of each other.’
He knew that Bella would be recalling the escalating wars he’d had with his policeman dad during the five years he’d been stationed in Willara. The final showdown had led to the cancellation of his eighteenth birthday party, and the end of their high-school romance.
‘You’ve certainly made sure you stayed far enough away,’ she said.
Damon bristled. Talking about his father was guaranteed to make him snappy. ‘I didn’t leave Australia simply to escape.’
‘Didn’t you?’
There was no mistaking the faint criticism in her voice. But Damon wasn’t prepared to admit she was close to the truth, that reporting about other people’s problems had helped him to avoid his own.
‘I wanted to see the world,’ he said. ‘You know—broaden my mind—experience as many different cultures and perspectives as I could.’
‘That does sound very appealing.’
There was a wistful quality to her voice. He turned to catch her expression, but her face was mostly hidden by the brim of her cap and her sunglasses.
He thought how different her past decade had been from his. While he’d been the prodigal son, she’d been the good and dutiful daughter, staying in Queensland and worrying about her parents and their illnesses. Coping with her mother’s death. She’d been very close to her mother.
To make amends for his terseness, he said, ‘This probably sounds clumsy, but I really liked your mother. She was terrific.’
Bella shook her head. ‘That’s not clumsy. It’s nice. I don’t get to hear it very often. Most people avoid talking about Mum. I suppose they’re worried they’ll upset me.’ She turned to him. ‘Mum liked you, Damon.’
‘Until I blotted my copybook.’
‘No. I know it didn’t seem like it at the time, but my mother was a true-blue fan of yours.’ She looked down and rubbed at her finger again. ‘Did you know she’d made you a birthday cake?’
‘For my eighteenth?’
‘Yes, for the party that never happened.’ Almost immediately, Bella groaned. ‘Sorry. Forget I mentioned that.’
‘Mentioned what?’
She looked momentarily puzzled, and then she smiled. Damon smiled, too, and for a heartbeat, it was dangerously almost like old times.
They stopped for a late lunch at a roadside café. Bella wasn’t particularly hungry and only ate half of her toasted sandwiches, but Damon tucked into his hamburger.
On the road again, she felt her eyelids beginning to droop. She’d had very little sleep the night before. She’d tossed and turned after she’d received a late text message from Kent saying that he needed to talk. And then this morning he’d knocked on her hotel-room door at the crack of dawn, and, although she was happy with the outcome, reaching their final decision had been an emotionally draining process.
She yawned loudly.
‘Feel free to sleep,’ Damon told her.
‘Oh, it’s too early. If I sleep now, I’ll never sleep tonight. I think I need to keep talking.’
‘What about?’
‘I don’t know.’ She was too tired for anything serious like politics or current affairs. Problem was, Damon had been her first boyfriend and her head was full of memories of his kisses and caresses, of the exciting journey of sexual discovery that they’d begun together. ‘You could tell me about your girlfriends.’
‘Not much to report there.’
‘Rubbish. I’ve read all about you in a celebrity magazine. You’ve had girlfriends galore.’
She watched him silently, waiting for him to respond.
Instead, he bounced the question back at her. ‘And I suppose you’ve had lots of boyfriends?’
Ouch. She had no intention of telling Damon Cavello about her sadly minimalist relationship history. She sighed, knowing there was one topic she should probably broach. ‘I suppose I should explain about Kent,’ she said. ‘And why we decided not to get married.’
His hands tensed on the steering wheel. ‘Only if you want to.’
‘It’s okay. I think I’d like to explain. After all, you’re Kent’s friend. But it’s actually a rather long story.’
‘We have plenty of time.’
‘Yes.’ She drew a deep, steadying breath. ‘Well … it started when my father got really sick.’
‘You’ve had a rough trot, Bella.’
She nodded. ‘After Mum died, we were all rather lost … Dad, Paddy and I. But your grandmother was wonderful for Paddy. She went out of her way to cheer him up.’
Damon smiled. ‘She has a talent for cheering people up. I’m glad she was able to help. She mentioned that your father was very low.’
‘He was. He started drinking too much. Drowning his sorrows. It was really awful, actually.’
‘You were away, working in Brisbane, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, and I didn’t realise how quickly Dad was going downhill. He was neglecting the farm. He wasn’t paying bills. When I realised how bad things were, I started coming home on weekends, and Kent helped out on the farm. Mending fences. Ploughing. Kent was fabulous, actually.’
Damon slanted her a piercing glance. ‘Is that when the two of you became close?’
‘Yes.’ She looked away, then said carefully, ‘I’m not sure if you ever knew, but Kent’s always looked up to my father. You probably heard that Dad saved Kent from drowning when he was a kid?’ Damon nodded.
‘Kent felt that he owed him a huge debt. He became very worried when Dad started the heavy drinking. Then Dad developed heart failure. He’d been literally drinking himself to death.’
‘And Kent wanted to help.’
‘Yes.’
‘By marrying you?’
The fierce intensity in Damon’s voice made her shiver. ‘More or less.’ She rubbed at her arms. ‘Kent suggested we should get engaged, and suddenly it seemed to be the answer to all my problems. He and I would be living next door to Dad. We could keep an eye on him, get him to AA meetings and help him to run the farm.’
‘And there’d be grandchildren for your father to dote on. A reason for him to go on living.’
Bella drew a sharp breath. ‘That was what we hoped.’
After a beat, Damon said, smoothly, ‘It sounds like a great plan. Dare I ask what went wrong?’
Oh,
