Amy's Touch

606 Pages·2016·1.47 MB·English

by  Wilding Lyn

AMY’S TOUCH

LYNNE WILDING

A woman ahead of her time — and the two brothers who love her…
After working as a nurse with Australian soldiers in
World War I, Amy Carmichael settles in the little
town of Gindaroo, South Australia. There she is
reunited with one of her former patients, good-natured
Danny McLean, and his moody brother Randall.
The McLeans own Drovers Way, a sheep and cattle
station just out of town. But Drovers Way is in trouble
— and so is Amy. She has become engaged to Danny,
but is dismayed to find that it is Randall for whom
her feelings are strongest. And Randall is engaged to
Elizabeth Walpole, the daughter of the McLean brothers’
greatest rival. In and around Gindaroo rumour is rife,
and when Amy and Randall’s feelings for each other
become obvious, it creates a feud between the Walpoles
and McLeans that will have disastrous consequences …
With unforgettable characters, vivid settings and a sure storyteller’s instinct,
With unforgettable characters, vivid settings and a sure storyteller’s instinct,
Lynne Wilding weaves a tale of love and choices set against the wide brown
acres of the Australian landscape.

Born and bred in Sydney, Lynne Wilding has worked in a
variety of office jobs, and as a cabaret singer under the name of
‘Linda Gave’ in the 1960s.
She began writing seriously in 1981, and her first novel, a
romance titled The Sheikh, was published internationally in
1991. She has continued to write bestsellers, with such novels
as Heart of the Outback and Whispers Through the Pines being
outstanding successes.
In 1991 Lynne became the inaugural President of Romance
Writers of Australia Inc, which grew considerably thanks to her
commitment and expertise.
When not working, Lynne loves to read, garden and travel.
Married to John, Lynne has two adult children, Karen and
Brett, and granddaughters, Liah and Tara.
Amy’s Touch is Lynne’s twelfth novel.

Visit Lynne Wilding at her website:
www.lynnewilding.com
Also by Lynne Wilding
and available from harpercollins:

Heart of the Outback
Whispers Through the Pines
Turn Left at Bindi Creek
This Time Forever
52 Waratah Avenue

Love, Obsessions, Secrets and Lies:
An Anthology (contributor)
King of Cane Valley
Outback Sunset
Sundown Crossing
Amy’s Touch

LYNNE
WILDING

I HarperCollinsPublishers
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2007
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
www.harpercollins.com.au

Copyright © Lynne Wilding 2007

The right of Lynne Wilding to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights)
Act 2000.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act
1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system,
recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.

HarperCollinsPublishers
25 Ryde Road, Pymble, Sydney, NSW 2073, Australia
31 View Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand
77-85 Fulham Palace Road, London,W6 8JB, United Kingdom
2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor,Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada
10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10022, USA

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Wilding, Lynne.
Amy’s touch.
ISBN 13:978 0 7322 8563 0
ISBN 10: 0 7322 8563 1
1. Man—woman relationships — Fiction.
2. Country life - Australia — Fiction. I.Title.
A823.3

Cover image of nurse made up of image from
www.wwlphotos.com/NursingStafF.html and images from Shutterstock
Cover image of soldiers courtesy of Australian War Memorial
Cover background texture and landscape by Darian Causby/Highway51.com.au
Cover design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio
Typeset in 11 on 14 Sabon by Kirby Jones
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press on 70gsm Bulky Book Ivory To
the medical and nursing staff of
St George Private Hospital, Kogarah, Sydney,
with much gratitude
5 4 3 2 1
07 08 09 10
PROLOGUE

30 APRIL 1874

The man squinted against the early-morning sunlight. He reined in
his horse, lifted his battered wide-brimmed hat and wiped the
sweat from his brow. ‘So hot,’ he muttered unnecessarily to no one
but himself as he watched the herd of cattle mill forward. They
kicked up a cloud of fine red dust that made him cough as he inhaled
the minute particles.
He hadn’t expected such severe heat in April. Back in Glasgow,
where he’d left his wife and three children, it was spring and the days would still
be bitterly cold. Now he was half a world away, in the
Flinders Ranges in the colony of South Australia, looking for the
parcel of land he had purchased ‘sight unseen’ almost a year ago.
Scottish by birth and cautious by nature, Howard McLean was
not an impulsive man, but he had behaved that way the day he’d read
the advertisement about prime land for sale in the Australian colony; partly
because it had come at a time when he had been frustrated
beyond measure with the lack of progress of the small farm his family had
owned for two generations at Braemar — two days’ travel by
horse and cart from Glasgow. Making a living, feeding, clothing and
horse and cart from Glasgow. Making a living, feeding, clothing and
trying to educate his family was a day-to-day struggle and he was
tired of it. He had talked it over with his wife, Mary, then scraped
together enough pounds for a deposit and set in chain a series of
events that would change his and his family’s lives forever, in a
country far removed from their experience.
The land here was so different from the hills and dales of Scotland.
Studying the terrain, his interested gaze was distracted by a rider
skirting the western perimeter of the one hundred head of Hereford
cattle they’d been droving for more days than he cared to count, from stockyards
in Adelaide, north-west and slightly towards the ten
thousand acres of virgin bush near the farming village of Gindaroo.
The rider, his nephew, Angus Scotten, had taken to horses and the
Australian bush as a duck did to water, enjoying himself immensely as he
pushed the herd along. A gangly fifteen-year-old, Angus had been
glad to put his schooling behind him to accompany his mother,
Heather, and father, Hamish, on what he hoped would be a great
adventure.

Howard gave a manly snort, then promptly sneezed. Great
adventure! It might be that to Angus, but it was the greatest gamble
Howard had ever taken, and one he had to win. Which was why he
would be happier once he saw the purchased land with his own eyes.
would be happier once he saw the purchased land with his own eyes.
Only then would he be sure that he had made the right decision.

Far behind the herd, his sister, Heather, drove the wagon that held
provisions, farming equipment and building goods purchased in
Adelaide. Behind her came her husband, Hamish, shepherding a
mixed flock of fifty ewes, lambs and two rams.

Howard’s hazel eyes scanned the horizon and the bush around
him, looking for the ‘signposts’ described in the title deed. He had
memorised them so he didn’t have to unfold the legal paper that
described the parcel of land every time he thought they might be
getting close to it. Yesterday, before they’d made camp for the night, they had
skirted the fledgling village of Gindaroo, so, according to his calculations, his
parcel of land couldn’t be too far away. Urging his horse forward, his right hand
delved into his trouser pocket and
brought out an ex-army compass. He checked the direction and gave
a nod of approval. They were heading the right way, and the banks of
the Boolcunda Creek should be just ahead … somewhere.

A movement caught his attention at the front of the herd. The lead
steer had broken away from the others and was heading over to the
right at a brisk pace. Then a change in the tone of the cattle’s lowing alerted
Howard that the herd was shifting direction. His newly
Howard that the herd was shifting direction. His newly
freckled, sunburnt forehead puckered in a frown. Why? As the cattle’s
meanderings picked up pace, the answer came to him. Water. The
cattle smelled water and wanted to get to it.

Suddenly he grinned. Water! Boolcunda Creek. Cupping his hands

around his mouth he yelled to Angus, who was trying to turn the
herd back onto their original line, ‘Let them have their head, laddie. I think
we’ve found the creek.’
And sure enough, there were his ‘signposts’. Howard recognised
them as soon as he sighted the creek through the trees. To the left was a craggy,
reddish-brown three-humped hill, and after fording the
water, which was less than a foot deep, and riding up the bank for a
better view, he came upon a wide, sloping valley, heavily wooded in
parts, with a cluster of roundish boulders on the eastern side. All of which had
been accurately described in his paperwork.
The land looked fine for grazing cattle and sheep, even with the
grass tall and yellow from the summer heat. Dismounting, he knelt
and dug his fingers into the grass until they penetrated beneath.
Grabbing a clump of earth, he held it up to his face to smell and
study it. The soil was good, and crops would grow here if the annual
rainfall was decent. His grin widened with satisfaction, after which, being the
good Methodist that he was, he said a prayer of thanks.