by Lily Malone
She clipped Bruno’s lead to the same table leg where she’d sat the previous two days and told him to stay, took a deep breath and entered the café.
Warm air greeted her, heavy with the scent of coffee and chocolate and all those amazing things that started with C. Like cookies.
Cake.
Calories.
Just sniffing put kilos on her hips.
‘Where do you find time to make all these things?’ she asked, admiring the concoctions behind the glass cabinets.
He moved around the counter to start the coffee grinding for her latte. ‘I’m an early riser. I like baking.’
He shrugged it off like it was nothing. If she could bake, she’d shout it from the rooftops.
‘Did your mum teach you or something? Where did you learn?’
He didn’t answer straight away, and when he did it came with a laugh. ‘My mum’s cooking was so bad, the way Dad tells it, he sent her to cooking school for a week in Perth before I was born. My two brothers stayed with my nanna for a week. Here, actually. This café is my Nanna Irma’s old house. My family renovated it. I don’t know why I like cooking. I just do.’
‘I wish I liked baking,’ Taylor said, looking at the café with new appreciation now she knew a little of its history. ‘I can’t even get scones to work out right.’
‘Scones are easy as. Don’t overmix it. Don’t make the dough too wet. Can’t go wrong.’
‘Trust me. I go wrong. My last batch I made damper, not scones.’
Taylor waited while Abe worked behind the coffee machine. He was brewing two cups, so he at least planned to drink a coffee with her. She’d have that long.
‘So what do you do?’ Abe asked, fritzing a pattern into the froth on her latte.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You said you already have a job. What do you do?’
‘I’m a child psychologist. I work at a clinic in Perth. I help kids who have developmental or behavioural problems mostly, kids from dysfunctional families, kids new into blended families. Kids with problems learning at school, or with low self-esteem, bullying, resilience issues, depression.’
‘I reckon you’d be good at that,’ Abe responded. ‘You must come across all sorts of people.’
‘I do.’ Taylor took her coffee from him.
‘So is this a holiday, this visit?’ Abe asked her.
Taylor spooned froth from the top of her cup and left her hands curled around the glass for warmth. He’d lit the fire but the café wasn’t warm yet. ‘Yes. Pretty much. Well, it’s more leave without pay.’
His eyes jolted to hers. ‘Nothing too bad going on for you, I hope?’
‘No. Nothing like that. I haven’t been suspended or anything if that’s what you mean. I just … needed a week to sort some stuff out.’ Like Will’s problems with Amanda. ‘I’ve been at the clinic nearly ten years, since I qualified out of Uni. I’ve put in the hard yards there and they know that. They’re good to me. I didn’t have any dramas getting a few days off.’
‘Shall we?’ He motioned with his hand to the bar at the left and Taylor read between the lines. He was happy to sit and chat for a bit, but a chat over coffee at the bar wasn’t the same as a sit down at one of the café tables. He was telling her subtly but surely, I don’t have all day, let’s get on with it.
Even so, Taylor couldn’t make herself start the conversation she had to have.
‘Was everything okay with your brother yesterday?’ she hedged.
‘Kind of. I think so.’ Then the corner of his mouth twitched. ‘They could be in the running for someone in your line of work. Looks like they might be getting a bit of a Brady Bunch together. My brother just discovered he has a daughter. She’s nearly twelve years old. Ella’s boy, Sam, is a year younger.’
All these years and whenever people thought of blended families they still thought The Brady Bunch. The modern version of The Brady Bunch wasn’t usually so big, nor so joyful, as the famous television family. It also rarely had a housekeeper.
‘Ella was the lady here yesterday?’
‘She was.’
Abe pulled a bar stool out so he could get his long legs beneath it. The chair swivelled, and he turned to face her. He did it exceedingly gracefully, and Taylor with her short legs and much bigger hips, knew that she’d never succeed in mounting a bar stool with that level of aplomb.
‘I’m good standing.’ She put her coffee on the counter that ran the length of the wall, pushing aside a stack of magazines.
Smoothing her palms across her skirt, Taylor took a big breath, and began.
‘First of all, I owe you an apology,’ she said, meeting his pale blue gaze and finding herself a bit stunned by how focused his eyes were on her face, and how close he was. It wasn’t such a big breakfast bar. Not really. And the wall hemmed them in.
He paused with the coffee cup at his lips. ‘An apology? What for?’
‘A few weeks before Christmas last year, someone put a dent in your car door?’
He put the cup down. ‘Yeah. So? Why would you know about that?’
‘It was me who did the dent.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense—’
Taylor spoke fast. ‘I left my number. I wrote it on a piece of paper and tucked it under the windscreen wiper. I expected you to call so I could swap insurance numbers.’
‘I remember.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Well I put it in my pocket and forgot about it because, well, I’d had a pretty crappy day. The shirt got washed and then I couldn’t read the note. Anyway, door’s fixed now. You didn’t have to come all this way to tell me about a dent.’
‘No. But that’s how I found you. That day I followed your car. That’s how I knew your name.’ She was botching this terribly. She’d got right off track.
‘What do you mean you followed my car? Who are you exactly? Are you with the insurance company? Checking up on me?’
So many questions all fired at once. ‘No. No. Nothing like that. If you can let me explain—’
‘Well what then? If you hadn’t run off when you hit my car, we could have had this conversation face to face.’
‘I know. I’m sorry about that. You were already upset—’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ His face was dangerous now, closed and flat. Every pleasantry of would you like another latte? and, will your dog chase a stick? gone. ‘Who are you, Taylor? What’s this all about?’
So this was it. This was the moment she’d been working up to for ten months, two weeks and a day. She had to get these words out for Will.
‘I know about you and Amanda.’
He stood. No. He leapt to his feet. ‘Me and who?’ He put a metre of space between them before Taylor could say her next word.
‘Amanda. The woman from 3/36 West Street Parade. Maybe you knew her by another name?’
He said nothing.
‘She had a daughter. Keeley.’
Abe picked up his coffee cup. ‘I think we’re finished here. Consider the coffee on the house.’
He was kicking her out. He couldn’t kick her out! ‘My brother got sucked in by her too, Abe. My brother is William Woods. Will was the man at the house that afternoon … the afternoon I put the dent in your car … I was watching the house and I saw you visit. You left in such a God-awful hurry, and I knew what you must have seen, because I knew Will was there. With her. You saw them—’
‘You need to get the hell out now—’
‘Think you need to do a bit of work on your customer service skills there, Abe!’
Both Taylor and Abe spun to front the woman Taylor recognised from yesterday and now knew was Ella, stuck two steps inside the front door. The smile she’d had ready sat frozen on her face and the front door chime swung limply behind her. If it had clanged already, neither Abe nor Taylor heard it.
‘Not a good time, Ella,’ Abe snapped.
Taylor dragged her manners from her big toe and lifted her hand in the smallest wave. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello,’ Ella said. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt the pair of you. Again.’
‘She was just leaving.’
The whole thing was awful. Awkward and awful. ‘Please, Abe. If you can just hear me out, then I’ll go. I’ve come a long way to speak with you. At least let me fix you up for your car door—’
‘I don’t care about the bloody car door—’
‘What happened to your car door?’ Ella asked. She’d crept further into the café.
Taylor bit her lip. ‘I’m really sorry. This was unforgivable of me. Dumbest plan ever. I see that now.’ She grabbed for her handbag. ‘Thanks for your time.’
Boy had she botched this. All she’d done was make Abel absolutely furious. He’d never speak with her now. He’d never help her.
Taylor lunged for the café doors, only stopping long enough to unclip Bruno’s leash from the outdoor table before she rushed to her car.
* * *
‘What the heck was that about?’ Ella rounded on him like a lioness, and he’d just kicked her cub.
‘Leave it, Ella.’
‘Yesterday you chased a customer over the price of a pair of takeaway coffees. Today I walk in the door and you’re telling a lady who seems really lovely—’
‘She’s not lovely.’
‘If you ask me—’
‘I didn’t ask you—’
Ella kept right on going: ‘You yelled at her to get the hell out. What gives, Abe?’ She glanced around the empty café and waved her arms. ‘It’s not like you’re inundated with paying patrons, you know? Bloody hell. Try being a bit nicer to people.’
‘I thought you were going to Perth?’
‘I am. Later. Yes,’ she snapped back. ‘I came to tell you Jake called Brix and Brix says he’ll come over for a few days to sort out the sheep. He’ll be at the house tonight. You’ll have company.’
‘Bully for me.’
‘You ever get tired of carrying around that bloody great chip on your shoulder?’
‘Give me a break, Ella—’
‘Because I mean, really, Abe. I know bad stuff happened to you. We get it, okay. We really do. But not every woman is another Amanda. Not everyone is out to scam you.’ Ella spun to indicate Taylor, loading Bruno into the back of her car. ‘And she seemed really nice to me.’
‘You don’t know that. We don’t know anything about her.’
‘I know that yesterday while you were chasing that girl out of the café for the money for those coffees, she—’ Ella swung to point out Taylor in the carpark—‘reached across and closed the drawer of the cash till because you left it open. She did it without batting an eyelid. I don’t think she even checked how many fifties you had inside it.’
Taylor’s back was to the café, but they both saw her hunt for something in her handbag, then make a swipe at her eyes.
He hadn’t meant to make her cry, but she’d caught him on the hop. All that stuff about Amanda. He never wanted to think about Amanda Whittler again.
‘I’m going to check she’s okay,’ Ella said, swinging away from him. ‘She shouldn’t be driving.’
Abe stood in the café, arms crossed over his chest, watching Taylor’s bright red V8 lurch into reverse and roll from the carpark, gaining speed. Ella was too late, but she ran down the road anyway, chasing the car out of Abe’s line of sight.
He understood Taylor’s need to run.
He’d had to run the day he’d found Amanda with that other man. Taylor’s brother. Will.
He’d skipped up Amanda’s front steps, the fingers of his right hand warm around the ring in his pocket.
He’d wished he’d had a key to her place, so he could go in and surprise her. Kiss her awake. She worked a late shift on a Tuesday night, which was why she’d ruled out dates on Wednesdays. But today was special. Today he had the ring and she wouldn’t mind being woken up once she saw the rose gold and the diamond. She loved jewellery.
He’d knocked on her door, calling ‘pizza’ so she wouldn’t think he was a door-to-door salesman and ignore him.
It took an age, but he heard footsteps on the floorboards. Then deadlocks tumbled.
Abe put his left foot on the step and his weight moved forward.
From inside the house as the door unlocked, Amanda grumbled, ‘I didn’t order pizza.’
He’d opened his mouth to answer because he’d assumed she was talking to him, then deep from inside the house, ‘Who cares who ordered it, Mandy? I hope it’s hot. I’m starving. You wore me out.’
Abe froze. He’d actually looked over his shoulder, even though the voice definitely came from inside, but he’d looked all around her tiny front yard—Keeley’s dolls scattered across the grass—glanced out at the street, because maybe his ears had played a trick. Maybe that voice came from somewhere else? And who the hell called Amanda, Mandy? She hated being called Mandy.
Then Amanda’s door was fully open, and she stood there in a silk robe, brown hair damp at the temples, lips all kissed-drunk, legs bare and sexy as hell, cheeks and neck flushed lusty red.
Obviously her brain was fuzzy from sex, because she hadn’t worked it out yet. There was no pizza. There was just Abe, pizza delivery man, standing there without a box, hand in his pocket, a ring in his fingers.
‘Abe?’
Guilt stained her eyes like ink spilled on paper.
He had to hand it to her. She’d smiled. Full-lipped, gorgeous, utterly compelling, as she stepped through the door towards him, trying to shut the door behind her, trying to block out her little dirty secret because maybe Abe hadn’t heard that man’s voice call out? Maybe there was still a chance she’d get away with it.
Abe’s other hand—the hand not in his pocket holding the ring—flashed out to bridge the door. Four fingers, one thumb, capable of making this woman shudder in pleasure and cry out his name, capable of so many things, reduced to a bridge, a block, a blunt object.
‘Where’s the pizza? Mandy?’ that same man’s voice said.
Then Abe saw him standing bent in the far corridor, fiddling to close the fly of his jeans.
‘Abe. I can explain,’ Amanda/Mandy whispered. Still trying to pull the door shut.
‘Don’t bother,’ he’d said, because how could she explain this explosion burning in his gut? And what did it matter anyway?
That’s when he’d run.
That’s when Taylor had followed him.
That’s everything Taylor saw.
CHAPTER
6
Taylor hadn’t got far up Chalk Hill Bridge Road before she had to pull over to the kerb because she couldn’t see. She was having trouble breathing too. Her lungs wouldn’t cooperate. Instead of trying to draw one long single breath, her shoulders shook, her chest hurt, and each breath got trapped between her heart and her throat, and clawed around that small space like a wildcat in a box.
How had she botched everything so badly?
She, who’d never failed at anything with the exception of baking the perfect scone, had completely stuffed this up.
What use were years and years of psychology study and training when the one day she’d needed them for something other than counselling a bullied child or a self-harming teenager, they let her down?
Her professional skills couldn’t help her because her issue wasn’t a professional one. It was all personal.
The entire thing was so wrapped up in her love for her brother, and wanting to see Will come back to her healed and whole, how he used to be. All fixed up, shiny and new.
But now she wasn’t sure he could be fixed. She wasn’t sure Abe could be fixed either—he was so bitter!
It made her angry. That women like Amanda lived in this world, preying on good people. Ruining lives. And they got away with it, scot-free.
A sharp rap on the window had Taylor’s hand shooting to the handle of the driver-side door. The passenger door opened and she scrabbled across in her seat, biting back a scream and trying to get her own door open so she
could run.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to give you a fright. I thought you knew I was there.’ Ella slipped into the seat beside her. ‘Do you mind me sitting here? I was worried about you. Abe can be hard to get along with sometimes. He’s had a lot to deal with lately. I hope he didn’t upset you? Are you okay?’
Taylor batted her hand towards Ella, trying to catch up. The other woman was running on high voltage, talking a mile a minute. Taylor was still doing her best just to get air in her lungs.
‘It’s fine. I’m fine. Thank you,’ she forced out.
Ella peered hard at her face. ‘Should you be driving? I don’t think you should be driving. Do you want me to drive?’
That made Taylor pay attention. No one drove her baby. She rubbed her thumb across the steering wheel. ‘I’m fine. Honestly. I just made a mistake, that’s all. I shouldn’t have confronted Abe like that.’
‘It didn’t look to me like you were doing the confronting,’ Ella said.
Taylor made a big effort to let the morning roll off her, like water off a duck’s back. Wasn’t that what she was always teaching her kids? ‘You can choose to be a duck or a sponge. If you’re a duck, dirty water rolls off your feathers. If you’re a sponge, you soak it all up and carry it with you. Be a duck. Don’t be a sponge.’
Be a duck. Quack.
‘I’m okay. Thank you for coming after me. I appreciate it. I’m heading back to Perth now, so if you’ll excuse me? Can I drop you back to your car perhaps? Where is it?’
Ella laughed, a happy sound in the sad car. ‘I don’t drive around town, there’s no point. Chalk Hill isn’t very big. I walked from my work.’
‘Can I drop you at work then?’
‘No. Thanks. My car’s at home. I walked to work.’
It made her head spin. ‘So I’ll give you a lift home?’
‘That would be lovely. Maybe you’ll come inside and have a cuppa with me before you go? I’m still not happy about you driving.’
‘I’m fine to drive, honestly, but a cup of tea sounds nice.’
* * *
Say ‘thanks’ to Ella for the chat and the tea that had now stretched into a second cup; collect Bruno from the backyard where he’d peed on every blade of grass, and go. Away from Chalk Hill. Away from Abel Honeychurch.
