Outback Sunset (10 page)

‘She’s well. Growing like a weed.’ Georgia smiled impatiently, she was focussed on getting what she wanted — the photos. ‘She’s with Mum and Dad while I’ve been on assignment.’

Grudgingly, he admitted as he looked away, ‘Divorce seems to agree with you.’

‘Thank you. I’ll accept that as a compliment.’ Her lips thinned and her next sentence was businesslike. ‘Now that we’ve done with the pleasantries, may I come in and take photos or not?’

‘If it were up to me, I’d say no,’ Curtis replied, knowing that he sounded mean-spirited. So what! Just looking at her was making his gut tighten, and talking to her made him remember how much she had hurt him, and that deep down she was a cold, mercenary bitch. ‘Bren and Vanessa should decide.’

Georgia picked up her equipment. ‘I’m sure they’ll be more … receptive. It’ll be good publicity for Vanessa too. Lead the way.’

He shrugged as if he couldn’t care less. ‘Okay, but as soon as you’re done, you leave. Agreed?’

Georgia gave him a look that said as clearly as words that he was a bastard. ‘All right, Curtis. I get the message — loud and clear. Just let me do what I’m good at.’

He curbed the urge to retort that she was a better photographer than she ever had been a wife because it sounded childish. After Bren, Vanessa and her
agent okayed it, he watched his ex-wife take her photos. Georgia was a professional and she didn’t rush. An hour ticked by, during which he was painfully conscious of her presence, before she packed everything up and without a goodbye or so much as a thank you, left. Typical Georgia!

Damn her. They’d been divorced almost a year and she could still churn up his insides. Not that he loved her anymore. Those feelings had died long before the divorce. It was the way she had gone about things that, when he thought about it, made him as mad as hell.

The bald-faced lies she’d told in court about their marriage. The affairs — with two stockmen at Amaroo, and others. She and her bloody lawyer had screwed him for every dollar they could, including a portion of his father’s inheritance and there were the restrictive visiting rights with Regan. He had only agreed to the terms because commonsense told him it would be detrimental for his daughter to be shuffled backwards and forwards. She needed stability in her young life and she needed Georgia more than she needed him.

‘You all right, Curtis?’

He had retreated to a secluded spot on the patio, where a screen of potted palms afforded him anonymity, to lick his emotional wounds. Turning, he saw Nova behind him. He didn’t have to pretend or put on a brave face with her; she knew him too well. ‘Guess so.’

‘Georgia had a nerve turning up like that.’

He grunted before he responded. ‘We both know Georgia isn’t short on nerve.’

‘We talked for a while,’ Nova confided. ‘She’s doing well, getting heaps of work.’

‘Perhaps I should take her back to court and she can start paying me maintenance,’ he threw back, accompanying his words with a derisive laugh.

‘Knowing how Georgia loves money, I don’t like your chances,’ Nova stated matter-of-factly. Her gaze moved and fastened on the bridal couple. ‘They make a handsome couple, don’t they?’ she said, in an attempt to get his mind off his ex. She watched the Spanos family claim Vanessa’s attention. The bride and groom separated and Vanessa disappeared from view.

‘Can’t deny that,’ Curtis admitted with good grace. ‘All I hope is that she makes Bren happy.’

‘Why shouldn’t she? They seem very much in love.’

‘Sometimes, in the outback, love isn’t enough.’ His reply was cryptic. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love my brother but, in a way, I think he’s being selfish.’

‘Selfish?’ Nova’s unlined forehead creased in a frown. ‘How do you figure that?’

‘I question how much thought he’s given as to how Vanessa’s life will change. His won’t. He’ll still run Amaroo, be where he’s always been. For her it’s, as the Yanks say, a whole new ball game. Not the same as she’s known.’

‘I chatted with her for a while last night. Vanessa seems very capable and keen to adapt.’

‘Mmmm. Of course. Right now she’s seeing everything through the eyes of love.’ His mobile mouth twisted cynically. ‘Like Georgia, when she first came to Amaroo. As we found out, she couldn’t
bear the isolation, couldn’t become self-sufficient and didn’t want to learn about life on the land. She wasn’t interested enough.’

‘I think you’ve forgotten that Georgia was happy for a while. She used to ride out and take photos. Remember that wonderful coffee-table book of photographs? It was very good.’

He nodded that he remembered and continued on. ‘Then Regan came along and she became tied down with a fussy baby.’ He paused to reflect for a moment or two. ‘That’s when things started to change. It took me a long time, too long, to realise she was bored and desperate to get away from Amaroo, permanently. By the time I realised the problem it was too late … And all the love between us had gone.’

‘I don’t think that will happen with Vanessa,’ Nova defended Bren’s bride. ‘I don’t think she’s like Georgia. I’m sorry, but we both know now that Georgia was, and always will be, self-centred and wilful.’

Curtis thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked backwards and forwards on his heels — something he did when he was thinking seriously. ‘Maybe not, but …’

Vanessa, who’d just left the Spanos family, saw Curtis and Nova talking and walked down the hallway to join them. For a few seconds she stood indecisively by the patio doorway, not to eavesdrop, but she would have had to have impaired hearing not to catch what Curtis and Nova were saying.

‘I give the marriage a year, two at the most,’ Curtis decreed. ‘Have you looked at her hands?
Vanessa hasn’t done a hard day’s physical work in her life so, if she’s going to be the kind of wife Bren expects her to be, she’ll have to undergo one hell of a change. Don’t get me wrong, Vanessa is lovely to look at and very decorative. And,’ he scratched his head as he deliberated how to phrase the words, ‘it might be presumptive of me, but I think she lacks substance. In time she’ll tire of the unappreciated role of “outback wife,” get bored with it. She’ll miss London too and her stage buddies as well as the high life.’

‘She intends to work. Her agent will see that she gets roles, just not as often as in the past,’ Nova, striving to keep Curtis’s interest, defended the woman she had recently met. ‘I think you’re being prejudiced and unnecessarily hard. Wait and see. I think Vanessa will surprise you. Maybe she’ll surprise all of us.’

He shook his head in disagreement and his features set into serious lines. ‘You and I know it takes heaps of intestinal fortitude to cut it in the Kimberley. Like it or not, she’s too soft and while I’d like to be proven wrong, I simply can’t see her surviving.’

‘Goodness!’ Nova suddenly changed the emphasis, teasing him, ‘and you’ve come to that conclusion after knowing her for less than forty-eight hours.’

‘I’m not the only one. Mum and Stuart think the same.’

Nova’s expression showed what she thought of their collective opinions. ‘Well, I believe she’s tougher than she looks and that Bren’s made the
right choice.’ Her up-slanting gaze moved towards the pre-fabricated timber dance floor in the middle of the lawn.

‘Come on, enough about Vanessa. The band’s playing and you owe me a dance.’ She pulled him from his hiding place and half dragged him down the patio steps to the platform dance floor.

In the shadows, Vanessa watched them begin to dance. She had to blink furiously to hold back the urge to cry. Eavesdropping, she accepted the home truth, was rarely good for the person being commented on. Her heart had plummeted as she’d heard Curtis say what was on his mind. Curiously, it hurt that he thought so little of her on, as Nova had noted, a relatively short acquaintance. Curtis, Hilary and Stuart seemed to have made snap, first impressions, before they really got to know her. That was so … unfair.

She was soft, lacking in substance and intestinal fortitude, was she? How little they knew about her, about what she had already accomplished in life. There had been enough experiences in her life, as a child, as a teenager and as an adult, to question their ill-informed opinion — if they’d bothered to ask. What did any of the relatively wealthy Selbys know about her background?

Living in the back streets of Brixton it had been a challenge not only to survive, but not to be dragged under by the ever present cycle of poverty. She knew all about that, and more. Standing up to crooked shopkeepers who tried to give her, when she’d been very young, the incorrect change. Not knuckling under to street gangs that intermittently roamed the
area, making it unsafe to play outside. And by ignoring the jeers and insults from school mates by getting good grades when few of them cared enough to bother because they knew when they left school, they’d go straight onto the dole and eventually have a council flat for life. Vanessa had wanted more than that.

She had to stand up for herself in so many ways. Even early in her career, she’d had to fight to win worthwhile theatre roles. That made her soft? How dare they try and sentence her without knowing who she really was. And that wasn’t all …

Since saying yes to Bren’s proposal, she had immersed herself in and done all she could to learn about outback life. She always thoroughly researched roles but this — the life she and Bren were embarking on together — was more than a role, it was the most important thing in her life. She was a success in the theatre and she intended to be a success as Bren’s wife. She knew she had a lot to learn, that she’d make mistakes, but she was one hundred per cent certain that she would be successful.

Vanessa tossed her head angrily and her fingers clenched into fists as she went over again what Curtis had said. Curtis Selby was a jaded and cynical man who had no idea what she was made of. He knew nothing about her resilience, her determination, her ability to focus and to learn. Where would she be today without such attributes? Certainly not at the top of her profession.

She heard Kerri calling her name and straightened her spine as she turned towards her friend, vowing
that if she did one thing this year she would prove Curtis Selby and the other Selbys wrong. Her chin lifted with the pride her Spanish-born mother had instilled in her from an early age. And … she wouldn’t be doing it for Bren, she would be doing it for herself.

R
ays of sunlight peeped through the window as Vanessa felt Bren move, then roll out of bed. She listened to him stumble around, dressing without putting on the light.

‘I am awake,’ she said sleepily, and fumbled for the lamp switch on the bedside table.

‘Sorry, hon, it’s early. 5.30.’

‘Oohh,’ Vanessa screwed up her eyelids and threw her forearm over her eyes to diffuse the brightness. ‘Let’s go back to Hayman Island …’ she murmured in a wistful tone. The resort island and their one-week honeymoon had been delightful, but too short. She sat up and yawned.

‘Love to, but can’t. Curtis is close to frothing at the mouth with impatience to get things done. He’s lined up so much work we’ll be lucky to get half of it done by sunset.’

Curtis! She hadn’t forgotten his opinion on their marriage, that it wouldn’t last, and as a consequence, when they were in the same room her manner towards him was politely cool. Not that he noticed her frigidity. Yesterday afternoon, when he’d picked them up from the commercial flight to
Kununurra in the station’s chopper, all he’d done was talk to Bren about cattle, and other stuff she didn’t as yet understand. Quite rude, really.

He kissed her cheek. ‘Go back to sleep if you want to. Everyone, the dogs, the cattle, we all have chores to do on the station.’

She wondered what the cattle had to do other than eat and grow fat for market? ‘What about me? I want to work too.’

Bren’s grey eyes softened with amusement. ‘You don’t know anything about station work.’

‘I know,’ she promptly confessed. ‘You and everyone here are going to teach me, starting today.’

‘Okay,’ he grinned, inordinately pleased by what she’d said, ‘I’ll have Nova show you how our communications work, the hf radio and the uhf units. She’ll take you on a grand tour of the place too.’ His hand reached across to touch her cheek and then smooth several strands of hair off her forehead. ‘See you tonight.’

Leaving the light on, he left. Vanessa, now wideawake, listened to the silence for a few minutes before throwing the sheet off to get up.

After their arrival last night, she had been too travel-weary to take in the details of their bedroom. She did so now as she padded about the room, taking clothes out of a suitcase. It was a typical man’s room. Dark-stained furniture, noticeably untidy with pieces of Bren’s clothing draped over a tallboy and over knobs on the wardrobe doors, boots and shoes where he’d dropped them. Clearly Fran, the head stockman’s wife, whom she’d met at the reception and briefly again last night had
instructions not to service his room because everything looked just as he’d left it more than three months ago. Hmmm! There would be changes, no,
improvements
in that respect, of that she was certain, when she settled in.

She had so much to learn and get used to. Curtis had been right about that even though she believed his opinions were skewed. After dressing in the clothes she had bought from Delaney’s in Darwin, the store that stocked RM Williams Clothing — lightweight moleskins, a checked cotton shirt and brown elasticised boots — she made the bed. She was about to leave the room when she heard a bleating, no, more of a lowing sound that disturbed the dawn’s silence.

At the window Vanessa pulled the curtain back and looked out. The morning sun, already bright, made her blink and for several seconds she stood there taking everything in. A mist was rising off the ground, breaking up to reveal the front garden of the homestead with its array of plants. Australian natives that could survive the heat, she presumed, and beyond the fence, the flat land flowed into the distance in an undulating plain. Stands of ghost gums, she knew that from her Kakadu holiday, starkly white, stood close to a creek — one of several on the station — and way over on the right was a cluster of reddish-brown boulders — red sandstone, she believed — just beyond what looked like it had once been a tennis court. Perhaps the court could be rejuvenated so they could play at night, she thought.