Trial By Marriage. Lindsay Armstrong
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a barbecue tomorrow night, for everyone on the property. Care to come?’
‘I… thank you very much,’ Sarah said stiffly.
‘Good girl,’ he responded lightly. ‘You wouldn’t do me another favour, would you?’
Sarah rose too and looked at him warily.
He smiled faintly. The room wasn’t large and they were standing quite close together so she had to look up at him from her height of five feet three, and was unaccountably struck by the memory of him saying that, if he couldn’t pick her up with one hand, he certainly could with two, and by the little tremor that the thought of it sent through her body.
‘What?’ she said tersely as all this occurred to her.
‘Oh, nothing desperate or dangerous,’ he said gravely, his eyes taking in the wary, troubled expression in hers. ‘Not even anything mildly or wildly immoral.’
She could have shot herself as she blushed vividly this time.
‘No,’ he went on. ‘I just wondered if you would be so good as to…liaise, I guess is the right word, be- tween Amy and Mrs Tibbs and whoever else needs to be liaised with to make this barbecue a success. I would like to think it might be instrumental in helping us all to get to know each other better and, conse- quently, working together better.’
‘All right,’ Sarah said.
‘Thanks. Goodnight, Miss Sutherland,’ he said formally, but what lurked in his eyes was that wicked amusement again and, to her horror, Sarah dis- covered she had absolutely no answer for it other than to turn away with a muttered goodnight herself.
It was while she was eating her dinner that she dis- covered to her further horror that she felt unsettled and lonely. But why you should be feeling like this after encountering a man who is quite shamelessly taking advantage of the effect he probably has on every woman he comes in contact with is a mystery! she thought angrily. And he is doing that. Why else would he say the things he has, express any kind of interest in me? No, it’s got to be… a game. And even if I did sort of fuel it this morning, I had cause!
‘So,’ she murmured militantly, ‘don’t think you’re going to get the better of me, Mr Cliff Wyatt!’
‘THIS is very kind of you, Sarah,’ Wendy Wilson said.
‘Not at all,’ Sarah replied as she sat at the home- stead kitchen table drinking some of Mrs Tibbs’ ex- cellent coffee the next morning. ‘Mr Wyatt asked me to help out if I could.’
‘Did he indeed?’ For some reason Wendy’s green eyes rested on Sarah with, if she wasn’t imagining it, Sarah thought, a tinge of hostility in them.
Although it was ten o’clock, Amy appeared not to have risen yet and it was Mrs Tibbs who had given the children breakfast and made them some play dough to occupy themselves with. ‘Amy,’ Wendy went on to say, ‘was so upset last night, we decided to let her sleep in this morning. I gather you’ve been ap- prised of her break-up with her husband?’
‘Yes. I’m very sorry,’ Sarah said quietly.
‘And I don’t suppose she’ll want to be too bothered with this barbecue so I’ll be deputising for her. If you could tell me what needs to be done Sarah, I’ll get working.’
‘All right.’ Sarah hid any surprise she might have felt; there was actually little because it hadn’t been hard to see from the barest acquaintance that Wendy was a much more determined and capable person than her best friend. She also looked far less exotic this morning in a pair of well-cut brown corduroy trousers, polished brown moccasins and a lightweight green jumper. Her lovely dark hair was also tied back and her nails, Sarah particularly noticed, had been filed to neat, shorter ovals and the fire-engine-red polish replaced by a colourless one. ‘If we give Jim Lawson a buzz, he can organise a couple of men to dig the barbecue pits, get the coals going and set up the spits. I—’
But Wendy immediately walked over to the phone on the wall, consulted the list of numbers stuck beside it and proceeded to call up the Lawsons.
Sarah couldn’t help raising an eyebrow, secretly, she hoped, but discovered Mrs Tibbs looking her way with a similar expression of ‘you don’t say!’ in her eyes. She then turned back to her sink.
It took ten minutes for Wendy and Jim Lawson to make the arrangements for the pits. Wendy particu- larly wanted to know where they would be dug, and why they would be dug in such a spot. Jim had ob- viously suggested the usual place—the square in front of the machinery shed which had some grass, a couple of huge old peppercorn trees and some permanent tables and benches, and which was the general gath- ering place, even the hub or the heart of the property—whereas Wendy had thought the home- stead back garden more appropriate. But she finally conceded and it was arranged that they should be able to start eating at five o’clock. She came back to the kitchen table and said, ‘Well, I gather the practice is to spit-roast the meat—Mrs Tibbs, would you be so kind as to select the meat from the cold room? Two men will be up to collect it. That leaves the salads, I guess,’ she added.
Mrs Tibbs snorted. ‘Salads! We’re not feeding a party of namby-pamby fancy people on this station, miss. Salads, my word!’ And she crossed her arms that were like sides of meat themselves in a gesture of outrage.
‘My mistake,’ Wendy murmured. ‘What do we eat on this here station?’
Sarah intervened hastily as Mrs Tibbs opened her mouth. ‘Rice is very popular. We generally have a few pots of curry or goulash, Jean Lawson makes a par- ticularly fine potato casserole and Mrs Tibbs does a tasty dish of ground maize meal that she serves with gravy.’
‘Very well,’ Wendy said with just the faintest ex- pression of distaste at the mention of maize meal. ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind ringing the Lawsons back, Sarah, and asking Jean to do her potatoes? Is it anyone’s special prerogative to make the curry or goulash?’
‘I make the goulash or the curry, whichever I decide on,’ Mrs Tibbs pronounced, arms still akimbo.
‘Then I’ve had a wonderful idea,’ Wendy said in- geniously. ‘I make a really mean curry, Mrs Tibbs, so why don’t you do the goulash?’
‘You mean you want to make curry here in my kitchen?’
‘Yes, but I tell you what—if you don’t think it’s up to your curry, Mrs Tibbs, I’ll feed it to the pigs or whatever you’ve got here as an equivalent.’
‘Is that like a bet, miss?’ Mrs Tibbs enquired expressionlessly.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re on!’
‘Good. Now rice—’
‘I’ll do the rice,’ Sarah said as she struggled not to laugh.
‘Excellent.’ Wendy looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘What does everyone drink?’
‘Beer,’ both Sarah and Mrs Tibbs replied, although Mrs Tibbs added,
‘And you don’t want to go suggesting spirits or gut- rotting wine, miss. Many a fight has started that way!’
Wendy grimaced but said nothing further on the subject. ‘How many people will there be, do you think?’
‘Uh… ten, twenty-three, twenty-seven—about thirty-two; there are a couple of ringers in the camp but fourteen of those will be kids,’ Sarah said.
‘What a thought,’ Wendy murmured.
‘It’s all right. I usually take care of the kids. We play games and so on until the food is ready. If we’re eating at five we generally collect an hour or so earlier—’ Sarah stopped as Amy