The Inheritance

Gabe snorted with laughter. ‘Yeah, right.’


‘At least if she’s working here she can’t get into too much mischief,’ said Laura. ‘Will you tell her or shall I?’

That conversation had been a week ago. Now Logan was here, an official member of Gabe’s staff. She’d had to pinch herself when she got up for work this morning. No more thinking up excuses to drop by. From now on she would see Gabe every day. More importantly he would see her. At some point he was going to have to realize that she was no longer the little girl he’d first met more than six years ago, when he bought that land from her father.

I’m a woman, thought Logan. If nothing else, she hoped that Gabe seeing her with Seb Harwich might change his perceptions of her, or even make him a little jealous. Seb was twenty-one after all. That made Logan part of a bona-fide, grown-up couple.

‘Logan!’ Gabe’s voice shook her out of her reverie. Hurriedly slipping her eyeliner back into her pocket she emerged into the yard.

‘Good morning,’ she smiled cheerfully.

‘Have you tacked up Jack and Cornflake yet?’ Gabe frowned. He was wearing dirty jeans and a Guinness T-shirt. Two days’ worth of stubble clung stubbornly to his chin, and from the bags under his eyes it was clear he hadn’t slept well.

He’s so handsome I could cry, thought Logan. If I were his wife, I’d take better care of him.

‘Not yet.’ She did her best to look smouldering.

‘Well pull your bloody finger out. The first lesson starts in ten minutes and it’s Lucinda sodding Prior. Her fat-arsed mother’s always looking for a reason to complain, so you’d better not give her one.’

He turned and stalked off.

Logan bit back her disappointment.

She worked here now. She had the whole summer. And Seb Harwich to distract her in the meantime.

Now, where did she leave those bridles?

Angela Cranley sat alone at the dining table at Furlings, admiring the view over the rolling parkland. She rarely ate breakfast in the dining room. It was too big and grand and formal, especially for one. But this morning she felt in need of a pick-me-up, and the view across the idyllic Swell Valley never failed to provide it.

I love it here, she reminded herself. This house, this village, this valley. It’s my home now.

Since Jason had left home, Angela rarely had any company at breakfast time. If Logan was home from boarding school, she was usually still in bed at this hour. Although this morning she’d started her new summer job at the Baxters’ farm and had dashed off at crack of dawn. Brett had stayed in London last night, working. And the night before. He’d taken to staying in town more and more during the week. Angela oscillated between anxiety that once again the distance was growing between them, and relief at his absence. At least without Brett here she could enjoy her toast and Vegemite in peace, and without fear of a row erupting out of nowhere.

Recently the fights with Brett had been particularly bad. They seemed to come in waves, and even after so many years of marriage, Angela didn’t really understand what triggered them, or why certain phases of their marriage were so much worse than others. Some of the flashpoints were constant – Jason and Tatiana being the most obvious one.

Furious at their elopement from day one, Brett had not spoken to Jason since the day of his twenty-first birthday party. Jason and Tatiana were officially and permanently banned from Furlings, and when drunk or angry, Brett was fond of observing that he ‘no longer had a son’, a statement that upset Angela terribly.

It made no difference to him that, against the odds perhaps, Jason and Tati’s marriage had lasted. That they seemed happy together, had started a highly successful business and led an independent, one might even say a gilded life, in London. Jason was now the successful businessman that Brett had always wanted him to be. But it had happened on his and Tatiana’s terms, not on Brett’s. He couldn’t forgive either of them for that.

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