“How old is your daughter?”
“Nine.”
“You didn’t mention a wife. Are you divorced?”
She inquired with such innocent directness he found it hard to take offense. But some people needed to understand that other people didn’t like to talk about their personal lives. He told her part of the truth. “I’ve never been married.”
“Oh.”
He could tell she wanted to know more, but this time she just nodded and pressed her lips together. There was nothing shameful about his relationship with Caroline. She just hadn’t wanted to get married, not even after she’d gotten pregnant. She’d said she didn’t want to marry anybody, but she’d died before it could be proven one way or the other.
“Are you going to have to go all the way back for Becka?” Sarah asked.
Luke shook his head. “Abby’s bringing her out later.”
Silence fell over the truck. She must be thinking up more questions, Luke thought. He stared straight ahead, not wanting to disturb the peace, and wondered if the fencing materials he’d ordered would arrive tomorrow. Halfway to the station turnoff the bitumen ended and they continued on a hard-packed red dirt road. A road that developed deep pockets of fine dust called bulldust in the Dry and became a red bog—and often a lake—in the Wet. When they had a decent Wet.
“I can’t wait to go for a swim,” Sarah said, plucking her damp top away from her chest.
He gave a short laugh. “Swim?”
“Yes, in Lake Burrinbilli.” Sarah leaned back with a dreamy smile. “When I was a little girl Mom told me how she and her brother, Robby, used to swim there. With this heat I can see why it’s important to have water nearby.”
“Your mother told you she swam in a lake?” He wanted to laugh, but it wouldn’t be nice.
“Everything sounded beautiful, the way she described it—the old Victorian homestead set among ghost gums, and out the back, not far away, Lake Burrinbilli. I am so hot and that water is going to feel so good.”
Ah, that lake. Luke wished he’d placed a bet with Bazza and Len after all. He would have cut Bazza’s estimate of four days in half. “The, ah, water level’s down a little. Not too good for swimming.”
Her mouth drooped, but only for a moment. “Oh, well, splashing around will cool me off.”
“There might be a water hole in the creek that hasn’t dried up.”
Her eyes widened. “But…?”
He caught sight of the old refrigerator they used as a mailbox and geared down. “Here we are.”
“Where?” She gazed around at the featureless landscape. He could swear he saw her shudder.
“The driveway,” Luke said, and turned off onto a rutted dirt track.
Sarah took another glance outside and this time he was positive about the look of revulsion.
“The driveway?” she repeated, aghast.
“Yep. Only thirty kilometers to the homestead from here.”
Sarah heard this with a sinking heart. By now she knew every detail of the dashboard as well as she knew the keyboard of her computer. She watched the digital speedometer with glazed eyes. Anything to take her mind off the weird feeling that stopped her from looking out the window. She’d never experienced anything like it before. But then, she’d spent all her life nestled between the mountains and the sea, swaddled in cozy enveloping clouds that lowered the sky and brought the horizon in close.
Just when she thought she couldn’t stand it another minute, she saw in the distance a stand of smooth white-limbed trees and the sloping roof of the homestead, half-buried among their leafy branches.
Burrinbilli at last.
She’d never been here and the landscape was completely foreign, but she’d heard so many stories that she felt a strange sense of homecoming. Here, her mother had lived as a child. Here, her grandmother had given birth to her mother. Here, her great-great-grandparents had built the homestead and run cattle.
Luke lived here now. Had for ten years. It probably felt like home to him, too, and for more tangible reasons than hers. She glanced sideways at him, wondering what he really felt about her visiting. His chiseled profile gave nothing away.
“Have you given any more consideration to my offer to buy you out?” she asked.
Luke stopped in front of a wire gate across the road and put the truck in neutral. “Only how I might convince you to sell, instead. I was a signature away from owning it all.”
“I’ve brought back your deposit.” She rummaged in her purse for an envelope and held it out to him.
Ignoring it, Luke swiveled on the bench seat to face her, one elbow resting on the seat back, the other on the steering wheel. “I would have thought you’d honor your father’s intent.”
Luke was a big man, Sarah realized, tall, broad shouldered and well muscled. But being tall herself she wasn’t intimidated by size. “I don’t know my father’s intent. Anyway, I owe him nothing.”
Luke pushed a hand through his hair, sweat dampened at the temples from his hat. “How can that be?”
“After he and my mother split up he bought Burrinbilli from her for a pittance. Not long after that he remarried and moved to the east coast,” Sarah added bitterly. As good a father as Dennis had been to her, it still hurt that her real father had cared so little about her.
“I’m surprised your mother didn’t return to Australia after her marriage broke up.”
“Her father died fighting a bushfire not long after she came to America. Her brother had been killed in Vietnam the year before. With no men left to run Burrinbilli, my grandmother passed it on to Mom, thinking she and Warren would come back. Nana went to live on the coast, where she died when I was about ten. So even though Mom owned the station, none of her family lived there anymore. I guess she didn’t feel she had much to come back to.”
Sarah paused to take a breath. The glazed look on Luke’s face suggested he already knew more than he ever wanted to about her family history. But she wanted to get it all over at once. “Also, Mom thought I should be raised near my father. The trouble was, his second wife didn’t want him to have anything to do with us. By the time Mom realized Warren wasn’t going to go against her to see me, she’d met my stepfather, Dennis, who had an established business in Seattle. So, she stayed.”
“I see.” Luke eyed her warily a moment, as if to make sure she’d really stopped. Then he yanked on the hand brake and jumped out of the truck to stride toward the gate.
Sarah sat where she was, her stomach churning as it always did when she thought about her father. Watching Luke walk back to the Land Cruiser, she recalled the old Mills and Boon romances by Lucy Walker, which were set in the outback and which she used to sneak from her mother’s cache of books as a young girl. It was the passenger’s job to open and close the gates.
Luke got back in and drove through the gate. “I’ll shut it,” Sarah said when he stopped on the other side.
She jogged back to the gate through the searing heat. The metal latch burned her fingertips as she pushed it shut. Then she made the mistake of glancing over the top of the gate. The land was so huge, so open. Nothing for her eyes to fasten on except the haze of heat that shimmered over the dusty track. To her surprise, a wave of panic quivered through her. Oh, no…
Her chest tightened until she was literally gasping for breath. Black spots appeared before her eyes and she doubled over, wrapping her arms around her waist. Beads of cold sweat popped out on her