The Socialite and the Cattle King (8 page)

She stared at the gum tree, so close, so solid, and
swallowed. Then she switched her gaze to Brett. He was slumped over the half steering-wheel with a bleeding gash on his forehead. After a frozen moment of panic for Holly, he lifted his head, shook it groggily and was galvanized into action.

‘Out,’ he ordered. ‘It only takes some fuel to drip onto a hot pipe and we’ll be incinerated.’

With an almost Herculean effort, he managed to open his door and climb out. He turned immediately and reached for Holly, manhandled her out of her seat and down onto the ground, where he took her hand and dragged her away from the plane.

They were both panting with exertion by the time he judged them far enough away to be safe; running through the sand of the riverbed had been almost impossible. Holly sank to her knees, then her bottom, her face scarlet, her chest heaving. Brett did the same.

They waited for a good half-hour in the shimmering heat of the river bed but the plane didn’t explode. He told her he was going back to it to salvage whatever he could. He also told her to stay put.

‘No,’ she said raggedly. ‘I can help.’

‘Holly.’ He looked down at her with blood running down his face. ‘Please do as you’re told, damn it!’

‘No.’ She reared up on her knees. ‘I can help,’ she repeated. ‘And you can’t stop me. Besides, you’re bleeding—you could have concussion—’

‘It’s nothing,’ he broke in impatiently.

‘I’m coming. In fact, I’m going.’ She got painfully to her feet and started staggering through the sand.

He swore quite viciously, then followed her.

Between them they managed to get their bags and two
blankets out of the plane. Brett also found a spare water-bottle strapped to a small drinking-fountain with a tube of plastic cups. He took out not only the spare bottle but the fountain itself. Then he discovered a few cardboard cartons with Haywire stencilled on their sides.

‘I was probably meant to deliver these, but no-one mentioned it.’

‘What’s in them?’ Holly breathed.

‘No idea. Maybe soap powder—maybe not. We’ll take them,’ he said.

He also checked the radio, but it was dead, and the satellite phone was smashed. Just as he left the plane for the last time, the starboard wheel-strut collapsed suddenly, tilting it to an unnatural angle and crumpling the starboard wing into the ground.

They froze and waited with bated breath but nothing more happened.

‘When is it completely safe?’ she asked shakily.

He put an arm round her shoulder. ‘If it was going to happen, it would probably have happened by now.’ He put his other arm around her. ‘Holly.’ He stopped and put his other arm round her. ‘How are you?’

She tried to break free but he held her closer, and it was only then that she realized she was shaking like a leaf and not quite in control of herself. ‘I—I’m sorry,’ she stammered. ‘It’s reaction, I guess. But I’ll be fine; just give a me a few moments.’

‘Of course.’ He held her very close and stroked her hair until she stopped shaking.

‘How do you feel now?’

It was a few hours later and the sun was starting to slip
away. The constraint that had had them in its grip earlier in the day had melted away under the circumstances.

‘Oh, fine,’ Holly responded. ‘Thank you. You?’

They’d made themselves as comfortable as possible in the creek bed not far from the plane. Brett was leaning back against a smooth rock. There was a tree growing out from the bank, giving them shade. They’d pegged out in the sand a bright-orange plastic sheet with a V on it, which they’d got from the plane, where it would be most visible from the air.

He grimaced. ‘I’ve got a headache that would kill a cow.’ He touched his fingers gingerly to the cut on his forehead that Holly had cleaned as well as she’d been able to.

The packages for Haywire had proved a godsend. They contained packets of biscuits, some self-opening tins of luncheon ham, packets of dates and raisins, six tins of sardines, six tubes of condensed milk and one cardboard carton of white wine.

An odd mixture, he’d commented when they’d broken them out, but at least it was not soap powder, so they wouldn’t starve.

She’d agreed ruefully.

They’d also found a small axe and a gas firelighter.

Now, as she watched the sun slipping away, she said, ‘It looks as if we’ll have to spend the night here.’

‘Yes.’ He shrugged. ‘I doubt if it will be more than a night. But it takes time to co-ordinate a search and hard to do in the dark.’

She looked around and shivered. ‘It’s a big country.’

He studied her dirty, rather tense face. ‘Come here.’

She hesitated then crawled over and leant back beside him. He put an arm round her.

‘I’m really worried about my mother,’ she said. ‘She’ll be devastated when she hears this news.’

‘Yes.’ He said nothing more for a long moment, then, ‘You do realize you have me at your mercy, don’t you, Holly?’ He brushed his lips against her hair.

‘Well, I certainly wouldn’t take advantage of you with a headache, if that’s what you mean,’ she returned with some humour.

‘Pity about that,’ he drawled, then relented as she looked at him incredulously. ‘What I meant was, we could talk—fill in the gaps, go on with the interview.’

‘Now? But I’m not at all organized.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought it would take a girl who handled a crash-landing in the middle of nowhere with aplomb long to organize herself.’

‘It wasn’t all aplomb.’

‘Believe me, one little attack of the shakes is very close to aplomb.’

She considered. ‘Well, I’ve got a good memory, so I’ll rely on that. Oh!’ She put a hand to her mouth. ‘My laptop. I didn’t even think to check if it got smashed. But hang on…’ She fumbled in one of her pockets and with a cry of triumph produced a flash key. ‘Safe and sound.’

‘You back everything up on that and keep it on your person at all times?’ he guessed.

She nodded vigorously. ‘Bitter, if not to say heartbreaking experience has taught me that. OK. Uh, I was
thinking only yesterday that we haven’t touched on any of your exploits to do with saving endangered species. I’m sure readers would find that riveting. And do you have a favourite animal?’

He thought for a while. ‘Yes—giraffe. There’s nothing like seeing them cross a plain with that rocking-horse rhythm, or staring down at you from above the crown of a tree. I’m very keen on giraffe—or Twiga, which is their Swahili name.’

She chuckled and led him on to talk about some of the successes he’d had as an endangered-species expert. Then their talk turned general until he asked her about her childhood.

She told him about her adventures with her father and couldn’t prevent the love and admiration she’d felt for her father shining through. ‘I miss him every day of my life. Is your father alive—?’ She stopped and bit her lip.

‘No.’

‘Your mother?’

‘No.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘You don’t need to be sorry on my father’s account,’ he said dryly.

Holly took an unexpected breath and wondered if he would enlarge on what she was pretty sure was the thorny subject of his father. But he said no more, and she regretted the fact that they had somehow lost their sense of easy camaraderie, so she took another tack.

‘How
do
you combine your lifestyle—travelling the world and so on—with running a grazing empire? And it’s more than that, isn’t it? You’ve branched out into
mining, transport, even a shipping line for live-cattle exports amongst other things. Or does it all run itself?’

She felt a jolt of laughter run through him and breathed a secret little sigh of relief.

‘No, it doesn’t.’

‘They say you’re a billionaire,’ she observed. ‘They say you’re responsible for tripling the family fortune.’

He shrugged. ‘I told you, in some ways I’m a quintessential cattle man. It’s in my blood, so some of it comes naturally. I’m also very attached to this country.’ He looked around. ‘And I did set out to prove something to myself—that when I took over I’d never allow the empire to go backwards.’ He paused, pushed himself upright and looked down at her. ‘Do you realize you have a dirty face?’ He touched the tip of her nose.

Holly grimaced as she thought,
subject closed.
She said, ‘If you had any idea how battered as well as dirty I
feel.
’ She looked around. ‘There wouldn’t be any pools in this river bed, do you think?’

‘There could be. There could be tributaries with some water in them, it was a fairly good wet season, but there’ll also be crocs.’

‘Croc…Crocodiles?’ she stammered.

‘Uh-huh. Mostly fresh-water ones, usually safe, but enough to give you a fright. And it’s not completely unknown for the odd salt-water croc to find its way up here. They are not safe.’

‘I see. OK,’ she said judiciously. ‘I’m happy to stay dirty.’

He frowned. ‘You also said battered, but you told me you were fine earlier. Where…?’

She held up a hand. ‘I am fine. Just a bit shook up. It’s
also starting to get cold—that might be making me feel my age,’ she said humorously. ‘Don’t old cowboys feel every mended bone when there’s a chill in the air?’

‘I don’t know.’ He looked rueful. ‘But we should make some preparations. I don’t want to light a fire—the breeze is blowing towards the plane now—so our best bet is to wear as much of our clothing as we can.’

Holly had inspected their bags earlier. Hers had mostly contained clothes, his had yielded a few useful items other than clothes: a serious penknife with all sorts of attachments, a small but powerful pair of binoculars, a compass and a torch. And they both had wind cheaters fortunately, for later when the temperature dropped.

‘All right.’ She got up. ‘But I do have to go on a little walkabout. I’ll add some clothes at the same time. I presume if I’m not close to water I’m safe?’

‘Relatively,’ he replied. ‘But don’t go far, and stamp around a bit. There could be snakes.’

Holly swore under her breath.

When she returned, he’d laid out a meal. He’d cut up one of the tinned hams and, together with biscuits, dates and raisins, he’d set it all out on two pieces of cardboard roughly shaped as plates. And he’d poured two plastic cups of wine.

He handed her his pocket knife and said he was happy to use his fingers.

They ate companionably in the last of the daylight, then the dark. He told her about some of the safaris he’d been on and the electronic-tagging system he’d been involved with that tracked animals.

She got so involved in his stories, she might have
been in Africa or Asia with him, experiencing the triumphs and the disasters he’d encountered.

He also poured them a second, then a third, cup of wine.

‘This will send me to sleep,’ she murmured. ‘Or make me drunk, as well as give me a hangover.’

She didn’t see the acute little glance he beamed her way.

‘I doubt the hangover bit,’ he said. ‘It’s very light, but it might be an idea to get settled now. How about we scoop some sand about to make a bit of a hollow and something to rest our heads on?’

‘OK. You hold the torch and I’ll—’

‘No.
You
hold the torch and I’ll—’

‘But I can—’

‘For once in your life, just do as you’re told, Holly Harding!’

She subsided, then chuckled suddenly.

‘I probably look quite amusing,’ he said as he scooped sand. ‘But you don’t have to laugh.’

‘I’m not laughing at you,’ she told him.

‘Who, then?’

She waved a hand. ‘It just seems a very long way from society weddings, balls and so on—Oh!’ She put a hand to her mouth. ‘When was your first pre-wedding party?’

‘Tomorrow. Nothing we can do about it,’ he said with a grimace.

‘Perhaps they’ll cancel it because you haven’t turned up?’

‘Perhaps. Not that I would wish it on them—having
to cancel it—but the more concerned people are about us, the sooner they’ll start organizing a search.’

‘Of course,’ she said eagerly, then sat back again. ‘What was I saying? Yes, it’s actually rather lovely. Look at the stars,’ she marveled, and hiccupped. ‘Told you,’ she added.

‘Listen, take the torch if you need another bathroom call—don’t go too far—and then let’s go to bed, Miss Harding.’

‘Roger wilco, Mr Wyndham!’

When she came back, he’d lined the hollow that he’d scooped with the cardboard of the cartons and the paper the foodstuffs had been wrapped in. As they settled themselves, he draped the rest of their clothes over them, then the two blankets.

She slept for about three hours, curled up beside him with his arm protectively over her.

Then she woke, and it wasn’t so lovely any more. It was freezing. At first she had no idea where she was, then there was something large moving around on the edge of the creek bed.

She moved convulsively and backed into Brett’s arms with a squeak of fear.

‘Shh,’ he murmured and flicked on the torch. ‘It’s only a kangaroo. I’ve been watching it for a bit. It’s just curious. Kangaroos aren’t renowned for attacking and eating people.’

‘I k-know that,’ Holly stammered. ‘It must have been all the tales of Africa you told me. I feel terrible.’ She added.

‘What’s wrong?’ he queried with a hint of surprise.

‘Stiff and sore. Everything’s aching. How about you?’

‘I’m too damn cold to feel a thing. Come closer,’ he ordered, and as she turned around with difficulty he gathered her into his arms. ‘It’s all the result of bouncing around in the plane, performing heavy tasks and sleeping on a river bed.’

‘I suppose so. Mmm…at least that’s a bit warmer. Do you mind if I really burrow in?’

‘Why should I mind?’ He stroked her back. ‘In the light of hypothermia, it’s the only thing to do. Just relax if you can.’ He pulled the thin blankets from the plane more securely over her.

She was too grateful to protest, and gradually the protection of both blankets plus his body brought her some warmth, and her aching muscles unknotted a little.

She wasn’t aware of the moment things changed—the moment when it wasn’t only warmth and comfort she was seeking, or receiving, but something different. It came about so subtly it seemed entirely natural, a natural progression towards a greater closeness that claimed them both at the same time.