Hope Echoes

by Shannon Curtis

  ‘I’ll take your statement now, if you can spare the time.’

  Chapter Three

  Mac watched as Jac blinked rapidly, then nodded. ‘Uh, yes. Of—of course.’ Were her cheeks rosy? Damn, was she fighting off an infection from the cut on her head?

  She rose from the table, and he nodded at old man Buchanan. ‘Tom, how’s it going?’

  ‘How do you expect?’ Tom muttered, using his knife to indicate out beyond the bank of kitchen windows. ‘Someone’s blowing up my damn property.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we’ll get to the bottom of it,’ Mac assured him.

  ‘I don’t want to see any of those Terrance boys cross my fence line again,’ the older man said.

  ‘Dad—’ Jac protested.

  ‘I mean it, Jacinta. Their father was no good, and those boys take right after him. No more.’

  Jac’s lips tightened, and she left the table. Mac noticed she didn’t agree to abide by her father’s dictate. She jerked her chin at him, and he followed her through the kitchen to the hallway, and then into the living room. He watched as she walked with a loose-hipped lankiness, shoulders back, her messed-up ponytail ending mid-back. The plaid shirt she wore looked vaguely familiar. He could have sworn it was Jamie’s, at one point. They entered the room, and she paused briefly to draw back the curtains to let light filter into the room. Jacinta started walking toward the couch, then changed direction and sat in one of the armchairs. He took the lounge, and watched as she settled herself. She rested her ankle on her opposite knee, and tilted her head back against the armchair’s backrest.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  His eyebrows rose at her abrupt question, and she rubbed her forehead. ‘Sorry, I lost a day in the hospital and have so much to do…’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?’ He pulled out his notebook, and then listened carefully as she told her story. Every now and then he’d stop her to ask a question, to clarify a detail, but mostly he let her talk.

  Her voice was calm, husky, but with a catch whenever she spoke of Brayden. Whatever she was involved with, he didn’t doubt she mourned the young boy’s death. He closed his notebook with a snap when she was finished. She didn’t once mention the lab, the Terrance brothers, or how she was involved with the operation. He glanced down at his black shoes. He didn’t want to arrest Jacinta Buchanan, but he couldn’t understand how this could happen right under her nose without her knowing anything about it. He looked over at her.

  She looked exhausted. Her complexion was pale, her blue eyes ringed with dark shadows. ‘You should rest,’ he told her.

  She shook her head. ‘Got too much stuff to do.’ She fidgeted with the bandage wrapped around her head. He still found it hard to think about her being knocked unconscious. She was normally so lively, so bubbly, but here, today, she was a shadow of her former, annoyingly chirpy self.

  He tilted his head. ‘Can’t Nielsen take care of a few things for you?’

  She dropped her hand in her lap, and her eyes narrowed. ‘Why? Because you don’t think I’m capable of doing it myself?’

  Mac straightened, already sensing the minefield he’d accidently wandered into from the way she glared at him. Just like when he’d told her girls couldn’t be Robin Hood. He instinctively placed his hat over his lap, remembering the outcome of that particular discussion, so long ago. ‘Uh, no, that’s not—’

  ‘Because I can work this station, I don’t care what everyone else thinks.’ She’d leaned forward in her chair, and try as he might, he couldn’t stop his gaze from briefly sliding down to see her oversized plaid shirt draping forward, revealing a glimpse of navy tank top and cleavage.

  Jamie’s little sister had cleavage.

  He snapped his gaze back up to Jacinta’s. Gawd, whatever you do, don’t look. She’d neuter him. Jamie would neuter him. He’d be a walking, neutered mess. He hesitated when he saw her expression. She looked fierce, but it didn’t quite hide her vulnerability, her sadness. His gaze slid to the door. It must be tough, living with Buchanan since he’d lost his arm. He knew from his folks that Jacinta’s father had pretty much shut himself off from everyone, and was rarely seen in town.

  ‘How’s Tom doing? Really?’

  Jacinta sagged back against the chair. ‘He’s angry,’ she said quietly. ‘So angry. I can’t blame him. What happened to him—it just wasn’t fair.’

  ‘You found him, didn’t you?’

  He still remembered when he’d heard the news. He’d been sitting at the bar at his parents’ hotel when they’d all heard the wail of the ambulance. Tom had had an emergency amputation at the site. He’d been lying trapped under the tractor for hours before Jacinta went looking for him. By that time it was pretty clear he’d lose his arm. Must have been an absolute nightmare for Jacinta to witness. Of course, it had been worse for Buchanan to experience it.

  She nodded, then looked up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly. She cleared her throat. ‘Yeah. Sometimes he has good days, but mostly they’re bad. He finds his limitations… frustrating.’

  Mac nodded. He could appreciate that. Tom had always been a fit, robust man, and had worked hard. Without an arm … yeah. He could see why Tom would feel frustrated. Jacinta rose from the chair, giving him a silent cue to leave. He stood, but hesitated. He looked at her directly. This was Jacinta. Jamie’s sister. She seemed so … tired. He felt the weight of that promise he’d made to Jamie the night before he’d left for basic training at Kapooka. He’d promised to keep an eye on her, keep her out of trouble. Well, he apparently sucked at that, and had to do better. She weaved a little on her feet, and he caught her arm. Her muscles tensed under his grip.

  ‘You know—you know you can talk to me, right?’ he said to her, his voice low.

  Jac’s eyes widened as she stared up at him. ‘Uh, yeah. Sure.’ She looked a little confused, her voice low and husky, but her features softened at his words.

  He stepped closer. She was so tall, he didn’t need to duck his head to maintain eye contact. ‘No, I mean it. If you need anything, if something’s troubling you, you can call me. Day or night.’ He eyed her intently. ‘I know Jamie’s sometimes hard to get hold of, so if you need a stand-in big brother, call me, okay? I’m available.’

  Jac blinked. ‘Big brother…’ she repeated.

  He nodded. ‘Yeah.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘While I remember, Mum and Dad send their regards, and want you to come into town for a visit.’ Their mothers had been close friends, before June Buchanan had passed away suddenly from a brain aneurism.

  Jac smiled faintly. ‘Well, say hi right back to Uncle Pip and Aunty Daph for me.’

  ‘When can I tell them you’ll pop in?’ he pressed her.

  ‘Uh, probably next week. I’ve got a feed order due in at the co-op.’

  He nodded, then realised he still held her arm, that they were standing very close—so close that her loose tendrils seemed to have a static energy, reaching out to touch his shirt and arm. He raised his hand to tuck the strands behind her ear, but stopped when he realised what he was doing. He turned it into a casual gesture of farewell. ‘No worries, I’ll let them know.’

  He followed her through the house to the back veranda. He found himself gazing at the long panel of red and brown plaid fabric that obscured the shape of her butt from his view, and then shook his head. No staring at her butt. No staring at her boobs. Butt and boobs were out of bounds. Jamie would tear him—

  Jac turned to give him a brief smile as she opened the back door, and his gaze dropped to her boobs. God, he deserved everything Jamie could dish out. He smiled tightly, then strode out the door, his gaze fixed firmly ahead of him. Eyes forward, just keep your eyes—

  ‘Whoa, avoid that bit, I have to fix it,’ Jac said, grabbing his arm and pulling him to the side. He glanced down and saw the warped and cracked boards, and then nodded. And definitely did not look at her boobs.

  ‘Thanks.’ He slid his hat on as he crossed the dusty yard.
He lifted a hand to wave farewell at Tom, who was walking out toward one of the sheds. Mac wasn’t sure if Tom was waving back, or shooing flies from around his face—or flipping him the bird. He decided to take the gesture as a farewell. Mac climbed into his car, and for a moment he stared at the tall young woman who’d followed him out. She leaned against the veranda post, one elbow braced above her head. Her messed-up ponytail hung over one shoulder, and one of her long legs was bent casually and crossed at the ankle. He wondered if she realised she wore mismatched socks. She was tired, she was in pain, but there was something so damn dauntless, and yet so relaxed that it gave her a quiet air of confidence he hadn’t noticed about her before. She’d grown up, and grown comfortable in her own skin.

  He didn’t know what trouble she’d gotten herself into, but he hoped it wasn’t too late to pull her butt out of it.

  * * *

  ‘Hey, Dad,’ Jac called, scrambling up from the seat in the office and hurrying down the hall after her father. She’d spent the day catching up on paperwork and bills—which generally meant shuffling bills from one pile to another because you needed money to pay bills and she didn’t have any. She’d hoped that going over invoices and orders and doing a little more research on her special project would be easier on her head than bouncing around the property on a bike or a ute. Sadly, though, trying to come up with a plan to wring money out of red dust made her head ache just as bad.

  Her father halted in the hallway and turned back to her. He’d already changed into his pyjamas and robe, his feet encased in slippers. For once, his face looked a little less … sour. She hoped it had something to do with the delicious roast-chicken dinner that Marion had made for them before retiring. Hmm. Maybe the way to a man’s heart really was through his stomach.

  If that was the case, she was monumentally screwed and should prepare herself now for a solitary life.

  She clasped her hands in front of her. ‘Have you had a chance to think about my idea?’ she asked gently.

  Her father pursed his lips. ‘I don’t see there being any use for it,’ he said. ‘I think Scott is right. Trying to diversify our activities at the moment, when we’re still trying to claw ourselves back from the drought, seems a little risky.’

  Jac frowned. ‘Scott said that?’ She thought he’d been tepidly encouraging when she’d raised it with him.

  Her father nodded. Jac sighed. ‘I think it’s probably the very reason why we should do it,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know, Jacinta. We’re talking a lot of money in the setup, when we already owe so much.’

  ‘But I think the bank would lend us what we need,’ she argued gently. ‘Solar farming isn’t some weird and wacky pseudoscience myth. We have a great area to do it, and we’d be less reliant on water…’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘What if I got some information together for you, and scouted out the property for a suitable site. There’s no cost involved in that, and then we could look at our options,’ she interjected, hoping to stop her father from completely shutting her down.

  Tom Buchanan sighed as he looked at her, and she didn’t pretend she wasn’t praying. ‘What does your brother think?’

  Her fingers clenched, and her brain clicked through a number of responses ranging from ‘who cares?’ through to ‘let me ask’ and ‘why do I bother?’. She pasted a smile on her face.

  ‘Good question,’ she answered. ‘Next time we talk, I’ll run it by him.’

  Her father nodded. ‘Well, I think you need to do more research. We’ll talk about it later.’

  He turned and shuffled off to his room, and she stood in the hallway, watching with pursed lips. Just once, she’d love it if her father would consider letting her take on some real authority, and give her some room to do what she wanted with Bulls’ Run. What was the word? Oh, yeah. Trust. She wished her father trusted her with the farm.

  ‘At least it wasn’t a flat-out no.’ She sighed, trying to find something positive as she switched off the office light and padded down the hall in her socks. Within minutes she’d slipped out of her clothes and into her robe, and padded down the hall to the bathroom. She turned the light on, and startled when she saw her reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Oh, hell.’ She clapped her hands over her mouth. Why hadn’t anyone told her she looked so crap? Her face was pale, with dark bags under her eyes. Her hair was—god, what the hell was going on with her hair? An oily bird’s nest. She shuddered, then tilted her head, frowning. She was sure she’d washed her face that morning, damn it. She hadn’t been able to shower, because of the bandage, but had she been walking around with that dirt streak down her cheek all day?

  Including when she was talking with Mac?

  Embarrassed horror flooded through her, and she covered her face with her hands. Ugh. She looked about as good as a cane toad getting cosy with a cricket bat. And she’d sat across from Mac looking like this. She was definitely going to die a spinster.

  No wonder he’d suggested she consider him a stand-in brother. Not that she was considering him anything else, mind you. Macarthur Hudson was the love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy. He might be hot, but he was not boyfriend material, as many of the broken hearts around Echo Springs could attest. She rolled her eyes. Boyfriend. That sounded so … teenagey. At her age, she needed a man-friend, not a boyfriend.

  Mac was a man. And a friend.

  She covered her eyes. Gawd. No. Stop thinking about Mac.

  She raised her hands and gently unwrapped the bandage from around her head. She winced as she peeled off the dressing and peered at the abrasion on her head. For the amount of blood she’d lost, it was a surprisingly small wound.

  She disrobed and stepped into the shower, sucking in her breath as the cold water hit her. Whatever Dad thought, she was going to organise solar panels for the roof. It’d be nice to have hot water without having to run a generator.

  She showered hurriedly, shampooing her hair a couple of times to remove all of the dirt. Once finished, she raided the first-aid items in the mirror cabinet to redress her wound, but left the bandage off. She gently squeezed the excess water from her hair and then ran a comb through it, hissing as each snag sent a mini throb over her scalp. She popped an aspirin, then finished towel-drying her hair. Within minutes she was back in her room, and combing her hair in front of her dressing table and mirror.

  She eyed the photographs stuck with clear tape to the frame of the mirror. There were some of her parents, of her and Jamie, of Jamie, Mac and Jayden Terrance, of her with Hayden and Brayden… She fingered one in the corner. Young Kelsey. Her dorm mate looked happy in this photo, taken three days before Jacinta had found her body in the shower block at school, dead from a drug overdose. Damn, but she missed her friend. And now she’d lost another one. Sure, Brayden was much younger than she was, but she’d treated him like a kid brother when the Terrances had first lived on the property while Mick Terrance worked as a station hand. Then, after they left, Hayden had ridden his bike from the house at the edge of town to the Bulls’ Run property over the school holiday breaks when she was home from boarding school, with young Brayden dinkying on the back.

  She moved a photo of Brayden down next to Kelsey, her shoulders drooping under the weight of her grief. They’d been so young, so full of life, and now both of them were gone.

  The images started to blur, and she brushed at her tears as she slid between the sheets of her bed, sighing as she finally lay her head against the pillow. She was so ready for sleep.

  Two hours later, Jac sighed in frustration as she glared up at her ceiling. Sleep. That’s all she wanted. Sleep. The aspirin had kicked in, her head was no longer throbbing, she could just close her eyes and drift off.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to imagine sheep jumping over the fence, only to constantly see the fireball that had been Brayden’s death. Tears rolled down her cheeks. He’d been so young—fourteen. Too young to die, especially so horrifically. His smiling face ke
pt morphing into the burned husk of a skeleton she imagined they’d found, and then into the lifeless face of her friend, Kelsey, slumped against the cold tiles. God, stop thinking of that.

  She turned her mind to Mac, and his questions. Something bothered her there, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  A low drone rumbled across the yard, and she turned her head to look at her open bedroom window. She frowned. No, that wasn’t her imagination, there was definitely something out there.

  She pulled the covers off and swung her feet down to the floor, then padded over to the window. Pulling the curtains aside, she peered out into the darkness.

  The three-quarter moon had risen, and the landscape was bathed in silvery purples. She cocked her ear, listening hard, until she heard the noise again. That was definitely an engine—a car of some sort.

  Her lips tightened. It wasn’t Scott. His truck sounded different. If there were more kids out there getting drunk or stoned, she was going to put a stop to it. Three deaths at Bulls’ Run were three too many.

  She dragged her jeans on over the silk boxer briefs she wore as pyjamas, and a loose t-shirt over her crop top. It was late August, and while the days were warming up, the nights were still chilly.