Raintree Valley Read online

  Joanna met the dark blue eyes, and she felt a stirring of antagonism against the man she had never met, who had the power to let her stay at Raintree or be sent away, back to the city and the crowds where someone like herself could feel far more lonely than in the country. She was used to the countryside. To waking to bird song, and to filling a farmhouse kitchen with the smell of freshly baked bread.

  She wasn’t in the least fragile ... while Adam Corraine sounded as hard as sandstone.

  ‘Adam of the stony bones, with his thoughts in the clouds,’ she said tartly. ‘I’m not afraid of your cousin, Mr. Corraine.’

  ‘You’ve never met him!’

  ‘True,’ she said. ‘But at least give me the chance to do so.’

  ‘You’ve got grit, haven’t you, Joanna Dowling.’ He rose to his feet and held out a hand to her. ‘Let’s go in to dinner and I’ll let you tell me all about yourself.’

  His fingers were warm and strong about hers, and people looked at them when they entered the restaurant with its indirect lighting and its soft music. Vance was nonchalant, as if accustomed to being recognized as one of the mighty Corraines. But Joanna felt shy. She was unused to smart places like this, and hovering waiters, and she tried to recover a little poise behind the shield of a large menu.

  After they had ordered their meal, the wine steward hovered at Vance’s elbow and after a few moments’ consultation he said to her: ‘Do you like champagne?’

  ‘I’ve never had it,’ she said, and she caught the flash of amusement in the dark blue eyes as he turned to the waiter to order a bottle. For a cattleman he was well up on the vintages of wine, and once again Joanna was assailed by a sense of wonderment. If the suave Vince Corraine was manager up at Raintree, whatever was the Boss like?

  Their wine was brought to them, with the lobster in the cracked shell which Vance had said she would like. Flute champagne glasses were placed on the table and she watched as the cork was unwired, making a popping sound as it emerged looking like a small mushroom. The golden wine creamed into the slender glasses, and then they were alone and Vance raised his glass. ‘C’est la guerre!’ he smiled.

  ‘Yes.’ She felt the nose-prickling, sparkly bubbles as she took a sip of the champagne and found it not sweet but slightly tart and delicious. ‘I think I’m going to need all my courage, after what you’ve told me about your cousin.’

  ‘Tell me about yourself.’ Vance took hold of a tiny fork and showed her how to coax the pieces of lobster out of the shell. These were dipped in a smooth sauce that blended perfectly with the fish.

  Joanna drank some more wine and found that it made conversation very easy. The soft music also helped, and the scent of a night flower that stole in through the open window beside their table. She talked of the farm, and of Viviana, and of the journey that had brought her among strangers when she had hoped to see her twin sister, and to live and work in Sydney with her.

  ‘So you were the stay-at-home sister?’ said Vance. ‘How does it feel to be out in the great big world - and Australia is very big?’

  ‘It feels - bewildering,’ she admitted. ‘The country place I come from is small and placid, where the same sort of things happen each day, and where you feel safe because there are no real surprises.’

  ‘Is that all you ever wanted, Joanna Dowling, to feel safe?’ Vance Corraine quizzed her face and looked into her wide eyes, with their changing tints that made them rather mysterious. Her skin had the warm pallor associated with flowers, and her smooth ash-blonde hair rested quiet against the slender nape of her neck. She was the pastel of which Viviana was the portrait. In contrast to her vivid twin she had always thought of herself as plain, but each time Vance spoke her name and made it sound like Darling, colour ran under her skin and she was in the same danger as unplucked flowers.

  ‘Some of us feel a sense of duty, Mr. Corraine, and I couldn’t leave my grandmother while she needed me. The farm was small, and we had a lad to help us, but it would have been too much for Gran to manage if I hadn’t stayed until she retired.’

  ‘But in your heart you longed for new horizons, eh?’

  ‘I ... I suppose I must have done.’ Joanna fingered the stem of her wine glass and smiled a little. ‘Perhaps at heart I’m more like Viviana than I realize. She always goes after the things she wants and gets them, and I want this job at Raintree Valley.’

  ‘I wonder why?’ Vance bent his brown head to his plate of tenderloin steak, garden spinach and a large potato baked in its jacket.

  ‘It’s the name,’ she said a trifle defensively. He might guess that she liked him! He was very attractive, but she sensed also that he was rather dangerous. A man who could ride the waves as he did; who was part of a ménage that owned three big stations founded by a man called King, was far from ordinary. And Joanna was far from home!

  ‘You aren’t intimidated by what I’ve told you about my cousin Adam?’ Vance glanced up slowly and caught her wide gaze upon him.

  ‘He sounds an autocrat, but I’m sure of my own capabilities and I want the chance to prove them.’ Joanna stabbed little green peas on to her fork and ate them with a piece of golden fried chicken. ‘You won’t deny me that chance, will you, Mr. Corraine?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to deny you anything, Miss Darling.’

  ‘It’s spelled DOW,’ she rejoined.

  ‘I guessed it was.’ He looked directly at her and there was a persuasive charm to his smile. ‘If my accent does odd things to your name, then you’d better allow me to call you Joanna.’

  ‘But we’ve only just met,’ she protested.

  ‘Out here we all use first names — Joanna. There’s a lot of land, a lot of cattle, and not so many people. We like to be friendly because unlike folks in the cities we don’t keep running into our neighbours. We often only know them by name, for our contact is by radio-transmitter.’

  His smile was quizzical. ‘That’s something you don’t know about, the loneliness of a place such as Raintree. Of being miles from the nearest town, of depending on a radio doctor, of needing just the sound of a woman’s voice.’

  ‘I can learn to know about it,’ she said. ‘It isn’t as if I’m a city girl, and I did explain in my letter to your aunt that I was from England and would need a little time to adjust to the routine of an Australian homestead. She made no bones about this in her reply and seemed eager for an English home-help.’

  ‘Aunt Charly came from England years ago and remains nostalgic about the old country. The point is,’ Vance waited as the waiter refilled their glasses, ‘had Adam not been away at Once-Lonely seeing to the installation of a new roof - it was King’s first station and is quite old - he’d have vetted her replies to applicants for the job.’

  ‘And you don’t think I’d have stood much chance?’ Joanna broke in. ‘Because I’m a greenhorn and a stranger I might upset the smooth running of Raintree and that would upset the Boss. You spoke about the loneliness, Mr. Corraine. Perhaps your aunt is lonely and feels in need of someone English to tell her about things over there, and to talk herself about the places she once knew. Surely Adam Corraine allows people to be human and vulnerable?’

  Vance Corraine smiled at her outburst. ‘A long time ago King lost his temper with Adam and cracked his stockman’s whip across the shoulders that were still a stripling’s. Adam grabbed that whip and slung it down a bore, and no one has ever seen him look so furious, or so nakedly hurt. Nothing since that day feels the whip on Corraine property, but nobody has ever got dose again to Adam. He’s got the arm, and it’s strong and long and everyone is kept at the length of that arm.’

  ‘He sounds rather aloof,’ Joanna murmured, and she felt startled by the way she had winced, almost hearing the crack of the stockman’s whip across Adam Corraine’s shoulders. It brought home forcibly to her the toughness of these people; the basic differences of their outlook and their life on the big livestock stations of this wide land.

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t realize that your Aun
t Charlotte is lonely,’ she added. ‘He may be so involved in his work, and his ambitions for Raintree, that he’s lost contact with people more vulnerable than himself.’

  ‘That is one of the dangers for women out here,’ Vance admitted. ‘The men always have plenty to occupy them, but the women are tied to the homestead, and being a long way from their neighbours they can’t drop in on them for a gossip over a cup of tea. Aunt Charly is still pretty active for her age and has cultivated a marvellous garden - it’s Bonney who gets lonely.’

  ‘Bonney is the young person mentioned in your aunt’s advertisement?’ Joanna asked.

  ‘Bonney is eighteen,’ Vance said rather drawlingly. ‘The Boss provided a home for her when her parents lost their lives in a flood about four years ago. Bonney was at boarding-school in Melbourne and Adam sort of adopted her, having been a friend of her father’s. I have a notion Aunt Charly is beginning to find her a bit of a handful. Are you up to handling young fillies who know they’re darned pretty?’

  ‘Is she very pretty?’ Joanna smiled, remembering Viviana and the handful she had been, with her outbursts of temperament and her flirtations in the orchard. She had been bored by the farm and there had been nothing Gran or Joanna could do to please her.

  Perhaps Charlotte Corraine was worried in case Adam’s pretty ward took it into her head to run away?

  ‘You’re forgetting my twin and how headstrong she was.’ Joanna tasted her banana cream pie and found it delicious. ‘Are you going to take me to Raintree Valley so I can meet your cousin and at least get a hearing?’

  ‘What will you do, Joanna, if he turns you down?’

  ‘I shall be very disappointed.’

  ‘Because you’re intrigued by Raintree and its occupants, eh?’ Vance leaned back in his seat and studied Joanna through narrowed blue eyes. ‘You’re a romantic, Joanna, and you look as soft as chinchilla. The Boss is expecting a hefty wench who’s not only used to home-helping, but who can act as riding companion for Bonney.’

  ‘I learned how to handle a horse when I was still at school,’ Joanna broke in. ‘Our farm was quite close to the Hadley riding stables.’

  ‘Our range horses are rather more spirited than your country lane ponies,’ Vance mocked. ‘Nothing out here is really tame, you know. Not man or beast.’

  ‘If I had been the timid sort, Mr. Corraine, I wouldn’t have left England at all. Surely that fact is in my favour if everything else is against it? I’m not chicken even if I don’t look tough—’

  ‘I’m perfectly happy with the way you look, Joanna.’ She looked at Vance and then away again, for his smile was slow, attractive, a little dangerous to a girl who was far from home and whose fate seemed to rest in the hands of a stranger she didn’t like the sound of. If only Vance Corraine had been the master of Raintree!

  ‘Do you want coffee, or a stroll in the garden?’ he asked half teasingly. He didn’t wait for her reply, as if aware that she would turn timid and ask for coffee. He rose to his feet and held out a hand to her and meeting the glint of challenge in his eyes, she placed her hand in the warm, strong palm, roughened from riding but good to feel. She was confused as he drew her to her feet. She was close to him for a moment and very aware of how sun-tanned he was in contrast to his white jacket. How tall and unafraid of life.

  ‘You almost turned scared just then,’ he teased, his fingers locked firmly about hers as he led her out to the terrace through long french doors. The music faded a little, but the scent of the nightflowers grew stronger. He lounged against a tree, still holding her hand and looking at it as if amused by its smallness. ‘Did you leave any boyfriends behind in England?’

  ‘Dozens,’ she said lightly.

  ‘If that were the case, then you .wouldn’t be so shy of me - yes, you are, Joanna! You’re scared right now in case I kiss you. I bet you’ve never been kissed by a man.’

  She looked at Vance with large eyes, wondering what it would be like to feel the hard warmth of his arms around her, holding back the night, holding her close to his carefree heart in the kind of kiss he had probably given to dozens of girls. No, she wouldn’t be added to his list of conquests! No man was going to kiss her just because the stars were shining and the frangipani was sweet. The man who kissed her for the first time was going to want that kiss more than anything else in the world.

  ‘I had no idea that cattlemen were such accomplished flirts,’ she said. ‘I thought they were always out on the range mustering cattle.’

  ‘Flirting with an attractive girl is something that comes natural to a man,’ he said, and she felt his left hand steal up her arm to her shoulder. ‘You’re all tense, Joanna, as if you can’t forget your grandma’s advice about how dangerous young men can be. It’s a sweet danger, you know, and part of being alive.’

  ‘And you’re flirting with me, Mr. Corraine, because you think I won’t get taken on at Raintree. Adam Corraine sounds the sort who wouldn’t like his cousin to be on kissing terms with the home-help!’

  Vance let her go and reached up a lazy hand to a cluster of creamy stars. ‘You’ve a lot of cool nerve, haven’t you, Joanna Dowling? Are you cool all the way through - the original icy Saxon?’

  ‘I’m sensible,’ she rejoined, knowing it to be a word most men hated; probably the most off-putting thing a girl could be. ‘My sister Viviana is the one who sparkles. She is the champagne blonde in our family.’

  ‘Dizzy and bubbly?’ he drawled. ‘Pretty as paint?’

  ‘Yes, but she also knows what she wants and I’m certain she’ll make a big name for herself one of these days. She has personality.’

  ‘And what do you want out of life, Joanna?’ He took out his cigarette case and offered it, but she shook her head and watched as the flame of his lighter illuminated his lean face and revealed those tiny twinkles deep in his eyes. By the flame he looked at her, and then the lighter clicked shut and the smoke of his cigarette mingled with the scent of semi-tropical flowers.

  She had not thought of Australia as a romantic land, but it was, in a subtle, disturbing way. From here the pounding sea could be heard, bringing with it thoughts of the Great Barrier Reef, on which lay coral islands. The stars clustered in shining groups and the fronds of palm and gum trees bowed against the dark sky.

  Joanna had never given much thought to what she wanted. She was not ambitious like Viviana, but here in this new land she was aware of a new restlessness, a desire without a name.

  ‘I suppose like most people I want - happiness,’ she murmured.

  ‘Can happiness be defined, Joanna?’ There was in his voice a sudden note of seriousness, and she wondered why. Surely Vance Corraine had most of the things that brought happiness? His position at Raintree was secure and he probably earned very good money. He was intelligent, attractive and able to participate in the joys of life. She couldn’t think of anything he lacked - unless it was a wife, and men like Vance were usually happier without ties.

  ‘Happiness is a bubble,’ she said lightly. ‘Shimmering and then gone for a while.’

  ‘Elusive, eh?’ The tiny pulse of his cigarette grew bright and then dimmed. ‘Have you ever flown in a plane through the small, still hours separating midnight from the dawn?’

  ‘No.’ Her heart beat fast as she looked at him, his jacket a white blur, his mouth faintly outlined by the glow of his cigarette. She saw his lips curve in a smile, and suddenly it amazed her that she had known this man so short a while. She felt there was something about him that she had known for a long time. It was as if they had met in a dream, but as if in that dream he had differed in various ways from the reality.

  It was a strange feeling, and she put it down to her long journey ending in a garden under the stars.

  ‘Joanna, we’re going to fly among the stars tonight, and you’ll see Raintree Valley as the dawn breaks on the sandstone hills and turns them lion-gold. Perhaps I’m cruel to let you have your first glimpse of Raintree in this way, because you’re the kind of girl to fa
ll in love with a place at first sight—’

  ‘Cruel because Adam Corraine might not want me at Raintree?’

  ‘You said you were willing to face that possibility, because Adam as I know him is a man who takes what he wants for Raintree, who discards without hesitation what he doesn’t want.’

  ‘Adam of the stony bones,’ she murmured, with a feeling in her heart that he was a man who was easier to hate than to love. A man of too much pride in property, which a stockman’s whip had sealed into his hard bones.

  Suddenly Joanna was unsure ... if to see Raintree was to love the place, then it might be better if she didn’t fly there with Vance.

  He moved and she felt the brush of his arm. He gripped her by the chin and tilted her face up to him. ‘Don’t lose heart, Joanna Dowling, girl with the smoke-tinted eyes and pale gold hair. If my cousin won’t let you stay at Raintree, then I’ll marry you.’

  She heard the note of humour in his voice and knew he jested, but all the same she drew away from him with a laughing gasp. ‘You shouldn’t go around making proposals of that sort,’ she said breathlessly. ‘One day a girl will bite and you’ll be landed with a wife you don’t really want.’

  ‘Joanna, don’t you ever act on impulse?’ he laughed.

  ‘I’m too sensible, I told you!’

  ‘You?’ He laughed again and ran a caressing finger down her cheek. ‘You’re about as sensible as an overgrown joey in its mother’s pouch. You’re a little scared of me, so I just don’t know how you’re going to cope with Adam.’

  She didn’t know herself, but that was something she didn’t have to think about until tomorrow.

  Tonight she was going to have the unusual experience of flying among the stars above Queensland, and her pilot would be this young man with the sun-browned, daredevil face, and the light of humour in his dark blue eyes. Not a man to be taken seriously, but at the same time with something very disturbing about him.

  ‘Is your plane a large one?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a two-seater monoplane,’ he said as they began to make their way back to the hotel. ‘I call her Bony-Bird, but she’s game and carries a fair amount of cargo. Supplies needed at Raintree, where we’re cut off by over a hundred miles from the nearest town. The mail comes in by plane, and also the doctor when he’s needed, but for the most part we’re a community on our own. It’s almost feudal, Joanna, like the old castle settlements of the days of the knights, and Adam is the overlord.’