‘My mother’s maxed out my credit card,’ she said. ‘She’s done … well, let’s just say savings I thought were in my account no longer are. She’s taken a lover. We live in my tiny two-bedroom apartment and the walls are thin.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Her lover’s the local vicar, husband of a prominent citizen, I’m a scarlet woman by association.’
‘Double ouch.’
‘Lighthouse Cove is too small.’
‘I can see it might be.’ He looked at her, not so much sympathetic as interested. Doctor inspecting patient. Looking at strange symptoms. ‘So why not Adelaide? You trained there. You could get a job there.’
‘And my mother would be on my doorstep within days, weeping, asking for money, needing support. Or worse, walking into the ward where I’m working, weeping, asking for money, needing support. She’s done it before and she’ll do it again.’
‘So Sydney.’
‘For as long as I can manage,’ she said wearily. ‘For as long as I can get by until I need to go home and face the mess. I hadn’t counted on running into a mess myself.’ She sighed, and looked longingly at the bed. ‘I’m really very tired.’
‘You are,’ he said, gently this time, as if the physician had made his diagnosis and was moving to treatment phase. ‘But this apartment block is almost an extension of the hospital. We’ll be watched all weekend. The farm is best.’
‘I don’t want to move,’ she admitted.
‘It’d be better if I went to the farm and you stayed here,’ he conceded. ‘Only you’d get visitors and questions. At the farm you can sleep for three days straight. So what I suggest is that you sleep now for a couple of hours while I finish some patient notes, then I’ll tuck you into my car and you can sleep all the way to Tarrawalla.’
‘Tarrawalla?’
‘It’s where my elderly uncle lives,’ he said. ‘And the phantom Merrylegs.’ He smiled. ‘And the rest of my horses, all of which you ride like the wind.’
That smile …
She shouldn’t.
Shouldn’t what? Go to his farm? Sink into that smile?
No, she thought wearily, but her body was caving in.
‘You’re beat,’ he said softly, and before she could guess his intention he lifted her and carried her to the bedroom.
‘Put me … put me down …’
‘Of course I will,’ he said softly. ‘I won’t do anything you don’t like, Lily Ellis. We’ve been unwise enough. Now’s the time to be sensible.’
She didn’t feel sensible. She felt … she felt …
Like Luke Williams was carrying her to his bed and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.
Travelling in Luke’s car was almost like travelling in his arms. She lay back in her glorious leather seat, padded with pillows, ensconced in a soft cashmere blanket and felt … cherished.
‘I feel like your ancient grandmother, being taken on a nicely padded outing,’ she told him as he negotiated his way up into the hills north-west of Sydney. It was well past dusk. They were driving into the night and the passenger compartment was a pool of luxurious intimacy.
Luke’s face was a focused profile against the moonlight shining through the driver’s window. His face had such strength … He’d been hurt, Lily had decided after a few covert glances at him. Even if she hadn’t known his wife had died, his face told her that. It looked … forbidding.
She was fighting an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch his hand on the steering-wheel, as a lover might, as a wife might.
Or an ancient grandmother ensconced in woolly cashmere.
‘My grandmother wouldn’t have been seen dead under a cashmere blanket,’ he said, and she blinked.
‘Past tense?’ she said cautiously. ‘Your grandma?’
‘She died young; cirrhosis of the liver. Too much champagne.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘There’re worse ways to go. She was the society matriarch of Singapore.’
‘Is that where your family live?’
‘Yes.’ Blunt and hard. The meaning was clear. Don’t go there.
She wouldn’t. But he had family. The thought jolted her. He’d seemed isolated.
He still seemed isolated.
And … he’d mentioned an uncle at the farm. Maybe it was time she learned more, even if she couldn’t ask directly about his parents.
‘So why aren’t you in Singapore?’ she ventured.
‘I was sent to Sydney to boarding school when I was ten and I’ve stayed. A couple of visits home were enough for me, to be honest. My uncle did all the caring needed. He left Singapore when he was twenty as well, pleased to be shot of them.’
‘So the Harbour is your de facto family,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘No wonder they matchmake.’
‘They won’t any more.’
‘Because I’m the match.’ She retreated under her cashmere and watched the car eat white lines. ‘So after I leave … will you go back to being heartbroken?’
‘I haven’t decided.’ He sounded amused. ‘But I’m thinking I won’t give up on you. You’ll be heading into the sunset to find yourself and I’ll be faithful for years, waiting hopelessly for you to return.’
‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Like Miss Havisham, sitting in a pool of mouldy wedding dress.’
‘That’ll be me,’ he said, sounding cheerful. ‘So your family. One nutty mother. Who else?’
‘Not a sausage.’
He shook his head. ‘Everyone has a sausage.’
‘Nope. My parents were both only children of elderly parents. My dad died when I was twelve. There’s just been me and Mum ever since.’
‘Cheap on birthday gifts,’ he said, cautiously.
‘Not so much. This year Mum’s self-administered birthday gift was a trip to Paris for her and her vicar. She’s disgusted because apparently I didn’t have as much in my bank account as she thought. That’s why she’s still stuck in Lighthouse Cove, until her vicar finds the extra money—or her vicar gets tired of her.’ She grimaced. ‘It’s a merry-go-round. I’ll put more safeguards in place next time.’
‘Next time … You’ll go back?’
‘I
