minded friend Trish write such a dirty article about Francey?”

“I … don’t …”

“Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you didn’t know about it.
You
put the idea into her head, I’d bet money on it.”

Seeing the pointlessness of denying it, Natalie shrugged an elegant shoulder. Dressed in Trent Nathan slacks, a silk blouse and a multicoloured Cuggi sweater she looked every inch the wealthy socialite. “Maybe I did suggest something, casually of course,” she admitted offhandedly. Her grey eyes narrowed maliciously. “It’s about time everyone, you included, CJ, saw Francey for what she is. A money-grubbing opportunist who doesn’t care who she hurts to get what she wants.”

“You stupid bitch.” The expression in his eyes was deadly. “You think I didn’t know about the Steinberg affair? When I have someone investigated I get a proper job done. However, I learnt the truth of the matter, not the half-truths Trish alluded to in her article. By the way you can tell her she’s no longer welcome at Murrundi.”

“But she’s my friend …” It began to dawn on Natalie that by exposing the perceived flaws in Francey’s character she may have increased her own estrangement from CJ. She had thought, perhaps naively, that he might thank her for pointing out his
new
daughter’s inadequacies, but no, as usual all he wanted to do was to justify and protect her. God, it just wasn’t fair. What did she have to do to get rid of the millstone around her neck?

“She’s no friend of mine or anyone at Murrundi’s from today onwards,” CJ stated as he stared at her. “And you need to get your act in order. I do not understand this irrational hatred towards Francey.”

“Don’t you?” She jumped in angrily. “She comes here and supplants Richard’s place in your heart and fortune. The fortune which should rightly come to me, and you think I should be,” she sneered, “
nice
to her?”

His voice thundered about the small room. “Don’t say that again, ever. No-one could ever take the place of what I felt, still feel for my son. But she is my daughter, whether you like it or not and whether you approve of it or not. You will accord her that respect or else.”

Something inside her snapped. “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Forget the degree, forget her business acumen, Francey is a part Aboriginal illegitimate brat, that’s what she really is,” Natalie said boldly. “What do you think people are saying behind your back about all of this?”

“I don’t give a stockman’s spit what people are saying. You know me better than that. I’ve weathered more controversy in my life than acknowledging a love child.”

She attempted a different angle. “How do you think my mother would feel about her, the product of a love affair, living here, in the house she built for us? You, Richard, Miles and I? Now you want it to go to her. Mother would turn in her grave if she knew.”

CJ thought before he answered. “Maybe she would, but I’d like to think that Brenda had a more generous heart than her daughter seems to have.” He looked her up and down, seeing a spoilt, frustrated woman. He wasn’t impressed or moved by her pleas. “I will no longer tolerate your mean-spirited, bitchy behaviour around Francey. Do I make myself clear? Either you make her feel welcome at Murrundi and a part of the family, or you can forget that Murrundi is your home. And if you ever try to pull another trick like that article, I will destroy you.” He paused deliberately to let the words sink in. “And you know that if I say I will, I will.”

Natalie paled. She saw from the look on his face and his tone of voice that he meant every word he’d said. She had come to know him in all his roles. The ruthless negotiator, the knock-about guy, the head of the house, the beaming philanthropist. He had issued an ultimatum and she could either take it or … “I see …”

Her shoulders drooped in seeming defeat as she turned away from him. She had played her cards and lost. Instead of alienating Francey from CJ she had alienated herself from him. Too late she understood that Francey’s hold was as strong as CJ’s need. He needed Francey more than he had ever needed or wanted her. That, she realised, was a very bitter pill indeed.

CJ watched her go, the frown on his forehead increasing as the splitting headache took hold. The Swiss specialist had claimed that the operation to reduce the size of the tumour and the radio therapy afterwards might give him as much time as thirty
seven weeks. He did a rough calculation. Twenty-one, and now it was reactivating. How much time did he have left? Probably a month, two at the most.

He groaned aloud. The respite was over and he was sure the tumour was growing again. He could almost feel it pulsing inside his head, spreading its debilitating tentacles everywhere. His head began to spin and before he could move a step towards the bathroom he began to vomit, over the desk, and all over Trish Pentano’s article.

“Hello?”

“Francey?”

“Yes. Who’s that?”

“Bryan.”

Something shuddered inside Francey’s chest, an all too familiar, bittersweet pain. “Oh, I didn’t expect. It’s about the article … I’m sorry.”

“How are you?”

She recognised the huskiness in his voice, he had always sounded that way when he talked to her. Her smile was a little grim as she acknowledged the truth. She could think about it now with a detachment she had yearned for desperately years ago. He was the past, buried, over. And deep down she was more concerned about how Steve might feel about what had been printed about her.

“I’m fine.”

“I wanted you to know the real truth, not the distortion printed by that rag,” he said. “By the way, I’m glad for you, glad that you’re doing so well. Really.” He cleared his throat. “My wife, actually my ex-wife, well, the whole story has been an exaggeration
to say the least. Cathy had a stroke years ago, long before you and I got together. It’s a predilection in the family, her mother’s had several strokes.”

“Bryan, I really don’t think-”

“I need to tell you, Francey,” he insisted. “I don’t want you to feel guilty about something that wasn’t your fault. The second stroke Cathy had happened six months after we broke up so I hardly think even the medicos would consider my affair the main contributing factor.”

Francey sighed. She didn’t want to discuss this with Bryan but she could sense that he needed to expunge it from his conscience. “How is she?”

“Much better since we divorced,” his tone was wry. “Her parents encouraged her to give me the flick, you know. She and the children live with them. All one big happy family, minus me of course.”

“I’m sorry, Bryan.” A year ago she wouldn’t have been able to say those words, now she could and mean them.

“Oh, I’m all right. I wanted to make sure you knew the truth, that you weren’t the cause of Cathy’s illness. I’m going to write to that damn editor and tell her she should check the facts in future.”

“That’s thoughtful of you, Bryan, I appreciate it.”

“I…” he hesitated for several seconds. “I just hope that it makes it easier to forgive me for what happened. It was all my fault, you know.”

She smiled into the receiver. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Bryan. It takes two to make a romance. You didn’t have to coerce me into your arms.”

“Are you happy, Francey? I mean, is there …?”

“Yes there is and I am.” Only half a lie, she convinced herself.

“Then I’m happy for you,” his voice sounded sad. “Bye.”