In a world where one wrong word could tear his world apart, the Currans had made everything right. He’d lost his father, but in Bryce Curran he’d found a strong working man of the land, a man in whom he could be proud to be called son. He’d lost his brothers and sisters, but in Lea he’d had the straight-talking, gruffly affectionate sister of his heart.
And in Anna … he’d found his destiny.
Anna made his life work. With a smile, a touch, she banished the ugly demons to the furthest corner of his mind. With Anna by his side he was The Curran, the man chosen to continue the proud traditions of the famed Jarndirri clan. He was strong, he could do anything.
But now she was gone, who was he? What was he?
He folded the letter, returning it to his pocket. It was almost nightfall; there were another fifteen jobs to do before Mrs Button would serve the dinner. So why was he hanging around the house, an hour before he needed to?
There was only one answer—he was waiting to hear the phone ring, on this of all days. It would have been Adam’s first birthday today. God help him, he could see his son’s face as he crawled or toddled after him—swinging Adam on his hip, putting him on his first pony or patting the cows.
He needed Anna to come home. She had to come back to him. Jarndirri was their heart and soul. They’d first kissed here, become engaged here, even married here. And this hour before sunset had always been ‘their’ time of the day, when they’d worked together, talked before dinner—or made love in the shower.
A gravelled curse tore from his throat. He slammed his Akubra on his head, and strode out the door. His personal ghost followed him with soft words his straining ears could almost hear.
‘Dinner’s in an hour, Jared. Can I help you with anything? Or is it time for a shower? You do look … sweaty,’ she’d say, with that sweet, naughty smile of hers.
‘Stop haunting me,’ he muttered as he stalked down the stairs, flung himself onto his motorbike and revved it up hard. The men were at dinner. He wouldn’t call for help he didn’t need. There were no actual fences on Jarndirri, like every other property in the Kimberley—how could you fence a single property that was the size of the whole of modern London?—but he needed to make sure the cattle were close to the few fenced-in paddocks, safe within the unseen bounds of his kingdom. The wide-wandering livestock had to be made secure before the bucketing-down rain came, any day, any hour now, and the creeks became rivers, the rivers became torrential seas and valuable animals were caught in the swelling waters and drowned.
‘Mr West, Mr West!’
He called to the cook-housekeeper, ‘What is it, Ellie?’ He kept his tone neutral. It wasn’t her fault her voice grated on him. Any woman’s voice but Anna’s did that these days. Even Lea’s voice got to him … especially Lea’s voice. It wasn’t fair, he knew; she was trying so hard to be fair to them both; but he could barely stand being civil. She sounded so much like—
He blinked and wheeled around, facing Ellie Button. ‘What did you say?’ The engine must be running too loud, or he was hallucinating. He couldn’t have heard—
‘Mrs West is on the phone. She needs to talk to you. It sounds—urgent.’
An hour later
‘Hell, Jared, this isn’t a joke! You’re flying fifty knots over the legal limit. You might be the best pilot in the Kimberleys, but there’s laws for a reason. You gotta slow down, mate, or you’ll kill yourself!’
When Jared ignored the frantic yells of one of four local air traffic controllers in the region, Tom growled, ‘Right, that’s it. I’ve cleared the airspace around you so you don’t kill anyone else—but I’m callin’ Bill, and lettin’ him deal with you when you get into Broome. But don’t hit the tower ‘cause I’m in it, and if I survive I’ll kill you myself!’
Bring it on. Jared grinned in pure challenge. Nothing short of that lightning strike was stopping him from getting to Broome, to Anna. He knew Tom was right—the first storm of the season was about to hit, and he was flying right into the danger zone. But after five long, empty months Anna had called him at last. After a year of waiting, she’d finally sounded alive, and he was bringing her home before she changed her mind.
‘Right-oh, Jared, you want to be an idiot? You want trouble, mate, you got it,’ Tom screamed. ‘Bill’ll be waitin’ for you at the airport. You’re doin’ a night in lock-up, and facin’ multiple charges, unless you slow down right now!’
Jared grinned again, and messaged the car rental company, asking them to bring the car to the less-used airstrip for the resort people. He’d cop a fine for that too, but it was closer to Anna’s place. Hopefully he’d get there before Bill caught him.
Forty minutes later, he landed the plane hard and fast. Though he’d changed direction at the last possible moment, Tom would have followed his flight pattern, cottoned onto his plan, and had probably sent Bill on his way here. Jared headed down the tarmac toward the hangar, pulling off to the side as close as possible to where the car waited. He tossed a huge tarpaulin cover over the plane for protection, threw a thousand in cash at the stunned driver and said, ‘I’ll leave the keys in the car back here tomorrow. Keep the change.’
And he took off in a roar of dirt, ignoring the man’s bewildered cry, ‘But how do I get back to town?’ It would only take someone five minutes to come and get him.
He’d been on the road all of three minutes when the expected siren began wailing behind him. When Bill circled around him to block off escape and pulled him over to the side of the road, Jared wound down the window, said, ‘You know my address, Bill. Send me the tickets and charges,’ and screeched back onto the road while Bill bolted back to the police van.
He kept driving over the limit while Bill followed him, lights flashing and siren wailing, all the way to Anna’s. He didn’t care how much he had to pay. All he could think was that, if he let Bill take him in, he’d be away for hours, and Anna would change her mind.
‘Something’s happened. I need to see you, Jared—as soon as you can,’ she’d said tentatively, as if expecting him to say no. Yet there was something else there, too—something besides the gut-wrenching numbness, which was all he’d known from her for the past year. ‘Can you come tonight?’
‘I’ll be there in two hours,’ was all he’d said.
And he would be. Anna was coming home tonight. He wasn’t allowing for any chance of failure. Whatever she wanted, she could have; whatever she needed, she’d get. Whatever it took to bring her home, he’d do it. She was the queen of Jarndirri, she was the Curran—she was his wife. She belonged with him.
He arrived at her door, read the note, pulled it off the door and knocked softly, as instructed. He didn’t know why, and didn’t care. She’d called him, she wanted to see him at last, and that was all that mattered. The rest he could make right. He’d find the way.
She opened the door with a half-smile, tentative, even insecure. Her reddish-brown hair with stripy golden bits, like half-cooked toffee, was pulled back in a messy ponytail with tendrils sticking out everywhere. She had sweat running down her flushed face; there was a glob of something white on her cheek. Her black-lashed doe eyes held fear and welcome and—
Then her gaze swivelled to the right, and her eyes widened. ‘Why is Bill chasing you?’
He couldn’t answer. She was messy, she was adorable, she was Anna and he was starving for her. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, deep and drugging, before she could say a word. He wasn’t giving her a chance to say no. He had to touch her, imprint her taste on him again. A streak ran through him, a brilliant connection of synapses to senses to skin, and he was alive