Moonlight Plains (12 page)

‘But ever since I’ve felt so bloody guilty,’ she said, and without warning, the stress of her confession overwhelmed her. She crumpled, weeping hard, pressing her face into her knees, trying to stem the tears that would not be stemmed.

It was quite a while before she felt Megan’s hand on her shoulder.

‘Sorry,’ she sniffed, rubbing at her damp face.

‘No need to apologise, hon. That’s heavy shit you’ve had to deal with.’

Sally found a tissue in her pocket and blew her nose.

‘But I don’t think you should feel guilty, Sal. It might have been different if Josh had actually talked about wanting to be a father.’

Sally managed a shaky smile. ‘And I can’t pretend I was keen to be a single mother.’

‘I reckon it’s time to stop feeling guilty,’ Megan said.

Sally drew a deep breath of sea air. ‘I’m glad I told you. I feel better just getting it off my chest.’ Slipping her arm around Megan’s shoulders, she gave her a one-armed hug. ‘Thanks.’

After a bit Megan asked cautiously, ‘So . . . have you thought about what you do want for the future?’

Slowly, Sally nodded. ‘I want to get my life back. I want to stop feeling as if I’ve fallen off the merry-go-round and can’t get back on.’

‘And you won’t bite my head off next time I mention another guy?’

Sally let out a huff that was almost a laugh. ‘How about a deal? If anything exciting happens, you’ll be the first to know. I promise.’

Megan grinned. ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

Reaching for another piece of driftwood, Sally tossed it up the beach, calling to the dogs. Indigo, Megan’s young and bouncy black lab, reached it first, but elderly Jess was soon trying to wrestle it from him.

‘Look at them,’ Sally said, and both girls were smiling as they ran to sort out their dogs.

Sally felt calm and surprisingly cleansed as she walked to her flat after Megan drove off. It wasn’t far, just a block back from the beach, and still the flat she’d lived in with Josh. She supposed her inability to leave was part of her general inability to move on, but she also loved living so close to the sea. The sea and the bush both had strong appeal for her.

She fed Jess in the laundry and watered her pot plants, mostly herbs that she kept by the back door, then went inside to take a shower.

Refreshed, she raided her freezer and found a container of leftover risotto that she set in the microwave to defrost. Luke would probably call risotto girl food, she thought, and was promptly mad with herself for thinking about him. Yet again.

There was a half a bottle of white wine in the fridge and she poured herself a glass and carried it through to the spare bedroom, which she used as her study. Her notebook was lying on the desk beside her laptop, still open at the notes she’d made about Moonlight Plains’ history. Even though she wasn’t sure she’d continue with the story, she’d done a little research at James Cook Uni as well as at the city library. She’d traced back to the mid-nineteenth century, to the time after explorer Ludwig Leichhardt’s expedition when early settlers had moved up from Bowen to try grazing sheep near Charters Towers.

Now, she flipped through a page or two as she took a sip of wine. The more she’d found out about this story, the more interested she’d become. She knew she could do a good job, and this evening, she felt a renewed sense of purpose.

The early history of the Moonlight Plains homestead was also linked to the gold rush days when cattle had found a ready local market and prices were really high. That era was interesting enough on its own, but if she added in the World War II connection and the hunky young builder descendent who was currently renovating the house, she had a really good colour story.

It could even be her big break, a golden chance to achieve her dream to go beyond freelance and become a commissioned writer for a quality magazine.

She really wanted to write this.

Of course, her chances of completing this story would be a thousand times more straightforward if she and Luke Fairburn hadn’t slept together on the night after the ball. She’d made the classic mistake of mixing business with pleasure, and now, if she wanted to go ahead, she really needed to sort something out with Luke. Really, she should phone him. Clear the air. Get that night behind them, once and for all.

Or was it all too messy?

Should she just forget about it?

She glanced again at her notes and thought how excited she’d been as she made them.

No, do it. You know you want to.

Now.

Just do it.

She was ridiculously nervous as she keyed in Luke’s number.

The phone rang for ages and she was bracing herself to leave a message when Luke answered at the last minute.

‘Hello?’ He sounded distant, possibly annoyed.

‘Hi, Luke, it’s Sally.’ At least she managed to sound calm.

‘Sally, how are you?’ He was mega-polite.

‘Fine, thanks.’ She hurried on quickly to cover her nerves. ‘I should have rung you earlier to let you know I delivered your stained glass safely.’

‘Thanks. I appreciate that.’

‘Actually, they made quite a fuss at the shop. They said it was some of the oldest glass they’d seen in North Queensland. The glazier reckons it must have been brought out from England.’

‘That’s interesting.’

‘I thought so too. And I think it would be really interesting to try to find out more about it.’

‘I guess.’

A small silence limped by.

‘Luke, I –’

‘Listen,’ he jumped in. ‘What I said last week was probably out of line. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I know how much you want to write this story and if I’m honest, I might benefit from it as well, so I don’t want to make it hard for you.’ He was talking fast, as if he needed the conversation to be over. ‘But it’s not easy to pretend that night didn’t happen, is it?’

‘No.’ Sally drew a sharp breath as she recalled her uninhibited response to Luke’s lovemaking. She couldn’t deny that she’d been partly responsible for what happened that night. It wasn’t as if Luke had coerced her.

She heard a soft sound as he inhaled.

‘But it was a mistake,’ he said next. ‘That’s what you decided, right?’

Sally winced.

When she’d woken on the morning after the ball, her head had been filled with dreams of Josh and she’d been beyond shocked to find herself in another man’s bed. Of course, she’d been consumed by guilt and regret. But now . . . now she was shocked by how genuinely conflicted she felt.

Yes, she wanted the Moonlight Plains story. Yes, she liked Luke. And yes, she was attracted to him, disturbingly so. But despite this evening’s helpful conversation with Megan, she couldn’t pretend that her emotions weren’t still all over the place.

Luke was an open, straightforward kind of guy and the last thing Sally wanted was to stuff up his life with the messy war zone that was currently her heart.

‘Look, I know your situation,’ Luke said, coming to her rescue when she didn’t answer. ‘I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to lose your husband, and I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did.’

‘Well . . . thanks.’ Sally hoped she sounded as grateful as she felt. Luke was a really nice guy, and he was taking the trouble to look at this situation from her point of view. ‘But you should tell me straight, Luke, if you’d rather I dropped the story.’

‘I don’t want you to,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Not unless you do.’

‘No, I’m keen. I’ve done more research and I think the story has a lot of potential.’

‘Good, that’s great.’

Was she imagining the relief in his voice?

‘Actually, your windows will be ready next week,’ she went on. ‘I could bring them out, if you like and – and make a progress check.’

‘Which day next week?’

‘Thursday?’

There was a sound that might have been a sigh.

‘I’m going to be busy on Thursday. My Uncle Jim is buying a pen of young steers at next week’s sales. The family tends to share this place and my uncle lives in Brisbane, so he’s organised to have the cattle trucked here on Wednesday afternoon. I was planning to brand and ear-tag on Thursday.’

Sally found herself fantasising about watching Luke do his cowboy routine.

‘That would be amazing to see,’ she said boldly.

‘You think so?’

‘Absolutely, Luke. If I got shots of you working with cattle as well as on the house, it would round off the whole picture perfectly.’

She hoped she didn’t sound too enthusiastic.

‘Right,’ he finally replied. ‘But you’d need to get here pretty early.’

‘Not a problem.’ Sally saw her reflection in her laptop’s screen. She was grinning.

Luke was frowning as he disconnected – frowning in spite of the excitement drumming through him, frowning because he’d just invited a major complication back into his life.

He’d been certain that he’d seen the last of Sally Piper after he’d threatened to kiss her. Kiss her senseless, no less. He couldn’t believe he’d done that. Couldn’t believe he’d been so crass. Clearly, his brains had taken a bloody hike.

Trouble was, he’d been acting crazily ever since he’d met Sally. For her, that first night after the ball had been a casual fling, which was fair enough, but for some reason Luke couldn’t pin down, he hadn’t been happy with that.

His reaction hadn’t made sense then and it still didn’t. Until now, his track record with girls had been nothing but casual. He’d always preferred to be a moving target, to hook up with girls who were passing through – free-spirited backpackers like Jana, girls he’d met at rodeos, at parties.

Hell, he’d been the King of Casual.

Sure, he was quick off the mark with girls, but he was never looking far into the future, despite what others in his family might hope.

Now he was intent on breaking into a new career. At this stage he had no idea where his next job might take him, so why the hell would he eat his heart out over a grieving widow who’d seen him as a momentary diversion?

Luke didn’t like the way Sally had got under his skin. He didn’t like the way he could so easily and so often recall every detail of her delicate profile, or the shape of her mouth, or the charming picture she’d made sitting in his messy kitchen with her auburn hair and her dark-brown eyes alight with enthusiasm.

For the homestead.

The homestead, dickhead.

Your project. Not you.

Still frowning, Luke stared at the view through the window where biscuit-coloured paddocks shimmered with silver beneath a rising moon. This was his dream, to be working at restoring a beautiful rural property – and not just any property, but the place where his grandparents had come after the war to start a new life as cattle graziers.

Luke had very happy memories of long-ago summers when he’d come here to family gatherings at Christmas and followed his grandfather around his workshop like an adoring puppy, watching his broad capable hands at work . . . the mix of concentration and delight in the old guy’s keen blue eyes as he’d hammered and sawn and drilled . . .

There’s no point in doing a half-hearted job, Luke. You either put everything into it, or you don’t bother.

In those days, Moonlight Plains had seemed perfect to Luke. He’d loved the happily chaotic mealtimes with aunts, uncles and cousins joining his grandparents at long trestle tables on the verandah, and with everyone pitching in to help with the cooking or washing up.

In the long afternoons, they’d played cricket on the lawn, or they’d fished in the river and brought their catch home to barbecue. At night after dinner, the tables had been cleared and stretchers with mosquito nets were set up, so all the kids could sleep on the verandah. It had been so much fun, whispering in the dark with his sister Bella and his cousins, and watching the moon slip across the starlit sky, while cattle chomped and snorted in the distant paddocks, or curlews cried under the trees by the creek.

This old homestead had been the hub that drew their far-flung, big and boisterous family together, and after his grandfather’s death the memories had gained leverage, prodding at Luke and firing his dreams, until recently his goals had felt clear and certain, driven by an inner compulsion that he could neither explain nor ignore.

That was why he’d agreed to Sally’s story – to raise the property’s profile and to help boost his fledgling business as a builder. He had to remember this when Sally turned up next week looking all kinds of wonderful.

It was time for a new strategy.

Moonlight Plains, 1942

Dawn light filtered slowly through the papered-over windows, and by the time Kitty woke it was already bright outside. She and Ed were supposed to have taken it in shifts to sit with Bobby. She leapt out of bed in a fright.

Ed had let her sleep right through the night.

Surely that didn’t mean . . .?

Surely the worst hadn’t happened?

A chilling dread gripped her as she snatched her cotton dressing-gown from the end of her bed and hurried barefoot to the next room. Bobby was still lying there with his eyes closed and Ed was in the chair in the corner. He seemed to be asleep, with his long legs stretched in front of him, his head lolling sideways at an awkward angle. His jaw was covered by a five o’clock shadow, and a wing of dark hair flopped over his brow.

Tiptoeing forward, Kitty touched him on the hand. ‘Ed,’ she said softly.

His eyes flashed open and then he winced and rubbed at his kinked neck.

‘You didn’t wake me,’ she scolded.

He smiled sleepily up at her, looking more like a film star than ever with the dishevelled fall of hair. ‘I couldn’t disturb you. You looked too peaceful.’

Her desire to argue this point was overridden by her concern for Bobby. ‘How is he?’

Ed sighed. ‘Much the same, I think. I’m sure I haven’t been asleep for long.’ He reached for Bobby’s wrist, felt for the pulse, and frowned.

‘Not great?’ Kitty whispered, reading his face.

He shook his head and with another sigh, he went to the window and pushed it open. ‘At least it’s stopped raining. I should try that creek again.’

‘But you haven’t really slept.’ Kitty hated the thought of Ed leaving her again. ‘And it would be crazy to try if the rain’s only just stopped. You’d spend most of the day sitting on the bank waiting for it to go down. Get some rest, Ed. Then let me make breakfast for you.’

‘No, don’t bother, thanks. I’m not hungry.’

He looked far too pale and drawn.

‘Even if it’s only half an hour’s rest.’ Kitty shooed him. ‘Go on. Sleep in my bed.’

At this, his mouth quirked in a quarter-smile and his dark eyes glinted, momentarily amused.

Of course Kitty blushed.

‘Don’t let me sleep too long. Half an hour maximum.’

‘All right. I promise.’

As Ed disappeared, Kitty waited with Bobby for a moment or two, then went to the kitchen and started a fire in the stove. She put the kettle on, planning to give Bobby some tea when he woke.

While the water was coming to the boil, she checked her reflection in the spotty bathroom mirror.

She looked like a birch broom in a fit.

Embarrassed that Ed had seen her like this, she quickly washed her face and combed and tidied her hair. She couldn’t get fresh clothes from her room without disturbing Ed, so she retied the knot at the waist of her dressing-gown. It would have to do for now.

To her surprise, Bobby was awake when she carried two cups of tea to his room, but his face was so pale and gaunt that his eyes were like pools of blue fire.

‘Morning, Angel.’

Just speaking seemed to exhaust him.

‘Good morning, Bobby,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve brought you some nice, sweet tea.’

She supported him with one arm as she carefully fed him spoonfuls, but the effort weakened him terribly.

Worried, Kitty sat, watching him as he closed his eyes again and dropped off. She sipped at her own cup of tea and wondered if Ed was already asleep. Wondered how long Bobby could go on like this. Wondered where her great-uncle was. What would Uncle Jim think when he found two strange American airmen in his house?

Without warning, Bobby cried out, ‘It’s okay, Mom. I’m okay. Don’t look so worried.’

Kitty jumped, surprised to find him staring at her strangely. ‘Sorry.’ She dredged up an answering smile. ‘But I’m Kitty – I mean Angel – not your mum.’

Bobby blinked several times, looked around the room and smiled wearily as he recalled where he was. ‘I’m going to be okay, you know, Angel.’

‘Yes, of course you are.’

‘I’ll show you why.’ Patting his shirtfront, he fumbled with the pocket flap. ‘I got my lucky charm in here.’

‘Here, let me help you.’

Kitty was pleased the pocket was not on the same side of his chest as the bruise, but she was as gentle as she could be while she undid the button.

Carefully, she slipped her fingers inside. The pocket seemed to be empty. ‘What am I looking for?’

‘A silver dollar.’ Bobby’s voice was sleepy and slurred. ‘It’ll be down the bottom.’

‘Oh, yes. Got it.’

She removed the coin and was smiling at the small triumph as she placed it in Bobby’s palm.

‘It’s a beauty, isn’t it?’ In his pale face, his eyes were glowing. ‘A Peace dollar from 1923. The year I was born. My dad set it aside for me. And he gave it to me for good luck when I joined the air force.’

Good luck?
Kitty’s throat ached with the effort of holding back her tears. ‘It’s lovely, Bobby.’

‘It’s my lucky charm.’ He rubbed the coin with his thumb and forefinger, feeling the outline of what looked like an engraved eagle on one side and the head of a woman on the other.

‘Here, you take it.’ He held it out to Kitty. ‘Have a feel of it, Angel. It’ll bring you luck too.’

Wanting to oblige, Kitty accepted the dollar, but Bobby’s hand was shaking and, somehow – she wasn’t quite sure how it happened – the coin seemed to bounce on her palm. And then it spilled out. Frantically, she tried to catch it, but to her horror it slipped through her fingers, rolled off the bed and onto the floor.

She heard the
tink
as it hit the bare floorboards and then a rolling sound.

Perhaps it wasn’t logical to panic over a dropped coin, but Kitty was terrified. If ever a man needed a lucky charm, Bobby needed this one now. She’d seen the way he looked at the bright shiny dollar. She’d seen the hope in his eyes as he rubbed it with his fingers and she couldn’t bear, even for a moment, to have anything dim that hope.

In an instant, she was scrambling on her knees, desperate to return Bobby’s charm to him.

But when she looked on the floor, there was no sign of it.

‘Can you see it?’ he called weakly.

Kitty was struggling not to cry. ‘Not yet, but it’s here somewhere, Bobby. I know I’ll find it.’

‘Son of a gun. I might have known,’ she heard him say with a sigh.

A coin couldn’t have rolled far. It had to be under the bed, or under the mat, the chair, the bedside table . . .

Just the same, Kitty was shivering with a kind of reasonless fear as she searched on her hands and knees. Why couldn’t she see that bright circle of silver? Where in heaven’s name was it?

It couldn’t vanish into thin air. It just couldn’t.

The space under the bed was dusty with cobwebs – it was an area she hadn’t yet got around to cleaning – but now she slithered desperately on her stomach, searching behind the iron legs, searching every nook and cranny while her panic mounted. It had to be here somewhere. It had to!

‘Angel?’

‘It’s okay, Bobby.’ She tried to sound confident as she called from the floor beneath him. ‘It’s got to be down here somewhere. I’ll have it in a jiffy.’

‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. I guess my luck ran out when I crashed.’

‘No!’ Kitty was so panicked she shouted at him. ‘Don’t say that. Your luck hasn’t run out at all. Ed’s going to find a doctor and the dollar’s here. I’ve almost found it.’

But no matter how carefully she searched, the dollar wasn’t under the bed, or the mat, or the bedside table, or the wardrobe in the corner. A malevolent force was at play, it seemed, and the coin had mysteriously disappeared.

Kitty couldn’t bear it. Bobby clung to life by such a fragile thread and she and Ed were powerless to help him. For all she knew, Bobby’s faith in the lucky charm might have been the only thing keeping him alive.

Fighting tears, she clambered out from under the bed, banging her head on the way. She dashed at the tears with the heels of her hands, grateful that Bobby didn’t see them. His eyes were once again closed.

‘I’ll get Ed to help me find your dollar,’ she told him.

He didn’t answer. He showed no sign that he heard.

In the next room, Ed was sound asleep and Kitty felt terrible about waking him. He couldn’t have had more than ten minutes with his eyes closed, but she felt compelled to ask for his help. They
had
to find the coin.

She hadn’t thought she was superstitious – her grandfather had never allowed a breath of superstitious talk in his house – but Bobby truly believed his dollar was lucky, which meant he needed it almost as much as he needed the attention of a doctor.

‘Ed,’ she said softly as she touched him on the shoulder.

‘What?’ He sprang up instantly, his eyes wild in his unshaven face. ‘What is it?’

When Kitty tried to explain she felt foolish. She knew Ed would think she was.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I – we’ve lost Bobby’s lucky charm. He had a dollar –’

‘Yeah,’ Ed interrupted impatiently. ‘His father gave it to him.’

‘Yes, and Bobby wanted to show it to me, but his hands were shaky and somehow it fell to the floor, and I’ve searched everywhere, but I can’t find it.’

Ed had thrown off the covers and he was sitting on the edge of the bed now, brushing back the long wing of hair with his fingers.

‘I know it’s not really a proper reason to wake you, but the dollar means so much to Bobby.’ Kitty’s voice was shaky as tears threatened again.

So much had happened since yesterday afternoon. Aeons seemed to have passed since she’d first heard the drone of approaching plane engines. Now she was beginning to feel the strain.

‘I’ve tried to find it.’ She stifled a sob and wished she was stronger. For Bobby’s sake, she had to be stronger. ‘I’ve looked everywhere, Ed. I thought maybe another pair of eyes . . .’

‘Sure.’ Ed was on his feet now, already on his way across the room.

But even with the two of them searching, there was no sign of the dollar.

‘It must have slipped through a crack,’ Ed said finally, as he got to his feet once more.

‘I suppose I could try to crawl under the house.’ Kitty said this almost to herself, but she knew there would be spiders and possibly snakes under there, as well as puddles after all the rain. Was she brave enough?

Ed didn’t take her up on the offer. He was standing by Bobby’s bed now, his face filled with sorrow as he looked down at him. ‘Hey, Bobby,’ he said gently.

There was no response and Ed once again reached for Bobby’s wrist. ‘Hey, buddy.’

Kitty held her breath as she watched the growing concern in Ed’s eyes. This time she didn’t dare to ask.

Ed’s expression was distraught as he released Bobby’s limp wrist and felt for a pulse in his neck.

A beat later, he turned to Kitty, his face a picture of horrified despair. ‘I can’t find anything.’

No.

‘I – I think he’s gone.’

‘No, Ed. He can’t be.’

‘There’s no pulse.’

‘But what about his breathing? Isn’t he breathing?’

Ed leaned down with his ear close to Bobby’s mouth. ‘I can’t hear anything. I can’t feel any breath.’

Terror filled Kitty’s chest, rising and swirling like a tempest. ‘What about a mirror? I’m sure I’ve seen people do that in a film. They hold up a mirror to the person’s mouth.’

There was a hand mirror in her great-uncle’s bedroom. It had been her great-aunt’s. ‘I’ll fetch a mirror.’

‘Kitty, no, don’t –’

She heard the remonstrance in Ed’s voice, but she ignored it and charged from the room. The mirror was on the dressing table that stood in a bay window in her great-uncle’s bedroom. Such a pretty, feminine mirror, with a silver handle and pink roses painted on its back.

Snatching it up, she rushed back to Bobby.

Ed was standing at the end of his bed.

‘Here.’ She shoved the mirror into his hand.

‘Kitty,’ he said gently. ‘There’s no need.’

‘Of course there’s a need.’ Her voice leapt on a high note of panic.

Ed set the mirror on the bed and took her by the shoulders, gently but firmly. ‘Kitty, I’m sorry. Bobby’s gone.’

‘No.’ Vehemently, she shook her head. She wanted to pull herself out of Ed’s grasp, wanted to push him away, push his words away. But when she looked up, she saw the fierce pain in Ed’s eyes and the silver glitter of tears.

‘No,’ she whispered. She didn’t want to believe it. She
couldn’t
believe it. Dropping out of Ed’s grasp, she fell to her knees again. ‘I’ll find the dollar and he’ll be all right.’

‘Don’t,’ Ed said gently.

Desperation clawed at her. She had to find the dollar.

‘Come here,’ Ed said, reaching down to take hold of her elbow.

Now she was crying. ‘But we have to find it.’

‘Not now.’ Gently but deliberately Ed pulled her to her feet.

She shot a furtive glance at the bed where Bobby lay very still with his bright-blue eyes closed. His broad Polish face with its high cheekbones and soft, boyish lips was eerily white.

Ed drew her against him.

She heard his heart pounding beneath her ear. Without warning, her legs gave way and she clutched at his shirt. His arms came round her and she began to weep against his chest, noisily, messily. She was terribly afraid that she might never be able to stop.