in her latest adventure, and she asked intelligent questions. “But spinifex has little food value for the stock. The seeds on the other hand we use to fatten horses to prime condition.”
“From here it looks rather like wheat,” she observed, fascinated by the spectacle, the sheer size and emptiness of a giant primitive landscape that was crisscrossed by maze after maze of water channels—swamps, lagoons, billabongs, desert streams—that appeared to be running near dry.
He nodded. “Especially at this time of year. The interior of the bushes, strangely enough, is quite cool. For that reason the lizards make their home there, but the wax content is so high the bushes can burn fiercely. When they do, they send up great clouds of black smoke for days.”
“It doesn’t look like you’ve had any rain,” she said quietly, thinking drought must be really terrible to the man on the land.
His laugh was ironic. “Not for a year. Not a drop during winter-spring. Not a single shower, but we’ve seen great displays of storm-clouds like a Wagnerian set that got wheeled away. We’re hoping the Wet season up north will be a good one. But not too good. We can do without the floods. Just enough to flush out every water channel. When the eastern river system comes down in flood, the waterbirds fly in in their millions. The Channel Country is a major breeding ground for nomadic waterbirds. Great colonies of Ibis nest in our lignum swamps. They do us a big favour by feasting on the destructive flocks of grasshoppers that strip the grass and herbage for the stock. Then there are all sorts of ducks in their countless thousands—herons, shags, spoonbills, waterhens, egrets.”
“So where do they come from?” she asked, turning to admire his handsome profile. He was a marvellous-looking man.
“Good question. No one seems to know. It’s one of those great mysteries of the Outback. One day there’s not a sign of them, but then a sudden storm, the billabongs fill and they’re there literally overnight. Most other birds take days to arrive, when they sense water. Pelicans—I love the pelicans. I used to try to find their nests as a boy—turn up in favoured years to breed in our more remote swamps. Those are just the waterbirds. What will dazzle you here is the great flights of budgerigar, a phenomenon of the Outback, like the crimson chats and the finches. The hawks and the falcons prey on them. The largest bird is the wedge-tailed eagle. You’ll identity it easily in flight from the wingspan. At least seven foot. The wingtips curve up. Wedge-tails can take a fair-size kangaroo.”
“Goodness.” She tried to visualise it. “Swooping on a medium-size kangaroo must take some doing?”
“They don’t have a problem. There are plenty of predators around.” He shrugged. “The huge flocks of white birds you’ll see are the corellas. They cover the coolabahs so densely you can scarcely see a leaf. Or a branch. And the noise when they take off is deafening. All our beautiful parrots prefer the scrub. Not that you’ll have much time for sight-seeing, Miss De Campo. You’re here to work.”
“I’ll get up very early,” she murmured. “What a truly extraordinary place you live in.” It had to have moulded him, made him special. “You must feel like a desert chieftain?”
He glanced at her with those amazing exotic eyes. Everything about him said, “Don’t go trying to fascinate me.” What a challenge! He confirmed it by saying, “Don’t go getting any romantic notions. I’m a hardworking cattleman. I haven’t the energy to ravish females.”
“I guess desert chieftains don’t have to be mad rapists,” she joked.
“Have you been raped?” he asked very seriously indeed, giving her a direct stare. Huntley, brute that he was, was probably capable of it. That, he couldn’t bear.
“No such terrible thing has happened to me, the Lord be praised.” She shuddered. “No woman knows for certain if she’s going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s woman’s universal fear. I have a guardian angel I pray to to look after me. A father who adores me. A brother who thinks a lot of me. He’s built like a commando and he has a black belt.”
“Whereas all you’ve got is a cupboard full of basketball trophies.”
“I’m sorry I told you that,” she said.
“You also told me you were frequently asked, ‘How’s the weather up there?’”
“My favourite was how did I cope with altitude sickness. People are cruel. The plainer they are, the crueller they get.”
“Whereas you’re a most beautiful woman.”
“Am I?” she asked with a small degree of surprise. She’d had plenty of compliments in her time but she hadn’t been expecting too many from him. Not after that flinty-eyed reception.
“Miss De Campo, I have no intention of going soft on you,” he assured her, as though he found her mind easy to read. “I hope you believe it, though I’m sure your successes have been legion. I’ll be watching your every move. You may have won the battle but not the war.”
“Why should there be war between us? A war would get us nowhere. I’m looking for your co-operation.”
“And you’ll get it providing you don’t take it into your head to send the senses of the male population reeling.”
“As though I’d be capable of such a thing,” she answered breezily. “Are we coming in to land?”
“We are,” he confirmed crisply, thinking he was coming off second best with this woman. “So you can tighten your seat belt.”
“Aye, aye, Captain!” She laughed as excitement set in. “Or is it ‘Roger?’ I have to catch up on the terminology. Anyway, I can’t wait.” She looked down, trying to gather in her kaleidoscope of thoughts and impressions. “Obviously it’s all paid off, being a desert chieftain,” she enthused. “The homestead looks huge!” And the setting was fantastic! “Who would ever have thought of building a mansion in the middle of the Never-Never?”
“We are a way out of town,” he agreed dryly. “Do you think you can possibly sit quietly?”
“Just watch me.” She gave him a cheerful smile, proceeding to sit as solidly as an Easter Island statue. Honey caught more flies than vinegar. Hadn’t her mother told her?
They were greeted by a station hand the moment they arrived. When the young man was introduced to Angelica he muttered a, “Pleased to meet you,” without lifting his head. Indeed he seemed dead-set on digging the toe of his riding boot into the baked earth.
“Shy,” Angelica commented kindly when she and McCord had disposed themselves in the waiting Jeep.
“Why not?” McCord gave her a sidelong glance. “Noah was brought up in the bush. He’s never seen a woman like you in his life.”
“Aw shucks!” she pretended to simper. “You’ll be telling me you had me pegged for a high-class callgirl in two ticks.”
“You have to admit we started badly.”
“You being so judgmental. The fact of the matter is you owe me an apology.” She lifted her chin as she spoke. It had a shallow dimple he really loved. Not that he was about to tell her that.
“I’ll apologise if I have to when I know the true story,” he assured her. “Huntley had several girlfriends and a mistress at the time. Carly knew for a fact at least one was a very glamorous brunette. That doesn’t exactly clear you.”
“It doesn’t condemn me, either,” she said tartly. “I don’t want to insult you but you sound a real prude.”
“Your opinion, Miss De Campo, doesn’t concern me at all. I know what I saw in that study. People were milling about. You could have screamed. You could have appealed to me for help. Had you needed it. I would have enjoyed knocking dear Trevor flat.”
“I regret to say I was too ashamed and mortified,” Angelica confessed, appalled to hear her excuse sound so weak. “Seconds elapsed