Secret Confessions: Down & Dusty - Kelly

By Fiona Lowe

Welcome to the heart – and heat – of Australia…

They say that no one has secrets in a small town – these women prove them wrong.

Eight brand–new stories from some of Australia's hottest writers in Australia's hottest genre. From the bar stools of the local pub to the wide open plains of the biggest stations in the world, these tales travel the dusty roads to the heart of Australia and the women who understand how to work hard – and play even harder.

In the latest in the wildly successful Secret Confessions series from Escape Publishing, the women of Down & Dusty invite you into their lives – and their bedrooms.

Kelly Wilkins' marriage has always been a team effort, but lately, under the daily grind of work, kids, and an unrelenting drought, she feels like her team has dwindled to one. The lack of rain in Milpinyani Springs isn't the only dry spell affecting her and, despite her best efforts, her once attentive husband hasn't touched her in weeks. With the threat of a long, dry summer stretching out in front of them, can Kelly and Grant rediscover their spark, or will their relationship be another casualty of the drought?

Secret Confessions: Down & Dusty
Casey – Rachael Johns
Lucky – Cate Ellink
Kelly – Fiona Lowe
Brooke – Eden Summers
Clarissa – Mel Teshco
Skye – Rhyll Biest
Maree – Elizabeth Dunk
Frankie – Jackie Ashenden

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Feb 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9780857992949

Fiona Lowe

FIONA LOWE has been a midwife, a sexual health counsellor and a family support worker; an ideal career for an author who writes novels about family and relationships. She spent her early years in Papua New Guinea where, without television, reading was the entertainment and it set up a lifelong love of books. Although she often re-wrote the endings of books in her head, it was the birth of her first child that prompted her to write her first novel. A recipient of the prestigious USA RITA® award and two Australian RuBY awards, Fiona writes books that are set in small country towns. They feature real people facing difficult choices and explore how family ties and relationships impact on their decisions. When she's not writing stories, she's a distracted wife, mother of two ‘ginger' sons, a volunteer in her community, guardian of eighty rose bushes, a slave to a cat, and is often found collapsed on the couch with wine. You can find her at her website, fionalowe.com, and on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.

Book preview

Episode 3—Kelly

Red dust laughed in the face of window and door seals. Hell, it gave the bird to houses in general, and when the west wind blew over the drought-ravaged district, clouds of it moved in and took over every surface with easy familiarity. Kelly Wilkins knew it was pointless getting upset by the layer of vivid orange outback dirt that now graced the floor—the floor she’d mopped this morning immediately after dropping the kids off at school and before heading to her job at the Milpinyani Springs medical centre. But knowing that wasn’t enough to stop frustration crawling through her.

And it wasn’t only frustration at the dust. Part of her wished it were, because that would be an easy fix—a quick swish of the mop, job done—but there was no easy fix to the problem that was her marriage. It was like the ever-present and pervasive dust that spun around her, blocking her nose, clogging her throat and increasing in amount and intensity with every passing day.

She heard the sound of her eight-year-old’s feet pounding against the floorboards and heading fast toward the back door. ‘Max! Come back, please, and empty your school bag.’

‘Aww, Mum.’ The pounding slowed to a slow stomp.

‘Aww, nothing. You know the deal. It’s spelling and times tables first, then the trampoline.’

A flash of pink appeared, twirling in her peripheral vision. ‘Mummy, it’s not fair. How can I be a ballerina if you won’t let me learn?’

Kelly felt the muscles in her neck, which had been tight all day, ratchet up a notch. As much as she loved being the more hands-on parent, she bore the brunt of the kids’ theatrics and Ruby had a degree in drama. Kelly swallowed a sigh. ‘Ruby, honey, it’s not that I don’t want you to learn, it’s just the closest dance school is a three-hour drive away. Besides, I’m teaching you the basics.’

‘But it’s not fair,’ Ruby pouted. ‘Daddy flies to Longreach all the time. Why can’t I go with him?’

Kelly put cheese and biscuits on a plate for their post-school snack. ‘Because the Flying Doctors’ planes are for sick people.’

‘I wish Daddy had his own plane,’ her daughter said glumly, ‘and then he’d take me to ballet.’

Kelly wished Grant had a plane too and that they could fly away together for one night. Hell, she’d take one hour.

Her SAT phone beeped with an incoming text. When they’d lived in Brisbane and then Longreach, she’d had a smart phone and she’d assigned different sounds to different people but her glossy phone was useless out here. Her mother and sister called her on the landline and the only person who ever texted her was Grant. She didn’t want to read it, because it was rare for Grant to text her with news she wanted to hear.

Patient with #femur. Delayed out of Windorah. Sorry. Will miss games night.

Disappointment tried to half-heartedly unfurl its banner inside her, but after a decade of being married to a doctor, Kelly knew there was no point—it was a wasted emotion. Instead, familiar resignation slid in to take its place. As much as she wanted Grant to be here with them, she knew patients came first. It was