Rescued By A Millionaire

CHAPTER TEN

‘IT’LL be fine. We’ll be fine.’

Jenna held Karli as close as their seat belts allowed. Max was in front of them in the pilot’s seat and Riley’s home was a fast-receding scene below them. They were headed for Adelaide.

‘I won’t be fine,’ Karli said stubbornly. ‘I wanted to stay with Riley.’

‘You know we can’t do that.’ Heck, why was it so hard to make her voice work? All she felt like doing was crumpling into a small soggy ball.

She couldn’t. She had to be cheerful and optimistic and she had to plan some sort of future. Somehow.

‘We’ll catch a plane to Perth so that we can use our tickets back to England,’ she told Karli. ‘I’ll contact Nicole’s agent. Maybe she can organise us to stay in Perth for a night or two before we leave.’

‘What would we do in Perth?’

‘We could take your rock to the museum,’ Jenna told her, trying to sound resolute. ‘That’s what Riley suggested we do-remember? We could get them to tell us exactly what it is.’

‘We can’t do that.’ Karli sniffed and her voice wobbled.

‘Why not?’

‘I left my rock back at Riley’s.’

‘Oh, no.’

She hadn’t checked. Oh, heck, she hadn’t checked. The rock had hardly been out of Karli’s hands since Riley had given it to her. Jenna had just assumed she had it with her. She’d been so distressed herself that she hadn’t noticed the little girl’s hands were empty. Now she stared down at Karli with dismay and thought about the impossibility of asking Max to turn back.

‘Oh, heck, Karli,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to phone Maggie and ask her to send it on.’

‘No,’ Karli said, and Jenna blinked.

‘No?’

‘I left it behind on purpose,’ Karli said, and her voice suddenly stopped wobbling. ‘I gave it to Maggie to give to Riley.’

But there the resolution ended. She stared up into Jenna’s confused face and her tiny face crumpled into tears.

‘I left it behind for Riley,’ she wailed.

Riley hadn’t needed to camp out. He’d lain awake all night, staring at the stars. The pup had wiggled down into the swag and he’d hugged him, helpless in the face of his need for comfort. ‘I can’t trust myself,’ he told the dog. ‘I don’t do commitment. Hell, if I were to let myself go there… I’d be a father. If Jenna and I split up-and we would-where would that leave Karli?’

There were no answers. He lay in his swag until he watched the dawn and when finally he saw the little plane lift off from the homestead and head south-not over him as he’d carefully gone north-he made his way home.

Maggie was waiting. The moment he walked in the kitchen she handed him the rock.

Her face was coldly accusing.

‘She left it for you,’ she told him. ‘Poor wee mite.’

He gazed at it blankly.

‘Karli’s rock.’

‘Yep.’

‘She left it behind.’

‘She gave it to me to give to you.’

‘It was my gift to her,’ Riley said, still confused, and Maggie sniffed. Every inch of her was vibrating with disapproval.

‘Was it now? Well, then, she’s given it back.’

‘I didn’t want it back.’

‘There’s a lot you don’t want, if you ask me.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You know very well what I mean, Riley Jackson,’ she snapped, and turned to take out her fury on some hapless potatoes.

‘She loved this rock,’ Riley said, staring down at the little starfish and then turning it over to trace the mollusc. They were shiny clean-scrubbed with Jenna’s soap.

‘That’s why she gave it to you,’ Maggie said-and sniffed over her potato peelings.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘She said…’ Maggie sniffed again and then it was too much. She hauled a handkerchief out and blew her nose with a sound that could be heard in the next state. ‘She said that she had Jenna to love her, and you didn’t even like your puppy, so you needed her rock more than she did.’

Riley stilled.

Maggie sniffed again.

‘You think I’ve been a fool?’ Riley said.

‘I don’t just think it.’ Maggie sliced a potato in two. And then into four. She stared at it a moment longer and then started stabbing the potato any which way. Potato wedges became potato chips and then potato slivers.

‘Maggie, I don’t know the first thing about being a husband.’

‘So don’t be a husband. Just love them to bits and let the rest take care of itself.’

‘They’ve gone. It’s over.’

‘It’s only over if you let it be over. Call them back. Max is on the radio.’

‘Oh, sure,’ he said, goaded. ‘Have Max turn the plane and bring them back so we can discuss things? Take things right out of their control? They’ve had so much happen to them, those two. Jenna was furious at me last night. Do you think I can calmly call Max and tell him to bring her back because maybe I need to talk things through. I don’t think so.’

‘What are you saying? Maybe you need to talk things through?’ Maggie eyed him with almost speechless incredulity. ‘Talk things through!’ She wheeled to face him, still holding her knife. She stared down at the knife, glanced back at her massacred potatoes and then carefully laid her weapon down-as if she just might do something she could regret. After all, these were innocent vegetables who hadn’t done anything to anyone.

They weren’t Riley.

She regrouped. Sort of. ‘All I know is that you’re being a dope, Riley Jackson,’ she said softly. ‘You have to do something.’

And then she stilled.

From the distance came the sound of a plane.

‘It can’t be,’ Riley said. ‘I…it’d be stupid. They wouldn’t come back.’ He shoved the rock into his pocket as if he were thrusting away a dream.

‘It’s you who’s stupid,’ she snapped. She listened for a bit more and the momentary relief in her face disappeared. ‘No. You’re right. That’s not our plane. It’s someone else.’

Maggie walked to the kitchen door and peered out.

A fiery red little plane-a two-seater with twin engines-was approaching the runway. Gleaming and new, it was totally unfamiliar.

It wasn’t alone in the sky. There was another plane coming in to land behind it. A battered, ancient hulk.

‘That’s Bill and Dot Holmes’s plane,’ Maggie said.

Bill and Dot were his neighbours at Barinya Downs. Riley frowned, almost distracted. What were Bill and Dot doing here? Bill hated leaving his property.

‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ Maggie said, shoving him in the ribs. ‘You’ve got two planes coming in to land on one airstrip. Go out and play air-traffic controller.’

She glanced behind her at her mangled potatoes and she shrugged. ‘I might as well come and see what’s going on,’ she added. ‘Something tells me we’re having an omelette for lunch anyway.’

The red plane landed first, with a smooth textbook landing, but even when the doors opened and the occupants emerged there was no clue as to their identity. A diminutive, elderly lady with sculpted white hair, expensively dressed in a smart crimson business suit, emerged from the passenger seat. Her pilot was a burly, seemingly impassive individual in a navy and white pilot’s uniform. He helped the lady out and then stood back, as if in deference. A chauffeur?

The woman looked towards the house. She saw Riley and started towards him, but he waved her to stop. She was on the far side of the strip and she was forced to wait until the second plane came in to land.

The next plane didn’t make such a smooth landing. The Holmes’s plane was bigger and much, much older. In fact it looked like nothing so much as a tin can held together with baling twine. It hit the runway and squeaked, rattled and clanked to a shaky halt, its pilot hauling at the controls as if he was having trouble keeping the plane headed where he wanted.

The plane’s elderly occupants-a man and a woman dressed in dilapidated farming gear-took their time to climb out, and when they did it seemed they were mid-domestic tirade.

‘I told you we needed to get rid of this rust bucket.’ The woman was scolding at full blast. ‘We’ve got the money in the bank, you old skinflint. Regardless of what the girl and the kiddie do, we’re taking this bucket of bolts down to Adelaide, and we don’t come back until you’ve got us something respectable to fly in.’ She looked across the strip and saw Riley and she waved wildly. ‘Hey, Jackson.’ Her hat fell off. She stopped to retrieve it. She gave her loose trousers a tug to make sure they stayed up and she headed straight for him.

Despite his confusion, Riley smiled. He’d met this pair before at the cattle sales. Bill and Dot were the couple who lived a hundred miles north of Barinya Downs, and Bill had been the one who’d contacted him about Jenna and Karli. He liked Dot a lot.

But what were they doing here? Dot was a plump, gregarious little country woman with a nose for good-humoured gossip, but Bill usually kept himself firmly to himself.

The well-dressed woman and her pilot had started walking towards him as well. He strolled across to meet them all-his four unlikely visitors.

Dot reached him first. ‘Dot, it’s great to see you,’ he told her, smiling warmly down at the little woman. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’

‘We’ve come to take your visitors to Adelaide,’ Dot told him, and she assumed an attitude of virtue that didn’t quite gel with the glances of curiosity she was giving the lady in the suit. ‘I told Bill it was the only Christian thing to do.’

‘You mean you couldn’t keep your nose out of what’s not our business,’ Bill said, exasperated, but he was smiling as well. He reached Riley and held out a hand in greeting. ‘Hey, mate. We thought we’d rid you of your visitors. Or rather Dot thought we’d rid you of your visitors and I’m here under sufferance. We thought we’d take them to Adelaide for you.’

‘But they’ve already gone,’ Riley told him.

He didn’t like saying it, he decided. He didn’t like the way Dot’s face fell in disappointment. It was too much an echo of how he felt himself. He turned to his other visitors to give himself time to make a recovery. ‘I’m sorry.’ He held out his hand to the lady in crimson. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know you. Should I?’

‘I’m Enid O’Connell,’ the lady told him, and she gripped his hand in a hold that was firmer than Bill’s. Her face puckered in concern. ‘Have I missed them?’

‘You’re looking for Jenna and Karli as well?’

‘I am.’ Then, as he looked confused she explained. ‘I met them on the train. I was the one who instigated the search. The police told me they were here, but I couldn’t stop worrying. I’ve done a bit of homework and managed to resolve a few of their problems, so I thought I’d fly out to put their minds at rest.’

His confusion didn’t lessen one bit. ‘How could you do that?’

‘As it happens, it was easy.’ She released his hand and looked up at him, her eyes assessing. He was doing his own assessing. What had Bill told him about the elderly lady on the train? Enid O’Connell? That she’d been a chief magistrate? Riley could understand how this lady could have held such a position. Her eyes were piercing, and her features spoke of a fierce intelligence. ‘I took a really strong dislike to Brian,’ she told him.

‘I’ve never met Brian,’ he said slowly as the rest of the group tried to take in what she was saying. ‘But I feel the same way. Um…tell me again why you’re here? You’ve resolved some of Jenna’s problems? Tell me how.’

‘The man’s a petty thug,’ Enid told him. ‘But he chose the wrong people to be witness to his extraordinary outburst. We were stuck on the train for two days and there was such a mix of people on the passenger list. Before we reached Perth I’d found three lawyers, a judge, a criminal psychologist, a-’

‘I think I’ve lost you,’ Riley said. He looked around at Bill and Dot and Maggie and the pilot of Enid’s plane and he could see she’d lost them as well. Or maybe not the pilot. The pilot was just plain impassive.

‘It’s easy,’ Enid told them, obviously exasperated at minds that were less acute than hers. ‘I was telling the little girl a story when Brian burst into the train’s sitting room. Brian was shouting at the child, telling her he’d conned her out of her share of her mother’s estate. Almost in the same breath, he was telling her that her mother was dead. The whole passenger lounge was appalled. Anyway, between us we had so many contacts that, with internet connections and phone calls, by the time we reached Perth we had the entire story. In fact, we had enough to go straight to court. We now have signed statements from no fewer than eight witnesses. Brian admitted he lied to get Karli and Jenna out of England, and it’s now all so beautifully documented that he’ll never get out of it.’

‘He lied?’ Maggie said blankly, and Enid nodded in satisfaction.

‘The man’s a fool. He was drunk, both with alcohol and with triumph, and he told the world how clever he’d been. Or how clever he thought he’d been. There were those among us who…well, who knew enough to encourage him. Anyway, the outcome is that there’s no way Nicole’s codicil can be overturned, as it’s been manipulated by fraud. Brian’s welcome to dispute it, but, as far as we can see, Nicole’s will stands. The girls will inherit everything.’

That was something to think about. They’d be rich, Riley thought. They’d be independent. Strangely, it gave him no pleasure at all.

It should. He wanted them to be independent. Didn’t he?

‘So you arranged to fly all the way from Perth to tell them that.’ Riley gazed at Enid in astonishment and she gazed back at him, her face serious.

‘I had to. I kept thinking of those two white faces the last time I saw them and I thought Jenna must be frantic. When I heard she hadn’t rejoined the train yesterday I thought, Dammit, I can afford it, so I’ll get in a plane and come and tell them what’s happening.’

Riley might be confused himself, but the rest of the group seemed just plain dumbfounded. ‘That’s…um…great,’ Dot ventured. Riley’s elderly neighbour clearly hadn’t understood a word of what Enid had said, but Dot was examining Riley now and she seemed uncertain about the expression on his face-as well as confused by the story. ‘Isn’t it great? Do you think it’s great, Riley?’

‘Riley doesn’t know what to think,’ Maggie said shortly. ‘He’s in love with Jenna.’

The whole world stilled.

Gee, thanks, Maggie, Riley thought, but he didn’t say it. He didn’t know what to say.

The silence went on and on. The pup nosed in and licked Riley’s hand. He whined softly as if he, too, was confused.

Everyone was confused.

Riley tried for anger, but it didn’t work. He tried for disdain or amusement or…or anything.

Nothing worked.

‘Riley’s fallen in love with Nicole Razor’s daughter?’ Dot asked at last, and Maggie nodded.

‘Hey, mate,’ Bill managed. ‘Whatcha go and do a thing like that for?’

‘You mean what did he go and fall in love for?’ Dot demanded, recovering a little and rounding on her husband. ‘Why shouldn’t he fall in love? Ooh. They must have got smitten while they were stuck at Barinya Downs. How romantic is that?’

‘It’s not even the slightest bit romantic,’ her husband retorted. ‘If you think Barinya Downs is romantic, you must have kangaroos loose in your top paddock.’

‘Yeah, but if they fell in love there now… It’s like you and me,’ Dot said dreamily. ‘I saw our place for the first time when we were in drought. You took me there and I thought it was great. I thought you were great. I fell in love then and you knew I was serious. Marriage is for the good times and the bad. If the bad times come first, then the marriage will last for ever.’ She sniffed and groped for a handkerchief. ‘So there. It is romantic.’

‘Yeah, but he can’t see it,’ Maggie said obtusely. ‘He thinks she’ll walk out on him.’

‘Why would she walk out on him?’ Enid asked, and Riley decided it was time to intervene.

‘Excuse me, but this is my-’

He was ignored.

‘Because every woman who’s ever come near this place has walked away,’ Maggie was saying over the top of him. ‘He reckons if he falls for Jenna and they try and make a go of it, then it’ll end in failure and the littlie’ll be hurt.’

Bill frowned. ‘That’s a bit of a long shot.’

‘You try telling him that,’ Maggie retorted. ‘He’s got rocks in his head.’

‘Will you butt out of what’s not your business?’ Riley demanded.

‘I flew all the way from Perth,’ Enid told him. ‘It is my business.’

‘And if we hadn’t contacted you and told you the cops were looking for them, you’d have had a search party at Barinya Downs days ago and you never would have fallen in love,’ Dot said severely. ‘So it’s our business, too.’

‘I haven’t fallen in love,’ Riley snapped.

‘Haven’t you?’ Maggie demanded. She fixed him with a look he’d first been fixed with when he was two years old. ‘Can you look me in the eye, Riley Jackson, and tell me you don’t love her? That you don’t love the pair of them?’

He couldn’t. Of course he couldn’t.

He tried another track. ‘Hell, I don’t want to hurt them.’

‘So what are you doing sending them away?’

‘It wouldn’t work. They’ll get hurt.’

‘They can’t be hurt any more than they are now,’ Maggie told him. ‘They’ve fallen for you. Just look at Karli’s rock. What sort of loving’s that?’

He should dispute it. He should even manage to laugh.

Instead he dug Karli’s rock from his pocket. He stared down at it while the misassorted group around him stared at him.

Hell.

They can’t be hurt any more than they are now.

Karli was flying down to Adelaide without her rock.

Jenna was flying down to Adelaide-without him.

‘I can’t,’ he said, and Maggie beamed.

‘Yes, you can.’

He stared at Maggie and she stared back.

He gazed at Dot and Bill.

What had Dot said?

Marriage is for the good times and the bad. If the bad times come first, then the marriage will last for ever.

Jenna had fallen for him when they were at Barinya Downs. She’d said she loved him when they were in that damned awful swimming hole. She hadn’t even known this place existed.

She’d said she loved him, knowing she had no money, thinking he had no money, believing Barinya Downs was the way he lived.

Maybe, he thought cautiously, just maybe, he’d been a fool.

Something shifted inside him right there. He waited for it to right itself, but it didn’t. This was a fundamental shift, moving things back that had been first hauled out of place when his mother had left. They’d stayed out of place when his sisters had gone, his father had died, his wife had left.

And now they were back in place. They were back in place because of Jenna, and suddenly he knew absolutely and for sure that this shift was for ever.

‘I don’t have a plane,’ he said blankly, and Maggie’s mouth twitched at the corners. A smile started at the back of her worried eyes.

‘I can see two.’

‘We’ll take you to Adelaide straight away.’ Dot was also starting to smile. She was quick, was Dot. ‘We’re flying there anyway, and there’s plenty of room in the back.’

Riley stared at her. Then he stared at the plane.

He turned to Enid. ‘Enid…’

‘Hey, you’re not borrowing my plane,’ Enid said. She could catch on fast as well. She grinned at her pilot, who gazed back in stolid indifference. ‘It’s only a two-seater and Harold and I are coming. We need to watch. Don’t we, Harold?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Riley glanced again at Dot and Bill’s tin can with wings. ‘We’ll never catch them. Not in that.’

‘I’ll radio Max,’ Maggie said serenely. ‘I can have him do a few big loops so he loses an hour before landing. I bet he can do it without Jenna knowing a thing.’ She glanced at Bill and Dot’s plane and her smile deepened. ‘Or maybe I should make that two hours. Lots of big loops.’

‘Is it safe?’ Riley demanded. He might be haring off on a mission of the heart, but he had no plans to get himself killed in the process.

‘Of course it’s safe,’ Bill said, outraged. ‘We’ve used it to transport a bit of blood and bone fertiliser, though. It might be a bit smelly in the back.’

‘Oh, great.’

‘Hey, what’s a bit of fertiliser to a man in love?’ Bill demanded, entering into the spirit of things. ‘You want to win the lady or not?’

Riley gazed at all of them. They all gazed back.

He stared down at his stone.

He looked at the dog. His dog. The pup was nuzzling his hand, just as a much-loved dog had done all those years ago.

He’d call him Bustle, he thought, after a dog he used to know.

Maybe he could give this love business one more go.

No. Three more goes.

Bustle.

Karli.

Jenna.

‘There’s no saying she’ll have me,’ he warned, and Maggie’s face cleared as if by magic.

‘Oh, Riley, of course she’ll have you. She loves you.’

‘Of course she’ll love you, young man,’ Enid told him. ‘If I didn’t have Harold here, I’d love you myself. I haven’t seen such excellent husband material going begging for a very long time. Now shake a leg. You’re wasting time.’

‘Faint heart never won fair lady,’ Harold said-and everybody stared.

The statue had a voice.

Enid chuckled and reached out to hug her pilot. ‘Well, you’d know,’ she said, and Harold hugged her back.

‘He’s right,’ Bill said. ‘Faint heart, hey? You’d never want to be called that, now, would you, Jackson? Well. If you’re brave enough to cope with a bit of blood and bone, then we’re game enough to take you. Take a good sniff of decent air, young fella, cos it’s the last clean air you’ll smell until we get to Adelaide.’ He gave a whoop that could be heard in the next state and headed back towards the plane. ‘Let’s get this baby in the air.’

‘Baby,’ Dot snorted heading after him. ‘Demented geriatric, more like.’

‘We’ll need to refuel before we go,’ Enid told them.

‘Then do it,’ Bill told her over his shoulder. ‘You’ll have to catch us up, though. We’ve got enough fuel on board and we’re on a mission to Adelaide. One fair lady, coming up.’

‘I’m crazy,’ Riley said faintly, and Maggie shoved back his hat and planted a kiss on his forehead.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘At last you’re being sensible. After thirty-two years, you’re finally seeing sense. Go, Riley, go. Bring your family home.’