Heart of the Outback (17 page)

Max thrust a glass of champagne into her hand. Toasts were drunk. Music was played. Alida did her best to ignore the headache that was growing steadily worse. Signing the marriage certificate hadn’t worked any magic on it at all. She tried to keep smiling and looking happy, but the pain was making it more and more difficult.

It was a relief when Max informed her that Suzanne Day had come to see her on urgent business and was in the library waiting on Alida’s convenience. It would be quiet in the library, Alida thought. She would ask Gareth to get her some pain-killers while she talked to Suzanne.

Alida couldn’t imagine what emergency had drawn Suzanne here. Jill had promised to handle all business matters, and Jill Masters was nothing if not efficient. Apart from which, all her friends had been told that her wedding to Gareth would be a strictly family affair, no other guests. There had to be a dire emergency. One that Jill couldn’t advise on.

No sooner were they inside the room than Suzanne broke into a babble of nervous apologies for intruding.

“What is the problem?” Gareth asked, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.

“The operation on Alida’s eyes wasn’t a success,” Suzanne blurted out baldly.

“Not as yet,” Gareth bit out, an edge of anger in his voice.

“If she’s blind, she can’t design.”

Alida could feel her face tightening under the blunt impact of those words. “I am here, Suzanne. I might be blind, but I can hear as well as anyone. Please give me the courtesy of telling me whatever problem you have. Gareth has no knowledge of my business.”

“I’m sorry, Alida,” Suzanne rushed out in obvious distress. “This is all a dreadful shock. It didn’t hit me until an hour ago that you’ve got both me and my factory under contract. Until the end of next season. But there aren’t going to be any next season’s designs from you, is there? So before you fly off somewhere, doing whatever you’re going to do, I need you to sign a release of the contract. I have to line up other work.”

The shrill torrent of speech felt like needles going into Alida’s brain. It was difficult to concentrate on what Suzanne had said, but the general thrust got through to her. Their business association had to be cut legally. Suzanne needed to be free of all obligation to her.

“Yes. Of course,” she agreed jerkily.

“No!” The sharp negative from Gareth cracked around Alida like a gunshot. “There will be no signing of any release,” he stated bitingly, his words obviously directed at Suzanne. “You will remain under contract for Alida Rose Creations for the full term of your commitment.”

The unexpected shock of Gareth’s intervention on her behalf—the savage vehemence in his voice—dazed Alida into silence.

“That’s absurd!” Suzanne protested fiercely. “There’ll be no income to pay my workers.”

“When do you normally start production on next season’s designs?” Gareth demanded.

“After the January lay-off. When the factory reopens. But you can’t expect me—”

Pure steel drove Gareth’s voice, cutting off Suzanne’s speech. “I expect you to hold yourself and factory workers ready to produce Alida’s designs when she’s ready. If there’s any shortfall in income due to you from the contract, it will be made good. I personally guarantee it. My solicitor will be in touch with you to that effect. Now if you don’t mind letting yourself out, I’d like to be alone with my wife.”

Alida could only imagine what happened next, because nothing more was said. Suzanne was apparently intimidated into submission. Alida heard her skirt around them in taking her leave. As for Gareth, she sensed an explosive tension in him, as though he was full of violent fury.

She didn’t understand it. Nor did she see any sense in holding Suzanne to a business contract that couldn’t be fulfilled. She heard the door click open. The need to settle things more amicably made her swivel towards it.

“No, wait!” she called. “I don’t want…” In stepping away from Gareth and toward her old friend, Alida’s foot caught on something. Unable to see to grasp any saving support, she flailed wildly as she fell, knocking over something else as she tumbled to the floor.

“God damn you! Get out!” Gareth yelled, and then he was gathering Alida up in his arms, carrying her. He lowered her onto what felt like a leather lounge and anxiously stroked her hair from her face. “Alida, Alida…” His voice was a rasp of deep concern.

The pain in her head was excruciating, but she reached out to him in urgent pleading. “Get Suzanne back, Gareth. I’ll sign the release if she has it with her.”

“No! She didn’t care about you, Alida. She was only thinking of herself. I’ll be damned if I’ll let her close off that option for you,” he replied with passionate vehemence.

Alida’s hand scrabbled across his heaving chest, not understanding why he had done what he’d done, nor the reason for the turbulent vibrations emanating from him. “Gareth, Suzanne was frightened about her future. I know how that feels. And she was right. My designing days are finished.”

“No, they’re not!” he denied. His hands cupped her face, his fingers stroking soft persuasion. “Your sight could come back. I won’t let her or anyone else take away your opportunity to follow up on the success you’ve had.”

“And if my sight doesn’t come back?”

“You could try doing it in your mind,” Gareth suggested, his voice harsh with determination. “Because you can’t see doesn’t mean you’ve lost your sense of artistry. Or your memory. You said it was an expression of your life, Alida.”

“But drawing—”

“Ivan Poletti can find a design student for you. Someone who can transfer your vision onto paper and sort out fabrics for you to use. Perhaps with a view to a partnership. You’re strong, Alida. You don’t want to give up, do you? You’d like to try it, wouldn’t you? Maybe even I can help.”

The pain was too bad for her to think straight any more. Nothing was making sense. “You don’t like fashion, Gareth. Why are you arguing for it when you must prefer me to put it aside?”

He didn’t answer immediately. One of his hands moved to gently stroke her cheek. When he did speak, his voice was low, as though scraped from deeply bedded emotion. “I want you to be happy. Whatever it takes to make you happy, I’ll give it to you, Alida.”

Not even the pain in her head could stop the instant welling of her emotional response. “I want you to be happy with me, Gareth,” she said huskily.

“I am.”

She felt his chest bend toward her and then his lips were brushing over hers. Alida closed her eyes and willed the pain away. This was too precious a moment for her to lose even the slightest nuance of the feeling that she sensed coming from Gareth. It was different to anything he had shown before. He kissed her softly, lingeringly, as though passionate desire had no place at all in their relationship.

She heard him heave a deep sigh as he lifted his mouth from hers. He traced her lips with feather-soft fingertips. “You asked me once if I loved you,” he said huskily. “Well, I do. I love you, Alida Rose.”

He meant it. She could feel it. All she had craved for in the long years of separation and loneliness. He gently kissed her eyelids, sweet healing balm for the pain she had suffered through him. And somehow the pain behind her eyes seemed to melt away as Gareth continued to reveal his heart to her.

“I know you think we met again by accident. And so we did. But if we hadn’t met that night, the memory of you would have drawn me to find you sooner or later, Alida. I wish… But I couldn’t do any other than I did. I’ll make it up to you, my darling. I swear I will. And to Andy, too. Please say you understand.”

“Yes,” she whispered, and finally spoke the truth of her own heart. “I love you, too, Gareth. I always have. I always will. You were the man I wanted to marry. Only you, Gareth. There never was anyone else.”

“Dear God!” he breathed. “How can you forgive me, everything I’ve done?”

“Because I want you so much,” she confessed, and buried her face in his throat, luxuriating in the warmth pulsing from him, the love that had been locked away from her until now.

His arms tightened around her. A hand worked through her long hair, moving haphazardly, kneading, stroking, reflecting the disturbance of his thoughts. “What can I say to you?” he murmured in anguish. “I had to deny you, Alida. And you were right. I did form an image of you that I could deny. What I felt for you—it was so disloyal to Kate. But it tore me apart having to let you go. I couldn’t let you go a second time, Alida. Even though you hated me, I couldn’t let you go.”

He trailed soft yearning kisses over her hair. “These weeks of waiting, being with you, realising what I really felt but sensing all your deep reservations about me. I didn’t know how to break them down, Alida. I thought you’d never come to trust me. I hoped that when I had you to myself at Riordan River, maybe then I could get back what I’d lost there five years ago.”

Alida’s concern about his first marriage faded away. There would be no ghost of Kate at Riordan River. She had had her time. And that had been right, too. Alida knew in her heart that she would not have respected Gareth if he had not stood by his wife as he had promised her. Kate had been given her full due and was now laid to rest for all of them. Even Stacey.

“You are the magic of my life, Alida.” Gareth’s voice vibrated through her like a hum of harps at the gates of paradise. “Blind or not, it makes no difference. Say you believe me.”

The hand woven through her hair gently urged her head back. He needed to see the belief written on her face. She opened her eyes, knowing they were lit from within by the burning brilliance of her love for him, no matter how sightless they were.

At first she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Light, shape, colour! Actually seeing! She lifted a hand to his cheek, touching the visible line of it as his other features became more discernible, clear.

Her heart beat a wild paean of joy as she saw the anguished loving in his eyes, such beautiful expressive blue eyes.

“Gareth!” It was an ecstatic gasp. “I can see! I can see again! And I do believe you. I believed you yesterday when you said I could trust you. I believe you now. Believe me, too, Gareth.”

“You can see?” The incredulous leap of joy on his face increased the excitement of the miracle.

“Yes. Yes. And the pain is gone.”

“What pain?”

“In my head. Behind my eyes. It’s been terrible since last night.”

“That’s what the specialist said,” Gareth said triumphantly. “In a delayed case like yours, the return of vision is often preceded by a severe headache.”

She hadn’t heard that. She remembered she had stopped listening. If only she had taken notice she would have known what might be happening. But it didn’t matter now. “I can see!” She laughed.

Gareth laughed, too, hauling her off the lounge and whirling her around in a wild burst of happiness before clamping her body to his in possessive caution. “I’m mad. I’ve got to take care of you. Maybe we should call the specialist.”

“No. Not today, Gareth. Maybe tomorrow. This time is ours.”

He dragged in a deep breath and released it with tremulous feeling. “At least I did right in holding off Suzanne’s action.”

She shook her head, smiling at him with all the confidence of love given and returned. “I don’t want that life any more. I love your kind of life, Gareth.”

“You mean that?” Hope warred with caution in his eyes.

“With all my heart. One day, when we’ve had all the children you want, I might take up painting. Jill once told me that Outback scenes sell well.”

A glorious happiness danced at her. “I’ll buy you all the paints and canvases you could ever use.”

“And Ivan will hang them in his shop.”

“And Jill will put an outrageous price on them.”

“And our children—”

“Will be very proud of their mother.”

“And their father.” Her green eyes shone more brightly than the emerald on her finger. “Oh, Gareth! It’s not a dream, is it?”

“No, my darling, it’s real. Thank God it’s real!”

He kissed her with such fervour that all Alida’s nightmares were banished to the dim dark past. There was so much more she could tell him, but it wasn’t necessary right now, and the bond they shared went beyond words, anyway.

He felt it, too.

Gareth… her husband.

Who loved her.

“We should go and tell our family,” she murmured.

“Not yet.” He smiled at her, his eyes glowing with love and the need to express it. “This wedding is ours, Alida Rose.”

He was right. Their family could wait a while. The business with Suzanne could wait a while. All the good news could wait a while. This was her true wedding to Gareth Morgan, just the two of them, together in everything.

And when they kissed again there was passion as well as love, a passion that had waited five long years to be fully realised and expressed. And Alida knew, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it would last their whole lifetime.