LITMIR.BIZ

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wanted a real stake in the country’s future. He wanted to make a contribution, building on everything his forebears had achieved. Eden in anyone’s language was a rich prize.

      “Are you there, Nicole, or have you gone into a trance?” her aunt asked testily.

      “I’m here,” she answered. “Sorry, I did drift off.”

      “And I’m almost out of strength.” Suddenly Sigrid’s voice had a weak flicker. “Are you coming home?”

      “I don’t think I could with that man there.”

      Sigrid didn’t pause. “Your father. He’s in a sorry plight even if he did bring it all on himself. But I’m sorrier for you, Nicole. You haven’t got a heart.”

      Nicole was so shocked tears sprang into her eyes. “Thanks a lot, Siggy. If I don’t have a heart, how come I didn’t toss you and your dear husband out?” Now she didn’t fight the urge. She slammed down the phone, feeling intense pressure build up in her chest.

      If only she could be perfectly happy with the life she’d made for herself here. Why she couldn’t was a great puzzle. She had the Bradshaws with their endless kindness. Through them she’d made her own circle of friends. Attractive, accomplished young people, full of hope and ambition. She’d even met someone tonight she felt it might be possible to fall in love with. But the passionate love her mother had inspired in two very different men had destroyed her. And them. Small wonder Nicole had a profound distrust of strong emotions.

      She did have her painting, though. That was her release. And she’d been assured by people whose opinion she valued that she had a genuine gift. It was Dr. Rosendahl, healer and mentor, who’d first suggested she use her gift as therapy to exorcise her demons. Rosendahl who had actively encouraged her to continue further study in Paris. Her cup should be overflowing.

      Except it wasn’t. Despite everything going so well for her, she was haunted by a strong sense of loss. She had frequent mental images of her desert home. The Timeless Land, where the ancient earth was a rich fiery red, where the sun looked down in unwinking splendor from a cloudless opal-blue sky. Birds were the phenomena of the Outback, and here great colonies of birds screeched their lives away: brilliant parrots, white cockatoos, the gray and rose-pink galahs, the myriad small birds of the vast plains, orange and red, the great flights of budgerigar wheeling and flashing green and gold fire. Endless varieties of waterbirds lived in the maze of waterways, lakes, swamps and billabongs that crisscrossed the vast inland delta that was the Channel Country, a region of immense fascination, rich in legend.

      A desert yet not a desert. She knew all it needed was the miracle of rain to turn into the greatest garden on earth.

      The station had been named Eden for the impossible, wondrous blossoming in that vast arid wilderness. To be there was an experience forever retained. In her SoHo loft she could almost smell the perfume of the trillions of wildflowers. She could see herself as a child swimming through infinite waves of paper daisies, pure white and sunshine yellow, rushing back to her beautiful mother, standing a little way off, with a chain of them she had fashioned to adorn her mother’s glorious hair.

      She knew she wasn’t as beautiful as her mother. She couldn’t be. No one could be. Yet they had had to bury all that beauty on Lethe Hill. Had to leave it to the silence of the desert in plain sight of the eternal red sand dunes that ran to the horizon in great parallel waves.

      Nicole settled back on the bed, running her hand through her auburn hair that fell in long loose locks over her shoulders and down her back. What was she to do? Siggy had confirmed her niggling fears. Drake wanted Eden. Why wouldn’t he? It was a strategic, important station with permanent deep water. Maybe he even wanted to raze the historic homestead to the ground and rebuild. Drake had worshiped his only uncle just as she had worshiped her mother. The friendship they’d once shared had proved impossible to sustain; it was as though each was constrained to blame the other for the sin that had been committed. Each had armed themselves with a long sword, letting fly whenever chance brought them together. Their relationship had been damaged beyond repair. These days she seldom surrendered to the luxury of giving her mind over to memories of Drake.

      But he was there all the same.

      CHAPTER TWO

      THINGS DIDN’T RETURN to normal after Siggy’s phone call. Or what passed for normal for her, though recently she had begun to feel her life was starting to come right. Only there was no escaping the past. The more one tried to push it away the more it fought back like some noxious weed that festered and spread.

      The truth was, Siggy’s news had upset her badly, bringing back a sharper agony than she’d known in a long time. It stirred up all her old memories of the tragedy that had alienated two families and sent her fleeing halfway around the world in an effort to rebuild her life.

      So Heath Cavanagh had landed on Eden’s doorstep to die? He had no right whatever to be there.

      Unless he’s your father?

      She could never escape that voice in her head. If only she knew without resorting to DNA testing. That would be too humiliating, except it could uncover a huge truth. Or a lie. Though she’d searched for evidence of him in her face and in her behavior, she couldn’t or wouldn’t recognize any Heath Cavanagh in her. No characteristic, no expression. Neither could she mark any resemblance to David McClelland. So who would know? She’d had to totally reappraise her mother’s life. Her adored mother had not been Miss Goody Two-shoes; most certainly David McClelland had been her lover. Before and after her marriage. Well, they’d certainly paid an appalling price for their infidelity.

      Her grandparents had refused to talk about it. Siggy was adamant Heath was her father. While she was vocal in condemning him, Siggy could, on occasion, defend him with vigor. One had to wonder why. From all accounts Siggy had been jealous of her beautiful sister. Was it crazy to think at some stage Siggy might have indulged in some petty revenge by stealing Corrinne’s husband, if only one single time? Either that or she’d fallen under Heath Cavanagh’s spell and couldn’t help it. So much that couldn’t be spoken of. No wonder she’d been desperate to get away.

      Her grandmother always understanding, never demanding, would love to have her home, though her grandmother had been the first to say the family should listen to Dr. Rosendahl’s advice and send her away from Eden. At least until such time as she felt she could cope.

      Who said she could cope now, even after five years of living abroad? Was she strong enough to confront the lingering ghosts? To visit the escarpment, Shadow Valley? Basically she was scarred, and those scars weren’t going to go away. Sometimes she thought she would never be free to get on with her life until she had the answers to all the questions that plagued her.

      Perhaps she could find them if she returned home. She was older, a survivor, albeit with unresolved grievances. In some ways it seemed the decision had been made for her. If she found Heath Cavanagh wasn’t in the terrible condition Siggy would have her believe, she’d send him packing. Then there was the threat of Drake and his ambitions. She needed to be home to keep an eye on him. She could see the big advantages that would open up for him and the McClelland cattle chain if Eden fell into his hands, but Eden was her ancestral home. He would never take it from her.

      Nicole checked out Qantas flight schedules on the Internet. By the time she disconnected, her plans were already made. It may not have been exactly the thing to do, but she had no intention of notifying the family until the last moment. She’d arrive quietly, before Siggy could cover all bases.

      A WEEK LATER she arrived in Sydney thoroughly jet-lagged but thrilled to be back in Australia. She’d left a subzero winter in New York and arrived to brilliant blue skies and dazzling sunshine of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. She always found it impossible to sleep on planes, so she was groggy with exhaustion, her body clock out of whack. She was in no condition to take a connecting flight to Brisbane, so she booked into a hotel and slept. The next day she awoke refreshed, ready for the hour’s flight to Brisbane midafternoon. That meant another night in a hotel and more phone calls before she could arrange a flight out west

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