but definitely tanned shoulders.
‘Geez! You scared the pants off me! I didn’t hear the bell. I thought it was the Rivermont ghost and the dogs were after him. Oh, hello,’ Yazzie added when she noticed the boys behind Rebecca. ‘Tell Wesley and Ruby to go away if they’re annoying you, boys. But they are very friendly dogs! They love children.’
She barely glanced up at Rebecca, continuing with her bright monologue. ‘Are you as hungover as me? I tried working my horse, but no good. No good. And those tans! Mine is so bad … I look like a caramel slice. Can you believe we did that?’ she said, lifting the hem of her already short dress. ‘Ah! I see you’ve brought back my nightie.’ She took the bag from Rebecca’s hands. ‘Thanks. I suppose you washed it,’ she giggled, ‘I expect you did. There’s nothing of it so it takes no time to dry. So tell me, did it work with your Charlie? Will there be another little farmer for Waters Meeting in nine months’ time?’
‘Yes, I did wash it,’ Rebecca said, finally able to get a word in. ‘And … no. No babies. Charlie’s not capable. You know … he’s had the snip …’ stammered Rebecca.
Yazzie was about to giggle some more, but her face clouded with concern as she noted the strain in Rebecca’s voice, then fully took in the sight of her red-rimmed eyes and hunched shoulders. ‘Oh, Rebecca. God, sorry, I’m gibbering. What’s up? Tell me. What’s happened?’
‘It’s Charlie … It’s …’ Rebecca cut herself off, looking at the boys. Sensing their mother’s upset, they were sidling closer to her, Archie putting his little hands about her legs and burying his face in her thigh. She stooped and swooped him up in her arms.
‘Come in,’ Yazzie said gently. ‘Boys, would you like a milkshake? Yazzie makes the best milkshakes! With blueberries. I’m Yazzie Stanton, by the way. I’m new here. What’re your names?’ she asked, glancing over her shoulder at them, laying a caring hand on Bec’s shoulder as she ushered them into a grand entranceway.
As Yazzie got busy making milkshakes, Ben and Archie gazed at the giant house with gobsmacked expressions on their faces. Their eyes kept tracking back to the beautiful, friendly lady. A huge black-and-white French Provincial clock ticked quietly on a stone wall in the kitchen. Giant white lilies in a clear glass vase sat on a simple wooden dresser. Striking artwork of a galloping horse, created by swathes of black dribbling paint, hung on a pure white wall. A long wooden kitchen table that had enough seats to host the entire Australian cricket team was decorated with summertime flowers arranged Country Style in a glass bowl beside a white china bowl filled with lemons. The dogs still hovered, dropping chewed teddy bears and slobbery balls at Archie’s and Ben’s feet.
Rebecca perched on a stool at the kitchen bench. Yazzie had plonked a box of Kleenex near her and Bec was now gradually making a small pile of scrunched tissues in front of her like a wedding-day meringue as uncontrollable tears silently slid down her cheeks. She fixed what she hoped was a smile on her face so the boys wouldn’t notice her distress. The blender roared as blueberries were mushed into milk and ice-cream.
Soon Yazzie settled Ben and Archie outside with their drinks in a shaded, picture-perfect courtyard beside a fenced swimming pool, the dogs lying panting at their feet, waiting for the ball action to commence. Bec watched them sadly from behind the white wooden wall-to-ceiling bi-fold doors that made up one entire side of the kitchen.
Inside, after Bec had hastily sketched out her story, Yazzie ushered her to one end of the monumental table and they both sat staring at the now silent iPhone that lay between them. They eyed it with suspicion, as if the thing would come to life and jump up and bite them. It had already bitten Rebecca today, savagely.
‘Are you sure it was him on the video call? Could he have lent his phone to someone else today?’
‘I’m sure it was him. He accidentally called me too and the phone went to message bank. Listen.’
Yazzie’s eyes lit up. ‘No, don’t play it!’ But it was too late. The kitchen filled with the muffled moanings. Rebecca let the recording play longer and suddenly the voice of Charlie said, ‘You wanna play tennis? Do you? Huh?’ Then there were some scuffling sounds and a woman began to moan, ‘Oh yes. Oh, Charlie!’
‘Yuck! Turn it off!’ Yazzie said, grappling for the phone. They sat staring at it once more until she eventually spoke again. ‘Maybe he was just tossing off. You know, blokes do. They are, after all, most of them, just apes. Wankers, quite literally.’
‘Yuck. No. You heard. There was a woman there.’
‘Maybe they were actually playing tennis and it was a really hard game?’
Bec shot Yazzie a look.
‘Sorry.’ She passed Bec another tissue. ‘Did you see on the video call what she looked like?’
Bec shrugged and wiped her nose. ‘I don’t know. Does it matter who?’
‘What are you going to do?’
She hunched her shoulders up and down, then hung her head and devastation swamped her. Life as she knew it had just ended forever. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’
Outside Sol Stanton pulled into the garage and collected a giant box of groceries from the back of his Kluger. He whistled to let the dogs know he was home, but already he could hear them barking from the other side of the house. There was a strange vehicle in the drive, and he wondered which local had dropped in with some trivial excuse for a sticky beak. Yazzie had often complained in her emails of the fine balance between building their dream and not offending ‘the natives’.
As he went to the back door, Sol almost dropped the box; he swore in Spanish, as was his habit. He was having trouble adjusting to the time zones. He’d woken far too early, his body clock still geared to the Northern Hemisphere, and now the day was dragging. He still had the seminar evening to get through tonight and badly needed a coffee.
He thought briefly of the trouble he’d left behind in Paris. The delicate lead violinist with her shocking English but sexy accent screaming at him and hurling a bunch of flowers. Her extreme Italian behaviour was a parody of itself and even though at the time Sol was laughing on the inside at the clichéd Mediterranean tantrum, he also could feel her pain. Not so much the pain of his leaving, and his going home to Australia, but the pain caused by his indifference to her.
He had bedded so many women like her. Ones he could be indifferent to. Ones who left his heart still closed off and hard like a stone. The European orchestra scene was far too abundant with women who were both beautiful and volatile. Maybe it was time to settle down? He decided there and then, as he leaned the box against the door and grappled for the doorknob, that he ought to go on the fidelity wagon for a time.
Settle back into a domestic existence. Just him and Yazzie. He was looking forward to at least six months in Australia if his workload would allow, mostly based at Bendoorin, working to get the racing stables up and running. It was just the thing he needed.
No more women, he vowed.
Sol at last swung the kitchen door open and walked in juggling the giant box of groceries. He stopped momentarily when he saw a pretty and curvaceous blonde woman at the table. He couldn’t stop his eyes running over her tight jeans and the slightly torn, checked blue cowgirl shirt that hugged her curves. Pearl press-stud buttons nearly popped at her breast line and her décolletage was tanned deeply. So different from the thin pale Italian girl he had recently bedded. There was something about her … Then he realised with a start that it was the same woman he’d met the night before.
In the light of the kitchen, even with Yazzie’s terrible spray tan blotching the woman’s skin and no makeup, she looked prettier than he’d remembered. One of those natural earthy types, he concluded. And such blue eyes! Eyes that had been crying. There was no vanity in her as she stared back at him. A contrast to his Parisian orchestra women, all dolled up, looking stunning, but with ice-cold agendas inside them. Ones who still tried to look attractive even when they cried. He knew the women played him for his wealth and connections ahead