Abby and the Bachelor Cop / Misty and the Single Dad: Abby and the Bachelor Copy / Misty and the Single Dad

According to the Internet, to stop foxes digging into a poultry pen you had to run wire netting underground from the fence, but flattening outward and forward, surfacing about eighteen inches from the fence. The fox would then find itself digging into a U-shaped wire cavity.

That meant a lot of digging. Would it work when Kleppy The Fox was sitting there watching?

‘Don’t even think about it,’ she told him. ‘Philip’s being very good. We can’t expect his patience to last for ever.’

Philip.

She was expecting him to explode. He didn’t.

He arrived to see how she was just after she’d finished cleaning up after fence digging. They were supposed to be going out to dinner. Two of Philip’s most affluent clients had invited them out to Banksia Bay’s most prestigious restaurant as a pre-wedding celebration.

When Abby thought of it her headache was suddenly real—and, surprisingly, she didn’t need to explain it to Philip.

‘You look dreadful,’ he said, hugging her with real sympathy. ‘White as a sheet. You should be in bed.’

‘I … yes.’ Bed sounded a good idea.

‘Where’s the mutt?’

‘Outside.’ Actually, on her bed, hoping she’d join him.

‘You can’t keep him,’ Philip said seriously. ‘He’s trouble.’

‘This morning wasn’t his fault.’

‘You don’t need to tell me that,’ Philip said darkly. ‘The dog might be trouble but Finn’s worse. It’s my belief he set the whole thing up. Look, Abby, the best thing would just be for you to take the dog back to the Animal Shelter.’

‘No.’

He sighed but he held his temper.

‘We’ll talk about it when you’re feeling better. I’m sorry you can’t make tonight.’

‘Will you cancel?’

‘No,’ he said, surprised. ‘They’ll understand.’

Of course they would. They’d hardly notice her absence, she thought bitterly. They’d talk about their property portfolios all night. Make some more money.

‘What will you eat?’ he asked, solicitous, and she thought she wouldn’t have to eat five courses and five different wines. Headaches had their uses.

‘I’ll make eggs on toast if I get hungry.’

‘Well, keep up your strength. You have a big week ahead of you.’

He kissed her and he was off, happily going to a wedding celebration without her.

The moment the door shut behind him, her headache disappeared. Just like that.

Why was she marrying him?

Uh-oh.

The question had been hovering for months. Niggling. Shoved away with disbelief that she could think it. But, the closer the wedding grew, the bigger the question grew. Now it was the elephant in the room. Or the Tyrannosaurus Rex. What was the world’s biggest dinosaur?

Whatever. The question was getting very large indeed. And very insistent.

Philip was heading to a dinner she’d been dreading. He was anticipating it with pleasure.

Worse. Philip’s kiss meant absolutely nothing. Last night … Raff’s kiss had shown her how little Philip’s kisses did mean.

And worse still? She’d almost been wanting him to yell at her about Kleppy.

How had she got into this mess?

It had just … happened. The car crash. Philip, always here, supporting her parents, supporting her. Interested in everything she was doing. Throwing himself, heart and soul, into this town. Throwing himself, heart and soul, into her life.

She couldn’t even remember when she’d first realised he intended to marry her. It was just sort of assumed.

She did remember the night he’d formally asked. He’d proposed at the Banksia Bay Private Golf Club, overlooking the bay. The setting had been perfect. A full moon. Moonbeams glinting on the sea. The terrace, a balmy night, stars. A dessert to die for—chocolate ganache in the shape of a heart, surrounded by strawberries and tiny meringues. A beautifully drawn line of strawberry coulis, spelling out the words ‘Marry Me'.

But there’d been more. Philip had left nothing to chance. The small town orchestra had appeared from nowhere, playing Pachelbel’s Canon. The staff, not just from the restaurant but from the golf club as well, crowding into the doorways, applauding before she even got to answer.

‘I’ve already asked your parents,’ Philip said as he lifted the lid of the crimson velvet box. ‘They couldn’t be more pleased. We’re going to be so happy.’

He lifted the ring she now wore—a diamond so big it made her gasp—and slid it onto her finger before she realised what was happening. Then, just in case she thought he hadn’t got it completely right, he’d tugged her to her feet, then dropped to his knees.

‘Abigail Callahan, would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

She remembered thinking—hysterically, and only for the briefest of moments—what happens if I say no?

But how could she say no?

How could she say no now?

Why would she want to?

Because Rafferty Finn had kissed her?

Because Raff made her feel …

As he’d always made her feel. As if she was on the edge of a precipice and any minute she’d topple.

The night Ben died she’d toppled. Philip had held her up. To tell him now that she couldn’t marry him …

What was she thinking? He was a good, kind man and next Saturday she’d marry him and right now she was going to sit in front of the television and stitch a last row of lace onto the hem of her wedding gown. The gown should be finished but her mother and Philip’s mother had looked at it and decreed one more row.

‘To make everything perfect.’

Fine. Lace. Perfect. She could do this.

She let Kleppy out of the bedroom. He seemed a bit subdued. She gave him a doggy chew and he snuggled onto the couch beside her.

She’d washed him again. He was clean. Or clean enough. So what if the occasional dog hair got on her dress? It didn’t have to be that perfect. Life didn’t have to be that perfect.

Marriage to Philip would be okay.

The doorbell rang. Kleppy was off the couch, turning wild circles, barking his head off at the door.

He hadn’t stirred from his spot on her bed when Philip had rung the bell. Different bell technique?

She should tuck Kleppy back in her bedroom. This’d be her mother. Or Philip’s mother. Philip would have reported the headache, gathered the troops. It was a wonder the chicken soup hadn’t arrived before this.

Her mother would be horrified at the sight of Kleppy. She’d just have to get used to him, she decided. They’d all have to get used to him. The chicken soup brigade.

But it wasn’t the chicken soup brigade.

She opened the door. Sarah was standing on her doorstep holding a gift, and Raff was right behind her.

See, that was just the problem. She had no idea why her heart did this weird leap at the sight of him. It didn’t make sense. She should feel anger when she saw him. Betrayal and distress. She’d felt it for ten years but now … Somehow distress was harder to maintain, and there was also this extra layer. Of… hope?

She really didn’t want to spend the rest of her life running into this man. Maybe she and Philip could move.

Maybe Raff should move. Why had he come back to Banksia Bay in the first place?

But Sarah was beaming a greeting—Raff’s sister—Abby’s friend—and Abby thought there were so many complexities in this equation she couldn’t get her head around them. Raff was caught as well as she was, held by ties of family and love and commitment.

His teenage folly had killed his best mate. He was trapped in this judgemental town, looking after the sister he loved.

For ten years she’d felt betrayed by this man but she looked at him now and thought he’d been to hell and back. There were different forms of life sentence.

And he’d lost … her?

He’d never had her, she thought fiercely. She’d broken up with him before the crash. If she even started thinking of him that way again …

The problem was, she was thinking. But the nightmare if she kept thinking …

Her parents … Philip … The way she felt herself, the aching void where Ben had been …

She was dealing with it. She had been dealing with it. If only he hadn’t kissed her …

‘You’re home,’ Sarah said. She was holding a silver box tied with an enormous red ribbon. ‘You took ages to answer. Raff said you probably weren’t home. He said you’d be out gall. Gall …’

‘Gallivanting? ‘

‘It’s what I said but I guess that’s the wrong word,’ Raff said. ‘You wouldn’t gallivant with Philip.’

She ignored him. She ignored that heart-stopping, dare-you twinkle. ‘Hi, Sarah. It’s lovely to see you. What do you have there?’

‘We’re delivering your present,’ Sarah said. ‘But Raff said you’d be out with Philip. We were going to leave it on the doorstep and go. But I heard Kleppy. Why aren’t you out with Philip?’

‘I had a headache.’

‘Very wise,’ Raff said, the gleam of mischief intensifying in those dark, dangerous eyes. ‘Dinner with the Flanagans? I’d have a headache, too.’

‘How did you know we were going out with the Flanagans?’ She sighed. ‘No. Don’t tell me. This town.’

‘Sorry.’ Raff’s mischief turned to a chuckle, deep and toe-curlingly sexy. ‘And sorry about the intrusion, but Sarah wrapped your gift and decided she needed to deliver it immediately.’

‘So can we come in while you open it?’ Sarah was halfway in, scooping up a joyful Kleppy on the way. But then she faltered. ‘Do you still have a headache?’ Sarah knew all about headaches—Abby could see her cringe at the thought.

‘Abby said she had a headache,’ Raff said. ‘That’s past tense, Sares. I reckon it was cured the minute Philip went to dinner without her.’

‘Will you cut it out?’

‘Do you still have a headache?’ he asked, not perturbed at all by her snap.

‘No, but.’

‘There you go. Sares, what if I leave you here for half an hour so you can watch the present-opening and play with Kleppy? I’ll pick you up at eight. Is that okay with you, Abby?’

It wasn’t okay with Sarah.

‘No,’ she ordered. ‘You have to watch her open it. It was your idea. You’ll really like it, Abby. Ooh, and I want to help you use it.’

So they both came in. Abby was absurdly aware that she had a police car parked in her driveway. That’d be reported to Philip in about two minutes, she thought. And to her parents. And to everyone else in this claustrophobic little town.

What was wrong with her? She loved this town and she was old enough to ignore gossip. Raff was here helping Sarah deliver a wedding gift. What was wrong with that?

Ten minutes tops and she’d have him out of here.

But the gift took ten minutes to open. Sarah had wrapped it herself. She’d used about twenty layers of paper and about four rolls of tape.

‘I should use you to design my police cells,’ Raff said, grinning, as Abby ploughed her way through layer after layer after layer. ‘This sucker’s not getting out any time soon.’

‘It’s exciting,’ Sarah said, wide-eyed with anticipation. ‘I wonder what it is?’

Uh-oh. Abby glanced up at Raff at that and saw a shaft of pain. Short-term memory. Sarah would have spent an hour happily wrapping this gift, but an hour was a long time. For her to remember what she’d actually wrapped.

There was no way Raff could leave this town, she conceded. Sarah operated on long-term memory, the things she’d had instilled as a child. A new environment … a new home, new city, new friends … Sarah would be lost.

Raff was as trapped here as she was.

But she wasn’t trapped, she told herself sharply, scaring herself with the direction her thoughts were headed. She loved it here. She loved Philip.

She was almost at the end. One last snip and …

Ooooh …

She couldn’t stop the sigh of pure pleasure.

This was no small gift. It was a thing she’d loved for ever.

It was Gran Finn’s pasta maker.

Colleen Finn had been as Irish as her name suggested. She was one of thirteen children and she’d married a hard drinking bull of a man who’d come to Australia to make a new start with no intention of changing his ways.

As a young bride, Gran had simply got on with it. And she’d cooked. Every recipe she could get her hands on, Irish or otherwise.

Abby was about ten when the pasta maker had come into the house. Bright and shiny and a complete puzzle to them all.

‘Greta Riccardo’s having a yard sale, getting rid of all her mother’s stuff.’ Gran was puffed up like a peahen in her indignation. ‘All Maria’s recipes—books and books—and here’s Greta saying she never liked Italian food. That’s like me saying I don’t like potatoes. How could I let the pasta maker go to someone who doesn’t love it? In honour of my friend Maria, we’ll learn to be Italian.’

It was in the middle of the school holidays and the kids, en masse, were enchanted. They’d watched and helped, and within weeks they’d been making decent pasta. Abby remembered holding sheets of dough, stretching it out, competing to see who could make the longest spaghetti.

Pasta thus became a staple in the Finn house and it was only as she grew older she realised how cheap it must have been. With her own eggs and her home grown tomatoes, Gran had a new basic food. But now …

‘Don’t you use this any more?’ she ventured, stunned they could give away this part of themselves, and Raff smiled, though his smile was a little wary.

And, with the wariness, Abby got it.

She remembered Sarah as a teenager, stretching dough, kneading it, easing it through the machine with care so it wouldn’t rip, making angels’ hair, every kind of the most delicate pasta varieties.

She thought of Sarah now, with fumbling fingers, knowing what she’d been able to do, knowing what she’d lost.

‘We don’t use it any more,’ Sarah said. ‘But we don’t want to throw it away. So Raff said why don’t we give it to you and I can come round and remind you how to do it.’

‘Will you and I make some now?’ she asked Sarah before she could stop herself. ‘Can you remember how to make it?’

‘I think so,’ Sarah said and looked doubtfully at her big brother. ‘Can I, Raff?’

‘Maybe we could both give Abby a reminder lesson,’ Raff said. ‘As part of our wedding present. If your headache’s indeed better, Abigail?’

Both? Whoa. No. Uh-uh.

This was really dumb.

The police car would be parked outside for a couple of hours.

‘You want me to drive the car round the back?’ he asked.

She stared at him and he gazed straight back. Impassive. Reading her mind?

This was up to her. All she had to do was say her headache had come back.

They were all looking at her. Sarah. Kleppy.

Raff.

Go away. You’re complicating my life. My wedding dress is right behind that door. My fiancé is just over the far side of town.

Sarah’s eyes were wide with hope.

‘I guess it’ll still get around that my car was round the back for a couple of hours,’ Raff said, watching the warring emotions on her face. ‘Will Dexter call me out at dawn?’

‘Philip,’ she said automatically.

‘Philip,’ he agreed. Neutral.

‘He won’t mind,’ she said.

‘I’d mind if I was Philip.’

‘Just lucky you’re not Philip,’ she said and she’d meant to sound snarky but she didn’t quite manage it. ‘Why don’t you go do what you need to do and come back in a couple of hours?’

‘But Raff likes making pasta, too,’ Sarah said and Abby looked at his face and saw … and saw that he did.

There was a lot of this man to back away from. There was a lot about this man to distrust. But watching him now. It was as if he was hungry, she thought. He was disguising it, with his smart tongue and his teasing and his blatant provocation, but still.

He’d just given away his grandmother’s pasta maker. He’d given it to her.

She’d love it. She’d use it for ever. The memories. She and Sarah, Raff and Ben, messing round in Gran’s kitchen.

If it wasn’t for this man, Ben would still be here.

How long did hate last?

For the last ten years, every time she’d looked at Raff Finn she’d felt ill. Now. She looked at Sarah and at the pasta maker. She thought of Mrs Fryer’s vitriol. She thought that Ben had been Raff’s best friend. Ben had loved him.

She’d loved him.

She couldn’t keep hating. She just … couldn’t.

She felt sick and weary and desperately sad. She felt. wasted.

‘Hey, Abby really isn’t well,’ Raff said and maybe he’d read the emotions—maybe it was easy because she was having no luck disguising them from herself, much less from him. ‘Maybe we should go, Sares, and let her recover.’

‘Do you really have a headache?’ Sarah put her hand on her arm, all concern. ‘Does it bang behind your eyes? It’s really bad when it does that.’

Did Sarah still have headaches? Did Raff cope with them, take care of her, ache for his little sister and all she’d lost?

Maybe she should have invited Raff to her wedding.

Now there was a stupid thing to think. She might be coming out the other side of a decade of bitterness but her parents. they never would. They knew that Raff had killed their son, pure and simple.

Philip would never countenance him at their wedding. Her parents would always hate him.

Any bridges must be her own personal bridges, built of an understanding that she couldn’t keep stoking this flame of bitterness for the rest of her life.

They were watching her. Sarah’s hand was still on her arm. Concerned for her headache. Sarah, whose headaches had taken away so much …

‘Not a headache,’ she whispered and then more strongly, ‘it’s not a headache. It’s just … I’m overwhelmed. I loved making pasta with you guys when I was a kid. I can’t believe you’re giving this to me. It’s the most wonderful gift—a truly generous gift of the heart. It’s made me feel all choked up.’

And then, as Sarah was still looking unsure, she took her hands and tugged her close and kissed her. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

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