Page 15 of Outback Secrets

Chapter Five

When Henri woke, her head seemed to have become the stage for a heavy metal rock band and her throat felt like she’d scoffed a box of Weet-bix without any milk. She groaned, opened one eye slowly—even that simple action hurt like the devil—and then the other. Nothing about this room looked familiar, and was that furry thing slumbering at her feet a dog? It didn’t look dangerous and the little sleepy noises it was making were kinda sweet, but still …

Where the hell am I?

She rolled towards the bedside table and saw her phone and bag alongside a bottle of water, a packet of Panadol and a Mars Bar. Ugh. She could not stomach chocolate right now.

Wincing, she sat up slowly and reached for the water. After swallowing two painkillers, she picked up her phone to find a message from Tilley.

Mum thinks you stayed with me last night. Did you sleep in Cecil or did you find alternative company? Hope you were safe and don’t have too sore a head this morning. xx

Trust Tilley to add ‘kisses’ even when she was being all big sisterly and superior, but thank God she’d provided an alibi for their mum. Not that she should have to. At almost thirty years old, Henri was big enough to look after herself, but the moment she stepped back into Bunyip Bay everyone resorted to treating her like a child. She wouldn’t be surprised if they sat her at the kids’ table for Christmas lunch.

Annoyed, she deleted Tilley’s message without replying and surveyed her surroundings as she tried to work out where she was and how exactly she’d come to be here. She thought back to yesterday afternoon at home … She’d been helping her mum make candles for Christmas gifts, when she’d started on at Henri again about growing up and putting down roots.

She was incorrigible—even when Henri was helping her, making an effort to spend quality time with her—she couldn’t leave her alone.

Did she somehow know about the crash up north? Henri definitely hadn’t told her, and she hadn’t yet been able to bring herself to tell Tilley or her brothers either—but maybe her mother had a sixth sense. Or maybe Henri was just being paranoid.

Then again, this wasn’t really anything new. It used to be that her mother would drop subtle hints that it would be nice to see Henri more often—saying things like she was glad she’d started her family young, well before her biological clock started ticking—but this time Henri had barely taken her first sip of tea before she’d started on at her. And since then, she’d been like a broken record and had given her lecture-slash-plea so many times that Henri could probably harangue herself.

‘I know you like flying, but you’ve had your fun now, darling. You’ve seen some amazing places, had some exciting experiences, and the Lord’s looked after you so far, but every time you fly it’s not only your life you put on the line. My blood pressure hasn’t been the same since you took to the skies and I went grey before my time worrying about you, young lady! Besides, your career simply isn’t compatible with having a family.’

‘Who ever said anything about wanting to have a family?!’

The last thing Henri needed was her mother mouthing off about her flying right now—she had enough worries of her own. But of course, her arguments always fell on deaf ears. Fiona Forward simply couldn’t understand that anyone might want to take a different path than she had—marriage, four kids and even more grandchildren to cluck over. Three out of her four children had procreated—wasn’t that enough?

‘You know that agronomist who works with James?’

‘No,’ Henri said, already dreading what was coming.

‘I’m sure you do. Toby Cooper—redhead, tall, lovely smile. He came to town about five years ago with his wife, but she hated country living and they’ve recently divorced.’

‘And that’s a good thing?’ Henri glared at her.

This was why she usually made excuses about only being able to come home for a few days. It had been different when her dad was alive because he’d always stuck up for her, but now …

Having lost track of the number of eligible bachelors her mother had hinted at over the last few days, she was this close to storming out when the phone rang. She’d jumped up to answer it and almost cried with joy when Tilley asked if she wanted to come for dinner at the pub. She hadn’t been able to get ready fast enough.

Yet the company at The Palace hadn’t been as enjoyable as she’d hoped. She glowered as she remembered her so-called friends, sister, and even her brother-in-law prying into her life, picking holes in her choices and not listening when she’d insisted that she didn’t need Ryan’s husband to find her one!

Thankfully they’d backed off when she returned to the table, but just when she’d finally been starting to relax again, Ruby had glanced at her watch and exclaimed surprise that it was already nine o’clock. They’d all started mumbling about it getting late, as if they’d turn into pumpkins if they didn’t call it a night immediately. Knowing her mother would likely still be up watching home improvement shows or the cheesy Christmas movies that had already started on Netflix, Henri ignored Tilley’s insistence that she should go too and instead ended up hanging out with a bunch of people who’d been quite a few years behind her at school and were more interested in drinking games and hooking up than weddings and babies.

Oh my God!She sat up a little. Had she gone home with one of them? Most of them were barely out of adolescence and she actually used to babysit Brad McDonald. The thought of doing the horizontal mambo with him made her stomach roil and she hoped her drunken-self had had more sense than that.

How much had she actually had to drink? Right now, Henri felt like she’d been swimming in the vats at a distillery, and the fact she couldn’t remember getting here wasn’t a good sign.

What was wrong with her at the moment? Normally the prying questions of her friends and family would have been water off a duck’s back, but ever since the accident she’d been tender. More on edge. Definitely defensive. Still, she couldn’t let this happen again. She couldn’t turn to alcohol every time someone pissed her off. A couple of drinks was one thing, but having no recall of what had happened after her sister left last night made her feel very uneasy.

In the midst of her panic attack, she heard a faint whistling coming from somewhere beyond the bedroom. Her heart jumped. Was that coffee she could smell? She inhaled deeply. And maybe toast?

Right now, plain toast and coffee felt like perhaps the only thing she could stomach, but that depended on who was making it.

She glanced around the room looking for clues. With its grey-toned walls and lack of any feminine frippery, it could belong to a bachelor, but it was much neater and more sophisticated than most of the guys she’d been with before. And it didn’t smell funny either. This bed was so damn comfy, and the forest green sheets didn’t feel cheap or dirty—they were as silky soft as those in a five-star hotel, not that she’d stayed in many. There were a couple of framed paintings of snow-capped mountains hanging on one wall and a family photo on the dresser. At this distance she couldn’t make out the people but, hoping it would give her some clue as to whose bed she was in, she threw off the sheet to go take a look when a man appeared in the doorway.

He was tall—although pretty much everyone was taller than her—with very broad shoulders and tousled, whiskey-coloured hair, that was neither long nor short. The stubble on his jawline suggested that he sometimes shaved and sometimes didn’t bother. In one hand he held a mug and in the other a plate.

The dog raised its head, and Henri could almost swear it smiled at him.