Rainbow Fire

  RAINBOW FIRE

  A NOVEL BY

  EMILIE RICHARDS

  ~ ~ ~

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2013

  Cover by Tina McGee

  Cover Photo by @Ben Goode/Dreamstime.com

  Ebook Creation by Jessica Lewis

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission in writing from the author.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Originally published by Silhouette Books in 1989

  This country has an opal heart

  A heart of heat and thirst and drought

  A heart that beats with rainbow dreams

  That keep the unbeliever out.

  And if I take my own heart there

  To mine the dream that never dies

  What dreams will I have left behind?

  What promises exchanged for lies?

  Yet still my brothers, sisters, come

  The starry-eyed, the fool, the liar

  To mine a dream, to touch the past

  To search the earth for rainbow fire.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  Excerpt: From Glowing Embers

  Excerpt: Smoke Screen

  Excerpt: Out Of The Ashes

  CHAPTER 1

  SHE HAD LANDED on the moon. Without benefit of rocket, space suit or NASA's famed countdown, she had landed on the moon, and the trip had only taken three hours, ninety-one dollars and the wind-tossed flight of a Cessna 421.

  Kelsey Donovan squinted at the dusty landscape that spread in front of her like a Jules Verne fantasy. She half expected to see astronaut litter: abandoned space buggies, useless rocket modules, or, at the very least, competitively waving flags proclaiming a race for control of the heavens.

  Instead the sun beat down on her bare head, reminding her that this was Coober Pedy, South Australia. If she didn't find shade quickly, her legs were going to crumple, and she was going to litter this remote corner of Planet Earth with her slender body and small, battered suitcase.

  Kelsey picked up the suitcase once more and began to trudge down the track that had been pointed out to her by the airport taxi driver who had grudgingly dropped her off half a mile back. Half a mile was nothing. In her quest for mastery of her body and emotions, she had once run miles every day as a prelude to more difficult training. Her small-boned frame and delicate milkmaid skin said nothing about the strength of the woman underneath.

  But even a strong woman could be defeated by a blazing midafternoon sun that reflected off coarse red earth like a raging bonfire.

  She wouldn't think about it. She would put one foot in front of the other and keep walking. She would not curse herself for turning down liquids on the flight from Adelaide; she would not curse herself for wearing her best forest green dress and matching heels. She would not curse the faith that had brought her to this strange place.

  This place. This strange, sterile, desolate place. Why would a man like Jake Donovan choose to live among barren red hills in a country that wasn't his own? He would be sixty now, a time when even rugged men begin to think about reaping the rewards of years of hard work. Kelsey had been told often enough that Jake was a dreamer, a man with no common sense and no sense of responsibility. She had been told that he chased the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and found his pleasure in the chase. But there was no rainbow here, and no pleasure that she could see. Just an endless vista of dust and earth and shimmering heat.

  And one slowly melting woman with a dream she had nurtured since she was three years old.

  She stopped again, pulling a tissue from her pocket to wipe her forehead. Surely she should have reached the house by now. But there wasn't a house in sight; in fact, she had seen nothing resembling one since she had left the airfield. Perhaps if she had gone into town, as the taxi driver had insisted, she wouldn't be so disoriented now. Certainly there had been houses in town. She could have checked into the motel, along with the other three passengers and the rest of her luggage, then found a ride to Jake's front doorstep. But she had been stubborn—a trait that some people claimed was synonymous with the Donovan name. She had waited twenty-one years for this moment, and she hadn't wanted to wait even one more hour.

  So the disgruntled driver had dropped her at a fork in the road and pointed, muttering something with a heavy accent that she hadn't taken the time to decipher. Half a mile later, she wished she had made more of an effort.

  Kelsey trudged along the dusty track again, lifting one foot, then the other. The track curved, skirting a clump of naked hills to her right, but she had almost passed the first before she noticed a door in its side.

  A door in a hill.

  "Curious and curiouser," she mumbled with a tongue that felt swollen and heavy. She wondered if the door led to a mine. This was opal mining country. If she opened the door, would it lead to riches beyond imagining? Or would there be nothing except darkness and mildew and disappointment?

  She wished she could find out. Instead she hiked on to the next hill, past another door, and then to the next.

  There was a door in this hill, too, but unlike the others, it wasn't constructed of ill-fitted planks leaning haphazardly against a narrow hole. The door was sturdy and green, a door meant for a brick ranch house in some suburban subdivision. And in front of the door was a flat stone porch crowded with plants and shaded by a grass roof like a South Sea island hut.

  On the porch, in a straight back chair, was a man. Kelsey felt a voluminous surge of relief. Only then did she allow herself to recognize the fear that she had struggled so hard to suppress. She had learned something about the Australian outback today. She would never underestimate it again.

  "Excuse me." She cleared her throat, then tried again, moving off the track toward the man. "Excuse me," she said a little louder.

  The man had one hand buried deep in the fur of a dust-drenched cat at his feet. At her words, he lifted his head and stared at her as if she were a mirage.

  Kelsey noted brown hair not yet touched by gray and the bronzed skin of a man in his early thirties. This man was certainly not her father, but maybe he could lead her to him. "I'm looking for Jake Donovan's house." She swallowed painfully. "Would you mind pointing me in the right direction?" She watched surprise spread across his features as she swayed in the blazing sunlight. His face blurred as sweat dripped into her eyes, and she blinked twice. "Please?" she added when he didn't say anything.

  "Jake Donovan?" he asked finally, his voice resonant with the music of Australia. He stood, stretching to a height that towered over her five foot four. "Who's looking for him?"

  She shut her eyes and swayed again, half expecting to feel the earth rise to meet her. "Kelsey Donovan," she said through thirst-parched lips. "His daughter."

  * * *

  THE APPARITION WAS real. The wraithlike female was flesh and bones and pale red-gold hair, a curling mane of
it that reached past her shoulder blades in a fiercely glorious profusion. Her skin was cream, scorching to an unhealthy rose as Dillon watched. And if his first impression had been correct, her eyes, now squeezed tightly shut, were the pale brown of outback desert before the spring rains.

  Dillon took two huge strides to the collapsing woman and circled her with arms that were turning black and blue from the battering of another rescue mission that day. "Here, let's get you into the shade."

  Kelsey let him take her weight for a moment. Gratefully she leaned against his chest, barely aware of anything except strong arms and the rasp of a cotton shirt against her face. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I guess I'm just not used to the sun. I feel like a fool."

  Dillon realized he was just about to stroke her hair. His right hand hovered over the gold-red mass like a falcon with no place to roost. "Let's get you into the shade," he repeated awkwardly. He was suddenly very much aware that he was holding a beautiful stranger in his arms and that the smell of his own filthy clothing had been replaced by the fragrance of lavender.

  Half-assisting, half-dragging, he helped her to the porch and seated her in the chair he had just vacated. He gave the cat a helpful nudge with the toe of his boot and watched him slink a yard or two to rest between potted plants. "Are you going to pass out?" he asked, turning his attention back to the young woman.

  Kelsey shook her head, and Dillon nodded in satisfaction. "I'll get you a drink." Without waiting for her answer, he disappeared inside, coming back out a moment later with a glass of water. "Take it slow, a sip at a time."

  Kelsey gripped the glass with trembling hands. Every bit of coordination she still possessed went into guiding it to her mouth. The first sip tasted like salvation. Three sips later she cleared her throat. "Thanks."

  Dillon went back inside and returned with a wet washcloth. Kelsey flashed him a wan, grateful smile and bathed her face and hands, appreciating the moist coolness against her heated skin. "I don't even know your name."

  "My name's Dillon. Dillon Ward." Dillon satisfied himself that she was recovering before he took the chair next to her. He watched her smooth the cloth over her cheeks until the worst of the flush disappeared. Only then did he let himself think about her announcement. "So you're looking for Jake."

  "Am I looking in the right part of the universe?"

  Dillon didn't know how to answer. He made a steeple of his hands, resting his unshaven chin on his fingertips. "You say you're his daughter."

  Kelsey drained the glass and wished for another. She turned to examine the man she had only viewed through sweat-tainted eyes. He wasn't just tall, he was broad, although she would stake her life on the fact that there wasn't an ounce of fat on him anywhere. His shoulders were wide enough to create problems in doorways, and his chest strained against the buttons of a remarkably grimy shirt. His curly hair was shaggy and rumpled, and what might otherwise be an intriguing face was dirt-streaked and unshaven. He was an unlikely savior, but her savior nonetheless. "I am his daughter." She set the glass beside the washcloth on a wooden table. "Can you tell me where to find him, or shall I push on?"

  "You won't find him if you push on," Dillon said grimly.

  "I was told his house was nearby."

  "This is his dugout." Dillon gestured behind him. "Rather, it's my dugout. He's been living with me recently. Jake and I are partners."

  "Partners?" She savored the sweet thrill of being so close to the end of a search that had begun a lifetime ago. In strange ways she had been searching for Jake Donovan since he had walked out of her life with nothing more than a kiss on her chubby, baby cheek.

  "Mining partners."

  Kelsey wet her lips and tried to figure out how anyone could live inside a hill. "Is he inside?"

  "He's not."

  She ignored her frustration. "Then where is he?"

  Dillon wondered how he had worked beside Jake for years and never once heard him mention a daughter. He wanted to dispute her claim, at the least tell her she was mistaken, that this was not the Jake Donovan she was looking for. But there was something about the anticipation in her brown eyes that forced him to be silent about his qualms. And if she were indeed Jake's daughter, he sensed how devastating it would be if he told Kelsey Donovan that in all the years Dillon had known him Jake had never mentioned a daughter, never mentioned a marriage, never mentioned anyone name Kelsey. The news would be almost as devastating as what he had to tell her instead.

  "Where is he?" she repeated.

  "Jake's been hurt," he said, watching to see if he was going to have to pick her up off the ground after all. "There was an accident at the mine. Jake's in the hospital."

  Kelsey heard the words, but she couldn't absorb them. They skittered somewhere in the sunshine, just out of reach. "Hurt?"

  He passed a hand over his hair, belatedly giving a thought to his appearance. If he and Kelsey had met on a dark city street, he would probably have struck terror in her heart. But then, no one looked like a prince after crawling through mine drives dragging rescue equipment and lights and. . .

  "There's no pretty way to tell you," Dillon said. He stared at the horizon, wishing for the first time that there was a tree to focus on. But there was nothing, just red-brown dirt and conical hills, a numbing sameness that was broken only by patches of scruffy saltbush. There might still be the occasional wildflower—pink hops and even Sturts desert pea—hiding in the shade. But from his porch he couldn't see them.

  Kelsey felt herself deflate, like a balloon slowly losing helium. She had come so far. So far. "What happened?"

  "He fell down a fifty-foot shaft."

  She nodded blankly, as if she understood. "He's been hurt."

  Dillon was exhausted. He hadn't slept for sixty hours; he hadn't eaten for twelve, and then he had only wolfed down someone's idea of a sandwich so he could keep searching for the man who now lay unconscious in a hospital bed. Dillon was a man of both warmth and wit—or so he had been told by the occasional women in his life. Now his insides were frozen, and each word he spoke was a death knell.

  "I'll take you to him," he said wearily.

  Jake was hurt, maybe dying. Kelsey mentally repeated the words, trying them out like a half-memorized poem. Jake was hurt. Her father was hurt. She felt nothing except the first sting of sunburn on her cheeks. Giving up, she looked down at her sweat-stained, dust-covered dress. "I should change."

  Dillon wondered if Kelsey even knew what she had said. She was in shock; the response had been rote. Someone, somewhere, had taught her that a clean dress could solve any of life's problems. "Have you got something else?"

  Kelsey gestured to the small suitcase she had brought with her. "Only photographs," she said softly. "Photographs of me with my father. And my birth certificate. I didn't want to leave them in the taxi." She sighed. When she looked up, Dillon saw that her eyes were still dry. "I've come too far to be stopped by a dirty dress." She stood and inclined her head toward him, jutting her strong, pointed chin in a movement that made his heart drop to his stomach. "Will you please take me to see him now?"

  And because Dillon had seen Jake's own pointed chin assume the same angle more times than he could begin to count, he rose to his feet. There was nothing else about Kelsey Donovan that was like Jake, but at that moment there was no one in the world who could have persuaded him that she wasn't Jake's child. And Jake was Dillon's partner, his mate.

  He grasped her elbow, although for whose support he wasn't sure. "We'll be there in ten minutes."

  * * *

  IF THE COOBER Pedy landscape resembled the moon's surface the Coober Pedy hospital resembled Star Trek's Enterprise. Contemporary and low-lying, with a corrugated roof that overlapped and intermittently swept to the ground in bold architectural statements, the building had been perfectly designed for its outback environment. With her sense of reality suspended, Kelsey followed Dillon through its corridors. She knew she had suffered too much sun, too much disappointment. But the sense of bei
ng trapped in a bubble wasn't vanishing quickly enough.

  Her father had been hurt. The man she hadn't seen in more than two decades had fallen fifty feet down a mine shaft. Yet she could feel nothing.

  The waiting area was sparkling clean and freshly painted, with nothing except a tiny, brightly trimmed Christmas tree to mar its antiseptic perfection. Kelsey watched as Dillon murmured something to a young woman behind a counter marked "Enquiries." The woman didn't seem surprised to see a man as disheveled as Dillon in the immaculate hallway. She only nodded and pointed to two chairs. Dillon came back to Kelsey and led her to them.

  He waited until she was seated. "The doctor is still with Jake. The nursing sister says she'll tell him you're here."

  Kelsey closed her eyes. "I'm surprised there’s a doctor and a hospital in this town."

  "I'll bet you're surprised there's anything here."

  "Or anyone."

  "There's opal here."

  Kelsey heard the unspoken coda. "And that's enough of a reason to live in the middle of nowhere?"

  Dillon tipped up the wide brim of the rust-colored felt hat he had jammed on his head before guiding Kelsey into the truck he called a "ute." "We call it the never-never when we're not calling it home."

  "Does my father call it home?" She heard her own longing and knew the protective bubble had burst.

  Dillon heard the longing, too, and he didn't know what to do about it. Jake's daughter was as much of a mystery as Jake's accident. "Jake's not much of a talker," he said, closing his eyes. "He doesn't call it anything."

  "I've heard he was quite a talker." She couldn't remember, herself. Sometimes she thought she could glimpse the past. She could almost hear a man's laughter or a rough, gravelly voice, almost feel strong arms lifting her into the air, tossing her high and catching her as she squealed in delight. Strong arms catching her.