Jude, who had arrived a scant ten minutes before the service began sat rows back on the family’s side of the aisle. How different this was to the memorial service that had been held for his father. Then the old timber church had been packed with mourners spilling four deep into the grounds. Today it was half filled.
People had wept as they spoke about Matthew Conroy’s innumerable kindnesses and the generosity which he’d wanted kept private, but the grateful had let their stories out. It was well known and perhaps traded on, in hard times Matthew Conroy never took a fee. He was always on hand with free advice. He listened to people’s problems when they came to him, tried to come up with solutions and most often did. Matthew Conroy had spent his life giving service to the community. All agreed he had been a wonderful father to his son. The proof was Jude himself.
No one seems to doubt I’m a winner, Jude thought. They don’t know about the scars. The young woman Jude had seen slip into the church late—his hearing was so acute he could near hear a pin drop—was barely visible at the back. It was as though she had deliberately withdrawn into the shadows. Only her skin bloomed. It made him think of the creamy magnolias that grew in the front yard of his dad’s house that now belonged to him. Whoever she was, he didn’t recognise her. Intrigued, he turned his head slightly to take another look. Immediately she bent forward, her face downcast as if in prayer, or she’d realised her presence had drawn his interest and didn’t welcome it.
By the time the service was over, she had disappeared. He even knew the moment she’d left. He thought he knew just about everyone in the town. Obviously she’d arrived fairly recently, or she was from out of town. He really couldn’t understand why he was so curious. He certainly wasn’t keeping watch on anyone else, not even poor little Mel, who had always wrung his heart.
Jude joined the slow, orderly, motorcade in the hire car Bobbi had organised to be waiting for him at the air terminal, some twenty kilometres from the town. It felt a little strange to be back to the snail’s pace of his hometown. No traffic. No nightmare rush hour. No freeways, no one-ways. You could go wherever you wanted with no hassle at all. There was limitless peace and quiet, limitless golden sunlight to soak in, tropical heat and colour, white sand, and the glorious blue of the ocean at your door. The rain forest and the Great Barrier Reef were a jump away. Isis had been a wonderful place to grow up.
The family and the mourners—not everyone who had attended the service came—spread out around the gravesite, all slightly stunned Lester Rogan was actually dead and being lowered into the ground. He’d always seemed larger than life, a big, burly, commanding man with a voice like the rumble of thunder.
The interment took little time. The widow was a pitiable sight. Who knows what she was thinking. Ralph, sweating profusely, shovelled the first spadeful of dirt onto his father’s ornate, gleaming casket with too much gusto. As Jude walked over to pay his respects to Myra and the family, he saw, not entirely to his surprise, the same young woman who had attracted his attention at the church. She was standing well away from the crowd, taking refuge and he suspected a degree of cover under the giant shade trees dotted all over the cemetery’s well-tended grounds. There had to be a reason she was there. He could see she was taller than average, very slender. She wore a simple dark dress that managed to look amazingly chic, no hat, but a matching head scarf tied artfully. It completely covered her hair.
Who was she? He wondered if the family knew her. It didn’t appear at all likely she was going to come across the grass to speak to them, unlike the other mourners who had formed themselves into a receiving line. They probably weren’t relying on their memories of the late Lester in order to summon up a few kind words, Jude thought, his eyes still on the mystery woman.
Myra, to his surprise, reached up to kiss him as he offered his sympathies which were genuine for her and Mel. Many the time he’d heard Ralph wish his father dead. Melinda looked so lost and pathetic he took her into a comforting hug, allowing her head to nod against him.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Jude,” she whispered, deriving strength from her childhood friend’s presence. Her own brother, Ralph, had been incredibly mean to her as a child. Jude had always been nice to her and she’d never forget that.
“Anything I can do for you and your mother, Mel, I will,” he was saying in his attractive voice. Melinda clung to Jude’s arm, hanging on his every word.
“This must have been a big shock for you, Mel, even if your dad had health problems,” Jude said.
“He didn’t try at all,” Mel lamented. “In fact you’d swear he was trying to kill himself. I couldn’t love him, Jude. He wouldn’t let me. You know that.”
“He wasn’t exactly fatherly material, Mel.”
“Whereas your dad was everything a father should be,” Mel sighed. “I know how cut up you were about losing your mother, Jude. You were very brave. But you had your dad and he was such a lovely man. My dad was very open about how stupid he thought we were.” Melinda dabbed at her eyes with a lace edged handkerchief.
It had an old-fashioned scent like lavender. Heck, it was lavender, the sort old ladies bought. Jude found that a little strange for so young a woman.
Nevertheless he shook his head. “Never stupid, Mel.” He comforted her. “You aren’t and you know you aren’t. It was just your father’s way of trying to keep you all down.”
“Well he succeeded.” Melinda bowed her head like a sacrificial lamb. “Death is always a shock, even when you’re half expecting it. He was my father, the most important person in my life. I feel a sense of awe he’s gone. You’re coming to the house aren’t you?” Her soft grey eyes held a plea.
“Of course. I’m executor of your father’s will. You do know that?”
“Ralph told us. I’m glad it’s you, not a strange lawyer. We really miss your father around here, Jude. He was very special. Like you.”
Jude gave a rueful smile. “I’m not so special, Mel. I’ve got my faults just like the next guy. There’ll be a reading whenever your mother feels up to it.”
Ralph, nearby, must have heard. He broke away from a group of mourners to stride up to them. “Thanks for coming, Jude.” The hard expression in his eyes didn’t match his words. In fact he looked confrontational. Good old Ralph, still mired in his adolescent jealousies and resentments, Jude thought. “It won’t take long at the house before everyone starts moving off. I’d like you to read the will straight after.”
Jude glanced towards Myra doubtfully. “Is that okay with your mother? She looks very frail.”
“It’s okay with me,” Ralph said tersely, turning on his heel again as though he was the only one who counted.
CHAPTER TWO
JUDE let the procession of mourners’ cars get away before he made a move towards the hire car. As usual Ralph rubbed him up the wrong way as soon as he opened his mouth. Now he wanted to get the reading over before he returned to his family home. He’d taken Bobbi’s advice and asked for his overdue vacation. Leonard Gooding had agreed on the spot, buoyed up by the fact Jude had managed to pull off a big, but complicated merger and in the process bring in new highly profitable business for the firm.
The path through the cemetery to the towering front gates was wide, but winding, flanked by enormous poincianas in full bloom. Their hectic blossoming had turned the very air rosy. The town cemetery was never a gloomy place even when the flowering was over. He should have had his eyes firmly on the drive but he