Out of Alice (35 page)

Late in the afternoon the two children took Justin with them to bring in the goats. Sara, declining to accompany them, watched his lanky form pacing off between the two. He was tanned from the beach but wilting in the heat, as she was herself after the weeks she'd spent away from it. It was cooler in the garden; she carried a chair out under the lemon tree, breathing in the sweet scent of its blossom. Beth was showering, Len still at the shed, she presumed, though the welder had ceased its bellowing some time since. She felt tired, let down. All through the long drive to Redhill the thought of arriving, of seeing Jack, had buoyed her spirits. She had pictured a dozen possible ways that meeting might go but had never imagined that he wouldn't be there.

Now all she could do was wait and worry. Thanks to the phones being out he didn't know to expect her. Perhaps that was for the best. His first reaction would most truly reflect his feelings for her – if they existed, Sara reminded herself. She dropped her hat on the grass and pushed her hair back, feeling the way the damp curls clung to her fingers. Somewhere far off a plane droned; above her head the leaves of the lemon tree glittered silver-edged as she searched for the plane amid the patches of blue but without success. The drought skies had shown a fiercer light but today's was still brilliant enough to make her eyes ache. Sara dropped her chin and blinked, to rest them. She picked up her hat, then shot to her feet as the distant drone suddenly metamorphosed into the steady beat of a diesel engine. A vehicle – coming to the front of the homestead.

When it pulled up she was already there, standing beneath the glossy-leafed oleanders as Jack killed the engine and got out, staring as if he'd seen a ghost. Or an unwelcome reminder from the past? Sara banished the treacherous thought and spoke first.

‘Hello, Jack.'

‘Sara.' He said blankly. He seemed to be frozen to the spot, arms hanging at his sides as he gazed upon her, and her heart sank. Coming here had all been for nothing after all. She had been wrong. He didn't want her.

Then, as if a spring had turned within him, he cried, ‘Sara!' on a gladder note. ‘You're back. What? Why?' He stopped speaking, his hands reached for her and he grabbed her into a hug.

She clung to him, feeling the comfort of his strong, lean body against her own, while taking in the dear familiar essence of his smell – a hint of diesel and sweat and man skin – knowing again the absolute security his presence had always brought. Nothing could harm her now, all her worries were baseless, her uncertainties abandoned. His arms tightened so possessively around her that she was forced to gasp, ‘You're squashing me.'

‘Sorry.' His grip slackened, but only slightly. Held tightly against him she could feel the rapid leaping of his heart. ‘That hat suits you really well.' The words came in his usual unhurried delivery, with the hint of a smile in them.

‘I'm glad you like it.' Sara tugged it off and let it drop, then lifted her face to his. Her own heart was hammering and she could feel the blood pulsing under her skin. ‘Kiss me,' she commanded, amazed at her own boldness. ‘You irritating wretch.'

He cupped her face with his hands, staring down into the green eyes. And then gently, tenderly, he kissed her deeply and then did it again, the light rasp of his stubble against her soft skin a benison.

‘I have missed you so much. The place has been dead without you.' He kissed her again, his hands sliding up over her shoulderblades to cradle her skull, sending little ripples of delight through her. ‘You didn't tell me you were coming.'

‘I tried,' she murmured as his lips moved from her earlobe to the hollow of her throat, ‘but the phones were out.' She welcomed him back to her lips then pushed him away. ‘Jack, we're standing in the sun. I'll be as red as a beet if we don't move.'

‘Can't have that.' He scooped up her fallen hat and led her by the hand into the garden, seeking the shade of the lemon tree. ‘So it turned out all right with your family? I've wondered so often.'

‘But Beth knew. Didn't she tell you? I rang her at Christmas, and before that, and said —'

‘She did.' He was holding her hands, his thumbs caressing her knuckles. ‘And an independent wench like you I'm necessarily supposed to believe it? Would you have told her you were unhappy, supposing you were?'

‘Well, no,' Sara admitted. ‘She's had so much to contend with herself up till it rained.'

‘Yes,' he agreed, gathering her to him again. ‘But the drought's over now, hers and mine.' He kissed her cheeks and chin and eyes, lips moving towards her own again, as he murmured, ‘If you knew how long I've ached to do this . . .'

‘Then why didn't you?' Sara demanded, the hurt she had nursed so long finding sudden utterance. She jerked her head free of contact with him. ‘You let me leave without a word, as if I was truly no more to you than the governess. You broke my heart, Jack Ketch, and why I'm letting you kiss me now I don't know!'

‘Whoa! Hang on a moment. You were never
just the governess.
Not to me. And as for letting you go, of course I had to. Surely you can see that?'

‘Why?' she flashed, and suddenly her anger was no longer half pretence. ‘Because you've got a hang-up about city women?'

‘Jesus,' Jack muttered. ‘It's true what they say about temper and redheads. What about city women? Mum's a city woman, for God's sake – or she was. She was born in Sydney, you don't get much more citified than that. And I might have let you go, but I was coming after you. Next week, in fact.'

‘You were coming to the city? To see me? Really?' Her face broke into a smile.

‘Well, mainly to deliver a letter.' But she had caught the tilt to his mouth and smacked him hard on his arm.

‘What letter?'

‘This one.' He fished it from his pocket. ‘From that journo, Markham. Probably wants a follow-up story:
My life as a millionaire's daughter
.'

‘He sent it here? He must know I'd left. Beth said it made the headlines – the meeting with my father, that is.'

‘Territory headlines,' Jack agreed. ‘They could've had a better story that day in Adelaide. And I suppose he knew we'd forward it.'

‘But you didn't.' Sara consulted the date stamp, still smiling. ‘It was posted three weeks ago.'

Jack rasped a hand over his jaw. ‘Roads have been too wet for the mail. And I was heading after you, anyway. Whatever it was, I reckoned it could wait.'

‘So why were you coming, Jack?'

‘Because I wanted to know you were okay.' He reached a hand to cup her nape and she shivered under his touch. ‘I know that dreams can be realised, Sara, but in my experience it's rare. There's no law says families have to get on.'

‘Oh, Jack.' Her anger melted, she kissed him swiftly. ‘You've always cared about me, helped me. I've never met anyone as generous-hearted.'

‘Maybe, but self-interest came into it too. Forgetting you wasn't working, as you've seen.' He brushed a stray curl back from her brow. ‘You've got beautiful hair, Sara, did I ever tell you that? By the time I got to Sydney I reckoned you might've worked out what you wanted to do with your life. That's why I wasn't in a real hurry to get there. If you were all set up for a future in the city, the plan was to deliver the letter and clear out.' He grimaced. ‘The truth is you're heir to some part of a very big fortune, Sara, and I didn't see how that was going to work when my life's out here.'

She stared at him, absorbing this. ‘Then it wasn't Marilyn?'

‘
Marilyn?
What's it got to do with her?'

‘I thought –' Sara felt suddenly dizzy, as she perceived her error – ‘that you didn't – that you gave up on me because you'd made a mistake falling for her and didn't want to repeat it with another city woman.'

Jack made a sound between a laugh and a groan. ‘How can you be so blind? I love you.' He released the hand he was holding to scrub his own across his jaw and grimace. ‘So much for good intentions. You're still your father's heir – you could, I imagine, have anything you want. How can I ask you to give that up and stay out here in the scrub with me? Even though I love you, Sara, and in the blood and bones of me I know I always will.'

‘Oh, Jack.' The green eyes misted over. ‘It's all I want. Not some grand home. Money only buys things. It's useful but it's not real the way Sam and Becky are, or you, and Beth and Len. I loved you long before that trip to the canyon and everything else is incidental. I want to live with reality, like your parents do – with love, not with money or power.'

This time his arms crushed the breath from her. When the kiss stopped he spoke against her cheek, and she felt his breath stir the tendrils of hair about her ear. ‘Then do. Come live with me and be my love. Stay out here in the dust and heat and flies. You're sure it's what you want, Sara?'

‘I want you,' she said. ‘Especially when you quote poetry at me. I don't care about a bit of dust. And I can put up with the flies.' Joy enfolded her like a hug. ‘I love you, Jack Ketch. You gave me back the life they stole from me, and I intend to spend it with you.'

‘I've been warned, then.' There was a smile in his voice as he bent to pick up her hat, which they had dislodged again, and place it on her curls. ‘What does the letter say?'

‘Oh.' Sara had forgotten about it but there were only a few lines. She read them swiftly. ‘The police have arrested Stella Blake. Actually I knew that, my father told me. The police contacted him just before New Year. Paul says she's since been arraigned on charges of kidnapping and an accomplice to murder.' Her eyes sought his. ‘That means I'll have to go to court . . . Or wouldn't the testimony of a six-year-old count?'

He shrugged. ‘She might plead guilty anyway. But you'd want to see her punished, wouldn't you?'

‘I suppose. She deserves it for Benny.' But somehow Sara couldn't muster the hatred she should have felt for the woman she had once called mother. ‘I think Dad suffered most,' she said slowly. ‘I mean, I didn't enjoy life with Stella but I'd forgotten what I'd lost, whereas he's had to live with it all this time. I doubt he'd be in a very forgiving mood. It cost him so much. This too.' Her gesture took in the land around them. ‘He was a bushman, from choice, but he left all that behind when the Blakes stole us. So yes, Stella has much to answer for. The harm people do,' she said sadly. ‘It's like there's no end to it.'

‘I know.' His hand slid down her arm to circle her wrist and their fingers entwined. ‘You want to come for a drive?'

She was startled. ‘What, now? It's getting late.'

‘It won't take long. Just to Kileys and back. What do you say?'

‘Why?'

He heaved a sigh. ‘Yes, or no, my love?'

Sara melted at the endearment. ‘Then yes.' She glanced around at the deserted front of the homestead. ‘I'll have to tell Beth first. She doesn't even know you're here. Neither does Len, and the kids are getting the goats in. Shall we take my vehicle?'

‘Yours, is it? Might be a bit flash – the road could be boggy still. Don't worry about Beth – she'll figure it out. Let's go.'

The track was actually better than before, the rain having filled the potholes and firmed down the dust. When they neared the fringe of mulga that opened to the sand country round the bore, Jack slowed. ‘Okay, close your eyes. No peeking permitted.'

‘Why?' Sara repeated, but did as she was bidden. She held the door as the vehicle swayed round a curve. ‘Can I look now?'

‘Not yet.'

The vehicle slowed, and stopped. Galahs shrieked and as Jack cut the engine she heard the splash of water falling into the stock tank. He came round to her side of the vehicle, opened the door and took her arm.

‘Out you get. Okay, you can look now.'

Sara gazed upon a fairyland.

She gasped in delight and he slid his arm around her shoulder. The shadows lay long across the ground in the slanting golden sunlight. She saw the tank, mill and trough nestling in a sea of herbage, the shimmery-surfaced spill of the overflow where three wild ducks paddled, and the familiar creek bank fenced by white-trunked gums. But it had been bare before, the land stripped to its bones. Now colour flowed in every direction. Great blazes of golden yellow, seas of pink and white, rivers of purple, rippling away across the sand flats between the whitewood clumps and the stark trunks of the gums.

‘This is what rain can do.'

‘I never imagined. Surely this doesn't always happen?'

‘Not every time. Conditions have to be just right to get this sort of show. You might see it this way once in thirty years.'

‘I'll be getting on for sixty next time, then,' she said. ‘It's breathtaking, Jack! There should be angels or trumpets. Oh, I never want to forget this! I have to walk among them, to make sure I don't forget. It could take a little while.'

‘We've got time,' he said comfortably. ‘We can do it together.' He glanced down at her, a glint in the grey eyes. ‘You realise that another man might have claimed that he'd arranged it specially to dazzle you? Not me. I just wanted you to see it.'

‘How noble.' Her lips quirked. ‘And you're not even calling it
galli-galli
.'

‘There's that too. Damn but you're sharp!' He nodded at the palette of colour stretching to the horizon. ‘I reckon there's memories enough for anyone here.'

‘For everyone,' she corrected fervently.

‘And afterwards,' he suggested, ‘shall we start making some more?'

‘Oh, yes,' Sara murmured and kissed him. ‘Let's do that.'

His hand slipped down from her shoulder and she spread her fingers to accommodate his, feeling a goosepimpling instant of deja vu as she did so. A memory of an older bond, and a smaller hand that had once linked with hers just as naturally. Without releasing her grip, Sara curled her other arm about Jack's neck, pulling him close to bring his body against hers, so close that she could feel the regular beat of his heart against her ribs. It was a strong, relentless beat from a heart that would not easily quit, but it was kind too, she thought, and as tough and enduring as the desert land upon which they stood.