‘The nearest place with those sort of facilities is Adelaide,’ he said flatly. ‘That’s several hours’ flight in my small plane. It’d take me a day to get you there and get back here, and I don’t have a day free. I’m sorry to be disobliging, but I’m on a deadline.’
‘A deadline?’ She stared around in incredulity. ‘What sort of deadline can you have in a place like this?’
Riley’s expression became absolutely still. ‘Careful,’ he said softly. ‘Not so much of the disdain, if you please. This is my farm we’re talking of.’
‘But…’ Jenna closed her eyes for a fraction of a moment, to give herself space. She’d never felt so foreign or alone or out of control in her life-and she’d been alone for ever.
‘I’m sorry,’ she managed, and she fought for the courage to open her eyes again and face him. ‘I guess… Look, I don’t understand Australian farms. This is the first one I’ve been on. For all I know-’ she searched desperately for a smile ‘-this could be luxury accommodation.’
‘It isn’t,’ he said flatly. ‘But I have a roof over my head and a refrigerator full of beer. What more could I want?’
Anything, she thought. Anything.
‘The other people at the siding,’ she asked. ‘I don’t suppose…if they’re on farms, would one of them be able to fly us out?’
‘Those other farms are half a day’s drive to get to,’ he told her. ‘My nearest neighbour is over a hundred miles north over rough, unmade tracks. They came to the siding to get supplies from the train and they probably won’t be back at the siding for another couple of weeks. Today was the main supply run.’
Dear God.
‘We’re stuck here,’ she whispered.
‘Unless I kick you out, yes.’
Karli looked up at Riley then, with what, for the child, was an almost superhuman amount of courage. ‘Will you make us go back and sit on the train platform by ourselves until the next train comes?’ she whispered.
Jenna opened her mouth, and then thought better of it. Shut up, she told herself. Just shut up. She couldn’t ask that question any better than Karli just had.
Riley was staring at them with exasperation. ‘Your mother’s a dope,’ Riley told the little girl.
It was the wrong thing to say. Jenna flinched, and within her arms she felt Karli flinch as well.
‘My mother’s dead,’ Karli whispered. ‘She died yesterday.’
CHAPTER TWO
THERE was no way of softening the awfulness.
Riley knew Karli was speaking the truth. Jenna watched his face, knowing that he’d heard the shock and the raw pain in Karli’s voice.
He’d heard the despair of abandonment.
‘I’m sorry,’ Riley said at last. He set his beer on the table-very carefully, as if it might break. He looked from Karli to Jenna and back again. ‘I assumed you two were mother and daughter.’ He compressed his mouth and focussed on Karli. ‘Who’s this lady, then?’
‘Jenna’s my big sister,’ Karli whispered. ‘Sort of.’
‘Sort of?’
‘We’re half-sisters,’ Jenna told him. ‘Nicole, our mother-we’re the product of two of her marriages.’
‘Two-?’
‘Look, this isn’t getting anything sorted,’ Jenna said, and she was starting to sound as desperate as she felt. Karli was wilting against her. The shock and horror of the last few hours were taking their toll and it was amazing the little girl was still upright. She pulled her up to sit on her lap. ‘So you can’t take us anywhere?’
He hesitated, but then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he told her and there was even regret in his voice. ‘I’m sorry, but my labour’s not for sale. I have blocked bores and my cattle are dying because they can’t get anything to drink. If I leave before the bores are operational then I’ll lose cattle by the hundred, and their deaths won’t be pretty. I’m not being disobliging for the sake of it. I have urgent priorities.’
She bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry.’ This was getting harder by the minute. He was a man in a hurry and the last thing he needed was to be saddled with a woman and a child. ‘I was really stupid to get off the train.’
‘You were.’
‘But it’s done now,’ she said with a flash of anger. She sounded like a wimp, she decided, and a wimp was the last way she’d have described herself. She’d been looking after herself since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. It was men who’d got her into this mess and this guy was of the same species.
‘Can you at least put us up here until the next train comes through?’ Then, at the look on his face, she went on in a hurry. ‘Please. We’ll be no trouble.’ She had to persuade him. What choice did she have?
What choice did he have?
‘I don’t have any choice,’ he muttered, echoing her own thoughts. Then he looked again at Karli and he relented. He even smiled again. ‘It’s a pretty funny place to stay and I bet it’s not what you’re used to, but you’re very welcome.’
He smiled across at Karli, and the child stared at him for a long moment and then tried to smile back.
‘You’re nice,’ she whispered. She nestled closer to Jenna. ‘He’s nicer than my daddy.’
‘Yeah, well, that’d be hard,’ Jenna said with some asperity, but she fondled the little girl’s curls and looked across at Riley.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘If there’s really no choice…’
‘You know, we could always contact the flying doctor and ask them to collect you,’ he said, suddenly helpful. ‘We could say you were psychiatrically unhinged.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘It might work. They have a psychiatric service.’
‘You’re being very helpful!’
‘Well, I think I am,’ he told her, but his eyes were still resting on Karli with concern. He was making light of it for Karli’s sake, she realised. ‘I’ve let you drink my water and sit at my kitchen table and if you decide to take up my very generous offer of accommodation I’ll even let you share my baked beans. Then I’ll offer you both a spare bed and keep you fed and watered until the next train comes through.’ He hesitated. ‘You realise just how much danger you put yourselves in? This man you were with. Brian. Will he realise and send a search party?’
‘No,’ Jenna said flatly. ‘He won’t.’
‘You don’t want to contact the police?’
That was a thought. But…contact the police and say what? That they’d been conned? She could get a message to her father, but she wasn’t at all sure that her father wasn’t in cahoots with Brian. There was no guarantee that he’d help.
They were two like pieces of low-life. Her father and Jenna’s father.
And their mother was dead.
‘We’re on our own,’ she said, with what she hoped was an attempt at cheerfulness. ‘Just Karli and me. But if you could put us up we’d be very, very appreciative.’
‘As opposed to very, very dead if I threw you out into the heat.’
‘Like your cattle,’ she agreed bluntly. ‘Yes. We’ll try not to be any trouble.’
‘I can’t afford you to be any trouble,’ he told her. He pushed back his chair and rose. The decision had been made and he obviously needed to move on. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he told her. ‘I’m hot and filthy and exhausted and I’m having difficulty making my head work. I need to dip myself under cold water before I play host.’
Once more he smiled down at Karli. His smile was warm and strong and caring-but it didn’t include Jenna.
‘We’ll discuss food and beds when I’m clean,’ he told her. ‘But I’m carrying too much dust to be sociable. Don’t go away. Or if you do, make sure you fill a few water bottles first. It’s a good four days’ walk to my nearest neighbour and as far as I know no one’s ever walked it. No one would be mad enough to try.’
And he walked out of the kitchen and left Jenna to her confusion.
