Read Online The Socialite and the Cattle King by Lindsay Armstrong - Free Book Online Page B

on a very important mission?
    She was still preoccupied with this question as she drove down the Bruce Highway with Brett Wyndham, between sugar cane fields, towards the city of Cairns in its circle of hills and the airport.
    Brett piloted his own plane, she discovered later, still not quite able to believe what was happening to her. The plane was a trim little six-seater with a W on the tail.
    She was still pinching herself metaphorically as the nose of the plane rose and the speeding runway fell away. She was also trying to decide how to handle things between them. Common sense told her a matter-of-fact approach was the only way to go, but even that wasn’t going to be easy.
    She waited until they reached their cruising altitude then asked him how long the flight would be.
    He told her briefly.
    ‘Can you talk?’
    ‘Of course,’ he replied.
    ‘Could you give me a run-down on the country we’re flying over and our destination?’
    He did so. They were flying west over the old mining towns of the Tablelands towards volcanic countryfamous for its lava tubes; then the great, grassy lands of the savannah/gulf country, as in the Gulf of Carpentaria, where their destination lay.
    ‘Haywire?’ she repeated with a grin. ‘Where did it get its name?
    He grimaced. ‘No-one seems to know.’
    Holly glanced across at him. He looked thoroughly professional in a khaki bush-shirt and jeans, with his headphones on and his beautiful hands checking instruments.
    Professional and withdrawn from her, she contemplated as her gaze was drawn to her own hands clasped rather forlornly in her lap.
    Who was she to quibble about ‘professional and withdrawn’ being the order of the day? It was what she’d almost stipulated, wasn’t it? The only problem was she needed to get him to open up if she was going to get full value out of this trip. But—big but—there was a fine line between getting him to talk easily and naturally from a professional point of view and not finding herself loving his company at the same time.
    She shook her head and realized he was watching her.
    She coloured a little.
    ‘Some internal debate?’ he suggested.
    ‘You could say so. Where are we now?’ She looked out at the panorama of red sandy earth below them, with its sage-green vegetation, at the undulations and the space.
    ‘About halfway between Georgetown and Croydon. If you follow the Savannah Way it takes you on to Normanton and Karumba, on the gulf. Over that way,’he pointed, ‘is Forsayth and Cobbold Gorge; it’s quite amazing. And those are the Newcastle Ranges to the east, and the sandstone escarpment to the west.’
    ‘It’s very remote,’ she said in awe. ‘And empty.’
    ‘Remote,’ he agreed. ‘Hot as hell in summer, but with quite a history, not only of cattle but gold rushes and gem fields. Georgetown has a gem museum and Croydon has a recreation of the life and times of the gold rush there.’
    ‘They look so small, though—Georgetown and Croydon,’ she ventured.
    He shrugged. ‘They are now. Last count, Georgetown had under three-hundred residents, but it’s the heart of a huge shire, and they’re both on the road to Karumba and the gulf, renowned for its fishing. With the army of grey nomads out and about these days, they get a lot of passing traffic.’
    Holly grinned. ‘Grey nomads’ was the term given to retired Australians who travelled the continent in caravans or camper vans or just with tents. It could almost be said it was the national retiree-pastime.
    Half an hour later they started to lose altitude and Brett pointed out the Haywire homestead. All Holly could see was a huddle of roofs and a grassy airstrip between white-painted wooden fences in a sea of scrub.
    Then he spoke into his VHF radio, and over some static a female voice said she’d walked the strip and it was in good order.
    ‘Romeo, coming in,’ he responded.
    Ten minutes later they made a slightly bumpy landing and rolled to a stop adjacent to