the shop. Just like that.”
“Good God!” He felt something like an electric shock. “How awful. She couldn’t have been more than fifty-five or -six. What was it, heart attack?” He lowered himself into a chair, his mind immediately and inevitably springing to Sarah.
“So Joe said.” Now his grandmother spoke, her voice not quite as strong and self-assured as usual. She’d lost weight recently and suddenly she looked her age, instead of nowhere near it. Only the eyes remained brilliant, sharp and searching. “The extraordinary thing is, I’ve been thinking about Sarah all day.”
“So it was today?”
“Only hours ago.”
“How dreadful.” He knew genuine grief. For Muriel Dempsey and for Sarah. Muriel hadn’t had much of a life, although he’d heard through the grapevine that she’d resisted Sarah’s pleas to come to Brisbane to live with her. Muriel Dempsey had always struck him as completely unselfish. She’d probably thought she might be a burden to Sarah in some way.
“Then Sarah will be coming home. Home, sweet home,” he finished ironically.
“That’s what we’re afraid of,” said his mother, then flushed when Ruth sent her a frown.
“So what’s the problem there?” he asked, his own voice sharpening.
“We’ll be expected to put in an appearance at the funeral or send a representative. The town expects so much of us.”
An angry feeling rose from his heart to his throat. “Perhaps because we have more than enough. I can’t understand what gets into you, Mum. Aren’t you the bloody mayor? Haven’t we known the Dempseys forever? Wasn’t Sarah’s father one of our best ringers? I can’t compel you to go, but I certainly will.”
“We’ll all go,” Ruth said, signaling her daughter with her eyes. “Joe had already contacted Sarah before he rang me. She’ll be in town by tomorrow afternoon. She’ll be staying over the shop.” One of Ruth’s arthritic hands closed tightly over the other. “The funeral is scheduled for Friday. Muriel wished to be cremated and her ashes scattered over the desert like her husband’s.”
“It’s just so very tragic,” Kyall said. “Sarah’s had so much suffering in her life.”
“What do you mean?” Ruth asked very suddenly, her voice like a blade. She leaned forward in her upholstered rattan armchair as though hanging on his answer.
“Why so surprised?” His expression conveyed his reaction. “She lost her father, and now she’s lost her mother, Gran.” Emotion tightened his striking features.
He’s never forgotten her, Ruth thought. The knowledge made her feel more vulnerable and frightened than she’d ever felt in her life. What if he found out? What if Sarah suddenly decided to tell him? Well, if Sarah tried it, she wouldn’t know what she was letting herself in for.
“I did my level best to help her, Kyall. I didn’t have to pay for her education, then send her on to medical school. Sometimes I think I was a damned fool. She’s never appreciated it. One doesn’t like to speak ill of the dead, but Muriel was the same, even though I put plenty in her pocket. She didn’t have to continue to work at that shop. She wanted to.”
“Why exactly did you do it, Gran?”
Shocked, she detected an undertone of bitterness and skepticism in the way he said it. “I carried on from your grandfather and his father before him. The McQueens are philanthropists. Isn’t that the truth?”
“When it’s worth it to you.”
“Kyall!” his mother gasped, her strong-featured, aristocratic face turning pale.
“Mum, must you always be such a hypocrite?” he asked coldly. “Let it go. This news has upset me if it hasn’t upset you.”
Ruth’s glittering black gaze flickered. “I can scarcely believe that my grandson, my splendid grandson, never in awe of me or our fortune, can’t escape that girl. Did she steal your heart, my boy?” For once Ruth allowed herself to show her contempt for Sarah.
Kyall stood up, the last rays of the sinking sun striking blue out of his raven hair and turning his skin gold. “Don’t overplay your hand, Gran. You have a tendency to do that, but I’m not one who’s going to listen.”
“Kyall, darling, don’t!” his mother pleaded, stretching out a hand that shook slightly with nervous tension.
“I certainly never meant to hurt you, Kyall,” Ruth said, aware that someplace inside her was trembling, as well.
“But that’s your problem, Gran,” Kyall said, standing up and turning away, not waiting for her answer. “You do hurt people.”
Normally charming, courteous, above all a gentleman, he spoke like a man who could say anything he wanted to.
These next few days were going to be terrible, Ruth thought. She could hardly have foreseen that Muriel Dempsey would die so soon.
CHAPTER TWO
A FUNERAL WAS an opportunity for the whole town to come together, to reaffirm the bush tradition of “mateship,” of offering real comfort and support in times of trouble and grief.
Father Bartholomew of the Aerial Ministry conducted the service, talking about Muriel Dempsey and her late husband, Jock, in a way that Sarah really appreciated. She’d known Father Bartholomew all her life. He had never failed to give Sarah and her mother comfort and hope. Father Bartholomew was a man you could really talk to, laugh with, whose shoulder you could cry on.
There were no tears today. Sarah sat in the front pew of the small all-denominational church, her features composed. In her short years as an intern and then in private practice, she had seen many tragic things. Everybody lost a loved one at some time or other, many of them far too early—children with terminal leukemia, young women with breast cancer, adolescents overdosing on drugs, young drivers involved in horrific road accidents. She had seen and attended them all. That was part of her profession, what she believed with all her heart was a noble calling.
But this was different. This was saying her final goodbye to her cherished mother. The one who’d loved her absolutely, unconditionally.
Her mother. So lovely. Her mother had always called her “my angel.” Her long mane of curly blond hair, Sarah supposed, plus she’d never been a moody, rebellious child. She and her mother had been too crucially interdependent to allow disharmony into their lives. They’d been mutually supportive and caring. Her mother had continued to call her “my angel” even when she’d had to confess in floods of tears that she was pregnant.
My Rose. I, too, would’ve had a girl. I would’ve had a wonderful, meaningful relationship. Little more than a child she’d been, but she had really wanted her baby. The child in Kyall’s image. Rose Red. Just like in the old fairy tales. She had since learned that everyone had to cope with dreadful losses over a lifetime, but it was something that shouldn’t have happened to her at fifteen.
Joe had tried to talk her out of attending her mother’s cremation. He and Sister Bradley would act as witnesses. But she intended to be with her mother to the very end. Afterward she would borrow Joe’s vehicle to drive out
