For a few moments, she nursed the scant hope that someone else would be driving the flock, or mob, as the locals called it—one of Ian’s two or three hired men maybe. Even before Ian himself came into view, however, mounted on that enormous liver-colored stallion Jake had written her about, she knew she couldn’t be so lucky.
She wasn’t ready, she thought frantically.
Not so soon.
The baaing and bleating of the sheep grew until the racket filled Jacy’s skull and stomach, and she watched the mob divide like water coursing around a stone. Two lean dogs kept the odd-looking beasts moving when they would have stopped to nibble the grass in the yard, and great clouds of red dust billowed in the hot, still air, covering the freshly washed quilt with grit.
Jacy just stood there on the back step, like a felon on the scaffold, waiting for the noose to tighten around her neck. Her clothes, jeans and a white T-shirt, felt all wrong, her hair probably looked like hell, and she hadn’t bothered to put on makeup. She’d never felt less prepared for anything.
She figured she’d be really upset about the quilt, once her thoughts calmed down, but at the moment she was too distracted.
In the dazzling light of a summer day, it was plain that Ian’s features had hardened with maturity. His violet gaze seemed to slice through her spirit, cutting cleanly, leaving no jagged edges.
Her knees went weak and she sagged onto the step. Jetlag, she insisted to herself, though it had been more than three weeks since she’d landed in Adelaide.
Ian was wearing perfectly ordinary clothes—a battered stockman’s hat, a blue cambric workshirt, the front of which was stained with sweat, jeans, and boots, and yet the sight of him stole Jacy’s breath away.
“How’s Jake this morning?” he asked, shouting to be heard over the last of the sheep and swinging down from the saddle. There was nothing cordial in the question; she could see by his expression that things hadn’t changed since the night before.
“See for yourself,” she replied, amazed that the words had gotten past her constricted throat. Her heart was pounding like a ceremonial drum, and she feared she might be sick to her stomach.
Ian tethered the horse to a rusted hitching post, resettled his hat, and crossed the yard to stand facing her. “See for myself I will,” he answered in that low, rumbling voice that had once urged her to passion and then consoled her afterward, when she’d feared that all the scattered pieces of her soul would never find their way back to her. “If you’ll just get out of my way.”
Jacy looked straight into those impossibly violet eyes, and her heart shattered all over again. She rose and turned her back on Ian, praying he wouldn’t guess how shaken she was.
“Dad was sleeping, before your sheep came tramping through here like a herd of buffalo,” she said in a moderately acidic tone. She could feel him behind her, though of course they weren’t touching, feel the heat and hardness of him in the small of her back, the space between her shoulder blades and her nape, the tender flesh of her thighs and the insides of her knees. “I don’t suppose you noticed what those creatures did to my clean quilt.”
They entered the kitchen.
“I don’t suppose I did,” Ian said, utterly without remorse. “I’ll tell Jake you’re here.”
“Thanks for that much, anyway,” Ian grumbled. In an involuntary backward glance, Jacy saw him hang his hat on a peg beside the door and shove splayed fingers through his hair.
Suddenly the old anger crashed through all her carefully constructed defenses, swamping her, and it took every ounce of Jacy’s self-control to keep her voice calm and even. “What did you expect, Ian? That I’d welcome you with open arms? That I’d thank you for teaching me that love has fangs?”
Ian’s jawline hardened but, before he could speak, Jake appeared in the inside doorway, leaning on his cane.
“Hello, mate,” he said. “I wondered when you’d get round to paying an old man a visit.”
Ian’s laugh was a low burst of sound, only too well remembered by Jacy and somehow excluding her. “You think I’ve got nothing better to do than eat biscuits and sip tea with the likes of you, Jake Tiernan?”
Jacy hurried outside before her father could suggest that she put the kettle on. She’d eat a bale of raw wool before she’d make tea and fetch cookies for Ian Yarbro. If he wanted refreshments, he could damn well serve himself.
Look for
The Legacy
Taming Charlotte Page 36
