Chapter 72 Make Sure It's

• “Make sure it’s left in the ignition,” she instructed, as she handed over the set of keys she carried.
“I only need the one for the car.”
“I’ll never use the others again so they don’t matter. I won’t be coming back, Jared.”
“You’re prepared to leave everything behind?”
“Yes.”
“Including me?”
His eyes seemed to burn into her soul. It hurt so much, more than he’d ever know, to turn her back on what they might have had together. For several moments she couldn’t override the yearning that ripped through her. She wanted to reach out and hold onto him, to take whatever he’d offer her, to wallow in his caring, to lean on his strength, to tell him no-one—no-one—had given her what he had and she wished they could stay together.
Tears pricked her eyes. She wrenched her gaze away, took a deep breath and forced out the only answer she could give, if she was not to ruin his life in ways he wouldn’t comprehend until they hit him. He would end up cursing her for involving him if she didn’t finish it now.
“There is no future for us,” she stated categorically. “There never was. You asked for one night. It’s gone. But I’ll always remember it. And I thank you for the memory.”
That said it all. Pointless to expand on it even if her throat wasn’t choked up. Expressing her feelings might only goad him to insist on standing by her side and she couldn’t let him. If she sounded cold and heartless, so much the better. Easier for him to let her go, believing she didn’t care enough to hold on.
She kept herself rigidly still, staring ahead, closing him out of her personal space, mentally sealing every crack in her composure, determined not to leave him any opening for a different ending to this final encounter. Jared King was a good man. She might not leave him feeling good about the rather curt end to their relationship, but at least she could ensure nothing worse happened to him because of her.
It should have been a relief to reach the outskirts of Broome, knowing their time together was mercifully short now. Perversely, that reality increased the painful anticipation of parting. Forever, Christabel thought, on a wave of intense misery. In a few more minutes, Jared King would only be a memory for her, and she had a terrible urge to feast her eyes on him while she still could, to stamp every detail of him on her brain. She didn’t have a photograph of him. All she would have was a memory and it had to last forever.
But if she looked at him he’d see…he’d feel what she was feeling. Jared was so perceptive, so sensitive to mood changes. She couldn’t risk looking. Her hands clenched in savage resistance to the urge that would undermine the attitude she had struck. For his sake, she reminded herself. For his sake she had to be content with the memory of their one night together.
The Range Rover turned onto the road to the airport. She shot a quick glance at Alicia in the back seat, realising she’d been completely quiet on the trip. Her head was slumped in sleep. She’d nodded off, tired from the long walk at the bird observatory. A five-year-old child, Christabel thought, worrying over how long she could keep her daughter an innocent little girl, ignorant of the forces that saw only her inheritance.
Jared drove straight to the KingAir office. There was one small plane out front, ready to be taxied onto the runway. Desperate to limit any farewell scene, Christabel anxiously gabbled, “I’ll take Alicia out to the plane while you notify the pilot we’re here.”
“She’s asleep. I’ll carry her. See you both strapped into your seats,” he firmly countered.
“Okay,” she agreed, realising his way might be easier, avoiding a spate of questions from a newly wakened Alicia.
The moment he switched off the engine, they were both out of the vehicle, Jared appearing as keen as she was to speed her on her way. There was no more talking between them. Whatever Jared thought of her decision, he was keeping it to himself and she was grateful not to have any argument from him.
They walked out to the plane in a silence that throbbed with all that remained unspoken. Having spotted them from the office window, one of the KingAir employees—the pilot?—raced out to catch up with them and be on hand to open the door and adjust the front passenger seat in the cockpit to allow access to the seats behind it. He helped Christabel into the small plane then stood back for Jared to lift Alicia into the seat beside her.
As he withdrew his arms from around her daughter, Christabel grasped his hand, wanting one last touch of him. “Thank you, she said huskily. “Thank you for everything, Jared.”
His mouth took on a wry twist as he answered, “My pleasure.”
But there was no pleasure in his eyes. They were hard and flat and she had the quivery feeling that they were shielding a relentless drive to accomplish what he wanted accomplished. Which was probably to cut her out of his life as ruthlessly as she was cutting him.
“Fasten your seat belts,” he instructed, moving his hand from hers to lock the front seat back into place. “Take-off will be in five minutes.”
He closed the door and strode back to the office with the KingAir employee. The parting was so abrupt, she’d had no time to remind him about bringing the Cherokee to the airport. He’d remember, she assured herself. Though he might not want to remember anything else.
She sat in a pall of sadness, waiting for the pilot to come. Her chest was so tight, she needed the release of tears, but knowing instructions had to be given about her destination, she held back the flood that threatened. Later, when they were in the sky, she could give way to her grief for a while.
Her heart cramped when she saw Jared walking back to the plane. Alone. Was there trouble? More delay? Wrapped in dread of last-minute complications, she didn’t realise his intention, even when he walked around the other side of the plane and hauled himself into the pilot’s seat and closed the door behind him.
“Do we have a problem?” she croaked out.
“None that won’t get sorted,” he answered, and switched on the ignition.
“Jared?” Bewilderment crashed into horror. “You can’t…”
“This is my plane, Christabel, and I’m flying you to a safe place. As I promised.”
“But you agreed…”
“The Cherokee will be brought to the airport to buy us more time, but when time runs out, my mother knows how to deal with your visitors.”
Overwhelming panic. He was drawing his family into her mess! “Your mother doesn’t know what she’s dealing with.”
“Doesn’t matter. She knows I’m taking you somewhere untouchable. Where the only law is Lachlan’s law,” he said with grim satisfaction. “We deal from strength, Christabel, a strength that belongs uniquely to the outback.”
“You don’t understand their resources,” she cried.
“Nor they ours,” he retorted, totally unmoved by her protests, taxiing the plane towards a take-off position.
“Please, please listen,” she begged. “You don’t know what you’re up against.”
“But I will know, Christabel. Either from them or from you.”
She heard the ruthless, relentless tone in his voice, knew the purpose he’d hidden behind the hard, flat eyes, and finally comprehended that Jared had no intention of letting her go before finding out everything he wanted to know.
“You might as well settle back and relax now,” he instructed, facing the plane down the runway.
“Where do you think they can’t get at us?” she asked in bleak resignation.
“King’s Eden. We fly to King’s Eden, Christabel. Tommy will monitor the airways. Nathan rules the ground. No-one can get to King’s Eden without our knowing it, and if they come, it will be on our terms.”
He was so sure, so confident. Maybe it was true. The Kings of the Kimberly virtually had a legendary status, having ruled their territory for over a hundred years. Were they impregnable in that majestic old homestead that had housed generation after generation of a family bonded to a hard, primitive land?
Primitive…the word stuck in her mind. For all Jared’s sophisticated polish, he came from pioneering stock, people who fought for what they held, people who endured any and all adversity, people who survived and went on prospering..
• She remembered the aborigines at Nathan’s wedding, calling on the spirits of the Dreamtime with their didgeridoos. She remembered the timeless feel of the place, the daunting distances, the sense of a strong, unbreakable destiny embodied in Nathan King and his brothers, standing shoulder to shoulder, and the pride on their mother’s face, looking at them with the bearing of a queen who knew she had given birth to kings…kings of the outback.
The plane lifted off, control in Jared’s hands now.
Could this formidable family do it…break the chains of the Kruger juggernaut of power? She shook her head at the fanciful thought. Why should they when she and Alicia were not their responsibility? Nor did they owe her anything.
She had to tell them what they’d taken on, lay out the whole picture for Jared to see not only what he was embroiling his family in now, but what he could expect in any future with her. Then he could decide if the fight was worth fighting.
His choice.
He’d overridden her choice.
She gave up worrying and let the blocked tears swim into her eyes. Jared might believe King’s Eden was the perfect escape. He meant well. But Christabel couldn’t believe it would really provide that. For her and Alicia it was the end of the road.