Runaway Wife

She remembered the first and the last time she had told him to shut up, and felt instantly ashamed she hadn’t left him there and then.

So what had their marriage been? Sex? For someone who found her frigid he had spent a lot of time taking her to bed.

Laura got out of the car, keys to the cottage in hand. She didn’t look closely at the houses to either side, wondering if she was under surveillance. One was a high-set colonial, far grander than the cottages, its grounds immaculate and studded with palms.

The picket gate swung cleanly without a creak. She closed it after her carefully, looking around with quiet pleasure at the small garden as though it was already hers to put to order. It was beginning to encroach on the narrow paved path up to the two weather-worn steps that led to the verandah.

The key fitted neatly into the lock. She opened the yellow-painted timber door with its old brass knocker and stepped inside, feeling a little Alice in Wonderland full of wonder with her curiosity to explore.

A hallway with a polished floor, pale golden wood with a darker grained border, ran straight through the house to the rear door. She wandered from room to room peering in. Parlour to the left, dining room, to the right. Beyond the parlour a fair-sized bedroom which led to a very quaint bathroom; behind the small dining room an equally small kitchen, somewhat modernized with a curved banquette area. Five rooms in all. No laundry. Unless there was one outside.

There was. It was attached to the cottage by a covered walkway hung with a glorious bridal veil of white bougainvillaea. Laura walked out into the sun. It was so brilliantly golden she needed her sunglasses or she’d be dazzled.

Another cottage garden, even more overgrown. It curved away to either side of a pink brick path that drew her along. Masses and masses of lavender gone wild. She picked a sprig, waved it beneath her nose. The path disappeared into a tunnel of lantana, flowering monstrously, richly blazing orange. There was even a small, charming bird bath, though the bowl was cracked.

This place is mine. It’s wonderful! Laura, who had grown up with every possible comfort, breathed aloud. A doll’s house.

She wandered back along the path to sit down on the hot stone step, lifting her arms as if in praise of the sun. She was drawing out every moment of the peace and freedom she had been denied living with Colin. The aromatic scents of the garden and the great wilderness that lay just beyond the town were balm to her wounded heart.

“Please God, help me,” she prayed. “I can’t hide for ever.”

There were no furnishings. She told herself she didn’t need much. She even felt a tingle of anticipation at the idea of making the cottage comfortable. And her own. She knew intellectually she was going to ground. Emotionally she felt if she didn’t hide away she was risking her life, and there were frightening statistics to back her fears. A wife-abuser was unpredictable and dangerous.

I’m in the middle of nowhere, she thought with a tremendous sense of relief. Who could find me here in this vast landscape, so stunningly, wonderfully primitive, as though nothing has changed for countless thousands of years?

She had fallen in love with the Outback town, a small settlement on the desert fringe. Beyond the town’s ordered perimeters lay the wild bush. What she had seen of its unique beauty had cast a compulsive spell on her. The amazing colours! The deep fiery red of the earth and the extraordinary rock formations; the breathtaking cobalt blue of the cloudless sky that contrasted so vividly with the blood-red soil; the myriad greens and silver-greens of the wild bush and the iridescent greens of the countless creeks and billabongs that criss-crossed the huge area.

There was such a feeling of space and freedom she was beginning to feel a difference in herself. She was less upset, less disturbed, less fearful. She had taken the first big step to help herself. She could take another if she kept to the fore-front of her mind that a journey of a thousand miles began with the very first step. She could be what she was meant to be—a woman who had confidence in her own ability to look after herself. A woman who cared about others. A woman who took delight in friendships and her once deeply satisfying talent.

She could start again. That meant at some point divorcing Colin, but first she would have to bring about changes in herself. She had to grow and learn, see herself as someone who could handle life’s difficulties. She had to stop for ever looking over her shoulder, as though she expected to see Colin, his arm outstretched to grab her. She had to subdue and conquer her fear of Colin.

She knew one day, perhaps sooner than she thought, she would be free.

Drawing her long hair over her shoulder, Laura walked back inside the cottage. She had already decided she would take it, and her mind was busy with thoughts of exactly how much furniture she would need. What would go where? Her enthusiasm for this little cottage in the back of beyond was infectious. In fact she felt quite jubilant. It was a long long time since she’d felt that.

Laura took a little notebook out of her shoulder bag and began to scribble in it.

CHAPTER TWO

THE sound of a car door slamming broke his concentration. Not that the book was going so well at this point. Memories always made him suffer. Writing kept him sane.

In this little Outback town of Koomera Crossing he was known as Evan Thompson. Loner. Man of mystery. He’d had an ironic laugh at those names. Evan Thompson wasn’t his true identity. It was a cover of sorts for his secret life as a wood worker. He’d had no apprenticeship in the trade. He’d learned in his youth from his diplomat father, who’d channelled his abundant natural skills into an avenue for relaxation.

His father! Christian Kellerman. Killed in a terrorist attack in the Balkans.

In another life he’d been known as Evan Kellerman, respected foreign correspondent, who had earned a reputation for putting his own life on the line to get to a big story. Everything he had written from the war zones where he’d gone searching for truthful answers had had an insider’s knowledge. With a base in Vienna, close to his father, he had covered the war in the Balkans when three ethnic groups had been at each other’s throats. Even after the Dayton Peace Agreement he had stayed on to cover the demilitarisation.

He had had a story to tell. Not the usual coverage of the war and recent political developments, but one man’s day-today existence during that violent time, when he had been plunged into a world gone mad and a journalist’s life was greatly at risk.

The terror had taken his father and an alluring but traitorous woman. Monika Reiner. Evan’s lover. So-called patriot. But Monika, unknown to him and his associates, had had an agenda of her own. Spying for the enemy.

Monika Reiner had used her beauty and her useful contacts to infiltrate the ranks of freedom fighters, leaving behind her a trail of death. All in the name of greed, money and power. And to think such a woman, responsible for passing on his father’s itinerary on that terrible day, had held the key to his heart. The sense of guilt, though irrational, had almost destroyed him.

He stood up so precipitately he sent his swivel chair flying. After a minute he retrieved it, but he couldn’t return to his desk. Restlessly he prowled, like a wild animal in a cage. From a bedroom window he caught sight of the young woman who must have slammed her car door. She was going into the cottage next door.

He shifted the curtain a fraction, looking down into the neighbouring garden. She was walking slowly, almost drifting in the breeze. His heart suddenly kicked in his chest. He sucked in his breath, momentarily overcome by paralysing shock.

From this distance she looked like Monika. Graceful in body and movement. Almost feline.

She was beautiful too, with long flowing dark hair that lifted away from her face as the breeze caught it. Like Monika’s, her hair was center-parted. She was petite, very slender. He could see her luminous white skin. He found his hands clenching and unclenching as he was gripped by the past.

“Close your eyes with holy dread.” The words of a poet sprang instantly into his mind.

He swallowed on a dry throat, turning away abruptly. A passing resemblance. Nothing more. A figure type.

He walked purposefully to the kitchen to make himself some strong black coffee. As soon as he finished his book—he was more than halfway through it—he would try to get back to a normal life. Or as normal as he could manage after the hell he’d been through.

Evan knew he could have his career back tomorrow. To this day he was being pursued by various agencies who well remembered his “meritorious service”—but he didn’t know if he could live that life again, with the sound of gunfire forever reverberating through his head. The Outback, the Timeless Land, had offered solace, a place to write and lick his wounds.

He found himself moving to the rear closed-in verandah, steaming coffee cup in hand, to check on the girl.

There she was again, turned flower child, twirling a sprig of lavender beneath her nose. He could have moved off, but the sight of her halted and held him. She looked so innocent as she walked among the blossoms, admiring the pretty petals.

He knew the cottage was up for rent. His neighbours, the Lawsons, had gone back to the UK for a year or two to be with family. Surely this young woman didn’t intend to live there? Everything about her—the lustrous hair, the trendy clothes, the graceful limbs—carried the stamp of “money”, or at the very least a comfortable background. What would she be doing looking over a modest little cottage in an Outback town?

Very odd! Even odder was the way she was taking such pleasure in the tiny backyard that had run riot since the Lawsons had left. He was disconcerted by his reaction to her beauty and her slightly fey attitude. What the hell was the matter with her? She was treading the path rather vaguely, picking wildflowers, but looking so utterly captivating she might have been modelling for a photo shoot.

I don’t need this, he thought. I definitely don’t need this. Beauty was a bait to lure. Yet he didn’t move, scarcely aware the coffee cup was burning his hand.

He couldn’t put his finger on just why he thought there was something disturbed or disturbing about this girl. Instinct again. His instincts were significant. They had saved his life time and time again—though that made him feel guilty he had survived when others so close to him had not.

Butterflies were fluttering around the lantana. A magical sight. She was looking towards it in an apparent trance of beauty. He felt an involuntary hostility well up in him. Simply because something about her had reminded him of Monika? This girl was a total stranger. She could never have witnessed an ugly sight in her life.

She strolled back along the path, taking a seat on the stone step. This wasn’t wise, watching her, but still he remained. Again she surprised him, raising her slender arms gracefully, dramatically, to the blue sky like some sort of ritual to the sun.

Bravo! A would-be ballerina! He kept his gaze focused. Perhaps she’d guessed she had an audience? She certainly couldn’t see him from where he stood.

“There’s more to this woman than meets the eye!”

He was surprised he’d spoken aloud, but the words had flowed irresistibly. He couldn’t believe he was even doing this. Spying on a perfect stranger. Normally he guarded his privacy and isolation.

With one exception. Harriet Crompton, the town school teacher and a character in her own right.

He had taken a liking to Harriet to the extent that he had agreed, after some heavy persuasion, to join the town orchestra, and then make up a surprisingly good quartet. He played cello. Harriet played viola. His mother, a concert artist, had taught him first the piano and then, when his interest had waned, the cello from an early age. He hadn’t wanted to make music his career—he had far too many interests—but that hadn’t prevented him from becoming very proficient. He guessed, as his mother always said, music ran in his blood.

These days it could make him very unhappy. He couldn’t listen to certain great artists for very long. Those who played with great passion, like the tragic Jacqueline Du Pré. It almost brought him to despair. He’d thought he had put his journalistic talents to the advancement of a downtrodden people and their cause. All it had brought about was the death of a father he had rightfully idolized and a profound mistrust of beautiful women.

Like the young woman who had disappeared back inside the cottage.

Ten minutes later and she still hadn’t come out. What was she doing?

By that stage he was back to his prowling. He knew the house was unfurnished. The Lawsons had preferred to store their furniture—a lot of genuine colonial pieces. He returned to his desk, but such was his mood he made the unprecedented decision to go next door and ask the young woman one or two questions.

He couldn’t explain the need to do so to himself beyond the fact his instincts were exceptionally finely honed. They told him she brought trouble. Or trouble was reaching out for her. One or the other.

He didn’t spend any more time thinking about it. He obeyed the powerful urge.

The brightly painted front door was open. An invitation? He gave a couple of raps. That should bring her.

Maybe, just maybe, she looked nothing like Monika beyond the white skin and the long waterfall of dark hair. He had spent a long time thinking about Monika and her treachery, which had ultimately cost his father and his father’s driver their lives.

His hand on the doorjamb was registering a faint tremor. Some things he couldn’t banish.

He’d realized at some time someone would rent the cottage. He’d hoped for a quiet couple. The sudden appearance of the girl had shocked him out of his complacency. He didn’t want her close. The wrong time. The wrong place. A random visit? Fate?

He heard her light footsteps, then she rounded the corner of the dining room, a half-smile on her face as though she expected someone. A friend? Her eyes—a beautiful iridescent green—at first radiant, suddenly flooded with something he interpreted instantly as panic. He knew all about panic. He couldn’t be fooled.

How very damned odd! Why should she look so shaken? He wasn’t that formidable, was he? Although he’d been told many times he was.

He damned nearly gave his real name—he was only trying to project reassurance. But he didn’t move an inch from the door, all at once wanting to release her from her high tension. He hadn’t considered she would have that effect on him. He had no wish to frighten her, and frighten her he had.

“Evan Thompson. I live next door,” he gestured with his hand. “The colonial.” In the space of about a minute she haunted his eyes.

“Laura…Graham.” She responded so hesitantly it immediately spun into his mind that it wasn’t her real name any more than his was Thompson.

Laura, in turn, realized within the space of a second that this was the fascinating “loner” Harriet had told her about.

“I’m sorry if I startled you.” He was aware his apology was overly clipped and formal. But he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her. The long dark hair, the white skin, the delicate bone structure and petite stature. Otherwise she was nothing like Monika.

Monika had had gold unwinking eyes, like a cat’s. Monika had never looked frightened—even when the game was up and she’d been surrounded by the comrades of the patriots she’d betrayed. Men about to pass instant judgement and there had been no way he could have stopped them.

Laura said nothing for a moment, aware she was under intense scrutiny. “I wasn’t expecting a man at my door,” she explained.

He answered dryly. “I’ll go if you prefer.”

“Oh, no!” She half raised a hand, let it drop. “I’m sorry. I must sound flustered.”

“One wonders why. I’m not that frightening, am I?”

She studied him, thinking Harriet’s description had been excellent. Late thirties. Exceptionally handsome in a dark, brooding way. Deep resonant voice. Thick dark hair. Brilliant dark eyes. Heavy sculptured head. A big man, strongly built.

She sensed he was somehow hostile to women. To her? That didn’t make sense.

Grooves ran from his nose to his mouth, bracketing it and drawing attention to its chiselled perfection. A sensuous mouth. A contradiction.

“Not at all!” She tried hard to suppress her agitation, knowing colour was running beneath her skin. “I thought it was someone else. Someone who knows I’m here, inspecting the house.”

“You like it?”

“I do.”

He regarded her lovely face, clear of that early expression of panic. “May I ask if you intend to rent it?”

“I don’t think I could if I had to get your approval,” She read his mind.

“On the contrary, I don’t care who moves in as long as they’re quiet. May I enquire too if you’ll be on your own?” He couldn’t keep the sardonic note out of his voice.

She stared back at him, trying to formulate an answer. He was formidable, but not threatening. Experienced. Tough. But never the sort of man to lift his hand in anger to a woman. Such a thing would only rouse in him revulsion. All this she saw even as she registered he would be very difficult to know. Very complex.

“It’s not a crime, is it?”

“It is if you play pop music very loudly.” Unexpectedly he smiled, sunlight from behind storm clouds.”

“I don’t know much about pop music at all,” she confessed, lulled by that smile. “I’m a classically trained pianist without a piano. I expect you’ll be grateful for that.”

“Not at all. I grew up in a house of music. My mother is a cellist.”

“Would I know of her?” she asked with genuine interest.

“Could be.” He looked away.

“I thought I might have a career as a pianist,” she found herself confiding.

“So what happened?”

“It didn’t work out.” She too changed the subject. “I’m a friend of Sarah Dempsey, by the way.” She said it as though Sarah’s name could offer safety and acceptance.

“She’s a very beautiful woman and a fine doctor. The town counts itself lucky to have her. I’ve met Dr Dempsey, most notably at her engagement party. I know her fiancé Kyall McQueen better. All in all they’re an extraordinary couple. You and Sarah were at school together? No, what made me say that? You’d be some years younger…”

“It’s not how old you are, it’s how old you feel,” she found herself saying dangerously.

“Really? And how do you feel, Miss Graham?”

“As though I’m being quietly interrogated.” She met the darkness of his eyes.

“‘Quietly’ and ‘interrogated’ are mutually exclusive.”

“You sound as if you know. Have you been in the Forces at some time? Secret Intelligence Service?” She was only half joking. Undeniably he had that sort of presence. Even standing perfectly still he give the impression he was at high alert, ready, engines running.

“I wonder how you ever thought that?” he answered smoothly, though her observation had thrown him.

“Am I right or wrong?”

“You couldn’t be more wrong.” He grimaced. “I’m a humble wood worker.”

“You surely don’t think yourself humble?” What was the matter with her? She was breaking all the rules.

“All right, then, you tell me?”

“I think you’re a casualty of battle.” My God had she said that?

He raised a large, sculpted hand. “Miss Graham, you’ve blown my cover.”

“Sometimes an emotional response can be quite unconnected to appearance or reason.”

“I just happen to agree.” Out of nowhere a complex intimacy was taking hold. “If you think you know something of me, may I ask if in coming out here to the desert you’re making a fresh start?”

His voice was deliberately bland, but it didn’t fool Laura. “I’ve made you angry.”

“You’ve thrown down a challenge. That’s different.” When she had cut through his barriers with frightening ease. Few people had ever done that. Even hardened professionals.

“I won’t bother you, Mr Thompson, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“When you’re the sort of woman who would always bother a man?” His watchful eye caught her tremble. “Forgive me. I’m quite sure we’re going to be good neighbours as long as we keep to ‘good morning’ and ‘good evening’ over the fence. That’s if you’re going to stay?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” She gave him a tiny smile.

“I’m quite sure it’s not what you’re used to.”

“No more than you, in the old colonial next door. Actually, I was making some notes about what sort of furniture I’d need when you knocked.”

“There’s a good secondhand store in the main street,” he found himself telling her. “The cottage is sound structurally. You’ll need the fireplace from time to time. Desert nights can get very cold. Is this in the nature of a breathing space? Don’t you have people who will miss you?”

“My life can wait.’ She didn’t attempt to say it lightly. He wouldn’t be fooled. “As for you? Don’t you have a story to tell?”

“I suppose I should ask are you psychic?” His voice was deliberately dry. “You have a witch’s beautiful green eyes. Surely a give-away. Then again, you could be a spoilt little rich girl on the run.”

She visibly paled. “And if I were you wouldn’t protect me?”

He was silent for a moment, her words and that spontaneous intimacy hammering away at him. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes. You need have no fear of me, Miss Graham. I don’t know who you are, but I do know you’re taking a risk.”

“Is it possible you’re psychic yourself? You know nothing whatever about me.”

“Quite possibly I’m like you.” He shrugged. “Covering my tracks. I’ll keep quiet if you will.”

She watched him, watching her. “How did this all start?” she asked genuinely taken aback. “I don’t understand how we got into this conversation at all.” For all its curious liberation.

“I do,” he said with surprising gentleness. “Sometimes it happens like that. A shortcut to discovery.”

“It strikes me as very strange, all the same.”

“Have no fears. Though when I saw you in the garden I thought fear would be alien to you. You looked so innocent, I suppose.”

“So why have you changed your mind?”

“You’re too intense, and there’s a haunting in your eyes.”

“All right, you’re a psychiatrist?” She tried to cover her confusion with a banter. “A highbrow writer? Award-winning journalist? You’re very intense too.”

“That comes with things we have to guard.”

“Then both of us have been very revealing this morning,” she said. Certainly nothing like this had ever happened to her before.

“It would seem so. I don’t often meet a young woman so disconcertingly perceptive. Also, you’re something of an enigma. You’re too young to have had much life experience? How old? Twenty-one, twenty-two?” His eyes dipped from her face to take in her slender body in cool white skirt and ruffled top, a mix of cotton and lace. Refined. Virginal.

“Can you deal with twenty-three?” He was clearly much older, with a wealth of experience behind those dark eyes.

“A baby,” he concluded.

“I don’t think so.” Her fingers clenched white. She was quite old enough to have had bad experiences.

He didn’t miss the movement of her fingers. “You know about tragedy?”

“Tragedy spills into lots of people’s lives. Maybe not on the level of what happened to you. What did happen to you?” she asked after a pause.

“Miss Graham, I’d have to know you a whole lot better before you could ever make that breakthrough,” he answered sardonically. “Besides, I’m pretty sure you’re not willing to tell your story.”

“Investigative reporter? Something tells me I should know you.” He had far too much presence to be an ordinary everyday person.

“You don’t,” he assured her briskly. “Anyway, we’re not adversaries. Are we?”