From the back she looked almost in control.

But only from the back.


He had to finish checking the engine. But not yet. For now he stood and gazed out into the night and pain echoed round and round in his head.

Coward.

He was, he thought. But…it wasn’t just him he was protecting.

He honestly didn’t know whether he was capable of giving what they wanted of him.

Husband to Jenna. Father to Karli. From self-containment to family man just like that.

The pup slunk into the hangar and sidled his way up to him and Riley found himself patting him before he knew what he was doing.

The pup. What was his name?

He didn’t name dogs. The men had dogs and this was the product of Max’s bitch and one of the itinerant drover’s dogs. The rest of the litter had been sold, but Max had decided to train this one. The only problem was that the pup had decided that Riley was the answer to a dog’s prayers and when Riley was around he’d go to no one else.

‘Leave it, mate,’ Riley said bleakly as Jenna disappeared into the darkness. He pushed the collie away. ‘I’m not worth loving.’

The pup whined and pushed his nose into the small of his hand.

Riley ignored him.

The pup whined again.

‘Enough.’ Riley grabbed the keys to the nearest Land Rover. Max could finish the plane. He’d only been using it as an excuse to stay away from the house and he suddenly wasn’t far enough away. ‘I’m going to check the cattle down south. I’ll radio in to let everyone know where I’m gone and I won’t be back until after they’ve left.’

He was talking to a dog?

The dog looked up at him, his head cocked to one side, and Riley could almost swear he understood.

It took him ten minutes to collect what he needed-a swag, and basic food-and write a note for Maggie. He thought of writing a note for Jenna but, hell, what was a man to say?

Nothing. There was nothing left to say.

He climbed into the truck and gunned the motor into gear. But he’d left the passenger window open. And as the truck started to move, a black and white shape launched itself upward, and the next moment the pup of no name was wriggling his joy on Riley’s knee.

He should throw him out.

The pup licked his hand.

‘All right,’ Riley said, goaded. ‘Okay. One dog. But nothing else. Nothing? You hear?’

The pup moved to his knees, slurped him from chin to eyelid, and settled back on the passenger seat with an air of absolute contentment.

Riley could have sworn that the dog grinned.

He didn’t do attachment.

He didn’t.

CHAPTER TEN

‘IT’LL be fine. We’ll be fine.’

Jenna held Karli as close as their seat belts allowed. Max was in front of them in the pilot’s seat and Riley’s home was a fast-receding scene below them. They were headed for Adelaide.

‘I won’t be fine,’ Karli said stubbornly. ‘I wanted to stay with Riley.’

‘You know we can’t do that.’ Heck, why was it so hard to make her voice work? All she felt like doing was crumpling into a small soggy ball.

She couldn’t. She had to be cheerful and optimistic and she had to plan some sort of future. Somehow.

‘We’ll catch a plane to Perth so that we can use our tickets back to England,’ she told Karli. ‘I’ll contact Nicole’s agent. Maybe she can organise us to stay in Perth for a night or two before we leave.’

‘What would we do in Perth?’

‘We could take your rock to the museum,’ Jenna told her, trying to sound resolute. ‘That’s what Riley suggested we do-remember? We could get them to tell us exactly what it is.’

‘We can’t do that.’ Karli sniffed and her voice wobbled.

‘Why not?’

‘I left my rock back at Riley’s.’

‘Oh, no.’

She hadn’t checked. Oh, heck, she hadn’t checked. The rock had hardly been out of Karli’s hands since Riley had given it to her. Jenna had just assumed she had it with her. She’d been so distressed herself that she hadn’t noticed the little girl’s hands were empty. Now she stared down at Karli with dismay and thought about the impossibility of asking Max to turn back.

‘Oh, heck, Karli,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to phone Maggie and ask her to send it on.’

‘No,’ Karli said, and Jenna blinked.

‘No?’

‘I left it behind on purpose,’ Karli said, and her voice suddenly stopped wobbling. ‘I gave it to Maggie to give to Riley.’

But there the resolution ended. She stared up into Jenna’s confused face and her tiny face crumpled into tears.

‘I left it behind for Riley,’ she wailed.


Riley hadn’t needed to camp out. He’d lain awake all night, staring at the stars. The pup had wiggled down into the swag and he’d hugged him, helpless in the face of his need for comfort. ‘I can’t trust myself,’ he told the dog. ‘I don’t do commitment. Hell, if I were to let myself go there… I’d be a father. If Jenna and I split up-and we would-where would that leave Karli?’

There were no answers. He lay in his swag until he watched the dawn and when finally he saw the little plane lift off from the homestead and head south-not over him as he’d carefully gone north-he made his way home.

Maggie was waiting. The moment he walked in the kitchen she handed him the rock.

Her face was coldly accusing.

‘She left it for you,’ she told him. ‘Poor wee mite.’

He gazed at it blankly.

‘Karli’s rock.’

‘Yep.’

‘She left it behind.’

‘She gave it to me to give to you.’

‘It was my gift to her,’ Riley said, still confused, and Maggie sniffed. Every inch of her was vibrating with disapproval.

‘Was it now? Well, then, she’s given it back.’

‘I didn’t want it back.’

‘There’s a lot you don’t want, if you ask me.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You know very well what I mean, Riley Jackson,’ she snapped, and turned to take out her fury on some hapless potatoes.

‘She loved this rock,’ Riley said, staring down at the little starfish and then turning it over to trace the mollusc. They were shiny clean-scrubbed with Jenna’s soap.

‘That’s why she gave it to you,’ Maggie said-and sniffed over her potato peelings.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘She said…’ Maggie sniffed again and then it was too much. She hauled a handkerchief out and blew her nose with a sound that could be heard in the next state. ‘She said that she had Jenna to love her, and you didn’t even like your puppy, so you needed her rock more than she did.’

Riley stilled.

Maggie sniffed again.

‘You think I’ve been a fool?’ Riley said.

‘I don’t just think it.’ Maggie sliced a potato in two. And then into four. She stared at it a moment longer and then started stabbing the potato any which way. Potato wedges became potato chips and then potato slivers.

‘Maggie, I don’t know the first thing about being a husband.’

‘So don’t be a husband. Just love them to bits and let the rest take care of itself.’

‘They’ve gone. It’s over.’

‘It’s only over if you let it be over. Call them back. Max is on the radio.’

‘Oh, sure,’ he said, goaded. ‘Have Max turn the plane and bring them back so we can discuss things? Take things right out of their control? They’ve had so much happen to them, those two. Jenna was furious at me last night. Do you think I can calmly call Max and tell him to bring her back because maybe I need to talk things through. I don’t think so.’

‘What are you saying? Maybe you need to talk things through?’ Maggie eyed him with almost speechless incredulity. ‘Talk things through!’ She wheeled to face him, still holding her knife. She stared down at the knife, glanced back at her massacred potatoes and then carefully laid her weapon down-as if she just might do something she could regret. After all, these were innocent vegetables who hadn’t done anything to anyone.

They weren’t Riley.

She regrouped. Sort of. ‘All I know is that you’re being a dope, Riley Jackson,’ she said softly. ‘You have to do something.’

And then she stilled.

From the distance came the sound of a plane.

‘It can’t be,’ Riley said. ‘I…it’d be stupid. They wouldn’t come back.’ He shoved the rock into his pocket as if he were thrusting away a dream.

‘It’s you who’s stupid,’ she snapped. She listened for a bit more and the momentary relief in her face disappeared. ‘No. You’re right. That’s not our plane. It’s someone else.’

Maggie walked to the kitchen door and peered out.

A fiery red little plane-a two-seater with twin engines-was approaching the runway. Gleaming and new, it was totally unfamiliar.

It wasn’t alone in the sky. There was another plane coming in to land behind it. A battered, ancient hulk.

‘That’s Bill and Dot Holmes’s plane,’ Maggie said.

Bill and Dot were his neighbours at Barinya Downs. Riley frowned, almost distracted. What were Bill and Dot doing here? Bill hated leaving his property.

‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ Maggie said, shoving him in the ribs. ‘You’ve got two planes coming in to land on one airstrip. Go out and play air-traffic controller.’

She glanced behind her at her mangled potatoes and she shrugged. ‘I might as well come and see what’s going on,’ she added. ‘Something tells me we’re having an omelette for lunch anyway.’


The red plane landed first, with a smooth textbook landing, but even when the doors opened and the occupants emerged there was no clue as to their identity. A diminutive, elderly lady with sculpted white hair, expensively dressed in a smart crimson business suit, emerged from the passenger seat. Her pilot was a burly, seemingly impassive individual in a navy and white pilot’s uniform. He helped the lady out and then stood back, as if in deference. A chauffeur?

The woman looked towards the house. She saw Riley and started towards him, but he waved her to stop. She was on the far side of the strip and she was forced to wait until the second plane came in to land.