I’ve never been in a place like this.” She deliberately chose to focus on the geographical element of his questions, ignored the mention of family.
It didn’t work.
“Why did you move?” Callan asked next.
Uhh … “When my mom died.”
“Your dad didn’t want the memories in New Jersey?”
“No, Dad stayed. I was the one who moved.”
Okay, she was going to have to talk about it now, after giving him that revealing answer. It wasn’t so terrible. She believed in honesty and didn’t know why she was always so reluctant to unload this stuff. Because it made her sound too much like a stray mongrel puppy who’d never found the right home?
She hadn’t thought of it quite like this before, but it made a connection.
Kurt had treated her like a stray puppy. He’d scooped her up, after they’d met at a script-writing seminar when she was still incredibly naive and raw. He’d had her professionally groomed, house-trained her himself, put a diamond collar round her neck, spoiled her rotten …. And then he’d lost interest when she still didn’t perform like a pedigreed Best in Show.
Callan was waiting for her explanation.
“Dad didn’t believe he could raise a teenage daughter on his own, you see,” she said. “I have two brothers, but they’re much older. They were eighteen and sixteen when I was born. Dad’s seventy-eight now, and lives in a retirement home near my oldest brother, Andy.”
She’d had a very solitary childhood. Her parents had both been in their forties when she was born, unprepared for their accidental return to diapers, night feeds, noisy play and bedtime stories. They’d expected her to entertain herself and she’d mostly eaten on her own, in front of a book. And then Mom had died ….
“So Dad sent me to Mom’s younger sister, because she had daughters and he thought she would know what to do.” She pitched her voice quietly. Carly wasn’t ready to hear about her mom’s lonely childhood yet. Fortunately, she and the boys were keeping each other well entertained, vying for who could make the weirdest faces as they chewed.
Seated to Jac’s left, around the corner of the table, Callan looked at her. He took a gulp of his coffee. She liked the way he held his mug, wrapping both hands around it in appreciation of the warmth. “But he was wrong about that? Your aunt didn’t know what to do?”
“I was a bit different,” Jac admitted. “I mean, don’t go imagining Cinderella and her wicked stepmother, or anything. She tried very hard. And my cousins tried … only not quite so hard. They were three and five years older than me, beautiful, blonde and busy, both of them. They were into parties and dates and modeling assignments and dance classes. They had a whole … oh … family style that I had to slot into and mesh with. Frantic pace. Drive-through breakfasts and take-out dinners in front of TV, or on the run. Modeling portfolios and salon appointments and endless hours stuck in traffic on the way from one class to another. And I just didn’t. Mesh with it, I mean. I’d grown up almost as an only child, with a very quiet life. I liked to read and think and imagine. I dreamed about horses and learning to ride. I was the polar opposite of cool. And even after the four years of ballet I took with my cousins, you would not want to see me dance!”
He nodded and stayed silent for a moment, then added with a tease in his voice, “But I’d like to see you ride.”
She smiled at him, happy that he’d dropped the subject of family. “It’ll be great to ride. But what will we do about Carly? She’s been on a three-foot-tall Shetland pony a handful of times at Kurt’s ranch, around and around on a flat piece of grass with someone holding the pony on a rope. She couldn’t ride a horse of her own out here.”
“We’ll work something out.”
“She can ride with me,” Lockie said. “I’ll show you how to gallop, Carlz. I’ll show you Tammy’s tricks. You wait!”
“Carlz” looked up at him, round-eyed and awestruck. “Yeah?” she breathed.
“Uh, Lockie, let’s save the galloping and tricks for another time, okay?” Callan said. He got a glint in his eye when he saw how relieved Jac looked, then he dropped his voice and said to her, “Nice little friendship going between those two, though.”
“Yes, and I think it’s really good for her, Callan. I appreciate it.”
Carly hadn’t sleepwalked since that first night. Possibly because with all the activity generated by boys and dogs and chooks, horses to feed, gates to swing on, trees to climb and a million places to hide, by bedtime she was just too worn out to stir. This morning, as soon as she’d eaten her breakfast, she was off with the boys, who’d been dispatched to catch the horses, bring them to the feed shed where their tack was stored and get them ready.
“But Carly stays outside the paddock and outside the shed, okay?” Callan said, as all three kids fought to be the first one out the door. “She’s too little, she doesn’t know horses and they could kick if she spooks them.”
“Will they remember?” Jac asked.
“Yep. They’re good kids.”
Jac liked his confidence, and after almost four days here, she trusted it. Given more responsibility and physical freedom than any child she’d ever met … let alone the child she’d once been, herself … the boys knew their boundaries and stayed within them. They understood the dangers in their world, and respected the rules Callan gave them to keep them safe. They’d keep Carly safe, also.
“… while we get the rest of the gear together,” Callan said.
By the time they were ready to leave, the temperature had begun to climb, in tandem with the sun’s climb through that heavenly, soaring sky. It would probably hit eighty or even ninety degrees by midafternoon, Jacinda knew. Everyone had swim gear under their clothes, and water bottles and towels in their saddlebags, as well as their share of picnic supplies. On a pair of medium-size, sturdy horses whose breed Jac didn’t know, the boys also had yabby nets, bits of string and lumps of meat for bait.
Kerry was staying home, and Carly was riding right in front of Callan on his big chestnut mare, Moss, her little pink backpack pressing against his stomach. She looked quite comfortable and happy up there. Her mommy was a little nervous about it, but Josh’s old riding helmet and Callan’s relaxed attitude helped a lot.
It was a wonderful ride. The dogs were wildly jealous, but Kerry wanted them at home with her for company. Their barks chased after the four horses and five humans for several minutes until the trail that followed the fence line cut down toward the dry creek bed and the hill between creek and homestead cut off the sound, at which point, “They can bark all they want but we don’t have to hear,” Callan said.
He let the boys lead the way and brought up the rear himself, with Jacinda in the middle. It felt good to know that he was behind her, that he would see right away if something went wrong and he’d know what to do about it.
Not that you could imagine anything going wrong on a day like today. A breeze tempered the sun’s heat, and the stately river gums spread lacy patterns of shade over the rapidly warming earth. They startled a mob of red-coated kangaroos who’d been sleeping in some dry vegetation and the ’roos bounded away, over the smooth-worn rocks and deep sand of the creek bed. On the far
