any clues. Our red noses can lead the way.’
Karli giggled again, a wonderful sound.
They made their way through the house, holding hands like a treasure hunt. Or hide and seek. The thought that Riley might be just around the corner was…intriguing.
He wasn’t just around the corner. The house was deserted and on the kitchen table was a note.
I have work to do on the outer edges of the property so I won’t be back until tomorrow night. Make yourselves at home. Eat as many of Maggie’s fancy vegetables as you like. If you’re bored maybe you could do something about the dust. The house could use a good spring-clean.
The note was held down by a can of beans.
‘What does it say?’ Karli asked, and Jenna read it to her, trying to swallow a stupid and unbidden surge of disappointment. This was good, wasn’t it? She didn’t want the man here, unsettling her. She thought back to how she’d felt the night before when he’d lifted her into his arms and she knew she should be thankful that Riley was gone.
The man was dangerous.
‘So what will we do?’ Karli asked, and to Jenna’s astonishment she heard her own disappointment echoed in Karli’s voice. What was it with the man?
She gave herself a fast mental swipe and gathered her wits.
‘First,’ she told Karli, ‘I’m going to introduce you to an amazing wash house. It’s really fun. And then…’ She squared her shoulders. She had no doubt that the note had been written in jest, but it was a challenge for all that. She stared around her.
‘Then we’re going to do some housekeeping,’ she told Karli. ‘You and I will teach Riley Jackson that women aren’t as useless as he thinks we are. We can fix this place right up.’
Karli stared around her. ‘You mean we’re going to clean?’
‘Yep.’
Karli looked exceedingly doubtful. ‘This house is really, really dirty.’
‘If it wasn’t dirty, then it wouldn’t need cleaning,’ Jenna told her. ‘And it wouldn’t be fun. You know the maids in the hotels Nicole stays…stayed in?’
Karli didn’t even hear the catch. ‘Yes.’ She screwed up her nose, remembering. ‘Some of them were nice.’
‘But they never looked like they were having fun, did they?’
‘No.’
‘That’s because hotel rooms are cleaned every single day,’ Jenna told her. ‘They never get a chance to get dirty. Whereas this place has had a chance to get really, really dirty. So we can definitely have fun.’
‘Can we?’
‘Sure we can,’ Jenna said, looking round her again and trying not to falter. If she sat here for two days and thought about her future-about all the difficulties she was facing as soon as she got back to the outside world-then she’d go nuts. The only way to cope was to stay busy.
‘I’m good at dusting,’ Karli said, though her tone said she wasn’t quite sure.
‘Me too,’ Jenna said, and caught Karli up in a bear hug. ‘That makes two of us who are excellent dusters, so it’s just as well there’s lots and lots of dust. Let’s start now.’
He didn’t want to be out here.
Why would he? It was searingly hot work, made only bearable by the queues of fragile cattle who were lined up at the troughs waiting patiently for water to start flowing again. A couple of the lines had been blocked for too long and the sights there were heartbreaking. But he’d come in time to save most of these half-dead cattle. He cleared the lines, greased machinery that hadn’t seen oil for years, started the water flowing and then stood back. The gentle crossbred Brahman cattle, known locally as Droughtmasters, then took turn to put their noses into the precious water, as if they had all the time in the world to wait and this weren’t a drink that their lives depended on.
Mostly the lines weren’t completely blocked, which was why so many of the cattle had survived for so long. But many of the troughs themselves were silted up and the cattle had been licking water off a base of sand.
‘I know,’ he told them as they watched him work with a patience that astounded him. ‘It’s bloody criminal. It’s not my fault, guys. Now I own the place things will be different. I promise.’
They couldn’t understand-how could they? But they watched him with eyes that had him almost swearing that they did.
The urge to leave them and go back to the house with his intriguing visitors had to be put to one side.
He worked on. It was hot, lonely, back-breaking work and he worked until the light went completely. Then he slept under the stars, tossing a swag onto the sand and collapsing onto it. He woke at dawn and his first thought was how the girls had got on back at the house.
It was no business of his.
But it niggled him. He didn’t like the thought that they were alone. If one of them were to get ill…
He couldn’t do anything about it, he told himself savagely. There was only one radio and he needed it. To be out here without a radio was suicidal.
But if he worked through today, then the urgent outer bores would be okay. Tomorrow and the next day he could work nearer the house. In truth, if he worked as hard today as he had yesterday then the cattle’s urgent needs would be assuaged and he’d have time to draw breath.
He rolled over and flicked on the radio. There wasn’t anything like cheerful tunes on any channel out here. It was for emergency contact only. But he hopped around the channels and found a signal from Finya Downs. His nearest neighbour, Bill Holmes, was trying to get in touch. He tuned in, and Bill came on air straight away.
Bill was over seventy. He and his wife, Dot, had a homestead a hundred miles to the north. They kept themselves absolutely to themselves and Riley frowned as he tuned in. There’d have to be an urgent need for Bill to try and reach him.
‘Hey, Jackson.’ Bill was a man of few words and he didn’t waste them now. ‘I saw you pick up stuff from the train on Thursday and guessed you might still be there. You found any stray passengers?’
That was to the point. Riley thought about it. ‘I might have,’ he said cautiously, and Bill’s voice cracked into laughter.
‘Right. You’re a man after me own heart. Don’t let anything on until you know what I’m on about. But you’ve got the girl and the kiddy safe?’
‘Um…yeah.’
‘They’d be bloody lucky, eh?’
‘How do you know about them?’
‘Doug Stanley of the Territory police’s been on the wire. Doug doesn’t know there’s anyone at your place, of course, so I’m the nearest he could think of to contact. Seems someone on the train saw a woman and a guy fighting, the guy yelling at a kid, and the woman getting upset. They’re thinking the woman and the kid got off the train at the siding too late for the train staff to notice. But some old duck on the train noticed-Enid O’Connell. She used to be a chief magistrate. She kicked up a fuss and finally the conductor contacted the police. So Doug radioed me. I told Doug I was at the siding picking up supplies and no one got off. Or no one that I saw. But most of us left before the train pulled out. Your place is the only place within walking distance. If you hadn’t seen them, then they’re talking of starting a search.’
‘I’ve got ’em.’
‘Thank God for that, then,’ Bill said bluntly. ‘Otherwise they’d have stayed on the siding all yesterday and they’d have cooked. If you weren’t there, the missus said I had to drive back over to the siding and check.’
‘They’re safe. They’ll get back on the train on Monday.’
‘You’ll let the coppers know?’
‘I’ll do that straight away.’
Bill hesitated.
‘Seems they’re some bloody rock star’s kids,’ he said, reluctantly as if he was being prompted from behind. ‘Nicole someone’s the mother, and my missus says she’s loopy. Drugs and some such. Anyway she’s dead of an
