Losing Grace (Falling Away #2)

by Allie Little

  Down to the left and all alone, Grace sits on a weathered timber bench with her mobile phone clasped in her hands. She fiddles with it, gazing into space, vacantly deep in thought. As though sensing me, she lifts her eyes slowly in my direction. A vague smile moves across her face and she quickly rises to her feet.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” I say, still unsure about her feelings after our argument this morning.

  “Look, I’m sorry about this morning,” she begins, catching her breath a little as she speaks.

  “No, hang on,” I interrupt. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t realise how intense I’ve been lately, but I’ve had some time to think.”

  “And?” she counters, relieved.

  After a pause, I reach for her hands. “And I’ll try to be less extreme.”

  “So … what does that mean, exactly?”

  “I’ve decided to give you some space. You obviously need some breathing room.”

  Her face drops and she pulls away. “What’s that supposed to mean? You’re dumping me?” She reaches for her handbag from the bench behind her.

  “Hell, no! After everything we’ve said to each other and everything we’ve been through, how could you even think that?”

  She shrugs dolefully, draping the handbag over one shoulder. “I don’t know, Riley. After this morning, I thought maybe this was all too much for you. That I was too much for you. Your business is suffering while you spend all your time babysitting me.”

  “Don’t you get it? Being with you is where I want to be. Don’t for a second believe anything else.”

  A smile tugs the corners of her lips. “Okay.”

  “Life would lose purpose without you in it. And I’ll stop going all he-man on you, I promise. I want you to go back to work, but only if I’m there too. Work at Blue Swimmer whenever you want, but I need to be there. It’s for me, Grace. Not for you. I need to know you’re okay.”

  She ponders this, a broad smile opening until she visibly beams. She wraps her arms around me. “You have no idea how happy you’ve just made me, or how much I need this. I need for my life to be normal again.”

  “So, you’re not still mad?” I ask, holding her in my arms.

  “You’re forgiven. But don’t try the whole prison-warden thing again. It’s a trigger for me, Riley. I won’t have that in my life again. Not for a second time.”

  And even though I’m worried, I know it’s for the best.

  21

  Grace

  The weeks move on. I spend my days at Swimmer with Riley cosseting me from his office. He tries to be inconspicuous, to be unobtrusive in his precautions, but all the while I’m aware of his presence, like he’s safeguarding a cherished prize. I hate that his life has come to this, for seemingly no benefit. Daniel is nowhere, yet Riley never neglects me. In some ways, it’s like being under an invisible siege.

  I pop my head through the office door. “All done for the day. I’d like to see Gran now.”

  Riley glances out the window, piling paperwork into a file. “Just packing up.” He shuts down the computer and grabs for his keys.

  We leave together as always, the remains of the day streaking pink across the sky. Riley drives the scenic route, winding slowly along the picturesque road to Mona Vale where Gran has spent the past two weeks suffering torturous physical rehab. Despite her protestations, Gran has given it her best shot, and after only a short time is up on her feet with a walking frame.

  Riley parks the car and we head inside, the glassy doors gliding back on the modern, clinical interior. Even the floors are shiny, with capacious private rooms looking over the ocean.

  “My favourite girl!” Gran announces, propping herself up in the bed. “The physios have worked me hard today. It’s so good to see you both.”

  Gran gives us a wrinkled smile and Riley kisses her warmly on her cheek.

  “So whiskery!” she cries at the tickle of his three-day growth. “But I do love a man with a bit of whisker!”

  Riley colours at Gran’s never-ending playful joshing and her slightly flirtatious manner. It was nice to see the tables turned.

  “How’s the old girl doing?” he asks, a devilish glint in his eyes. “That’s a very racy walking frame you’ve got there. What’s your top speed?”

  “Ooh, isn’t he a menace?” she directs at me, a girlish laugh tinkling into the room. “However do you keep him in line?”

  I chuckle at their silly banter. It’s clear they hold mutual love and respect for each other. Riley’s been here every day since the surgery, shadowing me, never missing a moment. At first I found it unnecessary and frustrating, but I’ve come to appreciate the attention for what it is. Love.

  “I’m getting out of here in two days’ time, can you believe it?” Gran’s eyes twinkle as she imparts the news.

  “Oh Gran, that’s wonderful!”

  “It can’t come fast enough. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen my precious home.”

  “The place is fine, Bess. We’ve been staying there during the week, then spending our weekends back at the Bay,” offers Riley.

  “We’ll need to work out what to do now you’re getting out of here. You can’t be at home alone for a while,” I suggest, looking from one to the other. “You’ll need someone to look after you.”

  “Don’t be silly, darling. I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself. I won’t be needing a minder.”

  “Now where have I heard that before?” Riley retorts, grinning like a rogue. He raises his eyes at me as if expecting an answer.

  I roll my eyes purely for his benefit. “But seriously, Gran. You can’t go home alone. How will you look after yourself?”

  “The social workers are sending me home with services, darling. For six weeks, the help will be all laid on. This is such a wonderful country to grow old in. Cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping – and all of it free.”

  “Sounds way too good to be true,” says Riley. “Perhaps I should break my hip, too. I could do with a bit of TLC.”

  “Oh, come on,” I say, nudging him. “That’s great, Gran. Perhaps you’ll be fine on your own after all. I can pop in each day after work, just to check you’re okay.”

  “That’d be perfect,” she says. “I won’t need any more than that. Now off you two go and have a lovely weekend together. Don’t come all the way back here to visit me. I can manage without you for a couple of days. Go off home to the Bay and relax.” Gran shoos us from the room with a wink. “And drive safely.”

  I kiss her silky cheek. “Bye, Gran. I love you.”

  “I love you too, beautiful girl. You’ve been a wonderful support, now go and make time for the two of you.”

  “Amen to that,” chuckles Riley, taking my hand.

  “Like we haven’t had enough time together?” I joke. “That’s a laugh.”

  Gran looks from me to Riley, then back across to me again. “Well go on, what are you waiting for? Go have couple time.”

  “Come on then, missy. Listen to your wise grandmother.” He tugs me from the room, grinning ear to ear.

  ***

  Shoal Bay is a spectacular vista of white sand and aquamarine sea. Headlands and islands dot the horizon in muted greens, and against the arresting blue of the sky become amplified in colour. The beach is devoid of people, apart from an elderly couple walking a Bassett hound on the sand.

  Riley strips off his t-shirt. “Coming in for a swim?” he invites playfully, tickling at my side.

  I giggle and edge away. “I’m going to sunbake. I won’t be long.”

  “Don’t be.” He saunters to the water’s edge, gauging the temperature with his big toe and studying the sea. A short moment later he dives headlong into the clear water, surfacing to give me a dramatic thumb’s up. “Come in, babe! It’s beautiful!”

  I give him a wave as my mobile buzzes, an unknown number displaying across the screen. Without thinking, I tap it to retrieve the message.

  But in that second my he
art stops. Rises in my throat with the acidity of bile. There is no rush of blood and my lungs won’t breathe. I am slowly, painfully, drowning in air.

  With a wave of nausea I drop the phone, hoping the message might vanish and become lost in the sand. But the reality is different. Because when I look at the screen the message is still there. Naively I’d thought he’d never find me. I’d innocently believed he would leave me alone. Forget me and move on.

  But I was wrong.

  So wrong.

  It’s time to come home, darling. Did you think I wouldn’t come for you?

  I hazard a shaky peek across my shoulder, glancing up and down the beach several times. Apart from the couple walking the dog a little way down the beach, there is no-one in sight. Not in the parking lot. And not on the sand.

  The phone buzzes again.

  Answer the question. Did you think I wouldn’t come for you?

  And again.

  Distance is but a test Grace, to see how far our love can travel.

  Unsteadily I rise and head for the water to Riley. My security. The rapid beating of my heart hurts like an agonising gash. Like a slow painful stab, twisting in my flesh. It’s like I’m losing the one I love in a long, laboured moment. And it’s broken, this heart, for the beauty that could have been.

  Riley pushes a hand through his spikey dark hair, ruffling out the water. “You okay, sweetness? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I nod tediously, going through the motions, because soon I’ll be gone. Soon everything will be gone.

  Riley pulls me into the water with a chuckle and a splash. “Lighten up, sunshine. What’s got into you?”

  The cold water stabs my skin, a welcome relief compared to the pain in my chest. I suck in a shaky breath, trying to look normal. “Nothing.”

  “You’re not okay, are you?” He takes me in his arms.

  “Just hold me.” I wrap my arms around him and feel the coolness of his skin. His arms wrapped so snug around me are my saviour, protecting me from the world. A world I believed I’d left firmly behind. But it was back, haunting me.

  “Can we go home now?” I ask. “I really need to go home, babe.”

  He sneaks a look, frowning, then leads me to the tepid warmth of the sand. “Tell me what’s wrong. Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”

  I shrug away the shock, threatening to destroy me. “I’m fine, just a little frazzled.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “Please take me home.” I wriggle from his arms and throw on my beach dress, gather up my towel and shove it unceremoniously into my bag. “Can we go?”

  “You forgot your phone,” he says, retrieving it from the sand. “Hang on,” he says, scowling at the screen. “Is that a message from him? You got messages and didn’t tell me?” His face flames, angry as hell. “Fuck, Grace. Why wouldn’t you tell me? It’s kinda, sorta, slightly important, don’t you think?” He paces across the beach, sarcasm dripping like acid between us. “What have I been doing, secluding us up here, if you don’t even trust me with this?”

  “I never asked you to.”

  He stops, incredulous hurt written clearly across his face. “You never asked me to what? Love you? Is that all I get?”

  “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful after everything you’ve done.” I rack my brain for something more meaningful to say. Something. Anything.

  The phone chirps again and when he looks at it his face pales. He holds it out to show me.

  24 hours, buddy. That’s all you got left.

  Riley swings around, fists balled by his sides. He scans the beach, north and south, slamming the phone into the pocket of his wet boardies.

  “How could I be so fucking careless?” he growls. “I let my guard down and this happens. He’s found us, Grace. Found you. And he’s watching us, right now this very minute.” He speaks sharply, surveying the beach, examining every inch of our picturesque surroundings.

  “What should we do?”

  He collects his things and starts pushing me up the beach toward the resort, his arm wrapped firmly around my shoulders. “I’m not sure yet. But I’m sure as hell going to do something about that bastard.”

  22

  Grace

  “We’re going bush.”

  “We’re what?”

  “Going bush. Getting out of here. I know a place.”

  I look at him like he’s nuts, a flash of anxiety hitting me square in the heart. He throws a bunch of clothes into a dark duffle, zipping it tightly across the top. He packs a torch from the wardrobe, retrieves his pewter lighter from the bedside and shuffles both inside a smaller backpack.

  “Pack your warm gear. It’s going to get cold.” He thrusts an empty backpack into my hands, tempering the action with a gentle smile.

  I peek out the window as a gust of chilly winter air nips at my cheek. Images of Dan, secluded somewhere outside, flit through my mind. How did it come to this? Just when I’d thought life was not altogether perfect, but improving at least. We’d heard nothing from Dan in weeks and Gran had been steadily gaining in strength since the accident.

  “Move, Grace. We have to go. As soon as it’s dark, we’re leaving,” he barks.

  “I’ve complicated your life,” I say, watching him pick up a sleeping bag and then put it down again.

  Beneath the frown, his eyes soften. “You could never complicate my life. This is just a bump in the road, Grace. We’ll get through this.”

  A bump in the road? Perhaps all those incense sticks were beginning to have a sedative effect.

  Riley gathers up the sleeping bag and stalks to the kitchen, the clink of bottles and tins being bundled together clearly audible. “Hurry up,” he calls, amid the loud chatter of glass.

  I attack the pile of clothes with sudden fervour, shoving whatever I can find into the backpack. When I finish, I find him pacing the floor in the semi-dark, removed from the wide windows overlooking the steel-coloured sea. “It’s almost time. We’ll take the back access across the park and make our way through the forest. I don’t know where he is, but I know he can see us. Let’s assume he’s out the front, for general assumption’s sake. God knows, it’s all a mad gamble. He could be anywhere. We’ll travel on foot. More than likely he’s watching the entrance to the car park at the front, so we’ll leave from the rear.”

  Riley strides the room, back and forth, huffing out his plan. Cold tendrils of fear snake through me. Is this really necessary? Do I need to run from Daniel, the man who was once my love? The man was my entire world. At one time, I believed I couldn’t face life without him. And now? Where was he? Where was that man? A shell of his former self it would seem, parcelled up inside his skin and powerless to escape. Just like me.

  Compressing my fear, I squash it down like it doesn’t matter. “Okay, that sounds like a plan. We can do this.” The positive affirmation is as much for myself as for Riley’s benefit.

  We can do this.

  Riley’s face holds a gamut of emotions. Worry, determination and a need to maintain hope all etched across his features. He returns to the kitchen and fills two water bottles to the brim. Gratitude fills my soul like an infinite light. The knowledge of the lengths he’d go to for me was … unfathomable.

  “It’s dark,” he states, as if I hadn’t noticed the shadow of night falling quickly.

  Checking the front of the resort from the windows, Riley clears his throat. Nothing untoward can be seen outside, at least from the elevated vantage point of the penthouse.

  “Grace, we have to go.”

  I turn, meeting his steely gaze. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  Riley grabs my hand and picks up my jacket, slung carelessly over the back of the chair. He holds it out while I shrug awkwardly into it. The duffle and backpacks are waiting by the elevator.

  The doors skim back and Riley doesn’t hesitate. He pulls me along with our gear into the mirrored, confined space and the elevator immediately drops weightlessly away.


  The air is laced with a bitter breeze. I sling the backpack over one jittery shoulder, swallowing my nerves. I step out and follow him, hurrying to keep up.

  Riley struts into the dark night through the grassy children’s playground. The swing grinds a high-pitched metallic whine, grinding with each back and forth motion of the tarnished metal in the breeze. I follow blindly, hugging my jacket tightly around me, hoping like hell we were doing the right thing. Hoping that running rather than facing Dan head-on was the right strategy.

  Riley speeds up. “Stay with me. We’re heading into the forest.”

  The forest? At night?

  “I know of a fisherman’s hut just off Wreck Beach. It’s hidden in the forest. We’ll be well out of sight.”

  I shut out the thought of traipsing through a dark, spidery forest in the dead of a wintery night. “Sure thing. Lead the way.”

  He turns back with a raised brow, flooding our path with torchlight under the cover of trees. He thumbs toward the forest. “Grey Angophoras,” he states. “My favourite type of tree. The trunks turn mauve in fading daylight, especially beautiful at dusk.”

  Pale trunks twist sublimely in the beam of torchlight. The trek through smooth-barked boughs beneath the inky canopy is slightly eerie. The sounds of the night, amplified in the dark, make me jumpy as hell. A sudden rustle and crash of leaves in the undergrowth has me almost leaping onto Riley’s back like a monkey.

  I grab at his arm. “Jesus, what was that?”

  “Probably just a possum,” he says flippantly. “You’re not scared of possums, are you?”

  I give a defiant shake of my head. “Of course not. Although, once I had a rather nasty altercation with a brush-tail.”

  He snickers knowingly, moving at speed through the interweaving trunks. “It’s too cold for snakes. Snakes would be asleep by now, hibernating for the winter.”

  At the mention of hibernating snakes, my nerves are somewhat relieved, more so when the corrugated iron wall of a small hut becomes visible some twenty minutes later in the shifting torchlight. Nestled beneath the trees, the shanty-like hut faces the rolling onyx sea. Riley repositions the beam of light onto the rusty makeshift door. He gives it a hard shove and it swings open, torchlight casting a shaft of dusky yellow into the room.