a tinny?’
‘An aluminium dinghy. We used it for fishing around the islands, but my uncle was planning to take it all the way to Cairns.’ Seth’s throat worked. ‘A damn storm came up out of nowhere.’
Amy stared at him in dawning horror, guessing what would come next.
Grim-faced, Seth told her. ‘A fishing trawler found the wreck three days later.’
The news rocked Amy. She’d never dreamed…
‘I’m sure Rachel didn’t know,’ she whispered.
Appalled, she recognised Seth’s grief, and felt his pain. It was there in the way he held himself stiffly, so stiffly, and his hurting was a live thing, reaching out to her and squeezing her heart.
‘I blame myself,’ Seth said softly. ‘My uncle asked me to do one simple thing for him and I turned him down. After everything he’d done for me.’
Again, he kicked at a stone and, with a gruff, anguished growl, he began to stride away from Amy. She hurried down the track to catch up.
‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ she said.
He whirled around. ‘Why not? I should have seen how desperate he was. If I’d had any idea he’d take that bloody boat, I’d have flown him to Cairns in a heartbeat.’
Tears stung her eyes.
‘I didn’t know Rachel was pregnant.’ His voice was rough and choked. ‘I didn’t know how to contact her after he died, but if I’d known she was pregnant, I would have made a bigger effort to find her.’
Blinking tears, Amy reached out and touched him on the arm.
He tensed as if she’d burned him.
‘I do know how you feel, Seth.’
His eyes blazed with sudden anger. ‘How could you possibly know?’
‘I’ve been there. In that same place.’
She knew he didn’t believe her, or care. His jaw hardened and a merciless light crept into his eyes. ‘OK, so how do I feel?’
Amy’s throat was tight, and it felt raw and fiery when she tried to swallow. ‘You’d give anything to have that time over again, to make different choices.’
Seth continued to glare at her.
‘Believe me, Seth, I know exactly what it feels like to be full of remorse, to feel responsible for what’s happened. I’ve suffered all kinds of guilt over Rachel.’
In silence, he absorbed this news, and at last Amy saw his shoulders relax. He shook his head. ‘But you weren’t to blame for Rachel’s accident.’
‘I was,’ she said, blinking back tears. ‘I should have invited my boyfriend to a corporate launch, but I asked Rachel to come instead. If I hadn’t invited her, if I‘d asked Dominic and left Rachel safely at home with Bella, she’d still be alive.’
‘But her accident was just bad luck. You told me that when you rang. Some fool ran a red light.’
Amy’s stomach lurched unhappily and she couldn’t look at him. She hated making this admission, but it had been eating at her for the past two months.
‘I can’t stop feeling guilty about that night because…because I wanted to show off to her. If I’m brutally honest, that was the real, the only reason I invited Rachel.’
Still she couldn’t look at him, and she forced her eyes extra wide to hold her tears at bay. ‘Rachel was always so amazingly clever and I finally had the chance to show her how good I was at my job. The launch party was going to be fabulous and I wanted her to see me in my finest hour. I—I can’t believe I was so full of myself.’
She pressed her lips together tightly to hold back a sob.
‘You’re looking at this the wrong way,’ Seth said, lifting his voice above the sudden noise of squabbling parrots in nearby trees. ‘There’s nothing wrong with inviting a best friend to a party.’
‘But my motives were selfish.’
‘So you wanted to show off? That’s not exactly a crime, Amy. Half the parties in the world are about showing off.’
He snagged a stem of long grass and she found herself watching the deft movements of his fingers as he wove the strip of green into a narrow plait. A sigh escaped her.
‘Perhaps we’re both being too hard on ourselves,’ he said quietly.
Was he right? She felt a tenuous but amazingly deep connection to him in this moment. Here were the two of them—grieving and alone, lost and guilty—two strangers from different worlds linked by one tiny girl.
‘I know one thing,’ she said, at last. ‘No matter how badly we want to, we can’t change what’s happened.’
Seth nodded. ‘All we can do is look for a way to move forward again.’
His eyes regarded her warmly. ‘Speaking of moving on, I still haven’t shown you why I brought you down here.’
‘Do we have time? Shouldn’t we get back to Bella?’
‘This will only take a moment.’
Ahead of them, the track narrowed and Seth led the way, holding back giant fern fronds so they didn’t brush against Amy. She heard the sound of running water and when they rounded the next bend, the track opened up to reveal a picture-perfect, fern-fringed rock pool fed by a cascading waterfall.
‘Oh, wow!’
‘It’s an alternative swimming hole,’ Seth said with a grin. ‘Better than the beach because it’s too high up for crocodiles.’
‘It’s beautiful.’ It was truly beautiful. Even so, at the mention of crocodiles, Amy sent a cautious glance over the tumble of rocks and she quickly scanned the massive overhanging tree branches. ‘Do snakes come here?’
‘Not often.’
She edged closer to Seth. ‘How often is not often?’
He grinned. ‘I’ve seen the occasional harmless python sunning itself on a rock, but that’s all.’
‘But it wouldn’t be safe to bring Bella here?’
‘Why not? She’d be fine—as long as she was with a responsible adult. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I thought it was dangerous.’
Amy turned from the pool to face him. ‘You do understand how important Bella is to me, don’t you? Rachel was my best friend and now you know how I feel about the accident—’
‘You want to make amends by taking wonderful care of her daughter.’
‘That’s it exactly.’ It was a relief to know that he finally understood. ‘Bella’s
