she was stuck here for now. She’d had too much to drink on an empty stomach to drive anywhere at the moment. Maybe later on this evening, she would go home.
And maybe not.
The bitter truth was she’d end up thinking of her mother at the moment, no matter where she was. Might as well stay here, Celia decided wearily.
Might as well have another glass of wine, too.
Luke was lost. Hopelessly lost. He’d thought he knew the way. But it had been nearly twenty years since he’d been to Pretty Point and, even then, he’d only been a child passenger, not the adult driver.
The relatively new freeway showed no turn-offs to Pretty Point, nor to any other place names he recognised. He realised after sailing past the turn-off to Morisset and Cooranbong that he probably should have taken it. He’d been driving north way too long. Nearly two hours from Sydney. He took the next turn-off to Toronto, drove into the town and bought a local map at a newsagent’s.
After studying it for a while, he made his way back onto the expressway, took the correct turn-off, and fifteen minutes later began to finally see some familiarity in the roads.
Even so, the area had changed dramatically.
Bush had been cleared and housing estates had popped up all over the place, even on Pretty Point. It was certainly no longer a backwater. As he drove down the now tarred road which led to the far end of the Point—and his father’s property—Luke began to appreciate how much ten acres of waterfront land was worth here in the present climate.
Ms Jessica Gilbert, whoever she was, had done very well for herself out of his father’s generosity.
Luke’s tension grew as he drew closer, his eyes narrowing as he glimpsed a building through the trees, a triangular-shaped house with a sloping green roof. He slowed, then braked, then scratched his head. Had his memory played him false? The area looked right, but the house was all wrong.
He drove on slowly, looking for a sign that this was the right place. And there it was, on the big white gum tree with the gnarled branches. His childish message, carved into the trunk all those years ago. LF was here.
Luke’s stomach contracted. The place was right. But the house was definitely wrong. He stared at it again.
It looked almost new, built on exactly the same spot where the old cabin had stood.
If his father had built a new weekender up here, then why hadn’t he ever mentioned it to him?
Don’t jump to conclusions, he warned himself. All will be explained once you meet its occupier in the flesh.
Meanwhile, Luke clung to the hope that the new place had originally been built as an investment property—possibly when he’d been living in England. Maybe his father had intended to sell it, but then had generously allowed this Ms Gilbert to live there, once he’d heard her hard-luck story.
Luke directed his car down the gravel driveway which wound a gentle path through the tall trees and up towards the back porch of the A-framed dwelling.
A sporty white hatchback was parked next to the steps.
Not a car that an elderly spinster would drive.
Luke tried not to keep jumping to a not-very-nice conclusion, but it was increasingly hard.
He climbed out from behind the wheel and rather reluctantly mounted the long back porch, all the while frowning down at the pine decking, then up at the pine logs which made up the entire back wall of the house.
One of his father’s favourite woods had been pine.
Luke knew then that his father had not just had this place built, he’d designed it himself. Had designed and had built it without telling him. Without telling his wife as well, Luke warranted.
Clenching a fist, he rapped on the door. There was no doorbell, of course. His father had hated doorbells. He’d hated phones as well. He’d hated anything that made irritating interrupting noises.
Luke knocked again. Louder this time.
Twenty more seconds ticked by. Twenty more silent tension-twisting seconds.
Why didn’t the woman answer? Was she deaf?
Suddenly, Luke hoped she was just that. Deaf. Elderly people were often deaf.
The door was reefed open and she stood before him.
In the flesh.
She wasn’t old. Nor deaf.
She was young. And beautiful. With full lips, slanting green eyes and glorious red-gold hair.
It was up. But not like Isabel wore hers up, all neat and smooth and confined. This hair defied order, rebellious curls easily escaping their loose prison to kiss the skin on her slender neck and rest lightly against her smooth, pale-skinned face.
“Ms Gilbert?” he demanded to know, his voice curt, his stomach churning. Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe she was a friend. A welfare officer. A community nurse, even.
And maybe he was the next winner of the Nobel prize for architecture. If there was one.
“Yes,” she admitted, and Luke finally knew the answers to every question he’d been asking himself since he’d first heard her name.
CHAPTER THREE
CELIA stared up at the dark haired and very handsome man standing in the doorway, her memory trying to place him. His face was familiar, and so were his eyes. Almost black, they were. Long lashed and very deeply set.
She was frowning into their inky depths when recognition struck.
“Dear heaven,” she said, her hand tightening on the door knob. “You must be Luke. Lionel’s son.” She kept on staring at him. Impossible not to. It was like seeing Lionel, twenty years ago.
“Right in one, Ms Gilbert.”
The fact that he knew her name took a moment or two to register. As did his simmering anger.
Clearly, Luke Freeman hadn’t come to claim or inspect an inheritance. Somehow, he’d found out about his father’s extramarital affair with her mother, and had come charging up here, far from happy.
But what did he want? To hear first hand all of the sordid details? To confront his father’s mistress personally? To tear strips off her for corrupting his precious parent?
Over my dead body, Celia vowed. Her mother had suffered enough at the hands of one Freeman man. She wasn’t about to let the son finish off what the father had started.
She crossed her arms and gathered herself to do battle. “I don’t how you found out,” she said through gritted teeth, “but I presume you know everything.”
“About your affair with my father, you mean?” he returned in a voice that would have cut diamonds. “Oh, yes, I know. Now. But I suspected the truth as soon as you opened the door. To give my father credit, he had taste. You are one beautiful
