The Truth About Faking It by Cassie Hamer

Author:Cassie Hamer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Pty Ltd
Published: 2022-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Natasha kicked off her sheet and stared at the ceiling fan. Too hot to sleep, though her mother was making a good fist of it, her chest rising and falling easily and unhurriedly. How had she managed to book them into a hotel without air conditioning? Wasn’t it mandatory on an island with year-round drenching humidity?

She sat up, swung her legs onto the tiles and let her feet absorb the cool. Her mother didn’t move. Good. A chance to be alone with her thoughts. Over and over she replayed that moment in the hospital when Dr Theeravit had calmly informed them of her father’s cremation and how she’d asked him to check and check again, until Ellen put a hand on her arm and told her to stop. In the taxi to the hotel they’d been silent, but it was a humid quiet, thick with guilt and grief. Natasha had mucked up. Inwardly, she berated herself. Why hadn’t she phoned to make sure that her father would still be there? She usually never left anything to chance. Ellen obviously blamed her, too. That uncharacteristic quiet was vintage silent treatment. But there was no need for her mother’s punishment. Natasha was doing a good job of that herself.

Her mother snored again and Natasha sighed. Ellen wasn’t overly troubled so why should she be? What’s done was done. There would be no final chance to farewell her father, kiss his forehead, squeeze his hand, send him gently to the next life and tell him she loved him, forgave him for the times he had not been there for her. Her eyes stung and she blinked quickly. Ugh. This kind of maudlin sentimentality would get her nowhere.

She threw on a light linen dress and her thongs and left the room, allowing the latch to lengthen slowly in the lock before it closed with a gentle click. Outside, the light was soft as feather down. She checked her emails—one from Ross, letting her know the lawyers were still fighting it out over the Marsh injunction. He’d update her if anything changed. She put the phone away and headed down the stairs and out into the street where a market was forming close to the beach and marina.

Five am on a Sunday and the street was already abuzz with signs of life and commerce: stalls being erected, fruit and veg unloaded. Walking slowly, she headed into the aisle of stalls from which mouth-watering smells were beginning to emerge. The scent from bushes and bushes of fresh herbs—mint, coriander and Thai basil—wafted into the steamy air. The stallholder—a wizened old woman—gave her a gap-toothed smile and Natasha returned it gratefully. Further on, past the aromatic fruit and veg, were the meat and seafood stalls: blush-pink cuts of pork and buckets and buckets of live fish. A Buddhist monk, swathed in tangerine-hued robes, lightly brushed past her and paused in front of a table where a man presented his offering of sweets and fresh coconut with a bow and a clasping of hands together in the universal prayer gesture.

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