Outback Sunset (45 page)

‘What are you babbling about, Nova?’ Fran asked, staring with concern at her increasingly agitated step-daughter.

Vanessa turned to stare at Nova. One assessing look was enough to know that something was very
wrong and whatever it was, Nova had something to do with it. ‘Nova, what have you done?’

Nova didn’t answer straight away, she was heading for the back door. She screamed back as she ran out. ‘The plane. I put sand in the fuel tank. I … I … wanted to hurt Curtis, but he took the chopper instead of the plane. I have to warn Bren.’

Within seconds Nova had disappeared out the fly-screen door. She straddled the one bike left there and turned the key in the ignition. The motor fired and she took off, hurtling towards the hangar as fast as she could make the bike go. Vanessa and Fran rushed onto the back verandah. They stared questioningly at Nova as she roared off across the yard, then at each other.

‘Did she say what I think she said?’ Vanessa, her expression one of someone expecting imminent disaster, queried.

‘About the sand. Yes.’

‘Oh, my God …’

Vanessa wasn’t as clued up on mechanical matters as others on the station, but she knew enough to understand that putting any foreign matter, such as sand, into a fuel tank wasn’t good. ‘Get Bren on the hf. Tell him to abort the take off,’ she called to Fran as she began to run after Nova.

Why was it that when you wanted a bike to go fast, the accelerator cable got stuck at thirty kilometres and wouldn’t go a kilometre faster …?

In the distance Nova could see the Cessna almost half way down the packed earth runway. She had done a good job on the plane. The harder Bren
pressed to get revs up for take-off, the quicker the contaminated fuel would flow into the engine. She had roughly estimated that the engine wouldn’t get enough fuel to become airborne, that starved of quality aviation gas and with the clogging sand, the engine would splutter, lose revs and probably skew off the runway into the scrub until it was stopped.

She was pretty sure that’s what would happen. Since she had been tall enough to see over the top of a workbench her father had taught her about engines. How they worked, what could go wrong with them and how to fix them. He said she’d have made a good mechanic, had she wanted to be one.

A light breeze blew hair away from her face as she raced towards the runway. The Cessna was already near the end of the runway and beginning its turn for take-off. She glanced at the wind sock, it was hardly moving so there’d be no difficult cross-wind to contend with. White painted rocks every five metres marked the length and breadth of the runway on both sides, and she was riding close to the near side where a ditch to take water run-off during the wet had been dug. The plane turned to face her and began to move forward. She watched it bump along as it came towards her.

Damn. Why wasn’t Bren stopping? The sand should be doing its job by now. Okay, she would change course, ride down the middle of the runway. He couldn’t miss seeing her then! Nova heard someone calling her name over the bike engine’s noise. She half turned around to look. It was Vanessa. Bren’s wife was fit and running as fast as she could but she was no Cathy Freeman and
wouldn’t reach the runway before the plane got enough revs up to attempt to take off.

She
, Nova Morrison, was the only one who could save Bren. Nova smiled because it made her feel good to know she was going to do that, and neutralise the fact that she had been stupid and vindictive. Suddenly, she realised that the voice in her head had been instrumental in her actions. She had to stop listening to it before she hurt someone, or herself. She wouldn’t, she decided with a nod of her head, listen to it anymore, not ever! She would make everything right by stopping Bren before the inevitable accident. By God, she would … And if nothing else, Curtis would be grateful to her for that.

What the …
Bren frowned as he peered through the Cessna’s windscreen. ‘Aarghh, shit!’

Damned fool of a girl. What was Nova trying to do? Was she showing off or did she want to hitch a ride with him? Well, not today. He was bound for Broome and a ‘talk’ with Stuart,
dear Uncle Stuart
— his father! His lips pressed together in a grim line as, concentrating to keep the plane’s wheels straight, he increased the pressure on the throttle. It responded sluggishly and he listened to the sound of the engine change, becoming more guttural, beginning to splutter as if it had a feed problem. Oh, great!

Knowing he wasn’t Amaroo’s rightful heir didn’t hurt as much as the knowledge that his mother and Stuart had lied to him since birth. Damn them both. After that he spared a melancholy thought for the
man that up to half an hour ago he had believed was his father, Matthew Selby, someone he had tried to emulate. No wonder he hadn’t been good at managing Amaroo, it was obvious why. He had Stuart’s genes, not Matthew’s. His brother had known the truth but, according to his mother, wasn’t going to press for his inheritance. Right now that didn’t make him feel any better. Curtis was going to continue the lie …
ad infinitum
. He growled under his breath, unsure as to whether Curtis’s magnanimous gesture made him feel better or worse.

He watched Nova continue to race towards him. Christ, they were going to collide if she didn’t give way. Hell, he’d chew her out good and proper over this foolishness. He pulled the throttle back and applied pressure to the brake pedal to slow the plane. Then it happened.

As if in slow motion, he watched the bike hit something on the runway, probably a small rock that had been missed when the surface had been re-graded. Nova flew up in the air, more than two metres off the ground as the bike propped. Her body twisted in an aerial somersault and she landed heavily on her back. She didn’t move again. ‘Shit, oh, shit. Bloody shit.’

C
ontinuing to yell profanities, Bren altered the Cessna’s course by spinning the wheel in a semicircle so that it skewed sideways, towards the runway’s edge. He rammed his foot on the brake as hard as he could and slowly the wheels ground to a stop less than a metre away from the ditch.

He got to Nova as fast as he could, half tripping over in his haste to reach her side. His sweeping gaze missed nothing and staring, he dropped to his knees. One leg was bent unnaturally under her and her head lolled at an extreme angle. Bren had seen cattle with broken necks, but never a human being, but he knew …
He knew
. Her breathing appeared shallow and blood trickled from the side of her mouth. Internal injuries — he made an educated guess. Probably a rib had punctured one of her lungs.

Amazingly, Nova was conscious. Her dark brown eyes were wide open. She recognised him and strangely, almost eerily, smiled. ‘I … saved … you. I knew … I would.’

What the hell did she mean by that, he wondered, but said instead, ‘Don’t talk. Don’t move a muscle,
love. I’ll get the Flying Doctor Service to come pronto. You’ll be okay, just stay still.’

She smiled at him again, a curiously knowing smile. ‘Don’t think so.’

Vanessa, panting from her prolonged run, reached them and collapsed beside Nova. As she looked at Bren her gaze pleaded for him to say something positive. In no more than an instant she saw he wasn’t able to. ‘Oh, no,’ she cried, her tone of voice small, broken.

‘What was she trying to do, the silly kid?’

‘She said she did something to the plane’s engine,’ Vanessa told him. ‘It’s complicated. I’ll fill you in later.’

‘I’m going to the plane to call the Flying Doctor Service. Stay with her,’ he said gruffly. By mutual, silent consent both put their marital problems on the back-burner to deal with Nova’s accident. He got up and jogtrotted back to the plane.

Nova’s hand fluttered towards Vanessa, beckoning her close. ‘I wanted to be like you, you know. I … I thought if I were famous,’ she began to cough and more blood dribbled from the side of her mouth, ‘that would help to make Curtis fall in love with me. But,’ her eyelids closed and she was silent for a little while. When her eyelids opened again, her eyes had difficulty focussing on Vanessa. ‘He didn’t because he … couldn’t.’

‘You shouldn’t talk, Nova,’ Vanessa pleaded as she wiped blood away with a tissue. She glanced towards the stockyards and saw Reg’s ute being driven at a furious pace by Fran. She watched it rattle up the runway. ‘It will only weaken you.’

‘Got to tell you … I caused those little incidents before you … went to London. Sandy getting loose too. I was jealous. Wanted … You were competition and I … I … wanted you to go away.’ Nova stopped talking and her eyelids fluttered and closed again, her breathing was becoming more ragged.

Competition for what? Vanessa assumed that Nova was rambling. She took her hands in her own, holding them firmly, unmindful of the river of tears cascading down her face. But had Nova orchestrated those incidents: the soiled shirt, the broken photograph, the strap on her saddle and Sandy getting loose? ‘It doesn’t matter now, Nova. It isn’t important.’ And it wasn’t. God, where was Bren, and what was taking him so long? She didn’t know what to do, didn’t dare touch or move her.

Nova’s dark eyes made contact with Vanessa’s. ‘F-forgive me?’

Vanessa tried to smile but found that she couldn’t. ‘Of course,’ she said softly. At that moment she would have said anything to make Nova feel emotionally and mentally comfortable.

Bren came back. He used his Akubra to shade Nova’s face from the sun’s rays as he told Vanessa, ‘The doctor said not to move her, but to make her comfortable. They’ve got a plane in the air, they’ve diverted from Halls Creek. It should be here in less than an hour.’ The look in his eyes, before he turned his face away, implied that he didn’t think Nova would last that long. He continued to shake his head in bewilderment over the improbability of the accident, but he didn’t ask Vanessa any more questions …

Fran, pulling up, got out of the ute and joined them in the dirt. ‘Oh, no …’ Within seconds shock turned her lined, tanned face white, her features crumbling because, being a woman of the outback, she knew the inevitability of Nova’s fate. She clasped her hands together, as if she were praying, until the knuckles went white.

Nova rallied at the sound of Fran’s voice. Her eyes opened. They moved from one person’s face to another until she found and recognised her stepmother. Coughing between each word, she managed to whisper, ‘Tell Dad I love him.’ She paused, managed a weak smile. ‘I’m sorry, for every … Love you too, Fran …
Bye.’

Nova didn’t open her eyes or speak again. Bren and Fran kept themselves busy while they waited for the Flying Doctor Service by building a rough lean-to over her from nearby fallen tree branches and a tarp they found in the back of the ute. Vanessa sat beside Nova, smoothing her hair, wiping the constant, and increasing, trickle of blood from her mouth, watching her breathing become more shallow, then in quiet, uneven gasps as life ebbed. When there was nothing left to do, Bren and Fran sat on the other side of Nova, in silence … and waited.

By the time the Flying Doctor Service plane touched down it was too late. Nova was gone …

The shock of Nova’s death overshadowed Bren and Vanessa’s drama, and the truth of Bren’s parentage. It affected everyone at Amaroo. Then, after several weeks, when life returned to some form of
normalcy, the repercussions of the marriage breakup, combined with Stuart and Hilary’s affair which had resulted in Bren’s birth, changed the dynamics of Amaroo forever.

First and foremost, everyone banded together to keep the truth behind Nova’s accident from the press. Fran took an inconsolable Reg off for a few months holiday to mourn her passing as best they could, though all believed that Reg would never get over the loss of his talented, emotionally disturbed daughter. Curtis, in his own quiet way, worked through the unfounded guilt of not being able to love her as she’d desperately wanted him to, as well as the realisation that, legally, he was Amaroo’s heir and that Bren insisted he assume his rightful position as such.

Bren, once he had calmed down and could see the past in a rational light, found forgiveness in his heart for his mother’s
and
Stuart’s indiscretion. In a way, he was relieved to finally understand why he was so much like the man he admired but would continue to, for the sake of propriety, call uncle. Time passing also allowed him to accept that his marriage to Vanessa was over and that their lives were moving in different directions.

Curtis who, for as long as he could remember had lived, breathed and loved Amaroo, was pleased when Bren convinced him to buy the property for a nominal amount — the profit from selling his share in Cadogan’s Run. But Curtis, renowned for his fairness, made the sale conditional on Bren accepting an ongoing percentage share of Amaroo’s annual profits, together with Vanessa who was to
hold the amount in trust for Kyle until his twenty-first birthday.

And later, after the financials for Amaroo were settled, Vanessa and Bren formally ended their marriage with a legal separation.

Moving to Sydney with Kyle and her dog, Sandy, was not the trauma Vanessa had expected. Kerri had begged via several long phone calls for her and Kyle to return to England but Vanessa couldn’t. After so long she had become too Australianised; the island continent with its rawness and vitality had become
home
and, besides, going so far away, though it might benefit her career, wouldn’t be fair to Kyle or Bren. Instead, she rented a small house with harbour glimpses, in a leafy street in Rushcutters Bay, close to a seaside park and Kyle’s school. The property had a bigger than average sized backyard so Kyle, who’d started to play soccer and cricket, and Sandy, wouldn’t feel too contained. And apart from her acting engagements, her judiciously invested share portfolio, together with rent from her Belgrave Square flat afforded herself and Kyle a reasonably comfortable if not luxurious lifestyle.

She found a reputable agent to represent her for work in Australia, and maintained links with Kerri for international work, and while Kyle attended Cranbrook Preparatory School she got ready for her biggest role, as Charlotte, the character-driven role of Emily Wakefield’s sister, in
North of the Nullarbor
, with the interior scenes for the movie scheduled to begin in March.