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Milla’s hair was different, though. Pale red-gold, with a tendency to curl, the way it had been when Ed had first met her, before she’d had it straightened and dyed blond to fit in with the other wives in Harry’s LA set.
‘OK,’ he growled, his throat unaccountably tight. ‘That’s helpful. I see you’ve sent an address, as well.’
‘Yeah. She’s staying at the Bellaroo pub. Booked in for a week, but I’m guessing she might think twice about staying that long. It’s so dead here, she could get jack of the place and shoot through any tick of the clock.’
‘Right. Thanks for the update. Keep an eye on her and keep me posted re her movements.’
‘No worries, Mr C.’
Ed hung up and went through to his PA’s desk. ‘We’ve found her.’
Sarah looked unexpectedly delighted. ‘That’s wonderful, Mr Cavanaugh. Does that mean Milla’s still in Australia? Is she OK?’
‘Yes on both counts. But it means I’m going to have to fly down there pronto. I’ll need you to reschedule the meetings with Cleaver Holdings.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Several people won’t be happy, but that’s too bad. Dan Brookes will have to handle their complaints and he can run any other meetings in my absence. I’ll brief him as soon as he’s free. Meantime, I want you to book me on the earliest possible flight to Sydney. And I’ll want a hire car ready to go.’
‘Of course.’
‘And can you ring Caro Marsden? Let her know I’ll be out of the country for a few days.’
To his surprise Sarah, his normally respectful PA, narrowed her eyes at him in an uncharacteristic challenge. ‘Ed,’ she said, which was a bad start. Sarah rarely used his given name. ‘You’ve been dating the poor woman for four months. Don’t you think you should—’
‘All right, all right,’ he snapped through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll call her.’
* * *
Sarah was watching him with a thoughtful frown. ‘I guess you’re going to break the news to Milla about your brother?’
‘Among other things.’ Ed eased the sudden tightness of his collar. His younger brother’s death in a plane crash and the subsequent funeral were still fresh and raw. The loss had hit him so much harder than he’d imagined possible.
‘The poor woman,’ Sarah said now.
‘Yeah,’ Ed responded softly...remembering...and wondering...
Almost immediately, he gave an irritated shrug, annoyed by the unwanted pull of his emotions. ‘Don’t forget, it was Milla who cut and ran,’ he said tersely.
Not only that. She kept her pregnancy a secret from the family. Which was the prime reason he had to find her now.
‘I know Milla’s persona non grata around here,’ Sarah said. ‘But I always thought she seemed very nice.’
Sure you did, Ed thought with a sigh. That was the problem. The woman had always been a total enigma.
* * *
It was weird to be back. It had been twelve long years...
Milla drove her little hire car over a bumpy wooden bridge and took the next turn left onto a dirt track. As she opened the farm gates she saw a large rustic letterbox with the owners’ names—BJ and HA Murray—painted in white.
She hadn’t seen her old school friends, Brad and Heidi, since she’d left town when she was twenty, dead eager to shake the district’s dust from her heels and to travel the world. Back then, she’d been determined to broaden her horizons and to discover her hidden potential, to work out what she really wanted from life.
Meanwhile Heidi, her best friend, had stayed here in this quiet old backwater. Worse, Heidi had made the deadly serious mistake of marrying a local boy, an error of judgement the girls had decreed in high school would be a fate worse than death.
Shoot me now, they used to say at the very thought. They’d been sixteen then. Sixteen and super confident that the world was their oyster, and quite certain that it was vitally important to escape Bellaroo Creek.
Unfortunately, Heidi had changed her mind and she’d become engaged to Brad only a matter of months after Milla had left town.
But although poor old Heidi had stayed, it was clear that many others had found it necessary to get away. These days Bellaroo Creek was practically a ghost town.
This discovery had been a bit of a shock. Milla had hoped that a trip to her hometown would cheer her up. Instead, she’d been depressed all over again when she’d walked down the main street and discovered that almost all the businesses and shops had closed down.
Where were the cars and people? Where were the farmers standing on street corners, thumbs hooked in belt loops as they discussed the weather and the wool prices? Where were the youngsters who used to hang around the bakery or the hamburger joint? The young mums who brought their babies to the clinic, their children to the library?
Bellaroo Creek was nothing like the busy, friendly country town of her childhood. The general store was now a supermarket combined with a newsagent’s and a tiny post office—and that was just about it.
Even the bakery Milla’s parents used to own was now boarded-up and empty. Milla had stood for ages outside the shopfront she’d once known so well, staring glumly through the dusty, grimy windows into the darkened interior.
From as far back as she could remember the Bellaroo bakery had been a bustling, busy place, filled with cheery customers, and with the fragrant aroma of freshly baked bread. People had flocked from miles around to buy her dad’s mouth-watering loaves made from local wheat, or his delicious rolls and shiny-topped fruit buns, as well as her mum’s legendary pies.
Her parents had sold the business when they retired, and in the short time since it had come to this...an empty, grimy shop with a faded, printed sign inside the dusty window offering the place for lease. Again.
Who would want it?
Looking around at the other vacant shopfronts, Milla had been totally disheartened. She’d driven from Sydney to Bellaroo Creek on a nostalgic whim, but instead she’d found a place on the brink of extinction...
It seemed the universe was presenting her with yet another dismal picture of failure.
It was so depressing...
Poor Heidi must be going mental living here, Milla decided as she drove down the winding dirt track between paddocks of pale, biscuit-coloured grass dotted with fat, creamy sheep. At least Heidi was still married to Brad and had two kids, a boy and a girl—which sounded fine on the surface, but Milla couldn’t believe her old friend was really happy.
Admittedly, her contact with Heidi had been patchy—the occasional email or Facebook message, the odd Christmas card...
She’d felt quite tentative, almost fearful when she’d plucked up the courage to telephone Heidi, and she’d been rather surprised that her friend had sounded just as bright and bubbly as she had in her teens.
‘Come for lunch,’ Heidi had gushed after the initial excited squeal over the phone. ‘Better still, come for morning tea and stay for lunch. That way you’ll catch up with Brad when he comes in around twelve, and we can have plenty of time for a really good chat. I want to hear everything.’
Milla wasn’t particularly looking forward to sharing too many details of her personal history, but she was keen to see Heidi again. Curious now, too, as the track dipped to a concrete ford that crossed a small, shady creek.
As her tyres splashed through the shallow water she imagined Heidi and Brad’s children playing in the creek when they were older. She edged the car up the opposite bank and rounded a corner, and saw her first view of the farmhouse.
Which wasn’t grand by any means—just a simple white weatherboard house with verandahs and a red roof—but it was shaded by a big old spreading tree and there were well-tended flowerbeds set in neat lawns, a vegetable garden with trellises at one end and free-ranging, rusty-feathered chickens.
Her friend’s home was a far cry from the acres of expensive glass and white marble of Milla and Harry’s Beverly Hills mansion...
And yet, something about the house’s old-fashioned, rustic simplicity touched an unexpected chord in Milla.
No need to get sentimental, she warned herself as she drove forward.
Before she’d parked the car, the front door opened, spilling puppies and a rosy-cheeked little girl. Heidi followed close behind, waving and grinning as she hurried down the steps and across the lawn. As Milla clambered out she found herself enveloped in the warmest of welcoming hugs.
After weeks of loneliness, she was fighting tears.
* * *
Ed had tried to ring his father several times, but the arrogant old man had a habit of ignoring phone calls if he wasn’t in a sociable mood. Which happened quite often, and went part-way to explaining Gerry Cavanaugh’s multiple marriages and divorces and why his three sons had been born to three different wives, who now lived as far apart from each other as possible.
Today, when Gerry finally deigned to return his son’s call, Ed was in the Business Lounge at JFK, sending last-minute business emails.
‘Glad to hear you’ve tracked Milla down.’ His father always jumped in without any preliminaries. ‘And you know what you have to do when you catch up with her, don’t you, Ed?’
‘Well...sure. I’ll tell her about Harry.’
‘If she doesn’t already know.’
Ed was quite sure Milla couldn’t know that Harry had died. Even though she’d run away, she would have been upset. She would have contacted them if she’d heard, and come back for the funeral.
‘And I’ll set up the trust fund for the baby,’ he went on. ‘Make sure Milla signs the necessary papers.’
‘That’s not all, damn it.’
Ed sighed. What else had his old man up his sleeve?
‘Your main job is to bring the woman home.’
‘Home?’ This was news to Ed. ‘Don’t forget Milla was born and bred in Australia, Father. And she still calls Australia home,’ he added with a grim smile at his joking reference to the popular song.
‘Like hell. My grandson will be born in America.’
‘What are you suggesting? That I kidnap a pregnant woman? You want extradition orders placed on your pregnant daughter-in-law?’
His father ignored this. ‘You’ll find a way to persuade her. You’re a Cavanaugh. You have a knack with women.’
Not with this particular woman. Ed squashed unsettling memories before they could take hold. ‘Just remember, Father. Milla ran away from Harry and from our family. It’s obvious she wants as much distance between us as possible. She’s unlikely to come back willingly.’
‘Trust me, son, as soon as she hears she’s a widow, she’ll be back here in a flash. Of course, she won’t get a goddamn cent of Harry’s money unless she lets us raise the child as a Cavanaugh, as my grandchild.’
‘Got it...’ responded Ed dispiritedly. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
His offer was received with an expressive grunt that conveyed the full brunt of his father’s doubts and displeasure.
Ed gritted his teeth. ‘Anyway...I’ve briefed Dan Brookes and everything’s in hand as far as the business is concerned, so I guess I’ll see you in a couple of days.’
Ending the call, Ed sat staring bleakly through the wall of windows, watching the busy tarmac and the endless streams of planes taking off and landing.
He wasn’t looking forward to the long, twenty-hour flight, but he was looking forward even less to the task that lay ahead of him. After all, Milla had returned to Australia because she’d planned to divorce Harry, and she’d clearly been so disenchanted with the Cavanaughs that she hadn’t told them about her pregnancy.
It was only while Ed and his father were going through the painful process of sorting through Harry’s paperwork that they’d discovered the medical forms.
Slam!
A small missile crashed into Ed, sending his BlackBerry flying. Rascal-faced yet cherubic, a little boy looked up at him with enormous and cheeky blue eyes that peeped from beneath a white-blond fringe.
‘What’s your name?’ the kid lisped cutely as he gripped at Ed’s trouser leg for balance.
‘Ethan!’ A woman dived from the right, sweeping the child into her arms. ‘So sorry,’ she told Ed, her eyes widening with horror as she saw her son’s sticky, chocolate-smeared fingers and the tracks he’d left on Ed’s Italian suit trousers.
The kid squirmed in his mom’s arms, as if he sensed that his fun was about to end. And Ed couldn’t help remembering Harry as an ankle-biter.
For ages after the woman and her boy disappeared, Ed sat, thinking about his younger brother. Milla’s unborn baby would probably be just like that kid—an angelic rascal, full of mischief and charm, stealing hearts and creating havoc. Another Cavanaugh...a new generation.
Memories washed over him as they had many times in the past few weeks. Growing up with different mothers, he and Harry hadn’t spent a lot of time in each other’s company, but his younger brother had always been the wild child, the prankster, the kid who hadn’t done his homework, but still passed his exams with good grades.
As an adult, Harry had wasted his talents on gambling and flying his private jet and he’d contributed almost nothing to the family firm. And yet, they’d all loved him. Despite his faults, the guy had been a born charmer.
Ed was the conscientious son, the hardworking eldest, the one who’d carried on the family’s business so that all the others could continue to live in the manner to which they’d become accustomed.
Admittedly, their youngest brother, Charlie, the son of Gerry Cavanaugh’s third wife, was still in college. He was a good student, from all reports, more serious and focused, more like Ed. But they’d both known that Harry had always been the Golden Child, their father’s favourite, and Harry’s son would be the apple of his grandfather’s eye.
Ed would have to deal with the full force of his father’s wrath if he failed to bring Milla and her unborn baby home.
* * *
Sitting at Heidi’s scrubbed pine table, drinking coffee and talking nineteen to the dozen, Milla made a surprising discovery. She felt calmer and happier than she had in...ages...
Looking around at Heidi’s honey-toned timber cupboards and simple open shelving, at the jars of homemade preserves and pots of herbs on the window sill, she realised that she’d completely forgotten how very comforting a farmhouse kitchen could be.
This room had such a timeless and welcoming quality with its huge old stove pumping out gentle warmth, with Heidi’s home-baked cookies on a willow-pattern plate...a yellow jug filled with bottlebrush flowers...dog and cat bowls in the corner...
It brought to mind Milla’s childhood here in Bellaroo Creek. She’d been happy back then.
Chatting with Heidi was so very different from socialising in LA, where the women’s conversations had been more like competitions, and the topics centred on shopping, facials, pedicures, or gossip about affairs.
Heidi simply talked about her family, who were clearly the centre of her world. She told Milla about Brad’s farming innovations with the same pride she displayed when she mentioned her son’s success in his first year at school or her little daughter’s playful antics.
The conversation should have been boring, but Milla found to her surprise that she was fascinated.
It was all a bit puzzling... Heidi’s hair was still exactly the same as it had been in high school—straight, shoulder length and mousey brown. She spent her days working on the farm with Brad and growing vegetables and raising chickens, which meant she lived in jeans and cotton shirts and sturdy boots.
She had freckles and a few lines around her eyes, and her hands were roughened, her fingernails chipped. But Milla, looking at her friend, knew she was as happy as a pig in the proverbial...
‘I’m doing exactly what I want to do,’ Heidi happily confessed. ‘Maybe I’m totally lacking in ambition, but I don’t want to do anything else. And it might sound crazy, but I don’t have any doubts.’
This was a major surprise, but to her even greater surprise Milla found herself opening up to Heidi telling how she’d clocked many, many miles and tried a ton of different jobs in exotic locations, until eventually, she’d arrived in America and fallen head over heels for a charming and handsome multimillionaire adventurer, who had, incredibly, asked her to marry him.
She told how those first years of her marriage had been such a heady time. Harry had so many celebrity friends in his social circle and he’d flown his own plane. ‘He used to fly me to Paris for a dinner and a show, or to Milan to buy a dress I could wear to the Oscars.’
