Moonlight Plains

by Barbara Hannay

  Luke opened the envelope, and sure enough, inside were a magazine, a disk and a note. He read the note first.

  Dear Luke,

  So here it is. I think the spread looks great and the people at My Country Home are pleased. There’s talk of more work for me, so that’s great news. I hope you’re happy with the story and the photos and, of course, I also hope you’re well and thriving.

  I’ve included a disk with all the photos I took over the weeks at Moonlight Plains. I thought you might like them as a record.

  Thanks again for letting me work on this project. I loved every minute.

  Love,

  Sally xx

  Luke found himself mesmerised by those last two words. Love, Sally xx. Of course, he knew it was probably the way she signed all her letters and had no special significance, but the word Love seemed to jump out at him and bounce around in his head.

  He looked up to find Mac watching him with puzzled amusement. ‘Well, are you going to take a gander at her story?’

  ‘Yeah, course.’ Luke folded the letter and slipped it back inside. Then he drew out the magazine.

  Moonlight Plains was on the front cover.

  A painful rock jammed Luke’s throat. He could remember when Sally had taken that photo in the last week before the party. The painters had only just left when she’d arrived from Townsville late on a Friday afternoon. The sky was turning pink and mauve and the sun cast a soft bronzed glow over the paddocks and trees.

  ‘I’ve got to get a photo now,’ she’d said, scrambling out of the car and grabbing her camera. Her dark eyes had glowed with excitement. ‘This is going to be it, Luke. The one I’ve been waiting for.’

  She was right. It was a fabulous shot, totally worthy of its cover spot. Across the bottom of the photo was a description: Capturing the Romance of the Past: The inspiring story of a forgotten homestead’s restoration.

  ‘Wow,’ said Mac, his attention caught. ‘That looks amazing.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Luke gave a shaky laugh. ‘It probably looks better than it does in real life.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. What’s the story like?’

  Luke turned the pages and quickly found it. Once again, the photos of the finished house were fabulous, especially in comparison with the ‘before’ photos. There were also several photos of himself, including one where he was without a shirt.

  The back of his neck grew hot and he knew his pulse accelerated as he scanned Sally’s written words, reading quickly just to get the gist, aware that Mac was watching.

  ‘Well, it reads pretty well,’ he said, after a bit. ‘Sally’s a good writer.’

  He didn’t add that there was far more story about him than he’d expected. Zoe and Mac and the rest of the family would soon see that for themselves. He hoped he wasn’t in for a grilling.

  When he finished, he pushed the magazine across the table to Mac. Then he drained his beer and got to his feet, too restless to sit around while Mac read the story. ‘Want another?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Mac said without looking up.

  Luke fetched two more beers from the kitchen fridge and hung around for a bit, chatting to Zoe and cheekily playful Callum. When he went back out onto the deck Mac was still reading. It was crazy to be so nervous, crazier to be so damn miserable.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked as he set Mac’s beer in front of him and resumed his seat.

  ‘This is great.’ Mac was grinning as he tapped the page. ‘Sally really did the right thing by the old place, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Luke stifled his urge to sigh and took a swift swig of beer.

  ‘The story’s as much about you as it is about the homestead,’ Mac added and then he looked up from the magazine and narrowed his eyes at Luke. ‘So, are you two still good friends?’

  ‘No, we broke up,’ Luke said emphatically.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘What’s with you? What do you mean . . . Oh?’

  Mac shrugged. ‘It’s interesting to hear you’ve broken up with Sally. I guess that means you were more than friends.’

  Bloody hell. He’d walked right into that one. ‘You missed your calling,’ Luke said through gritted teeth. ‘You should have been a lawyer, trapping people with words.’ And he took a long, deep, angry drag of his beer.

  Mac leaned forward, his palms open on the table like a peace negotiator. ‘Look, mate, we all saw the signs.’

  ‘What signs?’

  ‘Well, apart from the burning way you and Sally looked at each other, Sally worked her socks off at the party – like one of the family.’ He gave a shrugging smile. ‘Only a very good friend puts in that kind of effort.’

  Great. So after all their subterfuge, they hadn’t fooled anyone.

  Luke stared moodily at his beer. ‘It was only ever casual.’ Then he added quickly, in case Mac tried to argue, ‘We had a sort of no-strings agreement. Sally’s still not over losing her husband.’

  Instead of answering, Mac looked again at the magazine article, turning the page to a photo of Luke. Eventually, he said, ‘And this husband died how long ago?’

  ‘Couple of years or so.’

  To Luke’s relief, Mac didn’t try to respond to this. He leaned back in his chair, drinking his beer and looking out at a flock of magpie geese flying homewards across the darkening sky.

  A cool breeze drifted in, rippling the surface of the lagoon, and from inside the house came tempting smells of dinner cooking and Zoe’s voice, warm and joyous, as she read a bedtime story to Callum.

  ‘Listen, mate,’ Mac said suddenly. ‘If you’re thinking you could never replace Sally’s husband, I know that’s not true.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know shit about this.’ Luke stopped in mid-snarl as he remembered. ‘Sorry, I almost forgot . . . about you and Lisa.’

  Lisa had been Mac’s fiancée, a city girl, and the poor guy had been mad about her. They were all set to marry when she’d panicked about living in the outback and had taken off one day, driving through a flooded creek. Mac had nearly gone crazy when she drowned.

  ‘You might remember how hard I was on Zoe when she turned up,’ Mac said. ‘I’d decided that all city girls were the same. They simply couldn’t cut it in the bush.’

  As if on cue, Zoe appeared on the deck with young Callum laughing and squirming in her arms. ‘Someone needs to say goodnight to Daddy.’ Her face, framed by dark curls, was alight with happiness.

  Grinning, Mac rose and gave her a kiss before he took Callum from her, giving the boy a tickle and making him squeal. ‘So what is it tonight? A helicopter into bed? Or a spaceship?’

  ‘Helichopper!’

  Even before Mac lifted his son high, zooming him through the air and making whop-whop-whop noises, the boy was squealing.

  At the doorway, he turned and winked, and Luke had no trouble reading his silent message.

  Look what I nearly missed out on, mate.

  When Luke finally visited his grandmother for the first time since the party, she lost no time in bringing up the subject of Sally. ‘Sally tells me that she’s not seeing you any more.’

  ‘Well, no.’ Luke tried for a nonchalant shrug. ‘It was never serious. We were only ever casual.’

  ‘Why?’

  He swallowed. ‘That’s how things are these days, Gran.’

  ‘What nonsense.’

  He might have tried to explain about his reluctance to live in the shadow of Sally’s husband, but his grandmother fixed him with an especially stern frown and her grey eyes glittered with something akin to anger.

  ‘I hope this has nothing to do with our conversation about your grandfather out at Moonlight Plains. You’re not still worrying that Andy was my second choice.’

  Luke could feel his jaw tightening and he shifted uneasily in his chair. Why couldn’t they just reminisce about the party? Talk about the weather? Her health?

  His grandmother leaned forward, fixing him with narrowed beady eyes. ‘Tell me, Luke. Did you ever see me t
reat your granddad as second best?’

  ‘Well, no, but –’

  ‘Of course not, because he wasn’t.’ She settled back in her chair by the window with a sigh and shifted her unhappy gaze outside to a hedge of bright tropical shrubbery.

  Luke thought how tiny and frail and exhausted she looked. He found it almost impossible to reconcile this fragile birdlike figure with the energetic, good-humoured dynamo who used to host their massive family gatherings without ever seeming to tire.

  When she turned back to him, she smiled gently. ‘I admit it’s true that when I married Andy I was still in love with Ed and carrying Ed’s baby, but I was fond of Andy. And very grateful.’

  Fond? Grateful? Was that the best she could offer? Luke couldn’t hide his dismay.

  ‘I know it must be hard for you to understand,’ she went on. ‘But of course, those feelings changed as I grew to love Andy. How could I not love him? You know what a kind and caring man he was. Luke, you’d be doing your grandfather a huge disservice if you thought he was anything but the best husband I could have asked for.’

  Now her eyes glistened and Luke felt like a heel. The last thing he’d wanted was to upset her. If only she hadn’t started by asking about Sally. He’d been driving himself crazy enough with his own tortured arguments.

  ‘It’s like the old homestead,’ his grandmother continued, now calmer. ‘Is it second best now, simply because it’s not the same as when it was built?’

  ‘I don’t think so. No.’

  ‘But you had no hesitation about changing it from what it used to be. You were quite happy to pull down walls and change the way it looked and worked.’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘You rebuilt the house for now, Luke, and for the future.’ She leaned towards him again, her eyes bright and sharp once more in her delicate, wrinkled-creased face. ‘You used your knowledge of the past, but you didn’t leave it stuck the way it used to be.’

  ‘Well, yes, but –’

  ‘Just like a marriage.’

  She glanced at the magazines he’d brought her and pointed to the top one with a full-page shot on the cover of a celebrity couple embracing. ‘Young people these days have their heads filled with Hollywood and Valentine’s Day, but romance alone can’t sustain a couple through a lifetime. A good marriage doesn’t just happen, you know. It’s built by two people and it takes work, just like building a house. And however it starts in the beginning, if you work together with willing hearts, love – the real thing – grows.’

  A wistful look softened her aged face. ‘It grew for your grandfather and me, and you know that, Luke – you felt it between us, didn’t you? Andy was not my second best. He became my rock and the most important person in my life.’

  ‘Yeah, that – that’s great, Gran. I didn’t mean –’ Luke had to swallow to try to shift the gravel in his throat. ‘I guess I was reacting to the shock of learning about Jim and everything.’

  His grandmother nodded. ‘It was a difficult way to start a marriage,’ she said softly. ‘Just like the old homestead wasn’t perfect when you started on it. But you and Sally made that old ruin into a beautiful home again. And it’s in better condition now than it ever was.’

  Luke was nodding thoughtfully, and he might have said more, if his throat wasn’t still so uncomfortably tight.

  ‘So don’t talk to me about second best. And don’t ever think of yourself as Sally’s second best.’

  He stiffened.

  ‘That girl deserves better, and so do you.’ His grandmother shooed him with a wave of her hand. ‘Now, go away, darling. I’ve been talking too much and I’m tired.’

  ‘Would you like me to help you onto the bed?’

  ‘Yes, dear. Thank you.’

  As always, he worried that his big hands might hurt her small, bony body, but she showed nothing but gratitude for his assistance. Bizarrely, as he settled her onto the bed, he could suddenly picture Sally at the age of ninety, with a loving family anxious to help her and with the wisdom of a long and happy life accumulated. A life that had only included him for a blink.

  He’d never felt so wretched.

  41

  Sally was preparing her flat for Megan’s bridal shower, and flowers were strewn all over her kitchen benches while she sorted out which ones best suited the various bottles she’d collected. Vivid pink dahlias in an old mint-sauce bottle. Fluffy bougainvillea blossoms in a honey jar.

  It was all very ‘crafty’, as Sally wanted everything for the party to be pretty and girly – this was Megan’s last hurrah as a single gal, after all. She’d even found a box of her nan’s embroidered tablecloths stored away in her parents’ spare room, and she was using these on the dining table, as well as embroidered linen napkins.

  Linen, not paper. She’d asked her mother how to make starch, but Angela, who had a cleaning lady, had no idea.

  ‘I’m sure there are instructions on the packet,’ she’d said, and she was right.

  Sally had washed, starched and ironed Nan’s linen and now it looked crisp and gorgeous, lending her boring little flat just the right old-fashioned touch of quaintness.

  Sally had ordered fancily decorated cupcakes, too, while Jane and Dimity were bringing savoury platters. The girls were having high tea and champagne cocktails and those silly, groan-worthy party games where everyone promptly gave the prizes to the bride.

  The phone rang just as she had located a suitable bowl in which to float the apricot and white frangipani blossoms. Her hands were sticky as she pressed the answer button. ‘Hello, Sally speaking.’

  ‘Sally, it’s Abigail from My Country Home. Sorry to ring you so late on a Friday, but I wanted to catch you before the weekend. Are you free to talk?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sally held her breath. Was she about to hear bad news about her story? Circulation for this month’s issue had dropped dramatically? The cover photo hadn’t grabbed?

  ‘I’ve been talking to Charlotte, our editor,’ said Abigail. ‘She asked me to pass on the good news that our figures are looking stellar for this month’s edition.’

  ‘Oh.’ Sally’s relief was swift and sweet. ‘That’s great to hear.’

  ‘And your webcam interview with the carpenter is going gangbusters on our website. We’re so glad you offered it, Sally. That carpenter’s so cute and sincere he’s winning hearts all over the country. I guess you’ve seen all the comments?’

  ‘Well, no, I haven’t, actually.’ Sally had been far too fragile to torture herself by watching the footage of Luke that she’d filmed in the week before the party. She knew it would only rouse too many memories, would stir up way too much pain.

  Abigail laughed. ‘So you haven’t seen the number of women begging him to come and work on their homes?’

  ‘No.’ Sally felt sick.

  ‘There’ve even been a couple of marriage proposals.’

  Marriage? Sally clenched her teeth so tightly her jaw almost cracked.

  ‘Anyway,’ Abigail hurried on. ‘Charlotte’s hoping you’d like to do another story. Another renovation project. Actually, we’d like to offer you a retainer to write regular stories for us.’

  Sally knew this was not the moment to be tongue-tied. For heaven’s sake, this was her dream come true. It was what she’d hoped for when she’d first suggested the story to Luke.

  Now her mind was spinning as she tried to think positively. It would help if she knew of another renovation on the go. It wasn’t the sort of story you could pull out of thin air. And then there was the Luke thing.

  She missed him so badly. She wasn’t sure she had the heart to pour herself into a similar story that would keep reminding her of him. How could she ever drum up the same keen interest?

  ‘I’d love to write more stories for you,’ she said. ‘But I’d – ah – have to do a bit of research to find a good project.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I understand. Give it some thought, Sally, but just remember we’d love more stories like Moonlight Plains.
We’ll keep in touch, okay?’

  ‘Yes, definitely.’

  ‘Feel free to ring me any time if you want to talk over ideas.’

  ‘I will, thank you. Thanks so much for the call.’

  Sally disconnected and stood staring at the flowers still scattered around her kitchen. She knew she should be excited about this offer. She should be thrilled that her story was a success and they wanted more from her. A retainer, no less . . .

  Meanwhile, women were ogling Luke on the internet and offering him marriage. How crazy was that?

  She had to calm down. She couldn’t think about any of it now. In less than an hour, her girlfriends would be arriving for the bridal shower. She had to focus. This was Megan’s day.

  She gave herself a little shake as she shepherded her thoughts. Right. Most of the flowers were in vases or bottles. The cupcakes were in the bakery boxes, safe for now in her bedroom, where she’d also stowed the party prizes. The champagne was on ice in the laundry tub and the crate of hired glasses was ready to be unstacked and set out. It was time for the best part of any party preparation, the finishing touches.

  With a little skip of excitement, she hurried around placing the flowers on windowsills and bookshelves, on the coffee table, the dining table, the TV stand. Then she bundled up the stems and leaves and stashed them in the rubbish bin.

  She was washing her hands at the sink when her dog Jess began to bark and a knock sounded on her door. She knew this had to be a girlfriend arriving early, and yet she tensed instinctively as terrifying memories rushed back. Another Friday evening . . . preparing a surprise party for Josh when the police knocked on this very same door . . .

  Her heart took a sickening lurch and she had to clutch at the edge of the sink.

  ‘Sally?’ a male voice called.

  Well, at least he knew her name, so it wasn’t the police. And Jess’s bark sounded happy. In fact, the voice sounded like –

  But it couldn’t be.

  Hastily wiping her hands on her jeans, Sally forced herself to turn, to walk sedately across the kitchen and the living room. Bright sunlight hit the dusty grille on the flyscreen door, so she could only make out the outline of her caller. Tall, broad-shouldered. Disturbingly familiar.