Friday
FAITH FETHERSTONE TAPPED her watch as she stood under the meeting point for the Binimirr Underground Complex. Outside in the car park gravel scattered with a late arrival and the vehicle’s throaty rumble deepened then silenced as the newcomer pulled in and stopped. The butcher birds, previously revelling in the bush sunshine, ceased their song as a lone cloud passed over the sun and Faith shivered.
The caves kiosk, which held all the caving equipment as well as promoting the cave-themed mementos of the area, straddled the entrance to the labyrinth which stood tucked into the hill ten kilometres south of Lighthouse Bay.
Faith, today’s cave guide, tugged down her ‘Ultimate Caving Adventure’ T-shirt, which clung too tightly, and thought that perhaps her decision to tumble-dry it on hot when she was running late this morning had been less than wise.
She shrugged. It might stretch later and everyone would be looking at the caves not at her. She tucked away the hair that had escaped her ponytail to surreptitiously study the varied group of adults assembled inside the tourist shop, ready for her tour.
Dianne behind the cash register held up one finger. So, one still to arrive; hopefully that had been his car outside. So far her only concern seemed the quiet man in his twenties who chewed his nails and glanced towards the entrance to the caves with an intense frown. She’d watch for symptoms of claustrophobia down in the labyrinth.
The most striking group member at the moment had to be the thin, twinkling-eyed older gentleman in an iridescent orange buttoned shirt and matching shoes, an outfit that Faith thought just might glow in the dark once they turned out the lights.
Barney Burrows, proudly seventy years young, had caved in his youth, and chatted to the short, solid woman in her forties, while her two taller teenage sons conversed with a young backpacker couple.
The backpackers had smiling, animated faces and Eastern European accents but their excellent grasp of English reassured Faith they would understand her if she needed to give instructions fast.
Sudden movement at the door made Faith’s head turn, her welcome extinguished like a billy of water dumped on a campfire.
A dark-haired, well-muscled man with his haughty Roman nose angled her way loomed in the doorway. A full-lipped sensuous mouth, a mouth she’d never quite been able to forget, unfortunately, held a definite hint of hardness she’d not noticed the last time.
But that had been a long time ago. Those halcyon days had ended after that cryptic phone call from his family back across the world and had removed him from her side.
This man had sworn he could never, ever come back to Lighthouse Bay. Yet here he was. Returned? The prickle on her skin as his glance captured hers was a heated reminder of a limited infatuation of a few intense days, but mammoth proportions. Lordy, she’d been naive, about twenty, and he a worldly twenty-eight.
Almost six years ago.
Raimondo Salvanelli, here?
The man who’d orchestrated her personal Shakespearean tragedy and the guilty party who’d exited stage left to return to Italy and instantly marry another woman.
She might regret her infatuation but never, ever the consequences of the ribbon of time that had changed her life.
She’d even fairly rapidly come to terms with Raimondo’s inevitable absence, accepting they’d not been destined for happily ever after. Just an Italian doctor who didn’t practise as a doctor and an Australian midwife, passing in the night.
Actually, several nights.
He’d said he wasn’t coming back.
Um. So why was he here?
Worse, had he brought his Italian wife for the cave tour and she’d be right in behind him? No. She couldn’t see that happening. Besides, her boss had only held up one finger.
The slight hysteria in the last thought resolved and Faith lifted her chin.
She looked again—and accepted that her daughter’s father really had arrived and was going to be crawling around behind her in the dark for the next hour or so. Without any premonition on her part or warning on his. Excellent. Not.
To her disgust, she’d never found a man who could hold her attention quite so effortlessly. Apparently, that inevitable fascination was still the same.
An immense man, and harshly handsome, with that mouth she only remembered for its humorous and sexy slant. Now there was grimness—which, unfairly, didn’t detract from the picture as much as it should—hence the reason to watch him with the wary fascination she’d have if he were a magnificently coloured red-bellied black snake on a bush path.
Apart from his dark, dark eyes and his way too sexy lips she could see her daughter in him, something she’d always wondered about and a fact that perusal of the newspaper photographs had hidden.
Chloe’s dad was here. Holy freakin’ cow. And why now?
What did this mean for Chloe? Or Faith?
What made Raimondo present today when he hadn’t responded when she’d written of her pregnancy?
He had been equally silent to her brief note after Chloe’s birth. No reply by mail or any form of correspondence. Not even to enquire if they were both well, which had shown a coldness she hadn’t predicted.
Well, the silence had been unexpected but understood. Sort of. After that phone call from his brother that had ended everything, Raimondo had announced he’d been going home to marry another woman. Hence the never coming back. Or responding to mail either, apparently.
Yet she’d planned to send another note when Chloe started school next year. And perhaps another when her daughter began her senior years.
She’d fought against allowing his disregard to inflame her because she should still pave the way if Chloe wished to pursue meeting her father in the future.
This had never been about Faith—it was about Chloe.
All about Chloe.
But now he was here. Raimondo’s dark eyes travelled slowly over her and, surprisingly, they narrowed, as did his mouth. Even as the eternal optimist, Faith could see something was wrong.
Well, whatever it was, she knew it wasn’t her fault. She lifted her chin higher.
The possible implications of Raimondo revisiting her life opened like an unexpectedly dark flower in front of her and sent a flutter of maternal panic to quicken her breath.
He had rights.
She’d confirmed his claim in letters.
His name on the birth certificate, something she’d considered long and hard, saw to that as well.
She frowned and looked away in out-of-character confusion until accidentally glimpsing Dianne, her caving mentor, her caring friend and also her silver-haired boss, at the counter gesturing to Raimondo and the