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Authors: Bronwyn Jameson
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black dust and corrugated roads from the nearest bar. Even if Tomas did decide to hightail it into Koomah Crossing, he wouldn’t make closing time.
She exhaled slowly and settled back on the desk. “Confession time, guys. I really only overheard one slice of your earlier discussion, so who’d like to fill me in on the whole story?”
Once, on a bet, Angie had raced Tomas and her brother Carlo from the homestead to the waterhole, blindfolded. Remembering that experience fifteen years ago made tonight’s steep descent a veritable walk in the park. A three-quarter moon rode high in the sky, casting enough light for Angie to pick a surefooted path through the scrub. Behind a bandanna blindfold there’d been nothing but intense black, yet she’d closed her eyes and run.
Anything to prove herself less of a girl.
You’re part feral goat, the boys had spat in disgust as they handed over her winnings, and it had taken Angie years to realize that comparison wasn’t exactly flattering.
Her smile, wry and reminiscent, faded as she neared her destination. Moment of truth, sister. She rubbed warming hands up and down her goose-bumped arms. She would bet the vintage silk-georgette dress she’d vainly not changed out of—despite the chill night and a setting more suited to jeans—that Tomas had retreated to his usual lair.
And when you find him, you say your piece and you make sure he listens. You don’t let him turn his back.
She’d seen Tomas several times since her return from Italy a week earlier. At the hospital before his father passed away, at the memorial service held largely for his city business associates, at Alex’s Sydney home afterward. Yet he’d managed to evade anything beyond a quick consoling hug and a few token words of sympathy.
So she’d stayed on at Kameruka Downs after the private funeral, begging a lift back to Sydney on the corporate jet with Alex and Rafe, instead of returning on the afternoon charter arranged for other mourners. She had to talk to Tomas, one on one. She had to set things straight between them.
This had nothing to do with the disturbing clause in Charles’s will that she’d just learned about in the library. This was about guilt and regret and failing to be the kind of friend she wanted to be. It was about closure, too, and moving on with her life.
And it promised to be damn-near the toughest thing she’d ever done. Tougher even than the night she’d confronted Tomas with her opinion on his upcoming marriage…and that had been Tough with a capital T!
It wasn’t that she hadn’t liked Brooke. They’d been close friends at school. Tomas had met his future wife at Angie’s eighteenth birthday party, on a night when she’d dressed and preened and set herself on being noticed as a woman instead of his wild-child pseudosister.
Instead—the supreme irony—he’d fallen into complete blinker-eyed besottedness with her petite and delicate friend. And eighteen months later he hadn’t wanted to hear Angie’s opinion on Brooke’s suitability to life in the outback. He loved Brooke. He married Brooke.
And that had been one tough challenge Angie couldn’t face.
Instead of accepting the bridesmaid’s gig, she’d taken off on a backpacking jaunt to Europe. Her grand adventure had started as an impulsive escape from pain and envy, from her fear that she wouldn’t make it through “does anyone have just cause” without jumping to her feet and yelling, “You bet I do! He’s supposed to be mine!”
She’d missed the wedding and, worse, she’d missed Brooke’s funeral. But now she was back, needing to make peace with her conscience. She doubted she could make peace with the flint-hard stranger Tomas had become, but she had to try.
“Moment of truth,” she muttered, out loud this time,as she ducked under a branch into the clearing beside the waterhole.
Slowly she scanned the darkness and the empty shadows, before hauling herself up onto a rock overhang. On
She exhaled slowly and settled back on the desk. “Confession time, guys. I really only overheard one slice of your earlier discussion, so who’d like to fill me in on the whole story?”
Once, on a bet, Angie had raced Tomas and her brother Carlo from the homestead to the waterhole, blindfolded. Remembering that experience fifteen years ago made tonight’s steep descent a veritable walk in the park. A three-quarter moon rode high in the sky, casting enough light for Angie to pick a surefooted path through the scrub. Behind a bandanna blindfold there’d been nothing but intense black, yet she’d closed her eyes and run.
Anything to prove herself less of a girl.
You’re part feral goat, the boys had spat in disgust as they handed over her winnings, and it had taken Angie years to realize that comparison wasn’t exactly flattering.
Her smile, wry and reminiscent, faded as she neared her destination. Moment of truth, sister. She rubbed warming hands up and down her goose-bumped arms. She would bet the vintage silk-georgette dress she’d vainly not changed out of—despite the chill night and a setting more suited to jeans—that Tomas had retreated to his usual lair.
And when you find him, you say your piece and you make sure he listens. You don’t let him turn his back.
She’d seen Tomas several times since her return from Italy a week earlier. At the hospital before his father passed away, at the memorial service held largely for his city business associates, at Alex’s Sydney home afterward. Yet he’d managed to evade anything beyond a quick consoling hug and a few token words of sympathy.
So she’d stayed on at Kameruka Downs after the private funeral, begging a lift back to Sydney on the corporate jet with Alex and Rafe, instead of returning on the afternoon charter arranged for other mourners. She had to talk to Tomas, one on one. She had to set things straight between them.
This had nothing to do with the disturbing clause in Charles’s will that she’d just learned about in the library. This was about guilt and regret and failing to be the kind of friend she wanted to be. It was about closure, too, and moving on with her life.
And it promised to be damn-near the toughest thing she’d ever done. Tougher even than the night she’d confronted Tomas with her opinion on his upcoming marriage…and that had been Tough with a capital T!
It wasn’t that she hadn’t liked Brooke. They’d been close friends at school. Tomas had met his future wife at Angie’s eighteenth birthday party, on a night when she’d dressed and preened and set herself on being noticed as a woman instead of his wild-child pseudosister.
Instead—the supreme irony—he’d fallen into complete blinker-eyed besottedness with her petite and delicate friend. And eighteen months later he hadn’t wanted to hear Angie’s opinion on Brooke’s suitability to life in the outback. He loved Brooke. He married Brooke.
And that had been one tough challenge Angie couldn’t face.
Instead of accepting the bridesmaid’s gig, she’d taken off on a backpacking jaunt to Europe. Her grand adventure had started as an impulsive escape from pain and envy, from her fear that she wouldn’t make it through “does anyone have just cause” without jumping to her feet and yelling, “You bet I do! He’s supposed to be mine!”
She’d missed the wedding and, worse, she’d missed Brooke’s funeral. But now she was back, needing to make peace with her conscience. She doubted she could make peace with the flint-hard stranger Tomas had become, but she had to try.
“Moment of truth,” she muttered, out loud this time,as she ducked under a branch into the clearing beside the waterhole.
Slowly she scanned the darkness and the empty shadows, before hauling herself up onto a rock overhang. On
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