Cattle Baron Needs a Bride / Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor: Cattle Baron Needs a Bride / Sparks Fly with Mr Mayor

In July you met

Australia’s Most Eligible Bachelor,

Corin Rylance.

Now read Corin’s sister Zara’s story in:

CATTLE BARON NEEDS A BRIDE

by Margaret Way

THE RYLANCE DYNASTY

The lives & loves of Australia’s most powerful family

Growing up in the spotlight hasn’t been easy, but the two Rylance heirs, Corin and his sister Zara, have come of age and are ready to claim their inheritance.

Though they are privileged, proud and powerful, they are about to discover that there are some things money can’t buy…

…And from cattle ranching to campaigning, the race is on in:

SPARKS FLY WITH MR MAYOR by Teresa Carpenter

But will it end at the podium or…the altar?

MARGARET WAY, a definite Leo, was born and raised in the subtropical River City of Brisbane, capital of the Sunshine State of Queensland. A Conservatorium-trained pianist, teacher, accompanist and vocal coach, she found her musical career came to an unexpected end when she took up writing—initially as a fun thing to do. She currently lives in a harbourside apartment at beautiful Raby Bay, a thirty-minute drive from the state capital, where she loves dining al fresco on her plant-filled balcony, overlooking a translucent green marina filled with all manner of pleasure craft: from motor cruisers costing millions of dollars, and big, graceful yachts with carved masts standing tall against the cloudless blue sky, to little bay runabouts. No one and nothing is in a mad rush, and she finds the laid-back village atmosphere very conducive to her writing. With well over one hundred books to her credit, she still believes her best is yet to come.

THIRTY minutes out of Brisbane, dark silver-shafted clouds, billowing like an atomic mushroom, began to roll in from the east. A veteran of countless flying hours, he watched in familiar fascination as the pluvial masses began to bank up in spectacular thunder heads that spiralled into the stratosphere. Nature at its awesome best, he thought; unimaginable power that could pick up a light plane, roll it, drop it, strike it with lightning, or miraculously allow it to pass through.

This afternoon’s pyrotechnic show was one he knew he could handle. But spectacular or not, a line of raging thunderstorms wasn’t what he needed right now. He felt a knot of frustration tighten in his chest. Abominable weather inspired trepidation in any pilot but he hadn’t got the luxury of giving into it. The Baron nosed into the dense grey fog. It closed in on all sides like a wet, heavy blanket, swallowing the aircraft up. Streams of tarnished silver shot through with silent lightning like tracer bullets flew past the wings.

He couldn’t accept another disruption to his long journey in stoic silence. He let out a few hearty curses that steadied head and hand, effectively reducing the build-up of tension. As the man behind the controls, he had to remain passive. It was the only way to stay in command. He was an experienced pilot. It was a long time since he had gained his licence—as it happened, immediately he was eligible. His father, Daniel, had been so proud of him, clapping a congratulatory hand on his shoulder.

“You’re a natural, Garrick. You do everything with such ease. I couldn’t be more proud of you, son!”

Surely the answer lay in inherited skills? His father had been his role model for everything. He had taken to flying the same way his father had. Naturally. But he was no fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants pilot. He was meticulous. Flying was the stuff of life for him. It was also the stuff of death. He could never forget that. Not for a moment. There had been far too many light aircraft crashes in the Outback. Yet he loved flying with a passion! The roar down the runway, then lifting up like an eagle into the wild blue yonder with only the clouds for company. The incredible freedom of it! It was marvellously exhilarating and marvellously peaceful at one and the same time. Yet over the years he had flown through countless bad and often frightening situations. One need only consider the perilous weather—far worse than what he was encountering now—over the stifling hot and humid immensity of the Top End savannahs in the middle of the wet season!

His brief moment of frustration over, he found fresh energy, bringing his concentration to bear on winding the plane in and out of a series of down draughts, the sort that always left passengers seriously sick and shaking; there was comfortable seating for four passengers aft. But, for him, there was a weird kind of rush negotiating the thermal traffic. The Beech Baron was a beautiful machine—a symbol of what his pioneering family had attained—from the twin Continental engines to the state-of-the-art avionics. The Baron was religiously maintained to keep it as safe and airworthy as humanly possible. Even so, at one point severe turbulence began to toss the 2500 kilogram aircraft around like a kid’s toy. Mercifully, it cut out before it became a real nuisance.