Outback Sunset (35 page)

Bren bent down and, one-armed, picked up his son. ‘Mate, you’ve put on weight and got so much taller. Happy birthday, Kyle.’ From behind his back he showed Kyle that he was holding, a large, brightly wrapped parcel.

With his smile as wide as his father’s, Kyle insisted on being put down so he could open the present straight away.

Melody, who’d been busy in the kitchen with Trudy, the night time baby-sitter, heating up sausage rolls, cocktail frankfurts and making fairy bread, came over to them. ‘Food’s ready. Just tell me when you want it on the table.’

‘When the game’s finished,’ Vanessa said as arm in arm, she introduced Bren to those who didn’t know him. Bren, keen to blend in, went over to Melody’s partner, Joe who was half Nigerian, half English. Joe was having a hard time keeping three children, boys, from getting hyped up and wrecking Vanessa’s elegant living room. She rolled her eyes as Bren, with his wide frame and commanding voice, got the boys under control. If she could be assured that her and Bren’s next child would be a girl, she would be overjoyed.

Kerri’s mobile rang and she drifted away to a quiet corner of the room, near the balcony, to take the call. Vanessa, coming down from the shock of her husband’s sudden arrival, watched her agent’s face. Kerri’s mobile features changed as she conversed with whoever was on the phone. Vanessa saw her eyebrows fly up, then she frowned and ran a hand through her abundant mop of black hair. After that Kerri waved the same hand about, gesticulating wildly. Finally came the triumphant smile. Whatever the topic of conversation, it was going Kerri’s way.

The last child had her turn at pinning the tail on the donkey and received a prize, all the children received a small gift, then the joint chant began as fourteen little eyes spied plates being put on the table.

‘Food, food, we want food.’

Vanessa then had little time to wonder who Kerri had been talking to as the children converged like starving beasts on the party food. Even Kyle forgot his manners, she noted. Well, he was no angel. Her son got into his share of mischief — he was used to being outdoors. Amaroo Station as far as the first paddock had been his backyard. Here, the flat and the courtyard garden out the back, which was delightful in summer but drearily cold in winter, forced her to keep him inside more than her son appreciated.

After the children sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and the cake was cut into generous portions and devoured, one by one, children and their parents began to leave. Kerri sidled up to Vanessa who was standing at the flat’s front door saying goodbye and voicing her thanks for them having come.

‘More good news, Vanny, though I doubt it will eclipse Bren’s arrival,’ Kerry said dryly. ‘I’ve been speaking to Charles. The deal is looking positive and the contract should be drawn up next week.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ Vanessa replied, though her concentration was off. She was watching Kyle show Bren the presents he’d received. Her son’s face was aglow with excitement from the party and his father’s arrival. If all went according to plan she and Kyle could be on the plane home within twenty-four hours of the final curtain coming down at the Lyceum. Home — Amaroo. The friendly faces of those who worked there, the camaraderie between herself and Curtis. The stretching-forever land. She could hardly wait … and now that Bren was here, the week was going to be hectic but they could be together, a family again.

Bren and Vanessa stood at the open doorway of Kyle’s bedroom checking that their son was asleep. Bren’s arm was around her shoulder.

‘He’s had a big day,’ Vanessa whispered.

‘He has. I can’t believe how much he’s grown. The four months has seemed like forty months to me.’

She turned into his arms and smiled up at him. ‘Oh! You’ve missed us,
me
, have you?’ Her arms crept around his waist to pull his body against hers.

‘You bet.’ His hands cupped her face and for a while he studied her features, as if it had been more like four years than four months since he’d been this close to her. ‘I hope you don’t intend to go so far away, or for so long again. I don’t like it.’

‘I don’t like it either.’

She had decided that and told Kerri so one day, even if she forfeited work because of it. The Kimberley was her home and she wasn’t prepared to take long breaks away from the place she had come to love so much. There was another reason behind her decision too. She worried over some of the things Bren was doing … The occasional letter from Curtis had pointed out that he wanted to build an American-style dude ranch on Amaroo, labelling it as home-stay accommodation — a tourism set up that was gaining popularity in parts of the outback. Tourists would come to Amaroo and be involved in station life for a short period of time.

Curtis had pointed out the dangers of the idea, that the project would need an infusion of capital for several years until it was in profit mode, and that without careful management and advertising it could flounder. Reading between the lines of his letters she was certain that Stuart had put the idea into Bren’s head. Now her husband was determined to see it through, though he had, in phone calls and letters, said very little about his new project.

His lips found hers and their kiss projected the pent-up passion of months of separation. It was good to be in his arms again, to feel the thrill of his hard body against hers, his energy, the wanting in him. All thoughts of his project, that Amaroo would be put into the red again, fled Vanessa’s mind as she responded wholeheartedly to the powerful physical attraction that arced between them.

‘I hope your baby-sitter, Trudy, sleeps soundly,’ he said quietly as, arms around each other, they walked down the wide hallway to the large bedroom.

‘She does, like the dead.’

‘Good, because,’ he chuckled throatily, ‘hon, I don’t think I’ll be letting you get too much sleep tonight … I’m not used to being on a sex starvation diet, and I decided months ago that I didn’t like it.’

‘Me neither.’ A delicious shiver of anticipation ran down her spine. With a little luck and a lot of loving, she might get pregnant while he was here. She didn’t like being underhanded or secretive, but she was determined to have another child — Kyle needed a brother or sister to play with, and for company. She didn’t want him being a lonely, only child as she had been. And if she got her wish this week, she would keep it to herself until she was sure.

Nova Morrison sat at a table in the upmarket Perth restaurant waiting for Glen Latimer, the publicist assigned to her by the video company, to return from the men’s room. She had completed the last leg of a promotional tour for her children’s music video — the tour having taken her to every capital city in Australia — and both the tour and the video had been spectacularly successful. Who’d have thought it, she happily queried as she waited. She now had two separate vocal careers — country and western, and composing and recording songs for children. And with the exposure from the children’s show she now co-presented with the personable Andy Crenna, her video was selling like proverbial hot cakes.

A woman’s high-pitched, out-of-control laugh on the other side of the restaurant, distracted her thoughts. She twisted her head, curious to find the culprit and her eyebrows lifted in amazement as she
recognised Diane Selby accompanied by two other women. Diane was the one laughing uproariously. Experiencing a niggle of irritation at Glen’s long sojourn in the loo, Nova got up and made her way over to Diane’s table to say hello.

‘Nova. What a lovely surprise.’ Diane welcomed the younger woman like an old friend, giving her chic, business-like appearance a cursory once-over. ‘You look fabulous. Sit down, please. Let me introduce you to Toni and Nicki, from Adelaide.’

‘Hi, everyone.’ Nova directed her next remark to Diane. ‘Where’s Stuart?’

Diane giggled, made a face and took another sip of her wine. ‘We had a row. How very unusual.’ Her mouth quirked cynically. ‘He apologised and sent me to Perth on a no-limit shopping spree. Whee!’ Her voice rose gaily. ‘My friends, Toni and Nicki, decided to join me and help me spend obscene amounts of money.’

Nova grinned. ‘Sounds like the perfect arrangement. Stuart makes it, you spend it.’

‘Yesh, lovey. What else are wives for if not to spend their husband’s hard-earned dollars? The bastard deserves whatever it costs him,’ Diane said with a wink. ‘Him and his affairs. He thinks I’m overly suspicious but I know my husband and his cheating ways.’

‘Are you
the
Nova who does the children’s television show in the mornings,
Grandma’s Gingerbread House
, with Andy Crenna? It is you, isn’t it?’ Toni asked. ‘I saw your video clip the other day. It was terrific. Chloe, my three-year-old granddaughter, loves it.’

‘Nova’s done very well,’ Diane was slurring her words more noticeably now but that didn’t stop her from taking another swallow of white wine and lolling back in her chair.

‘I have, thanks to young Kyle. If I hadn’t been at Amaroo a while back and spent time with Kyle and Vanessa, I might not have written those children’s songs. Kyle inspired me with his cute, funny ways,’ Nova admitted. She glanced towards her own table. Glen hadn’t returned so there was no need for her to hurry back. Besides, she liked Diane Selby, more than she liked Stuart.

‘Poor little mite,’ Diane said, sniffing. ‘He’s well now, and he should have a little brother or sister to play with in a few months time, but when he was a baby,’ she told Toni and Nicki, ‘Kyle almost died. Had to have a liver transplant and now he’s doing well, thanks to his Uncle Curtis.’

‘I agree,’ Nova was quick to remark.
In so many ways.

‘It was hell for Vanessa and Bren.’

‘And Curtis,’ Nova added. ‘He’s the one who donated a percentage of his liver to save Kyle.’ She threw that information in for the other women.

‘Yes, our Curtis is quite a man,’ Diane agreed with a sigh. ‘It’s a shame he hasn’t found anyone to share his life since … the divorce. Georgia did a real job on him, turned him into a woman-hater.’ She reached for the wine bottle in the ice bucket and poured wine into each of the glasses.

Toni and Nicki, as if silently cued to, suddenly excused themselves to visit the ladies’ room.

After they’d left, Nova’s dark eyes made a sly, clinical study of Diane. She really was quite tipsy. More than tipsy, halfway to being drunk. When she offered her a glass of wine, Nova declined. ‘I don’t drink in public. It doesn’t go with my squeaky-clean children’s presenter image,’ she said with a smile. Naturally she didn’t add that when she needed to she drank in private and continued to indulge in popping uppers and downers, but only when they were
needed
, she assured herself.

‘Smart girl. You know, lovey, you’d be just right for Curtis.’ Diane quirked an eyebrow. ‘Interested?’ When Nova didn’t answer, she went on, as if musing to herself, ‘Mark my words, he’s been badly done by, has our Curtis. In more ways than Georgia screwing him for every penny she could get. If you ask me, that Hilary has a lot to answer for.’ She stared into Nova’s eyes and wiggled her eyebrows conspiratorially, as if the younger woman knew precisely what she meant.

Nova had enough experience with people who were on their way to drunkenness to know that it paid to be a good listener. Besides, what Diane said stirred a certain curiosity. What did Diane mean? That Curtis had been badly treated by his mother, or was she referring to the commonly known fact that Bren was Hilary’s favourite? Everyone, including Curtis and Lauren, knew that and they had, presumably, accepted it years ago. No … She had the distinct feeling that
it
, whatever Diane was alluding to, had a different meaning.
Ask her, you want to know, don’t you?
The little voice said in her head.

‘You mean about Bren being the favoured child?’

Diane gave her a bleary-eyed glance. ‘No, lovey. That’s not why she treats Bren the way she does. Hilary does it out of guilt!’ She took another sip of wine, more than a sip — she downed half the glass’s contents in one long swallow.

Fascinating. Nova sensed she was on the brink of an important discovery about the Selby family but was Diane’s tongue sufficiently lubricated to reveal it before Toni and Nicki returned? Out of the corner of her eye she saw Glen wave to her. Stuff him. He could wait. Her heart picked up its beat and her breathing became more rapid.
What is Diane implying about Bren and Hilary?
Unable to work it out herself she focussed her attention on the older woman, and waited.

‘Her and
my
bloody husband should be ashamed of themselves. What they did …’ Diane began to hiccup. She lifted her hand to her eyes to blot away a tear. ‘Did you know that when I was pregnant with Kim and we weren’t even married, he had the hots for Hilary?’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Mind you, Hilary was beautiful enough when she was young and Matthew, trusting fool that he was, made the mistake of leaving her alone for too long. Young, beautiful women used to men’s attention don’t like being left by themselves for months and months. Hilary was like that.’

‘And …?’
This is interesting. Wait. Subconsciously she wants to confess all to you
. Nova chewed her lower lip as she tried to make sense of Diane’s disclosures. All at once she appeared to be very drunk. Then, as if a veil lifted, her ramblings became
clear. Of course. ‘Did Stuart have an affair with Hilary?’

‘Yesh. Rotten bastard. Should never have married him, but what could a girl do? I was four months preggers back in 1955.’

Containing her delight and giving Diane a mock solicitous look, Nova murmured, ‘At the time I’m sure you did the right thing. It wasn’t done to have children out of wedlock back then, was it?’

‘Too right, and not in straitlaced Adelaide. My parents would have freaked.’ The next instant Diane sat bolt upright and blinked several times with shock, realising what she had said. She gave Nova a lopsided frown. ‘Now, lovey, what I just said, all of it, it’s just between the two of us.’ She tried to look serious but with her eyelids drooping and her mouth slightly open, all she did was look comical. ‘Okay?’