The woman looked at Abbey again and Abbey could tell she was trying to place her. All she said was, ‘Driven a long way, have you?’
‘Yes,’ Abbey was noncommittal. ‘I’ll have the quiche and salad, thanks. And a coffee.’ She handed over the money, wrote the address of her training hospital and her mother’s maiden name and gestured to the nearest table. ‘I’ll slip out and get my overnight bag from the car. Won’t be long.’
When Abbey came back her meal was waiting on the table with a steaming cup of coffee that Abbey couldn’t touch. By the time she’d forced down a meal she didn’t want, she still hadn’t seen any male employees and was beginning to think she’d wasted her time. Then the staff door opened and a tall man carried through a carton of wine to put behind the bar.
Inexplicably, her heart thumped and something told her this was what she’d come to find out. She tried not to obviously stare but she couldn’t see his face behind the box and her breath caught when she almost managed a glimpse of his eyes in the mirror on the wall behind him. Suddenly, instead of putting the box down, he changed his mind and carried it back out again.
Abbey frowned and tried to pin down a flicker of recognition that dragged at her memory, something about the set of his shoulders and neck. If only she could have seen his face.
Despite a shiver of foreboding, Abbey stood up and took a step to follow him when a hand fell on her shoulder and spun her around. She bit back her gasp and it was Rohan who spoke first.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ If she thought she’d seen Rohan upset the day he’d seen the marks on her wrist, it had been nothing to this. He’d obviously worked himself up into a fine rage on the car trip over and his grip on her arm was fierce and unforgiving.
Abbey shook her hair out of her face, and glared at him. Her heart was still thumping with the fright he’d given her. ‘Don’t swear at me. How did you find me?’
‘You would drive a saint to cursing,’ he ground out in an undertone, but he didn’t answer the question. He didn’t need to. She’d have something to say to Aunt Sophie when she got home.
He shook her slightly. ‘We’re leaving, Abbey. Before you get hurt or do something that jeopardises the whole investigation.’
She tried to free her arm but he didn’t let go. ‘This is none of your business, Rohan.’ She looked down to where his fingers still gripped her arm. ‘Let me go. Now,’ she snarled.
Rohan loosened his grip and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. His voice remained low and intense and he glanced around to check that no one could overhear. ‘What is wrong with you? I’ll follow you home and we’ll discuss it. This is not the right way to go about this.’
Abbey rubbed her arm. ‘The right way is taking too long and the wrong way is jeopardising nobody but myself. I want my sister’s attacker behind bars.’
‘Well, your aunt might think you’re capable of saving the world, and you may think no risk is too great, but I’m not going to stand by and see you end up worse than your sister.’
Abbey threw her head back and glared at him. ‘You have no say over what I do, Rohan Roberts. Go away, before you spoil everything.’
He crossed his arms across his chest. ‘No. I’m not leaving.’ He stood there like a great oak tree in the middle of a paddock and just as movable.
Abbey felt like grinding her teeth in frustration. She wished he would just disappear and let her get on with what she’d set out to do. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. When she opened her eyes again Rohan was standing in the same spot. Maddeningly, he waved, as if to say, I’m still here.
It was useless. She’d never achieve anything with him around. She’d have to come back another time. ‘Smart alec,’ she snapped.
‘Dumb Abbey,’ he shot back, and there was no humour in his voice.
She frowned and tried to glare at him, but his response had been too idiotic. She shook her head with an unwilling smile and some of the purpose drained from her. Abbey turned away from him to reorganise her plans and she had to admit, at least to herself, a tiny part of her was glad to leave. She’d had a really bad feeling since she’d caught a glimpse of that man. Now she had to extricate herself from the hotel without drawing too much attention because she really didn’t want to endanger the case for the police.
Rohan followed her in his car as she drove home and his headlights shone on her face via her rear-view mirror. It was as if his presence illuminated the changes in her life since she’d met him.
When she thought about it, nobody had enforced their will on her for a very long time and she really didn’t understand why she was heading home when it was the last thing she wanted to do.
Maddeningly, she couldn’t even tell him what she thought of him in private, because when she got home there’d be people everywhere. Without thought she flicked on her indicator and pulled Doris over to the side of the road.
Rohan’s Range Rover stopped about a centimetre from Doris’s rear bumper. He switched his lights off and Abbey was plunged into darkness. The sudden silence and absence of light would have been eerie but Rohan climbed out and was at Abbey’s door in about two seconds flat.
‘Now what are you doing?’ he growled, and when he saw she intended to get out he opened her door and Abbey stepped out to face him.
Doris’s interior light threw a shaft of light across his face and she glared up at him. ‘Stop trying to run my life, Rohan.’
‘Well, stop trying to endanger yourself.’ His eyes blazed as he thought about what could have happened to Abbey. ‘You could have been attacked yourself.’
She shrugged. ‘Sometimes you have to take a risk. If the worst came to the worst I would still survive. I have been attacked before.’ The words disappeared into the darkness around them and her shoulders slumped. Her voice lowered. ‘That’s why I can’t stand by and let Bella know that whoever did it is still walking around.’
Rohan’s froze. ‘Who attacked you and when?’
Abbey sighed. ‘It was a long time ago and Clive helped me fight him off. I reported it and he ended up in gaol because he’d already been on a bond. I know, as a victim, it preys on your mind that they’ll come back if they’re not caught. I want to save Bella that, at least.’
Rohan shook his head and swallowed the nausea in his throat that rose when he thought of Abbey in danger. ‘Let me stay at your house until this is all over. It will ease Bella’s mind. I won’t let anything happen to anyone in your family, Abbey, but you have to promise me you won’t do anything stupid to put yourself in danger.’
Loving him as she did, the thought of Rohan under her roof, all night, every night, was too much. She was having enough trouble sleeping as it was.
‘No.’ She couldn’t. ‘I don’t want you staying. Let me handle this.’
Rohan drew a frustrated breath. He knew it was hopeless to try and change her mind tonight. ‘Then remember I’m only a phone call away.’
She nodded and climbed back into her car. He followed her all the way home and sat in the street with his engine running until she’d safely let herself into the house.
* * *
Later that night, a dispirited Abbey had gone to bed and Sophie sat and worried over her two nieces as she watched the reruns of her races. Unusually, Clive started to bark outside.
Sophie moved awkwardly over to the window. ‘Quiet, Clive. You’ll wake the house.’ Clive started to growl and bark and Sophie frowned. She pushed up the window to peer towards the garage but couldn’t see any movement.
‘Anyone there?’ Her voice quavered as she leaned out the window. She heard the sound of Abbey’s upstairs window opening above her head and glanced up.
At that moment someone rose from the garden beneath her window and knocked her back into the room with a rough hand, before sprinting off into the darkness. Sophie tumbled backwards and landed on her bottom, knocking her face on the side table as she went down.
Stunned for a minute, she coul
dn’t believe what had just happened. ‘Stupid old cow,’ she muttered to herself as she turned over onto all fours and dragged herself up onto her lounge just as Abbey burst into the room.
Her dishevelled aunt was grumbling and shaking and Abbey rushed across to help her sit up. ‘Are you all right, Aunt Sophie?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said impatiently. ‘My pride’s hurt, along with my rear end, but I’d like to know what whoever it was were doing out there.’
Abbey traced the red area on Sophie’s face where she’d knocked the table, and her aunt winced. She’d need some ice.
‘Did you see who it was?’ she asked her aunt, hoping that Sophie had got a better look than she had.
‘No, darn it. I was looking up at your window and he pushed me back into the room so he could run away. Cheeky pig.’
‘Thank goodness you’re all right. But I think you’ll have a black eye tomorrow from that knock.’
Sophie cackled, a tad shakily, but Abbey admired her composure. ‘Reckon it will ruin my looks?’ Abbey smiled and slid her arm around her aunt and hugged her.
‘You’re always beautiful to me.’
Sophie snorted. Despite the quiver in her voice, her humour still seemed intact. ‘Kid, you need to get out more.’
Abbey went over to the window and shone her torch around the yard. ‘If you’ll be all right for a couple of minutes, I’m going to see what happened in the garage. I’ll be back in a moment with some ice for your cheek.’
This time Sophie wasn’t so sure. ‘Maybe you should ring the police or Rohan.’
Abbey looked back over her shoulder as she left the room. ‘If I’m not back in a few minutes, you do that. Rohan should have a look at that eye of yours anyway.’
Abbey eased open the back door. Clive rushed up to greet her and she ruffled his brown and grey fur. ‘Hello, old mate. You’re a good boy, barking at the bad man.’ Clive glued himself to Abbey’s legs and she walked with more confidence across to the garage and switched on the light.
At first she didn’t notice anything amiss, but when Clive sniffed and then growled at Doris’s tyres she could see the damage. Each tyre was flat at the base and when she shone the torch closely, slash marks were clearly visible. Abbey sighed and looked at Clive. ‘A bit more effort needed, mate, if you didn’t find him until after he’d done this.’ As if ashamed, Clive dropped his head and then rolled his eyes up to look at Abbey until she patted him again.
‘OK. So he was really quiet. Looks like we’ve got an enemy now, Clive. You’ll have to stay on your toes. All we have to find out is whether he’s an enemy from before Bella’s attack or after. Or if the two are connected.’
Nothing else looked disturbed so Abbey turned off the lights and went back to have a quick look under Sophie’s window to see if she could see any signs of the intruder’s presence. She shone the torch across the garden bed soil and her heart skipped when she saw that directly under Aunt Sophie’s window was one large footprint. It was a footprint, not a shoeprint, with the intruder’s toes clearly outlined. Abbey sighed. At least she knew who the intruder had been, unless there had been a sudden increase in the amount of shoeless people she’d gained as enemies recently.
She shone the torch across the upper windows, from her window across to Bella’s above the steps and then Vivie’s and Kayla’s. There was no way anyone could climb up there so she’d just have to keep the front and back doors locked. Satisfied, she turned towards the house but didn’t see Rohan arrive.
Rohan couldn’t believe she was walking around in the dark with just her dog and a torch for protection. When Sophie had called he’d felt sick at what could happen to Abbey and her family, and he hated the taste of that fear. He’d never worried about his own safety and hadn’t been aware enough to worry about his mother’s mortality until it had been too late. But the fear he felt as circumstances seemed to be closing in at Abbey’s house was frightening the life out of him.
‘What are you doing outside?’ His words were louder than he’d intended and when she jumped and spun to face him he lowered his voice. ‘Don’t you have any sense?’
She flared at him, ‘You’re responsible for giving me more heart attacks than anyone else, the way you’ve been creeping up on me over the last few days.’ She rubbed her forehead irritably. ‘For goodness’ sake, Clive was with me and there’s no one here now. Though they’ve done a good job on slashing all of poor old Doris’s tyres.’
Rohan bit back what he wanted to say. Slashing tyres wasn’t easy, and someone had to have felt pretty strongly to go to the bother of doing all four. ‘I’m not even going to get involved in how you know there’s no one here now.’
She shone her torch back at the garden bed. ‘I think I know who this was, anyway.’ She explained about Trevor and his bare feet and Rohan fought back the urge to say he’d told her so about taking Kayla in. Because he wasn’t sure if he’d be right.
After the last few days, he couldn’t wish that Kayla and her baby weren’t safe with Abbey, rather than at risk with the abusive Trevor. So many things were changing that he didn’t know where he stood any more. They agreed not to mention their suspicions to the others yet to spare Kayla’s feelings. Abbey would mention it to the police in the morning.
Rohan followed Abbey inside and they went through to Sophie’s room. To Abbey’s surprise, Bella was out of bed and she’d found some ice for her aunt’s cheek.
Rohan moved across to the old lady and gently turned her cheek. ‘What happened to you, old thing?’
‘I’ll “old thing” you, whippersnapper. I smacked my cheek and took a tumble onto my rear end.’ Sophie lowered one gnarled hand under the edge of her bottom and rubbed it.
Rohan bit back a smile. He put his hand out for the torch that Abbey still carried and checked Sophie’s pupils. When he was satisfied he handed it back to Abbey before crouching back down beside the old lady.
‘We’ll get an X ray tomorrow though if you can sit on it, you’re probably in for bruises on your bottom at the worst.’ He smiled at Bella who was hovering anxiously over her aunt. ‘The ice will help her cheek and eye a lot, Bella. Good job. Though I’d say tomorrow she’ll have a shiner.’
Bella nodded jerkily. ‘Do you think whoever it was will come back?’ Bella looked over her shoulder at the window and her nerves were showing.
‘I don’t think so, but I’ll stay the night in Abbey’s study if no one minds, just in case.’
Sophie and Bella nodded enthusiastically but Abbey was less so. What was she going to do when everyone became dependent on Rohan to save them—and then he rode off into the distance? It had to be soon. All very well for him to be the macho hero, but she’d have to be the support mechanism when he’d gone. It would be better to stand alone now than have to grow into it all again after he left.
‘Don’t bother.’ Her voice was loud in a sudden silence. ‘I’ll sleep downstairs.’ Her female relatives looked at her as if she’d grown another head, and Rohan’s expression didn’t change.
Before Sophie or Bella could say anything, Rohan stepped up to Abbey and nudged her towards the door.
‘Abbey and I are just going to have a little chat in the study. Maybe you ladies should think about a cup of tea before you go to bed to settle your nerves.’ Sophie shut her mouth with a snap and Bella nodded. After glancing at her aunt, she disappeared towards the kitchen.
Abbey sighed and led the way into her study where she threw herself onto the lounge and rested her head in her hands. Everything seemed to be spiralling out of control. It was emotionally draining and she was just so tired. Rohan sank down beside her and his hand lowered to rest on the back of her bowed head, then slid down onto her neck to gently knead the taut muscles beneath his fingers. Abbey stiffened for a moment and then gave up any resistance to his soothing touch.
‘You don’t have to do this alone, Abbey. I’m here.’
Her reply was muffled but he heard the words. ‘But not for long.’
‘Actually, Scott rang today and he’s coming back tomorrow.’ Abbey sat up and his hand fell away.
She crossed her arms across her chest to steel herself to hear the words. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. Relying on you is a waste of time.’
Rohan put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I told him I want to stay on for a while and he’s happy to share the workload.’
Abbey turned her head to look at him, unable to believe what he’d just said. ‘Why would you decide to stay in Gladstone?’
He smoothed her cheek. ‘Why do you think?’
This was too important and she didn’t want to look like a fool. ‘I don’t have the energy for games, Rohan. Suppose you tell me.’
He started to rub her neck again but she was too tense to relax and she brushed his hand away as she waited for his answer.
‘Until they catch this person who’s harassing you and your family, I can’t leave. I’d never rest, not knowing that you were all safe.’
Abbey choked back her bitter disappointment but she couldn’t trust herself to say anything. Her expectations had been ridiculously high. Rohan was a good friend but he was never going to be more than that. He just didn’t have it in him to give.
Weariness descended on her like a heavy cloak and even her head felt too heavy to hold up. ‘There are blankets and pillows in that camphor-wood chest over there, Rohan. Stay if you want to. I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.’
He could hear the exhaustion in her voice. ‘I’ll drop you at work on my way home, then. I’ll bring some things over tomorrow because I’m not leaving until this whole business is resolved. I imagine it will take a while to replace the tyres on your car.’
Abbey rubbed her forehead. ‘I’d forgotten about that. Fine. Whatever. Or maybe I’ll take Bella’s car. I’ll look in on Aunt Sophie and then go to bed. Goodnight.’
Abbey checked on her aunt but Sophie sent her on her way. Bella had already gone up. Abbey knew she should stop in and see her sister but she really couldn’t cope with more at the moment after Rohan’s announcement.
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