She could do it. One step at a time.
The rest of the afternoon was full, but Abby and her dog were front and centre of his thoughts. He shouldn’t have offered to bring Kleppy home. Not this afternoon. Not ever.
He didn’t want her coming here.
After dinner, Raff washed and Sarah wiped, while Sarah told him about her day, the highlight of which had been minding Kleppy.
‘He’s a sweetheart,’ his sister told him, her face softening at the thought of the little dog. ‘He’s so cuddly. Why does he love his bra?’
‘He’s a thief. He likes stealing things. He’s a bad dog.’ He found himself smiling at the thought of strait-laced Abigail Callahan having to front up and pay for stolen goods.
Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to keep thinking of Abby. Not like this.
She was Philip’s fiancée. Anything between them was a distant memory. It had to be.
But Sarah was looking doubtful. She looked down at Kleppy, snoozing by the fire, his bra tucked underneath him. ‘He doesn’t look bad. He’s really cute and Abby’s very busy. Are you sure Abby wants him?’
Raff hardened his heart. ‘I’m sure.’
‘And Abby’s coming tonight?’
‘Yes.’
‘Abby’s my friend.’
She was. The tension of the day lessened a little at that. No matter what lay between Raff and Abby, no matter how much she hated seeing him, Abby had always been Sarah’s friend.
They’d all been best friends at the time of the accident. Ben and Raff. Abby and Sarah. Two big brothers, two little sisters. Philip had been in there, too. A gang of five.
But one car crash and friendship had been blown to bits.
In the months that followed, no matter that Abby had loathed Raff so much that seeing him made her cry, she’d stuck by Sarah. She’d visited her in Sydney, despite her parents’ disapproval, taking the train week after week to Sydney Central Hospital and then later to the rehabilitation unit on North Shore.
Back home, Sarah’s friends had fallen away. Acquired brain injury was a hard thing for friends to handle. Sarah was still Sarah, and yet not. She’d struggled with everything-relearning speaking, walking, the simplest of survival skills.
They’d come so far. She could now almost live independently-almost, but not quite. She had her animals and their little farm Raff kept for her. She worked in the local sheltered workshop three days a week, and twice a week Abby met her after work for drinks.
Drinks being milkshakes. Two friends, catching up on their news.
Raff would pick Sarah up and she’d be happy, bubbly about going out with her friend-but Abby would always have slipped away from the café just before Raff was due. Since the accident, Abby had never come back to their farm. She’d never talked to Raff unless she absolutely must, but she’d never taken that anger out on Sarah.
‘I’m glad Abby’s coming tonight,’ Sarah said simply. ‘And I’m glad she’s getting a dog. Abby’s lonely.’
Lonely? Sarah rarely had insights. This one was startling. ‘No, she’s not. She’s getting married to Philip.’
‘I don’t like Philip,’ Sarah said.
That was unusual, too. Sarah liked everyone. When Philip met her-as of course he did because this wasn’t a big town-he was unfailingly friendly. But still… In the times when Raff had been with her and they’d met Philip, Sarah’s hand had crept to his and she’d clung.
Was that from memories of the accident?
The accident. Don’t go there.
‘There’s nothing wrong with Philip,’ he told Sarah.
‘I want Abby to come,’ Sarah said, wiping her last pot with a fierceness unusual for her. ‘But I don’t want Philip. He makes me scared.’ Scared?
‘The man’s boring,’ Raff said. ‘There’s nothing to be scared about.’
‘I just don’t like him,’ Sarah said and, logical or not, Raff felt exactly the same.
She didn’t want to go.
She must.
She gazed round her little house with a carefully appraising eye. She’d hung her wedding dress in the spare room and she’d packed away everything else she thought a dog might hurt.
She’d bought a dog kennel for outside and a basket for inside.
She’d bought a chain for emergencies but she didn’t intend using it. Her back garden was enclosed with a four-foot brick fence, and she’d checked and rechecked for gaps.
She had dog food, dog shampoo, flea powder, worm pills, a dog brush, padding for his kennel and a book on training your dog. She’d had a quick browse through the book. There was nothing about kleptomania, but confinement would fix that.
She’d take him for a long walk every day. Kleppy might sometimes be lonely, she conceded, but surely loneliness was better than the fate that had been waiting for him.
And if he was lonely… She might sneak him into the office occasionally.
That, though, was for the future. For now, she was ready to fetch him. From Raff.
So fetch him. There’s not a lot of use staring at preparations, she told herself. It’s time to go claim your dog.
It was eight o’clock. Philip’s night out would be over by ten and she had to be back here by then.
Of course she’d be back. Ten minutes drive out. Two minutes to collect Kleppy and say hi to Sarah. Ten minutes back. Just go.
She hadn’t been out there since…
Just go.
‘When will she be here?’
‘Any time soon.’
He shouldn’t care. He shouldn’t even be here. There was bound to be something cop-like that needed his attention at the station-only that might look like he was running, and Rafferty Finn wasn’t a man who ran.
‘She never comes here.’
‘She likes going to cafés with you too much.’
Sarah giggled, hugging Kleppy close. This place was pretty relaxed for a dog. The screen door stayed permanently open and the dogs wandered in and out at will. The gate to the back garden was closed, but Kleppy seemed content to be hugged by Sarah, to watch television and to occasionally eat popcorn.
Raff watched television, too. Or sort of. It was hard to watch when every sense was tuned to a car arriving.
The Finn place hadn’t changed.
The moon was full but she hardly needed to see. She’d come here so often, to the base of Black Mountain, that she knew every bend. As kids, she and Ben had ridden their bikes here almost every day.
This had been their magic place.
Her parents had disapproved. ‘The Finns,’ her mother had told them over and over, ‘are not our sort of people.’ By that she meant they didn’t fit into her social mould.
Abby and Ben didn’t care.
Old Mrs Finn-everybody called her Gran-had been the family’s stability. Gran’s husband had died long before Abby had known her, and it was rumoured that his death had been a relief, for the town as well as for Gran. After his death, Gran had quietly got on with life. She ran a few sheep, a few pigs, a lot of poultry. Her garden was amazing. She seemed to spend her life in the kitchen and her baking was wonderful.
Abby barely remembered Raff and Sarah’s mother, but there had been disapproving whispers about her as well. She’d run away from home at fifteen, then come home unwed with two small children.
She’d worked in the local supermarket for a time. Abby had vague memories of a silent woman with haunted eyes, with none of the life and laughter of her mother or her children.
She’d died when Abby was about seven. Abby remembered little fuss, just a family who’d got on with it. Gran had taken over her grandchildren’s care. Life had gone on and the Finns were still disapproved of.
Abby and Ben had loved it here. They had always been welcome.
And now? She turned into the drive but her foot eased from the accelerator.
‘You’re always welcome.’ She could remember Gran saying it to her, over and over. She remembered Gran saying it to her after Ben’s death. As if she could come back here…
She had come back. Tonight.