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BAD THINGS COME IN THREES.

Ian couldn’t help think of the old superstition as he drove a mob of sheep across the Tiernan paddock to Corroboree Springs the morning after Jake’s funeral. First there had been the storm, which had cost him several ewes and lambs. He still hadn’t found the horse he’d been riding that day, and he’d very nearly lost his life. Right after that his best friend had sat himself down under a gum tree and given up the ghost.

Ian pushed his hat off and scratched the back of his neck in the same motion, with the same hand, being careful to avoid the place Jake had stitched. He shifted uncomfortably in the saddle, afraid to think what the third disaster might be.

Maybe, Ian reflected as the woollies closed in on the springs, it was marrying Jacy.

The new horse, skittish and green, danced nervously as the sheep surged around its legs. Ian and the dogs relaxed; the creatures had caught the scent of water, and their own thirst would drive them the rest of the way.

Ian looked back over his shoulder toward the house. He knew Jacy was there, sorting through her father’s things, deciding which were to be kept and which to be given away. It was lonely and painful work by its very nature, but she had refused his offer to help.

He understood that, too. The ritual belonged to Jacy, to hold close or to share, whichever she chose. Still, Ian had an ache rooted either in his gut or his heart—he couldn’t tell which—because she wouldn’t let him inside the circle of her grief.

He swung down from the saddle and left the horse’s reins dangling. At first Jacy had allowed him to comfort her—she’d leaned on him, clung to him, wept in his arms. They’d both taken refuge in the one thing in their relationship that could be counted upon to work—their explosive lovemaking.

That morning, however, when Jacy had announced her intention to start emptying the house at Corroboree, there had been a certain coolness in her manner, and she’d avoided Ian’s eyes. Clearing out Jake’s things was her job, she’d said, and when he had gone so far as to suggest that she might need some help she’d cut him off with a look.

He stood on the grass now, hat in hand, gazing up at the house where he had played so many games of cards, losing most of the time. The place had been his second home, Jake his second father. He had gone there to share triumphs and, once or twice, to weep. He could deal with all of that; it was knowing Jacy didn’t want him around that hurt.

Jacy started sorting things in the kitchen, since she wasn’t quite ready to face going through Jake’s books, papers, and other personal belongings. The letter she’d come across earlier, the one directed to some woman in Queensland, found its way into her hands immediately.

She sank into a chair at the table, staring at the words—so many words—moving neatly across the paper. She had to find out who this woman was and let her know about Jake’s death, but for all of that she still felt as if she were intruding. Letters were so private, especially love letters.

Drawing a deep breath, Jacy flipped back the pages of the tablet until she came to the opening: “Dear Margaret…”

A flood of unfounded resentment swamped Jacy’s heart. Dear Margaret, indeed. In between her visits to Australia her father had never written a line—he hadn’t even sent birthday or Christmas cards. And yet he’d penned pages to this woman.

“Get a grip, Jacy,” she said aloud. Whatever his failings, Jake had been a good father when she was with him, if a poor correspondent when they were apart, and he’d certainly had a right to a private life.

She folded the rest of the letter without reading it, having already absorbed the central message of the thing. Jake had been in love with Margaret, whoever she was. He’d planned to join her in Queensland. What else was there to know?

Resigned, Jacy left the kitchen and went into the living room. Jake’s desk was there against one wall, covered with clutter, although the rest of the house was characteristically neat. The first thing she had to do, if she was to have any peace, was to find Margaret’s address and write her.

While searching Jake’s desk for an address book or even an envelope with the label still on it, she came across a stack of letters tied with plain string. A curious sense of alarm and happiness surged through her when she realized that the envelopes were all addressed to her. Each one had a stamp neatly affixed and never canceled. Jake had written to her, then—but why hadn’t he posted the letters?

She held the thick packet against her heart for a moment, then tucked it carefully into her handbag. She would read Jake’s letters later, in a private place, when she’d had time to prepare herself for the emotional jolt.

She’d heard Ian’s sheep passing the house, of course, and as she went by the window to return to her dad’s desk and the task of tracking down the mysterious Margaret, she caught a glimpse of her husband.

Ian was standing near the springs in almost the very spot where he had, for all intents and purposes, made love to her. He held the trademark hat in one hand and gazed toward the house with an expression Jacy couldn’t read.

She didn’t know whether or not he could see her, and in the final analysis it didn’t matter. She wanted Ian to help her with Jake’s things; she could even admit, at least to herself, that she needed him. Still, for some unfathomable reason, she couldn’t let him inside the smothering wall of grief and regret that surrounded her.

Jacy bit her lower lip, fighting the urge to go out onto the veranda and call out to Ian, and finally found the strength to turn away. She could grant Ian admission to her body, even welcome him eagerly, but her spirit, the most vital and private part of her, was closed to him. And to everyone else.

She came across papers, receipts for paid bills, newspaper clippings, and, finally, an empty envelope with an address in the upper left-hand corner. The woman’s name was Margaret Wynne, and she lived in a small town on the northern coast of Queensland.

Jacy smoothed the old envelope out on the desktop, running her hand over the thin paper as if she could divine something by touching it, like a psychic. What, she wondered, knowing it was foolish even as she entertained the question, had Margaret Wynne offered Jake that her mother, Regina, had not?

Unfair question, she said to herself. Jacy didn’t know much about her parents’ parting all those years ago, but she was clear on one thing: The divorce had mostly been Regina’s idea. She’d left Jake in a fury, taking their small daughter with her, but Jacy had never been able to get either her mother or her father to tell her why it had happened.

Like most everyone else, Jacy had speculated that it was because Regina’s wealthy widowed mother had raised her to be a pampered princess. The only time Regina had ever rebelled, to Jacy’s knowledge, was when she married “that Australian man,” as her grandmother had ever after referred to Jake. Regina had just completed college and had come to Australia on a world tour. She’d made the trip to Yolanda because her former roommate, an exchange student, lived there. During the visit Regina had met Jake Tiernan and fallen head over heels in love with him.

“What happened?” Jacy wondered aloud. She couldn’t help thinking of her own unconventional courtship and marriage. God knew what she felt for Ian was powerful, whether it could be classified as true love or not. And she wanted it to work—oh, dear heaven, she prayed, let it work.

She squeezed her eyes shut. When Paul was sick she’d prayed frantically, and God hadn’t listened. If He wouldn’t save a good person’s life in answer to a prayer, why would He care about the outcome of one relationship?

Jacy had lost more than a friend when Paul died. She’d lost her faith.

Shaking off a lot of troublesome thoughts, Jacy went back to work. She heard the sheep pass the house again, bleating and baaing, heard the dogs barking, but she didn’t go back to the window. Seeing Ian just then would weaken her, and she couldn’t allow that to happen.

By one o’clock that afternoon Jacy had packed Jake’s clothes into boxes Alice had save up, stripped his bed and folded the blankets and sheets, cleaned out his bureau drawers and the medicine cabinet. She had no memory of crying, but her eyes felt sore and swollen, and the skin on her face was chapped.

She put the boxes in a neat stack and went out to get into Jake’s truck. She’d appropriated that, along with some books, a couple of photo albums, and the packet of letters in her purse.

Jacy felt hollowed out inside as she drove toward Ian’s house—she still couldn’t think of it as her home, but maybe that would come in time. On Monday morning, she resolved school would start again. She would visit her students’ families personally, in fact, to let them know. The Shifflets were at the top of her list.

Thinking about her job gave her a way to escape missing Jake for a little while, to dodge all her doubts and regrets.

She had not expected to encounter Ian before dinner time, but when she arrived at the homestead the area in back was choked with ewes and their woolly little lambs, and Ian was leading his horse into the barn. The dogs, ever faithful, sat panting at their separate posts like furry sentinels awaiting their orders.

Jacy hesitated, torn between the desire to avoid Ian and the need to be close to him. Finally she took a deep breath, let it out, and started wading through the sheep.

Ian was just inside the hay shed door, muttering to the fitful horse while he unbuckled the cinch to remove the saddle.

“Is that one of your wild ones?” Jacy asked, because that seemed safe.

He looked at her, though the brim of his hat hid his expression. “Yes,” he said. “Some of the lads catch them out in the bush. I buy and train them to work sheep and cattle.”

Jacy bit her lip, at a loss. She wanted to be close to Ian, but she was afraid, so afraid. No one else on the face of the earth had the power to hurt her that he did, and making herself vulnerable to him felt like baring her bosom to the sword.

Ian pulled the saddle off the horse’s back and set it on the rail of a stall gate, along with the blanket beneath. He was removing the bridle, the hat still cloaking his emotions, when he spoke again. “Did you make any progress over at Jake’s place?”

Jacy came a little closer, though not much, and perched on the edge of a bale of hay. Strange, she reflected, how she could respond to Ian in bed and be so wary of him in the daylight. But then exposing the body was quite a different matter from exposing the soul.

“He didn’t have a whole lot,” she said, knotting her fingers together. “It’s kind of sad the way the space we occupy fills in so soon after we’re gone.”

Ian kept his distance, perhaps sensing the odd fragility she felt. Pushing back his hat, leaning against a support beam, he folded his muscular arms across his chest. He regarded her solemnly for a long moment, and when he spoke his voice was hoarse. “Jake was a good man. He left a lot behind to remember him by.”

Jacy felt her throat constrict, felt tears sting her already ravaged eyes. “Like what? A few acres of land, some letters and papers …”

Ian crossed the space between them and crouched in front of Jacy, catching hold of her chin and forcing her to look at him. “Like you,” he said. He gestured in the general direction of the homestead. “Like a little boy who’ll always remember the man who taught him to catch frogs and then set them free. Like a lot of people who are proud to say they were his mates. That’s what Jake left behind.”

Jacy slumped forward, her forehead resting on Ian’s strong shoulder, and started to sob. “I thought I was past this!” she babbled between pitiful, snuffly wails.

Ian rubbed her back with both hands, cautiously at first, and then with something almost like relief. “It’ll be a while, sheila, before the storm blows over. All we can do is ride it out.”

She raised her head after a few minutes of pure, unadulterated grief and studied his face with burning, heavy-lidded eyes. “Why did you marry me, Ian? Was it to make sure I wouldn’t put up a fence so you couldn’t drive your sheep to the springs?”

He stiffened for just a fraction of a moment, but it was long enough for Jacy to know that she’d touched on the truth. He drew back, his hands strong on her shoulders, and searched her face with those marvelous, heart-stopping blue eyes of his.

“I wanted you,” he said in the blunt, plain way so typical of him. “It drove me crazy thinking of you, wanting you, remembering how it was when things were good between us….”

Wanting me, thinking of me, Jacy thought. What about loving me, Ian Yarbro? Did that ever enter your mind?

In that instant she realized that she did indeed love Ian with all her heart and soul. She’d never stopped caring for him, not for a single breath or heartbeat, though she’d managed to delude herself for a long time.

Instead of comforting Jacy, the knowledge terrified her. She was vulnerable, her soul as naked as a snail caught outside its shell. It made her all the more determined to protect herself.

She would have gotten up off that bale of hay and run away, but Ian held her in place.

“Why did you marry me?” Ian countered. It was a fair question, a reasonable question, and the very last one Jacy wanted to answer just then.

Because I love you, you idiot, she thought in fury and pain. What she actually said was very different. “Same thing,” she relied flippantly. “I wanted to go to bed with you. One thing about you, Ian—you’re a hell of a lover.”

He narrowed his eyes for a moment, obviously confused, and the realization did Jacy’s bruised heart good. For thousands of years, she thought, men had been evaluating women on that basis; let them see how they liked it!

“Who were you comparing me with?” he asked, catching her off guard all over again. “Paul?”

A flush climbed Jacy’s neck and throbbed in her face. “Since I’ve never slept with anyone but you, I can’t make a comparison. For all I know, you’re on the low end of the scale.”

He considered that, and if Jacy hadn’t been so torn up about other things she might have laughed at his confounded expression. “What about Paul?” he persisted after a moment.

Jacy sighed. “I wondered if you knew about him,” she said. “I guess Dad must have told you, huh?”

Ian looked honestly worried, and that raised Jacy’s spirits a bit. Maybe he cared just a little under all that pride and uncompromising masculinity. “He didn’t say much. That wasn’t Jake’s way.”

Jacy slid her teeth over her lower lip before answering. “No, it wasn’t. And he didn’t know the whole truth anyway.”

Ian tensed; she felt it through his hands, saw it in the set of his jaw and the tightening of his shoulder muscles. “I don’t suppose you’d care to share that—the whole truth, I mean.”

She smiled. Ah, power. It was so fleeting, but so intoxicating while it lasted. “Paul was the very best friend I’ve ever had,” she said when she couldn’t sustain the silence any longer. “He was also gay.”

Ian arched one dark eyebrow; for a moment Jacy thought he was going to ask what Paul’s being happy had to do with anything, but then he let out his breath in a rush. His grin was blinding, and more than a little cocky. “So you didn’t sleep with him?”

She was exasperated. “Don’t be a peacock, Yarbro,” she said. “I might have slept with Paul if he hadn’t been dating a bellman at the Waldorf-Astoria.”

Ian’s grin faded. “He died …”

“Of AIDS,” Jacy said with soft ferocity, preparing herself for battle. The macho types like Ian were sometimes very quick to condemn or to minimize, and she wasn’t going to stand for it for a moment. Paul had been her friend—he’d been a victim, not a criminal—and she wouldn’t let anyone tarnish his memory or make light of the pain and indignity he’d suffered.

Ian paled. “Dear God,” he said, and then he pulled Jacy close and held her very tightly. “Oh, God, sheila, I’m so sorry.”

Jacy closed her eyes. Thank you, she thought, and one bruise, tucked away in a shadowy region of her heart, began to heal. She pushed away from Ian in the next instant, though, afraid to hide out in his embrace for too long.

“Aren’t you scared that I might be contaminated or something?”

He frowned. “Are you trying to goad me into a fight?” he countered.

She looked away, unable to deny the charge.

Ian cupped her face in his hands and gazed deep into her eyes. His own were dancing with mischief and a cautious tenderness. “No fights, sheila. I could win easily, you know, and I don’t like taking advantage of weaker minds. No sport in it.”

Jacy laughed, placed both palms on Ian’s chest, and pushed him backward. “‘Weaker minds,’ is it?” she demanded as Ian scrambled to catch his balance and landed on his backside in the straw just the same. “You’ve met your match this time, Ian Yarbro—I can be every bit as cussed as you.”

He got to his feet, and so did Jacy. She wriggled her fingers in farewell and turned to go, but Ian caught her by the waistband of her jeans and whirled her around so that she collided with him. Hard.

Bold as only he could be, Ian cupped her backside in his hands and thrust her against him. Her nipples went hard when her breasts were pressed to his chest, and heat curled up through her like smoke. She hated his power over her, and feared it, but she couldn’t have broken free of his embrace to save civilization itself.

He kissed her, thoroughly and hard, until she sagged against him, helpless with her need. When he led her into a shadowy corner of an empty stall where the straw smelled fresh and sweet, she made no attempt to resist him. In fact, the idea didn’t even cross her mind; if she was worried about anything, it was being caught.

“Remember, sheila?” Ian whispered, opening the buttons of her blouse with damnable grace. “Remember all the places we hid away and made love until nothing else mattered? Well, that’s what’s going to happen now. For a little while you and I are both going to forget all our troubles.”

She moaned as he pushed away her blouse and brought down her bra so that her breasts bounced free, their tips already puckered and hot. “Oh, God, Ian,” she gasped.

“Remember,” he repeated, opening her jeans, reaching inside to caress her most intimate place, to stroke the small nubbin of flesh, with its cluster of nerves, until it throbbed and seemed to strain toward him the way her nipples did. His own breath came shallow and quick as he bent to nibble hungrily at the side of her neck, the underside of her jaw, the rounded tops of both her breasts. “Oh, God, Jacy, say you haven’t forgotten how it was.”

She was trembling. “I couldn’t have,” she admitted breathlessly, tilting her head back, stiffening as he took a nipple into his mouth and sucked greedily. His hand stroked and teased her all the while; she was wet, her insides already expanding to receive him, but it would be a long time before he appeased her. “Oh, God—oh, God—I remember.”

When he knelt before her and pulled her jeans and panties the rest of the way down, Jacy was completely lost. She leaned back against the wall of the barn, her eyes closed, waiting, offering herself, and yet a little afraid because every time Ian made love to her he carried her to new heights and made her give more and more of herself.

He pulled off her shoes, her socks, and then the jeans and panties were gone, too. Her only clothing was a blouse, hanging wide open, and a bra that hung loose from her shoulders.

“Remember this, sheila?” he asked, parting her with his fingers. She felt his breath on that most tender and intimate part of her, that part that had hardened with yearning.

She gasped and threaded her fingers through his hair, being careful of the half-healed wound at the back of his head, tensing because she did remember. God help her, for ten years she’d relived other encounters with Ian and awakened in a torment of aching heat. It had only receded, that heat; it had never been assuaged.

He nibbled at her, and she gave a low, helpless moan. “Shall I stop?” he teased after sending silver flames shooting through Jacy like fireworks.

She tightened her fingers in his hair. “No,” she whimpered, as she always had, long ago, when Ian had loved her this way. “No, please—”

His tongue flicked over her, and she swallowed a long animal cry, tossing her head back and forth, feeling perspiration on her skin. Ian put one of her legs over his shoulder, and then the other, her bare back pressed against the wall. He was going to have her, in the same methodical, torturously beautiful way he always did, and the prospect was an exquisite conquering in its own right.

“Hold on, sheila,” Ian said, his voice muffled by her own moist, aching flesh. “You’re in for the ride of your life.”

Jacy bucked against his mouth—there was no escaping Ian’s quick tongue, his lips, the heat of his breath. He gave her no quarter but pursued her relentlessly and drove her into an explosive climax. Her cries were primitive, like those of a she-wolf with her mate, and she could no more hold them back than she could stop the sweet, violent convulsions of her response.

When at last she was finished and sagged back against the wall, her skin slick with perspiration, her breath coming in ragged gasps, he started in on her again.

“No, Ian,” she pleaded, tossing her head. “No, really—” But even as she said the words she was burrowing her fingers into his thick hair again and drawing him closer.

He brought her to three different releases, each one more piercingly pleasurable than the last, before laying her down in the straw. Jacy was exhausted, and yet, as she watched Ian shed his clothes, there was a quickening deep inside her, a brazen readiness that baffled her. When he stretched out over her, naked and magnificent, she welcomed him, her hands moving soothingly up and down his back.

Ian’s kisses were feverish and quick; Jacy’s pleasure had aroused him far more than anything she could have done. Speaking gently, tenderly, as though consoling him, she guided Ian to the center of her womanhood, put her hands on his buttocks, and ushered him slowly, slowly inside her.

He held himself high, push-up style, his head back like a stallion’s, his teeth bared as he struggled with forces even he could not control. She saw the muscles in his neck and throat form quivering cords as she stroked his buttocks lightly, urging him.

For a while, Ian remained deep inside Jacy, but then he withdrew and came into her again, and withdrew. She had thought, up until then, that she’d given him everything, but the friction ignited her most primitive instincts all over again. Soon she was pitching beneath Ian, flinging herself at him, trying to make him move faster.

His control was consummate. He kept his strokes long, slow, and even, until Jacy came apart beneath him, thrusting herself upward, abandoning the many and complex defenses that stood between them at all other times. When she’d settled down and stopped crying out, Ian sought his own satisfaction, driving deep inside her again and again, his gaze locked with hers. Finally, with a low cry, he stiffened upon her, and she felt his warmth spilling into her and arched her back to receive him.

When Ian’s magnificent body had stopped its wondrous, spasmodic flexing he collapsed beside her in the fragrant straw, burying his face in her neck.

She wished he would say he loved her—it would have been the perfect time—but he didn’t, and Jacy couldn’t take the chance of being first to say the words. They were too powerful, too full of dark magic.

So she just lay there waiting, holding her husband close, her whole body reverberating with the shattering effects of his lovemaking, her breathing and heartbeat in overdrive. Probably fifteen minutes had passed before Ian raised himself onto an elbow, eyed her breasts with a distinct twinkle in his eyes, and ran his tongue across his upper lip.

Jacy hiked up her bra and pulled her blouse closed. “Oh, no you don’t,” she said. “I’ll have a heart attack if we do that again.”

Ian didn’t speak. He simply took her by the waist and lifted her so that she sat astraddle of him. She felt his impressive manhood under her, already rising to the occasion.

“Ian, I mean it,” she whimpered. But an ache was starting way up inside her, where only Ian could reach.

He said nothing but simply parted her blouse again, pushed it down over her shoulders, tossed it aside. Her bra followed, while she just stared into his hypnotic gaze with wide, worried eyes.

“I’m serious,” she whimpered.

Ian pulled her head down for his kiss. “So am I,” he replied when he’d given her a small preview of what would happen next.

“You’re going to kill me.”

Grasping her hips, he slid her forward, and she had to plant her hands in the straw to keep from landing on her head. Her breasts dangled helplessly over his face. “But as they say,” he teased, “what a way to go.” He caught a nipple lightly between his teeth then, following up with a few quick passes of his tongue.

“Oh, God,” Jacy moaned, tilting her head back.

“I wouldn’t look for any help from that quarter,” Ian responded, breathing the words rather than speaking them, grasping her buttocks in his hands and arranging her just the way he wanted her.

“Ian,” she whined, “I mean it—if you make me do all that again—”

He took a good long time suckling one of her breasts before answering. “I am going to make you do all that again, sheila—and then some.” He slid her forward and kissed her belly, teasing her mercilessly with his fingers. When she was panting, half out of her mind with renewed desire, he lowered her onto the tip of his manhood and looked up into her eyes. “Still, I’m a gentleman,” he said with a sultry, mocking grin. “If you say no, I’ll honor your wishes.”

“Damn you,” Jacy moaned. She couldn’t have said no if her life depended upon it, and Ian knew that full well. Still, he waited, and he made her ask for him. “I want you!” she finally cried in a fury, and he gave her what she’d requested.