Miracle in Bellaroo Creek (Bellaroo Creek!)

by Hannay, Barbara

Even the bakery Milla’s parents used to own was now boarded-up and empty. Milla had stood for ages outside the shopfront she’d once known so well, staring glumly through the dusty, grimy windows into the darkened interior.

  From as far back as she could remember the Bellaroo bakery had been a bustling, busy place, filled with cheery customers, and with the fragrant aroma of freshly baked bread. People had flocked from miles around to buy her dad’s mouth-watering loaves made from local wheat, or his delicious rolls and shiny-topped fruit buns, as well as her mum’s legendary pies.

  Her parents had sold the business when they retired, and in the short time since it had come to this...an empty, grimy shop with a faded, printed sign inside the dusty window offering the place for lease. Again.

  Who would want it?

  Looking around at the other vacant shopfronts, Milla had been totally disheartened. She’d driven from Sydney to Bellaroo Creek on a nostalgic whim, but instead she’d found a place on the brink of extinction...

  It seemed the universe was presenting her with yet another dismal picture of failure.

  It was so depressing...

  Poor Heidi must be going mental living here, Milla decided as she drove down the winding dirt track between paddocks of pale, biscuit-coloured grass dotted with fat, creamy sheep. At least Heidi was still married to Brad and had two kids, a boy and a girl—which sounded fine on the surface, but Milla couldn’t believe her old friend was really happy.

  Admittedly, her contact with Heidi had been patchy—the occasional email or Facebook message, the odd Christmas card...

  She’d felt quite tentative, almost fearful when she’d plucked up the courage to telephone Heidi, and she’d been rather surprised that her friend had sounded just as bright and bubbly as she had in her teens.

  ‘Come for lunch,’ Heidi had gushed after the initial excited squeal over the phone. ‘Better still, come for morning tea and stay for lunch. That way you’ll catch up with Brad when he comes in around twelve, and we can have plenty of time for a really good chat. I want to hear everything.’

  Milla wasn’t particularly looking forward to sharing too many details of her personal history, but she was keen to see Heidi again. Curious now, too, as the track dipped to a concrete ford that crossed a small, shady creek.

  As her tyres splashed through the shallow water she imagined Heidi and Brad’s children playing in the creek when they were older. She edged the car up the opposite bank and rounded a corner, and saw her first view of the farmhouse.

  Which wasn’t grand by any means—just a simple white weatherboard house with verandahs and a red roof—but it was shaded by a big old spreading tree and there were well-tended flowerbeds set in neat lawns, a vegetable garden with trellises at one end and free-ranging, rusty-feathered chickens.

  Her friend’s home was a far cry from the acres of expensive glass and white marble of Milla and Harry’s Beverly Hills mansion...

  And yet, something about the house’s old-fashioned, rustic simplicity touched an unexpected chord in Milla.

  No need to get sentimental, she warned herself as she drove forward.

  Before she’d parked the car, the front door opened, spilling puppies and a rosy-cheeked little girl. Heidi followed close behind, waving and grinning as she hurried down the steps and across the lawn. As Milla clambered out she found herself enveloped in the warmest of welcoming hugs.

  After weeks of loneliness, she was fighting tears.

  * * *

  Ed had tried to ring his father several times, but the arrogant old man had a habit of ignoring phone calls if he wasn’t in a sociable mood. Which happened quite often, and went part-way to explaining Gerry Cavanaugh’s multiple marriages and divorces and why his three sons had been born to three different wives, who now lived as far apart from each other as possible.

  Today, when Gerry finally deigned to return his son’s call, Ed was in the Business Lounge at JFK, sending last-minute business emails.

  ‘Glad to hear you’ve tracked Milla down.’ His father always jumped in without any preliminaries. ‘And you know what you have to do when you catch up with her, don’t you, Ed?’

  ‘Well...sure. I’ll tell her about Harry.’

  ‘If she doesn’t already know.’

  Ed was quite sure Milla couldn’t know that Harry had died. Even though she’d run away, she would have been upset. She would have contacted them if she’d heard, and come back for the funeral.

  ‘And I’ll set up the trust fund for the baby,’ he went on. ‘Make sure Milla signs the necessary papers.’

  ‘That’s not all, damn it.’

  Ed sighed. What else had his old man up his sleeve?

  ‘Your main job is to bring the woman home.’

  ‘Home?’ This was news to Ed. ‘Don’t forget Milla was born and bred in Australia, Father. And she still calls Australia home,’ he added with a grim smile at his joking reference to the popular song.

  ‘Like hell. My grandson will be born in America.’

  ‘What are you suggesting? That I kidnap a pregnant woman? You want extradition orders placed on your pregnant daughter-in-law?’

  His father ignored this. ‘You’ll find a way to persuade her. You’re a Cavanaugh. You have a knack with women.’

  Not with this particular woman. Ed squashed unsettling memories before they could take hold. ‘Just remember, Father. Milla ran away from Harry and from our family. It’s obvious she wants as much distance between us as possible. She’s unlikely to come back willingly.’

  ‘Trust me, son, as soon as she hears she’s a widow, she’ll be back here in a flash. Of course, she won’t get a goddamn cent of Harry’s money unless she lets us raise the child as a Cavanaugh, as my grandchild.’

  ‘Got it...’ responded Ed dispiritedly. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  His offer was received with an expressive grunt that conveyed the full brunt of his father’s doubts and displeasure.

  Ed gritted his teeth. ‘Anyway...I’ve briefed Dan Brookes and everything’s in hand as far as the business is concerned, so I guess I’ll see you in a couple of days.’

  Ending the call, Ed sat staring bleakly through the wall of windows, watching the busy tarmac and the endless streams of planes taking off and landing.

  He wasn’t looking forward to the long, twenty-hour flight, but he was looking forward even less to the task that lay ahead of him. After all, Milla had returned to Australia because she’d planned to divorce Harry, and she’d clearly been so disenchanted with the Cavanaughs that she hadn’t told them about her pregnancy.

  It was only while Ed and his father were going through the painful process of sorting through Harry’s paperwork that they’d discovered the medical forms.

  Slam!

  A small missile crashed into Ed, sending his BlackBerry flying. Rascal-faced yet cherubic, a little boy looked up at him with enormous and cheeky blue eyes that peeped from beneath a white-blond fringe.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the kid lisped cutely as he gripped at Ed’s trouser leg for balance.

  ‘Ethan!’ A woman dived from the right, sweeping the child into her arms. ‘So sorry,’ she told Ed, her eyes widening with horror as she saw her son’s sticky, chocolate-smeared fingers and the tracks he’d left on Ed’s Italian suit trousers.

  The kid squirmed in his mom’s arms, as if he sensed that his fun was about to end. And Ed couldn’t help remembering Harry as an ankle-biter.

  For ages after the woman and her boy disappeared, Ed sat, thinking about his younger brother. Milla’s unborn baby would probably be just like that kid—an angelic rascal, full of mischief and charm, stealing hearts and creating havoc. Another Cavanaugh...a new generation.

  Memories washed over him as they had many times in the past few weeks. Growing up with different mothers, he an
d Harry hadn’t spent a lot of time in each other’s company, but his younger brother had always been the wild child, the prankster, the kid who hadn’t done his homework, but still passed his exams with good grades.

  As an adult, Harry had wasted his talents on gambling and flying his private jet and he’d contributed almost nothing to the family firm. And yet, they’d all loved him. Despite his faults, the guy had been a born charmer.

  Ed was the conscientious son, the hardworking eldest, the one who’d carried on the family’s business so that all the others could continue to live in the manner to which they’d become accustomed.

  Admittedly, their youngest brother, Charlie, the son of Gerry Cavanaugh’s third wife, was still in college. He was a good student, from all reports, more serious and focused, more like Ed. But they’d both known that Harry had always been the Golden Child, their father’s favourite, and Harry’s son would be the apple of his grandfather’s eye.

  Ed would have to deal with the full force of his father’s wrath if he failed to bring Milla and her unborn baby home.

  * * *

  Sitting at Heidi’s scrubbed pine table, drinking coffee and talking nineteen to the dozen, Milla made a surprising discovery. She felt calmer and happier than she had in...ages...

  Looking around at Heidi’s honey-toned timber cupboards and simple open shelving, at the jars of homemade preserves and pots of herbs on the window sill, she realised that she’d completely forgotten how very comforting a farmhouse kitchen could be.

  This room had such a timeless and welcoming quality with its huge old stove pumping out gentle warmth, with Heidi’s home-baked cookies on a willow-pattern plate...a yellow jug filled with bottlebrush flowers...dog and cat bowls in the corner...

  It brought to mind Milla’s childhood here in Bellaroo Creek. She’d been happy back then.

  Chatting with Heidi was so very different from socialising in LA, where the women’s conversations had been more like competitions, and the topics centred on shopping, facials, pedicures, or gossip about affairs.

  Heidi simply talked about her family, who were clearly the centre of her world. She told Milla about Brad’s farming innovations with the same pride she displayed when she mentioned her son’s success in his first year at school or her little daughter’s playful antics.

  The conversation should have been boring, but Milla found to her surprise that she was fascinated.

  It was all a bit puzzling... Heidi’s hair was still exactly the same as it had been in high school—straight, shoulder length and mousey brown. She spent her days working on the farm with Brad and growing vegetables and raising chickens, which meant she lived in jeans and cotton shirts and sturdy boots.

  She had freckles and a few lines around her eyes, and her hands were roughened, her fingernails chipped. But Milla, looking at her friend, knew she was as happy as a pig in the proverbial...

  ‘I’m doing exactly what I want to do,’ Heidi happily confessed. ‘Maybe I’m totally lacking in ambition, but I don’t want to do anything else. And it might sound crazy, but I don’t have any doubts.’

  This was a major surprise, but to her even greater surprise Milla found herself opening up to Heidi telling how she’d clocked many, many miles and tried a ton of different jobs in exotic locations, until eventually, she’d arrived in America and fallen head over heels for a charming and handsome multimillionaire adventurer, who had, incredibly, asked her to marry him.

  She told how those first years of her marriage had been such a heady time. Harry had so many celebrity friends in his social circle and he’d flown his own plane. ‘He used to fly me to Paris for a dinner and a show, or to Milan to buy a dress I could wear to the Oscars.’

  Heidi’s jaw dropped with a satisfying clunk.

  ‘We would fly to New Orleans for a party,’ Milla went on. ‘Or to Buenos Aires to watch a polo game. I never dreamed I’d ever have such excitement and fun, such astonishing luxury and comfort.’

  ‘I used to hear bits and pieces,’ Heidi said, overawed. ‘But I never realised you were living like a princess. Wow! It must have been amazing.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Milla wished she could sound more convincing. She couldn’t quite bring herself to tell Heidi the rest of her story—about Harry’s gambling and endless affairs, and if she mentioned the baby she would burst into tears.

  Crazy thing was, she’d come back to Bellaroo Creek full of pity for Heidi, but, looking back on her own life, she felt as if she’d achieved next to nothing that really counted. In terms of happiness and self-esteem, she was at an all-time low.

  And it wasn’t long before she sensed that her friend had guessed. She could see the questions and the dawning compassion in Heidi’s eyes. And then, out of the blue, as if they’d never lost their best-friends-for-ever closeness, Heidi jumped out of her chair, circled the table and gave Milla an enormous hug.

  ‘Mills, you have to tell me why you’re here on your own and looking so sad,’ Heidi said gently. ‘And what are we going to do about it?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  AT LAST...A road sign announced: Welcome to Bellaroo Creek... Population 379...

  Ed slowed the car and surveyed the cluster of tired houses and the narrow strip of faded office buildings and shops set in the middle of wide, almost featureless plains. It was like arriving on the set of a Western movie. And potentially as risky, he thought wryly.

  A new tension replaced his frayed and jet-lagged weariness as he pulled over, took out his phone and punched Gary Kemp’s number. He’d given Milla no warning of his arrival—he’d more or less come here to ambush her. It wasn’t a pleasant prospect.

  ‘Mr Cavanaugh,’ the Australian drawled, recognising Ed’s number. ‘Welcome to Oz.’

  More like Kansas than Oz, Ed almost told him. ‘Milla still here?’ he asked. ‘Still staying at the pub?’

  ‘Sure, her room’s booked through till Wednesday and she’s still in town, but you’re more likely to find her in the old bakery across the road.’

  Ed frowned. He’d heard of pregnant women developing food cravings, but he couldn’t imagine his slender sister-in-law wolfing down endless strudels.

  ‘Apparently her family used to own the bakery,’ Gary Kemp clarified. ‘It’s closed now, but she seems to have the keys.’

  ‘OK, that’s helpful.’ Ed scratched at his jaw, finding a patch of stubble he’d missed during his hasty shave at Sydney airport. ‘I’ll take it from here.’

  ‘Glad to hear it, Mr C. I certainly don’t want to hang around in this hole any longer than I have to. It’s probably safer if you and I don’t meet. I’ve just fuelled up on the other side of town, so I’ll head off.’

  ‘So the bakery’s easy to find?’

  ‘Can’t miss it. In the main street, opposite the pub and about three doors along.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Ed edged his car forward, cruising into the almost deserted main street where a few battered pickup trucks and dusty sedans were parked. A couple of pedestrians crossed the road at a shuffling snail’s pace—a young woman, arm in arm with an elderly, white-haired man huddled inside a tweed jacket.

  Further down the street, two women holding laden shopping bags were deep in conversation. A spotted dog slept in a sunny doorway.

  Otherwise, the street appeared empty, but despite the lack of people the town didn’t look completely neglected. A neat and colourful strip of garden cut the wide street in half, clear evidence that someone cared. There were shade trees, too, and noisy, brightly coloured birds were feeding in the blossom-filled branches.

  The taller buildings were no higher than two storeys, but they looked solid and stately and over a century old, signs to Ed that the town had seen better days. Opposite the post office a memorial had been erected to fallen soldiers and there seemed to be a hell of a lot of names on it.

 
Bellaroo Creek had boasted a bigger population at one time, he decided as he parked a few doors away from the pub and took off his sunglasses, conscious again of his tiredness after the long flight and the five-hour drive on the wrong side of the highway.

  Tension nagged and he grimaced. He wasn’t looking forward to the task ahead.

  He told himself he was doing it for the kid’s sake. Now, with Harry gone, Ed’s role as the unborn baby’s uncle loomed as a greater responsibility, with higher personal stakes. He would cope best if he concentrated on the kid and erased from his memory his fleeting history with its mother.

  Frowning, he climbed out of the car and stretched his long, cramped limbs. Across the road, he could see a row of rundown, empty shopfronts in stone buildings that still showed traces of their former elegance. One door was open and above it, in faded green paint, the shop’s name, Bellaroo Bakery, was faintly visible.

  With an air of determination Ed crossed the road and stood on the sidewalk outside, observing. He couldn’t see anyone in the front part of the store, but he listened for voices. Although he planned to take Milla by surprise, he didn’t want to embarrass her if she had company.

  There was silence, however, so he knocked on the open door.

  And waited impatiently.

  No one came and he was about to knock again when Milla appeared at the back of the shop, wiping her hands on her jeans. She looked pale and tired, but her delicate features and candle-flame hair were as lovely as ever. And, as always, the sight of her sent a painful dart spearing through Ed.

  Her face turned white when she saw him.

  ‘You?’ she said softly and her sea-green eyes looked stricken. Her lips trembled, parted and then shut again as if she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Ed swallowed to ease the sharpness in his throat and Milla came forward carefully, almost fearfully.

  ‘Hello, Milla.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I—’ He was halted by her fragile air, suddenly afraid that his news would flatten her completely. ‘There’ve been...developments.’ Damn, how clumsy was that? ‘We need to talk.’