The High Price of Secrets

Gladys fossicked through her voluminous crocheted handbag before extracting a lighter and applying it to the cigarette still hanging from her wrinkled lips. She sucked long and hard on the filter, an expression almost close to happiness spreading across her lined face.

“Can’t say as I have. Maybe she doesn’t want to be found.”

The old woman’s statement hung on the air between them. Tamsyn was initially at a loss for words but pressed on.

“Well, do you know where I can view an electoral roll?”

Gladys took another long pull at her cigarette, the smoke filtering out between her lips as she spoke. “Library could be your best bet. Ask for Miriam, tell her I sent you.”

“Thank you. Where can I find the library?” Tamsyn answered, but she was talking to thin air.

For an old lady Gladys sure did move fast, and she was barreling down the pavement toward the local pub as if she was on a deadline. Frustrated and unsettled by the comment about her mother, Tamsyn pulled out her phone and keyed in a search request. Ah, there it was. The library should be just around the block from where she stood now. Given that the blocks were tiny, she was there in five minutes, only to find the doors closed.

She gritted her teeth as she studied the opening hours on the neatly hand-printed notice stuck on the inside of the glass door. She’d just missed them. She jotted a note on her phone with the hours and promised herself she’d be back on Wednesday before she attended her first day as the seniors’ coordinator.

For now, there was nothing for it but to head back to the cottage and take out her frustration for a few hours on the weeds growing through the garden. Her car was hot from sitting in the sun and she waited a while with the windows open for it to cool down before starting the engine. She looked around the township from where she sat. The place was quaintly idyllic. Everywhere she looked people greeted one another with a cheerful smile and a wave or a toot of their horn.

So, if everyone was so darn friendly why was it proving so hard to find anyone who’d met her mother? What was it with this place? Was everything and everyone conspiring to prevent her from finding her?

Eight

The garden looked as if a whirlwind had torn through it, Finn realized as he stepped out of his car the next morning. Clumps of weeds lay in piles here and there all over the slightly overgrown lawn. He made a mental note to drag out the ride-on mower and run it around the grass sometime soon. But what Tamsyn had done with the untidy garden was nothing short of spectacular.

“Good morning!” she called, stepping out onto the veranda to welcome him.

She was a sight for sore eyes today, dressed in shorts and a tank top that already showed the efforts of her labors, stained as they were with a combination of perspiration and dirt.

“You’ve been busy,” he said, getting out of the Cayenne.

“I started yesterday and kept going this morning. I’m not used to sitting around doing nothing, and I hate leaving a job unfinished,” she said. “It’s enough to drive a woman to drink.”

And wasn’t that exactly what had driven her mother to the bottle back in Australia? Finn thought privately. Being forced to sit around, doing nothing, just being decorative? Always at Tamsyn’s father’s beck and call, but only getting attention from him in dribs and drabs? Even the children, he’d heard, had been mostly raised by nannies.

He pasted a smile on his face and pushed the stories he’d heard from Lorenzo to the back of his mind.

“Would an espresso do?” Finn offered.

Tamsyn gave a heartfelt groan of appreciation. “I’d do anything for one.”

Deep down, Finn’s gut clenched tight. Oh, yeah, he was doing well so far. Not. Less than five minutes in her company and he was already fighting a hard-on. Willing his errant body back under control, he stepped up onto the veranda.

“I’m sure your boyfriend wouldn’t like you going around making that offer,” he finally answered.

“No boyfriend at the moment. I’m off men.”

“Off men?” Finn reached for her left hand, his finger stroking the white line on her ring finger. “This the reason?”

Her hands, despite the grime from the garden, were soft. Tamsyn looked down at where he touched her. Finn watched as a gamut of emotions played across her expressive features.

“Yes,” she said abruptly, tugging her hand free. “I need to rinse off. You know where everything is, I take it?”

Ah, so she didn’t want to talk about that either. Had the Aussie princess met her match in her former fiancé? Was that why she was so intent on finding Ellen? he wondered. Was she looking for affection now that her fiancé was no longer in her life?