between the two men who had, for no obvious reason other than a personality clash, never got along. ‘I’m sure everyone’s dying for a cup of tea and some of Fran’s pineapple scones.’ Standing between them, she linked an arm through each of the Selby men as they walked towards the house. ‘Where’s Dad, Curtis?’
‘On the northern boundary. We’re mustering the stock there for branding.’
‘Matthew used to bring them into the yards to do that,’ Stuart remarked conversationally. He was studying the wide, low, single storey timber homestead that had been the station’s main dwelling for just on thirty years.
As a young bride, Hilary Selby had insisted that she couldn’t live in the five room stone house that Robert Selby, Amaroo’s founder, had built with his bare hands more than fifty years ago. Coming from a wealthy Brisbane family, and used to the best of everything, she knew that the Selbys were wealthy enough to afford a house to match their standing in the Kimberley. And because Matthew could deny her nothing a Perth architect had been commissioned to design and build a large, comfortable home that other station owners in the region would envy.
Designed to deflect the heat, with high ceilings, a good airflow and an abundance of overhead fans run by a petrol generator, to cool the rooms at night, it had become almost a stately mansion in this part of the world. Like most cattle stations, the kitchen was the homestead’s heart and contained a larder big enough to store food for a small restaurant. Because of Amaroo’s remoteness groceries were ordered in bulk and trucked in from Kununurra every few months. A thriving vegetable plot outside the back door and a chicken coop to provide eggs, plus the easy availability of beef for butchering, meant those on the station ate well.
Six bedrooms and two bathrooms, a timber-panelled study for Matthew, a ‘reading’ room for Hilary, and wide, shady verandahs on three sides of the rectangular shaped house that doubled as sleep-outs when it was unbearably hot, more than adequately housed the family Matthew and Hilary had had.
East of the homestead stood a fenced, much neglected tennis court and beyond the paved patio area covered by a canvas pergola, was a large hole, fenced with barbed wire. A swimming pool had been part of Hilary’s original grand plan but over the years the project had been shelved and never completed. The sturdy one-metre high picket fence around the perimeter of the homestead and the outdoor area was in need of a coat of paint. The fence kept unwanted animals — domestic and feral — off the bore-watered lawn and Fran’s vegetable garden.
‘Usually we do,’ Curtis responded to Stuart’s remark about the branding. ‘But as there’s good feednear the boundary to the Linford Downs Station, it makes more sense to do it the old-fashioned way — this time we’re taking the branding iron and other paraphernalia to them.’
‘Ugh, even now I still hate branding,’ Nova shuddered, ‘it’s cruel.’
‘But necessary to keep track of stock.’ Curtis grinned at Nova, his hazel eyes giving her a thorough appraisal. She was petitely built. Black straight hair, cut short, olive skin from her Asian and Australian parentage and she had a trace of her Malaysian forebears in her features too. She would be about twenty-three years old now and was pretty to look at. No, more vivacious than pretty, he corrected himself. He groaned silently as he thought about the stockmen’s quarters. At present there were four bachelors in the bunkhouse, all capable of competing with each other for her attention.
Curtis, seven years older, had known Nova since she was five years old. That’s when Reg and his second wife, Fran, had come to work at Amaroo, and from an early age, Nova had a knack for creating … disruptions. As a child, her mercurial, demanding temperament had reminded him of a mischievous kitten that constantly craved attention. She
‘On the northern boundary. We’re mustering the stock there for branding.’
‘Matthew used to bring them into the yards to do that,’ Stuart remarked conversationally. He was studying the wide, low, single storey timber homestead that had been the station’s main dwelling for just on thirty years.
As a young bride, Hilary Selby had insisted that she couldn’t live in the five room stone house that Robert Selby, Amaroo’s founder, had built with his bare hands more than fifty years ago. Coming from a wealthy Brisbane family, and used to the best of everything, she knew that the Selbys were wealthy enough to afford a house to match their standing in the Kimberley. And because Matthew could deny her nothing a Perth architect had been commissioned to design and build a large, comfortable home that other station owners in the region would envy.
Designed to deflect the heat, with high ceilings, a good airflow and an abundance of overhead fans run by a petrol generator, to cool the rooms at night, it had become almost a stately mansion in this part of the world. Like most cattle stations, the kitchen was the homestead’s heart and contained a larder big enough to store food for a small restaurant. Because of Amaroo’s remoteness groceries were ordered in bulk and trucked in from Kununurra every few months. A thriving vegetable plot outside the back door and a chicken coop to provide eggs, plus the easy availability of beef for butchering, meant those on the station ate well.
Six bedrooms and two bathrooms, a timber-panelled study for Matthew, a ‘reading’ room for Hilary, and wide, shady verandahs on three sides of the rectangular shaped house that doubled as sleep-outs when it was unbearably hot, more than adequately housed the family Matthew and Hilary had had.
East of the homestead stood a fenced, much neglected tennis court and beyond the paved patio area covered by a canvas pergola, was a large hole, fenced with barbed wire. A swimming pool had been part of Hilary’s original grand plan but over the years the project had been shelved and never completed. The sturdy one-metre high picket fence around the perimeter of the homestead and the outdoor area was in need of a coat of paint. The fence kept unwanted animals — domestic and feral — off the bore-watered lawn and Fran’s vegetable garden.
‘Usually we do,’ Curtis responded to Stuart’s remark about the branding. ‘But as there’s good feednear the boundary to the Linford Downs Station, it makes more sense to do it the old-fashioned way — this time we’re taking the branding iron and other paraphernalia to them.’
‘Ugh, even now I still hate branding,’ Nova shuddered, ‘it’s cruel.’
‘But necessary to keep track of stock.’ Curtis grinned at Nova, his hazel eyes giving her a thorough appraisal. She was petitely built. Black straight hair, cut short, olive skin from her Asian and Australian parentage and she had a trace of her Malaysian forebears in her features too. She would be about twenty-three years old now and was pretty to look at. No, more vivacious than pretty, he corrected himself. He groaned silently as he thought about the stockmen’s quarters. At present there were four bachelors in the bunkhouse, all capable of competing with each other for her attention.
Curtis, seven years older, had known Nova since she was five years old. That’s when Reg and his second wife, Fran, had come to work at Amaroo, and from an early age, Nova had a knack for creating … disruptions. As a child, her mercurial, demanding temperament had reminded him of a mischievous kitten that constantly craved attention. She
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