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Nell smiled up at him, all sweetness and dimples. ‘Do you think we should try for another date?’
That moment had been his chance. He should have told her, No, not on your Nelly, and changed the course of their history, saved decades of heartache. Should have got the hell out of there.
Now, twenty years later, Jacob winced as he remembered how crazily spellbound he’d been.
‘I’ll see what I can manage,’ he’d said.
Nell studied her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Jacob would be here in five minutes and she looked a fright. The ordeal of yesterday followed by a sleepless night had left her pale and haggard, as dreary and limp as wet seaweed.
Dabbing concealer into the shadows under her eyes, she told herself that it didn’t matter what she looked like. Jacob’s regard for her had disappeared long ago, well before the turn of the twenty-first century.
Despite his controlled good manners yesterday, he’d made it painfully clear that he blamed her, probably despised her. She’d seen it in his eyes, had heard it in his voice and when he’d accused her of giving Tegan away, she’d been too stunned and numb to defend herself. Now he believed he had the high moral ground. For that reason alone she needed to gain some self control. And she needed to look OK.
Taking more than usual care, she lengthened her lashes with mascara, applied blusher to bring colour into her cheeks and selected her favourite lipstick. She ran her fingers lightly through her freshly washed hair, letting it fall loosely to her shoulders, took a step back from the mirror and drew a deep breath.
Her make-up and hair were OK and her floral top and blue skirt were cheery and feminine.
‘You’ll do,’ she told her reflection. She actually looked close to normal now.
If only she felt composed. She was no more prepared to ‘chat’ with Jacob today than she had been yesterday after the funeral. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. About Tegan. About Tegan’s baby, Sam.
Her mind buzzed like a bee in summer, darting frantically with no clear course. One minute she was drowning beneath the loss of her daughter, the next she was wildly, guiltily excited about the reappearance of Jacob after twenty years, and then she was sobered by the thought of her baby grandson and Jean Browne’s mysterious need to discuss something.
Nell had telephoned the Brownes the day after Tegan’s death. Desperately distressed, she’d needed to talk to them and she’d found comfort from being able to offer help. Bill Browne had suffered a stroke a few months earlier and poor Jean was carrying a huge burden, dealing with her grief while caring for him and the tiny baby, Sam.
Nell had done the little she could—a chicken casserole, help with finding a solicitor. She’d even minded Sam while Jean had dealt with the funeral directors. In a bonding moment over a cup of tea in the Brownes’ kitchen, she’d told Jean the circumstances of Tegan’s birth.
They’d cried together.
If Jean needed more help now, Nell knew she would be happy to lend a hand. She was less certain about Jacob.
Overnight, every forbidden memory of her youthful lover had shot to the surface—memories of the river, of the endless conversations she and Jacob had shared, of that first morning, sitting on the tree branch, falling into the water.
She and Jacob had even read poetry together. Fresh from her first year at university, she’d been mad about Yeats. She hadn’t expected a rugged cowboy to be interested in poetry, had been gobsmacked when Jacob had brought a copy of Yeats that had belonged to his father. They’d read selections to each other and she’d loved listening to Jacob’s deep voice rumbling sexily against a backdrop of chuckling water and softly piping finches.
Good grief. She shouldn’t be remembering such things after all this time. But every memory of Jacob Tucker was alive and vivid in her head—his shy, serious smile, the sexy power of his body, his gentle hands.
When she closed her eyes she could still see him lying in the shaded grass, one arm curved above his head, throwing a shadow over his beautiful face. She could see him looking at her from beneath heavy lids. Could see the thrilling intensity of his grey eyes, feel the warmth of his lips on hers.
Nell forced her eyes open again, blinked hard, shook her head. It was both fruitless and painful to revisit the past.
She and Jacob had each gone down separate paths. She’d married Robert Ruthven and Jacob had acquired a cattle kingdom. They’d grown older, richer, wiser and had become very different adults.
Yet here they were, brought back together by the very thing that had separated them in the first place.
Their daughter.
The front doorbell rang and she jumped. That will be Jacob.
She wondered what they were going to talk about till it was time to go to the Brownes’, and cast another frantic glance at the mirror.
Come on, Nell, you have to try harder than that. Chin up, back straight. Smile.
The smile was problematic, but at least her reflection looked a tad more determined as she hurried to open the door.
Jacob stood on her front doorstep. ‘Good morning,’ he said, smiling.
Nell’s insides tumbled helplessly. ‘Morning.’
Silly of her, but she’d been expecting him to look the way he had yesterday, all formal and serious and nudging forty. Today he was wearing faded jeans that clung low on his narrow hips and a navy-blue T-shirt that hugged his whipcord muscles. Apart from the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and the tiniest smattering of grey at his temples, he looked dangerously—way too dangerously—like the nineteen-year-old she’d fallen in love with.
‘How are you feeling today?’ he asked.
‘Much better, thanks.’ She almost confessed to not sleeping too well, but decided against giving too much away.
With an offhand smile, he held out a brown paper bag. ‘Some comfort food from the bakery.’
‘Oh, thank you.’ As she took the bag his fingers brushed hers and the brief contact sent a strange current shooting up her arm. Get a grip, Nell. Now wasn’t the time to become girlish and coy.
‘Take a seat in here,’ she said, indicating the cosy living room that opened off her front hallway. ‘I’ll make some tea. Or would you prefer coffee?’
‘Tea’s fine.’ Jacob ignored her instruction and followed her down the hall and into the kitchen.
Flustered, Nell rushed to fill the kettle. It felt so strange to have Jacob Tucker in here, leaning casually against her butter-yellow cupboard with his long denim legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his strapping chest.
He looked about him with absorbed interest. Or was that amused interest? Was that a smirk she detected? What was so funny? Why couldn’t he have waited in the living room, as she’d asked?
Lips compressed, Nell grabbed scarlet and yellow floral mugs from an overhead cupboard and set them on a wicker tray. She shot him a curious glance. ‘Is something amusing you?’
‘I was just revising my impressions of you. You haven’t changed as much as I thought you had. Yesterday you looked so different in that efficient suit and with your hair all pinned up, but today you’re more like the girl I used to know.’
His thoughts were so close to her own that she almost blushed. Her hand trembled as she reached for the teapot. Don’t be fooled. Remember, this isn’t a proper reunion. Jacob’s filling in time till we see Sam. Nothing more.
She turned and fetched milk from the fridge, filled a small blue jug. ‘I don’t think the girl you remember exists any more,’ she said quietly.
‘I guess looks can be deceiving.’
I should remember that, too.
Nell selected a pretty plate and arranged the biscotti he’d bought at the bakery, set it with the other things on the tray. Turning to him, she said, ‘Can you take this tray through to the living room? I’ll bring the teapot in a minute.’
‘Sure.’
As he left the kitchen, she drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Behind her the kettle came to the boil.
* * *
One look at Nell’s living room and Jacob knew that something very important was missing from Koomalong, his Outback homestead. He’d paid a great deal of money for a top Brisbane decorator to furnish his home and she’d gone to enormous trouble to give it a ‘masculine edge’.
‘A man like you needs an environment that screams alpha male,’ the decorator had insisted.
He’d always lived alone, changing women as often as the seasons, so a ‘masculine edge’ had made sense. But, despite the expense and the Brisbane decorator’s expertise, the so-called alpha male decor hadn’t really worked for him. His place didn’t feel like a home; it seemed to belong in a glossy city magazine.
The Ruthvens’ cottage, on the other hand, felt very homelike indeed. There was something about Nell’s living room, about the lounge furniture upholstered in muted creams and dusty reds, that invited him in. The slightly cluttered casualness, the deceptively careless mix of colours and florals and stripes enticed him to relax, to feel welcome.
No doubt the cosy effect was completed by the marmalade cat curled in a sunny spot among fat cushions on the cane sofa beneath the window.
Jacob set the tray down beside a vase of red and cream flowers on an old timber chest that apparently served as a coffee table. A thick paperback novel had been left there and, beside it, elegant blue-framed reading glasses.
Nell wears reading glasses now.
He knew that shouldn’t bother him, but somehow he couldn’t help being saddened by such a clear marker of the passage of time.
The cat opened its pale yellow eyes and stared at him as he selected one of the deep and friendly armchairs and sat. Almost immediately, the cat rose, stretched its striped orange back, then leapt daintily off the sofa and crossed the floor to jump into Jacob’s lap.
As a general rule, he preferred dogs to cats and he eyed the animal dubiously as it balanced on his thighs, a small claw penetrating his denim jeans.
‘Don’t expect me to let you have this milk, mate.’
In response, the cat dropped softly into his lap, curled contentedly and began to purr, adding the final brushstroke to Jacob’s impression of Nell’s cottage as cosiness incorporated.
Unfortunately, he was particularly susceptible to cosiness. His childhood had been lonely. He and his mother had lived in a series of workers’ cottages on Outback properties and he’d longed for the permanence of a cosy family home. There had been several times during the past twenty years when he’d been on the brink of getting married simply so he could enjoy the pleasures of a comfy home and family life.
But whenever he’d come to the point of proposing marriage, something had always held him back—a vital, missing something.
‘Oh, heavens, Ambrose, what do you think you’re doing?’ Nell came into the room carrying a blue china teapot. ‘I’m sorry about the cat,’ she said. ‘Shoo, Ambrose. You should have sent him away, Jacob.’
‘I would have if he’d bothered me.’ Jacob watched the cat return to the sofa, tail waving sulkily. ‘Perhaps he’s mistaken me for your husband.’
A strange little laugh broke from Nell as she set the teapot down beside the tray. ‘No, I’m sure he hasn’t. Robert and Ambrose never got on.’ She looked flushed and avoided meeting his gaze, rubbed her palms down the sides of her skirt as if they were damp. ‘How—how do you take your tea?’
‘Black, no sugar.’
‘Oh, of course, I remember now.’
As she said this, she looked dismayed and he was dismayed too, suddenly remembering the camp fires down by the river when they’d made billy tea, hastily putting the fire out as soon as the water boiled so that the smoke wouldn’t give away their hiding place.
There was a tremor in her hands as she poured his tea and set the mug in front of him. She was nervous and he wanted to put her at ease.
‘This is a lovely home,’ he said. ‘Did you decorate it?’
Nell nodded and concentrated on pouring her own tea, adding milk and a half teaspoon of sugar.
‘You must have an artistic eye.’
‘Actually, I do seem to have a way with fabric.’ She smiled as she settled into the other armchair. ‘I make quilts and I sell them.’
‘You sell them?’
‘Yes. There’s quite a demand for my work, actually. It keeps me rather busy.’
Jacob swallowed his shock. But perhaps he shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, apart from the gossip his mother gleaned from the social pages, he knew next to nothing about Nell Ruthven. He’d always supposed she was a carefree and idle society wife. One of those ladies who lunched.
But Nell Harrington, the girl he’d loved, had been crazy about poetry, an artistic soul.
‘Your husband must be very proud of you,’ he said cautiously.
Looking more nervous than ever, Nell picked up her mug of tea, then seemed to change her mind and set it down again.
‘How Robert feels about my quilting is irrelevant,’ she said quietly. ‘He’s not my husband any more.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘WE’RE divorced,’ Nell told Jacob in her quietest, most matter-of-fact voice. Even so, she could see his shock.
‘Why—’ He lifted a hand to his neck as if he wanted to loosen his collar, but he wasn’t wearing one. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that yesterday? I asked about your husband.’
With a heavy sigh, she said flatly, ‘You would have wanted to ask more questions. I couldn’t have coped just then.’ Embarrassed now, and tenser than ever, she chewed at her lip.
‘What about now?’ Jacob demanded. ‘Could you cope with questions now?’
Keeping her gaze fixed on the tea tray, she shook her head. ‘Don’t bother with the questions. I’ll tell you. Our marriage didn’t work. It was as simple as that. There was nothing nasty. Robert worked too hard and drank too much, but he never hurt me. We just drifted apart and I’ve been divorced for nearly a year.’
She tried to make light of it, but it wasn’t easy to shrug off. She could hardly admit that after losing Jacob she’d married the wrong man, that too late she’d realised that Robert had simply wanted her as a trophy wife. He’d been happy to be seen with her at all the important functions around Melbourne but, in the privacy of their bedroom, their relationship had never really clicked.
‘Robert had so many legal colleagues, we were able to settle things quite easily,’ she said. ‘It was all very straightforward and extremely civilised. The marriage might not have been a success, but the divorce was a triumph.’
‘What do you mean?’
Lifting her chin, she tried to smile. ‘I mean I’m now in charge of my life. For the first time ever, I’m independent and in control.’
Jacob nodded, but his eyes remained cold.
Embarrassed, she reached for her mug and took a long drink of tea. Her heart thumped and she held the mug with two hands so the tea didn’t spill. Perhaps it was too much to expect Jacob to understand why she’d stayed too long in an empty marriage, that after losing her daughter she’d desperately hoped to avoid another failure.
‘What about you?’ She forced the question. ‘Are you married?’
He shook his head. ‘Never tempted.’
There was a glint in his eyes which she quickly avoided.
‘I’m a well-seasoned bachelor,’ he said.
Was he telling her that he was available? A wave of heat rolled over her. For heaven’s sake. What on earth was the matter with her? Bending forward, she picked up the plate and offered it to him. ‘Biscotti?’
‘Not now, thank you.’ Jacob’s fingers drummed on the upholstered arm of the chair. ‘So you’ve already seen Tegan’s baby?’
‘Yes, he’s a lovely little fellow. He must be about seven weeks by now.’
