CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER ONE

      BROD strode from the blinding light of the compound into the welcoming gloom of the old homestead’s hallway. His whole body was sheened with sweat and his denim shirt covered in dust and grass stains. He and his men had been up since dawn driving a herd of uncooperative cattle from drying Egret Creek to Three Moons, a chain of billabongs some miles off.

      It had been a long hot slog filled with plenty of curses and frustration as several beasts in turn tried to break away from the herd. Dumber than dumb in some situations cattle had a decided ability to hold their own in the bush.

      He could do with a good scrub but there was scant time for that. His schedule was as hectic as ever. He’d almost forgotten, the station vet was flying in this afternoon to give another section of the herd a general check over. That was about three o’clock. He had time to grab a sandwich and a cup of tea and return to the holding yard they’d set up under the gum trees.

      Now he focused on the stack of mail neatly piled on top of the rough pine bench that served as a console. No Kimbara this he thought with bleak humour. Definitely not the splendid historic homestead of his birth.

      His father resided on Kimbara. Stewart Kinross. Lord of the Desert. Leaving his only son to slave his guts out running the cattle chain while he claimed all the glory. Not that there weren’t quite a few people in the know. Not that it bothered him all that much he thought swivelling to throw his black Akubra onto a peg on the wall. It landed unerringly on the target as it always did but he paid no attention. His day would come. He and Ally together had quite a stake in the diverse Kinross enterprises with ancestral Kimbara, the flagship of the Kinross cattle empire the jewel in the crown.

      Grandad Kinross, legendary hero, had seen to that, never blind to his son Stewart’s true nature. Andrew Kinross was long gone while his grandson lived a near outcast on Marlu for the past five years. In fact it had been since Alison, hiding her heartache over the breakup of her passionate romance with Rafe Cameron, left home for the Big Smoke, the name the Outback bestowed on big bustling cosmopolitan Sydney.

      Alison said then she wanted to try her hand at acting like their celebrated Aunt Fee who had taken off at eighteen full of wild dreams of making a brilliant career for herself on the London stage. And wonder of wonders Fee had actually succeeded despite a well publicised out of control love life. Now she was back on Kimbara writing her sensational memoirs.

      Fee was quite a character, too famous to qualify for black sheep of the family but with two big-time broken marriages behind her and the legacy of an exquisite English rose of a daughter. Lady Francesca de Lyle, no less. His and Ally’s cousin and from what they’d seen of her as good as she was beautiful. Couldn’t have been easy with the arty oversexed Fee for a mother.

      Now Fee was telling all, convinced her biography would be a huge success in the hands of one Rebecca Hunt, an award-winning young journalist from Sydney with another well received biography of a retired Australian diva under her belt.

      Just to think of Rebecca Hunt lit a dangerous flame somewhere inside him. Such was the power of a woman’s beauty he thought disgustedly when he distrusted her like hell. He had no difficulty summoning up her image. Satiny black hair framing a lily cool face, but with one hell of a seductive mouth. The mouth was a dead give-away. Yet she was so utterly immaculate and self-possessed she was darn near mysterious. He could never imagine someone like him for instance mussing that sleek hair or laying a finger on her magnolia flesh. She was way too perfect for him. Brod gave an involuntary laugh the fall of light in the hall giving his lean handsome features a brooding hawklike quality. In reality the patrician Miss Hunt was just another mightily ambitious woman.

      It wasn’t his father that had her in thrall. No way would he accept that. Not that his father wasn’t a big handsome guy, assured, cultivated, filthy rich, fifty-five and looking a good ten years younger. Forget the meanness there. No it was the wild splendour of Kimbara that interested Miss Hunt, of the large ravishing grey eyes. Eyes like the still crystal waters of a hidden rock pool, yet he had divined instantly Miss Hunt would discard her promising little career any day to become mistress of Kimbara. From a fledgling career to riches beyond her imaginings. Only one catch: She could only have it all while his father lived. After that it was his turn.

      The Kinross tradition had never been broken. Kimbara, the Kinross’s ancestral home was passed directly from father to firstborn son. No one had ever abdicated in favour of a brother though Andrew Kinross had been a second son, surviving the Second World War when his elder brother James hadn’t. James had died in his brother’s arms in a far distant desert, very different from their own. One of the countless terrible tragedies of war.

      Shaking his head sadly, Brod moved to pick up the mail riffling through it. It had been flown in that day while he was far out on the run. Wally his loyal, part aboriginal ex-stockman had brought it up. Since he had badly smashed his leg in a fall