He sighed. ‘I don’t hate it.’
His father’s mouth flattened into a hard line. ‘Could have fooled me. You stayed away long enough.’
And just like that, they were back to the circular argument that had dogged them for eighteen years. He could have said, I’m here now, but that would only remind his father of the reason why, which was like throwing a lit match onto a petrol spill. He changed the subject to something neutral. ‘Who lives next door?’
Mario grunted, the sound derogatory. ‘Weekenders.’
The locals had a love/hate relationship with the holidaymakers who flooded the island each year from December until Easter. There was no doubt the money the tourists poured into the economy helped keep the island’s businesses alive but that money came with city attitudes, which frequently scraped up against country sensibilities. A community needed more than money to thrive and apart from the surf lifesaving club, the holiday home owners didn’t usually get involved.
‘They’re not doing a very good job at being weekenders, then,’ Raf said wryly. ‘I’ve been here a few weeks and I haven’t seen them once.’
‘Probably too busy working to pay for that house. You know your cousin Rocco made a pile of cash building and selling it.’
His father rose laboriously and Raf held himself back from rushing forward to help. The staff at the rehabilitation centre had been firm that he should wait for Mario to ask if he needed assistance. It was logical on paper but in reality it meant by the time Mario asked for help he was furious at himself for failing and, by default, furious at Raf for being the one there to help. The role of a carer was a catch-22 situation, no matter which angle he viewed it from.
His father walked slowly to the kitchen. Although Mario no longer skippered his boat, the habits of a lifetime were hard to shake. At three o’clock each afternoon he made coffee and listened to the detailed coastal weather report as if he still had to make the decision about whether or not to navigate across the treacherous bar and enter Bass Strait.
With Mario occupied, Raf usually took this time to go for a run and as he turned away from the window the soft drone of an engine snagged his attention. He looked back. A silver BMW four-wheel drive was pulling into the neighbours’ driveway. The tinted windows made it impossible to see how many occupants were in the vehicle but given the style and make of the car he thought it a pretty safe bet there’d be two adults and at least two children. The perfect nuclear family to match the beautiful house.
A ripple of sadness and disappointment rolled through him and he immediately threw it off. He had more than enough money to live his life as he pleased. He had nothing to be sad about.
He glimpsed a flash of blond hair as the driver’s door opened. ‘Yes!’ His prediction was on the money—make that a blond-haired, blue-eyed family.
‘What?’ Mario yelled from the kitchen.
‘Your neighbours have arrived.’
Mario didn’t bother to reply—the weather report took precedence over weekenders—but Raf stayed at the window to see if the rest of his conjectures would be accurate.
The driver stepped out from around the door and surprise shot through him. It wasn’t a blond man but a woman. A very pregnant woman wearing large, dark sunglasses that hid half her face. She arched her back as if she’d been driving for a long time without a break and the clingy top she wore stretched over her full, round breasts and fecund belly.
Lush. So lush, so beautiful. The words pinged unbidden into Raf’s mind and he gave himself a shake. Hell, what was wrong with him? It was one thing for a bloke to think a woman pregnant with his own child was sexy. He was certain that thinking that about a pregnant stranger was totally wrong.
No one else had alighted from the car. Had she just come with the kids? He waited for her to open the rear passenger doors but instead she turned so her back faced him. With her left arm akimbo, he assumed she was stroking her pregnant belly. Her head tilted back and her hair swung against her shoulders as she stared up at the house, looking at it as if it was a tall mountain she had to climb.
Why would you think that? More to the point, why are you even watching her? You’re not that creepy guy who stares out of windows at people.
He rubbed his face with his hands. Exactly how small had his world become over the last few weeks if he was looking out a window and imagining things about a pregnant woman he’d never met. He really needed to get out of the house and talk to someone other than his father.
He dropped his hands from his face and saw she was still standing and staring at the door. Suddenly her shoulders rolled back, forming a rigid, determined line, and she marched up to the door and inserted the key. The door swung open and a moment later it closed behind her.
Raf had the ridiculous urge to follow her inside.
‘Hello.’
The deep, male voice pulled Meredith’s attention away from the horizon. She had no clue how long she’d been standing in the dunes, staring out to sea, but it had probably been a while.
In the three weeks since Richard’s death she’d lurched from focused, rapid decision-making to being lost in a miasma of grief. Four days ago she’d escaped Melbourne, coming to the island for a much-needed change of scenery. Each day she walked along the beach early in the morning and again in the afternoon, welcoming the whip and sting of the salt-laden wind. The exercise was supposed to help her sleep but the baby and her grief had other ideas.
She turned her head towards the source of the voice. A tall, dark-haired man with tight, curly hair peppered with grey stood jogging on the spot on the beach just below her. She’d seen him from a distance every afternoon. Like her, he seemed to come to the beach at this time every day, no matter the weather. She felt her cheeks stretch minutely as she tried to muster a smile. ‘Hello.’
In contrast, his wide, full mouth curved upwards into a friendly grin, sending dimples swirling into his dark stubble-covered cheeks. ‘Everything okay?’
Not even close. But she wasn’t going there. She’d spent days contacting everyone from the internet service provider to the bank, requesting that Richard’s name be removed from the account. There were still organisations that needed to be told but she wanted a whole day off from saying, My husband died. She was worn out with having to deal with the sympathy of the person on the other end of the line or, in one situation, counselling the call-centre woman who was also recently bereaved.
‘There’s something hypnotic about the waves,’ she said. ‘I lose hours, watching them.’
He nodded as if he understood and ran his hand across his forehead, preventing a trickle of sweat from running into his chestnut-brown eyes. ‘You could do it from the windfree comfort of your home.’
A spike of unease washed through her. How did he know where she lived?
‘We’re neighbours,’ he said quickly, as if realising he needed to reassure her that he hadn’t been stalking her. ‘I’m Raf Camilleri.’
‘Oh,’ she said, her sluggish brain trying to make connections. ‘Is the street named after you?’
‘No. It’s named after my nonno, who paid for the road to be sealed. He was very proud that it was the first sealed road on the island.’ His smile became wry. ‘I think he took it as a tangible sign that he’d made good in his adopted country after the war.’
She extended her arm out behind her to encompass the row of houses further along the beach. ‘So the Camilleris own a lot of this land?’
‘Once, but not any more. Over the years it’s been sold or gifted to family. Today it’s prime real estate and my cousins are busy selling lots to holidaymakers so they can build their dream holiday homes.’
She remembered exactly when she and Richard had driven past number