âLord knows how I didnât visit you last night. I came close.â
âWhat stopped you, Drake?â Nicole picked up a pebble and sent it skimming across the water. The movement startled a flock of white corellas that exploded into the air in protest.
âI have to let you decide what you want.â He glanced down at her. She wasnât wearing makeupâshe didnât need any with her skinânot even lipstick, which he found strangely erotic. âWhich isnât to say Iâm going to wait a long time.â
âFor me to decide to sleep with you?â Her head tilted, her eyes more green than blue in the shade of the wide-brimmed Akubra.
âYou will, whenever, wherever. We both know it.â
She looked back at the peaceful, unspoiled scene. âIt could be a mistake. Neither of us is exactly reconciled to the past.â
âIâm trying, Nic. You find it very hard to trust.â
âIâm concentrating on getting my life right.â
âYou think increasing intimacy with me will interfere with that?â His tone was deeply serious.
She nodded. âI canât deal with you like Iâve dealt with other men in my life.â
Dear Reader,
Home to Eden is the final book in the KOOMERA CROSSING series. I hope both my loyal, much-valued readership and welcome newcomers will have enjoyed the previous four in the series. I burned the midnight oil on one of them. Iâll leave you to guess which!
Throughout the series, indeed my long career, you will have noticed I enjoy writing about familiesâin particular, dysfunctional families. These problematic families crisscross society, from the most privileged to the severely disadvantaged.
Small wonder Iâm drawn to exploring family life. There are so many mysteries connected to families: past secrets, double lives, things that are never spoken about but forever hover in the consciousness. Most bondings bring comfort, friendship and support. Some emotional attachments, however, can go beyond the norm. Iâve drawn on this for Home to Eden, coming at it from the angle of obsessive attachments. One can readily see such attachments could be a by-product of certain conditions such as loneliness and isolation. Families who live in remote areas are more dependent on each other for survival and emotional support. Outback stations certainly qualify as remote. The wonderfully inspiring, frightening and funny, tragic and violent stories of Outback life are legion. There are heroes and heroines and, inevitably, as anywhere else, villains.
The heart is a very strong yet very vulnerable organ. Love and hate coexist there. Human beings can love fiercely, yet still be capable of hurting the object of that love. Jealousy has to be regarded as a great catalyst for disaster. Some jealousies pave the way to tragedy and death. Home to Eden is such a story. My aim, as always, is to give my readership good stories they can enjoy. I hope Iâve succeeded with KOOMERA CROSSING.
Best wishes,
Margaret Way
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TWELVE-YEAR-OLD Nicole Cavanagh in her lacy white nightdress stands at the first landing of Edenâs grand divided staircase nursing a terrible apprehension. Her small fists are clenched tight. She canât seem to get enough air. She is trying to guess the reason for all the commotion downstairs, even as the thought keeps rising that it is all about her mother, Corrine. The thought is terrifying.
It is barely dawn, the light seeping in through the great stained-glass window directly behind her in waves of jeweled splendor: ruby, emerald, sapphire, topaz, amethyst. Nicole pays no attention even though the effect is entrancing.
Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong. There is always turbulence when her father, Heath, is at Eden. Suddenly overcome by a gnawing premonition, she starts to tremble, reaches out to grasp the smooth mahogany banister as though sheâs gone blind and is petrified of falling. Her ears strain to pick up exactly what the voices are saying. Her fatherâs voice blustery like wind and thunder overrides all others. He is such a violent man. She can easily pick out Aunt Sigridâs tones, clipped but slightly hoarse; Aunt Sigrid once had a tracheotomy. Her aunt is a severe woman, her manner imperious, a consequence perhaps of being born a Miss Cavanagh of Eden Station. She is quite without her younger sisterâs beauty and charmââLeft you in the dust, didnât she, Siggy,â was her fatherâs cruel comment. But her aunt has always been good to Nicole in her fashion. As had Louise, her lovely grandmother, a kind and devoted woman who now sounds shaky and deeply worried. Grandfather Gilesâs cultured tones reassure her, calm and reasonable as ever.
Nevertheless, Nicole can measure what it all means. Child of a highly dysfunctional family, she has inbuilt antennae that track trouble. A frantic family row is in progressâshe picked up on that almost from the moment she swung her legs out of bed. Aunt Sigrid always says she is way too knowing. From the sound of his voice, her father has worked himself into a frenzied rage. She has learned over the years from her practice of eavesdroppingâthe only way she can ever find out anythingâthat her often absent father is, as Aunt Sigrid said, âa disgrace to our proud name, an adventurer, a compulsive gambler, money spills through his fingers like water, he brought nothing to the marriage. Even the big diamond engagement ring he presented to Corrinne is a fake.â