Island of escape (22 page)

Steve to see him tomorrow.'

Two minutes later Ellis and her luggage were in the hire car, and Jan was leaning in at the window and telling her, 'It's a pity you missed your plane, Ellis. Still, you'll be off tomorrow, won't you? Or do you want to stay to congratulate me and Steve?'

Ellis shook her head. 'I'd rather go back to Melbourne as I planned.'

`Very wise,' Jan said smugly. She leaned forward and kissed Ellis on the cheek. 'Goodbye, Ellis. I'm sure Father will be pleased to see you back.'

Ellis managed a smile as she started up the motor, but she felt she couldn't get away from Jan quickly enough. It was incredible that her cousin could be looking so calm and composed and beautiful. So short a time ago she had been in a vile temper—she had slapped Ellis's face, thrown her clothes about—behaved hatefully. Steve couldn't know the unpleasant side of her character. The calm and beautiful girl was the one he knew, the one he—loved.

And she, Ellis, had thought him incapable of love. But then she wasn't Jan.

MARTIN didn't appear in the hotel dining room that night, and Ellis ate alone, feeling lonelier than she had ever felt in her whole life. By now, Steve would be back at Warrianda from wherever he had spent the day, and he and Jan would have made up their quarrel. No doubt they would be in each other's arms by now.

Ellis dared not let her imagination carry her any further. She was burning with jealousy—a sensation she had never experienced before, and it was unbearable. She had thought she was jealous of Jan that night when Paul had stayed so late, but the emotion was weak and meaningless in comparison with what she felt now, and she realised that until now she hadn't known what jealousy was. She didn't know if it would make it better or worse to have Martin here now to keep her company. The last time they had met had been at the cut out, when Steve had very autocratically said he would take her home. She wondered what Martin had made of that, but she would never ask him now.

After dinner she walked restlessly through the small town and along the shore to where the jetty stretched a slender finger across the mysterious dark of the water. There were stars—a moon—and the water made soft sounds on the sand, and the air was full of the faint perfume of flowers. Ellis walked slowly, debating with herself about her future. It would be impossible to go back to Uncle Bill and take up the old life again, and neither did she want to go to Jake, to whom, she realised with a feeling of guilt, she had written only once

since she had been at Warrianda. But she had a little money now—Jake had given her some and she had earned good wages as shearers' cook—and she would be able to support herself for a short time in Melbourne while she searched for work. That was as far ahead as she seemed capable of thinking just now.

When she went back to the hotel, she loitered about hoping there would be some message from Steve, but there was nothing, and there was no doubt in her heart that he had forgotten her. Otherwise, he'd have come.

Martin still didn't put in an appearance the following morning, and since it was Sunday, Ellis guessed he had probably stayed away fishing. It meant there would be no one to see her off, no one to say goodbye to her, and she put in a wretchedly lonely morning before it was time to have some lunch and then take a taxi out to the airfield.

She hadn't booked a seat, but she felt confident it would be no problem. She was terribly tempted to ring Steve and tell him she was going—thank him for—for what she didn't know. But she didn't ring him. After all, he hadn't rung her, and that in itself was a painful indication of how very little she meant to him. Not even to say goodbye—because Jan would have told him she was leaving today.

The taxi driver was chatty. Had she enjoyed her holiday? he wanted to know, and automatically she told him yes.

`Coming back to visit us again?'

`I don't think so,' she said, her smile stiff.

`Going back to the bright lights of Melbourne, I suppose.'

`That's right,' said Ellis.

At the airfield she paid her fare and he let her out and carried her bags into the small building for her,

and it was not until he had driven away back to Whitemark that she discovered she couldn't get a seat on the tiny six-passenger plane after all. It was full up.

It was such a complete anti-climax that Ellis was absolutely flattened. She sat down in the waiting room, her suitcases on the floor beside her, wondering if she was going to burst into tears. She longed—oh, how she longed ! —to have someone there to comfort her. But there was no one. And there was only one thing she could do, and that was to go back to the hotel. She'd book a flight for the next day, and then she'd have all this—this trauma to go through again. As well, she knew she'd be struggling with herself about ringing Steve—even about going out to Warrianda. On what excuse she didn't know. But of course she couldn't possibly go, not with Jan there.

Unsteadily, she got up and went to the counter to make arrangements for the following day. She had paid for her flight and was about to ask the man behind the counter to telephone for a taxi for her when there was the squeal of brakes and a car pulled up outside. The car door flew open and a man got up and strode rapidly across the tarmac in the direction of the plane which was all ready to take off.

For a moment Ellis couldn't believe her eyes. It was Steve Gascoyne, and, completely forgetting what she had been about to say, she watched him, her heart pounding.

He was talking to the pilot now, and she wondered if he had come to see her off, to say goodbye. Half fearfully, she turned her head in the direction of his car, fully expecting Jan to be there. But the car was empty, and the next minute the door into the waiting room was flung open and he was confronting her.

Ellis felt as if she would faint at the sight of his hand-

some brown face, his broad shoulders looking so masterful and masculine under the wine-coloured silky shirt. His green eyes were dark with some emotion she couldn't read and they travelled over her smoulderingly, slowly, until she felt her legs ready to give way under her. Tears had sprung to her eyes and though she wanted to say something—just his name, just Steve —she was completely incapable of it.

He held out his hand to her, lean, brown, long-fingered. Unsmilingly he said, 'Ellis, come here—' and like a small child she reached out and allowed her-'self to be drawn to her feet.

`I—I couldn't get a seat. The plane was full,' she quavered as she went outside with him to his car, utterly submissive.

He opened the door and she slid in.

`Now you stay there, Ellis,' he said firmly. 'I'm going back for your luggage.'

Ellis sat back in the seat and let the tears run down her cheeks, though why on earth she should be crying, she didn't know. It was just seeing him again, that was all. She wept silently for a few seconds, then resolutely dried her eyes and sat up straight as she saw him coming back. She'd ask him to take her back to the hotel, explain that she was going tomorrow

He put her suitcases in the back of the car and got into the seat beside her, but instead of starting up the motor he turned sideways and looked at her, his eyes exploring every part of her, then coming back to her lips, to her eyes.

He drew a finger along her lower lashes.

`What have you been crying for?'

Her mouth trembled slightly and she licked her upper lip, feeling it still warm because she had been weeping, and unexpectedly Steve leaned across and

kissed her tenderly, quickly, his lips unfamiliarly gentle against her own.

`If you'd been on that plane, Ellis, I'd have had you unloaded,' he said, and she heard herself laugh shakily. `Not if it had taken off ! '

His dark eyebrows went up quizzically. 'If it had taken off, I'd have followed you in my own little aircraft. You wouldn't have escaped me, I promise you.'

Ellis stared at him foolishly. 'But—but why? Do you —do you want me to come back and housekeep for you and—' Her voice trailed off into silence and she looked down at her hands clasped tensely in her lap.

`You know what I want of you,' he said, then turned away from her sharply and started up the car. 'I'd better take you somewhere we can get together in privacy and talk this thing out in comfort.'

`What—thing?' she asked shakily.

`Our love affair,' he said after a second. And then, as the car got moving, she heard him say almost savagely, 'I love you, Ellis, And that's a thing I didn't mean to say till I'd got you home where you belong.'

Ellis held her breath. She must be imagining things. He couldn't have said he loved her. He loved her! That was what she had wanted and wanted him to say and he never had. Those were the words that would have made everything right. So why was he tossing them at her as if they were nothing—now—while they sped along the road and she couldn't even look in his eyes and see if they were true? No, she must have imagined it, she decided. He couldn't possibly love her. Besides, Jan had come back—

`I don't understand,' she said. 'Isn't Jan—' She couldn't go on, and he eased his foot off the accelerator and shot her a look that turned her limbs to jelly.

`Don't pester me, Ellis—wait till we get home, I

don't want to stop in the middle of the road and begin all that business.'

`All—what business?' she repeated, like one in a crazy dream.

`You know well enough,' he said with a sidelong glance. 'Kissing you—touching you—staking my claim ... Besides, if I stop on the road you might run away from me, and that I won't have. So shut up—because once we're at Warrianda I'm going to kiss you and kiss you until it all comes right.'

Ellis shut up. She felt utterly dumbfounded. She couldn't persuade herself she wasn't dreaming and she didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. She sat back in the seat beside him and the miles flew by until at last the shearing shed, the big hay shed, the old homestead where she had laboured came into sight, and then they were careering along the narrow white road that led to the grove of big trees that hid Steve's house.

When at last he pulled up in the drive he leaned across and opened her door for her, then they both got out and she went meekly and dazedly ahead of him into the house that she had come to love.

`In here,' he said, and took her by the upper arm and led her into the sitting room. Ellis felt his touch go through her like an electric current—tinglingly, disturbingly. With all her being she wanted to stop, to lean back against him, to have his arms come around her—to feel the warmth and the reality of him. Instead, she kept moving and then with a swift movement, he pulled her round to face him.

`Where's—Jan ' she began to ask, but her voice

died away as she encountered his gaze—so intimate and so nakedly full of desire for her.

`She's not here,' he said quickly. 'I took her to join her brother in Lady Barron last night when I found her

here. I saw Martin there yesterday, when I was looking for you. Jan told me, by the way, that you'd come for your clothes and you'd gone on the plane yesterday. Back to your boy-friend in Melbourne. That's why I didn't come to Whitemark last night. I didn't discover till I rang your uncle in Melbourne about an hour ago that you weren't there. I got on to Whitemark then, and that's how I, found you at the airfield ... Is that where you were going, Ellis—back to Paul?' He took hold of her roughly and looked deeply and inescapably into her eyes.

Ellis shook her head. 'Of course not. I was—I was just going away

`Why?'

`I—I couldn't stay. You don't—'

`I don't what? What did Jan tell you?'

`That you—that everything would be all right—be—

cause she didn't want to live at Koolong
anymore
.'

'He made an impatient exclamation. 'And you believed that? Well, listen to me—I don't care where the hell Jan wants to live. It's not going to be with me anyhow.'

`But you love her,' Ellis said in a low voice.

`I love you, Ellis,' he said, and he said it so softly and tenderly she could have swooned. Without her even being aware of it, he had drawn her against him and now they sank down together on the big velvet-covered settee, and he kissed her mouth and her eyes and then her mouth once more, and his kiss was as sweet as honey. It was no longer fierce and overpowering, and it evoked no violent response from her. She felt something entirely new, something subtle and deep and mystical, as though her mind were bewitched as well as her body. It was as if for the first time the complete entity that was Ellis Lincoln was meeting with the

reality that was Steve Gascoyne, and as their lips clung she seemed to taste his spirit as well as his body.

At last his mouth left hers and he murmured, 'It's all there, Ellis—all the magic of that ephemeral, incredible, impossible thing called love—a thing I thought I didn't believe in—Do I dare ask you now to marry me? I made up my mind after the cut out that I'd woo you gently, change my tactics. I was beginning to discover that something had happened to my feeling for you. You charmed me in Hobart, you know—quite against my better judgement. Then, amazingly, you were so competent around the place at Warrianda. And I did something I hadn't believed I was capable of doing and fell in love with you. But what's most incredible is that you seem to love me too ... Come here and let me taste you again—I'm not altogether sure even now that you're happy in my arms—'