‘Your marriage to Philip?’
‘You know it’s much more than that.’
‘First things first, Abby,’ he said softly. ‘Figure the marriage thing out and everything else can come later.’
‘Not with you, it can’t.’
‘I know that.’
‘So goodnight,’ she said and she hugged her dog close-a wild dog this, he hadn’t even wriggled while her brain had been short-circuiting-and she walked inside with as much dignity as she could muster.
She closed the door as if she was trying not to wake a household.
There was no household. Just Abby and Kleppy and one magnificent wedding dress.
‘What will I do?’ she whispered and she leaned back against the closed door. ‘Kleppy, help me out here.’
Kleppy’s butt wriggled until she set him on the floor. He headed into the bedroom while she stood motionless, trying not to think.
Kleppy headed straight back to her. Carrying her jewellery box.
He set it down at her feet and wriggled all over.
See? She had a guy who’d steal for her.
What more did a girl want?
Raff drove half a mile before he pulled over to the side of the road. He needed time to think.
He didn’t have the head space to think.
Abby, Abby, Abby. Ten years…
He’d been busy telling Abby she should move on. Could he?
He’d dated other women-of course he had. He’d set himself up with a life, of sorts. Living in this town. Keith, his partner, was getting long in the tooth. Keith was senior sergeant but, for all intents and purposes, Raff was in charge of the policing in this town. When Keith retired, Raff would be it.
Not bad for a Boy Who Meant Trouble.
He was still judged by some in this town, but only as someone whose background made people sniff, who’d been stupid in his youth. He was accepted as a decent cop. Sarah had friends, support groups, the farm she loved.
He had everything he needed in life, right there.
Except Abby.
How did you tell a woman you loved her?
He couldn’t. To lay that on her… There was no way she could take it anywhere. They both knew that.
This thing between them…
He shouldn’t have kissed her. It reminded him that it was more than a kid’s dreaming. It was as real today as it had been the first time he’d kissed her. Life had been ahead of them, exciting, wonderful. Anything had been possible.
But to love Abby now…
She’d closed herself off. After Ben’s death she’d simply shut down, retired into her parents’ world, into Philip’s world, and she’d never emerged. She was junior partner in Banksia Bay’s legal firm. She was Philip’s fiancee. Next Saturday she’d be Philip’s wife.
The waste…
The thought was enough to make him smile, only it wasn’t a happy smile. He’d faced facts years ago. Even if she could shake off the past, to live with her parents’ condemnation, with the knowledge that every time she looked at him she was seeing Ben…
They’d destroy each other.
A couple of kids drove past-Lexy Netherland driving his dad’s new Ford. He bet Old Man Netherland didn’t know Lexy was out on the tear. He had Milly Parker in the passenger seat. They’d be going up the mountain, to the lookout. Only not to look out.
Kids, falling in love.
He could put the sirens on, pull ’em over, send ’em home with their tails between their legs.
No way could he do that. It wasn’t long before they’d be adults. The world would catch up with them and they’d be accepting life as it had to be.
As he had.
Loving Abby. Then Ben’s death. Then the other side, where the woman he loved could never find the courage to move on.
He knew she was having doubts-how could he kiss her and not sense it? Maybe if he pushed harder he could stop this marriage. But then what? What would he be doing to her?
He’d pushed her already to look seriously at the life she was facing. There was nothing else he could do. For Ben. For himself.
He put his head on the steering wheel and thumped it. Hard. Three times.
The third time he hit the horn and the dogs in Muriel Blake’s backyard started barking to wake the dead.
Time to move on, then?
Back to Sarah.
Back home.
Where to move forward in this town?
There was never a forward.
CHAPTER NINE
HOW to sleep after a night like this? She did at last, but not until dawn. She woke and it was ten o’clock and she’d been meant to meet Philip for breakfast at the yacht club.
She phoned and he was fine.
‘No problem. I have three newspapers and Don’s here with his plans for the new supermarket. As long as it’s safe and clean, I can do without my wallet until later. I’ve hardly realised you weren’t here.’
That was supposed to make her feel better?
She showered slowly, washed her hair, took a long time drying it.
Kleppy watched, looking anxious.
‘I’m not going anywhere today where I can’t take you,’ she told him. ‘It’s the weekend.’
He still looked anxious. He climbed onto her bed, and then onto the dressing table. Wriggled himself a spot next to her cedar box. His new favourite thing.
‘I guess last night upset you,’ she told him, abandoning her hairdryer to give him a hug. ‘I’m so sorry about Isaac. It’s horrid loving someone and losing them.’
Like she had.
Like Raff had.
It was Raff’s fault.
But that mantra, said over and over in her head for ten years, sounded hollow and sad and bleak as death-a sentence stretched into the future as far as the horizon.
Could she put it away? Find the Raff she’d once loved?
Whoa. What was she thinking?
‘It’s wedding nerves,’ she told Kleppy and on impulse she carried him into her spare room where her wedding gown hung in all its glory.
Two years of love had gone into making this dress.
She set Kleppy down. The little dog nosed his way around the hem, ducked under the full-circle skirt, poked his nose out again and headed back to her. She smiled and held him and stared at her dress some more.
She’d loved making this dress. Loved, loved, loved.
Once upon a time, this was what she was going to do. Sew for a living. Make beautiful things. Make people
