Swift Runs The Heart (29 page)
Read Swift Runs The Heart Online
Authors: Mary Brock Jones
They slept that night curled up together in a hollow of the lands, bringing back memories of dry Otago hills and warm summer days. Geraldine found herself looking forward to seeing the dusty streets of Dunstan town again.
“If you sold Molly's business, where are we to live?” she wanted to know.
“I didn't sell everything, and I have a new business enterprise. We will live there,” was all Bas would say.
Once across the Waitaki River, they struck inland instead of staying on the road south, which was the usual route inland to the plains and mountains of the goldfields. “I thought we would retrace an old journey,” Bas said.
So it was that they came one clear winter day to the hill above Loch Máire and wound their way down to the little cottage tucked by the hidden lake. Bas lifted her down from the saddle and carried her in through the small door.
Mrs Smith must have been in that day to ready it for them, for the little room glowed with well-kept comfort and the logs in the fire needed but a light to be set to bring them to a merry crackle. Bread and cheese lay ready on the table and a pot of mutton broth hung on the fire waiting to be heated.
She twirled round to Bas, an entranced smile on her face.
“You finish off the meal, sweetheart, and I'll bring our bundles in.”
“Do we stay here tonight, then?”
“Yes,” said Bas, but his face hid something.
Thoroughly intrigued now, Geraldine bustled to and fro and, in no time at all, the still-warm broth was beginning to bubble on the fire, the plates and utensils were on the table and all was ready. She went to call Bas from the bedroom. He set his saddlebag on the hook by the door and turned to her, pulling two long packets from within the bag.
“Take a seat, love.” She obeyed, perched on the only place possible, the side of the bed. He handed her one of the packets.
“Open it. Your father wanted you to have it now. It is his wedding gift to you.”
She looked at him, then bent to open it. Inside the oiled outer wrapping lay a long envelope. She opened it and saw the long, flowing script of her father's solicitor. Her eyes scanned it and a smile grew on her face.
“It is the deed to the cottage. He kept it for me as he promised; the bothy and the lake, and the land around it. I didn't lose it after all,” she said, and slow tears leaked from her eyes. She lifted them, shining with happiness, to her husband. “So we can come here whenever we like. See, there is a clause that says the new owner must allow us reasonable access to the lake and bothy. Our children will be able to enjoy this place as I did, and I can tell them of their grandparents, who built a home here in the wilderness. We can come back often, can't we? It's not that far across the hills from Dunstan.”
“As often as you like,” he promised, gently kissing the tears from her cheeks.
“But⦠reasonable access. What if the new runholder tries to block us out? What then?”
“I don't think that will be a problem, my dearest love,” said Bas, holding out the other package towards her. “This is my wedding gift, to us both, Mrs Deverill.”
Slowly, she took the second package and unwrapped it. Then she stared at the papers within, her eyes running slowly over the pages. She turned them over and over, coming back finally to the first. Her eyes clung to the words written there.
“It's the deed to Loch Máire run. To all of it, everything that my father had here. You bought it all.” This time the tears would not stop. “Are you sure; can you truly be happy here?”
He came and sat beside her, and drew her into a long, loving kiss. “Look at the date on which I signed the final papers.”
She looked at where his finger pointed. It was two weeks before he came to find her.
Her eyes shot up to his, her mouth open in astonishment. “You were so confident that I would come back with you?”
He shook his head ruefully. “No. But ⦠if I could do nothing else for you, I could do this one thing. If you had refused me, I had resolved to sign the run over to you and return to England.”
“But ⦠it's too much.”
“Then it's a good thing that I didn't have to,” he chuckled. “You saved me from a fate worse than you know.”
“No, I didn't mean that. Bas, I love you and will follow you wherever you want to go. Even back to England, if you could ever bring yourself to taking a rough-mannered colonial girl into those fine parlours of yours.”
“Never, sweetheart. They would drive you silly in minutes, and I could not bear seeing you turned into a polite lady of that world. No, give me my colonial Miss any day.”
“Well, thank you, I think. But there are still your businesses. You love the challenge of them. Can you leave them for the life of a runholder? It's not an easy one, not here in the upland country.”
“Don't worry. I still have some interests on the goldfields and intend to split our time between them both. The Smiths have agreed to stay on to run the place when we cannot be here, and to teach me the many things I am going to need to learn if we are to make this place grow.”
He fell silent, pulling her into the crook of his arm, and when he continued there was a note in his voice she had heard only rarely before.
“I spent the last week watching your father building that Canterbury run of his into a viable farming enterprise. They are creating something new in this land, the runholders and small farmers. They bring the knowledge of the old world and their observations of the new together to find the best way to do things here. It's part of why I came to this land in the first place and as the days passed, I thought more and more of that moment when we came over the hills from the Dunstan and saw this place. Your father's new run is well enough, but here the sky is wide and the land so big, you could lose yourself in it forever. There, the settlers seek to hem themselves in already with the conventions of the old world. Here, a man can breathe. I saw then why you love this place, and can only hope that you will let me have a share in that. What do you say, sweetheart? Will we build our life together here in Loch Máire?”
She sat on the bed, cradled in his arm, and watching the fire of excitement spread from the light in his beautiful eyes and chase across the fine bones of his face. The quick smile on those firm lips drew her now as on the first day she had seen him, and a matching excitement leapt in her own heart.
“Yes, my love,” she said, and this time it was she who drew him down to the welcoming depths of the bed.
THE END
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ISBN: 978-0-85799-080-8
Title: Swift Runs the Heart
Copyright © 2013 Mary Brock Jones
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Limited, Locked Bag 7002, Chatswood D.C. NSW, Australia, 2067.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
