With a shake of her head, she walked back to her bedroom to take a shower. She had a busy day planned, and there was no point standing around moping. There was work to be done.

  Two

  The shovel seemed heavier in Penny St James’ hands with every passing moment. She pushed it as deep into the soft ground as she could manage, then jumped up and down on the edge of it until it was embedded in the squelching mud. She levered it back and forth, finding it was wedged a little too far into the mud now. It took all her weight and several minutes before she was able to budge the shovel, and finally it came flying out of the ground, sending her stumbling backwards.

  She landed on her rear end in the mud with a thwack. The shovel fell at her feet. Mud oozed up through her pants. She grimaced and pushed her hands against the earth to gain her feet only to find that her hands were stuck in the mud entirely. So much for her manicure. She knew better than to get one since she ran a wildlife refuge, but her parents had given her a gift certificate for the spa at the new resort over in Blue Shoal for Christmas, and she’d put it to use the previous day with a facial, massage and manicure. It’d been heavenly. But now her blue glitter nail polish was buried wrist-deep in sucking black mud.

  Nearby, a large grey kangaroo stood staring at her.

  “Come on, Frank, give me a hand, will you? Or a paw?” She wrinkled her nose. It itched on the end, but she couldn’t reach to scratch it. Her hands were still stuck in the mud, and even if they weren’t, she’d end up with black muck across her face. Instead, she wriggled her nose back and forth, the itch quickly becoming unbearable.

  A strand of honey-blonde hair fell across her face, covering one brown eye. She blew it, sending it back for a moment, but it fell into place again just as fast.

  “Ugh. Now what?” she murmured to herself. Alison, her assistant, was inside, feeding the snakes. She wouldn’t hear if Penny called, and besides, there was one rule about snake feeding at the refuge — don’t let yourself be interrupted by anyone or anything. Penny had implemented the rule when one of the volunteers had stopped what they were doing to answer the gate and they’d lost a python in the break room for a full hour. It’d been a stressful day, and one Penny hoped never to repeat. Especially since the python had almost made it out to the kangaroo enclosure, where there were wallabies and other small creatures just waiting to be eaten.

  She wriggled one hand free, then the other. She couldn’t help giggling. With the kangaroo watching her intently, she laughed heartily at herself. She was completely stuck. There was no way to get out of there without help unless she somehow made it onto her knees. Just as she was about to try, she heard the front gate click shut.

  “Hello! Who’s there?”

  “Penny?” A man’s voice sounded through the enclosure, one she didn’t immediately recognise. “Where are you?”

  “This way,” she called.

  A handsome face appeared, thick brown hair and large brown eyes above a stubbled chin. Rowan Clements, the man who’d humiliated her as a teenager and whose presence always invoked anger deep down in her gut. A smirk flickered across his handsome features. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking a bath. What does it look like?”

  Rowan stopped short, crossed his arms. “I can leave you here if you’re going to be like that.”

  “No, please — I need help,” she admitted. There was no time for pleasantries or for the obvious question — what was he doing in her wildlife sanctuary? The front gate was locked, and only people with the code could gain entrance unless someone was manning the reception desk. Which no one was at that moment, since there were only two of them on-site — she was stuck in the mud, and Alison was ankle-deep in snakes.

  He laughed quietly as he surveyed her. “Now, how did you manage that?”

  She held out her hands. “I’ll tell you all about it just as soon as you get me out of here.”

  He wore a pair of expensive blue jeans and a buttoned shirt. His hair was casually mussed and his physique was perfectly athletic and tanned. She’d seen him recently on television — intrepid reporter and high school nemesis. He was a man of many faces. And she itched to punch him in every single one of them.

  “Rowan Clements, get over here and help me.”

  He winked. “You know, I’ve been gone for years and yet here you are, still in the same place I left you, doing the same thing. You always seem to find yourself in trouble right as I come along. My very own damsel in distress.”

  She rolled her eyes. The last time she’d seen Rowan in person, he’d rescued her from a rip in the ocean. Hardly the same situation, but it irked her to be in need of rescuing again in that moment. She wasn’t the kind of woman to get herself into scrapes that required help, and the fact that he thought of her as one, only further irritated her.

  “That was an entirely different situation. I got caught in a rip—a few of us did. And anyway, you were barely any help at all.”

  “Maybe, or perhaps you’d have drowned if I didn’t rescue you. I guess we’ll never know. I’m sure in a few years, you’ll pretend you didn’t need me to get you out of this mud as well.” He reached forward and clasped both of her hands, then began to pull while he straddled the mud as best as he could to avoid getting his expensive shoes dirty.

  Penny was willing to put all their differences aside for the moment just to get out of the muck. It’d leached into her pants, coated both legs and was climbing up her back at that very moment. As Rowan pulled, there was a great sucking sound, and she began to shift in his direction.

  “Yes, that’s it — keep going!”

  “What is that kangaroo up to?” Rowan asked, eyeing Frank.

  The creature sidled around behind Rowan, fists raised as it bounced lightly on large hind legs.

  “Frank, don’t you dare!” Penny recognised the stance. It was Frank’s boxing pose. He didn’t like men in his enclosure, and normally Penny would’ve warned anyone who came in to keep their distance, but in this case, they’d had no choice.

  “Don’t dare what? What’s he doing?” Rowan tried to look over his shoulder but couldn’t see the animal.

  “Frank!” Penny used her most stern voice, but it was no use. Frank wasn’t listening. He rocked onto his tail and kicked with both hind feet into the middle of Rowan’s back.

  Rowan’s eyes widened and he fell directly onto Penny, knocking her down as he went. She landed with her ponytail in the mud. With a grunt, he caught himself with both hands pressed on either side of her. His face hovered above hers, his breath warm on her skin.

  “Frank, stop it!” Penny screeched.

  The kangaroo wandered off. Penny glared at Rowan.

  “What? It’s not my fault,” he said, grinning down at her. “Although I’m not complaining.”

  His mouth was dangerously close to Penny’s, and she stared at his full lips a moment before pressing both hands to his chest and pushing hard. He was far too heavy for her to lift, and the effort merely left handprints on his formerly clean shirt. She wriggled to no avail. He appeared to be laughing at her, although he didn’t make a sound. Why was everything about him so obnoxiously irritating? And why was he still on top of her?

  “Can you please move?”

  He struggled to his feet with a flash of white teeth, then pulled her free of the mud. “I can’t believe I’m covered in this junk within the first twenty seconds of visiting you. You really are something, Penny St James. Life’s never dull when you’re around.”

  Mud dripped from both of them. Penny couldn’t help feeling a little satisfaction in seeing his perfectly styled outfit covered in muck. She suppressed a smile. “I aim to please.”

  “You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

  “Of course not,” she huffed. “And besides, what did you expect would happen, coming to a wildlife refuge dressed like you’ve stepped out of GQ Magazine?” She squeezed the mud from her ponytail.

  “You think I look like a model?” He quirked an eyebrow.

  She rolled her eyes. Trust Rowan to take it as a compliment. He had always been full of himself. There were times when Penny had wondered why she’d disliked him so much in high school, but as soon as she spent time with him, it all came rushing back. He was infuriating, frustrating, irritating and about a thousand other things she didn’t have time to think of right in that moment.

  She had to get cleaned up and finish building the enclosure she’d been in the middle of making for the new kangaroo that’d been brought in that morning with her joey. Penny wanted to dig a small billabong for them so they’d be able to drink in a more natural environment, but the amount of rain they’d had lately had left the area she’d earmarked for it a muddy swampland.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked as she strode to the closest building, Rowan beside her.

  “I came with Rob.”

  “Rob’s here?” Her brother had been living on the mainland for months and had promised to come home, but she hadn’t seen him yet. She missed him so much when he was gone on a work trip, but she hated to admit it to Rowan. At least that answered the question of how Rowan made it through the locked front gate.

  “Yeah, he and I came in on the ferry this morning.”

  “Together?”

  “Just a coincidence. He finished up the construction project he was working on, and I’m taking some time off between jobs, so I thought I’d come home for a while.”

  “I bet your mum is happy to see you.”

  He shrugged. “I guess. She’s never really happy these days, but I wanted to see her anyway.”

  Rob stood waiting by the door, tapping at something on his phone screen. He looked up in surprise at the two of them as they approached.

  “What on earth?”

  “We had an incident,” Rowan replied.

  “I can see that. Quite the welcome there, sis.” Rob shook his head. “I’d give you a hug, but…”

  Her brother was tall and muscular. He wore a perpetually mischievous smile, and his personality matched the smile to perfection.

  “Why’d you bring him?” she asked, dipping her head in Rowan’s direction while she fished in her pocket for keys.

  “Nice manners,” Rowan replied.

  “Come on—it’s time to bury the hatchet. Don’t you think?” Rob said.

  She unlocked the door. “He humiliated me in front of the entire school. It’s not something you forget.”

  “It was twenty-five years ago,” Rowan objected. “You can’t still hold that against me.”

  He had a point. Perhaps it was time for her to let it go and move on. After all, they’d both been teenagers at the time, and she was ready to admit she’d done more than a few silly and thoughtless things as a teen. She’d decided to weed the drama out of her life lately, to become more mature and to grow as a person. She read somewhere that’s what people did in their forties, and since she’d passed the halfway mark in that decade, she figured it was time she took the plunge herself. “Fine, I suppose I can put it behind me. It was a long time ago.”

  “Finally. Thank you.” Rowan grinned. “Of course, now I’ll have this roll in the mud to hold over your head for the rest of time. Anyhoo, I’m going to head home and grab a shower and a change of clothes. Lovely to see you as always, Pen.”

  He gave a mock bow and walked away. Penny watched him go, agape. She never could think of a retort when Rowan was around. It was as though all the clever words floated right out of her head and there was only a big, wide blank space between her ears.

  “He still gets under your skin, I see,” Rob said.

  She shook her head. “Not at all. I’m perfectly at ease.”

  He laughed and leaned over to kiss the only clean spot on her forehead. “It’s good to see you again, sis. I’ve missed you.”

  Three

  There was one thing in Beatrice’s life that was working out the way she’d intended. Her marriage might have fallen apart, her children had left home, her boyfriend had broken up with her, but her brand-new business venture was taking shape, and a buzz of excitement sent her heart into a flutter any time she thought about it.

  The renovations on the café were going to plan. She loved the look of the place. It was attached to the side of Eveleigh’s Books, a small boutique bookshop run by one of her best high school friends. And with the addition of the café, they were both hoping business would boom. There was a decided lack of decent coffee on the island, and Bea intended to fill that gap.

  The bookshop was long and thin, with a set of stairs at the entrance. It was built in a style of timber that was reminiscent of old wooden docks, just as the attached café was. It’d been painted in blues and whites, with natural timber shining through in places as well. And there was an old ship’s wheel attached to the front of the shop. Bea wondered if it confused customers who were looking for books, but the bookshop seemed to do a roaring trade, so people must’ve found it without too much difficulty.

  Her contractor was almost finished, and Bea was helping out by oiling the hardwood bench in the newly renovated kitchen. She pushed her hair back behind her shoulders and sighed. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of her face beneath the scarf wrapped around her hair. The February heat was getting to Bea. She’d managed to survive an entire summer on the island with plenty of dips in the ocean and lots of evening walks along the beach in the ocean breeze, but the humidity the past week had been unbearable.

  “It’s looking good in here.” Eveleigh poked her head around a drop cloth separating the bookshop from the café. Her shiny red hair swung ahead of her shoulders, her fringe dangling across her large brown eyes. Usually she wore it in tight curls, today it was straight.

  “Thanks. I think so too. I’m really excited about how everything’s coming together.”

  “I’m making coffee. Would you like one?” Evie’s invitation came at the perfect time. Bea’s back ached, her knees were sore from squatting and bending so much, and her head was light since she’d forgotten to eat lunch.

  She wiped her hands on the apron around her waist and set down her paintbrush. “That would be great.”

  Bea followed Evie into the small kitchen behind the bookshop and sat at the round table while Evie got to work making coffees for both of them. There was a clean cloth draped over a cake in the centre of the table, and Evie pulled it back. “Hummingbird cake?”

  “Wow. You made this? It looks delicious.”

  “Thanks. I hope it is. It’s my grandmother’s recipe. One of the few things I make well.”

  Bea sliced two pieces and set them on mismatched china plates.

  Evie handed her a mug of steaming coffee with chocolate-sprinkled froth on top and sat opposite her with a sigh. “My feet hurt.”

  “How’s the bookshop today?” Bea took a bite of cake. The moist flavour burst across her tongue — pineapple, cinnamon and coconut.

  “Busy, which is good. But I’m trying to do some research at the same time, and it’s hard to concentrate with all those customers interrupting me constantly.”

  Bea laughed. “What are you researching?”

  “Those photos you had me develop. The fifty-year-old ones you and Dani found in the kitchen wall when you were renovating your cottage. I kept a copy of them for myself—I hope you don’t mind. And I’ve been trying to identify everyone in the images.” Evie’s dimples deepened as she spoke.

  “Wow. I didn’t realise you were doing that. I think it’s a great idea. Have you had any luck?”

  “Actually, I have. You know how we figured that it was Penny’s beach house in the photos?”

  Bea nodded, chewing.

  “Well, I decided to go back through every record I could find with photographs of her beach house and her family to see if I could identify the people in them. We already identified Rowan’s mum, June, so that made the job a little easier.”

  “I love this. It’s like you’re a spy or something.” Bea took a sip of coffee.

  Evie reached for an envelope, pulled the photographs out and laid them on the table. “So, in this one, we’ve got a whole lot of people — these are the ones I’ve identified so far. This is June Clements. This stern-looking woman is her mother. I’m not sure who these people are, but this man seems to be Rowan’s dad.”

  “Oh, and that other lady is Penny’s mother, I think. At least, that’s what Penny said, although she’s much younger than the last time I saw her. And the woman behind her is Penny’s grandmother, but I never knew her. She died when we were all very young.”

  “She was murdered, right?”

  Bea’s nose wrinkled. “Yep, but I can’t recall any of the details. We were so young, and Penny never talks about her.”

  “I’m going to the library later to see if I can find some resources — maybe an old newspaper article or something.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Bea finished her cup of coffee. “I could use a distraction.”

  “How’re things going with Aidan?”

  She shrugged. “He wants us to take some time apart.”

  “Already?”

  “Yep. Says he needs to spend the time getting to know his daughter and he can’t give our relationship the attention it deserves.”

  Evie grimaced. “Oh, I’m sorry, honey.”

  “It’s fine—we were moving too quickly anyway. I wasn’t ready for the kind of relationship he wanted.”

  “So, maybe it’s for the best?” Evie squeezed her shoulder.

  “Maybe, but it still hurts.”

  “There’s a chance you’ll be able to work things out, though.”

  Bea sighed. “I hope so. The more time we spend apart, the more I realise how much I care about him. It’s funny—before he broke things off, I was so cautious about moving forward and wanted to make sure I was ready so I wouldn’t hurt him. But every day that we’re apart, it’s like there’s this wound that’s opened up inside me and it aches more and more.”

 

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