what? You’re grown up now. There’s no way of getting back years that are gone,” she argued anxiously. He knew her age. It felt all wrong that he had information about her and she had none about him.
“True,” he agreed. His eyes went flint hard. “But there’s the future to be reckoned with.”
He was going to make trouble. “What about your mother?” Sally threw at him, trying to mitigate the situation he’d spelled out. “She must have taken you with her. Where is she now?”
“Dead,” he stated bluntly, his voice flat, showing no emotion at all.
Somehow that was more frightening than anything else. “I’m sorry,” she said defensively. “Sorry you feel—” Her mind sought frantically for the right word “—displaced.”
Which was what she would have felt if she hadn’t been adopted. Having no parents, no sense of belonging to a family…it would be awful, an empty life. She’d been so lucky, while he…
“I wasn’t displaced,” he corrected her savagely. “I was replaced by you and the other adopted daughter.”
“I didn’t know. Jane doesn’t know, either,” she pleaded.
It wasn’t her fault. Yet he was making her feel horribly guilty.
“I’ll go and talk to my mother,” she offered, feeling too churned up to stay talking to him, and needing to know why he had been turned away.
“That should be an interesting conversation,” he mocked. “Pity I can’t be a fly on the wall.”
The taunt spurred her into nudging Blaze into a canter. She rode quickly to the exit from the enclosure, intensely conscious of those laser-blue eyes boring into her. Forced to pause while opening the gate, she couldn’t stop herself from looking back at him. He hadn’t moved. His gaze was fixed on her. It felt hard, relentless, accusing.
“You haven’t told me your name,” she called out, wishing he could be more…brotherly.
“It’s Maguire,” he reminded her with derisive emphasis. “Jack Maguire. Commonly known as Blackjack in some circles. It’s a name that darkens other people’s dreams.”
It was a name that would haunt Sally for a long time to come. Ten years would pass before she would meet him again—ten years before he would once more set foot on this land, bringing with him the bitter harvest of the wrongs that were being enacted today.
Jack watched her go. She didn’t stable her horse. She galloped straight up the hill as though the hounds of hell were at her heels. The sun was starting to set, burning the clouds in the sky, spreading a haze of red around the big white house. He hoped Sally Maguire would spread some heartburn around with her questions about him.
Time to return to his car, leave this property before Lady Ellen sent a posse to run him off. He probably shouldn’t have said so much to the girl, venting his anger at how he’d been treated, but the urge to set a cat amongst the pigeons had been irresistible.
And she was so damned beautiful, he’d wanted to claw her off her complacent perch, make her aware of a darker side to her world of privilege. He’d revelled in the troubled worry reflected in her fascinating sagegreen eyes, in the scarlet flush that had stained her flawless, pale skin.
She’d been given too much and he’d been given too little.
That was the core of it.
He’d come on a scouting mission to feel out the lay of the land. Once he knew precisely what he was dealing with, he’d work out how to achieve what he wanted.
One certainty burned in his mind.
Whatever it took, somehow, some day, the scales would be balanced.
CHAPTER ONE
Ten Years On…
SALLY stared at the coffin which held her father. It was still difficult to believe he was dead, that a sudden fatal heart attack could steal his life away. No warning. Never a day’s illness that she knew of. He’d always radiated such a powerful life force, the shock of its being ended so abruptly was still numbing any sense of grief. Which was just as well since her mother had instructed her and Jane to maintain absolute dignity during this funeral service.
They were on public show.
They had to do their father proud.
Sir Leonard Maguire was being honoured today.
There’d been television crews outside the cathedral, shooting their arrival, not to mention all the powerful people who’d come to pay their last respects: politicians, captains of industry, the horseracing fraternity. She could hear them taking their places behind her, shuffling into the pews, greeting each other in muffled tones.
On the other side of the aisle were the major figures in her father’s work force—his other family—who had shared his dreams of a transport empire and been closely involved in carrying out his grand plans. He’d spent much more time with them than with us, Sally thought. They were probably devastated by his death, not only grieving for their leader but wondering what would come next. Who would fill the huge shoes of the man who was no longer with them?
She had no grasp of her father’s business. Neither did Jane who was studying to become a nurse. Her mother had dedicated her life to being the perfect wife, certainly the CEO of their home, but not interested in anything beyond maintaining the social status that was all important to her. They’d been cocooned in the protection of great wealth, but none of them knew what would happen now. They were floating in a vacuum.
Maybe her father had provided the answers in his will. Tomorrow they had to go to the solicitor’s office to hear it read. Her mother was upset—furious—that Victor Newell, who’d been her father’s legal advisor for many years, had refused to come to them in the privacy and comfort of their own home. It meant another trip to the city, another brave front to be put on in public.
Regardless of being subjected to her mother’s intense displeasure over the telephone, the solicitor had not budged from his edict, stating he was following Sir Leonard’s instructions. No argument prevailed against that. Not even her mother could break her father’s iron grip on the people he had employed.
But he’d lost his grip on life. No, he’d had it taken from him. Probably the only thing that had ever been taken from him. Except…
The memory of Jack Maguire flashed into her mind. Despite what her parents had told her, she didn’t really believe his mother had taken him from the man who now lay in this coffin. Her father had chosen to let him go. She couldn’t imagine anything else, especially since he’d chosen not to have him back. It was the only reasonable answer to why Jack Maguire had not become part of their lives.
Too late now for the scales to be balanced, she thought sadly.
He’d made such a strong impact on her at their one and only meeting, she’d often wondered how he’d dealt with his father’s rejection. It would surely have bitten deep. Though that personal blow had not stopped him from becoming a successful business entrepreneur in his own right. Maybe it had spurred him on to make a name for himself.
She’d read about him in the newspapers from time to time, fixing deals that were highly profitable. Photographs of him never showed him smiling, not even when he was pictured with beautiful women at A-list parties. His eyes were always cold. She’d imagined it was because his heart was cold, no family to warm it.
No chance left of its ever being warmed by acceptance or approval from his father. The media had given enormous coverage to Sir Leonard Maguire’s life and death in the past few days so he would certainly know about it. Jack had been mentioned as the estranged son. Such a cold phrase. It had made her feel bad again about being a much-indulged adopted daughter.
The organ music droned to a halt. Sally glanced at her watch. It was time for the funeral service to begin. The Bishop of Sydney