An Outback Affair/Runaway Wife/Outback Bridegroom/Outback Surrender/Home To Eden by Margaret Way Page B

therein the arena. All the major powers, all the little guys spying on each other. The most extraordinary thing is even if they’re on the same side they won’t tell each other what they’ve learned. The strongest intelligence agencies just don’t want to share.”
    â€œThat sounds dangerous.”
    â€œWorse, it could be criminal negligence.”
    â€œYou’ve travelled widely?” It was good to shift the focus from herself.
    â€œI have. A lot of the time hitching rides. Moving on.”
    â€œAn adventurer?”
    â€œSomething like that.”
    â€œWhy did you move here? It’s not your environment. You couldn’t be more isolated.”
    â€œThat was the big attraction,” he said dryly. “The isolation and the lure of the desert. Though the desert was nearly the death of me.”
    â€œHow? Please go on.” She was fascinated.
    â€œI was with an anthropologist friend who was visiting sacred sites when our helicopter crashed. One minute we were sitting pretty, the next falling out of the sky. This is it! It’s all over! The pilot was badly injured, but Greg and I managed to get him clear before the chopper exploded. Search and Rescue spotted us.”
    â€œA bad experience.”
    â€œI’ve had worse.” And a lot closer, he thought.
    â€œThere must have been some good ones?” she insisted, admiring the way his thick dark hair curled around his head and onto his nape.
    â€œMany beautiful and unforgettable ones. The heavenly peaks of the Himalayas. I didn’t climb. I took it easy in a chopper. And perhaps the most awesome journey was to Antarctica, some years back.” Hell, would she remember his photograph on the back cover of his book, complete with full beard? “I got to see a glorious world with a group of great guys from all over,” he continued briskly. “In a curious way the vastness, the overwhelming feeling of being a speck, alone in its powerful effect, isn’t unlike the feeling one getsin the heart of the Outback. You recognise how tough it is to survive. The huskies howl as mournfully as any dingo. The thought that one could easily lose one’s life is the same in both places.”
    â€œWhich makes us full of admiration for all our explorers.”
    â€œLord, yes,” he agreed fervently, even reverently. “It’s not a question of pushing to the limits. It’s going beyond human endurance. And the beauty of the place! The Outback is all brilliant oven-baked ochres. Extremes of colour—blood-red, cobalt blue, the rich gold of the Spinifex plains. A world of great heat and dancing mirage. Antarctica is blinding whiteness. A world of ice with tinges of aqua in the crevices. From the great red pyramids of the desert, its shifting sands sculpted by the winds, to the frozen pyramids of ice and the swirling white blizzards.”
    â€œI’m forming instant pictures.” Laura shivered. “How long were you there?”
    â€œA little over two weeks, then I had to move on.” He didn’t say he’d been due back in Washington.
    â€œI would think an experience like that would not only be memorable it would stay for ever.”
    â€œLike a space flight to the moon.” He smiled.
    â€œI’m surprised you haven’t been there.” she gently mocked.
    â€œI’ve talked to a guy who has.”
    â€œTruly?”
    He nodded, turning his head as a familiar strident sound interrupted them. “That’s the phone. I’ll get it, if you like. It could be Harriet. I asked her to ring us if she had news.”
    â€œI pray it’s good!”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    T HE shock of Ruth McQueen’s death immediately encompassed the whole town, although no one was informed of the exact circumstances. The official word was heart attack.
    The fact that she had gone for a long walk in the bush no one found extraordinary. Ruth McQueen, after all, had run a great