Outback Bride

CHAPTER NINE

Copper shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted across the yard. Yes, there they were, Megan bobbing up and down beside her father, her small face animated, and Mal, head bent to listen to her, slowing his rangy stride to her short little legs. His expression was hidden beneath his hat but, as if sensing Copper's presence, he glanced up and saw her standing there, and their eyes met with an instinctive smile. He was too far away for Copper to hear what he said, but he must have pointed her out to Megan, who spotted her with a cry of pleasure and came running towards her. Mal followed, still smiling, and Copper's heart turned over as she caught the little girl in a hug.

The last few days had been good ones. The terrible tension between her and Mal had crumbled in the face of the mutual need that had set them afire the night he had brought Georgia home. By day, Mal was as coolly self-contained as ever, but something in him had relaxed and, although he rarely touched Copper in front of the others, when the door closed behind them at night the quiet reserve dropped and he would pull her into his arms and make love to her with a tenderness and a passion that left her vibrant and glowing with joy.

He hadn't said that he loved her, but for the time being Copper was content to leave things as they were. It was hard to believe that Mal could make love to her like that without feeling anything, and she saw no need to force a commitment out of him that he was not ready to give. He had three years to fall in love with her, after all, and if the nights passed as the last ten had done, then he must surely find it hard to resist. Copper was still tingling with the memory of the previous night and her mouth curved in a reminiscent smile as she set Megan down.

'You look very pleased with yourself,' said Mal with mock suspicion. 'What are you thinking about?'

Copper's eyes shone warm and green as she smiled at him. 'Tonight,' she said honestly, and rejoiced to see the blaze of response in his face.

'You're a bad woman,' he said softly, but he smiled too as he drew her towards him for a kiss that was warm and sweet with promise.

It was such a natural gesture that Copper's heart cracked with love for him. Could he be coming to love her already? She felt almost giddy with happiness. Everything was working out perfectly. Mal might not love her yet, but he would, and Megan was blooming into a happy, loving child.

Even Georgia was enjoying her new life. The resentment that Copper had felt at the other girl's arrival had been quickly replaced by real liking. Georgia was natural and friendly and a hard worker. She cheerfully took on the cooking and the more humdrum household tasks, which left Copper more time to spend with Megan or working in the office. She still had plenty to do on the project, but she was waiting for the contractors to set a date, and in the meantime she had taken on more and more of Mal's paperwork. Her business experience stood her in good stead and at least she felt that she was being useful.

Only Brett seemed discontented. Oddly, he had made no attempt to flirt with Georgia, and even seemed to actively dislike her. 'She's too perfect,' he told Copper a few days later when she found him sitting moodily alone on the verandah.

'I thought you'd like her,' said Copper, trying to cajole him out of his mood. 'We're worried about you, Brett! A pretty girl with no attachments and you've hardly said a word to her!'

Brett hunched a shoulder. 'She's not that pretty,' he said sullenly. 'I don't like those cool, competent types.'

'Georgia may be competent, but nobody could call her cool,' Copper objected. 'She's a nice, warm, friendly girl, and I wouldn't blame her if she felt hurt at the way you ignore her. It's not as if there are lots of other people out here for her to talk to.'

'She's the one who's ignoring me,' said Brett. 'She always makes me feel as if I've crawled out from under a stone.' He brooded silently for a moment. 'I don't want her approval anyway,' he went on unconvincingly, but with a flicker of his old self. 'She's not nearly as much fun as you, Copper. And have you noticed how chummy she and Mal are?'

After that, of course, Copper did notice. Georgia behaved quite naturally, but Copper's jealous eye discerned rather too much approval in Mal's expression when he looked at the other girl. Georgia's knowledge of station life meant that she always knew what Mal was talking about, too, and she could discuss station matters and breaking horses. She knew about musters and how to make billy tea. She could castrate a calf and rope a cow as easily as she could cook a perfect roast, and it wasn't long before Copper began to feel excluded from their conversations. All she could talk about was settling invoices and checking accounts, and nobody was interested in that.

Unable to compete when it came to discussing the day, Copper turned more and more to Brett, who kept pointedly aloof from such station conversation and was more than willing to flirt outrageously with Copper instead. Once or twice Copper caught him watching Georgia with an expression that made her suspect that he had been protesting too much about his dislike of the other girl. She was pretty sure that Brett was harder hit than he wanted to admit. His flirting had a desperate edge that she recognised from her own doomed attempts to disguise how she felt about Mal, and a sense of fellow feeling drew them increasingly together.

Mal didn't say anything at first, but as the evenings passed, and the division between the conversations grew more and more obvious, his jaw acquired a set look, and whenever he glanced at Brett and Copper his mouth turned disapprovingly down at the corners. Copper pretended not to notice. Who was Mal to complain about the way she laughed with Brett, when he spent his whole time monopolising Georgia?

Copper could never put her finger on the moment when the warmth and the fire in her relationship with Mal faded. One day it seemed as if they fell laughing into bed together every night, and the next that the following three years would be spent undressing in tense silence.

'Why are you encouraging Brett to make such a fool of himself over you?' Mal asked one night, after Brett had been particularly obstreperous. They were lying stiffly apart in the dark and the words sounded as if they had been forced out of him.

'I'm not encouraging him,' said Copper. 'I'm just talking to him, which is more than you and Georgia ever do.'

Mal snorted. 'You call that display "just talking'', do you? It doesn't look much like talking to me!'

'I'm surprised you notice,' Copper snapped back. 'You're always nose to nose with Georgia. I thought you'd forgotten who you were married to!'

'I'm not the one who seems to have forgotten,' he said grimly. 'You and Brett are the ones who have decided that you needn't bother about a little thing like a wedding ring!'

Exasperated by his obtuseness, Copper struggled up into a sitting position and snapped on the bedside light. If they were going to argue-as they obviously were- they might as well be able to see each other! 'Brett's not interested in me,' she said. 'It's perfectly obvious that he's in love with Georgia.'

'Brett?' Mal sat up too, at that, and turned to her incredulously. 'Brett's never been in love in his life!'

She gritted her teeth and tried not to let the sight of his bare chest distract her. 'I think he is now.'

'And I suppose being in love with Georgia explains why he spends his whole time hanging over you?' he said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm.

'Of course it does,' said Copper impatiently. 'Georgia hasn't shown any interest in him, so Brett doesn't want her to think that he cares about her, that's all.'

'All this amateur psychology doesn't sound very convincing to me,' sneered Mal. 'What makes you such an expert on love suddenly?'

'I know more than you, anyway,' she retorted. 'You wouldn't recognise love if it got up and punched you in the face!'

'Whereas you have all your experience with Glyn to go on!' he snapped back.

'Yes, I do,' said Copper defiantly. 'It's more than you have, anyway! Glyn and I loved each other.'

'Some love when he couldn't wait to dump you for someone else!'

'At least Glyn was honest about what he felt,' she said furiously. 'He's kind and he cares about me, which is more than I can say for you!'

'Why didn't you fight for him if he was so great?' sneered Mal, and Copper's green eyes flashed.

'I wish I had!'

'Just think,' he taunted her, 'if you'd waited a few more weeks, you could have had him back!'

'It's not too late,' Copper pointed out, so angry by now that she hardly knew or cared what she was saying. 'Ellie's still with her husband.'

Mal's brows snapped together. 'How do you know that?'

'There is a world outside Birraminda, you know,' she said sarcastically, 'and I still communicate with it occasionally!'

'You've been in touch with Glyn?' Mal shot out a hand to grasp Copper's arm and pull her round, but she jerked herself out of his grip, terrified in case the mere touch of his fingers against her skin should be enough to defuse her anger. After the numb misery of those endless tense, silent nights, it was oddly invigorating to feel the fury churning through her.

'What if I have? It's none of your business, anyway!'

'None of my business if my wife rings up her ex-lover for cosy little chats? Of course it's my business!'

'We agreed what sort of marriage we were going to have,' she said with a resentful glance, ostentatiously rubbing her arm where he had gripped her with his hard fingers. 'It was to be a purely practical arrangement. There was nothing in the contract about giving up all contact with the outside world!'

'We agreed that we would do our best to make sure that everyone thought that we were genuinely married,' said Mal savagely. 'You married me, Copper, and I think it's time you did a better job of acting like my wife than you've done so far-and for a start you can forget all about Glyn until your three years is up!'

Copper shook her hair angrily away from her face. 'Careful, Mal!' she said provocatively. 'You're sounding almost jealous, and you don't want that, do you? Jealousy is one of those "messy'' emotions, like love or need, and we all know how you feel about those!'

'What would you know about emotions?' he said unpleasantly.All you care about is business.'

'That's good coming from a man who had to resort to blackmail to get a wife!'

'Then I got what I deserved, didn't I?' said Mal with dislike. 'A woman prepared to sell herself just to be able to pitch a few tents and make people pay through the nose for the privilege of sleeping in them!'

Copper's hands clenched around the sheet. 'If that's what you think of me, I think we'd better put an end to this farce right now,' she said, in a voice that shook with fury. 'There's no point in us carrying on like this. All you wanted was a housekeeper, and you've got Georgia now. It's pretty obvious that you think she's doing a much better job than I ever could, so I might as well leave you both to it and go back to Adelaide.'

'What, and give up on your precious project?' Mal mocked. 'You'd never do that, would you, Copper? No, you signed a contract that committed you to staying here for three years, and three years you're going to stay. You can't tear up our agreement just because you've got the chance to go running back to Glyn.'

'It might be worth losing the project to live with a man who appreciated me!' said Copper wildly.

There was a dangerous pause. 'I'd appreciate you if you'd just stick to your part of our agreement and act like a proper wife,' said Mal, in a voice of cold control. 'And leave Brett alone, of course.'

Back to square one! Copper blew out a hopeless sigh and put her head between her hands. It might have felt good to let off steam, but the argument wasn't going anywhere. 'Look, I keep trying to tell you,' she said grittily. 'Brett only flirts with me because he's jealous of you.

'Brett's jealous of me?' Mal gave a mirthless laugh. 'That's a good one! How do you work that out?'

'He never gets a chance to impress Georgia because you're always there.' She lifted her head from her hands and tried to explain. 'You're the one who runs everything. You're the one who decides what should be done. You're the one who monopolises Georgia every night. How can Brett compete with you?'

'He's never found any difficulty before!'

'I know, but it's different now. This time Brett's in love.'

'Which he shows by behaving as if he's infatuated with my wife?' Mal suggested sardonically.

Copper gave a despairing gesture. 'It's all aimed at Georgia,' she insisted. 'Surely you can see that?'

'The only thing I can see is you making big green eyes at him every night,' he said in a biting voice as he lay down again and punched his pillow savagely into shape. 'If you left him alone, he might have a chance to fall in love with Georgia, but as it is you're just causing trouble. It's embarrassing for me and extremely awkward for Georgia to see the way you and Brett carry on.'

'Oh, and we can't have Georgia feeling awkward, can we?' flared Copper, wrenching the sheet over to her side of the bed before throwing herself angrily down onto her pillow with her back to Mal.

Mal pulled the sheet back. 'I'm warning you, Copper,' he said dangerously. 'You leave Brett alone. I won't stand by and watch you screw my brother up.'

Copper was so enraged that she jerked round to face him. 'All I've done to your brother is to offer him a bit of sympathy and understanding, which is more than he ever gets from you. You're so pig-headed and arrogant that you can't even see what's going on under your own nose!'

'You're not here to understand Brett,' said Mal callously. 'You're here to behave as my wife whenever anybody else is present, and that means not making an exhibition of yourself with my brother-or anyone else. I'd be grateful if you'd remember that in future.'

'You needn't worry,' said Copper in a voice that shook. 'I've got no intention of forgetting why I married you!' Oh, God, the light was still on! Scowling furiously to stop herself from crying, she heaved herself up once more to click it off and then pointedly turned her back. There was a pause, then with a short, exasperated sigh he did the same, and although she lay tensely awake for hours he made no move to touch her again.

It was such a stupid argument, Copper thought wearily the next day. It wouldn't have been too difficult to make up in each other's arms as they had done before. All she had needed to do was to roll over and whisper his name, but part of her had rebelled. Why should she grovel to Mal when she had nothing to apologise for? She wasn't the one being stubborn and blind and completely unreasonable, was she?

'We'll be out mustering all day,' Mal said brusquely at breakfast. 'I need Georgia to spot the strays from the plane, so you'll have to forget your business for once and keep an eye on Megan for a change.'

He clearly thought that was all she was good for, thought Copper, too weary after a sleepless night even to object to his implication that she didn't spend almost all of her time with Megan anyway while Georgia dealt with more of the household chores. She couldn't fly a plane, like Georgia, or ride out with the stockmen, cracking whips and chivvying the cattle along with piercing yells. As far as Mal was concerned, she was useful only for staying at home and keeping out of the way. It was amazing that he hadn't jumped at her suggestion that she go back to Adelaide. After last night, she would have thought he would be glad to be rid of her.

The homestead felt horribly empty when Georgia and the men had gone and Copper was left alone with Megan. Miserably, she began clearing up the kitchen, but the silence was oppressive and accusing and in the end she could bear it no longer. 'Let's have a picnic,' she said to Megan, wanting only to get away from the house with its taunting memories of Mal: Mal climbing the verandah steps, Mal turning his head, Mal closing the bedroom door with a smile in his eyes. 'We'll take my car and go somewhere different for a change.'

Copper hadn't used her car since she had driven up from Adelaide all those weeks ago, and it felt strange getting into it again. The last time she had sat behind the wheel Mal had been just a treasured memory, no more than an image from the past or a vague regret, and now…now he was so much part of her life that it was hard to imagine a time when she had existed without him. To Copper it seemed as if her whole life had been directed to the moment when she had driven up along the track and parked in front of the homestead. It was odd, looking back, to think that she had sat down to wait on the verandah steps without an inkling that Mal would walk around the corner of the woolshed and change her life again for ever.

She thought about how much had changed since then as she drove out along the rough track that led towards a wild, rocky area that she had never seen for herself. Mal had pointed it out once on one of their afternoon rides. It had been too far for them to go on horseback, but he had told her about the eerie red rocks and the spindly gums and the huge termite hills that gave the place its own special atmosphere.

Just remembering those rides made Copper's heart ache for the way things had been then. He had sat on his horse, relaxed and still, and the huge, empty horizon and the dazzling light had focused around him. Then, everything had seemed possible. She hadn't known how contemptuous his eyes could be, or how savage his tongue. Had she changed, or had he?

It took much longer than she had expected to coax the car along the track, but they made it eventually and ate their picnic in the shade of an overhanging rock. It was a strange, wild place, that echoed with age and silence, but Copper was glad that she had come. Idly, she watched Megan playing house amongst the weirdly shaped stones. The stillness seemed to seep through her, calming her jagged nerves, and she was able to think clearly at last.

She and Mal had been happy before, and they could be happy again. There was no point in hanging onto her pride if it just made her miserable. She would talk to Mal tonight and tell him that she loved him. He might recoil, but at least it would be the truth. Copper didn't think she could bear the thought of spending three years pretending that she cared more for her business than she did for him.

She had to do something, anyway. They couldn't go on like this, letting stupid misunderstandings tangle themselves up into bitter arguments. The desire they had felt together was too strong, surely, to fall apart in a matter of days. Copper thought about the way Mal had kissed her and hope twisted inside her. If they could just have a night alone together everything would be all right again. It had to be.

Suddenly eager to get back and tell Mal exactly how she felt, Copper got to her feet and stretched. 'Come on, Megan, let's go home.'

It took a little while to persuade Megan to leave the little house she had created, but at last she was in the car, the picnic was packed away, and she settled herself behind the wheel. Her mind on Mal and what she would say when she saw him, Copper didn't register at first that the engine was wheezing and coughing. When she did, she frowned irritably and tried turning the ignition key again. Nothing happened.

Copper tried again-and again, exasperated, then angry, and at last afraid. Trying to conceal her sinking heart, she got out of the car to open the bonnet and peer helplessly at the engine. She had no idea where to start finding out what was wrong, let alone how to fix it.

The heat bounced off the metal and glared into her eyes. 'I'm hot!' Megan complained.

Biting her lip, Copper opened the door. 'Play in the shade for a while,' she suggested, and went back to the engine. Nothing seemed to be broken. She checked the water and the oil, more for something to do than anything else, and then went to try the ignition again in the wild hope that wishful thinking was enough to do the trick.

It wasn't, of course. Copper wiped her brow with the back of her arm and told herself there was no need to worry. When the muster got back, Mal would realise they were missing and come and find them. He won't know where to look, a cold voice whispered, and ice trickled down Copper's spine before she clamped down on the thought. Mal would find them. All she had to do was sit tight and keep Megan safe.

Megan. Copper got out of the car. Where was Megan? Around her were rocks and trees and utter, utter quiet, but no little girl. 'Megan?' Her voice bounced eerily off the stones and her heart seemed to freeze in her chest. 'Megan?'

All at once the afternoon had taken on a nightmarish quality. It was as if she had turned round and found herself on a different time plane, where nothing made any sense. Megan had been there only a minute ago. How could she be gone?

Copper forced herself to breathe deeply and slowly. The one thing she must not do was panic. Calling Megan's name, she began making systematic circles around the car, spreading a little wider every time, until a cry, abruptly cut off, sent her stumbling through the trees in its direction, her heart pounding with dread. Copper found that she was praying as she looked desperately around her for any sign of the child, but she made herself work steadily between the trees until she came out into a sort of clearing and saw Megan, lying sprawled and much, much too still, beneath a weathered red boulder.

'Megan!' Copper fell frantically to her knees beside her. The world had gone suddenly black. 'Please, no…please, no…please, no…' She could hear a voice muttering incoherently, and it was some time before she realised that it was her own and could fight her way back through the darkness to feel for Megan's pulse-a feeble beat that told her the child was unconscious but alive.

'Oh, thank God!' The tears streamed unheeded down Copper's face as Megan stirred and moaned.

'My foot hurts!'

Copper's first reaction was one of relief that it was only her foot. Very gently, she checked Megan all over. One ankle was badly swollen, but she didn't know enough to tell whether it was broken or just sprained. 'What happened, Megan?' she asked.

'I heard you calling, and I was going to hide up on the rocks, but I fell.' Megan began to cry. 'My head hurts as well,' she wept.

She must have hit it as she fell onto the hard ground.

Looking up at the smooth surface of the boulder, Copper went cold. It was quite a drop, and she could have been much more badly hurt. 'It's all right,' she soothed the child, gathering her into her arms without jarring the sore ankle.

Why, why, why had she never learnt any first aid? Megan didn't seem to have hurt anything other than her foot, but who knew what damage the fall might have done to her head? 'Shh,' she murmured into the dark curls, rocking her gently for comfort. She suspected that Megan was more shocked by her fall than anything else, but she might so easily be wrong.

Never had Copper felt more inadequate. Pretending that she knew what she was doing, she ripped up part of her shirt to make a bandage and tied it around Megan's ankle, but the slightest touch was enough to make Megan cry out in pain. 'I want to go home,' she sobbed.

It was only then that Copper remembered the car. 'We can't go home just yet, sweetheart,' she said with difficulty. 'But I'll carry you back to the car and we'll get you some water.'

'I don't want any water. I want to go home!'

'I know, I know.' Copper laid Megan down in the shade near the car and used another piece of her shirt to clean the dust from her face. At least she had thought to bring some water with her. It was the only sensible thing she had done today.

All the time she kept up a flow of cheerful talk, so that Megan wouldn't guess how desperately afraid she was, but inside she was desperately trying to calculate how long it would take Mal to realise that they were missing and organise a search. They were mustering in the far paddocks. What if they didn't get back to the homestead until it was almost dark and it was too late to look for them? She didn't want to think what it would be like to spend a night alone out here, with Megan frightened and hurt and only one bottle of water to see them through.

For what seemed like a lifetime, Copper sat in the shade, cradling Megan on her lap and distracting her by crooning to her softly or telling her stories until she fell into an exhausted sleep. After that there was nothing to do but wait and watch the minute hand of her watch crawl slowly round. The silence gathered weight with every second that passed. Copper could feel it squeezing the air around her, crushing her until she felt so deafened by it that when she heard the plane at last she thought she was hallucinating.

Lying the sleeping child gently on the ground, she struggled out from under the rock. Yes, there was the plane, flying low over the trees but still some distance away. Copper's first impulse was to shout, until she realised that she would only wake Megan needlessly, so she scrambled into the car instead, to begin frenziedly flashing the headlights.

With an excruciating lack of speed, the plane banked and flew towards her, low enough for Copper to see Georgia gesturing from the cockpit as she talked into the radio. Desperately, Copper pointed to the lifted bonnet of the car to show that it had broken down. Georgia nodded and gave Copper the thumbs-up sign for encouragement. Then she dipped her wings and headed back for the homestead.

For a full minute Copper just stared after her, unable to believe that Georgia had just gone and left them there.

Then reason returned and she realised that there was nowhere for the plane to land among all the rocks. Georgia must have been radioing their position back to Mal. The relief was so overwhelming that Copper had to hold onto the car door for support.

Making her way back to their shelter beneath the rock, she gathered the sleepily whimpering Megan back into her lap. 'It's all right now,' she murmured. 'Dad's coming.'