Outback Bachelor / The Cattleman's Adopted Family: Outback Bachelor / The Cattleman's Adopted Family

All three were present today.

Keefe had made it perfectly plain she was expected to come up to the house afterwards, even if her father was not. Jack held an important position as overseer but he knew and accepted his place in the social scheme of things. It was the last thing Skye wanted to do, but her father had urged her and she was painfully aware of her obligations. The scores of ordinary folk who had made the long hot overland trek in a convoy of vehicles were being catered for in huge marquees set up within the extensive grounds of the home compound. The more important folk, the entire McGovern clan, fellow cattle barons and pastoralists along with their families, and a large contingent of VIPs crowded their way into Djinjara’s splendid homestead, which had grown over the years since the 1860s when Malcolm James McGovern, a Scottish adventurer of good family, had established his kingdom in the wilds. Oddly, Djinjara with its fifty rooms looked more like an English country mansion that anything else, but Malcolm was said to have greatly admired English architecture and customs and had kept up his close ties with his mother’s English family. The bonds remained in place to the present day. Lady McGovern was English, and a distant relative. She had come to Australia, a world far removed from her own, as Kenneth McGovern’s—later Sir Kenneth McGovern—bride. In her new home, despite all the odds, she had thrived. And, it had to be said, ruled.

Try as she did to move inconspicuously about the large reception rooms and the magnificent double-height library, Skye was uncomfortably aware that a great many people were looking at her. Staring really. She had to contend with the fact she would never melt into a crowd. Not with the looks she had inherited from her mother. Some people she recognised from her childhood but she wasn’t sure if they recognised her. Others acknowledged her with genuine warmth and kindly expressed admiration for her achievements. She was dressed in traditional black but she couldn’t help knowing black suited her blonde colouring. She had discarded the wide-brimmed black hat that had protected her face and neck from the blazing sun, but she still wore her hair in a classic French pleat. As a hairstyle it looked very elegant, but the pins were making her head ache.

She had sighted Scott with a dark-haired young woman always at his side. She was rather plain of face, conservative in her dress for her age—the black dress was slightly too large for her—but she had a look of intelligence and breeding that saved the day. Jemma Templeton of Cudgee Downs. Skye hadn’t seen her for a few years but she was aware Jemma had always had a crush on Scott. Rachelle, stick thin, fine boned and patrician-looking—the McGoverns were a very good-looking family—kept herself busy moving from group to group, carrying her responsibilities, it could be said, to the extremes. Rachelle was more about form than feeling. Doing what was expected. The show of manners. She had never shown any to the young Skye. Skye knew Rachelle had spotted her but had determined on not saying hello unless forced into it. Rachelle didn’t have friends—hadn’t even at school. As a McGovern she only had minions.

I bring out the worst in her, Skye thought regretfully. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Rachelle will never make peace with me. She resents me bitterly. And it’s all about Keefe.

She turned away just as a rather dashing young man with close-cropped fair hair rushed to stand directly in front of her, obscuring her view. “Skye, it is you, isn’t it?” he burst out with enthusiasm. “Of course it is! Mum said it was. That blonde hair and those blue eyes! You’re an absolute knockout!”

Skye had to smile at such enthusiasm. “Why thank you, Robert.” Robert Sullivan was one of the McGovern clan, the grandson of one of Broderick McGovern’s sisters. He had had three. There had been a younger brother too. But he had died tragically when he had crashed his motorbike on the station when he was only in his early twenties. “You look well yourself. It’s been a long time.” The last time she had seen Robert had been at a McGovern family Christmas Eve party some years back.

“Too long.” He gave an exaggerated moan. “I say, why don’t you come and sit with me? I’ll find somewhere quiet. Look at this lot!” His hazel glance swept the room. “They’re knocking back food and drink like it was a party. Terrible about Uncle Brod.”

“Indeed it is,” Skye lamented. “He always seemed so indestructible. The family will miss him greatly.” She broke off as her eyes fell on Lady McGovern, who was seated in an antique giltwood high-backed chair not unlike a throne. She was indicating with a slight movement of her hand that she wanted Skye to come over. “Rob, would you excuse me one moment?” she said, placing a hand on Robert’s jacket sleeve. “Lady McGovern is beckoning me. I haven’t had a chance to offer my condolences as yet.”

“Tough old bird,” Robert murmured, with not a lot of liking but definite respect. “Not a tear out of her. Stiff upper lip. Straight back. Father was a general, don’t you know?”

“Yes, I do,” Skye answered a trifle sharply. Robert’s words had annoyed her. “Because Lady McGovern doesn’t cry in public, it doesn’t mean she’s not crying inside, Robert. I know she will be grief stricken even if it’s her way not to show it.”

“Okay, okay.” Robert held up placating hands. “Training and all that. She’s always made me feel as though I’m not quite up to scratch. Of course, no one could be beside Keefe. Come back to me when you’ve finished paying your respects. I want to hear all about what you’ve been doing, you clever girl! Mother is very impressed. She spotted you the instant you walked into the room. You do stand out. ‘Why, that’s little Skye McCory all grown up! And she looks simply stunning! One would never know she had such a humble start.’”

Skye hadn’t forgotten how patronising the McGoverns were.

“There you are, my dear,” Lady McGovern said, indicating with her heavily be-ringed hand an empty chair beside her. Lady Margaret McGovern was a diminutive woman but she had enormous presence. Even at eighty it was easy to see she once had been a beauty. The bone structure was still there. Her skin stretched very tight over those bones was remarkably soft and unlined.

Skye obeyed. “I’m so very sorry, Lady McGovern,” she murmured as she sat down. “I couldn’t get to you before with so many people wanting to offer their condolences. I know how much pain you’re in. I feel so sad myself. Mr McGovern was a wonderful man. He was always very kind to me.”

“Who could not be?” Lady McGovern said. She took Skye’s two hands in her own, her face carefully in control of emotions. “Welcome home, Skye.”

It was so unexpected, so enormously comforting, that tears sprang to Skye’s eyes. Home? With an effort of will she forced the tears away. Too many people were watching.

“Let me look at you,” Lady McGovern said, turning her full scrutiny on Skye. “You’re even more beautiful than your mother. But the colour of your hair is exactly the same. The same radiant blue eyes full of expression. She would have been very proud of you.”

“Oh, I hope so!” Skye released a fluttery breath. “But I wouldn’t be where I am today without you, Lady McGovern. I will never forget that.”

“Enough of the Lady McGovern!” The old lady spoke as if she were heartily sick of the title. “I want you to call me Margaret, or Lady Margaret if you feel more comfortable with that. Margaret is my name. It’s a name long in my own family. I would like you to use it. I rarely hear it any more. It’s Gran and Nan, Aunt and Great-Aunt and, I dare say, the Old Dragon. Don’t try to tell me you can’t do it. I look on you as family, Skye.”

That touched a finger to an open wound. Some things would seem to be hidden, but they couldn’t be hidden for ever. “I’ve always felt something of it,” she confessed. “But why? Can’t you tell me?” The plea came straight from the heart. “Who was my mother really? I never knew her, which is the tragedy of my life. Dad always said she was an orphan.” Skye’s frown deepened. “He said she spoke beautifully. Not an educated Australian accent, but an English voice. Like you. Was she English?” There was something in Lady McGovern’s fine dark eyes that was making Skye very uneasy.

“As a solicitor, Skye, you’ve made no attempt to trace your mother’s background?” Lady McGovern asked with a grim smile. Could it be pain or disapproval?

“Very oddly, no, Lady Margaret.” Now that she had said it, “Lady Margaret” came surprisingly easily to her tongue.

“You had concerns about what you might find?” Again the piercing regard.

Skye shook her head. “After all, my mother had a connection to you.” Though she didn’t expect to be answered, Skye prepared herself for whatever might come.

In vain. “I was very fond of her,” Lady McGovern said briefly, then changed the subject. “Your use of my name comes sweetly to my ear. Kindly continue to use it, no matter what. I’m fully aware my granddaughter has always been jealous of you. Jealous of Keefe’s affection for you. That is her nature. She’s going to find it very hard to find a husband if she’s expecting someone like Keefe to come along. It won’t happen.”

“No,” Skye agreed quietly. “Rachelle loves both her brothers, but she adores Keefe.”

“Exactly.” Lady McGovern brushed the topic aside. “I want you to know Cathy herself chose your father.”

“But of course!” Skye was startled. “She fell in love with him.” She knew she was supposed to hold her tongue but it got away from her. “But how did they find the opportunities to meet? She stayed at the house on her visits. My father at the time was a stockman. Times have changed somewhat, but there was a huge social divide.”

“Of course,” Lady McGovern acknowledged, as if the divide was still firmly in place. “Nevertheless, Cathy knew Jack McCory was the man for her. And a fine man he is too. He mourns your mother to this day. As do I. Let’s not talk any more about this, Skye. It upsets me. I don’t know if Jack ever told you, but Cathy knew the baby she was carrying was a girl. She had the name Skye already picked out for you. And doesn’t it suit you! Somehow she knew you would have her beautiful sky-blue eyes.”

Skye stayed a few minutes more talking to Lady McGovern, but it was obvious others wanted the opportunity to express a few words of sympathy to the McGovern matriarch. She no sooner moved away than Robert Sullivan made a beeline to her side.

“I don’t really know why but you and my great-aunt look more comfortable together than she and Rachelle,” he announced. “Why is that, do you suppose?”

“I have no idea, Robert,” she responded calmly.

“Neither do I. Just one of those quirky things.” Robert took her arm and began to lead her away. “Look, how long are you staying?” He stared down at her smooth honey-blonde head.

“No more than a week.” Actually, she had weeks of her leave left. “I only came for the funeral.”

“But we’ve got to meet up.” Robert spoke with extraordinary determination. “I’ve thought of asking Keefe if I can spend a little time here. I’m sure he won’t mind. The house is big enough to billet an army.”

“But won’t you be expected back home?” Robert worked for his father, a well-known pastoralist running both sheep and cattle on a large property on the Queensland/New South Wales border.

“I could do with a break. I’ll check it out with Dad. He was as impressed with you as Mother. I want you to come over and say hello. That’s if I can find them in this crush. Even in this huge house there’s hardly room to move. And just look at Keefe!”

Look at him! Skye couldn’t drag her eyes off him. Everything about him pierced her to the heart.

“The minute he enters the room, he’s the stand-out figure,” Robert said with undisguised envy. “And it’s not just his height. He really takes the eye. He’s a man with power. And money. Poor old Scott is still as jealous of him as he ever was. Scott really ought to go away and make a life for himself. Rachelle, too, though she spends plenty of time in Sydney and Melbourne.”

“I see Scott with Jemma Templeton,” Skye sidetracked. She didn’t want to discuss Rachelle. “What I remember of Jemma is good.”

“But isn’t she plain?” Robert groaned, with a pitying look in his eyes. “Talk about a face like a horse!”

“A particularly well-bred one.” Skye’s eyes were still on Keefe’s tall, commanding figure. He looked beyond handsome in his formal funeral attire. “I don’t consider Jemma plain at all. She has a look of breeding and intelligence.’

“I suppose. But I bet she’d love to be pretty. And you are being kind. I suppose a woman as beautiful as you can afford to be kind. Poor old Jemma must be nuts if she’s looking to land Scott. She’s mad about him, poor thing!” Robert rushed on with characteristic candour. “Who knows why. Doesn’t say much for her intelligence in my book. Scott is trouble. It’s the way he goes off like an out-of-control rocket from time to time.”

“Whatever, he’s always got a whole string of girls after him.”

“And Keefe?” Couldn’t she control her tongue?

Robert didn’t appear to notice the tautness of her tone. “Who knows what’s on Keefe’s mind?” he mused. “A couple of stayers are hanging in there. Fiona Fraser and Clemmie Cartwright. You remember them. My money’s on Fiona. She’s swanning around somewhere. She’s stylish, well connected, knows the score, sharp as a tack but beneath that she’s the worst of things—a snob.”

“And you’re not?” Skye gave him a sweetly sarcastic smile.

“Of course I’m not!” He denied the charge. “Mum is, maybe. Clemmie is nicer, totally different, but I don’t believe she can fit the bill.’

“Surely it’s all up to Keefe?”

“Maybe he hasn’t found the woman to measure up?” Robert pondered. “He’s a great guy, don’t get me wrong. I admire him enormously. I’m not in his league. None of us are, for that matter. The guy’s a prince!”

He’s always been a prince. My prince.

By late afternoon everyone, with the exception of a few relatives who were staying overnight, had made their way home in the private planes and the charter planes that had been dotted all over the airfield, the half-dozen helicopters, bright yellow like bumblebees, and the convoys of vehicles that would make the return journey overland. Skye, who had returned to Lady McGovern’s side as requested, found herself one of the last to leave. She had made her way to the entrance hall when Rachelle suddenly confronted her, a smile on her lips, her eyes cold and flat.

“So, Skye! Sorry I didn’t get a minute to speak to you earlier. How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you, Rachelle.” Skye spoke gently. “Please accept my condolences. The manner of your father’s premature death was terrible. I know you will miss him greatly.”

“Of course. He was a great man,” Rachelle said stiffly. “How long exactly are you staying?” As usual she was talking down to Skye.

“A few days.”

“I’m sure Gran asked you to come up to the house,” Rachelle challenged. “To stay, I mean.”

“Both Lady Margaret and Keefe invited me but I’m quite happy staying with my father. I won’t get in your way, Rachelle, if that’s what’s bothering you.”

Rachelle’s face took on an expression of extreme hauteur. “You couldn’t bother me if you tried. And I certainly don’t like the way you refer to my grandmother as Lady Margaret. She’s Lady McGovern to you.”

“Why don’t you check with your grandmother?” Skye said quietly, preparing to move on. “It was she who asked me to call her that.”

Rachelle’s dark eyes held a wild glare. “I don’t believe you.”

Skye ignored her, continuing on her way. On this day of days Rachelle, incredibly, was looking for a fight.

She hadn’t been at the bungalow ten minutes before she heard footsteps resounding on the short flight of timber stairs. They didn’t sound like her father’s. Not at all. They sounded like…She hurried to the front door, gripped by tension. The door wasn’t shut. She had left it open to catch a breeze. The bungalow had ceiling fans, but no air-conditioning.

To her complete shock, Keefe stood there, his brilliant eyes stormy. He had changed out of his funeral attire into riding gear. “I tried to catch you at the house,” he bit off, almost accusingly, ‘but you were pretty quick to get away.”

A flicker of temper, born of high emotion, flashed over her face. It had been the most dreadful day. “Let me stop you there, Keefe. I was one of the last to leave. Your grandmother didn’t want me to stray too far from her side. I don’t really know why.” She broke off, her eyes filling with apprehension. “Is something the matter?” she asked quickly. “Surely not her?” Lady McGovern was eighty years old.

“No, no.” Swiftly he reassured her. “She’s retired, of course. Losing Dad has robbed her of all vigour. She was in fine form up until then. But God knows what will happen now! She’s lost two sons. And a husband.”

“I know,” Skye said sadly. “In one way she has lived a life of privilege, but she has suffered a lot. Losing a child must be the greatest loss a woman can ever know.” Her head was aching so much she ripped at the pins in her hair, pulling them out one by one and setting them down on the small table by the door. Afterwards she shook her hair free with a sigh of relief, letting it settle into shining masses around her face and shoulders.

“Sometimes you’re so beautiful I can hardly endure looking at you,” Keefe said abruptly. He reached out suddenly for a handful of her hair, twining it around his hand, pulling on it slightly to draw her closer to him.

“You haven’t had to endure me of late,” she reminded him with a flare of bitterness.

“Your decision.” His tone was just as harsh. He released the silky swathe of her hair. “Can you do something for me, Skye?”

She relented. She had to on this day of days. “Of course I can.” She could see the pressure that had been building in him all day. There was a faint pallor beneath his tan. Another sign of his anguish.

“Then get out of that dress.” His tone was so short it sounded like an order. “I have the most desperate need to get away from the house. Put your riding gear on. Don’t tell me you didn’t bring it. I need to ride off some of this torment. It’s all been such a nightmare. Dad gone. The memory of that last morning. So businesslike, so matter-of-fact. I never got a chance to tell him how much I loved him, admired and respected him. He was my role model.”

“Keefe, he knew!” She wanted desperately to touch him but held herself back with an effort of will. “You’re everything he wanted and needed in his son, his successor. He knew the empire he built was safe with you. He never mentioned your name without it ringing with love and pride.”

He turned his dark head away, his skin drawn taut over his chiselled bones. “Do what I ask. I want to gallop until I drop.”

“Why me?” She issued it like a challenge. “You have a brother, a sister, yet you come looking for me.”

“Of course, you,” he responded roughly. “Who else?”

It was mutual validation of sorts. “I don’t understand you, Keefe,” she said on a note of despair. “You push me away. You draw me back in. You make life a heaven and a hell.”

“Maybe I only feel complete when you’re around.” He turned to her with intensity. “I missed you. You didn’t come.”

That almost sent her over the edge. “You surely didn’t think I was about to forgive you for breaking my heart?” she cried fiercely. “You showered me with affection, Keefe. As a child, as an adolescent. You made sure I was never lonely. Your kindness and your patience. It’s all etched into my memory. You might have been years and years older instead of only six. Then I grew up. And you took it all away. But not before you took me.” Her blue eyes blazed.

Colour rose in a tide under his bronzed skin. “It was what you wanted.” He grasped her by two arms, agony in his expression. “What I wanted. Neither of us could stop it. Neither of us tried. It was like it was ordained. Knowing your body meant everything in the world to me, Skye. Don’t ever forget it, or downgrade it. It was another stage in our incredible bonding. The intimacy. I have a sister who’s struggled all her life with jealousy of you. Consider her feelings for a moment. It was you I loved. You, Skye. You were so full of life and fun and endless intelligent questions. You sparkled. I love Rachelle. She’s family. We share the same blood but, terrible to say, often times I don’t like her.”

“And you think you should?” Skye asked a little wildly. “Rachelle was never nice to me. Not for one single minute. She let her jealousy eat her up. Anyway, it’s not unusual not to like someone in your family, though I didn’t have one, except Dad. Thing is, we can’t pick our families. We can’t always like them.”

“I guess.” A muscle throbbed along his jaw. “I have to contend with Scott’s jealousy as well. The two of them, my sister and my brother, ruining their lives with jealousy and resentment. Neither of them will find a life for themselves. Rachelle won’t consider getting herself a job. There are things she could do, but she’s falls back on her trust fund. Who knows what Scott’s thought processes are? I’ve offered him Moorali Downs. It’s a chance for him to find his feet. But no! It’s all about focusing his weird enmity on me.”

“Maybe if he falls in love?” Skye suggested, feeling his distress and frustration. “Finds the right girl? Marries her?”

Keefe laughed grimly. “Scott’s fantasy is all about you.”

That hit her like a blow “But surely he’s forgotten me.” Her expression revealed she was shocked and appalled. “I saw him with Jemma. She’s a very nice young woman.”

“Who is wasting her time.” Keefe rejected that solution with a kind of anger. “I like Jemma too. She’ll make some lucky man a fine wife but it won’t be Scott. Scott’s choice has to be my choice. Scott will always want the woman I want. As Gran once said, ‘Scott wants to be you, Keefe’. That’s his huge problem in life. Sibling rivalry is part of Scott’s deepest being.”

“Then that’s a hell of a thing,” she said. “Maybe he needs professional help.”

“You think he doesn’t realise it?” Keefe spoke with a mix of anger and sorrow. “Scott does have an insight into his own behaviour. He knows what drives him. The tragedy is he doesn’t want to change things.”

“So this is what it always comes to. I shouldn’t have come back.” Skye was painfully convinced it was so. “There’s no place for me here, Keefe. I only make matters worse. Remember who I am.”

His eyes flashed like summer lightning. “Who you are? I’ll tell you. You’re a beautiful, bright, accomplished woman. What more do you want? I don’t give a damn that you were raised as Jack McCory’s little motherless daughter. Jack is a good man. But who in God’s name was your mother? That’s the real question.”

Her head shot up, all sorts of alarms going off. “What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you have the courage to allow your concerns—our concerns—to leap to the centre?”

“I have no idea what you mean.” She did. There were critical parts of her mother’s life that were totally unknown.

“You do,” he flatly contradicted, “but I can’t handle it now. Take that black dress off, though heaven knows it makes your skin and your hair glow. Leave a note for Jack. Say you’ve gone riding with me. He’ll understand.”

“Of course he will!” She cut him off with something of his own clipped manner. “He’s my father.”

Chapter Three

BIRDS shrieked, whistled, zoomed above their heads, filling the whole world with a wild symphony of sound. They had left the main compound far behind, driving the horses, initially unsettled and hard to saddle, at full gallop towards the line of sandhills, glowing like furnaces in the intermittent, blinding flashes of sun. Aboriginal chanting so ghostly it raised the short hairs on the nape at first floated with ease across the sacred landscape. Now the sound was fading as they thundered on their way.