Abby and the Bachelor Cop

well as this one.’

He took a deep breath. Looked through to the sitting room. Saw what she was seeing. Sarah and Lionel…

‘We might just have found ourselves a gardener,’ Abby said, smiling and smiling.

Enough. This was going so fast he was being left behind. A man had to take a stand some time, so he took his stand right there. Right then. A simple okay was not satisfactory for what he had in mind. He dropped to one knee. ‘Abigail Callahan, will you marry me?’

‘I’ve already said…’ she started.

‘You said okay. I don’t think okay’s legally binding.’

‘You want me to prepare contracts?’

‘In triplicate.’

She smiled down at him, for how could she help it? She smiled and smiled. And then she thought this moment called for gravitas. It was a Very Serious Moment. It was the beginning of the rest of her life.

She stepped back and stood a little way away, looking down at him. At all of him.

At this man who’d be her husband.

She could still see him, she thought. The spiky-haired ten-year-old who her eight-year-old self had fallen in love with. That dangerous twinkle…

Her bad boy.

Her love.

‘If I turn out to be a sewing mistress instead of a lawyer…’ she ventured.

‘Suits me.’

‘If I’m not struck off the professional roll for this morning’s unprofessional conduct I might help out the Crown Prosecutor from time to time.’

‘You can’t get struck off for dropping a briefcase-and Malcolm surely needs some help. You know, I’m feeling a bit dumb, kneeling over here when you’re over there.’

She hadn’t finished. ‘I do want babies.’

‘How many?’ he asked and there was a trace of unease in his voice.

‘Six,’ she said, and laughed at the look on his face.

‘Can we try one out for size first?’

‘Sounds a plan. Raff…’

‘Yes, my love?’

‘That’s just it,’ she said, feeling suddenly…shy. ‘My love. Let me say… I need to explain. Only once and then it’s over, but I do need to get it out. Raff, I’ve loved you all the time without stopping but my pain stopped me thinking with my heart. I forced myself to think with my head. That’s done. I’m so, so sorry that I can’t take back those ten years.’

‘Hush,’ he said.

‘I have to say it.’

‘You’ve said it,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t like to mention it but there’s no carpet here. I’m kneeling on wood. I didn’t have the forethought to use a cushion. Any more quibbles?’

‘No, but…’

He sighed. ‘Then how about saying you’ll marry me and taking me out of my pain?’

‘Okay.’

‘Abigail!’

She laughed, and she hardly felt herself cross the distance between them. She knelt to join him and he tugged her close.

He kissed her again, so thoroughly, so wonderfully that doubts, unhappiness, emptiness were gone and she knew they were gone for ever.

‘We can’t take back those ten years,’ he whispered into her hair as the kiss paused before restarting. ‘How about we give ourselves the next ten instead?’

‘Ten…’

‘And the ten after that. And after that, too. Decades and decades of love and family and…’

And something was bumping against her leg.

Kleppy. He was tugging the popcorn bowl to his mistress with care.

She giggled and lifted him up and popcorn went flying. He’d tugged it with such care and she’d spilled it.

Who cared? A lawyer might. Not Abigail Callahan. Not the wife of Banksia Bay’s Bad Boy.

‘Decades and decades of love and family and dogs,’ she said, and Raff took Kleppy firmly from her and set him down so he could kiss her again.

‘Definitely, my love. Definitely family, definitely dogs, definitely love. For now and for ever. For as long as we both shall live. So now, Abigail Callahan, for the third and final time, will you marry me? I want more than okay. I want properly, soberly, legally, and with all your heart.’

‘Why, yes, Rafferty Finn,’ she managed between love and laughter. ‘Where would you like me to sign?’

Abby didn’t wear two thousand beads to her wedding.

For a start, it didn’t seem right that she wear a dress she’d prepared for her marriage to Philip. Almost as soon as Raff put a ring on her finger she was planning an alternative. Rainbows.

So Sarah wore her dress-Sarah, who’d looked at her dress of two thousand beads and burst into tears. ‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’ And Sarah needed a wedding gown.

For: ‘Lionel’s not staying in that horrid boarding house a minute longer,’ she declared, but Lionel was old- fashioned. He was delighted to move to Raff’s farm; he was incredibly happy to start renovating the little house at the rear, but he’d marry his Sarah first.

They were even thinking…if Lionel got his money back from Philip…Isaac’s place wasn’t so far from the farm. Maybe they could be even more independent.

So Raff gave his sister away. Abby was maid of honour and if she was as weepy as any mother of the bride then who could blame her? Her gown of two thousand beads had found a use she could hardly have dreamed of.

And then it was Abby’s turn for her wedding, a month later, but on a day just as wonderful. They were to be married in the church-the church she’d been baptised in, the church Ben had been buried from.

Half Banksia Bay came to see. Even Mrs Fryer.

For things had shifted for the town’s bad boy.

Rumours were flying. True to his word, Raff refused to make public the contents of the tape, but the people of Banksia Bay never let lack of evidence get in the way of a good rumour. And there were plenty of pointers saying Raff might well have been misjudged.

For a start, Abby’s parents were trying their best to get to know Raff, and suddenly they wouldn’t hear a bad word against him. They even offered to move into Raff’s house while Raff and Abby went on their honeymoon, in case Lionel needed help with Sarah.

And people remembered. Raff had been judged on Philip’s word and nothing else. But now… Philip had abandoned the town and moved to Sydney. He was facing malpractice charges and more.

Philip’s parents were appalled. They owned an apartment in Bondi and rumour said they were thinking of moving themselves, leaving Banksia Bay to be with their son.

They were the only ones behind Philip, though. Even Philip’s grandpa was right here at the wedding. What was more, at Abby’s tentative request he’d made a beautiful box for the ring bearer.

The ring bearer…

Raff stood before the altar waiting for his bride and he couldn’t help thinking the choice of ring bearer might be a mistake.

Abby swore it’d be okay. She’d spent hours training him. The plan was for her mother to hold Kleppy, and then, when Raff called, he’d trot across, bearing the ring. What could possibly go wrong?

Who knew, but Raff organised for Keith to carry a backup ring in his pocket. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Kleppy.

Um…yes, it was. He stood in the church waiting for his bride and he thought he definitely didn’t trust Kleppy.