Laura’s warm, open face slowly crumble and turn paper-white. She didn’t move, didn’t blink, and didn’t even seem to notice when the pink overalls left her limp hand and fluttered to the dusty ground.
‘You’re Will’s brother?’ she whispered, her previously chirpy voice now thin and faraway. Wisps of dappled hair had fallen from their restraint and curled across her forehead. Without all the bluster and noise she suddenly looked very frail. Delicate. And terribly young. He took a step her way, for fear she might swoon.
‘Ms Somervale?’
She made no move, as though she had not heard him.
‘Laura? Are you all right?’
When she swallowed, her lips trembled. Then her haunted gaze locked in on the letter in his still outstretched hand. Her hand flew to her mouth and her teeth clamped down on the length of her index finger. Ryan knew not if she was stopping herself from crying out or biting down hard to cover up a deeper pain elsewhere inside of her. And then, just when Ryan was about to reach out and gather her against him—anything to stop the unnerving trembling that he had caused—she did the incredible: she managed to muster up a smile.
‘You’re Will’s brother,’ she repeated, and this time it was a shaky statement, not a question. ‘Ryan. The economist, right? I’m sorry I didn’t recognise you. Will never did carry pictures of any of you. And you weren’t at his funeral.’
Did that mean she had been? He’d had no idea. His family must not have either. Astonishing. She had been in their midst all those years before, and none of them had known. ‘Ms Somervale, I’m not here to cause you or your…family any trouble. I’ve come because…’
Why had he come? To find the child she had written to the Gaspers about in her letter? Absolutely. But after that he was running on gut instinct alone.
He reached down slowly, so as not to startle her, and picked up the pink overalls. ‘I need to know, Ms Somervale.’ He handed them back to her and saw understanding dawn upon her face.
She took a great breath, as though gathering her scattered trains of thought, nodded, and her bottomless golden eyes fluttered back up to meet his. ‘The Upper Gum Tree,’ she said, coming out of some sort of trance. ‘The hotel in town where you met Jill Tucker. Six o’clock tonight.’
Before he even had the chance to ask her what made the Upper Gum Tree at six o’clock so special, a voice called out from deep within the cottage.
‘Mu-u-um!’
‘Coming, possum!’ she called back, her flashing eyes begging that he keep his attention on her and nowhere else. But it was a hopeless demand as suddenly the owner of the pink overalls and the shouting voice came skipping out of the cottage.
The crackling record, the whisper of the breeze, even the vibrant vision of a barefoot Laura Somervale slipped away as every ounce of Ryan’s being focused on the little girl. She had Laura’s oval face, healthy glow, and dishevelled curls. But the Gasper traits were unmistakable. The intelligent blue eyes. The square jaw. Even the way she bit at the inner corner of her mouth was a habit his sisters had never overcome.
There was no longer any doubt in Ryan’s mind. Laura Somervale had given life to his brother’s child.
The little girl was holding a crayon drawing in her hand, and she stopped short when she saw that her mother was not alone. ‘Mum?’ This time her voice was not so resolute.
Laura’s glance flicked towards the little girl, her voice neutral. ‘Go back inside, Chloe.’
Chloe. Ryan spun the name around his mind several times. Chloe Gasper. No, surely not. Chloe Somervale.
‘Get Chimp’s dinner ready. I won’t be long. Okay?’ No matter that she was trying desperately to sound all right, they heard the strain in her voice. Chloe nodded, and looked over at Ryan. He gave her his best effort at a friendly smile, but her face creased into an uncertain frown before she hustled back inside.
‘Please, Mr Gasper,’ Laura said, her own voice firming with each word. ‘Meet me at the Upper Gum Tree Hotel at six tonight. We can talk there.’
And then she turned and walked away, leaving Ryan with little choice but to do as she asked.
Feeling Ryan Gasper’s now staggeringly familiar gaze burning into her back, Laura picked up her washing basket, spun on her numb feet and hurried inside, the smile she had fashioned fast sliding into oblivion.
Will’s brother had come, and he had her letter. No wonder she’d thought she had seen him somewhere before. He didn’t look at all like Will, who had been barely nineteen, lean and lanky, with streaky blond hair when she had known him. But the something that had tugged at her subconscious was the fact that his deep, dark eyes were as vividly blue as her own daughter’s.
In the intervening years since Will’s funeral she had never heard back from his family, reasonably deducing that they either didn’t believe her, wanted nothing to do with her, or simply didn’t care. Truth be told, the more years that went by, the more that suited her just fine. But now here he was. The dashing, determined, older brother Will had yearned to equal, to emulate and, on the flipside, to disoblige as much as humanly possible. The brother who had not even deigned to show up at his funeral.
Laura shook her head to clear the returning fuzz. None of that mattered now. What mattered was that the time had come for Laura to share her darling little girl. He had said he wasn’t there to cause her any trouble. Maybe. Maybe not. If he thought for a second that he could take Chloe away…
Laura’s chest tightened as adrenalin kicked in. No matter how cool and self-assured Ryan Gasper’s voice was, no matter how bewitching his gaze, how tempting his smile, or how Will had worshipped him, she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. This was too important. The way she handled this, the way she handled him, would be the most important situation of her life.
‘Mum!’ Chloe called again. She bundled into the room, her strawberry-blonde ringlets pulled back into messy pigtails. ‘Who was that man?’
‘A friend,’ Laura said, taking care how she approached the subject with Chloe. She instinctively chose not to create any sort of preconceived image of him. She had always taught Chloe to make up her own mind about people, not to listen to gossip.
She dumped the basket of wet clothes, with the dusty, dirty overalls splayed across the top, sat on the couch, tugged her daughter onto her lap, and held on tight. Too tight. Thankfully, Chloe didn’t struggle away as she sometimes did when Laura became mushy.
‘Now, what have you got there, possum?’ Laura asked, her voice running on back-up power.
‘I have to draw a picture of my family for school.’ Chloe held out her crayon drawing of a house, a couple of animals, and a trio of people. ‘I have you and me, Chimp and Irmela,’ she said, referring to their pet fox terrier and overweight jersey cow respectively. ‘And Jill is at the front gate. Is that enough?’
It always has been enough until now, Laura thought. ‘I don’t think you’ve missed anybody.’
‘Well, Tammy is putting in all of her cousins. Even the ones who live in Scotland.’ Chloe twisted on her lap to look her in the eye. ‘Do I have any cousins in Scotland?’
Laura opened her mouth to say no, of
