Her Outback Protector. Margaret Way

have been only ten when we were kicked out but I do remember it was so big you needed a bus to get around it.”

      “Just leave it for the time being, won’t you?” he asked in his most reasonable voice. “See how the family reacts.”

      “In that case, Daniel, you better be present,” she said. “So where did you come from anyway? Are you a Territorian?”

      “I am now, but I come from all over.”

      “You’re worse than I am,” she sighed. “Could you be a bit more specific?”

      “Maybe not today.”

      She looked at him searchingly. “So what about a compromise? Where precisely did you learn to manage a cattle station. You’re what?” Her blue eyes ranged over him.

      “You want me to produce a birth certificate? I’m twenty-eight, okay?”

      “Most overseers aren’t off the ground by then,” she observed, impressed.

      “Then I must be the eighth wonder of the world. As it happened, I learned from the best. My mother and I lived like gypsies moving around Outback Queensland until we came to rest in the Channel Country when I was about eleven. A station owner there, a Harry Cunningham, offered her the job of housekeeper after his wife died and there we stayed until he died some years back. His daughter sold the station almost immediately after. Something that must have the old man still swivelling in his grave. But such is life!”

      There were a hundred questions she wanted to ask, but the first was easy. “So where is your mother now?”

      His handsome face instantly turned to granite. “I’m like you, Alexandra. I’m an orphan.”

      “I’m sorry.” She saw clearly he had no more dealt with the loss of his mother than she had the loss of her father. Orphans. Hadn’t her mother been lost to her the day she married that rich, worthless scumbag, Jem?

      “Not as sorry as I am,” he said.

      “What happened to her?” She spoke as gently as she could, fearing she was about to be rebuffed.

      “I think we’ll just leave it,” he said.

      CHAPTER TWO

      HE TOOK her on a journey that filled her with fascination. The landscape beneath them was so vast, so timeless in character Sandra found herself awestruck. The first hellish minutes, just as she expected, had been taken up with fighting down her fears. She would never be cured of them. Not just of helicopters. In a chopper one couldn’t look out on a fixed wing, causing not only in her, but in many people the sickening sensation the aircraft might simply drop out of the sky. She feared all aircraft. She’d been battling that particular phobia since she was a child and the family Cessna had taken a nosedive into the McDonnell ranges, not far from Moondai, with her father strapped into the pilot’s seat. That was the start of it.

      He did it, Sandy. Your uncle Lloyd. He caused it to happen. He’d know how. He was always jealous of your father. He couldn’t let him inherit.

      Some words are scorched into the memory as were some scenes, like her mother sobbing out accusations…

      He did it, Sandy. He couldn’t let your father inherit.

      So where did that leave her, her grandfather’s heiress, all these years later? No way was she sitting pretty. Just like her father she was a target. But unlike her trusting father she had learned the hard way to always be on red alert. It helped too to have backup. Small wonder she’d decided, very sensibly, to shift her overseer into the homestead for a time. Daniel Carson had an aura that made a woman feel safe. She suspected there was more than a hint of Sir Galahad about him. She even liked the way he stared down at her from his towering height, though occasionally it had made her feel like toppling backwards.

      He was an excellent pilot. He was handling the helicopter with such confidence and skill she was actually approaching a state of euphoria, where she believed nothing bad could possibly happen. Phobias were only there to be licked! The ride was so smooth! She gave herself up fully to the pleasure and excitement of the flight.

      The immensity, the primeval nature and the remoteness of the landscape, lit by the brilliance of a tropical sun left an indelible imprint on the mind. This was a land unchanged in aeons. It appeared far more splendid than she remembered as a child. Of course there was no better way to see it than from a helicopter with its three-dimensional visual effects. She felt as free as a bird, wheeling, skimming, darting across the glorious cobalt sky.

      Great inundated flood plains glittered below them. She stared out eagerly. Rivers extended wall to wall in numerous spectacular gorges. Such places were inaccessible in the Wet. They could only be seen as she was seeing them, from the air. A foaming white waterfall was coming up on the right. It crashed over the towering stone escarpment, throwing up a white haze like a great curtain. In contrast, the walls of the canyon glowed like a furnace, a throbbing orange-red streaked with bands of iridescent yellow and pink. Millions of litres of water were being delivered into the turbulent stream below, although the rains had abated some weeks back.

      Gradually as the inundated land began to settle there would be an abundant harvest. The animals and the birds would begin to breed. Wildflowers would open out, going to work to form a prolific ground cover over the warm, receptive earth. All the varieties of palms and pandanus would put out new fronds. The golden and crimson grevilleas would bloom, the hibiscus and gardenia would spread their scent and colour across a background of lush greens. Mere words couldn’t prepare a visitor to the Top End for the sight. Suddenly after years in the city, Sandra felt the tremendous pull of the great living Outback. The Outback had fashioned her. She had been happily content as a child. Maybe she could be again?

      Beneath her mile after mile of lagoons filled to the brim with beautiful waterlilies swept by. She knew the species: the sacred lily of Buddha, the red lotus, the pink and the white and the cream, and the giant blue waterlily with flowers that grew a foot across. The master of the waterways was down there, too. One could never forget that. The powerful salt water crocodile. She shuddered at the very thought. Moondai in the Red Centre was a long way from the crocs though according to the magnificent aboriginal rock drawings on the station they had inhabited the fabled inland sea of prehistory.

      Daniel turned his handsome head to smile at her with a real depth of pleasure in his eyes. She smiled back, both of them in perfect accord; both captive to the space, the vast distances, the sunlight and the colours, the incomparable beauty of nature. Here was the very spirit of the bush. The air was so clear, it was like liquid crystal. By now, Sandra was so enthralled she’d completely forgotten how initially she had wanted to turn back. She felt happily content to fly with Daniel, an almost telepathic communication between them. It struck her he was really her kind of person. One knew these things right away.

      It dawned on her very gradually their air speed was slowing. Steamy heat was rising from the waterlogged soil.

      “Everything okay?” She turned to him, an alarmed croak in her voice.

      His profile was set in stone. “We’re losing power. Sit tight.”

      Instantly Sandra jerked back in her seat. Panic surged through her chest, near driving the breath from her lungs. All illusions of safety were abruptly shattered. Her worst nightmares appeared to be coming true. They were in trouble. Didn’t trouble follow her around? The helicopter was losing power and altitude. She craned her head. Beneath them lay a forest of paperbarks with their slender trunks standing in who knows how many feet of water. At least she could swim. She thought of the crocs. Their bodies would provide a nice feed. Troubled though her life had been she felt a sharp nostalgia for it. She wanted a future!

      Okay, time to pray. What was the point, a dissenting little voice said. Her most fervent prayers hadn’t saved Nikki from a tragically early death. She would pray all the same. She couldn’t afford to get on the wrong side of God. Maybe her time was up? Hers and Daniel Carson’s. Maybe that was why he didn’t feel like a stranger? They were going to die together.

      She