Page 9

Abby

Leetham, Western Australia

Present Day

M y three months are up.

It’s all I’ve been able to think about since I woke up, and throughout my shift at the pub. Although it’s midafternoon in outback Australia, in Spain it’s still the middle of the night.

Which means that I have a few hours left to decide what to do.

I never knew it could be this hard to make a decision. And I’ve never left such an important decision so late. I keep reaching for my phone, then putting it back down again.

And not just because I don’t know what to do about Dimitry.

Darya messaged yesterday to say she’s gone into labor. I’ve typed a dozen messages and deleted every one of them.

I have no idea what to say to her either.

But I have to work it out fast .

There’s no way I’m not calling her when the baby is born, even if it breaks my heart to hear her voice.

On top of that, the damned Banderos are still here.

They’ve come into the pub the past three afternoons for a drink, and my paranoia has risen with every day they’ve stayed in town.

Right now they’re sitting in the corner, their heads together over the table, engaged in some low, tense conversation that makes me feel distinctly uneasy.

The door opens, and to my utter shock, in walks Susan Chalmers, my mother.

“Hello, darling.” Mum adds a touch of class to any room she’s in, even the bar of the Leetham Exchange.

Dressed in a neat blue cotton shirt tucked into denims, brown leather belt and boots, pearls, pink lipstick, and an impeccable blonde French twist, she looks like she stepped right out of the pages of Australian Country Living magazine.

“Mum.” I smile tentatively. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I had to come into town to pick up something for Dad, so I thought I’d call in and offer you a lift home. Today is your half-day shift, isn’t it?”

“It is. I’m off in ten minutes, actually.

” I’m not sure what’s more surprising—that she knows my roster or that she’s offering me a lift.

I can’t afford a car, and given the nature of my departure six years ago, not to mention my radio silence in the years since, my parents’ lack of warmth on my return was hardly surprising.

I wasn’t about to ask for any favors. When I got a job, I fixed up my old bicycle and accepted the ten-kilometer ride into town without complaint.

This is the first time Mum’s offered to drive me anywhere since my return.

“Excellent. We can put your bike in the tray back.” Mum takes a seat on a barstool, crossing her legs as primly as if she were sipping cocktails at the Ritz. “Well, I’ll just have a glass of chardonnay while I wait, then. ”

“A chardy, huh? ”

It’s a day of fucking wonders, this one.

“Special occasion I don’t know about?” I pour her a glass.

“Goodness, Abby.” Mum sips the wine primly. “I do drink, you know.”

“Of course you do.”

Once in a blue fucking moon.

I pinch my lips to stop myself grinning. “Just let me finish up here, and I’ll be ready to go.”

It’s half an hour before Mum actually finishes her lone glass of wine. I’m tempted to have one myself, but I don’t want to push the friendship. It’s past three when I finally leave the Banderos to whatever they’re plotting in the corner and turn the farm utility vehicle onto the main road.

“Thank you for driving.” Mum sits very upright, her hands folded in her lap. “It’s not that I’m drunk at all. I just don’t want to risk a drunk driving charge.”

On one glass? Go hard, Mum.

“Very smart,” I say, stifling another smile. I drive past the small supermarket, stock supplier, and handful of shops and buildings that constitute Leetham, then take a left onto Chalmer’s Lane, the long straight road named after our family.

“Did you do a lot of driving when you were overseas?” Mum stares directly ahead as she asks the question, her tone studiedly casual.

“Oh, not so much.” I try to match her tone. “I couldn’t really afford a car. I mainly just walked or took public transport.”

“Oh.” She turns to look out the window. Unsure what to say, I stay quiet.

“I suppose it would be difficult, anyway,” she says finally. “Driving in Asia.”

Asia? I left for Asia six years ago.

Do they really not know where I was after that?

Of course they don’t. You never told them. A familiar sense of alienation creeps over me in a cold, lonely wave. And you need to be fucking careful what you do tell them.

“Most people in Thailand ride motorbikes,” I say lightly. “Or scooters.”

“Thailand.” Mum nods. Still staring out of the window, she says, “So that’s where you were, all this time? Thailand?”

Just say yes, Abby.

It would be easier to lie. So much easier.

And it would still be a lie.

I might never have a normal life again. But if I want one, it has to start with the truth.

Or some truth, at least.

“No, I wasn’t always in Thailand.” I turn off at our driveway, heading through the wooden gate posts without bothering to indicate. It’s not like there’s anyone behind me. “I was in South America for a while.”

For three years, in fact, Mum. The first one was a wild year of drug-fueled insanity. The next two were a lot less fun, since I spent them in El Buen Pastor women’s prison in Bogotá.

El Buen Pastor : The Good Shepherd.

What a joke.

Believe me, there was nothing good about that hellhole, and not a fucking shepherd in sight.

“After South America,” I go on, thrusting the memories out of my mind, “I went to Spain. That’s where I was living before I flew back to Aust—before I came home,” I correct myself hastily.

The silence in the car is deafening.

I mentally kick myself. The one thing that definitely still feels like home is my unerring ability to upset my mother.

Be honest. There are other things that feel like home, too. Nice things.

Things I didn’t even know I’d missed, like the huge, brilliant Australian sky. The way the earth always smells wild and untamed. The magnificence of every dawn and sunset. The complete silence of night here, beneath a diamond carpet of stars.

I pull up on the red dirt outside the old weatherboard farm house. Dad’s car isn’t here, so he’s still out in the paddocks somewhere.

Small mercies. I’m not ready to face a two-person inquisition.

Mum makes no move to get out of the car. “South America,” she says finally. “Goodness.”

There wasn’t a lot of goodness going on for me back then, Suze.

I suppress a smile. I used to call my mother Suze all the time when I was a kid, just to piss her off.

God, I was a brat.

It’s a wonder she and Dad let me back in the front door at all.

“Spain sounds lovely, though.” She gives me a rather hopeful look. “Did you like it?”

“Yes.” At least I can be honest about that much. “I was studying art at a college in Malaga, which I loved. And I had a really good friend, Darya. She’s married now. About to have a baby. She wanted me to be godmother, actually.”

My throat suddenly closes over, making it difficult to talk. I blink back tears.

I miss Darya so much.

And right now she’s having her baby without me.

Part of me wants to fly straight back to Spain, this moment, and never leave her side again. And part of me thinks it’s better for everyone there if they never hear from me again.

I open the door and step out, more to hide my face than any other reason.

“Abby.” Mum climbs slowly down from the utility. “Dinner is already in the slow cooker, and I’ve had a very busy day. There’s a cold bottle of chardonnay in the fridge. Why don’t you open it, and we can sit out on the veranda?”

S eriously?

I can hardly refuse, given that this is the first genuine conversation we’ve had since I came back. But nor do I have a good story prepared if she starts asking too many questions.

Why the fuck didn’t I think this through properly? Get ready for the inquisition?

My mind whirls frantically as I go into the kitchen for the bottle and two glasses. I’m still coming up blank when I join Mum in the wide wicker chairs out on the veranda.

The two border collie dogs slumped at her feet give me a disdainful look as I sit down.

They both joined the household after I left it years ago.

I’m just a visitor to them, even if they’ve slightly mellowed toward me after three months in their domain.

Dad has the cattle dogs out working with him and Jamie, my brother, who lives in the smaller house two paddocks over from this one.

“You said you were going to be godmother to your friend’s baby,” Mum says as I hand her a glass of wine.

Wow. Suze didn’t skip a beat on that one.

“Do I take that as you won’t be godmother anymore?” She casts me a brief sideways look, then goes back to staring out at the brown, dry paddocks, shimmering in the late-afternoon heat haze.

I consider the multitude of answers I could give to that question and go with the simplest one. “I overstayed my Spanish visa, so I can’t go back easily.”

Not to mention I was in Spain with a fake passport to start with.

I used my own passport to come back to Australia.

I figured that if I was going to be flagged when I came in, I might as well find out right away.

But Juan Cardenas had clearly kept the promise he made when he had me released from jail: that he’d make sure nobody, including Rodrigo, knew where I went, as well as ensuring that the charges didn’t stick to my real name.

But what if he lied?

Because whatever deal I made with Juan won’t matter one bit to his son. And if Rodrigo ever finds me, he won’t settle for seeing me punished by the nice, polite Australian authorities.

No. Rodrigo wants me to suffer.

A lot.

Preferably at his own hands.

Rodrigo was a dumb, nasty bully when my then-boyfriend double-crossed him. I can’t imagine he’s gotten any better since his father’s death.

And he isn’t the only shadow waiting in the darkness. Nor even the worst one.

It’s an effort to push the old ghosts away. Then again, I’ve lived with those ghosts for a long time.