poured through her at his matter-of-fact tone, and the moment she looked where he directed, his domination of her thoughts faded, her mind filling with the wonder of what lay before her.
She had seen photographs of Ayer’s Rock, a huge monolith rising with stunning effect from a vista of flat land as far as the eye could see. The Bungle Bungle Range gave the same weird sense of not belonging to the general landscape, but it was much more than a monumental rock. It looked like some ancient remnant of a lost civilisation, embodying mysteries that no one knew the answers to any more.
The photographs in the pamphlet hadn’t captured what she was seeing, couldn’t capture the size and fascination of it. It seemed to rise out of nowhere, unconnected to anything else, a huge amalgamation of massive beehive structures, horizontally striped in orange and black. The rising sun vividly illuminated the orange sections and made the black more stark.
Miranda knew there were geological explanations for the colours—layers of silica and lichen—and the shapes. She’d read them in the pamphlet. Yet the stripes seemed so evenly spaced, as though to some deliberate, artistic plan, and the striations in the rock of some of the massive domes on the outskirts of the range gave her the impression of buildings built of bricks, like pyramids with the sharp edges having crumbled away over thousands and thousands of years.
She knew it was fanciful to ignore expert knowledge—this was all solid sandstone, and the formation was actually dated back three hundred and fifty million years—but she couldn’t help envisaging ancient rulers being buried inside those time-worn domes.
“Had enough or do you want to see more?” Nathan asked evenly, not pushing either way.
“More, please,” she answered, not grudging those words to him.
He flew the helicopter over the range in a criss-cross pattern, giving her every aspect of it. The narrow canyons or gorges had been carved by water, so she’d read, yet the rock-face it had carved was so smooth and sheer in places, the impression of narrow streets running deep down beside blocks of petrified, windowless skyscrapers kept flowing through Miranda’s mind. If this was the work of nature, it had been wrought in incredible patterns.
“Time we landed if we’re to keep our schedule,” Nathan informed her.
“Okay,” she conceded, realising he’d seen all this before and had been pandering to her interest, probably indulging her so she would be more ready to indulge him. And on the ground she would be more accessible to whatever he had in mind.
He set the helicopter down close to a group of buildings beyond the massif, presumably the park rangers’ headquarters. Intensely wary of his intentions, Miranda swiftly unfastened her seat-belt, whipped off her headphones, opened the door on her side and was out before Nathan could help her, thereby avoiding any macho familiarity he might take, being bigger and stronger than she was.
“Forgot your hat and bag,” he said, handing her the items as he joined her on the ground.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, deeply vexed she hadn’t thought of them in her hurry to get out. The omission revealed her distracted state of mind. “That was so fantastic from the air, I’m eager to see more of it from ground level,” she rolled out as an excuse, not wanting him to think he was the cause of her haste.
“Worth catching the sunrise?” he remarked, his blue eyes glinting with amused mockery.
“Very much so.”
“Sorry if I offended your dignity by bundling you into the helicopter back at the resort, but we were running short of time. Nature doesn’t wait on anything. If we want it working for us we have to follow its dictates.”
Which was a double-edged excuse if she’d ever heard one! If he thought she was going to take sexual dictation from nature, he could think again.
“I didn’t ask for a delay to our departure, Nathan,” she said pointedly.
“True!” He had the gall to grin. “But I didn’t hear or feel any protest for quite some time. Which leaves us with a promising area to explore, doesn’t it?”
“Only if the wish is there to explore it,” she flashed back at him with a look that should have shrivelled his confidence.
It merely raised a quizzical eyebrow. “No problem on my side. Is there one on yours?”
She fixed some mockery of her own directly on him. “Just where do you see this exploration leading to?”
He made a playful frown. “Well, the start of it sug-gested we’re onto something special together. And now you’re throwing in some mystery. No doubt about a strong dash of excitement. Who can tell what will come out of it?”
He was laughing at her, making light of any possible reservations she might have about an open-ended future. Except it wasn’t open-ended to her. She saw a very inevitable end.
“That sounds quite romantic. Except you know and I know there won’t be any romance involved. I bet right now you’re figuring on a two-year convenient affair. And I tell you right now—” her voice hardened as she delivered the bottom line “—I won’t play.”
‘PLAY?”
Nathan King’s incredulous repetition of her word gave Miranda a queasy moment of doubt. Had she let her own fears paint a crass picture of what he intended?
She watched, with galloping trepidation, while his expression underwent several changes…disbelief shifting to reassessment, then distaste.
He couldn’t have had anything serious in mind with her, she fiercely told herself. He just didn’t like having his motives baldly laid out. Probably no other woman had ever knocked him back quite so bluntly or abruptly. New experience for him!
Just as his eyes took on a laser-like probe, a greeting rang out. They both turned to see a lean bearded man strolling towards them. The interruption was silently welcomed by Miranda. It broke the imminent threat of further confrontation with Nathan King and gave her the chance to regroup her defences.
The newcomer looked to be only in his early thirties and he viewed Miranda with speculative interest as Nathan introduced them. “Jim Hoskins, head park ranger, Miranda Wade, the new resort manager at King’s Eden.”
They shook hands but there was no opportunity for any conversation between them. Nathan claimed Jim’s attention, withdrawing a parcel of books from his bag. “The diaries. Take good care of them, won’t you?”
Jim took the parcel, handling it with reverential care. “I’m much obliged, Nathan. I’ll treat them with the utmost respect. Hard to get any history on this area.”
“Personal diaries aren’t exact historical fact,” Nathan drily warned. “My great-grandmother might have been fed tall tales by the Aborigines of the time. Generally white people weren’t let into tribal secrets.”
“Well, I’m sure I’ll find them interesting anyway.”
Miranda thought she would, too, but she could hardly ask for a loan of old family diaries from a man she was intent on rejecting.
“Come along,” Jim invited, waving to the building. “I’ll put tea or coffee on for you.” He smiled at Miranda as she and Nathan fell into step with him. “Your first time here?”
“Yes. This is an amazing place.”
“Unfortunately we’re short of time, Jim,” Nathan interjected.
Miranda tensed. Was that true, or was he impatient to get her to himself again?
“I promised to show Miranda Cathedral Gorge and have her back at the resort at noon,” he explained. “I know she’s eager to get on with the sight-seeing, so we’ll pass up the coffee, if you don’t mind.