Luke nodded. ‘I guess I’m trying to prove something. I’ve worked for other builders and I helped a mate to knock up an extension. But that’s way out where my family lives in the Gulf Country. This is my first chance to work solo, and on a homestead that isn’t too isolated.’
‘Does that mean you’re hoping more people will see this? You’d like it to showcase your work?’
Luke nodded. ‘If all goes well.’
‘And it will.’
Their gazes connected and Sally quickly looked down at her notes again. ‘Can you remember when you first became interested in building and carpentry?’
He seemed to give this some thought as he set two mugs on the counter and spooned in instant coffee, and she found herself leaning forward, genuinely curious.
‘I guess I’ve always had a go at making things,’ he said. ‘Even as a little kid, I was always building stuff. Tree houses, forts, go-karts, even laying boxes for our hens.’
He gave a small, self-deprecating shrug. ‘Most of the early stuff was pretty shonky. My granddad – Andy – was a builder and he used to lecture me. You know, the usual things . . . if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, et cetera.’
‘From what I’ve seen of your work, the message must have sunk in.’
The compliment was spontaneous, but as soon as she said it, Sally was conscious of a new level of awareness between them.
‘Well, sure,’ Luke said, frowning. ‘There’s no value in just knocking something together and tarting it up with a coat of paint. You’ve got make sure you get it right the first time. You need to make something that’ll last.’
She was scribbling madly to get everything down, but she couldn’t help thinking as she did so that there was something very appealing about a man who wanted to make things to last.
Her mind flashed to Josh, her cute, dreamy, romantic Josh, who’d never wanted to plan for their future and who certainly hadn’t wanted to talk about houses. Looking back, Sally had to admit there’d always been a Peter Pan quality about him, almost as if he’d been avoiding growing up.
Sometimes she wondered why he’d been prepared to get married. In her darkest moments, she worried that he’d plunged into marriage to secure his place in the law firm where her mother was a partner.
‘Do you take your coffee the same as your tea?’ Luke asked. ‘White with one?’
Sally murmured her thanks, and as Luke brought their mugs over and sat down again he looked almost at ease, with an ankle propped on a knee.
‘My granddad used to be pretty tough on me, making sure I got things right,’ Luke said, looking down at the mug in his hands. ‘I thought I’d never live up to his standards. But then –’ Luke swallowed. ‘When he died, he left me his toolbox. It’s no big deal, but . . . ’
Across the table, their gazes met and something in the green depths of Luke’s eyes made Sally’s heart stumble.
‘So, what’s the next question?’ he asked quietly.
She felt as if he’d opened a door, showing her something deeply important to him, and it took her a shade too long to gather her wits. ‘Okay . . . let’s see . . .’ She hoped that the warmth in her cheeks didn’t show. ‘I guess I’d like to hear about the renovations. Have there been any surprises so far?’
‘You mean apart from the snakes?’
‘Eww.’ Sally shuddered. ‘What sort of snakes?’
‘Carpet pythons. Brown tree snakes. And I found a family of tiny bats about the size of your thumb coming out of some pipes.’
‘I guess they’d be cute.’ Sally glanced at the prepared questions in her notes. ‘I imagine . . . when you’re working with your hands and working with timber, it must be quite a sensory experience.’
Why on earth had she thought that was a good topic?
‘I – I mean . . . we’ve already talked about the scent of the newly sawn cypress. Is – is there anything else . . . about working with your han– with timber, that is?’
Crikey, she was making a hash of this.
Leaning back in his chair, Luke rubbed at the grainy shadow on his jaw and Sally found herself mesmerised by his broad hand. Everything about him was so very masculine.
Stop it. Don’t stare.
‘Working with my hands . . .’ Luke looked mildly amused. ‘There’s the texture of fine-grained wood, of course. You can’t help but love that. So smooth when you run your palm over it.’
And don’t think about his hands touching anything except timber . . .
‘And there’s a certain exhilaration from the physical work,’ he went on. ‘You know . . . lifting things . . .’
I’ll have to get a photo of that. Now she was imagining Luke with a low-slung toolbelt around his hips, showing off his broad shoulders and muscular biceps as he hefted a piece of roofing timber.
There was something primal about a builder, wasn’t there? Perhaps it was the earthy caveman-provider thing.
Or perhaps I’m getting carried away . . .
It would be unforgivable to fall for Luke Fairburn after she’d already, so definitely, warned him off.
‘Okay,’ Sally said quickly, vowing to be sensible immediately. ‘I should probably take a look at the house now and get a few shots.’
But walking around the homestead with Luke while she admired new roof trusses and strengthened window frames was almost as tricky as chatting to Luke in the kitchen. Sally willed her attention to the wall he’d knocked down.
When he showed her gorgeous stained-glass panels for the front door, which needed re-leading, she offered to take them back to Townsville, and Luke accepted gratefully. But the whole time they were talking about the house, she was plagued by a crazy level of excitement that she couldn’t shake off. Taking photos of Luke was precarious, too. Every time she looked up from her viewfinder she caught him watching her with a shimmering cheekiness that stole her breath.
This meeting was turning out to be as difficult as she’d feared it might be. There was too much sizzle in the air. Too many memories of that night in his swag. She should not have jumped at Luke’s invitation to come here.
‘I’d better get going,’ she said finally, glancing at the time on her phone. ‘I have another meeting this afternoon.’
She suspected Luke guessed she was making an excuse, but he would probably be relieved to see her leave. Without delay, she collected her things and stuffed them into her bag. Luke wrapped the glass panels in old pieces of tarpaulin and carried them out to the boot of her car. Sally called to Jess and bundled her into the back seat.
‘Thanks for lunch,’ Luke said, as she stood beside the open driver’s door.
‘Thanks for sparing me your time. I’m going to do some research on Moonlight Plains now, so I can balance the modern story with a little history.’
He nodded. ‘Good luck. I’ll be interested to hear what you find.’
‘I’ll let you know.’
He looked down at the ground and kicked at a stone with his boot.
This farewell was as tense as the last one. Perhaps he was remembering it.
‘Thanks for the magazines,’ he said, not meeting her gaze. ‘I’ll check them out. I’m sure I’ll get a few good ideas.’
‘Keep them as long as you like.’
Sally slipped her keys into the ignition, but she didn’t climb in behind the wheel. She turned back to Luke and she couldn’t help it, she had to ask. ‘There’s something that’s been bugging me, Luke. I should have asked you on the phone, or when I arrived.’
He scowled at a point beyond her right shoulder. ‘What’s that?’
‘Why did you change your mind about doing this story?’
It was impossible to miss the way he stiffened. He looked unhappier than ever, which should not have sent Sally’s heart thumping, and it certainly shouldn’t have made her want to reach out. To touch him. To give him a hug.
‘Just go,’ he said tightly. ‘Go now.’ Plunging his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, he g
lared at her. ‘Go quickly, Sally, before I do something we’ll both regret.’
‘I – I don’t understand.’
Stupid, stupid thing to say.
Luke’s scowl was ferocious. ‘You’d understand if I kissed you senseless.’
14
Boston, 2013
‘Laura, I hear you, honey. I understand how your father’s letters have rocked you. And I hesitate to say this – so please don’t jump on me – but don’t you think you might be overreacting . . . just a teensy bit?’
Laura stared at her best friend in disbelief. ‘Overreacting?’ She felt so let down she actually thought she might cry.
She’d been so looking forward to this after-school get-together. She and Amy had shared many of their deepest secrets sitting right here in these upholstered club chairs in a secluded corner of the Sugar Bowl, their favourite coffee shop in Dorchester.
Laura had been sure that Amy, out of everyone she knew, would understand her latest dilemma. After all, they’d been best friends since college. They’d been bridesmaids at their respective weddings and as newlyweds they’d bought houses in the same suburb of West Roxbury. As young moms, they’d cooked casseroles for each other when their kids were sick and they’d cheered for each other’s children on the athletics track and at swim meets.
For many years, their families had enjoyed weekly backyard barbecues. They’d even taken a couple of shared vacations in the days before Laura’s husband Terry lost his battle with his gambling addiction.
Later, throughout the bitter process of Laura’s divorce, Amy had been her mainstay as well as her shoulder to cry on. So of course Amy was the first person Laura had turned to after she found the box of her father’s letters.
She’d been sublimely confident that her friend would understand, and now she couldn’t quite believe her ears. An overreaction? Really?
The accusation stung like a slap.
‘Of course I’m not overreacting.’ Laura was so disappointed she was tempted to leap to her feet and walk out.
‘Laura, honey.’ Reaching over the small table that separated them, Amy rubbed Laura’s arm. ‘I’m sure it was a shock to find out that your father has been writing all these letters to a strange woman.’ She spoke in her most soothing tones. ‘I understand that. But I think you should try to find the positives in this.’
‘You see positives?’
‘Well, to begin with, your father never posted the letters.’
Laura knew this was true. Her father had actually stated this fact in one of his letters, almost as if he was afraid that someone in the family would find them, as if he expected them to be found . . .
‘But that’s not the point,’ she protested.
Amy overrode her. ‘And it sounds as if this romance happened way back – years before he met your mom.’
‘But he never stopped missing this Kitty woman. That’s what eats at me. Surely you can see that, Amy? I can’t bear to think that all the time he was married to my mother, all the years he lived with us, my father was simply playing the role of the perfect family man while he couldn’t let go of this other woman. It was almost like she had a spell over him.’
Laura’s voice was shaking. She couldn’t help it. ‘I – I think he still loved her. He must have, and I can’t stand that. I can’t stand knowing that she had such a big impact. Such a lasting impact.’
Amy nodded. ‘I know, I know. It’s a bit weird and it must be hard for you.’ Her eyes narrowed in thought as she picked up her coffee spoon and stirred her second cup of French vanilla. ‘I’m wondering, though . . .’
Laura sighed, not sure she wanted to hear what her friend was wondering.
‘Can you remember your first boyfriend?’ Amy asked abruptly.
‘What’s that got to do with –’
‘Can you? Come on. Have a try.’
Almost against her will, Laura’s brain zapped straight to high school and Harry Bradshaw. She could see Harry clearly. In history class. On the football field. On prom night. His curling mop of rusty hair, his deep-blue eyes and cheeky smile. Without warning, a fleeting memory of their first kiss flashed to life. She could actually feel his lips on hers and the recollection was so poignant and sweet she almost smiled.
She managed to squash the impulse just in time.
‘I might be able to remember him,’ she said rather haughtily. ‘But I hardly ever think about him.’
‘But it might have been different if you’d met him in a foreign country while you were caught up in the middle of a war.’
That scenario was so impossible Laura couldn’t even begin to imagine it. Annoyed, she took a sip of her dark roast decaf.
‘We’ve never lived through a world war,’ Amy persisted. ‘We have no idea what it was like for our fathers, fighting in the Pacific. Didn’t you say your dad crashed his plane somewhere in the Australian outback?’
‘Yes, in North Queensland.’
‘How difficult would that have been? He was so young and no doubt scared. I don’t think we should judge them.’
‘Well, I certainly don’t need a lecture,’ Laura sniffed. She was an artist and she liked to think she had a lively and sensitive imagination, but even if she could put herself in her father’s shoes, she couldn’t excuse him for the letters. There’d been dozens of them over the years and Amy was simply trying to whitewash a deeply shocking situation.
‘I thought you’d see it from my point of view, not theirs,’ she said tightly. ‘I thought you’d understand how hurt I feel.’ As though my very foundations have crumbled. As though I’m no longer sure about anything in my life.
That was the worst of it. Everything Laura had ever believed about herself was now in question. She was besieged by doubts about her father, about the depth of happiness in her parents’ marriage, even about the honesty of the family life that had moulded her.
And the loneliness of her knowledge ate at her, too. She’d guarantee that no one in the family knew her father had felt this way about a woman in Australia.
‘I’m trying to understand, Laura,’ Amy said now. ‘But honestly, honey, be careful. You don’t want to make too big a deal about this.’
Amy reached across again, and squeezed Laura’s unyielding hand. ‘You’re going to make yourself sick if you worry too much about these letters. You’ve been through such a tough time with the divorce and with both the girls getting jobs so far away.’
Before Laura could protest, Amy grinned. ‘Perhaps you should try for a little perspective, hon. It’s not as if your father was Tony Soprano and you’ve just found out he was Mafia.’
‘Now you’re trivialising this.’
Laura couldn’t laugh. She was disappointed in her friend. Bitterly disappointed. ‘You didn’t know my dad the way I did. He was so –’
Perfect. She couldn’t say that, but in her eyes, her father had been as heroic as Atticus Finch.
‘He always claimed the moral high ground,’ she said instead. ‘And for him to keep up this writing . . . was a kind of infidelity.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Amy sounded surprisingly contrite. ‘I tend to forget that your family has a pedigree.’
Laura inwardly flinched at this. For years now, she’d been confident she’d shaken off any shadow of Boston snobbery. Marrying Terry Fox had felt like a gesture of bohemian defiance. She’d grown up knowing that her parents expected her to marry from within their closely conservative and wealthy circle, just as they had done and their parents and grandparents before them.
Laura, however, had been intent on freeing herself from the shackles of the Brahman conservatism that her family’s circle revered. Her reckless choice of a husband had received her younger brother Charlie’s blessing, at least. He’d been as enthusiastic as she was about throwing off the past.
Of course, her marriage had proved to be a huge mistake, which she now regretted, far too late.
She’d never questioned whether her parents had once felt the same urge to re
bel against the pressures of their ridiculously outdated Mayflower connections. If Edward or Rose Langley had ever experienced regrets, they’d hidden them well.
Nevertheless, her friend Amy had, perhaps inadvertently, given her something to think about.
Two days later, driving to school in the middle of the early-morning rush hour, Laura was still chewing over this puzzle when she arrived at a possible solution, or at least a step in what might be the right direction. She could send out a feeler: a letter to Australia.
It was unlikely that Kitty Martin was still alive and living at Moonlight Plains, but perhaps whoever lived there now would know something about her. Laura wondered if she could even include a copy of one of her father’s letters. Something safe, very carefully selected . . .
By the time she reached school, the idea had taken hold. She would send her letter off into the unknown, rather like a scientific space probe. She might never hear anything from it again, or it just might solve the riddle that her father had left behind.
15
Townsville, 2013
‘Okay,’ Sally’s best friend Megan began in her habitually hearty voice. ‘Let’s see if I’m picking up the right info here.’ Megan started to tick off points on her fingers. ‘You met a hot guy at the Charters Towers ball. You’re doing a story about a homestead he’s renovating. And by a lucky coincidence you’re also great mates with his granny.’
Dismayed, Sally came to a complete standstill. Luke had been on her mind far too often, of course. She’d reached the point where he invaded her thoughts so frequently that now her friend’s reasonable questions during a sunset walk along the beach with their dogs felt like some kind of trap, like an interrogation behind enemy lines.
‘Why would you string together those three random items?’ Sally tried to sound justifiably self-righteous.
Megan laughed. ‘Maybe because they all have a common denominator called Luke Fairburn?’ She gave an exaggerated eye-roll. ‘I’m simply stitching together what you’ve already told me over the past few weeks.’
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