address at Toorak, the Melbourne suburb synonymous with opulence and gracious living?
While he was musing over this she asked, ‘Where do you live these days?’
‘I’m based up in Queensland. Near Roma.’
‘That should be good cattle country.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘You’ve done well.’
Unsure if this was a statement or a question, Jacob didn’t respond and he drove for some time in uncomfortable silence. Nell sat very straight and still with her hands in her lap, while he kept his gaze strictly ahead.
As they reached the Westgate Bridge arching high over the Yarra River, she asked, ‘Did you know about the baby—about Tegan’s baby? Before today?’
Jacob turned to her sharply. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I had no idea. Did you?’
She nodded. ‘Jean contacted me the day after the accident. She seemed to be struggling with it all and I went over to see if I could help. I saw Sam then. He’s very cute.’
‘I only found out about Tegan six weeks ago.’ It was difficult to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
‘So Tegan did write to you?’
‘Yes. Quite a long and chatty letter.’
‘It must have been a shock.’
He cracked a bitter smile. ‘That’s something of an understatement. It took me almost a week to recover before I sent my reply.’ He paused. ‘And then, two days ago, there was another letter from Jean.’
‘About Tegan’s accident.’
‘And details of the funeral arrangements.’
‘A much worse shock.’
‘Terrible.’ After a bit, he said, ‘Tegan didn’t mention that she was pregnant.’
‘But I’m so glad she wrote.’
Jacob frowned. ‘You sound as if you were involved somehow.’
Nell dropped her gaze to her handbag—genuine crocodile skin, if he wasn’t mistaken. ‘Not really.’
‘Not really? What does that mean?’
She played with the handle of the handbag, running the tip of her forefinger over the stitching. ‘Tegan wrote to me and told me she wanted to make contact with you. I told her what I knew, which wasn’t much more than your name and your age. She did the rest. You know how clever young people are on the Internet these days.’
‘But she’d already had contact with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘How? Through an adoption agency?’
‘Yes.’
Jacob’s hand clenched around the wheel. ‘That doesn’t make sense. Why couldn’t the agency give her my name too?’
When Nell didn’t answer, he lost patience. ‘Why the hell did my daughter have to go to you to find out my name?’
‘Jacob, be careful!’
A car horn blasted beside them and Jacob realised he’d swerved dangerously close to the next lane. Teeth gritted, he corrected the steering. And then he repeated his question. ‘Why did Tegan have to ask you for my name?’
He sent another sharp glance in Nell’s direction and, despite the obscuring sunglasses, he saw that her cheeks were flushed, her mouth contorted, embarrassed.
‘That’s because your name—’ The stain in her cheeks deepened. ‘Your name wasn’t on the records. You—you weren’t listed on Tegan’s birth certificate.’
‘What?’ The word exploded from him, making Nell flinch.
Too bad, if he’d upset her. She’d upset him. Twenty years of physical exclusion and now the news that there had never been any recognition of his link to Tegan. Father unknown. Anger roiled through him, gathering force, an avalanche of emotion.
Beside him, Nell clutched her handbag against her stomach and sat very straight. ‘Jacob, we shouldn’t discuss this sort of thing while you’re driving.’
She was probably right, but his only response was an angry hiss. Jaw clenched, he checked the rear-vision mirror, switched lanes in readiness for the Williamstown exit, and tension, as suffocating as smoke, filled the car’s interior.
Five minutes later, Nell directed him into a quiet street a block back from the waterfront.
‘My house is the little one over there with the blue door,’ she said, pointing.
His anger gave way to bafflement as he pulled up outside a quaint but modest colonial cottage with a front hedge of lavender, a flagstone path and yellow roses over the door. It was the kind of old-fashioned cottage and garden his mother adored, but he’d never dreamed that Nell Ruthven and her husband would live in a place like this.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ Nell said quietly.
‘My pleasure.’ Jacob couldn’t keep the brittle note out of his voice.
Her fingers sought the door catch.
‘Shall I pick you up tomorrow morning to go to the Brownes’?’
After a slight hesitation, she said, ‘Thank you. I suppose it makes sense if we travel together.’
‘We should talk, Nell.’ His mind was still seething with angry questions.
Her eyes met his and he saw a heart-wrenching mixture of sorrow and bewilderment and something deeper he couldn’t quite pinpoint.
‘After all this time, we have things to say to each other,’ he said.
‘I can’t talk now, Jacob. There’s no point in even trying to talk today. We’re both too upset and tense.’
Although he was desperate to get everything out in the open, he had to admit that he felt wrung out. And Nell looked far worse.
She pulled the catch, the door clicked open and the scent of lavender drifted in to him on a light sea breeze. In the distance he could hear a seagull’s cry.
‘It must be very pleasant living here,’ he said in a more conciliatory tone.
‘Yes, I love it.’ She turned to speak over her shoulder, without quite looking at him. ‘Why don’t you come early tomorrow? We can talk before we go to the Brownes’?’
‘Great idea. We can go for coffee somewhere in the city.’
‘We can talk here if you like.’
Jacob frowned. ‘Are you sure your husband won’t mind?’
He was watching her profile carefully, saw her mouth curl into a complicated, off-kilter smile. ‘That won’t be a problem. There will only be the two of us. What time would you like to come?’
‘Nine? Half past?’
‘Make it half past. I’ll see you then.’
Nell got out and closed the door behind her and Jacob watched her through the passenger window as she crossed the footpath and opened the front gate. A sudden breeze gusted up the street, shaking the heads of the lavender and, as she walked up the path, the wind teased a bright strand of her hair from its braid and lifted the collar of her jacket against her neck. Her high heels made a tapping sound on the paving stones.
Framed by cream and yellow roses, she stood on her front porch in her neat, dark suit and fished in her handbag for her door key, and she looked beautiful and citified and completely removed from the horse-riding country girl he’d known for two months of one summer twenty years ago.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow