by Lily Malone
ABOUT LILY MALONE
LILY MALONE might have been a painter, except her year-old son put a golf club through her canvas. So she wrote her first book, His Brand of Beautiful instead. Lily has now written three full length rural romance stories and a novella all published by Harlequin Escape. Her debut trade paperback, The Vineyard In The Hills, was published by Harlequin MIRA in September 2016. The Café By The Bridge is the second of three books set in the fictional West Australian town of Chalk Hill, a town which, in Lily’s imagination, is about halfway between Manjimup and Mount Barker on the Muirs Highway. Book One was Water Under The Bridge, published in February 2018, which is Jake and Ella’s story.
When she isn’t writing, Lily likes gardening, walking, wine, and walking in gardens (sometimes with wine). She also doesn’t mind the odd came of cards and is a demon at 500 and not quite such a demon (but learning all the time) at Canasta. She lives in the Margaret River region of Western Australia with her husband, and two handsome sons who take after their father. Lily is a member of Australian Rural Fiction. She loves to hear from readers and you can find her on Facebook, and on Twitter: @lily_lilymalone. To contact Lily, email [email protected] or visit www.lilymalone.blog
Also by Lily Malone
The Vineyard In The Hills
The Chalk Hill Series
Water Under The Bridge
Available in ebook from Escape Publishing
His Brand Of Beautiful
Fairway To Heaven
The Goodbye Ride
The Cafe by the Bridge
Lily Malone
www.harlequinbooks.com.au
For Jules, who I love just the way she is;
and for Belinda who found the Queen of Sheba orchid
after twenty years of searching,
and got me so excited I had to write the orchid into this story.
Never give up!
Contents
About the Author
Also by Lily Malone
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER
1
There was a new girl working reception at Izzy’s clinic and Taylor Woods pegged her as perfect for the job. Something about the girl’s shiny silver horse earrings gave her away.
She scanned the other occupants of the waiting room: a woman with a sausage dog, what were they called? Daschunds. A young girl and her mother, a bird in a cage on the floor between them.
‘Good morning,’ Silver Horse Earrings greeted Taylor, voice bouncing like a poodle told it’s time for a walk.
Taylor passed the leash to her other hand, trying not to breathe the cologne of eau de cat fur in case it made her sneeze. ‘Good morning. I’m looking for Izzy. Is she here?’
‘She’s out the back. She’s not in the best mood, though,’ Silver Horse Earrings confided, gesturing with a stream of red tinsel she’d been wrapping around a tiny fake Christmas tree.
‘Oh no, that’s no good. What’s happened?’
‘A golden retriever got hit by a car last night and the driver drove away.’ The girl drew out the last two words, lips curled tight and low. ‘Izzy was in here till two o’clock this morning trying to fix him up, but he didn’t make it.’
Poor Izzy. Even after eight years of running her small animal vet practice, with all the tears and failures that entailed, she’d be wrecked.
‘I’ll see if I can cheer her up,’ Taylor said, moving towards the door that led towards Izzy’s inner sanctum of consulting room, operating theatre, recovery cages and the outer kennels.
Silver Horse Earrings shuffled both the tinsel and her feet. ‘Should I let her know you’re coming? Are you a friend?’
Taylor pulled on her brightest smile and switched the leash to her left hand so she could hold out her right. ‘I’m sorry, I’m Taylor and, yes, I’m a friend. And you are?’
‘Hannah,’ the girl said, letting go of the tinsel to shake hands. ‘I’m the Saturday girl. Izzy’s teaching me a few things. I love animals.’
‘Then you’ll be perfect,’ Taylor said. ‘I won’t be long. Back in a minute. I just need to borrow a puppy.’
‘Borrow one?’
Taylor didn’t wait to explain because the sausage dog’s owner was getting twitchy, and the woman was about to demand to know why Taylor was being let through first when she’d been sitting there waiting longer.
Taylor pushed through the interlocking door, and through the short passage that opened into Izzy’s consulting area with its bright white light and whiter table, and suspicious wet patches that might have been water, but were probably dog pee on the bare floor.
Izzy wasn’t there, so Taylor kept moving.
‘Iz? You out here?’ She made the step down from the consulting room, and poked her head into the recovery room where Izzy kept animals that weren’t well enough to go home. Taylor heard a whump thump coming from a small wire-furred dog with a bucket on its head. Its wagging tail was the most energetic thing about it.
Izzy wasn’t there either, which meant unless she was having a bathroom break, she must be out the back. Taylor squeaked through another door, and stepped down another step.
There was Izzy standing in a fog of cigarette smoke. At least six dogs all barked at Taylor; some high-pitched yaps, others with the type of deep ringing base that would scare the sticky fingers off any would-be thief in the night.
Izzy inhaled hard, dropped the ciggie and crushed it under her shoe, wafting smoke away from her face. ‘Trust you, Woodsy. I haven’t had a smoke in bloody months and you’re the one who catches me out. It’s so unfair.’
‘Promise I won’t tell. Tough night, sweetie?’ Taylor said, wrapping her friend in a hug, inhaling smoke along with eau de puppy pee, cat fur and birdseed.
‘You can say that.’ Izzy gently pushed Taylor away from her. ‘What are you doing up and about at nine-thirty on a Saturday morning, anyway? And why do you have a leash with you? No, don’t tell me. The answer’s no already.’ Izzy held up her hand like a model in a traffic cop advert. Izzy had the longest, most graceful fingers and fingernails Taylor had ever seen. If she’d been a real cop and not a vet, all the perps would be lining up to get frisked.
‘Please, Iz. I need to borrow a puppy. I just need him for an hour. Puhleease?’
‘If you want a puppy, you can bloody well adopt one for real.’
This was where Taylor paid for all the times she’d borrowed one of Izzy’s rescue puppies for her therapy sessions. These were the puppies that got bought as birthday or Christmas presents, but grew too big or unruly, or barked and annoyed the neighbours, so they got strategically ‘left’ outside Izzy’s suburban clinic in the middle of the night.
Puppies were so good when it came to breaking the ice with children. So many times in Taylor’s experience,
no matter how shy or sensitive the child, one lick from a puppy—a kiss pressed to warm fur—and they’d come right out of their shell.
‘Are you sure I can’t just borrow one, Iz?’
Izzy flung her arm towards the kennels lined neatly all along the rear of the block. ‘Look at all these guys. They all could use a break and a good home. That way you won’t have to come and ask me when you want to borrow a dog. You can pimp out your own.’
At least six pairs of eyes stared up at her, all pleading pick me, pick me, I don’t chew slippers.
‘They will so chew my slippers.’
‘You don’t own slippers. I’ve never seen you in a pair of slippers in my life. Designer faux fur boots don’t count,’ Izzy stated. ‘Come on, that’s the deal. You can take Bruno. He’s all vaccinated and ready to go. You love him like you love me, darling, and you’ll be fine.’
A puppy. Me with a puppy? Taylor’s fist clenched around the leash. ‘I don’t know what to do with a puppy. My place is hardly puppy-friendly.’
‘You’ve got the river on your doorstep and all those walk tracks. You’ve got no garden.’
‘I do so have a garden.’
‘Taylor, c’mon, you’ve got a rose bush and that’s in the front yard. A rose bush is a decoration, not a garden. Your backyard is lawn and a wide expanse of nothing else.’
‘He’ll dig holes in my lawn, and I like my wide expanse of nothing else.’
‘Keep him busy, keep him happy, buy him toys. He won’t dig too many holes and even if he does, who cares? You live on your own and he’ll make a great little guard dog. Gotta think about these things, crime’s a risin’. He’s a staffy kelpie cross and he won’t shed hair. He’s perfect. Friend for life.’
Taylor got a shivery feeling over her skin at the words shed hair. But she really needed a puppy or a kitten, and puppies didn’t make her sneeze, puppies usually returned when you called them and whatever she could get, puppy or kitten, she needed before ten.
‘Come on, Woodsy. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it, and hurry your butt about it, I’ve got to jerk off a daschund and find out if he’s shooting blanks.’
‘Good grief,’ Taylor said, shying away from that particular mental picture. ‘Who’d be you?’
Izzy stepped efficiently towards the cage second from the end on the right, pressed a combination on the lock, and released a wriggling, licking bundle of energy into her beautiful, graceful hands. Izzy held the puppy to her cheek and got licked for her trouble.
‘See? He’s bootiful. Here, Bruno, meet your new owner. She’s not as scary as she looks, once you get to know her.’
Izzy plonked the pup into Taylor’s hands. He tried to lick her too, but she ducked her chin out of harm’s way.
Bruno was a cutie, alright. Black with one white star-shaped patch on his chest, ears not quite sticking up and stumpy little tail that never said die. Taylor’s heart warmed to him, although she was worried about her timber floors.
‘I’ll show you how to keep his nails clipped. Don’t worry about your precious floors,’ Izzy said, with that look she’d perfected since university of I know you better than you know yourself. ‘Bring him back in a few months and I’ll de-sex him for you.’
‘Don’t listen to her, mate.’ Taylor covered the pup’s ears. He snuggled into her arms like he’d found a pillow. ‘Alright, Pupster, let’s go see if we can find you a better name than Bruno, hey?’
‘Woohoo,’ Izzy cried. ‘You have so cheered up my day.’
‘I told your new girl I could do that,’ Taylor said, a little darkly, as she followed Isabella Passmore through the vet clinic with the puppy in her arms.
* * *
‘Don’t pee on the seat,’ Taylor told the puppy sternly, because if they were going to make a go of this it was important she hold eye contact and get them off on the right foot. ‘Life has rules, Pupster. Don’t you go breaking them. I’ll let you out in a minute and you can pee all you like then.’
She wished she had her mother’s car. Private investigating tip 101 was to use a car that didn’t stand out. White sedans like her mother’s were perfect. Bright red Holden Redlines with a spoiler, not so good.
Six times she’d borrowed her mum’s car and parked here on West Street Parade, or around the corner, since that first time she followed her brother a few weeks back.
This is what she knew.
3/36 West Street Parade was home to a curvaceous brunette Taylor knew only as Amanda, and Amanda’s daughter Keeley—a petite girl with brown hair like her mother’s—who chewed at her pigtails and liked playing with dolls on the front verandah.
If she believed her younger brother, Will, Amanda was the best thing to come into Will’s life since Santa gave him his first Batman outfit when he was five.
The problem was: she didn’t believe Will.
None of his friends or colleagues did.
Will had been a different guy for weeks. He’d been skipping appointments at work, to the point where his partner had phoned Taylor because he’d been worried. Skipping work wasn’t like Will. The Woods’ kids were the type who always got gold-star attendance records at school.
So Taylor asked Will about it, and that’s when things got really strange. Will—who’d always been an open book—clammed up.
Taylor smelled a rat. It took some time, but finally, she teased out the story of his whirlwind romance: how he’d met Amanda in a bar and sparks flew.
‘She’s got an abusive ex who’s in a biker gang. She doesn’t want me to talk about us yet in case he finds out. She says people won’t understand that we’re in love. She says nobody else would get that we’re soul mates.’
Bah humbug. Taylor made a face at the puppy, who yawned.
Her questions about what Amanda did for a job were met by a wave of Will’s hand and an infuriatingly vague: ‘she’s an entertainment manager.’
What does an entertainment manager do?
‘Jeez, Tayls, I don’t know. She entertains people. Takes them to fancy restaurants and gets tickets to concerts. Shows high profile company clients a good time.’
Bah humbug. Taylor made a face at the puppy, who yawned.
Alarm bells really started zinging when Will said he was considering helping Amanda with a deposit to buy a house. If she had a larger deposit, she wouldn’t have to pay mortgage insurance.
All Taylor’s objections along the lines of: ‘you haven’t known her very long, Will,’ or ‘don’t you think it’s a bit early to be getting involved financially?’ or ‘why doesn’t she go to a bank?’ fell on deaf ears.
Will didn’t want to listen. Will was in love. ‘She’s got a little girl called Keeley. She’s a great little kid. She calls me Uncle Will.’
That’s when Taylor googled private investigator stake-outs, juggled her appointments to give her some spare time in the afternoon, and sneakily followed Will home from work. That very first day Will’s car led her to 3/36 West Street Parade.
Something else Taylor knew: Will wasn’t the only man to visit 3/36.
There was a guy who drove a blue convertible Passat. Taylor had seen him tumble his long legs out of the low-slung car and stroll to the door. He dressed well—quite trendy really—good-looking with a hairstyle that didn’t move even when it was windy. Once he’d brought Amanda a bunch of flowers. Taylor remembered the flowers: gerberas, all bright, sunset-coloured and happy.
When another man visited—built like a bald brick with body ink—Keeley would drop her dolls no matter how engaged she’d been in her play, run to him and get swept up in a bear hug.
Taylor suspected brick ink man was Daddy, the one Will thought of as the ‘abusive ex’.
She checked her watch. Almost ten. If Amanda did what she’d done the last three Saturdays, Taylor had five minutes before the woman would take her daughter to play in the park at the end of the street.
‘Showtime, Pupster,’ Taylor said, clipping the leash to his vet clinic-issue collar. Time to find
out a bit more about what was going on with Amanda and Will. If she could.
Taylor locked her vehicle.
She carried the pup to the park at the end of West Street Parade and sat on a bench, where the puppy promptly got his leash tangled around her legs. There was a little girl playing on the slide, climbing confidently through various rings and tube slides. Her mother was feeding shovels of something gloopy to a second child in a pram.
Taylor leaned low to unclip the pup’s collar so she could untangle the leash. Bruno promptly bounced towards the playground and the little girl. The mother glanced at Taylor, practised eyes assessing the dog for threat-factor.
‘Sorry,’ Taylor called, hurrying to bring Bruno back.
‘Look at the puppy, Mummy,’ the little girl said, backtracking from her climb up the ladder to kneel in the gritty grey sand on her pretty pink skirt to play with the pup, who rolled on his back.
‘Be gentle with him, Gracie, he’s only little,’ the mother called. Her posture had relaxed, and she was now openly glad that something had come along to distract her older child while she fed the younger one.
‘Is it okay if she plays with him?’ Taylor asked the mother. ‘It’s good to socialise him, the vet told me.’
‘It’s fine. She loves animals. Don’t you, Gracie?’
‘Yes,’ Grace declared.
Taylor stayed close, but she now had a chance to look around and her heart pumped faster as, coming around the lazy corner where West Street Parade met the park, Keeley walked a few metres in front of Amanda. Amanda had her eyes down, phone in hand.
When Keeley saw Grace and the puppy, she started running. Amanda glanced up, took in Taylor, the puppy, the two kids, the other mother and the pram, and returned her attention to her phone.
She settled on a park bench. Her jeans were designer ripped, teamed with street sneakers, a fun-looking beige and white striped cardigan with a lace hem, over a white t-shirt with a lace trim above her (admittedly) very lovely set of boobs. Her hair hung loose beneath a chic hat, and dark sunglasses covered her eyes and a fair bit of her face.
