of my days. Don’t worry, Timmy. It should be quite an adventure.” She started to unwrap his little present. “Ooh, earrings. Aren’t they lovely?” She leaned over and kissed him. “Victorian.”
He nodded. “I knew you’d like them. I picked them up at Maggie Reeves. She has some really nice stuff.”
“You spoil her,” Brett said, sitting forward to look.
“You should talk!” Tim shot back.
“I’m her uncle.”
“And I’m her honorary uncle.”
“Stop, you two. These are lovely, Timmy. Thank you.” Jessica was delighted with the gift—drop earrings, peridots set in gold. She had a jewelery box filled with the little gifts Tim had given her since she was a child. Bracelets, gold chains, pretty pendants, a crystal-encrusted sea horse that she still loved and wore as a pin. “They’ll go beautifully with that vintage dress of mine. The green chiffon.” Sometimes she felt very sad that neither her uncle nor Tim would have children. They were loving, caring people. They had been wonderful to her.
“My pleasure, love.” Tim smiled, picking up Bannerman’s fax again. “They reckon there’s a dark side to this Bannerman?”
“Tim, dear, there’s a dark side to us all,” Brett responded. “Not even you are nice all the time. If you’re concerned, maybe you can fly up with Jass.”
“Both of us? I would go, but I’m sure they don’t want me.”
“Not to mention how having a babysitter would make me look,” Jessica protested. “What else do we know about this man?”
“Well—” Brett drew another piece of paper, hitherto unseen, from the pile on his desk “—he has a son, Cyrus. His mother was the heiress, Deborah Masters. Masters Electronics.”
“You said was? She’s dead?” Jessica inserted one of the earrings in her right earlobe, remembering Tim had gone along with her for support when she’d had her ears pierced a few years back and had been a little fearful of needles.
“A riding accident,” Brett informed them. “That was in the early 1990s. Bannerman remarried. A woman with a child of her own. A daughter, Robyn. Neither wife was particularly lucky. The second suffered from some rare syndrome—I don’t know exactly what. She died two years ago.”
“How very bizarre,” muttered Tim, trying to grapple with all this. “It’s right up there with the Olgas.”
“Don’t be silly, Tim.” Sternly, Brett held his partner’s gaze. “Tragedies happen.”
“Indeed they do. But Bannerman could be looking for a new wife. He could fall in love with Jessica on sight.”
Jessica laughed, but Brett blustered testily, “God almighty, Tim! I think you’re losing it. Bannerman has to be nearing sixty.”
“That’s not a good answer.” Tim resolutely dug in. “He could live for years and years. Aging men often turn to young women. Especially rich old men.”
“He’s hardly an old man,” Brett said caustically. “You’re nearly fifty.”
“Forty-eight, thank you. Same as you. Keep it up and you’ll really hurt my feelings.”
“Stop it, you two,” Jessica intervened again. “I’m not in the running for Wife Number Three.” She took Tim’s hand in hers. “Broderick Bannerman is old enough to be my father. Grandfather, if he were exceptionally precocious.”
“For all we know, temptation could be overwhelming in the Outback,” Tim said. “There’s a real shortage of women. Besides, men never get falling in love with the young and beautiful out of their system,” he warned. “I know I sound overanxious, but there’s something a little odd here, Jass. You know how intuitive I am. No matter how gifted you are, you’re young and inexperienced. I know you’ve won that nomination and you deserve to carry off the prize, but why not Brett, for instance? He’s a colossus in the industry. Well, he thinks so.”
“I know so.” Brett was pleased to see Jessica elbow Tim hard. “For God’s sake, Tim, what are you on about?” Brett was irritated that some of Tim’s concern was starting to rub off on him.
“I’m not sure.” Tim shook his head. “I live by my intuitions.”
“And your intuitions tell you Bannerman has an ulterior motive in choosing Jessica?”
“Amazing, but true. I should join a training class for psychics. Seriously, I just had to get it off my chest. I don’t actually know why.”
“Then why are you trying to put us off?”
“I’m not,” Tim protested. “I’m only trying to say Bannerman mightn’t be quite the man he seems. Sounds to me like he’s been struck by lightning.”
“Lightning!” Brett said irritably. “How you give yourself over to the sensational!”
“Sensational?” Tim protested. “Men have been making complete asses of themselves over young women since forever. Besides, what man ever thinks he’s too old?”
“Look, Timmy, I’ve dreamed about doing something like this.” Jessica sought to calm Tim down. “You know you tend to worry about me too much.”
“True.” Tim’s face broke out in his easy smile again. “I wouldn’t mind if you were working within shouting distance, or even Sydney. But the Northern Territory! Hell, you might as well be rocketing off to Mars.”
“Tim, dear, stop talking,” Brett advised. “It’s all fevered nonsense, anyway. Jass wants the job. I want her to have it. It’ll be a considerable step up the ladder. If the slightest thing happens to cause her concern, she’s to drop everything and come home.”
“Hear that, sweetheart? You get on the phone right away. I’ll be there like a shot. I wonder what the son’s like?” Tim asked speculatively, then answered his own question. “Probably a dead ringer for his godawful father.”
“Okay, enough’s enough!” Brett lunged to his feet. “Where are we going to hang this painting?”
“Maybe above the console in the entrance,” Jessica suggested, giving the painting a tender, welcoming look for its own sake and not because the subject bore an uncanny resemblance to her. “She’ll be right at home there.”
CHAPTER TWO
FROM THE TOP OF THE ESCARPMENT, Cy had a near aerial view of the valley floor, semidesert in the Dry except for the ubiquitous spinifex and the amazing array of drought-resistant shrubs, grasses and succulents that provided fodder for Mokhani’s great herd, one of the biggest in the nation and thus the world. Today, four of his men were working flat out to round up of some forty marauding brumbies that were fast eating out the vegetation they desperately needed for the cattle until the blessing of rain. The wild horses had to be moved on. Not only that, two of the station mares were running with the mob, seduced by the leader, a powerful white stallion the men had christened Snowy. Snowy was too nice a name for a rogue, Cy figured. More like Lucifer before the fall. The stallion was so clever, it had long evaded capture, though Cy doubted the wild horse could ever be broken. He’d been close up to Snowy when they’d both been boxed into the canyon, so he knew he was dealing with a potential killer. There were few station pursuits as dangerous as trying to cut off a wild horse from its precious freedom. Ted Leeuwin, the station overseer, had lived to tell the tale of his encounter with Snowy. Just as Ted had been attempting to rope the stallion, it had closed in, terrifying Ted’s gelding before biting Ted on the shoulder. Not once but several times. Vicious hard bites that forced Ted, as tough as old boots, to give up.
Cy was aware of his own excitement as whoops like war cries resounded across the valley. He knew the thrill of the chase. The men were right on target to herd the wild horses into the gorge. Two of the station hands were on motorbikes; jumping rocks