Stone Castles by Trish Morey

Author:Trish Morey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2014-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

The mood was sullen on the way to the farm and Luke didn’t feel inclined to brighten it up any. His passenger was busy staring out her window and he was content to let her have at it. He had other stuff on his mind.

Like that night fifteen years ago when he’d met her at the stone mounds and spread a rug on the ground and opened a cheap bottle of fizz and they’d made love under a blanket of stars. That night when he’d asked her to marry him and she’d told him yes, and that she’d turn down the scholarship to Sydney University and go to Adelaide Uni instead so they would still have every weekend and every holiday together.

The stars had twinkled in the night sky above and the leaves had rustled on the trees and her skin had glowed silver under the light of the moon and stars, and the world had been a perfect place for a short time, until she’d called him in the early hours and told him that the police were at the house and begged him to come over.

But she’d still been his then.

He’d been her rock, she’d told him, dropping her off and picking her up from the hospital. He’d been her anchor in a world gone mad. She’d held on to her ailing gran and he’d held onto her, and he’d got her through the worst week of her life.

He was going to be her anchor forever. That’s what he’d thought. Despite all the changes in her life, despite the losses, he’d still be there, holding her hand.

Until that dark day she’d confronted him after the wake. Luke hadn’t wanted to leave early but his dad had wanted to get some work done before dark because there was rain coming and he’d promised he’d go around after they were done. But the skies had opened up before they’d finished and his dad was cursing up a storm and Pip had turned up in the middle of it after walking across the sodden paddocks with her T-shirt and shorts clinging to her and mascara streaming down her face. At first he’d blamed himself for leaving her, until he’d wrapped her in towels and sat her down on the old leather sofa in the shed and she’d told him what she’d heard.

And then he’d cradled her in his arms and listened as she’d shivered and poured out her shock and her despair and her helplessness and her tears. He remembered nodding as he’d held her, before he’d uttered those two stupid words.

‘I know.’

‘What do you mean, you know?’

‘Not a lot. I just overheard someone talking once.’

‘Who?’

‘Does it matter? It was a long time ago and I wasn’t even sure I’d heard right.’

‘And you didn’t think, in all the years we’ve known each other, to tell me? You didn’t think that the girl you professed to love might be interested to hear that snippet?’

Before he knew what hit him, she’d turned from a sobbing mess of grief to a blonde ball of rage and all he knew was that he was the baddie.

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