LITMIR.BIZ

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most of the state of Queensland. The Channel Country where she was heading was home to the nation’s cattle kings. Her people. A riverine desert, it provided a vast flat bed for a three-river system that in the rainy season flooded the distinctive maze of channels that watered the massive stretch of plains. The Channel Country covered a vast area, one-fifth of the state, with the nearest neighbor—in Eden’s case the McClellands—one hundred and fifty miles away. Chances were she’d be completely played out by the time she got home.

      AT EAGLE FARM AIRPORT in Brisbane, the same old routine, minus the intensive obligatory checks that had taken place when she’d arrived from overseas. A lengthy process she accepted without complaint in this new dangerous age. Passengers resembling a benign flock of sheep headed off to Baggage Claim, where they milled around waiting for the luggage to come through. When it did, within moments a crush of bodies appeared at the conveyor belt, all eyes glued compulsively on the flap. As the luggage made its way around, it was seized triumphantly and hauled away.

      She couldn’t sight her matching Louis Vuitton bags, a going-away present from her grandmother years before. A young woman behind her suddenly rushed forward, nearly knocking her over, and heaved off a great canvas bag covered in travel stickers.

      “Sorry!” A rueful grin.

      “No problem.”

      After a while she began to get worried. Everyone else was picking up their stuff, so where was hers? Maybe someone had taken a liking to her expensive luggage. Absurd to spend so much money on luggage when it got treated so roughly, she thought wearily. Just as she was starting to feel this was no joke and her luggage had been left in Sydney, the first of her cases tumbled out onto the conveyor belt.

      Thank God! Still she’d have a battle to get two of the heavy suitcases onto the trolley. She moved forward, prepared to marshal her fading strength.

      HIS DRIVER was a short round balding man who stepped forward to identify himself.

      “Mr. McClelland?”

      “Yes.”

      “Jim Dawkins,” the man said cheerfully. “I’m here to drive you on to Archerfield. Mr. Drummond sent me.”

      “Yes, I know. I spoke to Harry last night.”

      “Just the one case, sir?”

      Drake nodded briefly. “It was only an overnight trip.”

      “I’m parked out front and down a bit.”

      “We might as well get under way.”

      “Right, sir.” Dawkins took charge of the overnight bag.

      God knows what made Drake turn back to look around the airport terminal. And at that precise moment. But if he hadn’t, he’d have missed her. For a moment he stood immobilized by shock, feeling as if a hand had reached in and twisted his heart.

      Nicole Cavanagh. He could count the days since he’d last seen her. June, when she’d returned briefly as she always did for her grandmother Louise’s birthday. June and Christmas, like clockwork before she flew away again.

      She had her back to him, standing at the conveyor belt waiting for her luggage. He’d recognize her anywhere by that glorious mane. It was difficult to describe the color, but it always made him think of rubies. Today the familiar cascade of long curling hair was pulled into a loose knot. As she turned—a young woman keen on collecting her luggage surged forward and nearly knocked her down—he saw that flawless skin, milk-white with fatigue, large, blue-green eyes set at a faint slant. Even at that distance, he could see they were shadowed with exhaustion.

      Not that anything could dim her beauty and the aura she gave off, a mixture of cool refinement and an innate sexiness he knew she was almost totally unaware of. Every woman he met fell short of Nicole. She was wearing a sleeveless, high-neck top in a shimmery golden-beige, narrow black slacks, high heeled sandals, a tan leather belt with an ornate gold buckle resting on her hips. She looked what she was. A thoroughbred. High-stepping, high-strung and classy. No matter their dark history, he found it impossible to quietly disappear, to simply go on his way and ignore her. He’d heard Heath Cavanagh was back on Eden. Obviously Nicole was returning home to assess the situation.

      “Wait for me, could you?” he asked Dawkins who, as an employee of an employee was obliged to do whatever he wanted, anyway. “I’ve just spotted a friend.”

      “Right, sir.”

      A friend? he asked himself, feeling his nerves tighten. These days they were more like veiled enemies. Too much history between them, old conflicts aired whenever they came face-to-face, but the magnetic attraction that had grown out of their childhood bond somehow survived tragedy and loss. Probably the tensions between them would never go away. But Nicole, like her tragic mother, took hold of the imagination and never let go.

      He moved toward her, glad for the little while she couldn’t see him but he could see her. Words would only tear them apart.

      NICOLE HAD READIED herself to grab the first case, when a man’s arm shot past her and a familiar male voice said near her ear, “Won’t you let me? The Vuitton, is it? What else?”

      She was paralyzed by shock, and her heart leaped to her throat. She spun around, feeling desperately in need of several deep breaths. “Drake?”

      For a mere instant there was that unspoken recognition of their physical attraction. “Nicole,” he answered suavely.

      “You of all people!” She experienced a strong sense of dislocation, staring up at the commandingly tall young man in front of her. Two years her senior, Drake McClelland emanated strength and confidence, an air of authority he wore like a second skin. He had a darkly tanned face from his life in the sun, singularly striking hawkish features, thick, jet-black hair and dark eyes that were impossibly deep. “How absolutely extraordinary. I’ve hardly been back in the country twenty-four hours, yet you’re one of the first people I meet. What are you doing here?”

      He didn’t answer for a few moments, apparently preferring to concentrate on collecting her heavy suitcases and depositing them on the trolley, a task he made look effortless. “Like you I’m a traveler returning home. You are returning home, Nicole?”

      She ran her tongue over her dry lips. “Yes. Were you on the flight from Sydney? I didn’t see you.”

      “Maybe I didn’t want you to,” he found himself saying unkindly, for he hadn’t sighted her, either.

      She winced slightly in response to his tone. “So things haven’t changed, it seems.” The last time she’d seen him, in June, it was at a picnic race meeting when inevitably their conversation, civil to begin with, had degenerated into passionate confrontation. Grievances were ageless.

      “No.” His features hardened, but there was also a kind of sadness there.

      “Have you picked up your luggage yet?” she asked, simply for something to say. She was unnerved, amazed it was so, when for some years now they had lived in different worlds, coming into contact only when she was home. The place of her birth, though vast in size, was populated by a relative handful of people. Station people all knew one another. They were invited to the same functions and gatherings as a matter of course. She rarely refused an invitation when she was home, even if she knew perfectly well Drake would be there.

      “I didn’t have luggage, only an overnight bag,” Drake replied over his shoulder. “It’s with my driver. I’m flying out of Archerfield. The plane’s there. How are you getting home?”

      No smile. Curt tone. Always the overtones of authority.

      “I’m not ready to go home yet, Drake.” She studied his compelling face for a few seconds, then looked away. It made no sense to ache for what you weren’t allowed. “I’m too tired. Too much traveling. I can’t sleep on planes.”

      “Neither can I.” He gazed down at her moodily. “So what’s the plan? Stay overnight at a hotel and fly on tomorrow?”

      “Something

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