Read Online Outback Sunset by Lynne Wilding - Free Book Online Page A

had been indulged by Reg and treated with kid gloves by Fran for fear of her making their lives more difficult than they already were and had, as a teenager, used her questionable
skills
— a certain slyness and a desire to manipulate people and situations — to get what she wanted, which was to break up Reg’s marriage. That’s when Reg had taken a stand and sent her to boarding school. TheMethodist Ladies College at Claremont in Western Australia had, apparently, straightened her out. Her animosity towards Fran — Amaroo’s cook and housekeeper who was the gentlest, kindest person he knew — had lessened as Nova had matured. So, if they were lucky, Nova’s return to Amaroo might be a peaceful one. He’d keep his fingers crossed over that possibility.
    Besides, with Bren away he had enough on his plate without having to referee a family that couldn’t get along. Grimacing to himself, Curtis scraped dirt off his boots on the back verandah step and stood back to let everyone else enter the house before him.
Referee
, that was a role he was becoming increasingly familiar with because his mother, as much as he loved her, was a difficult woman. Manipulative, prickly, she wore her widow’s discontent like a badge of honour and sometimes nothing the family did made her happy for long. He knew she missed his father. Hell, he missed him too. But, as his father had said when he was alive, ‘Life goes on and you’d better get on with it before it passes you by’. He smiled as he remembered his father’s words of wisdom. It was a credo he was trying to follow in spite of personal problems — a broken marriage and losing substantial contact with his daughter.
    As they sat around the table in the roomy kitchen, cups of tea in front of everyone and a fresh tea cake sliced and half demolished, Stuart got the conversation going. ‘How’s your mother, Curtis?’
    The question broke through Curtis’s reminiscing. ‘She’s well. Lauren and the boys are with her at the moment, taking a break from station life.’
    ‘Bren? Where’s he?’
    ‘You haven’t heard?’ Fran Morrison, slender and grey haired, and as tall as the men in the room, put in dryly as she placed a batch of scones — she baked a dozen and a half every day — on the table. ‘Bren’s in London, been there more than two weeks.’
    ‘Good God! What’s he doing there?’ Stuart queried.
    ‘He fancies himself in love,’ Curtis’s reply was sharp. Everyone other than Fran looked at him expectantly which forced him to relate the tale of Bren’s infatuation with the English actress, including his plan to win her love.
    ‘How wonderfully romantic,’ was Nova’s comment. ‘I didn’t think Bren had it in him.’
    ‘The boy’s off his head,’ said Stuart Selby, put out by his other nephew’s behaviour. ‘Should have more sense. There are plenty of Australian girls for him to fall in love with.’
    ‘I saw her act in Sydney,’ piped up Rolfe Weston. ‘Vanessa Forsythe is an excellent actress. She’s very talented.’
    ‘Yeah, that’s what worries me,’ Curtis’s tone was frank. ‘I hope her acting finishes at the stage door. I don’t want her
pretending
or play-acting that she’s in love with Bren.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘He’s bloody serious about her.’
    ‘Oh, don’t be so down in the mouth,’ Nova chided. ‘Bren’s in his thirties, it’s time he settled down and this … Vanessa could be the right woman for him.’
    ‘Maybe. But he’s needed here. Decisions have to be made regarding stock, and the breeding program we want to introduce is behind schedule.’
    ‘And — it’s not
your
place so you don’t want to make decisions by yourself,’ Stuart put in succinctly, a smirk on his face.
    Curtis’s sideways glance at his uncle told everyone that he didn’t appreciate the remark. ‘That’s right.’
    ‘You have my sympathy. I was in the same position after Matthew inherited Amaroo. That’s why I got