Abby and the Bachelor Cop

CHAPTER SEVEN

HE SHOULDN’T have given the pasta maker away if it made him feel like this.

This was a bad idea and it was getting worse.

He was sitting at Abby’s kitchen table watching Sarah hold one end of the pasta dough as Abby fed it through the machine. Watching it stretch. Watching Sarah hold her breath, gasp with pleasure, smile.

Watching Abby smile back.

He could help-Sarah kept offering him a turn-but he excused himself on the grounds that all Abby’s aprons were frilly and there was no way Banksia Bay’s cop could be caught in a rose-covered pinny.

But in reality he simply wanted to watch.

He’d forgotten how good it was to watch Abby Callahan.

Had she forgotten how to be Abby Callahan?

For years now, he’d never seen her with a hair out of place. Now, though, she was wearing faded jeans, an old sweatshirt smudged with flour, bare feet.

He remembered her in bare feet.

Abby. Seventeen years old. She’d laugh and everyone laughed with her. She could tease a smile out of anyone. She was a laughing, loving girl.

She’d been his girlfriend and he’d loved it. They just seemed to…fit.

But then they’d grown up. Sort of.

One heated weekend. Angry words. The car. The debutante ball. Incredibly important to teenagers.

Abby had started dating Philip. She and Philip had broken up, and then Sarah had started going out with him.

He hadn’t liked that, either. Maybe he’d acted like a jerk, making Abby pay. He’d assumed they’d make it up.

But then… The tragedy that turned Abby from a girl who’d dreamed of being a dress designer, who lived for colour and life, into a lawyer who represented the likes of Wallace Baxter.

A lawyer who was about to marry Philip Dexter.

No.

He came close to shouting it, to thumping his fist down on the flour-covered table.

He did no such thing. There was no reason why she shouldn’t marry Philip. There was nothing Raff could put his finger on against the guy. Philip was a model citizen.

He didn’t like him.

Jealous?

Yeah. But something else. A feeling?

A feeling he’d had at nineteen that had never gone away.

‘Why did you and Dexter stop going out?’ he asked as the pasta went through a third and final time.

She didn’t lift her head but he saw the tiny furrow of concentration, the setting of her lips.

‘Abby?’

‘Just ease it in a little more, Sarah.’

‘Ten years ago. After your debut. Why did you break up?’

‘That’s none of your business. Now we put this attachment on to cut it into ribbons.’

‘I know,’ Sarah said, crowing in triumph as she found the right attachment. ‘This one.’

‘It’s just I’ve always wondered,’ Raff said as Sarah tried to get the attachment in. They both let her be. It’d be easier to step in and do it for her-her fingers were fumbling badly-but she was a picture of intense concentration and to step in now…

They both knew not to.

‘You know I only went out with Debbie Macallroy to get back at you,’ he said.

‘So you did. Childhood romances, Raff. We were dumb.’

Really dumb. Where had they all ended up?

‘We did have fun before the crash,’ he said gently. ‘We were such good friends. But then Philip… First you and then Sarah. But you didn’t fall in love with him then. You ditched him.’

‘I’ve changed. We both have.’

‘People don’t change.’

‘Of course they do.’

Of course people changed. She had, and so had Philip.

She didn’t look up at Raff; she focused on the sheets of pasta, making sure they were dusted so they wouldn’t stick in the final cutting process.

She thought back to Philip at nineteen.

He’d been rich, or rich compared to every other kid in Banksia Bay. He had his own car and it was a far cry from the bomb Ben and Raff were doing up. A purple Monaro V8. Cool.

Every girl in Abby’s year group had wanted to go out with him. Abby didn’t so much-she was trying hard not to think she was still in love with Raff-but she’d needed a partner for her debut, all Raff thought about was his stupid car, and Sarah had bet her she wouldn’t be game to ask him.

For a few weeks she’d preened. Her friends were jealous. Philip danced really well and her debut was lovely.

But what followed…the drive-in movies… Sitting in the dark with Philip… Not so cool. Nothing she could put her finger on, though. It was just he wasn’t Raff and that was no reason to break up with him.

But finally…

They’d gone for a drive one afternoon, heading up Black Mountain to the lookout. She hadn’t wanted to go, she remembered, and when they’d had a tyre blowout she’d been relieved.

She hadn’t been so relieved when they realised Philip’s spare tyre was flat. Or when he thought she should walk back into town to fetch his father-because he had to look after the car.

‘No way am I trudging back to town while you sit here in comfort,’ she retorted. ‘You’re the dummy who didn’t check his spare.’

Not so tactful, even for a seventeen-year-old, but she was reaching the point where she wanted to end it.

Philip left her. Bored, she tried out the sound system. His tapes were boring, top ten stuff, nothing she enjoyed.

She flicked through his tape box-a box just like the one that graced her bedside table, beautiful cedar with slots for every cassette. His grandpa really was great.

Boring cassettes. Boring, boring. But, at the back, some unmarked ones. She slid one in and heard the voice of Christabelle Thomas, a girl in the same class as her at school.

‘Philip, we shouldn’t. My mum’d kill me. Philip…’

Enough. She met Philip and his father as she stomped down the mountain, fuming.

‘You were supposed to stay with the car,’ Philip told her.

‘I didn’t like the music,’ she snapped, and held up the tape and threw it at him through his father’s car window. ‘Put the ripped up tape in my letterbox tomorrow or I’m telling Christabelle.’

Why think of that now?

Because of Raff?

She glanced up and he was watching her. Sarah was watching her.

‘What’s wrong?’ Sarah asked, and she came back to the present and realised Sarah had successfully put the cutting tool in place.

‘Hey, fantastic, let’s cut,’ she said, and the moment had passed. The time had passed. The tapes had been an aberration.

Philip had brought the tape round the next morning, cut to shreds.

‘Hey, Abby, I need to tell you I’m sorry. Christabelle and I only went out a couple of times, well before you and me. It’s not what you think. I only asked to kiss her. And I hadn’t realised the tape was on record. I record stuff in the car all the time on the trip between here and Sydney-I try and recall study notes and then see how accurate I’ve been. I must have forgotten this was still on. I’m so sorry you found it.’

It was okay, she conceded. It was a mistake. Kids did stupid things.

Like driving on the wrong side of the road?

‘What’s wrong?’ Sarah asked again and Raff’s eyes were asking the same question.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I just started thinking about all the things I had to do before the wedding.’

‘You want us to go home?’ Sarah asked, and Abby winced and got a grip.

‘No way. I’m hungry. Pasta, here we come. What setting shall we have it on? Do we want angels’ hair or tagliatelle?’

‘Angels’ hair,’ Sarah said.

‘My favourite,’ Raff said. ‘It always has been.’

She glanced up and he was looking straight at her. He wasn’t smiling.

Raff…

Don’t, she told herself but she wasn’t quite sure what she was saying don’t to.

All she knew was that this man meant trouble. He was surely causing trouble now.

They left at nine, which gave her an hour to clean the kitchen and to get her thoughts in order before Philip arrived.

He arrived promptly at ten. Kleppy met him at the door and growled.

He hadn’t growled at Raff and Sarah, but then he knew they were friends.

He didn’t yet know Philip was a friend.

‘If he bites…’ Philip said.

‘He won’t bite. He’s being a watchdog.’

‘I thought you had a headache,’ Philip said, wary and irritated. ‘I hear Finn and his sister have been here.’

She sighed. She lived in Banksia Bay. She should be used to this.

‘Sarah brought our wedding present. She wanted to demonstrate.’

‘Demonstrate what?’

‘Her gran’s pasta maker. You need to see it, Philip. It’s cool.’

‘A second-hand pasta maker?’

‘It’s an heirloom.’

‘Pasta makers aren’t heirlooms.’

‘This one is.’ She gestured to the battered silver pasta maker taking pride of place on her bench. ‘We’ll make pasta once a week for the rest of our lives. When we’re finally in our nursing home we’ll discuss the virtues of each of our children and decide who most deserves our fantastic antique pasta maker. If our children are unworthy we’ll donate it to the State Gallery as a National Treasure.’

He didn’t even smile. ‘You said you had a headache.’

‘I did have a headache.’

‘But you let them in.’

‘It was Sarah,’ she said, losing patience. ‘Her gran’s pasta maker means a lot to her. She was desperate to see me using it.’

‘You weren’t well enough to come out to dinner.’

‘If it was necessary I would have come,’ she snapped. ‘It wasn’t. It was, however, absolutely necessary for me to show Sarah that her grandmother’s pasta maker will be appreciated.’

‘And Finn?’

‘You mean Raff?’

‘Of course I mean Raff. Finn.’

‘He brought Sarah here. He watched.’

‘I don’t see how you can bear that man to be in the house.’

‘I can bear a lot for Sarah.’

‘Even having a dog foisted onto you.’

Kleppy growled again and Abby felt like growling herself. ‘Philip…’

And, just like that, he caved. He put his hands up in mock surrender, tossed his jacket over the back of a kitchen chair and hugged her. Kissed her on the forehead.

‘Sorry. Sorry, sorry. I know you had no choice. I know you wouldn’t let Finn in unless you had no choice.’

Of course she wouldn’t.

‘Tell me about tonight,’ she said, and he sat and she made him coffee and he told her all about the fantastic business opportunities they’d discussed-projects of mutual benefit that needed careful legal input if they were to get past council.

And all the while… Things were changing.

Some time in the last twenty-four hours the buried question had surfaced in her head and it was getting louder and louder until it was almost a drumbeat.

Why am I marrying this man?

The question was making her feel dizzy.

A week on Saturday she’d be married to Philip.

Uh-oh.

This was Raff’s fault, she thought, feeling desperate. Raff asking her…

Why did you and Dexter stop going out?

She’d shoved that memory away ten years ago, not to be thought of again. Remembering it now… How she’d felt…

Underneath the logic, did she still feel like that?

This was like waking from a coma. A million emotions were crowding in. Memories. Stupid childhood snatches. Laughter, trouble, tears, adventure, fun…

Always with Raff.

‘Philip, I…’

‘You need to go to bed,’ he said, immediately contrite. He rose. ‘I’m sorry, I forgot the headache. You should have said. Just because Finn barges his way in, welcome or not… I have a bit more finesse. You sleep well and I’ll see you in the morning. Breakfast at the yacht club? You want to come sailing afterwards?’

‘Mum’s organised the girls’ lunch at midday.’

‘Of course. So much to plan…’

So much to plan? This wedding had been organised for years.

‘Sleep well, sweetheart,’ he told her and stooped and kissed her. Dry. Dusty. He reached for his jacket…

And paused. Frowned. Felt the pockets. ‘My wallet.’

‘Your wallet?’

‘It was in my side pocket.’

‘Could you have dropped it?’

‘It was there when I got out of the car.’ He opened the front door and stared out at the path. The front light showed the path smooth and bare. ‘I always check I have my phone and my wallet when I get in and out of the car.’

Of course. Caution was Philip’s middle name.

‘I’m sure I didn’t drop it,’ he said.

Which left… She swivelled and looked for Kleppy.

Kleppy was at her bedroom door. He had something on the floor in front of him.

A wallet? Too big?

She walked over to see and he wagged his tail and beamed up at her. She was sure it was a beam. It might be the stupidest beam on the planet but it was strangely adorable.

‘What have you got?’

It wasn’t the wallet. It was her jewellery box, the cedar box Philip’s grandfather had given her. Her heart sank. If he’d chewed it…

He hadn’t.

How had he got it down from the bedside table?

There wasn’t a mark on it. He had his paw resting proprietorially on its lid but when she bent down and took it he quivered all over with that stupid canine beam. Aren’t I fantastic? Look what I found for you!

‘That dog…’ Philip said in a voice full of foreboding.

‘He doesn’t have it,’ she said. ‘But…’

She looked more closely at Kleppy. Then she looked at her bed.

Kleppy had retrieved the box via the bed. She had a pale green quilt on her bed. The coverlet was now patterned with footprints.

She bent down and looked at Kleppy’s paws.

Dirt.

Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh.

She looked out through the glass doors to the garden. To the fence. To where she’d dug in netting all the way along.

Lots of lovely loose soil. A great place to bury something.

Loose dirt was scattered over the grass in half a dozen places. Kleppy, it seemed, had been a little indecisive in his burial location.

‘You’re kidding me,’ Philip said, guessing exactly what had happened.

‘Uh-oh.’ What else was a girl to say?

‘You expect me to dig?’

‘No.’ She’d had enough. She was waking from a bad dream and this was part of it.

‘I’ll find it,’ she told him. ‘I’ll give it to you in the morning.’

‘Clean.’

‘Clean,’ she snapped. ‘Of course.’

‘It’s not my fault the stupid…’

‘It’s not your fault,’ she said, cutting him off. It never was. Of all the childish…

No. She was being petulant herself. She needed to get a grip. She needed to find the wallet and then think through what was important here. She needed to decide how she could do the unimaginable.

‘Of course it’s not your fault,’ she said more gently and she headed outside to start sifting dirt. ‘I took Kleppy on. I’m responsible. Go home, Philip, and let me sort the damage my way.’

‘I can help…’ he started, suddenly unsure, but she shook her head.

‘My headache’s come back,’ she said. ‘I can use a bit of quiet digging. And thinking.’

‘What do you need to think about?’

‘Weddings,’ she said. ‘And pasta makers. And dogs.’

And other stuff she wasn’t even prepared to let into the corners of her mind until Philip was out of the door.

She dug.

She should have thought and dug, but she just dug. Her mind felt as if it had been washed clear, emptied of everything.

What was happening? Everything she’d worked for over the last ten years was suddenly…nothing.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

This is just pre-wedding nerves, she told herself. But she knew it was more.

She dug.

It was strangely soothing, delving into the soft loam, methodically sifting. She should be wearing gardening gloves. She’d worn gardening gloves this afternoon when she’d laid the netting, but that was when it mattered that she kept her nails nice. That was when she was going to get married.

There was a scary thought. She sat back on her heels and thought, Did I just think that?

How could she not get married?

Her dress. Two years in the making. Approximately two thousand beads.

Two hundred and thirty guests.

People were coming from England. People had already come from England.

Her spare room was already filling with gifts.

She’d have to give back the pasta maker.

And that was the thing that made her eyes suddenly fill with tears. It made her realise the impossibility of doing what she was thinking of.

Handing Raff Finn back the pasta maker and saying, Here, I can’t accept it-I’m not getting married.

Why Raff? Why was his gift so special?

She knew why. She knew…

The impossibility of what she was thinking made her choke. This was stupid. Nostalgia. Childhood memories.

Not all childhood memories. Raff yesterday at the scene of the accident, standing in front of her car, giving orders.

Raff, caring about old Mrs Ford.

Raff…

‘We always wish for what we can’t have,’ she muttered to herself and shoved her hand deep into the loam so hard she hit the wire netting and scraped her knuckles.

She hauled her hand out and an edge of leather came with it.

She stared down at her skinned knuckle and Philip’s wallet.

She needed a hug.

‘Kleppy,’ she called. ‘I found it. You want to come lick it clean?’

Fat chance. It was a joke. She should be smiling.

She wasn’t smiling.

‘Kleppy?’

He’d be back on her bed, she thought. How long till he came when she called?

‘Kleppy?’ She really did want a hug. She wiped away the dirt and headed inside.

No Kleppy.

How many hiding places were there? Where was he?

Not here.

Not in the house.

The front door was closed. He could hardly have opened it and walked out. He was clever but not…

Memory flooded back. Philip, throwing open the door to stare at the front path. She’d gone to look for Kleppy, then she’d headed straight out to the garden.

Philip leaving. Slamming the door behind him.

The door had been open all the time they’d talked.

Her heart sank. She should have checked. She’d been too caught up with her own stupid crisis, her own stupid pre-wedding jitters.

Kleppy was gone.