The Hidden Letter: A Romance of Fate and Destiny

By R.J. Boyd

Suzanne’s heart felt as dark and despondent as the skies she walked under. Relentlessly down came the rain. It was perfect. It blended with her psyche, and washed over her body to dilute her misery and drain it away. Jack was in love with her best friend Jenny. Their twenty year marriage was over, betrayed by a double whammy. She could never trust him again and never take him back.

It was then, with lightning flashing and thunder rumbling that she remembered Troy’s letter, the only one that she had ever kept from so long ago. It had been too precious to burn with all the others. He had written, “If in twenty years from now, you realise ‘the essence’ that is missing from your life to make you feel complete, then your heart and soul will guide you to me.” Precipitated by the recovery of that hidden letter, she takes the first available flight out of the States, heading home to Australia to visit not only her mother for a few days, but to also track down Troy and pursue the fantasy of a lost love.

Five days later she arrives in Sydney, and while waiting on a railway platform to travel the short distance to her mother’s home, she has a dizzy spell and falls in front of an oncoming train. At that very moment, as her life flashes before her eyes, a powerful arm lassos her around the waist, jerking her backwards with such force that it expels every molecule of air from her lungs.

The next thing she’s aware of is that she’s lying flat on her back, sucking and gasping for breath, with her legs in the air and skirt up around her neck. There is a large handsome man straddling her, clasping her legs and pumping her chest with her knees to manually facilitate her breathing. He had just saved her life. She is indebted to him, and all he asks in return for having saved her life, is for the pleasure of her company, by having a dinner date with him for one evening.

Over the course of her journey and a series of incidents, she is about to discover that fate has a way of dealing its own hand.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jan 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781922368294

Book preview

Chapter 1

Her heart felt as dark and despondent as the skies she walked under. Relentlessly down came the rain. Suzanne walked mechanically, defiantly, one step after another, not knowing where she was going or where she’d end up. She was oblivious to the wailing ambulance racing to a nearby accident, oblivious to the postie on his motor bike delivering mail in the street, and oblivious to the snarling dog shoving its ugly head through the fence in her direction. She was oblivious to everything, except for the pain and torment which was exploding inside her. How long she’d been walking, she did not know, she had no watch. Time measured in minutes or hours was irrelevant. Only her body clock would be able to tell her when enough, was enough.

Jack was in love with her best friend Jenny. Their twenty year marriage was over, betrayed by a double whammy. Sure, she would get over it, but all she had to do right now was to keep walking. The oppressive weather was perfect, it blended with her psyche, and the rain washed over her body to dilute her misery and drain it away. Soon she would be saturated to the skin and would really feel the cold. Only then could her whole body shiver to throw off the gloom which had taken hold, but until that happened, she had to keep moving and keep the anger flowing, even if that meant walking until she dropped.

Jack had practically been her entire life, but now that he had betrayed her, she could never trust him again and never take him back. In the process though, he had robbed her of something very precious, her best friend Jenny. Her betrayal truly hurt. A man … well ultimately he could be replaced, after all she was still an attractive and vibrant woman, but how do you replace your best friend, the one who knows the true intricacies of how you really tick?

Short of being hit by a cement truck, there wasn’t much that could have distracted Suzanne from her mindset, but the brilliant and jagged lance of lightning which thrust itself out of the ominous rolling clouds, had the same effect. It riveted her in mid-gait, tensing her body, widening her eyes and forcing a hand to her open mouth as she automatically started to count the seconds. One Mississippi … Two Mississippi … The thunder came out of nowhere, with no gentle rumbling as a forewarning. It cracked the sky wide open with a tumultuous blast loud enough to shake graves six foot under and wake their dead.

Suzanne jumped sideways, stifling the scream in her throat, and feeling her bladder waver nervously as the ground beneath her steadied itself against her fidgeting feet. Bloody hell! she exclaimed out loud. Instinctively she parted her thighs to look between the legs of her jeans, aware of a moist warmness, to check her crutch for spots of urine. She straightened up, laughing at her ludicrous behaviour. Her clothes were soaked from head to toe. No one would know if she had just peed her pants, it was like peeing in the ocean for goodness sake. But the warmness was still there, and the guilty look was no doubt still on her face.

Why hadn’t she seen that guilty look on Jack or Jenny’s face? They had been going at it now for well over twelve months. Was she that blind, or so naive and trusting that she simply took everything for granted? Oh what a fool she had been. And what sort of a fool must she look like at the moment, devoid of any wet weather gear, saturated to the bone and walking the streets like a stray dog. If only she could only shake herself, and for that matter, where the hell was she anyhow? That thunder clap had proved to be the catalyst that she needed. It had shocked her system and snapped her back to reality. The numbing coldness of wet clothing on her skin was now suddenly apparent, and her shivering body was telling her it was time to go home.

Hastily she turned, shoving her feet into another gear and pushing forward, battling headlong into the lashing force of the storm’s fury, as the heavens opened and the rain bucketed down. It was then at that very moment that she remembered Troy’s letter, the only one she’d kept from so long ago. It had been too precious to burn with all the others. Perhaps it was the reflex action, of squinting into the driving rain with the associated senses of lightning flashing and thunder rumbling which twigged him to her memory. Or perhaps it was the burning sting of the rains golf ball impact on her face which acted as the prompt, but for whatever the reason, the emotional warmness of his words in that letter, now had a soothing effect upon her. I will always love you, no matter what. One day we will be together again.

How could she still remember those words twenty years later, and why should ‘love’ mean anything to her at all after this episode of betrayal? Was it the association of her husband’s betrayal which now had her thinking of Troy? She in her own way had also betrayed Troy all those years ago, rejecting him by choosing to share her life with Jack instead. Troy had been wounded and badly hurt at the time, and then, just like now on a carbon copy day such as this, she had walked the streets to gather her thoughts. Was this some sort of cosmic payback for that rejection, with accumulated interest? If Troy had felt half the amount of torment and pain which she had in the past week, then surely now the debt would be squared away.

Suzanne changed direction, to enter her street with the letter box of her house clearly in sight. The ninety degree change allowed the wind to throw her sideways, causing her to constantly zigzag in an attempt to correct her alignment. The new direction also allowed the rain to slam into the side of her face, to drill into her ear and block its canals, to further disorientate and confuse her sense of balance. Defensively she pulled the collar of her jumper up to cover the side of her head, and with a fixed determination to get home, peered straight ahead with her eyes locked onto the front door.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t kept tabs on Troy. For a couple of years she had discretely kept track of his movements, and always roughly knew of his whereabouts and what he was up to. It was only after she’d heard about his whirlwind romance and marriage to an American lass sometime later, that she was finally able to let go of the past, to then settle down and accept her lot with Jack. Jack wasn’t stupid though. He was aware she had cut Troy loose in favour of himself. He would have suspected at the time that she was still carrying a flame for the guy, but he would never have suspected that she’d kept a letter of Troy’s all these years as a security blanket, as a reminder to herself of the fantasy of a lost love. On the day she’d heard that Troy had married, she had hidden that letter in the ceiling of their family home, its contents not to see the light of day, until today.

Suzanne stepped onto the front veranda, kicking off her sodden shoes, her heart pumping with a renewed vigour which had more to do with anticipation than strenuous exercise. It seemed as if there was no time to waste. It was as if a mystery had to be solved, a treasure had to be found … and she had the map. Unlocking the front door, common sense told her to take a long hot bubble bath, but the little girl inside her screamed in defiance, compelling her to secure the prize first.

Hastily she removed her wet clothes, dumping and leaving them miserable on the cold tiled bathroom floor. Snatching up her bath towel, she patted herself dry, then snuck naked into the bedroom, to ferret out and throw on a daggy old set of fleecy-lined trackies, faded red woollen socks and an equally mottled pair of preloved runners. Now at least she felt comfortable and warm again. With no time to waste, she twirled her scapula length blond hair into a bun, securing it with a terry towelling scrunchie, twisting it once, then twice, before tossing her head from side to side to road test its holding ability. The epitome of glamour, she chuckled out loud, with hands on hips, legs parted, and twisting her torso with her eyes fixed upon the full length mirror, to admire the figure that even with ratty clothing on, did her justice.

The ladder was in the garage, she had seen it yesterday. The torch was in the pantry cupboard and the manhole to the ceiling was in the hallway next to the laundry. All that was left to do now was to shove her butt into gear and embark upon this adventure. Scaling the ladder a few minutes later, she could feel the adrenalin pumping through her system. She felt the thrill commensurate with that of an undercover agent on a covert operation, to ‘get in, get the information and get out.’

Lifting the manhole panel above her head, she slid it to one side, and then tentatively peaked above the ceiling line into the darkness of the cavity. The sound of her own heart pumping in her ears overrode the roar of the rain on the corrugated iron roof, and just for a half minute or so, she stood there on the stepladder with her head in a black hole, neither moving up nor down, but letting her anxieties quell and her eyes become adjusted to the dark. Maybe she had watched too many movies, but to hell with it, if Jack walked in and questioned what she was doing, then she was checking for leaks, and not retrieving a secret which she had kept from him for twenty years. Anyhow, she no longer had to answer to Jack.

Tenuously, she raised herself up into the darkness of the cavern to secure her footing, and then fumbling for the flash light down the front of her zipped up top, extracted it and flicked on the switch. A laser type beam bored into the darkness, to cut a corridor down the length of the roof cavity. Its path was interrupted by the amber military uniforms of radiator pine trusses, but its peripheral glow settled on a silent-sea of sulphur-yellow fibreglass bats, to leave an eerie impression of another dimension.

She still felt rattled. Nothing moved. It felt as though she were in a tomb of the letter’s eternal resting place, and it would be sacrilegious to disturb it. But no, she had placed it here for safe keeping, and now she was claiming it back. Stealthily, she duck waddled her way across the supporting beams, balancing by hanging onto the dry dusty trusses, whilst congratulating herself on having listened to her little voice in the first place, by not having a bath prior to this adventure, as she would surely need one after it. The letter, well she knew exactly where she’d hidden it. X marked the spot. And there it was in red texta, still well preserved after twenty years.

She positioned herself beside the marked truss, and slowly lifted the fibreglass insulation bat. It was still there, still wrapped in a plastic bag and taped the way she had left it. Well, why shouldn’t it be? Holding the torch between her teeth, she lovingly picked it up, stroking off the debris and dust to view through the clear plastic covering. The sight of his handwriting sent goose bumps up her arms to tingle the back of her neck, and the added enforcement that this letter was addressed to her brought with it mixed emotions. It was the reality of past feelings, and the possibility of rekindled ones to come. ‘Get in, get the information and get out.’ It was time to go.

~ ~ ~

She had propped the letter up on the vanity shelf in the bathroom, in full view of where she now lay in the bathtub where a quiet reflective calm had engulfed her body. Aromatic essential bath oils intoxicated her senses with all the beautiful images of their association, and the shoulder depth hot water soaked away the muscular weary traumas of the past week. There was a certain childlike innocence associated with a hot bubble bath which smelt like security, and right now, she needed that feeling.

She had resisted the temptation to open the letter right away. She needed to feel a build-up of that expectation, by letting her head get carried away with all its romantic connotations. If anything it felt like foreplay, and once the letter was opened and read, the act would be over and the feeling would be gone. She had to stay psyched-up and keep her spirits high. There was no way that she would allow herself to slide backwards again, to wallow in the pit of despair which had been brought on by Jack’s betrayal. She had to keep this ball of fantasy rolling, and right or wrong, she would track Troy down and make contact with him. She would play her hand and let the chips fall where they may. She had nothing more to lose.

~ ~ ~

Wasn’t it always the way though, to settle into something you’ve really looked forward to, like reading this letter or watching a good movie on television, when the phone rings or someone knocks on the front door. Who the hell could that be? she muttered out loud, automatically tucking the letter away, to be out of sight from what could potentially be prying eyes. She had only just sat down, only just pulled the letter half way out of its envelope after having teased herself to the point of no return. To have this interruption now simply wasn’t fair, not after all trouble she’d gone to, to orchestrate the mood for herself and to savour the moment. The gas heater was glowing, the curtains were drawn, soft music was playing nostalgically in the background, and she’d curled herself up on the two seater with a blanket over her legs, the soft glow of the reading lamp looking over her shoulder, and a glass of wine on the coffee table beside her.

Feeling somewhat cheated she opened the front door. It was Jenny’s husband. He was drenched, even though he’d only dashed the short twenty odd metres from his car to her front door. He looked sullen and dejected, and although he was taller than her, he still somehow managed to look up at her with those sad basset hound eyes. Droplets of rain dripped from his hair onto his forehead, to form little rivulets which flowed over his eyebrows to drip onto his eyelashes. It caused him to blink profusely, and to wipe his brow with the sleeve on the back of his arm, with an action similar to that of a small child wiping their nose. It gave the illusion he’d been crying, which he probably had. He was not an emotionally strong man. Some would no doubt call him a wimp.

Oh John! she remarked sympathetically. Come inside out of the weather.

The rain continued with its onslaught, and although its violent rage had moved further north, it seemed as though there was to be no end to it. The gutters overflowed, sloshing torn sheets of water up under the eaves, to be whipped and slashed, then catapulted by the swirling winds to splatter across the veranda and drape around her legs. She didn’t need this, she’d already awarded herself a purple heart for her time in battle. Closing the door, she gestured for John to stand in front of the gas heater and then slipped into the kitchen to make them both a hot coffee. All was silent until she reappeared and passed his cuppa over with a thin smile.

Jenny may have had a change of heart, he said without expression. She said she’s hurt us both really badly and wished the situation had never happened …

Suzanne listened. If there was one thing she was good at, it was listening, but the disquiet she could now feel rising within herself, troubled her deeply. She was always listening to others, but hardly ever it seemed, to the wisdom of her own little voice. That little voice was now screaming at her to pay attention, telling her that she wanted nothing more to do with Jack or Jenny, telling her that she was now free and that she wanted it left that way.

Now this is all out in the open, she wants to spend some time alone with herself, to find out how she truly feels.

Yeah right, thought Suzanne, that little tramp had cheated on him consistently through their entire marriage. She wondered if she should say something, but that would probably make John feel worst, and she didn’t want to become embroiled in any more drama. She liked John as a friend, after all, he