by Anne Ashby
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
“It’s gotta be better knowing who your benefactor is, than doing all this soul searching. Especially when a certain neighbour is trying to make you feel guilty about her.”
Leath raised tired eyes. “But he is right. It’s dreadful she had no family with her.” She rubbed her forehead again, the pressure was fast turning to pain. “He said she was sick for two years before she died. Two years, Carrie.” She chewed her lip. “If we’d have known, we could have visited at least, if nothing else. No-one should have to die alone. Why didn’t she ever contact us?”
Leath’s question hung in the air. There was no answer. Would she ever find out why Penelope Maguire had a photographic record of their lives locked away in a chocolate box?
“Are you okay?”
Leath shook the gloomy clouds from her mind as Carrie stared at her with concern covering her face.
“Yeah, just a bit of a headache.” Leath massaged the painful area. “I think I might go back soon. I need a sleep before work.”
“You want me to drive you?” Carrie asked. “Robby’s planting the lawn before he leaves, but I’m not doing anything to help him. If I drove, you could snooze in the car as well.”
Leath felt some of the tension ease. She hadn’t been looking forward to the drive back to the city feeling this thick-headed. “Thanks, Carrie, that’d be great.” She shoved back her chair and stood up. “I might go for a stroll along the beach, see if the fresh air can blow some of the cobwebs away.”
“Sure thing. When do you want to leave? I’ll just tell Robby.”
Leath didn’t know what the matter was with her today. She hadn’t slept well, and all day pain had lingered just behind her eyes. Maybe it was a letdown after such a fulfilling morning yesterday. Having their plans come to fruition had been exciting. But after they’d returned from town, the time had dragged.
Her discontent had nothing to do with seeing Kirk Buchanan with his daughter, she reassured herself as she strode across the sand down to the water’s edge. Seeing him didn’t upset me, a tiny voice whispered inside her head, but checking him out and admiring what I saw, now that was a different matter.
Dropping her chin, Leath stomped along the waterline, occasionally splashing water as tiny waves encroached onto the sand at her feet. He was a good-looking guy. Appreciating and admiring the view was nothing to get worked up about. It wasn’t any different than admiring the butt of some movie star or sportsman.
Yeah it was, screamed her conscience. She’d more than admired, she hadn’t been able to keep her gaze off him. If he’d been any closer, she may have been tempted to touch...
Picking up a handful of stones, one by one she threw them with all her might into the sea. She would not have...he’d been nothing but obnoxious...he was married.
A moan escaped her lips. It was time she got back to Auckland and filled her life with other things. Other men. Men who were as different as possible from Kirk Buchanan.
Having arrived at this conclusion, Leath straightened her back and strode off toward the rocks at the end of the beach. Taking some deep breaths, she reminded herself this walk in the fresh air was to dislodge her headache, not add to it.
As she neared the rocks she noticed a man, very intent on whatever he was doing. As she got closer he straightened and began poking at something with a stick. Leath smiled. It didn’t matter how old you might be, there was always something to check out in rock pools like those abounding here at low tide.
Drawing closer, Leath realised she’d seen him a couple of times before and wondered if he lived close by. She glanced along the road, not seeing any vehicle, although he may have walked around the headland from the next cove, she surmised. Keen to make contact with another local and interested to see if he was looking for shellfish, Leath hurried toward him.
“Hello. Have you found something interesting there?”
The face turning toward her seemed oddly familiar, but she had no time to wonder why because the man answered her very quickly.
“Kina. There’s kina here. Look.”
Leath dutifully looked into the pool. Sure enough, she didn’t need his pointing stick to see a number of the brown sea eggs lying around under the rocks.
“Do you like them?” His grin had a boyish quality about it as if he’d guessed her answer long before the shudder wracked her body.
Laughter wrinkles transformed the man’s face, making him appear much younger than the seventy or so years she suspected him to be.
“My dad gave me one to try when I was little.” Leath shuddered again as memory of the pungent taste returned as if it was yesterday. “No.” She smiled across at her companion. “I don’t like them.” Her eyebrows rose as she queried, “How about you? Do you eat them?”
Again he laughed and his dark eyes sparkled as he shook his head.
When he shuffled on to other rock pools, Leath moved with him, concerned at his awkwardness as he clambered over the rocks, but he never faltered. She suspected he might be suffering from some neurological impediment as he occasionally stumbled his words.
She enjoyed his company, chatting and pointing out different things in the pools. Laughing again at one of the funny things he said, Leath realised her headache had all but disappeared.
“I’m Leath, by the way.”
“Leath what?”
She smiled. “Leath Robson from Auckland.”
Leath frowned as he turned his back without answering and continued poking his stick into the pool. He’d been so friendly she felt comfortable asking him, “What’s your name? Do you live around here?”
Bending down to see what had taken his attention away from answering her, she could see nothing different in this pool.
“Hey, Terry,” a voice boomed from across the rocks. Startled, not having noticed the truck now parked alongside the road, Leath looked up at the huge man who waved across to them. “I’m just going home for tea, you want to come with me?”
By the time Leath turned back to her companion, he was already scuttling across the intervening rocks toward the man as if scared the offer might be withdrawn.
“Bye,” she called after his back, “it was nice talking with you.” He completely ignored her, cementing her suspicion he was quite hard of hearing.
Unashamedly watching as the man took Terry’s arm and helped him up the small embankment, she could see he was talking into a mobile phone. His cursory wave toward her after he’d helped the older gentleman into the passenger seat did little to ease the surprise that after hearing the man’s voice Terry had completely ignored her. Oh well, there’s no accounting for some people, she decided as she headed back.
As she left the beach a squeal of tyres drew her attention. She averted her gaze as a dirty red farm truck did a three-point turn and sped back up the road.
Just when she’d managed to put him out of her mind, he had to come thundering back.
Chapter Eight
Days sped into weeks and caused Leath growing frustration. Although she’d managed to avoid catching this season’s nasty bout of flu, its effect on the hospital staff meant working extra shifts. She hadn’t been able to return to Greene Valley. But that was about to change.
She grinned as she walked the darkened hospital corridor. It was her last night shift. Tomorrow she’d be in her car and off up north for two whole weeks. She could hardly wait to see the improvements.
With spring almost passed, the siblings realised Robby couldn’t renovate all the units himself. Not if they wanted customers over the summer. So they’d engaged his firm to complete the renovations. Only slightly over-schedule, Robby had returned to Auckland on Wednesday to report the units were now all ready for Leath to decorate.
Eager to launch their fledging business, Leath was taking her holidays to complete her murals and finish organising the units. Labour weekend and the summer where approaching quickly.
Carrie and her boyfriend had tested out t
he facilities of the African jungle and given it a huge thumbs-up, even suggesting an increase of their intended tariff.
After she’d completed rounds of her little charges, Leath sat at the nurses’ station with a coffee. She pulled out a notebook she and Carrie’s mum, Joyce, had compiled. Their lack of progress bugged her, even more than not getting up north. They’d found out nothing useful about Penelope Maguire.
Still unable to contact Aunt Amy in Australia, Carrie’s boyfriend had offered a solution. He’d ask his brother, who lived close by, to call at her address. At least Leath could stop phoning now. It turned out Amy and her husband were tripping around Europe and wouldn’t be home until after Christmas.
Despondently sipping her coffee and flicking over the pages, Leath acknowledged all the preparatory work they’d done. Joyce had listed what information they’d likely find from various sources, but she’d had to cancel two visits to the family history library due to the flu.
Leath could have gone alone, but ordering Penelope’s marriage certificate instead of an electronic printout of the marriage taught her mistakes were great time wasters. Waiting two weeks for the certificate, only to find nothing of interest except Penelope had previously been divorced, had been a frustrating lesson for Leath. Better to wait for Joyce’s expertise.
Shoving the notebook back in her bag as a distressed cry sounded from one of the monitors, Leath hurried down the corridor. After seeing Joyce in action, Leath knew if anyone could unearth the mystery, it would be her. Leath just had to exercise patience.
Refocusing, she eased open a door and shone her torch toward the bed and the crying child, murmuring comforting words as she approached.
****
A week was longer than Kirk intended spending in Auckland, but every time he phoned his mother had insisted she was coping.
Rubbing the tightness across his forehead as he approached Greene Valley, Kirk felt the tension return. Tension that hadn’t been in evidence in Auckland even while he involved himself in taking over an ailing company. He’d revelled in the task, seized the stimulation of being hands on again, of being truly involved.
The day-to-day running of his company was being adequately managed from the farm, but he missed the competition, the interaction with like-minded colleagues. He missed the city.
Turning into their driveway, he released a weary sigh. He’d never envisaged living here again. Visiting, yes of course, but not making his home here. He needed inspiration, motivation, and some stimulus to reactivate his sharp business acumen. His brain was stagnating up here. If he stayed too long, he feared he’d become a vegetable, like his father.
Kirk slammed on the brakes, his heart pounding as he struggled to dismiss that thought. He groaned, burying his head in his hands. How had the rest of his family accepted Terry’s condition while Kirk struggled on in denial?
His heart couldn’t accept all his head was learning from the reference material his mother had. He railed against the unfairness of it all; his hero’s diminishing ability to do anything, his family’s steadfastness, his own unwillingness...hell, my unwillingness to be stuck in this Godforsaken hole.
After a thump at the steering wheel, he jerked open the door. He’d lost control over his life. External circumstances now governed his every move.
Stomping toward the house, he knew he had only moments to disguise his frustration. Hiding it from his family, especially his mother, was paramount. They must never guess how much this situation irked him.
The selfishness of his thoughts only added to the deepening guilt complex he was acquiring. Practising a smile he opened the kitchen door.
Kirk knew immediately something was wrong. There was tension in the house his mother strove at all cost to avoid. He glanced at the large notice board near the fridge. There was nothing unusual written on it, just the normal routine laid out for his father. No upcoming visits or appointments that might upset Terry.
He sidled into the lounge, dismayed to see his mother slumped on the couch with such a despondent look on her face his heart wanted to break. His gaze flicked to his father sitting stiffly beside her, something white spread out on his knee.
Kirk rubbed the bunched muscles at the back of his neck as he watched Terry carefully and meticulously fold up what looked like a tissue, only to unfold and smooth it out before beginning the whole process again.
Will I ever come to grips with what’s happening? The rest of the family had had so much longer...he sighed. There was one certainty he had to accept. His father’s health would never improve. He couldn’t change that. But he could protect his mother’s health and wellbeing.
“Hi Mum, hi Dad, I’m home.” He touched his father’s shoulder as he passed and bent to kiss his mother’s cheek. He tried to gauge what might have happened without adding to the tension by voicing his concern.
“Something terrible is going to happen.”
Biting his tongue to stop himself questioning his father, Kirk sank down onto the coffee table in front of his parents.
“Something terrible will happen.” Terry said again, staring vacantly into his son’s face.
Seeing a quick shake of his mother’s head, Kirk placed his hand on the bony knee opposite. “I’ll make sure I stay close by, Dad,” he reassured. “If anything happens, I’ll be here.”
“Something terrible—”
Kirk sidetracked his father’s thoughts. “Would you help me carry my new computer, Dad?”
Standing up he slipped his hand under the other man’s elbow and encouraged him to get up. Receiving a relieved look from his mother, Kirk led Terry outside. Giving his father a couple of small, unbreakable packages from his car, he asked him to carry them inside.
“I’m sorry I never got home sooner,” Kirk whispered an aside to his mother as she used her foot to slip across the lock at the bottom of the outside door. “What’s happened?”
“Robin found him—”
“What? Again?” Terry’s friend had rescued him from the beach a few weeks ago. It turned Kirk’s blood cold to think what might have happened if Robin hadn’t noticed him near the water.
“I didn’t even know he was missing.” Mary’s voice broke, but she turned her back to compose herself as Terry approached.
“How about some music, Dad?” Kirk smiled at the blank face, curbing his impatience. “Come and I’ll put on that video you like.”
Back in the kitchen, after settling his father, Kirk found Mary back in control of herself.
“What exactly happened?”
“It was my fault—”
“No, it wasn’t,” Kirk denied. “No matter what happened, it wasn’t your fault, Mum. You do an amazing job here. I am in awe of how you handle all this.”
His flung out arm encompassed all the extra things now around the house—the notice boards, the named photos, the labels stuck on almost everything. “I’ve only been home a few months, and its driving me crazy. I don’t know how you cope.”
“You don’t stop loving someone when they get sick.” His mother’s quiet acceptance of his father’s condition humbled Kirk. He struggled to feel the same. Clasping his mother in his arms for a moment, under his breath he swore to try harder.
“He’s a pretty lucky old coot, isn’t he?”
Kirk was rewarded with a watery smile. “So I’ve been telling him for years.”
Kirk poured out two coffees and joined his mother at the table where she kept a wary eye on her husband through the doorway. “Other than his sneaking off more successfully than normal, what’s upset you so?”
Kirk watched his mother’s fingers tighten around her mug until the knuckles showed white. “Robin had an appointment so he didn’t have time...” She sipped her drink. “Dad was walking along Beach Road with a wheelbarrow full of stuff.”
She glanced at Kirk before returning her gaze to her coffee. “Stolen stuff.” She heaved a heavy sigh. “I have no idea where he’d been, but he must have broken into someone’s place.�
�
Kirk cringed. While theirs was a small community, with most people aware of Terry’s affliction, someone would have to return the stolen property and make an offer to repair any damage.
He shoved his fisted hands out of his mother’s sight. It was bad enough coping with Dad at home, but to have to publicly humiliate himself...
“Did Robin have any idea—?”
“He wondered if it was from Penny’s place.” Kirk couldn’t stop a groan escaping at his mother’s words. “He was walking from that direction.”
Why he hadn’t mentioned all the encounters he’d had with Leath Robson, Kirk couldn’t say, but he’d made a vow to stay away from her place and more particularly, away from her. Something warned him she was dangerous to a man’s health.
Rolling his stiff shoulders didn’t stop the tenseness spreading to the rest of his body. His mother was waiting and he knew he had no alternative. “Where is the stuff?” He reluctantly rose to his feet. “I’ll go now and see if I can find out whom it belongs to.”
“Oh, thank you, son. I’m so glad you’re home. I knew I could count on you.”
Kirk threw a frustrated glare over his shoulder at the thief. His mother gestured out the kitchen door at the booty sitting beside the gate. Without reason, Kirk was certain the assorted tools filling the barrow were from Leath Robson’s place.
Funny how quickly things change, he mused as he parked his car in the garage and switched vehicles, reversing the truck alongside his father’s cache. He heaved the wheelbarrow onto the tray of the truck and took off down the driveway.
His mother still thought of the property by the beach as Penny’s, while he’d stopped thinking of it belonging to Penny weeks ago. No matter how much it peeved him, he’d had to accept its change of owner. She was just too dynamic to ignore.
Tooting his horn a couple of times as he stopped beside the house he waited. The silence soon convinced him no-one was here. Tooting again, he waited a little longer, remembering the place had seemed deserted the other time, too. He’d be damned if he’d leave himself open to being accused of anything underhanded again.