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First published in 2024

Copyright © Karlene Lane 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever
is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational
purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has
given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

Cammeraygal Country
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com

Allen & Unwin acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Country

on which we live and work. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Elders, past and present.

A catalogue record for this

book is available from the
National Library of Australia

ISBN 978 1 76106 613 9

Set in 12.5/18.25 pt Simoncini Garamond Std by Bookhouse, Sydney

Printed and bound in Australia by the Opus Group

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The paper in this book is FSC® certified.

FSC® promotes environmentally responsible,
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management of the world’s forests.

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Glenda Gray,
18/7/1959–16/9/2023

A beautiful friend to many—deeply missed by all.

I was so grateful to have had you as my trusted

advisor on all things rural and cattle related
over the years. You have been such a wonderful
advocate for farming and rural Australia, as well
as a role model to not only myself but so many
others. The world has lost one of its true angels,
my lovely friend.

Gone, but never forgotten.

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One

Alex Kelly drove over the last rise into town and caught her
breath at the sight before her. The bluest of oceans, its shades
blending in a wide arc framed by a strip of sand, row upon
row of white caps curling as waves broke onto the shore in
an endless, soothing rhythm as old as time. She hadn’t been
back in Rockne Heads—or Rocky, as locals referred to it—in
years, but the view was always the same: beautiful.
A small stab of pain went through Alex as a bout of home-
sickness flooded her. Home. The word echoed in the silence
of her car almost as though it had been spoken out loud. But
Rockne Heads wasn’t home—and hadn’t been for a long time.
As she continued along the road, her gaze fell on a large
handwritten sign stuck to someone’s front fence: NO! TO ERMON
NICHOLADES! Across the road was another one saying, SAVE
OUR VILLAGE! She’d passed larger ones with similar messages

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along the road leading in from the highway and wondered

what was going on. Something had clearly gotten up the
locals’ noses.
She turned into her old street and drove along the familiar,
narrow road to the lookout at the end of the small cul-de-sac.
There were no cars parked there today, so she had plenty of
room to turn into her driveway. In a few weeks’ time, tourists
would be parked all along the little street as they stopped
to take photographs or check out the surf. She hoped that
wouldn’t be her problem— she wasn’t planning on being
here that long. If everything went according to plan, she’d
go through her father’s belongings and throw most of them
out before giving the place a good clean and putting it on
the market. It should only take four days—five, max, she
decided. She planned on spending the rest of her three-week
holiday somewhere relaxing, maybe a resort further north,
before returning to the UK. She hadn’t had a proper relaxing
holiday in years. She wasn’t even sure she remembered how
to relax, to be honest, but it was high time she did.
The car air conditioner had lulled her into a false sense
of security and the humid air raced in to slap her across the
face as she opened the door. This was bullcrap. If there was
one thing she’d never been able to handle, it was humidity.
She’d become acclimatised to the UK weather during the
six years she’d been working for the Department of Foreign
Affairs in London, and she preferred it. Alex had moved
around a lot over the last eighteen years, never really settling
down; there were too many adventures yet to have to stay in

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one place too long, too many things to see and explore. But
now she’d found a place she wanted to settle and the only
thing standing between her and buying the little cottage of
her dreams was this place.
Four Winds had been in her father’s family for five
generations. Her great-grandfather had been given the piece
of land on the top of the headland by his father and it was
passed down to her grandfather then her father before coming
to her. Not that she’d wanted it. She wasn’t ungrateful, not
really. It was . . . complicated.
She stood in the overgrown front yard of the white-clad
house and sighed deeply. The front of the house hadn’t
changed in the last eighty-odd years apart from her father
installing the cladding over the original weatherboards.
Built in the early nineteen forties, the cottage had replaced
an older tin shed. Her grandfather had added on the back
section of the house, sunken slightly so it formed a down-
stairs area with large, curved windows to take in the endless
blue ocean below. The weight of all that family history was a
heavy burden. Alex had always been proud of her heritage.
She had roots here—she was connected to the land and to
the ocean. Her ancestors were buried in the small, white
picket–fenced cemetery situated on the next headland over.
She belonged here and yet . . . she didn’t. Not anymore. She
hadn’t in a very long time.
Alex inserted the key into the front door and pushed it
open, breathing in the familiar scent of the house and feeling
as though she had been thrown back in time. She could almost

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be stepping through the front door after coming home from

school. The only thing missing was the smell of her mother’s
baking or dinner cooking on the stove. She swallowed past
an unexpectedly tightening throat and blinked rapidly. She
hadn’t expected those memories to hit quite so hard.
Her parents had divorced when she was eighteen and she
and her mother had moved to Sydney. A few years after Alex
had moved overseas, her mother had decided to come on
an extended holiday and it had been nice having her mum
with her in London. But then, her mother had met a man
who lived only a few houses down from Alex, and within six
months, they’d married.
She didn’t like to sound like a jealous daughter—because
she wasn’t, she was thrilled to see her mother so happy after
a long time being on her own—it was just that Bart came
with three daughters of his own, who were all married with
babies. And now her mother had grandchildren she loved
to spoil, Alex felt she didn’t seem to spend much time alone
with her anymore.
Alex really liked her new stepsisters and they’d welcomed
her into the family from the very first time they’d all met,
but she had nothing in common with any of them when so
many of the conversations and activities were centred around
babies and small children. There was only so much Wiggles
a person without their own kids could handle.
She ran her fingers along the top of the lounge. There
wasn’t much left in the way of furniture or homewares from
when she’d lived here; that had all either been sold or donated

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to charity after her father died eight years ago. She’d replaced
it with trendy-looking coastal chic furniture to better suit
the holiday rental the house had become. It had been a nice
little earner, too, in the last few years. It rarely sat empty,
providing her with a side income that had allowed her the
luxury of travel.
She let her gaze wander to the large windows that framed
a magnificent view of the ocean. She’d grown up with this
view and yet she couldn’t remember if she’d ever stopped
to simply admire it. She’d probably assumed everyone had
uninterrupted ocean views from their lounge-room window,
and as she grew older she would have been too wrapped up
in the latest schoolyard drama to pay it much attention. It
seemed a waste to take something so beautiful for granted.
And yet you walked away from it, she could almost hear her
father’s gruff voice whisper. She hadn’t walked—she’d run,
as fast and as far as she could, desperate to leave all the bad
memories behind her.
Alex turned away from the window and headed back
outside to the car to bring in her suitcase. The sooner she
got started, the sooner she could leave.

Sullivan McCoy—Sully to his friends—waved the last guest

off the boat before starting the clean-up. It’d been a great
trip, the weather had been perfect, and he always felt good
when his customers left with a camera full of memories and
a couple of fishing yarns to tell family and friends when they

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got back home. These fishing tours had begun as a side gig
for the off season when trawling was slow and had become
so popular that it’d pretty much become his full-time job.
The success of his venture gave him the perfect excuse to
step back from the trawling side of the business and take a
well-earned break from the hectic life that went along with
being a professional commercial fisherman. He’d spent years
working twenty-hour days, weeks at a time out at sea, which
had messed up his relationships and family life. Of course, he
still went out on the boat during the crazy season that led up
to Easter and Christmas when they earned the big bucks—it
was all hands on deck during those times. It usually made up
for the less profitable times throughout the year. Regardless
of what size catch you came back with, the crew still needed
to be paid along with fuel and food and equipment. It wasn’t
always a great pay day when you owned fishing boats—not
like the old days.
The McCoy name had been synonymous with the fishing
industry around here for generations. It had also been very
well acquainted with the law— and not necessarily on the
right side of it, either. In his father’s and grandfathers’ days,
the industry had still been the wild west, where pretty much
anything went: no species was off limits, no haul too big.
Sully felt his jaw clench slightly and concentrated on
relaxing it. His father had been old-school and, had he still
been alive, he’d no doubt be giving Sully an earful about how
he’d be doing things. ‘No bunch of greenie, degree-toting
uni students are gonna tell me what I can and cannot catch,’

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Sully could hear him say. Theo McCoy had been a hard man
in every sense of the word. He was tough as old leather and
had no time for weakness of any kind. Sully’s hadn’t been the
easiest childhood—his mother had shot through when he
was in primary school, taking his older sister with her. She’d
died a few years back and he and his sister had only recently
reconnected but they were pretty much strangers with nothing
but genetics in common.
Nowadays it was only Sully running the fishing side of
things—since his dad and two uncles had all passed. There
were a few aunties and a couple of cousins in town, but the
majority had moved on to other parts of the country—got
out of town to try and distance themselves from the trouble
that the McCoy name used to bring around here. Sully
too had spent his entire adult life trying to wash his name
free of the stains his father had left behind. He’d worked
his arse off to ensure his business would be known as the
respectable company it was today—a legitimate one that made
money legally.
Sully shook off the dismal mood that had descended and
began the clean-up. The routine was almost therapeutic. The
boat had just spent three days out at sea as a team-building
exercise for a group of businessmen. Sully wasn’t sure what
kind of business they were in, but if three days of fishing,
drinking and eating was considered team building, then he
was tempted to switch professions.
He glanced up as he heard his daughter call his name as
she walked down the pier towards the boat. He smiled. It

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was hard to believe his baby was nearly eighteen. Where the
hell had that time gone? One minute he was being handed
a tiny, red-skinned, screaming newborn that he had no idea
what to do with, and the next, here she was, a beautiful
young woman, all grown up and planning to leave home at
the end of January.
Gabby had always been his ray of sunshine in a somewhat
less-than-sunshiny life. Even now, with the threat of an after-
noon thunderstorm approaching on the horizon, she brought
with her a glow. Her dark hair, pulled back in a ponytail,
swung with a jauntiness that perfectly reflected her ener-
getic personality, and her wide smile filled him with love and
pride. It still stunned him that he’d somehow helped create
this amazing kid.
‘Hey, kiddo,’ he said, hugging Gabby tightly as she stepped
on deck and lowered the bucket of cleaning supplies.
‘Hey, Dad. How was the trip?’
‘Pretty good. Managed to catch a few decent wahoo and
a marlin. How was everything back here?’
‘All good. Nothing too exciting.’
Gabby had been working the boat hire and bait shop they
ran from the booking office at the marina after school, on
weekends and during holidays since she was fourteen years
old. She handled customers with a friendly yet competent
manner and had saved her wages to buy her own car when
she was sixteen. Over the years she’d learned the workings
of the entire business: his fleet of trawlers, as well as the boat
hire and bait shop that tapped into the area’s tourism industry.

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She knew as much about the business as Sully did and could
probably run the entire operation without him if she had to.
He hoped she wouldn’t ever have to, though—he wanted
more for his little girl than to work in the fishing industry.
They chatted about what had been happening while he’d
been away as they fell into the cleaning routine. He paid her
extra for cleaning and Gabby had jumped at the chance to
earn some more cash before she left home. His heart sank a
little as he realised she wouldn’t be around to do any of this
soon. He’d miss their time together. He knew he was being
selfish by wishing she’d change her mind about leaving—after
all, he was the one who’d always planted the idea in her head
that she could do better than her old man and fishing for a
job—but part of him wanted to ground her forever just so
she didn’t have to leave. Once people left Rockne Heads,
they never came back.
He knew from experience.
‘So, Dad,’ Gabby said a little too calmly as Sully heaved
the last of the garbage bags onto the pier. He turned to face
her with a guarded expression. ‘There’s going to be this party
on the weekend—’
Sully was shaking his head before she even finished the
sentence.
‘Dad! Just listen.’
‘You know the rule. No beach parties.’
‘I’m almost eighteen,’ Gabby reminded him, planting her
hands on her hips, undaunted by his stern frown.

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‘I don’t care if you’re a hundred and five. No. Beach.

Parties.’
‘You do realise you’re being completely unreasonable,
don’t you?’
‘So you’ve said every time you’ve ever asked the same
question.’
‘I wasn’t asking a question,’ she said flatly. ‘I was stating a
fact. Dad, I missed out on the Year Twelve afterparty at the
formal. That was bad enough, but this is probably the last
time I’ll get to be with all of my friends at once before they
all start heading off on Christmas holidays.’
‘So go out to dinner or something. Have a sleepover,’ he
said with a shrug.
‘A sleep—’ Gabby stared at her father, exasperated. ‘Dad,
I’m not twelve! I’m an adult.’
‘You’re still living under my roof and the rules you grew
up with will be enforced until you leave.’
‘This place is a prison!’ she snapped, storming off, before
stopping and turning quickly. ‘I don’t understand you. I get
that there was some stupid tragedy around here a thousand
years ago, but it makes no sense whatsoever that I should
be punished for something that happened before I was
even born!’
‘It’s not about that,’ Sully said firmly, reining in his anger.
‘It’s exactly about that. You said it yourself last year when
I wanted to go to Connor Biscoe’s eighteenth,’ she said.
‘It’s about a bunch of hormone-ridden teenage boys sniffing
about. No beach parties. End of discussion.’

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‘Discussion?’ Gabby snapped. ‘It’s never a discussion with

you. It’s just you saying no to everything fun!’
‘That’s my job.’
‘You make me so mad!’ Gabby yelled, stomping away.
Sully watched her walk to her car. She slammed the door
and he winced slightly as he imagined having to replace the
rubber seals.
He let out an indiscernible sigh after Gabby reversed her
little Mazda and drove away. He knew he was overreacting,
and yet every time he tried to force himself to be open-minded
about parties, that same, gut-wrenching helplessness filled
him. There was no way he was going to risk his daughter
going through that. It may have been almost twenty years
ago but the ghosts of that night still lurked around their little
town, refusing to stay dead.

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Two

Alex pushed open the glass door and stepped outside onto
the covered deck, carrying her cup of coffee. The morning
air was cool, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. She’d
just missed the sunrise; the intense orange had faded into a
paler shade of peach and the sky was turning a vivid blue
that promised another hot day to follow. The subtle smell
of the ocean filled her lungs and the sound of waves crashing
onto the rocks below the headland not far from the house
seemed extra loud. Being back in the old house for the first
time in so long, she hadn’t thought she’d be able to sleep
but, surprisingly, when she woke this morning, she didn’t
even remember falling asleep. When she’d carried her suit-
case in yesterday afternoon she’d automatically turned left
in the hallway and claimed her old bedroom. Of course, it
had changed since then—she’d had the entire house painted

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when she’d inherited it, and now the candy pink walls she’d
so loved as a seven-year-old were a much more grown-up
white on white.
A sudden, rhythmic banging interrupted the peace and
Alex gave an irritated frown. Out here, with nothing other
than the ocean to look at, it was easy to forget you had
neighbours behind high fences on either side.
Curiosity eventually got the better of her when the banging
continued and seemed to be getting closer so she stood up
from where she’d been sitting and walked around the side
of the house.
Two women and a man were at the front of her house,
juggling what looked like a bunch of signs. The man picked
up a hammer and positioned one of the signs, preparing to
hit it into the ground.
‘Excuse me,’ Alex called, causing all three to whirl around
to face her. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Alex Kelly? Is that you?’ one of the women asked, shading
her eyes from the glare as she peered at where Alex stood.
‘Yes,’ Alex said, recognising the woman and the other
two people with a silent groan. Of all the people she had
to bump into on her first day in town, it had to be Murna
Battalex. Everyone referred to Murna as the mayor of Rockne
Heads. Not to her face of course, although Alex suspected
she’d heard the term and secretly enjoyed it. There were a
few other not so polite terms given to her, the most notable
being the Old Battle Axe.

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‘Well, I’ll be! Goodness, it must be years since I last saw

you home.’
‘It’s been a while,’ Alex said, reluctantly crossing the yard
to the picket fence.
‘You look exactly like your mother,’ Thelma Grant said,
shaking her head in amazement. ‘Doesn’t she, Jonah?’
The man gave an obligatory nod and a small grunt, still
holding his big mallet, clearly just wanting to finish his job
and go home.
‘Can I help you with something?’ Alex prompted as three
pairs of eyes studied her much like a bug under a micro-
scope. She couldn’t really blame them, they were probably
quite shocked to see the kid they’d once known suddenly
reappear as a thirty-five-year-old woman.
‘We’re just putting up some signage, dear. We didn’t know
anyone was here,’ Murna said, nodding at the plastic sign at
her feet.
SAVE OUR VILLAGE. SAY NO TO ERMON NICHOLADES, the signs
read.
‘I’m not sure what this is all about,’ Alex said slowly.
‘They’re trying to ruin our way of life, that’s what this is
about,’ Murna snapped.
‘We’re under attack,’ Thelma added, and Alex felt her
eyebrows rise slightly.
‘From whom?’ Alex asked.
‘From big corporations trying to buy their way into our
valley and destroy our village. They want to make it into the
next Surfers Paradise.’

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Surely that was going a bit far? Although going by the

look on Murna’s face, she believed it.
‘What are they proposing?’ Alex asked. She suspected
that, sooner or later, she was going to be hearing about it,
so she may as well be properly armed.
‘They want to buy up all that bushland on the way into
town and tear all the trees down to build a bunch of new
houses for a retirement village. They’re saying they want to
put in over two hundred new homes. Can you believe that?
All those new people coming into town? Into our tiny village?
Where are they going to park their cars, for starters?’
Alex was still trying to digest the information but found it
curious that out of everything she’d just mentioned, parking
was Murna’s major concern.
‘We won’t stand for it, I’m telling you! We will fight them
to the bitter end!’ Thelma said firmly and not without a hint
of malice. ‘There’s a town meeting planned for next week.
I trust we can count on your support dear?’
‘It’s really got nothing to do with me. I’m not a local
anymore,’ Alex protested. She hoped this property devel-
oper knew what he was up against. Listening to a pissed-off
Murna and her protest buddies would not be a pleasant way
to spend an evening.
‘It’s got everything to do with you,’ Murna said, sounding
shocked. ‘This is where you grew up, where your family has
lived for generations.’
‘Yes, well . . . I’m actually back here to put the place on
the market.’

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Stunned silence greeted her words and for a moment, Alex

felt uncomfortable. Then she straightened her shoulders. She
had nothing to feel uncomfortable about; this was her house
to do with as she wished. If she wanted to sell it, she could
bloody well sell it.
‘What would your father think about that?’ Thelma asked
with a wide-eyed look.
Alex clamped down on the swell of disappointment
doing its best to rise inside her at the mention of her father.
He would hate it. ‘It really doesn’t matter now, does it?’
she replied briskly, feeling bad for speaking back to one of
her elders, as though she was still a kid and not a grown-
arsed woman who had every right to point out how rude
they were being. Old habits and good manners died hard,
it seemed.
Murna gave a delicate sniff before nodding at Jonah to
continue putting up the sign.
‘Actually, I’d rather you didn’t put one of those in
front of my place,’ Alex said, feeling the further cooling
of the air between herself and the others. Frostbite was
becoming a distinct possibility. ‘I don’t want to get involved
in local politics—you know, what with trying to sell and
everything.’
Murna held her gaze for a moment and Alex thought she
might ignore her request and put the sign up anyway, but
the woman turned and, with a wave of her hand, beckoned
her two lackies to follow. ‘I’m very disappointed, Alex Kelly.
Very disappointed indeed.’

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Alex headed back inside the house, fighting the urge to

run after the trio and defend herself. Why should she care
what they thought? Their opinion didn’t matter to her.
And yet she couldn’t shake the icky feeling their judgy
looks had left behind. It wasn’t like her reputation around
here had been anything to be proud of—half the town had
made their opinions loud and clear eighteen years ago.

Sully pushed open the door of the bakery and walked inside
to buy his usual order of fresh bread. The owner, Mitch,
glanced up from the newspaper he was reading and called a
greeting. Sully nodded to two people perched on bar stools
at the window bench, eating Mitch’s famous pies. Tourists,
he instantly thought, not recognising their faces. Once upon
a time, you only saw tourists during the Christmas holidays.
Nowadays it was pretty much year-round. The caravan park
across the street was always booked out and the beach packed
with out-of-towners. Not that he was complaining. Tourism
had been the thing that had saved his business. Without it,
he’d still be stuck doing weeks out at sea catching fish and
hoping the market wasn’t inundated with whatever he caught,
barely breaking even most weeks. It was even worse now that
fuel prices had reached an all-time high. Nope—give him a
town full of new faces any day.
‘Have you heard who’s back?’ Mitch asked, eyeing his
friend carefully.
‘No,’ Sully said. ‘Who?’

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‘Alex. Kelly,’ Mitch said.

Sully felt his stomach drop then clench abruptly. He tried
to keep his face expressionless. ‘No. I hadn’t heard.’
‘Apparently she’s back to sell her old man’s house.’
‘Really?’ That did surprise him. The Kellys’ beach house
was part of local history. It had always been known as the
Kelly house, even when Alex had put it up as a holiday rental
and named it Four Winds Beach Accommodation.
‘Heard it straight from Murna’s mouth just a few minutes
ago.’ Mitch gave a low whistle. ‘And she was not a happy camper.’
‘Who? Murna?’ Then again, silly question, Murna was
never happy—she was always complaining about something
around town.
‘Yeah. Apparently,’ Mitch said, lowering his voice, ‘Alex
told them to piss off and refused to have a sign in front of
the house.’ As Sully raised his eyebrows, Mitch hurried to
add, ‘Or words to that effect.’
‘No wonder Murna isn’t happy. I’m pretty sure she’s the
first person who’s said no to a sign.’
‘I can’t work out if she’s brave or stupid. Maybe she’s just
been away so long she’s forgotten the golden rule: Don’t get
on the bad side of Murna Battle Axe.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Anyway, how was the latest trip?’
‘Great. Came back with the same number of people I
went out there with, so that’s always a good thing. I gotta go,
I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Sully said, collecting his bread and
saluting his friend as he headed out.

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His gaze automatically went up the road from the shop

to the furthest headland where the little white house sat. He
wondered if Alex had changed much. He hadn’t seen her in
almost eight years, not since her father’s funeral, and even
then, they hadn’t spoken. He’d wondered if she’d sell the
old house, but a few weeks later it was put up as a holiday
let. Part of him was relieved—that meant that there was the
possibility of her coming back one day. He had to admit he’d
pretty much given up on that.
Now that he knew Alex was literally only a few hundred
or so metres away, he wasn’t sure what to do. Had time eased
some of the pain between them now that they were both adults
with a hefty chunk of life experience under their belts? Or
would she still hate him the way she had eighteen years ago?
He wanted to march up the headland and knock on her door
right now, but a saner, far more cautious part of him advised
against the urge. Let it be for a few days, it said calmly. You’ve
gone this long without seeing her— a few more days won’t hurt.
It made sense— after all, for all he knew she could be
happily married and the last thing she’d want was for her high
school boyfriend to turn up on her doorstep unannounced.
No, it was better to hang back and wait, see what he could
find out about her situation before he got too excited. After
all, it was entirely possible she still hated his guts.
To be honest, he really couldn’t blame her, after what
he’d done.

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Three

Alex climbed the two concrete steps that led into the Paragon,
the town’s small corner store, and let her eyes take a moment
to adjust to the dim interior. A deluge of memories washed
over her. The old lolly cabinet beneath the high counter
didn’t actually seem as high as she remembered. There
also didn’t seem to be the same vast display of sweets either.
The one thing that was the same, though, was the smell of
hot oil and fish and chips cooking.
The Paragon used to be owned by the Stavros family and,
in its heyday, had been the best place in town to eat. But
the rear part of the building that housed the original cafe
and dining area had been closed years ago, so the shop had
became a takeaway. As Alex let her gaze wander now, though,

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she noticed that the once closed-off section had been opened
up and there was a second entry from the street around the
corner. The store had become a cafe and a takeaway.
‘Take a seat and I’ll be with you in a sec,’ a friendly voice
called, making Alex jump slightly. She’d only planned to
buy a coffee and head back to the house, but curiosity got
the better of her and she found herself moving towards the
timber booths. She settled herself into one and picked up
a menu.
The place had a trendy, American diner–type vibe and had
been faithfully restored to reflect the 1950s and ’60s style—
complete with a juke box and framed posters of Hollywood
movie starlets, number plates and Route 66 memorabilia.
‘Sorry about that—’
Alex snapped her attention away from the décor to stare
at the waitress who’d somehow managed to approach silently.
‘Alex?’ the waitress gasped, eyes widening and mouth
dropping open.
For the briefest of moments, Alex was confused. Then
recognition dawned with lightning speed. ‘Tanya?’
‘I heard you were back, of course,’ Tanya said, ‘but I still
wasn’t expecting you to suddenly appear like this.’
‘I’ve only been back a day. Wow. How are you?’ Alex
asked, searching the woman before her for a glimpse of the
fresh-faced eighteen-year-old girl she’d known.
‘Yeah, I’m . . . great. Busy. But who isn’t, right?’ Tanya
shrugged.

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‘I didn’t know you were working here.’

‘Why would you? And I own it, actually. As of two years
ago now.’
Alex tucked hair that had fallen across her face behind
her ear and sat back. The slight chill in her old friend’s tone
dimmed the momentary excitement of seeing her. ‘That’s
awesome. Congratulations.’
‘Thanks. You’re not the only one around here who was
surprised that Tanya Fox became a businesswoman.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Alex said softly. ‘I never doubted that
you could do anything you put your mind to.’
The women held a silent look for a moment before Tanya
cleared her throat and offered a smile. ‘Can I get you some-
thing? Are you ready to order?’
‘A coffee thanks, and,’ Alex added, glancing at the menu.
Suddenly she was starving. ‘The Rocky cheeseburger. Actually,
can we change the coffee to a thickshake?’ If she was going
to splurge on a burger she may as well go the whole hog.
‘Don’t tell me . . . chocolate, right?’ she replied and Alex
grinned.
‘Yep.’
‘No worries. I’ll get this started for you.’
Alex followed her old friend’s departure with a melancholy
kind of regret. She hadn’t seen Tanya in years—too many to
count. Actually, that was a lie. She knew exactly how long it
had been. The week before Christmas. Eighteen years ago.

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16 December 2005, 9 pm

‘It’s exactly what you need,’ Tanya said, overriding Alex’s

protest as the girls stood in Tanya’s bedroom. ‘Show him
what he’s missing.’
Reluctantly, Alex accepted the stretchy, rather clingy,
cotton dress her best friend handed her from the wardrobe.
‘Obviously he doesn’t care what he’s missing or he’d have
called me by now,’ she muttered, toying with the bracelet on
her wrist. Sully had collected cowrie shells from the beach
and threaded them on a strand of leather. He’d given the
bracelet to Alex for her birthday and she treasured it. Not only
because it was beautiful, but because he’d taken the time to
sit and make it. It was her good-luck charm, and she hadn’t
taken it off since the day he’d given it to her.
‘Go and put that on. I promise, he’ll be begging you to
forgive him for not calling you after he sees you in that.’
‘My parents would kill me if they caught me in this,’
Alex said, eyeing herself in the mirror. The soft fabric clung
to everything and was short enough for her to realise she
wouldn’t be sitting down too often.
‘Then it’s a good thing they’re out of town tonight, isn’t
it?’ Tanya winked. ‘Oh, come on,’ she groaned dramatically
as she took in Alex’s doubtful expression, ‘You’re always
complaining that you’re never allowed to go to any parties,
well, here’s your big chance. Have some fun for a change
instead of being such a goody two-shoes.’

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The comment stung a little—actually, a lot. Alex hated that

everyone at school knew her as the ‘girl most likely to stay at
home and study on the weekend’, which, in all fairness, had
been what she’d done for the last few years. But still. School
was over. They’d finished Year Twelve and Christmas was just
around the corner. For the first time in forever, Alex didn’t
have to worry about exams—now her fate was in the lap of the
gods. For at least the next few weeks, before she took the next
step into university and the rest of her life, she could relax.
She pushed away the thought. Alex’s plan to leave Rockne
Heads was what had caused the whole Home and Away drama
between her and Sully, even though things had been tense
for the last few months. They’d had to hide their relation-
ship from her parents since she was the daughter of the
town cop and he was the son of one of the town’s notorious
crime families tied up with what was commonly called the
‘Rockne Heads Mafia’. The Duncan and McCoy families had
connections with a number of dodgy dealings and there’d
been allegations of foul play, drug trafficking and even murder
over the years. Most notable had been the investigation into
corruption within local law enforcement that had spanned
a number of decades and had resulted in convictions of not
only members of the families but also the town’s previous
police sergeant, whom her father had replaced.
‘Fine.’
‘That’s the spirit!’ Tanya rolled her eyes at Alex’s lack of
excitement before giving a small sigh and taking her hand.
‘I know the last month or so’s been hard. All the pressure

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you’ve put on yourself with exams and then Sully going

AWOL on you, but this is the last few weeks of our youth,’
she said, solemnly. ‘Everything changes after this, Al. You’ll
go off to uni and everyone else will leave town and go their
separate ways. We won’t be kids anymore. We’ll have to go
off and do grown-up stuff and be all responsible. I don’t want
everything to change.’
Alex felt her throat tighten at her friend’s sad expression.
The shine of tears in Tanya’s eyes had her blinking back some
of her own. Tanya had been the first friend she’d made when
she’d started school after they’d moved back to her father’s
hometown when she’d been seven. Alex and Tanya had been
inseparable—more like sisters than best friends—and saying
goodbye to Tanya was going to be one of the hardest goodbyes
of all. They’d been planning their great escape from Rocky
since the start of high school, designing their dream apart-
ment, imagining their exciting, big-city life. It was all they’d
talked about, once. The last few years, though, they’d talked
less about escaping as the reality of figuring out career options
and the pressure of school and study and university sapped
all the excitement from Alex’s daydreams. It had taken a
while for her to realise that her friend was no longer along
for the ride.
‘I’m not going to university,’ Tanya had told her last year.
Just like that, out of the blue.
‘What do you mean? Why not?’ That had always been the
plan: they’d apply for the same university, find themselves a
flat together and come home for holidays.

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‘I’m not as smart as you. I don’t want to study for another

four years. I don’t even know what I want to do.’
‘You can figure it out as you go. And you are smart!’
‘Not book smart.’ She shrugged. ‘My aunty’s giving me a
job in the cafe after I finish Year Twelve. I’d leave now, but
that was one of the conditions of the job—I had to finish
school first.’
‘You’re going to stay here and work in a cafe?’ Alex hadn’t
meant it to come out sounding quite as judgemental as it did,
but she was in shock.
‘For now. Who knows? Maybe one day my Prince Charming
will ride into town and carry me away,’ Tanya had said, waving
a hand above her head like a magic wand.
Alex hadn’t shared her friend’s calm acceptance of her
future. In fact, their relationship had started changing from
that moment. Alex had poured herself into study while Tanya
had been free to party and socialise and enjoy her senior years.
‘It’ll be okay,’ Alex said now, summoning up a bright
smile. She hugged her friend tightly as they stared at their
reflection in the mirror before them. ‘We’ll stay in touch.
I’ll be home every holidays and you can come down and
stay with me on weekends whenever you like. We can still
go out and have fun.’
‘Promise?’ Tanya asked, wiping her eyes quickly.
‘Absolutely. Whatever else happens in our lives, you and
I will always stay friends.’

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The One That Got Away

Through the windows of the Paragon, Alex watched the early

holidaymakers from the caravan park across the road make
the migration through the reserve from their camp sites to the
beach. Parents tugged along canvas trolleys filled with beach
balls and cabanas, towels and eskies, as they held the hands
of squirming, impatient toddlers who were in a hurry to go
for a swim. She saw the parents look longingly at the cafe
as they went by, knowing there was no way they’d get away
with delaying the promised swim to wait for an order. Older
couples strolled by, dressed in their resort wear and large sun
hats, while a group of teenagers on bikes and skateboards
wreaked havoc with pedestrians. The street was bustling,
but it was nowhere near the crazy busy it would get in just
a few weeks’ time, once the Christmas holidays kicked in
with full force.
A young boy delivered Alex’s meal, interrupting her people
watching. She caught something familiar in the kid’s face.
‘Mum said she’ll catch up with you later,’ he said.
Mum? ‘You’re Tanya’s son?’ Alex asked, realising why he
looked familiar. He had Tanya’s eyes.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m Alex. Nice to meet you,’ she said and the boy, who
she thought must be about fourteen or so, gave her a quick
nod before disappearing into the kitchen. The booths were
beginning to fill up and Tanya would have her hands too
full for any further conversation this morning. It surprised
Alex how much she’d been looking forward to speaking
with Tanya again. She hadn’t come here to find old friends

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and ‘catch up’. There was very little about the past that she
wanted to reminisce about. But seeing Tanya again . . . that
had surprised her. She hadn’t expected to feel that depth of
sorrow for a lost friendship— or the instant joy in finding
her again.
The food was delicious, the flavour and presentation
second to none. Alex found herself shaking her head in
wonder. A place like this in the city—in any city, anywhere
in the world— would be getting rave reviews. How had
Rockne Heads, of all places, managed to hide this little gem
for so long?
Tanya was nowhere in sight when she finished her meal,
so Alex left the cafe. She was in the process of putting her
sunglasses on when she was yanked backwards, seconds before
a kid on a skateboard collided with her.
‘Are you okay?’ asked a male voice.
Alex lifted her gaze to the man before her and froze.
No. Way.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise—this was Rockne Heads,
for goodness’ sake, so she was bound to bump into him at
some point, only she hadn’t anticipated it to be quite so literal.
Sully McCoy. In the flesh.
He’d changed. Which was to be expected—when she’d
last known him, he was nineteen years old, a kid really. Now
he was a man.
‘Alex?’ he prompted now, frowning slightly as he looked
down at her and she realised she hadn’t answered him.

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‘I’m fine. Thank you.’ Though she realised, with

some annoyance, that her heartbeat had begun to pick up
for some unexplainable reason.
He continued to stare at her, but his frown began to fade.
He released her once he was sure she was steady on her feet,
and took a small step back. ‘Bloody kids are going to hurt
someone one day,’ he said gruffly.
‘It’s pretty dangerous, especially considering there’s so
many young kids and elderly around. I’m surprised Murna’s
committee hasn’t gotten on to it yet,’ she said dryly.
She saw his lips twitch a little at that before he tilted his
head in the direction of the caravan park. ‘They aren’t local.
Tourists.’
‘Hmm,’ Alex replied. ‘Maybe I’ll go over and have a word
at the park office on my way home.’
‘You can try. There’s probably not much they can do.
What we need is a copper in town—but we don’t have that
either. Not like the old days.’
‘It does seem strange they closed down the station,’ she
said, her gaze moving to the little stone cottage at the end of
the main street. It held both good and bad memories—good
ones of when she was younger and her dad had worked there
and bad because . . . Well, she didn’t want to recall those.
‘Bloody disgrace, really,’ Sully said. ‘Everything goes
through a central switchboard and they send out police
from twenty to fifty kilometres away. By the time they get
out here—if they even get out here—it’s usually too late to
do anything.’

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As the crow flew, it was probably only a few kilometres from

Moreville, the nearest town with any facilities, but the road into
Rocky wound its way up the highway and around and under a
bridge before following the river that eventually led out to the
ocean, making it a long and tricky drive if you weren’t used to
it, with a lot of sharp bends and narrow sections.
‘Have you caught up with Tanya yet?’ he asked, looking
at the cafe.
‘Yes, I was just in there.’
‘I bet she was glad to see you.’
Alex flashed a half-smile and shifted her weight slightly.
‘She was pretty busy. We didn’t really have time to catch
up properly.’
‘Oh, well. I’m sure you’ll find time. How long are you
back for?’
‘Just a few days. I’m putting the house on the market.’
‘Yeah, I heard.’
‘Of course you did.’
‘Surely you haven’t forgotten how fast news travels around
here?’ he asked, lifting an eyebrow.
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she said, lifting her eyes to meet his
squarely. She saw him blink and then a serious expression
fell into place, replacing his earlier laid-back manner. ‘I have
to go. It was nice to see you again, Sully.’
‘Alex. Wait. Do you want to . . .’ He paused, then swore
softly. ‘Would you like to meet up for a coffee, or dinner
even, before you leave town?’

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His invitation caught her by surprise. Dinner with Sullivan

McCoy? The man—well, boy—who’d broken her heart all
those years ago?
Yes, a little voice reminded her calmly, the boy, not the
man. That was a long time ago.
‘I’m not sure I’ll have time.’
‘It wouldn’t have to be anything fancy,’ he said, then started
backing away. ‘How’s tomorrow night? Say about seven? Meet
me down at the pier.’
The pier? Wait— what? Tomorrow? She scrambled to think
of an excuse to say no, but he was already walking away.

Alex was still stewing over the conversation when she reached
the house. Her breath caught in her chest as she stared at
her front door.
Someone had spray painted a word in menacing, bright
red paint, which had begun to run in long, gruesome streaks,
resembling blood. Guilty!
She wasn’t certain how long she stood there staring.
Eventually, outside sounds filtered into her stunned brain—a
lawn mower somewhere down the street, seagulls squabbling
over food scrabs nearby. The noises cut through her shock
and she pushed open the gate and went inside to find some-
thing to clean up the mess.
After googling a solution and a lot of elbow grease, Alex
had removed the majority of the graffiti. She’d need to buy

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some paint to redo the door, but at least the hurtful message
was now gone.
The sight had shaken her more than she cared to admit.
It was one thing for the town gossip mill to be whispering
behind her back but it was another thing entirely when they
brought it—quite literally—to her front door. There was no
point making a fuss about it though. If she went to the police,
it would only draw more attention and that was the last thing
she wanted right now.
She just wanted this whole chapter of her life to be over.
Was that really too much to ask?

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