was a pause, as Grace battled her choking sobs, “It’s your uncle Harry,” she wailed, confirming Olivia’s worst fears. “He’s had a massive heart attack. He’s dead, Livvy! Three o’clock this afternoon just when I had a nice cup of tea ready for him. It was a terrible shock—it came right out of the blue. He’d been right as rain. Jason has been wonderful. A tower of strength.”
Jason? For an instant Olivia felt slashed open. How many Jasons could there be? The name struck another frightful blow. Olivia reeled back against the granite-topped counter, putting a hand over her thudding heart. What was Jason doing at Havilah? He had no right to show his face there ever again!
“Come home, love,” Grace was imploring, unable to gain control of her sobs. “Jason understands you’ll want to make the arrangements. Please ring me back, love, as soon as you can. I’m sorry I’m not making much sense, but I’m so upset.”
And what of me? In a daze, Olivia found her way into the living room, leaving her mail to spill unregarded to the kitchen floor. She slumped into a chair, feeling as though she had been utterly gutted. Harry was dead. Jason was a tower of strength. There was something very strange indeed going on. How and why was Jason at Havilah? Wasn’t Jason managing an Outback cattle station, his wife and child with him? Clearly he’d come back. But why? More importantly why hadn’t Harry told her?
Because he knew how much talk of Jason would upset you, her inner voice told her. Jason Corey had caused her tremendous pain. Years before as a girl of twenty she had thought her life was over when her fiancé Jason had jilted her on the eve of their wedding. At nearly twenty-seven she imagined she’d fought free of the pain and humiliation. Yet it only took the sound of his name to undo her. Grief and bitterness ran down Olivia’s cheeks in salty tears.
“Jason has been a tower of strength.”
Even the way Grace said it—Grace had always had such a soft spot for Jason—told Olivia it had to be her Jason.
Her Jason? She felt a stab of self-contempt that even under the terrible stress of the moment she could revert to thinking of him that way. He’d never been hers. Even when he’d been passionately declaring his love for her he’d slept with another girl—made her pregnant. She had trusted Jason with her life and she had never forgiven him. Just as she had never forgiven Megan Duffy who had been a childhood friend and was to be one of her four chosen bridesmaids.
She was Megan Corey now—Jason’s wife, mother of their child. Probably there were other children, too, Jason was so bloody potent. No one would tell Olivia. Everyone realized she didn’t want to know. As far as she was concerned, Jason and Megan belonged to the traumatic past. Consequently she was unwilling to believe Harry could allow Jason back into his life. When she suffered, Harry had suffered. Her uncle Harry, great-uncle really, was from her father’s side of the family. He had raised her since her parents had been killed in a rail disaster when she was ten. Harry was a bachelor—no-one including Harry quite knew why—and he had inherited the family ancestral home, Havilah Plantation in tropical North Queensland. The Linfields were pioneers of the sugar industry with the great bulk of the nation’s production contributed by the tropical North. In the early days Havilah had played host to Captain Louis Hope, revered as the father of the sugar industry. Born in Scotland, Captain Hope had established the first sugar cane plantation just outside Brisbane in the early l860s. From those beginnings had grown an industry that each year traded forty million tonnes of high quality raw sugar on the world market. The Linfields had always been very proud of their heritage.
Her parents, when they had made their wills, had named Harry as her guardian should anything happen to them. In those days it was thought to be a sensible precaution. Her parents were always described as “the glamorous young Linfields.” They were rich and blessed with good looks. They bore their name proudly and fully intended to live to a ripe old age.
It wasn’t in their stars. Death had presented itself twelve years into an idyllic marriage when they were both still in their thirties. Death didn’t miss rich families any more than it missed the poor. Three sons of the family had lost their lives fighting for the Allied cause in two World Wars. Olivia could scarcely believe it was less than a week since she had last spoken to Harry. Sometimes she called him several times in the one week, especially as he was getting older, but with end of year activities at the school she’d been particularly busy. Sometimes she thought she desperately needed to see Havilah again, but she knew she couldn’t endure it. There were too many memories to relive. She had grown tired of anguish. Her wedding reception was to have been held in Havilah’s great barn, Harry had had transformed into the most marvellous banquet hall and ballroom with a springy pine floor. Every last detail had been planned to perfection. Harry had spared no expense, everyone had been so happy the very air was sweet. This was a match made in heaven. She had thought at times she couldn’t possibly contain such happiness. She adored Jason. She couldn’t get through a day without him. She was on fire for him. And he for her.
All lies. Jason, the very image of true love to her, had had feet of clay.
Now her beloved Harry who knew all her traumas and her triumphs had left her. She thought how wonderful he had always been to her, involving himself in every aspect of her life. She’d received an excellent education graduating from university with a degree in education by the time she was twenty. She’d confidently expected to gain a position with one of the district’s high schools for a few years until she and Jason started a family. Afterwards when their much hoped for children were old enough she could resume her career.
Daydreams! But how could she have known differently? Everyone around her was convinced Jason was deeply, madly, irrevocably in love with her. His eyes when he looked at her! His voice when he spoke to her!
“He adores you!” Or so people told her.
How ghastly it had been to discover overnight that Jason had gone ahead and started a family with Megan Duffy. For a quiet girl Megan had been a fast worker. It was just as they said: still waters run deep. Megan’s father and brother had worked and probably still did for Uncle Harry at the mill. When other mills had been forced to close down, Linfield had remained open and Uncle Harry had been kindness itself to the families of his employees. How Megan had repaid him. Even Megan’s parents had been shockingly upset when they found out their only daughter was pregnant by Jason Corey of all people. That was some piece of information! It had shocked the entire district. Jason Corey was about to marry Olivia Linfield. Everyone knew Olivia and Jason had been bonded from childhood, they were meant for each other.
It wouldn’t be the first time in life certainties didn’t work out. Olivia had known that terrible day when Jason had come to her with his shattering news that could never bring herself to see him again. As soon as she was able she had moved nearly a thousand miles away to the State capital, Brisbane, enrolling for postgraduate studies so she could obtain her master’s. Study was the answer. Hard work. Delivering assignments right on time. It had been a constant battle for her but she had pushed herself along, fixing her mind on a goal.
She had never gone home, Uncle Harry had always come to visit her instead. On those occasions she did everything in her power to make sure he had a lovely time. Neither of them, of course, ever mentioned Jason—that would have spoilt everything. Jason had left her life in ruins. For a long time she had hated him with her every breath, but hatred was too extreme. She had to relinquish it for acceptance. She had taken the philosophical view—it had helped her in her struggle to fight back. Now with Harry dead a great deal more courage was required of her. She would have to go home.
A sense of deep nostalgia assailed her. She saw Harry in her mind’s eye. She felt his love all around her. A pulse in her temple throbbed as an image of Jason forced its way into her consciousness. The sun on his wonderful hair, a rich auburn, like a red setter’s coat, the impossibly deep, bold blue of his eyes, the surprise
