Home For Christmas by Fiona Greene

Author:Fiona Greene [Greene, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Layla’s stomach threatened to eject her breakfast in the garden bed as she took the shallow homestead steps two at a time, not even stopping to kick her boots off before she raced into the kitchen and fired up the computer.

Was it Tate?

She dragged her hand through her hair and cursed. ‘Come on, you useless thing, load.’ The first radio reports of an attack on an Aussie base in Afghanistan had come in at seven, and despite switching to a news station and haunting the radio all morning, she still didn’t even know if it was Tate’s unit.

The homepage for the Lavarack base in Townsville wouldn’t load. She flipped across and tried the Department of Defence. ‘Damn.’ Same story. Too many people trying to get information, and they’d crashed the servers. In desperation, she searched the news sites.

She clicked into a reputable newspaper and read aloud. ‘An Australian Army Base in Tarin Kowt has been targeted by rogue gunmen, and one Australian soldier is confirmed dead, with another two personnel suffering serious injury. The injured soldiers are being evacuated to a military hospital in Switzerland. No details of the deceased will be released until the next of kin are notified.’

No, no, no.

She closed the report and selected the next story in the list. And the next. And the next. It was the same report, over and over. Tears blurred her vision and she sat back from the computer and pushed her fists into her eyes.

‘Tate is alive. Tate is alive.’ Whisky wandered over and sat at her feet. ‘He has to be. I’d know if he wasn’t.’ She spread her shaking hands on the table and rubbed the goose bumps on her arms. So many times her mother had drummed it into her. Don’t join the armed forces, don’t join the reserves, and most importantly, don’t marry a soldier. The older woman had known the trouble it could bring. Hadn’t she made her father give up his career because of her never-ending fear that one day he wouldn’t be coming home?

Her phone shrilled in the silence and she pounced on it.

‘Layla, it’s Carise. Have you seen the news?’

She’d been holding her breath. She released it slowly. ‘Hi, Carise. Yes, I have but I don’t know anything more than you.’

‘Oh.’ Carise paused. ‘Oh,’ she repeated. ‘Well, I’m sure it wasn’t Tate’s base. I doubt there are even Australians involved. There are all sorts of troops stationed over there. US forces, British…’ She trailed off. ‘I’d better let you go in case he is and they’re trying to ring. I hope he’s alright.’

Layla clenched and unclenched the hand not holding the phone. ‘Thanks for ringing. I’ll let you know the moment I hear anything.’ She disconnected the call and pushed to her feet. The army weren’t going to ring her. Tate’s mother, if they notified her, wasn’t going to ring her. His mother didn’t even know she existed. She paced over to the sink, then back to the computer, her gut churning.

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