The Homestead Girls by Fiona McArthur

Author:Fiona McArthur
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781760140366
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2015-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

Three days later Billie felt Lorna’s gaze drift over her at breakfast and she wasn’t sure she liked her calculating expression. ‘I noticed you got home late last night.’ There was a definite sparkle to the statement.

Billie shook her head. ‘I worked late, thank you very much. Doing Flying Doctor stuff.’

Lorna sat back. ‘Oh. I hope everyone is all right.’

‘Everyone’s okay in the end. They’ll all feel better this morning.’

‘Here I was thinking you were finally spending time with a bit of male company.’

Billie tried hard not to let her face show how close to home that remark had fallen. She’d been thinking the same thing herself lately. Had actually woken this morning with some very vivid dreams. That was a first. She didn’t even want to think about hot thoughts like that. Certainly not in front of Lorna. Instead she said, ‘And here’s me thinking you were a nice, genteel lady.’

Lorna snorted again. ‘Well look at you.’ Lorna nodded her head. ‘Young, beautiful, and a doctor. How come some man hasn’t snaffled you up?’

She lifted her chin. ‘Plenty have tried.’ They grinned at each other. ‘But seriously, I’m waiting until Mia’s finished school.’

Lorna shook her head. ‘What sort of crack-brained idea is that? Life is far too short for that nonsense.’ There was a bite to the last word. It seemed Lorna wasn’t having a bar of that excuse.

Billie sighed and decided maybe she was beginning to agree with Lorna. Maybe it was crack-brained to wait any longer to live life to the full. But she said the right thing. ‘My first responsibility is to my daughter. We don’t want to end up with a psycho for a step-dad.’ She heard the flatness in that statement and chewed her lip. It was too much to hope Lorna wouldn’t notice.

‘That sounds like prior experience.’ Lorna was peering at her through her new snazzy red glasses, which they’d encouraged her to buy when they’d all gone shopping with Daphne yesterday. She looked a little like Dame Edna. ‘Was Mia’s father a bad man?’

‘He started off nicely enough. I was still fragile from the loss of my parents and he said he was from a small town, too. He was flattering and funny and seemed larger than life. Big drinker. Big cars. Big laugh. My aunt hated him.’

‘Your aunt probably had more life experience to draw from.’

‘Well I was swept along by him until it started to go sour. He wasn’t nice—especially at the end. He threatened me when I said I was leaving him.’ She’d never told anyone that in seventeen years. And before then she’d only told her student advisory mentor about the threats when she’d changed universities to get away from him. And she had escaped. Then found out she was pregnant. And maybe it had made her too wary of men ever since.

‘A bad man.’ Lorna repeated and for a moment there she thought Lorna was actually going to spit the way her mouth pursed. ‘Does Mia know that?’

‘No.

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