‘I looked up from Jerry this afternoon,’ he said softly, and his voice was suddenly unsteady. ‘I’d run in and gone straight to him and I hadn’t checked. I saw Kevin but Jerry was bleeding to death in front of my eyes and he had to be the priority. That took over. When you walked in, all I felt was relief. And then I looked up and saw that damned knife. Hell, Ally…When you moved your body between Kevin and me, I swear it was all I could do not to launch myself across the room. I knew it was mad. I knew our best chance lay in having him believe Jerry was dead and I had to stay where I was. But, dear heaven, Ally, you were within reach of the knife. You were between him and his victim and I never want to be that terrified again.’

She couldn’t bear that. She couldn’t bear the pain in his eyes.

‘You’ve lost once,’ she said softly, reaching up to take his face in her hands. To take away that look of remembered horror. ‘To risk that again… Darcy, how can you possibly love me?’

‘How can I not?’

She looked at him for a very long moment but it was her turn now. Her turn.

She took his face strongly between her hands, she stood on tiptoe-and she kissed him.

She kissed him with all the love in her heart-and the beginning of the rest of her life started right then.


It wasn’t very often that a mother got to be a bridesmaid at her daughter’s wedding.

‘But I feel like you’re my friend and I don’t feel ready to be the mother of the bride,’ Elizabeth had declared, so at this most wonderful of weddings they compromised. She gave Ally away but she also stayed by her side as her attendant. Mother and best friend rolled into one.

The wedding took place in the little stone church in Tambrine Creek’s main street. This church had seen generations of their family wed, baptised and buried.

It was right that Ally should be wed here. More, it was perfect. It was almost winter, but on this day the sun came out to shine on them all.

How could it not come out? The whole town came out. Everyone was invited and everyone was in a mood to sigh in pleasure.

And there was almost as much attention paid to Elizabeth as there was to her daughter.

As mother of the bride cum chief attendant, Elizabeth’s dress was beautiful-pale apricot shantung, a dress the like of which Elizabeth had never worn in her life. It was a fairy-tale dress and she and Ally had taken as much care to choose it as they had the glorious dress of white shot silk that Ally wore.

Elizabeth looked beautiful and radiantly happy.

Ally looked stunning.

They almost looked like twins.

Well, why not? Elizabeth was blooming with newfound confidence. Already her little massage business was booming. She had more clients than she could handle.

Robert was one of her favourites.

Robert’s face was healing now after extensive skin grafts. He’d returned to Tambrine Creek to move to the farm which the rest of Jerry’s people were already turning into a successful commercial venture. Elizabeth walked out to see them most nights-but it hadn’t taken many nights before Robert had started walking her home.

It’d take time, though, Ally thought as she watched their relationship grow. They’d been under a shadow for so long that neither was brave enough to trust. But Robert had taken to his role as farmer with skill and commitment. It was only a matter of time before he took on a share farm of his own, and then the future would be his to share with whoever he pleased.

He was waiting now, in one of the front pews. Ally knew that as she walked down the aisle Robert’s eyes would be on Elizabeth. Not on her.

Which was how it should be. She was truly content.

Ally’s attendants were fussing now-all her attendants, and she had so many of them. All the children from the commune had come to regard Ally as a kind of magical aunt. This day seemed such a celebration for all of them that not to include the kids would have been a crime. So Marigold and Jody and David and Tommy and Deidre and Lilly and baby Dot were all dressed in truly splendid clothes-provided by an excited Tambrine Creek Ladies Guild with much twittering and with even more love.

They looked wonderful. They all looked wonderful.

And Darcy would look more wonderful still.

Ally couldn’t see him yet. Sergeant Matheson was holding the big oak doors firmly shut until just the right moment, when he’d swing them wide to let the bride start her walk. But Ally could imagine how he’d look.

Darcy. Her love.

He looked younger, too, she thought. The lines of strain around his eyes had eased. She was working beside him as a doctor now, sharing the burden that no longer seemed a burden. Medicine was fun. Life was fun.

She was still giving massages, but only to special clients-clients her mother worried about, or clients who really wanted Ally.

Like Darcy.

He was her favourite client.

As she was his.

Never fall in love with your clients, she thought. First rule of medicine. First rule of massage.

Too late. She’d fallen for him and the only way to make the whole thing equitable had been to have him massage her in return.

Luckily he was a very fast learner.

It was just perfect, she thought. Perfect.

Even the news of Jerry was good. He’d recover, which meant that Kevin could be cared for as a psychiatric patient without the stigma of murder to make his carers treat him with fear. Jerry himself was facing the first of many court cases. He’d be in jail for a very long time.

But enough of Jerry. He could be forgotten as a bad memory-a nightmare of a past that could no longer affect their future.

The music was starting now. Mendelssohn’s Wedding March was being played-appallingly-by Doris on the church’s hundred-year-old organ. It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered.

The doors were swinging wide. Her twitter of excited page-boys and flower girls started throwing rose petals, and her mother squeezed her hand.

‘Are you ready, love?’

Ally smiled at her mother. Then she lifted her head and gazed down the long church aisle.

Darcy was waiting for her.

Darcy was smiling. He was smiling and smiling. Her love. Her future.

‘I’m ready,’ she whispered, and took her first step forward to her beloved. ‘Let’s begin.’

Marion Lennox

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