Breakaway Creek. Heather GarsideЧитать онлайн книгу.
stopping if she needed help.
Resigned to taking it slowly, she crept along, avoiding sharp stones and straddling the wheel tracks where necessary. The countryside looked depressingly dry; the grass in the paddocks brown and withered, the sparse grey foliage on the trees drooping in the still, heat-hazed air. The expanse of empty countryside scared her, reducing her to insignificance.
Following Luke's directions, she eventually drove onto bitumen again and passed through a town of tired, generic-looking houses with hardiplank facades. The man at the stock and station agency had told her that the town of Faradale had been built to serve the coal mines thirty years earlier. It had a dirty, neglected air, as if its residents lived here under protest and no one really cared. Clermont seemed charming in comparison.
After a few more kilometres of gravel road, Shelley began to panic. Had she missed the turn? She stopped to consult the directions she'd written down and decided to keep driving. Finally she spotted the sign she'd been looking for, hanging over a brightly-painted oil drum that served as a mailbox. Breakaway Creek. At last, she thought.
Shelley turned off the main thoroughfare and drove up a narrow dirt road through open forest country. The car nudged over a rise and passed a dam of still, brown water. Another bend in the road led her into a cleared paddock, revealing a large, low house, an assortment of outbuildings, and a small cottage hiding behind a hedge of bougainvillea. The open land in front of the house sloped away to a line of trees which appeared to mark a watercourse - possibly the creek for which the property was named.
She drew up in front of the big house, and looked with interest at her surroundings before stepping out and stretching her stiffened muscles. Dogs barked from a row of cages between the house and the sheds as a man appeared on the veranda. She waited at the front gate as he came down the low steps to meet her, the remnants of her preconceptions about bush bachelors evaporating as her stomach tightened in anticipation.
'Hello - Shelley?' Her name was a question, as he looked her over with sharp green eyes, which made her feel absurdly self-conscious.
A few days' growth of whiskers suggested he hadn't placed as much importance on this meeting as she had - unless he subscribed to the 'designer stubble' look. Somehow, she didn't think so. In his faded Wrangler jeans and navy drill shirt he looked conservatively country. Yet the 'hick' label didn't quite fit. If this guy was a bachelor, it must be from choice - unless he was the one with the broken marriage.
'Yes, that's me,' she said, somewhat unnecessarily. 'So you're Luke?'
He nodded and shook her hand, his fingers strong and calloused against her soft skin.
'Pleased to meet you. Come in. I was beginning to think you'd got lost.'
'Sorry.' Her fingers tingled and she had to resist the urge to pull her hand from his. She wasn't usually this fidgety around men. 'I took it slow. I'm not used to gravel roads.'
'Better safe than sorry. Mitch - that's my brother - isn't here at the moment. He had to check some waters. I've been catching up on office work while I waited.'
'I hope I'm not holding you up from anything important.'
He shrugged.
'Nothing special. We mustered last week and we've got weaners in the yards. I'll have to feed them shortly.'
He ushered her into a large kitchen with shabby timber cupboards and pulled out a chair for her at the laminex table.
'Sit down. I've been looking through some old photos and things since you rang.' He sat opposite her and tapped an ancient-looking bible, bound in battered black leather. 'I'm a bit mystified about your ancestor, Alex.'
Her pulse leapt. There it was again - that reference to a mystery.
'Why's that?'
'Well, I found this photo.' He held up a faded family portrait, featuring a seated man and woman in nineteenth-century dress. Five children of varying ages stood beside the chairs or sprawled on the floor at their feet, gazing solemnly towards the camera. The woman cradled a baby in a long white gown.
'This is Frank and Sarah Baxter, the couple who pioneered this place. There are six kids here, including the baby, and one of them is listed as Alex.' He turned the photograph over to show her the names scrawled on the reverse and then flipped it back again. 'I think that's him here.'
He pointed to the tallest of the children, a boy of about eight, standing at the back. With a quiver of excitement, Shelley took the photograph and looked more closely. It was possible the boy was Alexander - he was dark-haired, like the man in her mother's photo, and the features were similar.
'Yes, that looks like him. But what's the mystery?'
'The thing is, all the other births are listed in the family bible, but not his. The same with the marriages. Who did you say he married?'
'Emma Watson, from Brisbane.'
'It's strange.' He gave a little shrug. 'Perhaps he fell out with the family, which is why they didn't record his marriage. But you'd think the birth would have to be in here.'
Shelley examined the photo with avid interest.
'I wonder ... he looks different from the others. Could he have been an adopted child? That sometimes happened in those days. People took in orphaned or motherless relatives and raised them as their own.'
'It's possible.' Luke passed her the bible. 'You're welcome to look at this.'
The family history was inscribed on a few blank pages at the back: the record of Frank and Sarah Baxter's marriage; the births of five children, and their subsequent marriages. The flowing script had been penned with heavy black ink, and in places there were spots where the pen had spluttered. But there was no mention of Alex.
The hair prickled on the back of Shelley's neck.
'It's very strange. I came up against the same lack of info with my mother's family.' She handed over the photo that had spurred her search. 'This is the couple in question, but my grandmother refused to talk about them, apart from calling Alex "a good-for-nothing stockman". She got quite stroppy when I persisted. It was my great aunt - her younger sister - who sent me here.'
'Family secrets, eh?' Luke's smile crinkled the crow's feet around his eyes as he peered at the picture. For the first time there was real warmth on his face. 'Perhaps he was born on the wrong side of the blanket.'
'Perhaps.' Shelley returned his smile, trying to suppress the foolish quiver in her stomach. What had happened to her recently-adopted disinterest in men? 'That's what's got me intrigued.'
'I can ask Mum when I talk to her next. She and Dad are travelling in Europe so we have to wait for them to ring us.' He stood up, casually stretching his long, lean body. 'Would you like a cup of tea or coffee? A glass of water?'
'Coffee would be nice. But I hope I'm not holding you up.'
'No, it's smoko time. I'm sorry I wasn't more help.'
As he filled the electric kettle, Shelley looked around the room. She judged the house to be only about thirty years old - hardly a pioneer dwelling.
'What happened to the original homestead?'
Luke glanced at her.
'It's still here. It's about a kilometre away, closer to the creek. The floods went through it once or twice, so they built up here in the late sixties.'
'So it's still standing?'
'Yeah.' He took mugs from one cupboard and a jar of instant coffee from another. 'It's pretty dilapidated now.'
'I'd love to see it.'
'Sure. I can show you later.' He made the coffees and put them on the table, then sat opposite her. 'So, where are you from?'
Shelley spooned sugar into her mug, willing herself to relax.
'My family's in Rockhampton - I grew up there. But I've been in Brisbane for the last eight years.'
Luke raised