“Loved it.” His silver eyes sparkled. “You know how us outbackers are with horses. The Irish are the same. The instant rapport paid off. I did a good job. I made good money, and earned respect from people I admired. I kept my mother secure until she died.”
“No one here knew where you went.”
“Kingsley cut us off completely. I returned the favour. More than anything I blame him for turning his back on my mother. Why would I want to notify him when she died?”
“I’m surprised you came home,” she ventured. Brock, always vivid, had developed a very commanding not to say daunting presence mixed in with the familiar charm.
“Just occasionally I remember I’m a Kingsley on my mother’s side. If dear old Grandpa wants to reinstate me in his will—and he seems to want to—I’m not going to stop him. My mother was owed. I’m owed.” The silver eyes took on a hard glitter. “They call it atonement.”
“So you’re staying at Mulgaree? That can’t be easy.” She remembered how Philip and Frances had always been so jealous of Brock, with his energy and effortless skills, the way he stood up to his domineering grandfather.
“It’s not as though I have to see anyone if I don’t want to.” He gave a brief laugh. “Heaven knows the old barn is big enough.”
“You used to love it,” she reminded him dryly.
“And I still do, Emerald Eyes.”
Shelley Logan was no longer the cute little teenager he remembered. She’d matured. She had a woman’s sensitivity and perception and she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Back then she’d been way too young for him, but in the interim the rosebud had opened up velvety perfumed petals.
He continued to stare at her, holding her gaze captive. Despite the poise he hadn’t been prepared for, she was flushed with colour. Her wild red-gold hair lay loose around her shoulders. Her beautiful eyes were large and lustrous, her mouth sensitive and her chin prettily pointed. If it wouldn’t jeopardize their old easy friendship he would have told her she looked damned sexy.
“So what’s the verdict?” she asked dryly, with a tilt of her chin.
“Just checking,” he drawled. “All right, Shel. You’ve changed. You’ve grown up. So what are you doing right now? On your way home to your family?” He recalled the bleakness of Wybourne, the Logans’ loss of all joy.
“Tomorrow. I can’t make the return trip the same day.”
“God, I would think not. Look at you! The wind could pick you up and blow you away. Still giving you hell, are they?” In his experience nothing really ever changed.
She shook her head, her tone mildly chastening. “You shouldn’t talk like that, Brock. I love my family. We survive. I guess I’ll always bear the pain for surviving when Sean didn’t.”
“You should have said blame. But it was a terrible accident, Shelley. You were a very young child when it happened.”
“I know, but it doesn’t seem to help.” She looked away.
“Not when you’re not allowed to forget. Hell,” he burst out explosively, as though the small space couldn’t contain him—as indeed it couldn’t. “Let’s get out of here.” He’d been aware from the moment he’d greeted her that every head was turned in their direction, the well-oiled gossip machine getting underway.
“Where? I need to get something here.” She glanced in the direction of the counter.
“Then do it,” he ordered briskly. “You must be staying at the pub?”
“As it happens, I am.” Brock was still pure flame. Which gave cautious old Shelley an excellent chance of getting burned.
“Then so am I. I was going to sleep in the truck, but Mick can sort me out a room. What do you say we have dinner? I see Koomera Crossing’s redoubtable schoolmarm Harriet Crompton has opened up a restaurant. No doubt about Miss Crompton! She always was a woman of many talents.”
“That would be lovely, Brock.” After her earlier fatigue excitement had started to run at full throttle.
“We have lots to catch up on. The fact is Phil advised me—maybe it was a heavy warning—that you were his girlfriend?” Silver eyes emitted sparks.
“Why hasn’t he told me that, then?” she said flippantly.
“You’re too good for him, Shelley.” Brock’s antagonism towards his cousin spilled out.
She stared up at him for a moment before she answered. Even in misty green Ireland his skin must have seen plenty of sunshine. His olive skin was like polished bronze.
“Isn’t that a little cruel? I feel sorry for Philip. Your grandfather is very hard on him, and his mother has such high expectations. Philip is under constant pressure to perform. Not that your grandfather allows him any real responsibility.”
“Just keeps him on a tight leash. Must be hard for Phil. He was a dopey kid.”
“Whereas you were as bad as you could get.” She softened the charge with a smile. “Philip, unfortunately, is still very much under the influence of his mother. Now, I’ll pay for this, Brock, if you can wait.” She settled hurriedly on the gardenia-scented bath gel.
“I think you’re right.” He gave the nod to her choice. “Gardenia goes with your beautiful skin.”
Of course she didn’t have a dress. She should have thought of that before. But Brock’s off-the-cuff invitation to have dinner with him had chased all thought from her mind. For the first time since she’d attended the wedding of her friends Christine and Mitch Claydon she had a deep desire to look pretty.
How? She took another look at herself in the old-fashioned, slightly speckled pier mirror. It stood in a corner of the small room where fresh cotton sheets, pillowslips and towels smelled deliciously of boronia.
Trim and tidy. If called on that was the way Shelley would have described herself. Unlike her sister Amanda she had no wardrobe of pretty dresses. Her day-to-day dress was a practical work uniform—jeans and a cotton shirt. She stared at herself dreamily. Brock Tyson had always been kind to her, for all his dashing but undeniably moody nature. These days he looked like a man well able to handle himself in any situation. Tough. A bit like Rex Kingsley himself, who was as harsh and unyielding as the very terrain of his desert kingdom.
Finally she decided on a dash half a block away to the town’s little dress shop, where she’d seen a very pretty blouse displayed in the window. The only reason she’d resisted it was that she had too few occasions to wear anything so frivolously pretty. Basic denim was her scene. This top was a kind of patchwork of yellow cotton and lace, with little ribbons and rosettes for a trim. The owner assured her it could be worn successfully with her white jeans.
Très chic! She’d have to take her word for it. At least she had some make-up and a fairly new pair of white leather trainers she’d brush up.
Shelley felt wildly excited, but tried to bring the whole thing back into focus. By taking her out tonight Brock was probably trying to ward off the tensions of being home. Besides, she’d always associated Brock Tyson with excitement and—it had to be said—danger. It seemed to swirl around him like smoke.
He was a young man who had sustained many psychological wounds, even if the scars from his physical beatings had healed. The assaults by his autocratic grandfather had stopped with one fist-to-fist bout when Brock was fifteen and already topping six feet. One of the station hands who had witnessed it, open-mouthed and secretly overjoyed, had told the story to a mate, who’d told it to another mate in the Koomera Crossing pub. The gossip had spread like wildfire and the whole town had known within twenty-four hours.
“Old bastard Kingsley