The Legacy by Linda Lael Miller

Author:Linda Lael Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1994-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

12

IAN ACCOMPANIED JACY, ALICE, AND CHRIS TO CHURCH services the next morning. Jacy knew his motivation wasn’t purely spiritual; he wanted to be nearby if there was trouble, and even though his mood was downright irascible, she was touched. Obviously he was determined to look out for her.

Except for the Shifflets and Bram McCulley, all the students’ families were present. Redley was probably chasing dingoes across the bush for the bounty, and Bram was guarding the sacred threshold of the Dog and Goose, no doubt, in case another misguided female should attempt to step over it.

Jacy sighed and settled back in the pew. It wasn’t the parson’s week to be in Yolanda, so one of the congregation members was conducting the services. As a result the sermon was exquisitely dull, and Jacy’s mind wandered.

She thought about Jake, wondered if there truly was a heaven and if her dad had gone there. When her stepson stirred restlessly beside her she thought about his birth mother. Did Elaine Bennett ever wonder about the child she’d given up? Or the man who’d fathered that child?

Jacy frowned and glanced at Ian out of the corner of her eye. His temple was throbbing slightly; he’d rather have been at home, she knew, taming those brumbies of his, or mustering sheep. Anything except sitting in a crowded building, wearing a suit that probably only came out of the closet for weddings and funerals.

My knight in wool and starched cotton, Jacy thought with tender amusement. She let her head rest against his shoulder for a moment.

Even sermons eventually come to an end, and finally that one did. The congregation sang the closing hymn, put their meager contributions into the basket, and adjourned to the shade of the gum and pepper trees out in the yard.

Ian got into a conversation about the last plague of locusts, and Jacy slipped away to approach her students’ parents one by one. All of them promised to have their children at school in the morning, though they seemed to regard the teacher with a certain wary curiosity.

She was still an outsider after all, Jacy reminded herself, suddenly feeling sad. Even though she was the daughter of a native son, she’d lived elsewhere for much of her life, and that made her suspect. For all the hardships of scratching out an existence in the bush, few of the locals would have dreamed of leaving, and they didn’t identify with people who did.

Jacy felt drawn to Jake’s grave, and she was standing there looking out over the stark landscape when a man she didn’t recognize walked toward her across the grass. He was probably in his mid-forties, attractive in an Ivy League sort of way, and very well-dressed.

“Andrew Carruthers,” he said in an American accent, extending a hand to her. “I’m the current manager of Merimbula.”

“Jacy Tier—Yarbro,” Jacy replied, feeling tense. Jake had never trusted the people at Merimbula, and Ian bristled at any mention of the massive station or its management.

Carruthers smiled and glanced back over one shoulder, scanning the milling congregation.

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