The man at Kambala (14 page)

`If he has to.' Sara hesitated, added in low tones, `Don, I'd rather you didn't. I — I don't feel like being kissed at the moment. I'm not being coy, or anything like that, honestly. It's just that I ..

`It's just that you're not sure yet whether you like me that way or not.' His shrug was easy. 'Okay, I won't push it. Only don't try flirting if you're not willing to follow through. Next time you might not find me in as passive a mood!'

`I won't,' she promised, and added impulsively, 'You are nice, Don !'

`Another first!' His tone was dryly humorous. 'I'll have to be looking out my halo. Come on, let's get these animals seen to and make tracks for the house while my resolution hold out.'

Steve was waiting at the top of the veranda steps when they reached the house again. 'Everything all right? he asked Sara pointedly.

She gave him an unblinking stare. 'Everything is fine. You didn't have to wait up.'

`I didn't,' he returned. 'I have a report to write before I turn in. Good night.'

They both replied in unison, passing him and going indoors together to part in the corridor and go -their separate ways.

Jill was still asleep when Sara got up at six. When she got outside, Steve was leaning on the rail just as she had last seen him, except that he was back in working gear. He greeted her without expression.

`Jill not awake yet?' he asked.

`No.' She hesitated, wanting to go and stay both at the same time. 'I'm going up to the bluff,'

`I know.' He glanced up at the rocky face outlined against the paling sky. 'You spend a lot of time up there.'

`Yes,' she said again.

He stirred suddenly. 'Mind if I come with you?'

Sara didn't turn her head, afraid of revealing too much. 'I don't suppose I could really stop you,' she said, and then flushed because she hadn't meant to sound quite so ungracious. `No, I don't mind,' she tagged on quickly. 'Please do.'

She was very conscious of his height and lean strength as they moved through the low bush to the foot of the bluff, and was grateful when he made no attempt to lend her a helping hand as Travis had done. He was right behind her when they reached her usual spot. He leaned against the rock face to scan the emerging landscape, his hand reaching automatically for the pack of cigarettes.

`You smoke too much,' Sara observed without thinking, and could have bitten out her tongue as he gave her an amused glance.

You sound like Jill. Does my health concern
you?'

Not unduly,' she came back on a reasonably light note. 'I'm just a born nosy-parker. What do you think?' with a sweep of her hand which indicated the distances about them.

`Pretty good vantage point. I can see why ,you like coming up here — particularly at this hour.' He paused. `You'd miss it, wouldn't you, all this?'

`Yes,' she answered softly, 'I would.'

`But you can't expect to spend the rest of your life here. Some day you're going to meet someone you'll want to marry, and he won't necessarily be content to stay here.'

A sudden huskiness in her voice, she said, 'Why is it that the female is supposed to make all the sacrifices?'

Because man is the provider and he's entitled to choose where he'll live and work.'

`Even if his wife is unhappy there?'

His mouth twisted slightly. 'If she thought enough about him it wouldn't make any difference. A woman should be ready to follow her man to the end of the earth if necessary.'

Was he thinking of Diane? Sara wondered. Had she already made it plain to him that a few days of back-wood living were as much as she was prepared to stand? Perhaps the whole idea of buying the adjoining farm was an effort at compromise, a means of having the woman he wanted while still retaining some measure of independence. Yet she wouldn't have thought Steve a man to settle for compromise under any circumstances. Or was it simply that she didn't
want to think of him that way because of the implications? Sara became aware of a tight dryness in her throat, and hastily shied away from further introspection.

There was a silence between them for the space of several minutes. Steve finished the cigarette and stubbed it out, resettled himself against the rock and said evenly, 'You know about Don's wife, I suppose?'

She glanced at him quickly and away again. know he's been married, yes.'

His eyes were narrowed against the growing brightness of the eastern skyline. 'Are you attracted to him?'

`He's a very attractive man,' she answered at last, and then with a touch of asperity, 'I'm old enough to recognize that much.'

`I wouldn't argue with it.' His glance slid over her small, fine features. 'All the same, I wouldn't pay too much attention to anything he might say to you. Don's okay in his way, but he's not concerned with finer feelings.'

`Not to be trusted is what you're really saying,' she rejoined on a brittle note. 'Do you think you know him all that well?'

`Better than you do. I'm trying to be diplomatic about this, so stop jumping down my throat before I've finished. Don laid the blame for the breakdown of his marriage entirely at his wife's door, and even if he doesn't fully appreciate the fact himself, he's intent on taking it out on every other female. I wouldn't like to see you get hurt.'

Her head came up. 'I shan't get hurt by anyone.

Odd as it might seem to you, I can appreciate that a kiss or so doesn't have to mean anything.'

`Then he has kissed you?' he said sharply.

Sara bit her lip, but pride wouldn't let her back out now. 'Why shouldn't he? You did.'

His mouth twisted. 'I hadn't forgotten. There's a difference between my intentions and his.'

`You don't need to tell me that,' she retorted. There's a world of difference between you and Don. You might try finding out the real reason his wife left him before slinging any more mud around, for instance !'

He studied her, his jaw hard. 'Supposing you tell me:

`It isn't up to me.' She was already regretting the hastily spoken words. 'Ask someone closer to him.'

`Meaning Diane, I imagine. Is she supposed to have had something to do with it?'

Sara moved abruptly. This whole matter had gone far enough. They had no right to be standing here discussing Don's affairs. 'I'm going down,' she said.

`No, you're not.' He hadn't moved himself, but there was a look in his eyes, which dared her to try passing him. 'I want to know what you were getting at.'

`Then you'll have to want.'

A muscle tautened in his cheek. 'I've never known anyone go out of their way to beg for trouble like you do. Maybe it's a good thing the Milsons aren't going to be here more than a few days. It would be like you to deliberately encourage Don just to get back at me.'

Trembling but controlling her voice, Sara said, `Don't flatter yourself. If I encourage Don at all it's
because it happens to be a refreshing change to be credited with a little intelligence !' That was unfair and she knew it, but she was beyond caring about shades of meaning. 'Ever since you arrived at Kambala you've acted as if no one else knew anything at all about the job ... including my father! You started throwing your weight around that first day, and you haven't stopped since ! You even had to ruin this place for me !'

`Finished?' he inquired stonily into the sudden silence. 'Since we seem to be exchanging a few home truths this morning let's expound on a couple. I've never met your father, but any man who can just take off for England and leave his daughter alone in a place as remote as this doesn't in my view show any sense of responsibility.'

`He didn't leave me alone,' she protested. 'There was Ted and Kimani.'

`Neither of whom were in any position to enforce any control over your movements, it seems.'

`That's not what you said to Ted the day I cracked the axle.'

`I know that's not what I said to Ted. I was ready to let fly at anybody right then. I was sent out here to do a specific job, not play nursemaid to another man's responsibility. If you'd been reasonable from the start we'd have got along okay, but you're still about as easy to handle as a porcupine !' His voice had a vicious edge. `When are you going to learn the difference between officiousness and common sense?'

Common sense, thought Sara numbly, seemed to have little to do with anything right at the moment.

She said thickly, 'Are you so sure you know it yourself? Perhaps it would be good for me to fall in love with Don, even if it was only to teach me that lesson you seem to think I need. On the other hand, I might turn out to be just what he needs!'

`That I don't doubt. Some men get a real kick out of teaching a young innocent the facts of life.' His mouth was a hard straight line. 'Luckily he won't get the chance. If necessary I'll have a word with him myself.'

Her face went hot. 'You have no right to do that! This hardly comes under station regulations. In any case, what makes you think that Don would take any notice of what you say?'

`If he doesn't he'll be out of here quicker than he expects.' He studied her grimly. 'The choice is yours. Either you discourage him yourself or I do it for you. Which?'

The whole situation had grown out of proportion, but this was no time to be arguing that point. Steve was perfectly capable of doing as he said, and if he did Don could only think that she herself had taken things a little too seriously and gone to him for advice. Hands clenched moistly at her sides, she said tautly, 'That isn't a choice, it's an ultimatum.'

He shrugged. 'Have it your own way.'

`No.' She swallowed. 'Leave Don out of it. I won't let him near me again. Now do you mind if we go back?'

`We'll both go back,' he said coolly.

Njorogi was setting the table along the veranda when they reached the house. He gave them both a
cheerful greeting and went on methodically with his task, wiping out each cup with a clean cloth before setting it carefully upside down in its saucer. Steve disappeared round the back, leaving Sara to sink into a chair and wish suddenly and desperately that she had accompanied her father to England after all.

IT was a quiet weekend. After two days of bumping around in the Land-Rover, both the Milsons and Jill seemed content to spend their time just lounging around the house and veranda. Apart from one brief sortie on the Sunday morning, Steve stayed on the station too, suggesting to Sara that he didn't trust her to keep her word and meant to ensure her adherence to his instructions by keeping an eye on Don himself. Under his watchful gaze she felt self-conscious and uncomfortable with the former, and knew that Don was puzzled by the change in her. She would be more than relieved when it came to the time for the Milsons to depart, she decided.

There was a storm on the Sunday evening, starting before dinner and continuing on through the meal in a steady roar of rain and rolling thunder which died away gradually to the north. After it the air had cooled far too much to allow sitting on the veranda with their coffee, so they dispersed themselves about the living-room.

Sitting on one of the rugs with her head back against the arm of Ted's chair, Sara tried not to notice how close Diane was to Steve on the settee, how her amber-tipped fingers rested lightly and intimately on his arm as she leaned over to put her cup down on the table, close to his knee. Everything the older woman did was somehow calculated, she thought, and immediately

took herself to task for a cattiness hitherto quite foreign to her make-up. Diane had never been anything but pleasant to her.

Jill seemed restless after the storm had passed, wandering from window to window, in between fingering disinterestedly through the pile of old magazines. Eventually, as if able to stand inaction any longer, she got up and put a record on the ancient turntable, wound the handle and stood listening to the scratchy music for a brief moment before turning to look at Don with a sudden brilliant smile.

`Dance with me,' she invited. 'I'll go mad if I sit around much longer.'

Don smiled back and rose to oblige. They moved slowly around the clear space of floor in the middle of the room, a tall, indolently good-looking man and a vivaciously lovely girl who looked as if they had danced together many times before. Yet Jill couldn't have known Don more than three weeks at the outside, Sara reckoned. Her thoughts harkened back to the first evening they had all arrived at Kambala when Don had walked her down to the orphanage, and his comments on Jill's probable reactions to the quieter life on the station. She hadn't thought anything about it at the time, but now it came to her that Don had seemed to know rather a lot about Jill under the circumstances. Glancing at Steve, she saw that he too was watching the gyrating couple with slightly narrowed eyes. Obviously it had not occurred to him that his own sister might be in danger of becoming involved with the handsome Don, perhaps because he had credited her with rather more sense. Sara wondered how he would

handle this new situation, whether he would tackle Jill on the subject in the same way he had tackled her the morning before. Somehow she doubted it. With someone he cared about rather than merely felt responsible for it would be kid gloves over the iron hand.