Outback Wives Wanted!. Margaret Way
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He spread his arms an unbelievable distance, to demonstrate just how big. “Didn’t have a chance of lifting ‘im. It’s all so sad.”
It’s that! Guy thought to himself. What had happened to Alan Callaghan came under the category of “survivor’s guilt.” Callaghan blamed himself terribly for surviving when the wife he adored hadn’t.
“Mrs Annabel, she’s up there.” Buddy pointed towards the glittering river of diamonds that was the Milky Way. “She’s fine. She’s not alone. Mr Alan should find somethin’ good.”
Guy couldn’t help but agree. It would allow the man some release. “You can go along now, Buddy,” he said. “And thank you. I should be able to get Mr Callaghan into bed.”
“Need a hand?” Buddy, thin as a whippet, even in riding boots only five-five, was desperate to help in any way he could.
“Thanks, Buddy, but I’ll manage.” Guy made a movement to go inside, paused. “Have you eaten yet?”
“No, sir. Been here.” Buddy’s coal-black curls bobbed as he shook his head. “I had to attend to Mr Alan first.”
“Do this for me?” Guy said, as though asking a favour. “Drive out to the estate restaurant and get yourself a really nice meal? Whatever you want—three courses. You can take it away if you feel shy being on your own. I’ll ring ahead so they’ll know you’re coming.”
Buddy gave a funny little whoop. “Me?”
“Yes, Buddy,” Guy confirmed. “You must be starving by now.”
“I am a bit hungry,” Buddy admitted. Actually, he had a growling stomach. But the Radcliffe Estate restaurant! He’d only poked his head in a couple of times. Never been in there, of course. It was way too grand for the likes of him. Could he really order up a three course meal? Maybe oysters and a fillet steak? Some crazy wicked chocolate dessert? Mr Radcliffe said he could, and Mr Radcliffe owned the place. Cool!
Alana knelt beside her father’s armchair. Alan Callaghan sat in it, looking hellish, one large brown hand resting on the top of her shining head.
“Guy!’ Recognition leapt into the bleary red-rimmed eyes as Guy approached. “God, I’m sorry.” Her father’s normally attractive voice was nothing more than a slurred croak.
“Why don’t we get you to bed, Alan?” Guy said, calm as a stone Buddha on the outside, deeply perturbed on the inside. He stripped off his checked jacket.
“Sall right!” Alan Callaghan made a pathetic attempt to heave himself out of the armchair and fell back, looking worse than ever.
“Come on—we’ll help you, Dad.” Alana fiercely wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.
“It’s okay, Alana. Just get out of the way,” Guy told her, in a kindly but authoritative tone.
She didn’t argue. Guy said he could do it. Simple. She did what she was told, running ahead to make sure her father’s bed was ready and the room was fit to be seen. She was agonisingly embarrassed, but at least she always did her best to make sure her father’s bolt hole—for that was what it was—was clean.
They came slowly down the hallway, Guy supporting her father by the shoulders as though Alan Callaghan were a drunken dancing partner. Both dark heads were bent towards their feet. Her father was muttering incoherently to himself. Guy wasn’t even breathing hard. It only took a few minutes for Guy to lower the older man onto the narrow bed.
“What is he doing in here?” Guy looked about him. “It’s a monk’s cell.”
“With Dad the penitent?” Strain and mortification were showing on Alana’s face. “I’m only surprised he doesn’t scourge himself.”
“I’ll undress him,” Guy said. “Or at least make him more comfortable. No problem. Go along now.”
Alana turned, but hesitated near the door. Her father blew out a harsh, spluttering moan, then seemed to come alive. He lifted one still powerful arm and began to wave it with a vigour that surprised her.
“She was in love with him, you know,” he said, in voice that was almost normal. “I’m telling the truth here. I made her pregnant. I made my beautiful Belle pregnant. Can’t say anything in my own defence. I did it. I did it. “ Alan Callaghan made a futile grab for the front of Guy’s shirt. “You’re a gentleman, aren’t yah? And your dad was a gentleman. I’m just a bog Irishman. Anything to say?”
Guy’s expression transfixed Alana. It had turned from compassionate to granite. Would this man who had always been so kind to her father now turn and condemn him for being a pitiful drunk? “You’re shocking your daughter, Alan,” Guy said quietly.
Alan Callaghan stared blearily past Guy, the full weight of what he had just said seeming to fall on him. “Are yah still here, darlin'?” he asked in dismay.
Alana didn’t answer. She stood frozen on the spot, more vulnerable than she had ever been in her life.
“Leave this to me, Alana,” Guy repeated, putting his tall rangy body between her and her father.
“What?” She stared at him dazedly. “You know what Dad’s saying. You know—don’t you, Guy. And my uncle knows. That’s why he hates us.”
“Doesn’t he just?” Alan Callaghan suddenly bellowed. “He’s never tried to conceal it. Idolised her, he did, his beautiful sister. Loved his dear friend David. But I didn’t care how I got her. I was mad for her. Just couldn’t back off. I always had a touch of the prize fighter in me.”
“You’re not putting up any fight now, Alan.” Guy’s dark eyes were blazing with light. “I see no sign of the fighter. Look at you. A big man—what? Fifty-five, fifty-six years of age?—collapsed in your bed like you’ve been defeated.”
Alana was seized by agitation. “Dad’s no coward, Guy!” she cried. “He has courage.” Or once he had had it, she thought mournfully. But now her father had lost all direction.
Guy bent his gaze on her. “Someone once said courage in a man is enduring in silence whatever heaven sends him.”
“What about what heaven takes away?” she retorted fierily. “Takes away so you can never get it back?”
Guy sighed deeply. “We all bear the weight of our losses, Alana. I miss my father every day. He was a fine upstanding man. The finest.”
At that, Alan Callaghan’s broken laugh exploded. “That he was!” he roared, and then, as though all played out he rolled away without another sound. Face to the wall.
It was the worst of all possible scenarios. Alana sat rigid, arms clasped around her, in the living room, waiting for Guy to come out of her father’s room—the cell of the condemned man.
What had her father done all those years ago? What tricks had he used to get the woman he had always looked at so adoringly? How had her mother agreed to marry him, have his baby, when she’d been meant for somebody else? Had loved somebody else? Or was there little truth in that either? What else could she hope to find out when her father was drunk?
Guy had known what had been hidden from her and Kieran all along. He had never breathed a word. Surely other people in the Valley knew of the old love triangle? Why had everyone, including her uncle, kept the old story so deeply hidden? And the stark way Guy had spoken! Should he have rubbed in her father’s defeat? Could she forgive or forget that? The real nightmare was that Guy himself might hate them underneath. How would she know? What really lay in the depths of his unfathomable dark eyes? And what of Guy’s mother, always civil, but maintaining her distance? Guy loved his mother. Sidonie would have known about an old love affair of her husband’s, surely? It hadn’t gone as far as an engagement, but it now appeared to have been serious. Maybe her mother and David Radcliffe had never patched up a violent quarrel? It happened. Maybe they had argued about