Read Online Home to Eden by Margaret Way - Free Book Online Page A

bones, graceful and amazingly youthful-looking for a woman approaching seventy. She was beautifully groomed from head to toe—Nicole had never seen her any other way—but frailer than the last time Nicole had seen her.
    â€œI’ve been praying and praying you’d come home.” Louise Cavanagh held her granddaughter’s face between her hands. “If only for a little while,Nikki. Just seeing you gives me so much joy and strength.”
    Nicole blinked back smiling tears. “I think of you every day, Gran. I dream of you when I sleep.”
    â€œI love you so much, my darling.”
    They were cheek to cheek. Hair touching. One a rich deep red, the other snow-white. When each drew back, their eyes glittered with tears.
    The three women kept off the subject of Heath Cavanagh until all other questions had been raised and answered. Louise and Sigrid had long since heard about the Bradshaws—both from time to time had spoken on the phone to Carol, thanking her and her husband for looking out for Nicole. They were very grateful. They wanted to know all about her painting, her recent TV appearance, her continuing success. They wanted to know more about New Yorkers. And had Nicole met anyone—a man—she really liked? They knew of Carol’s efforts, Nicole’s few aborted relationships, the difficulty she had sustaining them. Most of all they wanted to know how she and Drake McClelland had got on. Just imagine, what were the chances of the two of them running into each other at Brisbane airport?
    At one time her grandparents had lived for a happy union between the two families, planned a beautiful big wedding to be held on Eden. Their beloved daughter, Corrinne Louise to David Michael McClelland. It was to have been perfect. Only, scarcely a month before the wedding, Corrinne shocked and enraged both families by eloping with the devilishly handsome, hard-drinking, compulsive gambler Heath Cavanagh, a distant cousin. He not only stole Corrinne away. Hestole the grand plan both families had laid down when Corrinne and David were little more than babies. Deprived them of the union of two pastoral dynasties. David was pitied. For a time he suffered severe withdrawal—there was a rumor, never substantiated, he had once attempted suicide—but the love of his family and the dynamic support of his older brother, Drake’s father, saved his sanity.
    Until he became involved with Corrinne again. The moth to the flame. Heath Cavanagh as a husband wasn’t long in favor. David, her first and last lover, returned. After that it was only a question of time before tragedy overtook them. There was no way, given that particular triangle, they could escape their brutal destiny.
    â€œSo where is Heath?” Nicole asked finally, knowing there was no putting it off.
    â€œHe keeps to his room mostly,” Sigrid said. “As I told you he’s very ill.”
    â€œShouldn’t he be in hospital with the proper care?”
    â€œIt may come to that, but for now he desperately wants to stay here. He’s come home to die.”
    â€œThis isn’t his home,” Nicole said flatly.
    â€œMy darling, he is your father.” Louise spoke in a near whisper. “He may have done lots of things to cause the family shame, but he’s one of us. Our blood.”
    â€œDo you really believe that, Gran?”
    â€œ I certainly do,” Sigrid suddenly barked. “Corrinne chose him. She had David, but she couldn’t keep herself in line. She was a man-eater, and she looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. You’re not acold person, Nicole. Just the opposite, but you’re so bitter about your father. He suffered, too, you know.”
    â€œWhat a lie.” Nicole’s blue-green eyes flashed.
    â€œYou were too young to see it,” Sigrid said, her throat flushed with emotion. “Too much in shock. That man suffered.”
    â€œThat monster!