The Cattle King's Bride. Margaret Way

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      “It’s your family, Dev. Not mine. Such as it is. We’ve talked and we’ve walked all around our feelings. We’re on a merry-go-round and we can’t jump off. Any thought of marriage has turned into an impossible dream.”

      Dev leapt to his feet, his aquamarine eyes blazing with anger and outrage. “You know why? Because you’re always applying the brakes. Think I don’t know you fear being dominated? As though it could happen! What you really want is to bend my will to yours. It’s the war of the sexes, with you the man-hater. You said you wanted to stand on your own two feet. I’ve gone along with that.”

      “Standing on my own two feet is central to everything.” Mel tried to defend herself.

      “But I applaud it, Mel,” he cried in utter exasperation. “That’s what you can’t seem to grasp. I’m proud of you and how clever you are. You’d be a big asset to Langdon Enterprises, if you ever left Greshams. Anyone would think we were in competition, the way you behave. I don’t understand what it is you want me to be. I can’t grapple with all your expectations of the perfect man. I’m me. Far from perfect. Sometimes I think you’re actually frightened of me. Not in a physical sense. You know I would never hurt you. But you do have this huge problem with male domination.”

      God knew it was true. “I grew up with it, didn’t I, this little satellite orbiting a giant tyrannical figure. Your grandfather carried domination to the extreme. Always the iron fist.”

      “For goodness’ sake, Mel,” Dev protested, “he was himself. Stronger, cleverer, tougher than anyone else.”

      “You might be describing yourself.” Mel shook her head bleakly.

      Dev showed his fast-rising temper. “Now you’re making me really angry. What is it you want me to be, Mel? Do you even know? I can’t figure it out and I’ve come at it from every angle. As far as I can see, your biggest problem is you. Your exaggerated need for independence, self-reliance, like you don’t need a man, as though a man could break you. I’m telling you it’s paranoia!”

      “Okay, maybe it is!” Pressure was expanding inside her, building up a huge head of steam. There were always bottled-up forces ready to explode when they came together, a consequence of their shared troubled history and her mother’s illicit position in Gregory Langdon’s life. “Let’s stop now, Dev,” she said more quietly. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

      He sat down again, bending his blond head almost to his knees. “And I don’t want to argue with you. But you are one strange woman, Mel.”

      “I expect I am,” she said in a haunted voice. “You know your place in the world, Dev. All I know is I grew up without a father and a father’s love and wisdom. What I know about my mother wouldn’t fill half a page in a child’s exercise book. She’s the only child of Italian parents, Francis and Adriana Cavallaro, who migrated to Australia and settled in Sydney. It has a large Italian and Italian-descent population. There was no other family. My mother left home, a bit like Ava, to escape her father’s very strict control. I never got to know any of my family. God knows why she decided to shift as far away as North Queensland. That’s a long haul.”

      “Do we even know if that’s true?” Dev muttered. “I wouldn’t put it past your mother to have been wearing an impenetrable disguise all these years. When she came to Kooraki no one would have questioned her background. Where she came from would have been considered irrelevant. She was simply Mike Norton’s young wife.”

      “Terrible to think my mother’s past could be an invention, a construct of lies. I hate blacked out spaces, secrets.”

      “Tell me about it,” Dev said. “Most families have them. You are letting them plague you to death. You have to make a leap of faith. Faith in me. Your mother has her story but it’s obvious she doesn’t want you to know it, even if it would offer you comfort.”

      She gave him a despairing look. “Was her home life so bad she simply had to run away? Did she cast off her past like a snake sloughs off its skin? My dad would have known. But he’s not around to tell me,” she said with the deepest regret.

      “One day your mother might confide in you, Mel.” Dev tried to offer comfort, but he had no faith whatsoever in Sarina Norton, whom he knew as a devious woman and most likely an accomplished spinner of lies. “She’s a secretive woman without your strengths. But she had no difficulty conning men into thinking they needed to protect her.” He hadn’t intended saying that. It just sprang out. His own view was that men needed protection from Sarina Norton.

      “Con? Did you say con?” Mel asked, midway between wrath and shock.

      “I did and that’s my theory,” Dev shot back unapologetically.

      Mel was severely taken aback. Dev had never spoken harshly of her mother.

      “Give it a bit of thought, Mel. Your mother is a born actress. If she’d made it to the big screen she would have won an award.”

      “What, playing the role of conning men?”

      “I can’t think of anyone better,” Dev said bluntly. “Didn’t you ever watch her with the male staff? In fact any man that moved across her path.”

      Mel looked back at him, stunned. “What is this, Dev? Payback time? I didn’t realize you so disliked my mother.”

      His expression hardened. “On the subject of your mother it pays to keep my mouth shut. I’ve never been out to hurt you, Mel.”

      Disturbing thoughts were sweeping into her mind. “But she thinks the world of you, Dev. How could you attack her, unless she tried to con you?” It didn’t seem possible.

      Dev picked a non-existent thread from his shirt. “Cons don’t go down well with me, Mel.”

      “What sort of an answer is that?”

      “Are we going to have a problem with it?” he asked in a decidedly edgy voice.

      Not, she realized, unless she was prepared to launch into an all-out fight. “Did it help or harm her, do you suppose, the fact that she was so beautiful?” Mel asked, always looking for some way to unravel the mystery that was her mother.

      “Hell, she still is.” There was a harsh note in Dev’s voice. “Beautiful women have a lot of power. You know that. You have to accept your mother’s nature, Mel. I know you wanted her to come live with you, but the reality was she wanted to stay on Kooraki.”

      Mel responded with real grief. “She chose Kooraki over me. She chose your grandfather over me, a man old enough to be her father, but what the hell? He was anything but your average bloke.” With a defeated sigh, she picked up the laden tray. Dev stood up to take it from her, setting it down on the coffee table.

      She let him eat in peace. She had poured two coffees. Now she sat opposite him, sipping at hers, the rich aroma tantalizing her nostrils and soothing her.

      “That was good!” he exclaimed in satisfaction when he was finished. “I haven’t had anything since around ten this morning.”

      “Why is Mum so set on my attending?’

      “Why are you so set against it?”

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