THE MIDDLE OF THE FARMYARD IS HARDLY THE PLACE TO talk about our personal problems,” Ian pointed out.
Jacy let out a long sigh. He was right, damn him. “Fine. We can argue later. Right now I have things to do.” With that she turned and walked away, going through the gate this time instead of over the fence rail, and marched into the house.
She took a quick shower, then put on pantyhose, makeup, a light blue linen dress, and sandals. She was fluffing out her hair when Ian came into the bedroom looking as though he’d been dragged through the barnyard muck’.
“You look nice,” he said in a grudging tone. Gazing into the bureau mirror, Jacy could see that his eyes were narrow, and his jawline looked a little tight, too.
Jacy felt a rush of private pleasure; Ian was jealous. She wanted to celebrate, to throw a party, to send up flares. It was a passing fancy, quickly gone. “Thanks.” She let her eyes move over his image in the glass, a tube of lip gloss in one hand. “You’ll understand if I don’t return the compliment, I hope.”
Ian took a step toward her, then stopped, his frown deepening. “Where are you going dressed up like that?”
At last she turned. “Ian,” she began patiently, “I’ve already told you. I’m calling on as many of my students’ families as I can to let them know school will begin again on Monday morning.”
His throat worked visibly, and even though his voice was quiet there were sparks in his eyes. “Starting with the Shifflets, I suppose?”
“Yes,” she replied. “I thought I’d take the most difficult case first—just as you probably chose the wildest and meanest of those brumbies out there to break before all the others.”
Again Ian swallowed. “That’s different.”
Jacy turned her back on him, gave herself a final inspection in the mirror—she looked every inch the modern educator—and then reached for her purse. “It isn’t,” she said. She stood facing her husband; everything hinged on whether he barred her way or stepped aside.
He swore. “Just let me wash up, and I’ll go with you.”
Jacy shook her head, though a sense of loving triumph swept through her. There was hope for the both of them, she thought. “No. I’ve been thinking about that, and I decided it wasn’t a good idea. After all, you didn’t ask me to help you break those wild horses of yours to ride.”
He opened his mouth and would have said it again—“that’s different”—but Jacy stopped him by laying a finger to his lips.
“It’s the same,” she insisted softly. “Now tell me. Where do the Shifflets live?”
Ian was stubbornly silent.
“All right,” Jacy said finally. She walked past her husband and stood at the door, one hand on the knob. “Fine. I’ll just ask Mrs. Wigget, or Nancy. Or Bram McCulley.”
“They’re camped out in that old homestead just south of Yolanda. We stopped there for a picnic once, you and I….”
Jacy closed her eyes, remembering. She and Ian had pretended the ancient, crumbling house was their own to fix up and live in, but they’d never gotten around to eating lunch. They’d been too busy making love in the shade of several gnarled old mulga trees.
“I know the place you mean,” she said without looking back at Ian. Just as she turned the knob Ian’s hand closed over hers, callused and strong.
“Just be careful,” he told her hoarsely.
She looked up at him. He wasn’t going to try to stop her, and for him that was an enormous concession. The love Jacy felt for Ian just then was piercing and sweet. “I will,” she said, almost whispering.
Ian frowned. “I want your promise on something, Sheila. If Redley’s been in his cups, you’ll get into Jake’s truck and come straight back here.”
Jacy nodded. It was little enough to ask in return for the ground he’d given. Besides, Redley Shifflet was frightening enough when he was sober; drunk, he’d be a horror. “I promise,” she said, and standing on her tiptoes, careful not to brush against his dirty clothes, she kissed him lightly on the mouth.
A half hour later Jacy arrived at the Shifflet place. Another, more industrious man might have fixed up the house and grounds a little, but Redley was obviously no ball of fire. The roof tilted precariously—it was a miracle the dust storm hadn’t torn it off like a loose toupee—and bits of cardboard had been taped over the broken panes in the windows. There were chickens on the porch and, Jacy feared, inside the house as well, since the rickety door was hanging wide open.
She smoothed her good linen dress and worked up a smile before leaving the truck. Darlis came out, shooing clucking hens out of her way and wiping her hands on an apron as dirty as Ian’s horse-breaking clothes. There was a tentative smile on her face, and Jacy’s heart twisted as she read the other woman’s emotions—Darlis was pleased to have company, but she was scared, too. Her hand trembled as she raised it to shade her eyes from the wicked sun.
“Jacy,” she said, with some surprise.
Jacy smiled and approached, holding out one hand, hoping to reassure Darlis a little. No doubt the few visitors who came to that house were bill collectors, tax people, and Redley’s riffraff friends. “Hello, Darlis,” she said. “I just came to tell you that there will be classes on Monday. I hope Gladys can be there.”
Darlis must have been pretty as a young girl, but time and hardship had made her gaunt. She looked far older than her real age, which was probably about thirty-five. She nodded hard, pathetically eager to appease and nervous as a spider. “Gladys is under the weather just now,” she said quickly. “Lying down, she is. I’d ask you in, but I don’t like to disturb her.”
Jacy felt a chill despite the brutal heat. She glanced toward the house, silently debating with herself. She wanted a firsthand look at her student, and yet she knew the rules were strict in the bush. If she pushed too hard, she might never have another chance to win Darlis’s confidence.
If I could just say hello—”
Darlis’s face actually contorted. She reached out and clasped Jacy’s upper arms hard. “Please,” she begged with plain desperation. “Just leave us be. I’ll get Gladdy to school if that’s what you want, but—”
Jacy’s uneasiness congealed into cold alarm, but before she could think of anything to say, Gladys appeared in the open doorway of the house. Even from that distance Jacy could see that one of the girl’s eyes was blackened, and there were bruises on her arms and legs.
“My God,” Jacy whispered, forgetting Darlis, forgetting all the social rules of the outback, and moving toward the child. “Gladys, sweetheart, what happened?”
Gladys stood still, her lower lip trembling. It was clear that she wanted to run to Jacy, seeking safety, but there was a too-wise expression in her eyes as well. The child knew she couldn’t be rescued like the beautiful princesses in the books she loved to read. In Gladys’s world the dragons always won.
Jacy took another step toward her, but then the sound of a truck’s horn shattered the undulating silence, and dread wrapped itself around Jacy’s heart like a vine. Gladys slammed the door, and Darlis looked absolutely panicstricken.
“It’s Redley,” she said quickly, unnecessarily. “He’s been doggin’ with his mates, and they always drink when they go after dingoes. Spend the bounty money the government offers before they see it. Please, Jacy—he won’t do nothin’ to you because he’s too scared of Ian, but he’ll hurt Gladys and me.”
Jacy’s eyes burned with tears of frustration, fury, and, most of all, pity. Redley and his buddies were bearing down fast, their old truck throwing up a spiral of red dust, their drunken songs audible even over the grinding roar of the worn-out engine.
“You can’t let him do this, Darlis!” Jacy whispered desperately. “Let me help Gladys, I beg of you!”
“How?” All the heartache and hopelessness of Darlis’s life echoed in that single word.
Jacy glanced nervously toward the new arrivals. Redley was pulling in behind the truck now, as if to block her way out. “Write a note releasing Gladys to my custody for a few weeks, and then just bring her to school on Monday. I’ll take it from there.”
Darlis bit her lower lip, half wild with fear, barely able to hold herself still. “What will you do?”
Jacy squeezed the other woman’s hands. “I’ll get her out of this place—send her somewhere where Redley can’t hurt her anymore. But I need your help—and your permission—to do it.”
An unconscious whimpering sound came from Darlis’s throat as Redley brought the old truck to a clattering, smoky stop. Her eyes were on her husband, frantic and fearful, and Jacy shuddered inwardly to think what it must be like being trapped in such a place at the mercy of such a man.
“I’ll try,” Darlis whispered.
Jacy had to settle for that, at least for the time being. She squared her shoulders, locked all the fear and revulsion she felt deep inside her, and faced Redley.
He carried a rifle in one hand and a bottle in the other. His two friends, whom Jacy recognized from her visit to the woman-free Dog and Goose, got out of the truck and came to stand beside their mate, leering at her.
Jacy reminded herself of what Darlis had just said: Redley wouldn’t hurt Jacy because he was too afraid of what Ian would do to him in retaliation. Her terror was under control, to a degree at least, but her stomach was churning so badly that she thought she might vomit. Nothing in her life had ever galled her as much as the knowledge that Darlis and Gladys were doomed to suffer every indignity, every deprivation Redley might decide to dish out simply because they were female.
Mockingly, almost losing his balance in the process, Redley swept off his hat—it was in even worse shape than Ian’s—with the hand that held the bottle and clutched them both to his scrawny chest in a parody of good manners. “Get a look at this, mates,” he called to his friends, slurring the words. “It’s the lovely Mrs. Yarbro come to visit.” His eyes roved over her with insulting slowness. When he spoke again he was addressing Jacy. “Ain’t you just as pretty and cool as a bowl of ice cream on a hot day.”
Jacy was heartened to see one of the goons behind Redley stop leering and turn pale under the filth that covered his skin.
“Wait a minute,” he interrupted, gripping Redley’s gun arm. “Did you say Mrs. Yarbro? This lady is married to Ian Yarbro?”
“Holy shit,” breathed the other one, backing away and tugging at his hat at the same time. “No offense meant, ma’am.”
The other fellow wrenched at Redley’s arm again, whispering loudly. “Leave the bird alone, Redley—you know what a temper Ian’s got. You mess with her, and he’ll cut your balls off!”
Redley jerked free of his mate’s grasp and held the rifle out in front of him, running a grubby finger along the length of the barrel. “I ain’t afraid of Yarbro,” he said, watching the slow progress of his finger. “He might get me once, but it won’t happen twice.”
Jacy went cold at the implication, but she would have died before letting Redley know how afraid she was. Terrible images filled her mind—Ian lying on the ground somewhere, bleeding to death from a gunshot wound, ambushed by Redley Shifflet. The smile she managed, in spite of that vision, was a grand-scale accomplishment.
“I’ll be sure and give your regards to Ian,” she said, casually opening the door of her truck. “He wanted to come along today, you know, but he was busy with those brumbies of his. By now he’s probably got all six of them not only broken to ride, but eating out of his hand.” The implication was clear, even to a dunce like Redley. Ian was a man in every sense of the word, more than capable of defending himself against three drunken doggers. She got into the vehicle, cast one meaningful look in Darlis’s direction, and left, making a horseshoe turn in the Shifflets’ front yard because Redley’s truck was still in the way.
In the rearview mirror, even through the inevitable tail-spin of dust, Jacy saw Redley standing in the middle of the road watching her go, the rifle in both hands. His hatred was so real, so virulent, that she could feel it following her, clutching at her.
She was terrified, for she knew now that Redley was not just bad, not just lazy and mean; he was evil. And maybe, just maybe, he was smart enough to know that hurting Ian was the best way in the world to get back at the schoolmistress for meddling in his personal business.
On the other hand, remembering Gladys’s black eye and bruised body, Jacy knew she had no choice but to interfere. She couldn’t turn her back on the child and pretend she didn’t know what was happening to her. No, this time a fairy godmother was going to step in and work her shaky magic.
As soon as Jacy was out of sight of the Shifflet place she pulled the truck over to the side of the dirt track, got out, and was violently ill. Her stomach was still contracting painfully when she pulled into Yolanda and stopped at Nancy’s cafe.
Her friend came out of the restaurant, beaming, to greet her, but Nancy was perceptive, and her wide Aussie smile instantly faded.
“Look at you!” she crowed in that lovely, musical accent. “Good heavens, Jacy, you’re white as July in the Blue Mountains—what’s happened?”
Jacy was seated at one of the cafe tables and had swallowed half a glass of water before she answered. “It’s Redley Shifflet,” she croaked, shaking. “I’ve made myself an enemy, Nancy. And I’m so afraid he’s going to hurt Ian.”
“Here, now,’ Nancy scoffed. “If any bloke about can look after himself, it’s Ian Yarbro!” She sat down across from Jacy, frowning. “Tell us what’s happened, then.”
Jacy told, starting with Darlis’s nervousness, then going on to Gladys’s appearance in the doorway, all battered and beaten, and finishing with Redley’s implied threat.
Nancy put one hand over her mouth. “Good Lord, Jacy, you’ve made a day’s work of it, haven’t you? And what do you plan to do about that poor little girl?”
Jacy bit her lower lip. She wasn’t shaking quite so badly now, and it was easier to talk. “I was thinking I’d take her back to our house after school. You haven’t seen Collie lately, have you? We could get him to take Gladys out of here in his airplane—”
Nancy’s face brightened. “She could stay with my Aunt Molly up in Darwin! She’s always taking chicks under her wing, is Aunt Molly—how do you think I grew up to be so fine a lady?” She struck a comically elegant pose.
Jacy gave a strangled laugh of mingled relief and joy. “Oh, Nancy—that would be wonderful. Will you tell Collie I want to see him if he happens to come in for a landing in the next few days?” Some of her good cheer waned. Sometimes Collie didn’t land at Yolanda for a month at a stretch; she wouldn’t be able to hide Gladys at the property forever, even if Ian backed her up. And she wasn’t at all sure he would.
Nancy reached across to pat Jacy’s hand. “There now, love—you’re doing the right thing. We women have got to look out for each other in this hard world.” She paused, and her expressive brown eyes widened. “Did you know that in India young women are burned alive by their own fathers just because there’s no money for a dowry?”
Jacy felt sick all over again. “You’re right, Nancy, ‘she said grimly. “We women have got to stick together. Get in touch with your aunt if you can, and keep an eye out for Collie. I’ll be at school bright and early Monday morning.” She started to rise, faltered, and fell back into her chair.
“You need to sit awhile!” Nancy cried. “I won’t let you leave looking so white.”
Jacy took a few deep breaths, then stood up again. “I’m okay,” she insisted. “I’m going to stop by the churchyard and say hello to Jake, then I guess I’ll go home. I’ve got tomorrow to see all the other parents—most of them will be at services in the morning.”
It was clear that Nancy was still worried. “Maybe you should just spend the night here in town,” she said. “I could get word to Ian somehow.”
Jacy saw the image of Ian again, shot by Redley, left to die in the lonely expanse of the bush, and made up her mind. “No,” she said. “I want to go home. To my family.”
Despite her eagerness to get back to the property, to see for herself that Ian and Chris were both safe and well, Jacy stuck by her original plan and stopped by Jake’s grave. The fancy stone she’d ordered through Bram McCulley’s store hadn’t arrived yet; there was only a wooden cross made by one of Jake’s mates, and of course the ground covering the grave itself was still raw. There had been no time for a carpet of sweet green grass to grow.
Jacy knelt, paying no mind to her linen dress and pantyhose, and touched the cross. “Hey, Dad,” she said, trying to smile, “I got your letters.” She still didn’t understand why he hadn’t mailed them and accepted that she might never know.
A blessedly cool breeze flowed through the small churchyard. It was like the caress of a guardian angel, and it soothed Jacy’s frayed nerves a little.
“I love you, Dad,” she said. “I wish I’d told you that more often.” She went on talking softly, stumbling over her words now and then, until she’d told Jake all about her discovery that she still loved Ian—indeed, that she’d never stopped. She told him her hopes—for a lifetime of happiness and a houseful of children—her problems and her fears. Then, feeling better, she got into the truck and set out for home.
She was composed when she arrived to find her husband and stepson in the kitchen, calmly eating lunch. Still, there was no hiding her pallor or her crumpled, dirt-stained dress, and she probably had a sour smell about her, too, from being sick by the roadside.
Ian was seated at the head of the table instead of on one of the benches beside it, and he immediately slid back his chair, rose, and came toward her.
“What the hell—”
Jacy offered a crooked, fleeting smile. “I look that bad, huh?” she joked, but her voice trembled.
Ian gripped her shoulders gently, supporting her. There was no hint of humor in his eyes, and his mouth looked as if it had never shaped itself into a cocky grin. “What happened?” he demanded in a hoarse whisper.
“It’s all right, Ian,” Jacy said tightly, trying to remind him of Chris’s presence with a motion of her eyes.
Mercifully, he subsided. “Well, go on and clean yourself up,” he ordered.
She gave him a grateful look, mouthed the words I’ll explain later, and hurried down the hall. She returned after half an hour or so, clean and cool in a light cotton jumpsuit. She’d brushed her teeth, washed her face, and reapplied her makeup, but on the inside she still felt like a condemned building. One blast and she’d fold in on herself with a magnificent crash and lots of flying debris.
Ian was there waiting in the kitchen, though there was no sign of Chris or Mrs. Wigget. He’d cleaned up, too, and he was leaning against the counter, a glass of cold lemonade in one hand, watching her. “Shall I go off straightaway and beat Redley into a powder, or shall I let him live?”
Jacy didn’t want to talk about Redley, didn’t want to think about him, though she knew she didn’t have much choice. She went over to Ian and put her arms around him. “Let him live,” she answered, trying to smile.
Ian’s expression was still grim, but he relented a little by setting aside the glass and embracing Jacy lightly, his hands clasped at the small of her back. “What happened over there?”
She sighed. “Nothing, really. I just got a clear view of what a son of a bitch Redley Shifflet truly is. He’s been beating that child, Ian.”
A muscle bunched in Ian’s cheek. “You’re sure?”
She nodded. Relief washed through her like a flash flood, and she realized that on some level she’d feared that Ian would think beating his child was Redley’s province, if not his right. “I know you asked me not to make trouble, but I have to do something.”
He touched her mouth with his index finger. “Yes, I suppose you do. What are you planning?”
She told him the scheme she and Nancy had come up with—Jacy would bring Gladys home with her after school on Monday and keep the child until Collie could fly down to Adelaide. From there Gladys would catch a connecting flight to Darwin, where Nancy’s aunt would take her in until some permanent arrangement could be made. Hopefully, Darlis would join her daughter, and they could start their lives over in safety.
“Are you aware that that’s kidnapping?” Ian demanded when she was finished.
Jacy was scared. “Darlis is going to cooperate.”
“And once Redley gets to her, he’ll make her swear you’re lying, that any paper she signed, she signed under duress.”
“Are you backing out on me, Ian Yarbro? That child is being beaten, and maybe worse, and I don’t care if they throw me in prison for a hundred years. I won’t just stand by and pretend it isn’t happening!”
He grinned and bent his head to place a brief, light kiss on her mouth. “God help me,” he said. “I guess this is what I get for taking up with a Yankee.”
She looked deeply into his eyes, unsmiling and worried. ‘You’ll help me?”
“I’ll help you,” he confirmed.
Jacy threw her arms around his neck. She almost blurted out that she loved him, in fact, but then she remembered that he didn’t feel the same way about her and stopped herself just in time. “Thanks,” she said instead, a little breathless from the close contact with him, knowing that what she felt for this man was shining brightly in her eyes, wondering if he saw it and recognized it for what it was.
To keep from making a complete fool of herself, she babbled on. “Don’t tell me you’ve broken all those horses to ride already.”
Jacy went red the instant the words were out of her mouth, and all hope that Ian had missed the connection was lost when she saw the laughter in his eyes.
“Aye, love,” he teased, holding her still closer. “I’m the master of all I survey. And I’m good at taming wild creatures of all sorts.”
Jacy gave a low, involuntary moan. “Oh, no!”
Ian kissed her thoroughly, and the laughter lingered in his eyes when he lifted his head to look at her. “‘Oh, no’ what?” he rumbled.
“You’re going to make love to me again, aren’t you?”
He fitted her against him with damnably skillful hands. “Do you hate it so much—my lovemaking, I mean?”
She was trembling; if Ian hadn’t been holding her up she probably would have slid to the floor like a noodle. “It’s—well, it’s the middle of the day—and you know how I get—”
Ian threw back his head and laughed out loud.
Somewhere inside herself Jacy found the will to double up her fists and pound at his chest.
Once.
Weakly.
He looked down at her, his eyes still twinkling, his broad shoulders trembling with the effort to control his amusement. “You can make all the noise you want, sheila,” he told her. “Alice took Chris to town to have ice cream and pick up the mail. They won’t be back for a while.”
Jacy sagged against him. “I’m lost,” she said.
Ian swept her easily up into his arms and started toward the stairs. “Completely,” he agreed. “Just don’t scare the sheep.”
Jacy laughed and pretended to strike him again. Ian was so utterly impossible, and she was grateful that he was who he was, for all his faults and foibles, and she loved him so very much.
Alice Wigget smiled to herself as she peeled carrots for tea that night. Ian had been going about the place whistling. and Mrs. Yarbro had a glow about her, she did. One that promised there’d soon be a babe or two underfoot, and it was about time.
Alice began to think, with longing, of Arizona and cowboys and other pleasures. She was ready to move on, and lonely way out there in the bush. Ian was all grown up, of course, and Chris didn’t need her any longer either, now that he had a mum to look after him proper-like.
Remembering that little problem ten years ago, with Mrs. Yarbro—she’d been just plain Jacy Tiernan back then, of course—Alice frowned to herself. Suppose the girl up and flew off again. Why, Ian would never trust another woman as long as he lived, and as for the lad—well, it didn’t bear thinking about, what her leaving would do to little Chris!
She cast a worried look in Mrs. Yarbro’s direction and saw that the younger woman was gazing back at her with a curious expression in her eyes. It was almost as if Jake’s girl knew what she, Alice, was thinking.
Ian’s wife ruffled Chris’s pale hair—he was sitting at the table, making another of his drawings—and came over to stand beside Alice. Ian remained at the table, reading the week’s accumulation of mail.
Mrs. Yarbro took a stack of plates down from the cupboard. Alice liked her for that; she didn’t expect to be waited on hand and foot, as some new brides would have done.
“You love those two very much, don’t you, Alice?” she asked in a voice too soft to carry as far as the table.
“With all my heart,” Alice said stalwartly. And it was true, too, even if she did yearn to go to Arizona and take up with a cowboy.
Jacy ran her fingertip around the golden edge of the first Mrs. Yarbro’s wedding china. “Here’s a little secret for you,” she said in that same low tone. “So do I. You needn’t worry, because I’m going to look after them. You have my solemn promise.”
Alice felt unaccustomed tears burn in her eyes. She hadn’t wept often, though her life had been a hard one in many ways, and she’d been on her own for most of it.
“They think they’re so strong,” Alice confided in a snuffly whisper. “But they need you, Mrs. Yarbro. Both of them.”
Ian’s wife laid her hand gently on Alice’s forearm. “Please, Alice—we’re friends, I hope. Won’t you call me Jacy?” She glanced toward Ian and the boy, Jacy Yarbro did, and there was a warm shimmer in her blue eyes. Behind that Alice saw the fiercely protective love of a young tigress. It was still there, in fact, when Jacy looked at Alice again. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Nothing and no one could make me leave them.”
Alice yearned to believe the girl, but she was still fearful. She hadn’t forgotten, and never would, heaven help her, what losing Jacy had done to Ian the first time around. Why, if it hadn’t been for Jake pulling and pushing and sometimes dragging him back from the edge, the lad would have been ruined for certain.
Again Jacy read her thoughts, and she touched Alice’s arm reassuringly. “I don’t blame you for not trusting me,” she said. “There have been a lot of times when I haven’t trusted myself. But I’m going to make a life right here, no matter how much yelling and crying and loving it takes.”
Alice couldn’t help smiling, for she’d certainly heard the yelling, and some of the loving besides, bless their hearts. Maybe it was wishful thinking on her part, but Alice wanted to believe there would be a whole family living under that roof at long last, so she did.