North Star (16 page)

Something snapped inside Kate then. ‘Do you really think anything you can do or say to me is going to scare me off?' she shouted. ‘I'm Henry Campbell's granddaughter. You'll need to be a bigger bastard than this if you want to scare me.'

He gave a humourless chuckle. ‘You might have most people round here fooled, but not me. You've got the Campbell blood in ya—I can see it in your eyes. You know that curse ain't just foolish talk, don't ya, girl,' he said, his small eyes like flint as he slowly cocked his rifle in a deliberate attempt to unsettle her.

It worked.

‘You should never have come back here. If you were smart, you'd pack ya bags and kids and get the hell off this place.' He turned and walked back through the fence to his vehicle, then drove away without a backward glance.

Kate stared numbly at the dead animal on the ground, the mournful cry of a lone crow sounding in the distance, then she turned away and got into her ute. As she drove back towards the house, she started to shiver.

Was
she doing the right thing staying?

Kate clenched her teeth and pushed away the unpleasant prickling sensation that had followed her into the car. ‘There's no such thing as a curse,' she muttered, staring out the window at the endless empty paddocks surrounding her.

Once back home, Kate phoned Nathan and Jenny. She hated to bother them on their romantic getaway but they needed to know about this.

‘You're on speaker so Nathan can hear too,' Jenny told Kate after she'd been given a quick rundown. ‘Now, what did he say it ate?'

‘Parthenium weed.' Kate shuddered as she recalled the agony the animal had suffered.

‘Kate,' Nathan's voice came over the phone, ‘I don't know what Unterheinner's playing at, but he'd know full well parthenium weed wouldn't cause the severe symptoms you've described—it's not even usually fatal.'

‘Well, something did, and he's blaming the fences being down.'

‘Look, try not to worry about it for now. We'll be home tomorrow afternoon and I'll come straight over,' said Jenny. ‘We'll work it all out then.'

After hanging up, Kate stared out the window thoughtfully. Why would Unterheinner have lied about what caused the cow to become so ill? She didn't need this kind of trouble right now, not with the organic accreditation depending on so many strict guidelines to be in place. North Star was due to be inspected in a few weeks and somehow she knew this incident was just a little too contrived to be purely coincidental.

That night there was a hint of smoke in the air. Kate walked outside and did a quick check of the immediate vicinity, but thankfully it didn't smell very strong, so it couldn't be too close. Against the darkness of the night it was hard to judge distance, but some way off she thought she could make out a black plume of smoke. She hoped it wasn't something that could become serious.

She slept fitfully, slipping in and out of dreams of North Star burning down around her.

The next morning, Kate collected some wire and the rusty tin toolbox from the machinery shed, loaded them into the ute, then made her way back to the north paddock.

How she was going to fix the fence she had no clue, but maybe she'd be able to patch it until Nathan could get to it. Hopefully Unterheinner had moved his cattle away from the sagging fence to keep any more from wandering onto North Star land.

As she neared the old windmill, she slowed to a crawl and leant forward in her seat, peering through the windscreen in disbelief at the large blackened circle of scorched earth—and what remained of the cow carcass.

She climbed from the ute and approached the spot cautiously. What the hell had happened here?
Kate glanced over at the fence and found it pulled tight and straight, not a sag in sight.

Was Unterheinner trying to make her think she was crazy, or was this some kind of warning? Where was the weed growing if it was so rampant and wild? She decided to scout around a little; she hadn't been down past the windmill in years and now was as good a time as any to take a look.

Three hours later, she had her answer.

Gritting her teeth, she wheeled around and headed back to the car.

Barrapine was almost as old as North Star. The house was not as large but it was equally grand, with its manicured gardens and sculpted hedges. Where North Star had been neglected, Barrapine had been lovingly cared for and nurtured.

Kate pulled the ute to a stop on the blindingly white pressed-gravel driveway in front of the homestead and slammed the door behind her, unrepentant that it shattered the tranquil silence.

As she lifted her fist to bang on the thick door, it opened, revealing a stern-faced but seemingly unsurprised Matthew Unterheinner.

Kate took a small step back and glared at him. ‘I know what you're up to.'

‘I have no idea what you're talking about.'

‘Why would you make such a big deal about the fence needing to be fixed and then go and fix it yourself? Not to mention setting fire to the cow?'

‘Because I didn't want any more of my cattle to get poisoned by your bloody land. And you can't leave contam- inated carcasses lying around—something else you obviously don't know.'

‘If the cow only ate a dangerous weed, why would you have to burn it? It just doesn't make sense to me.'

Unterheinner's face hardened. ‘And what the hell would you know about anything?' he said nastily and she knew she was on to something.

‘That cow didn't die from eating any parthenium weed,' she said calmly. ‘I searched out a picture of parthenium and I didn't find anything like it over near the old windmill. You burnt that cow to hide what really killed it, didn't you?'

Unterheinner gave a loud snort and made to turn away.

‘Whatever it ate was from your property, not mine. You thought blaming it on me would be a good opportunity to cause trouble.' Kate crossed her arms defensively. ‘I didn't find parthenium near the windmill, but I did find lots of cow manure down by the waterhole. Now, I may be a dumb city chick, but for a property that hasn't run cattle on it for well over a decade, I find that a little strange, don't you?'

‘Get off my land!'

‘You've been running your cattle on North Star.'

‘So what? I had a deal with Campbell.'

‘I don't think so,' said Kate. ‘I think you've just been using North Star to fatten your cattle. There's no way Henry would have made any business arrangement with you—you two hated each other.'

‘If Henry couldn't maintain his fences, I can't help it if my cattle wander over there.'

‘Strange that the fence has been fixed now. I wonder why. Wouldn't be to cover up the fact it'd been cut on purpose, would it?'

‘Listen here, girly,' he snarled, ‘I'd be very careful throwing around accusations if I were you. Now, get off my property.'

She held his furious stare as he backed into the house and slammed the front door on her.

Kate was fuming. She knew she had him. No wonder he resented her being on North Star: with her sudden arrival he'd lost a great deal of prime grazing land. She doubted she'd be able to prove it—she supposed he could claim he didn't know the cattle were there and she wasn't really sure she wanted to make him more of an enemy by taking this further. At least now that Nathan was leasing the land he wouldn't be able to continue his little enterprise. Of course, this wasn't going to do anything to endear her to him—in fact, it would probably make him resent her even more.

Two days after the Unterheinner incident, Kate was in the kitchen preparing dinner. She'd invited the Beaumonts, and John, because it seemed the polite thing to do. She stubbornly ignored the little snigger inside her head; she was being
friendly
and nothing more. The table had been laid, the roast was in the oven and mouth-watering aromas were filling the house.

Jenny Beaumont, though, had a lot to answer for.

At the last minute Jenny had called and informed her that Nathan was still not back from a sale, the second one in less than a week, and that the kids all wanted a sleepover at her house, so she had decided to stay and supervise. That left John as the only guest, and no children in the house. It was a less than subtle attempt at matchmaking, but it was too late to call John and cancel.

The drone of an engine announced his arrival and she felt a tingle of apprehension along her spine. What if he thought she had planned it this way?

He called through the screen door and Kate called out for him to come in. Having watched nervously through the window as he pulled up outside, she'd raced back into the kitchen so as not to seem too eager. Putting the roast back into the oven, she turned as he walked into the kitchen, and tried to ignore how good he looked.

He'd just showered, so his hair was still damp and he smelled of soap. A brief but unsettling picture of ravishing him right there on the kitchen table floated through her mind; she felt her face grow hot at the very notion.

‘I brought wine—and these.' He pulled a bunch of roses from behind his back and she stared at them in bewilderment. ‘If you don't like them it's okay,' he said, watching her expression warily.

‘No, they're lovely. Thank you,' she said quickly and reached out to take them. ‘You just caught me by surprise, that's all. I don't think I've ever been given flowers before.'

‘You're kidding.'

She gave a wry smile. ‘That's what you get for marrying too young, I guess. I missed out on all the grown-up things, like dates and flowers.'

Taking the roses to the sink, she filled up a large glass jug and arranged the flowers carefully. ‘Thank you, these are beautiful.' She placed the jug in the centre of the table. ‘Perfect,' she said, standing back to admire them.

When she glanced over at John, he appeared deep in thought.

‘Do you want to open your wine now or with dinner?' she asked, taking out two wineglasses.

‘Should we wait for Nathan and Jenny?'

Kate felt her face redden once more and she tried for a nonchalant expression. ‘Jenny just called—they can't make it. Nathan's not back yet and the kids have decided to stay over.' She closed her eyes. It sounded so planned.