Always on my Mind

By Trish Morey

From the golden wheat fields of Yorke Peninsula, to the financial hub of New York City...

 

Ten years ago, Pip Martin traded the tragedy and secrets of her past on

South Australia's Yorke Peninsula, for a financial career half a world away in New York City. But now Pip's Alzheimers-ridden gran is dying and

i

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trish morey
• Release date: May 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9780648835929

Trish Morey

USA Today bestselling author, Trish Morey, just loves happy endings. Now that her four daughters are (mostly) grown and off her hands having left the nest, Trish is rapidly working out that a real happy ending is when you downsize, end up alone with the guy you married and realise you still love him. There's a happy ever after right there. Or a happy new beginning! Trish loves to hear from her readers – you can email her at [e-mail]

Book preview

Preface

Pip Martin saw her life as being made up of two distinct parts.

There was the before, when summers were long and hot and the days filled with girlfriends and the cute guy next door or chasing after her irritating little brother, with her mum and her gran whipping up cupcakes or a roast in the old wood stove. Days when her dad would come home tired and cranky after another long session in the paddocks bringing in the harvest on their Yorke Peninsula farm.

Then there was the after, where there was only Pip, and her ailing gran, and a bone deep sense of betrayal, for everyone it seemed had known or suspected the truth.

Everyone but Pip.

But by then it was too late to find out who she really was. All she knew was that she didn’t belong and that she needed to be as far away from her lying past as possible.

Chapter 1

Adelaide Airport had grown up while Pip was away. There was a shiny new terminal with air bridges now, and disembarking the plane had the same generic feel it had worldwide, so she could almost have been anywhere – if not for the unmistakeable line of hills to the east, with the three towers marking the highest point in the Mount Lofty Ranges.

That, and the twisting of her gut that told her she was nearly home.

Home.

After almost a decade and a half living and working in Sydney and then New York, she wasn’t even sure what that meant any more.

Her recently turned on phone burped up the messages that had come in since last checking her phone during her connection in Auckland, and Pip held her breath as she scanned them. She smiled at the ‘Missing you’ message from her friend, Carmen, and frowned at the three from Chad but didn’t bother with those now. She was relieved to see there was nothing from her gran’s nursing home. No news was good news, although it didn’t stop her calling as soon as she was inside the terminal.

‘How is she?’ she asked, to be told there was no change. She checked the wristwatch she’d already adjusted to Adelaide time and did a mental calculation – one hour at most for the formalities of immigration and customs and to collect the keys to her rental car, and another two for the drive to the town of Kadina – and told them she’d be there by lunch.

Too easy.

Her business class ticket meant a short queue at immigration, so she beat her luggage to baggage collection, the carousel still stationery. It wouldn’t be long once it did kick into action, she knew, courtesy of the priority tag her suitcase was wearing. But still she felt impatient to keep moving, her stomach wringing itself tighter and tighter the longer the wait continued. Feeling conflicted. Needing desperately to see her gran, but knowing that visiting her home town for the first time in almost a decade was going to shake things up, things she’d sooner leave right where they were.

Like questions from the past she didn’t know the answer to.

Like other stuff.

Like . . . Luke.

God, she didn’t want to think about any of that, least of all Luke. That was history. So ancient, it shouldn’t even figure. And then a siren sounded and a light flashed and the carousel kicked slowly into motion. A few bags in, her suitcase appeared through the rubber strips. She almost sighed as she hauled it from the carousel. She’d still be out of here within the hour. Thank god she had nothing to declare. Another ten minutes or so and finally she’d be free.

It was when she turned that she noticed the sniffer dog, trotting its way between legs and luggage. It was a beagle and cute as a button and for the first time in hours she managed a smile. Until it took one sniff in her direction and plonked itself down in front of her, and cute as a button turned into the incoming passenger’s worst nightmare.

‘I don’t understand,’ she pleaded, as the dog’s handler asked to see an incoming passenger card that clearly stated she was carrying nothing that should be of any interest to a sniffer dog or its handler.

‘Are you sure there’s not something in your bag?’ he asked, as curious heads craned around her. ‘Some food from the plane, perhaps?’

She shook her head, the cold sick fear of what-if curdling the aeroplane breakfast in her stomach. What if someone had stashed something in her luggage en route? What if any one of a thousand other scenarios had happened? But she had done nothing wrong. She knew she had packed nothing that was contraband. She tried to smile. Tried to look confident. Tried, and failed. ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

Of course, there was nothing else for it but to search her bags. As her hopes of a quick getaway faded, her sigh of exasperation didn’t win her any friends.

‘This won’t take long,’ said the stony faced official.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, trying not to aggravate the man any further. Not that anyone seemed fussed about not aggravating her. ‘It’s just, I’m kind of in a hurry.’ She licked her dry lips and wondered if she’d they’d give her a break if she explained why she needed to get through customs and immigration as quickly as possible. ‘You see, my grandmother’s dying and I promised to be at her bedside by lunch.’

The official paused, latex sheathed hands poised over her suitcase, and for one moment Pip thought that maybe he might actually let her go. ‘That’s too bad, miss,’ he said, deadpan but with a glimmer in his eye that told Pip she’d probably made the biggest mistake of her life by playing the dying grandmother card. He looked convinced she was trying to hide something now. ‘And now, if you’ll kindly unzip your bag?’

After twenty minutes of rifling through her things, twenty minutes of excruciating embarrassment as his big hands sorted through her knickers and her bras and the stuff she hid in her toiletries bag specifically so it wouldn’t spill out if her suitcase came undone en route, twenty minutes of questions during which the official found nothing before finally conceding that the beagle had likely smelled the banana she admitted taking most days to work, she was free to cram her belongings back in and go hunt down her rental car.

She sighed with relief at the agency as she gave her name and the attendant pulled out the paperwork. Finally something was going right. Soon she’d be on her way.

Or not . . .

‘Hang on,’ she said to the car rental agency attendant, who seemed to be having a lot of trouble with her booking. ‘I don’t want a sports car!’

The man rolled his eyes and glanced meaningfully over her shoulder at the queue of mums and dads and kids and luggage already building up behind her. ‘But you booked a cabriolet. It says so right here on the form.’

She shook her head, knowing that the last thing she wanted was a sports car. Her plan was to get in and out of Kadina making as few waves as possible. There was no way on earth she’d have asked for a damned sports car – or for that matter, any car that might draw attention to herself. ‘I want an ordinary car. Something nondescript and plain. Haven’t you got something boring? A Toyota or something?’

The attendant smiled. If you could call it a smile. More a baring of his teeth. ‘That’s actually a little awkward right now. We’re fully booked with the Christmas holidays starting. And after all, you did book the cabriolet.’

Pip sighed. Clearly someone had stuffed up. ‘Martin,’ she said again for good measure. ‘M-A-R-T-I-N. Can you check again please? There must be some mix up.’

‘There is no mix up.’ He didn’t even pretend to smile this time, all attempts at the pleasantries over. ‘This is your name on the rental document, yes?’

She glanced at the papers. ‘Well yes,’ she conceded, ‘but for the last time, I didn’t book –’

And with a cold shiver of realisation, it hit her. She hadn’t booked it at all. While she’d been in a panic about packing, Chad had offered to do it for her, using his firm’s corporate code because it offered a better discount than hers. ‘Just a car,’ she’d told him when he asked what kind she wanted. ‘Any old car.’

Shit . . .

‘Hang on,’ she said, reaching for her phone, scrolling through the messages she’d ignored earlier, clicking on the first.

Figured you would have landed by now.

She deleted that and moved onto the next.

Thought you might be missing me.

Weird. She frowned and sent that one to the trash as well. It was the third message where she hit paydirt.

So surprise! Enjoy the wheels. Think of me every time you put your foot down.

What the hell? She’d think of him, all right. She’d imagine pushing him under her pedal and pressing her foot down hard. Dammit, why the hell had she ever trusted him with her booking?

She sucked in air and looked back at the attendant and gave a weak smile. He had no trouble lobbing a wide one right back, and she knew that whatever expression had been on her face when she’d read those messages might as well have been ringed with neon lights. He was loving every minute of this. ‘All sorted then?’ he asked smugly, and without waiting for the answer pushed the rental agreement closer to her. ‘So maybe we can finish off the paperwork. If you just sign here . . . and here.’

Pip sighed. ‘Okay,’ she conceded, holding up one hand. ‘Apparently someone did book that car in my name. But it was actually a misunderstanding. Are you sure there’s nothing else available? Nothing at all?’

He blew air through his teeth and gestured to the queue behind her that was growing longer by the minute, full of fractious kids and their exhausted looking parents. ‘Not a sausage. I’m sorry, these people have booked all our boring cars.’

Ouch! She glanced over to the other agency desks, wondering if she should threaten to take her business elsewhere, but those desks looked just as crowded.

‘So there’s really no alternative?’

‘There’s always an alternative,’ he told her, and when she looked back at him, halfway interested, he continued. ‘There’s always public transport.’

All the way to the Yorke Peninsula? In what – a bus? And meanwhile she was supposed to be halfway there already, at her gran’s bedside. Oh god, Gran! Two hours after landing she was still stuck here at the airport. ‘Okay,’ she said, scrawling her signature on the paperwork. So much for trying not to be noticed. ‘I’ll take the damned convertible. Please just tell me it’s not red.’

The attendant looked studiously at the papers and didn’t say a word, but still she caught the curve of his lips. She could only hope it was because he was happy to be finally seeing the back of her.

Five minutes later she knew it wasn’t the only reason.

She surveyed the car. Her nondescript rental designed to fly under the radar and go unnoticed in her home town.

It was all kinds of red.

Look-at-me red.

Trouble-on-wheels red.

Sex-on-wheels red.

Enough!

Whatever the colour, she would have to deal with it. She would just have to cope. She wrestled her bag into the trunk – boot, she reminded herself – and opened her door, staring blankly for a moment at the missing steering wheel before she realised.

‘Damn!’

She slammed the door, disgusted with herself as she rounded the car and found the driver’s seat.

She was in Australia now. Driving on the other side of the car, and the road. She’d better not forget that again.

Chapter 2

The last thing Luke needed in the middle of harvest was to have to head into town. But the fuel filter had clogged in the harvester he’d been nursing and the whole thing had finally sputtered and died, and there was no putting off a visit to the local John Deere dealership any longer. Besides, it wasn’t like he had nothing else to do while he was in town. The running repair he’d made to the back sheep paddock fence wouldn’t last forever, so he might as well get those extra droppers he was short of, not to mention pick up the mail and grab a few groceries into the deal. A pre-Christmas ham in the fridge made meal preparation easy, sure, but even he was getting sick of ham sandwiches.

By the time he’d talked himself into the inevitability of it, he was almost happy to forget the inconvenience of leaving the harvest unfinished and load up Turbo alongside him. For a couple of hours they’d leave the troubles of the farm behind. Just the thought of chicken and chips for lunch for a change improved his mood. And god knows, he could do with a bit of company.

The dog whimpered and laid its head on his paws where he was sitting on the seat beside him, and Luke almost wondered if he’d spoken out loud. Then again, his dog had always been uncanny in picking up on his moods. ‘Sorry Turbo,’ he said, curling the fingers of one hand around his ears. ‘Nothing personal, but a bloke needs a bit of human company every now and then.’

Turbo snorted his disagreement and sulked into a restless doze as the ute headed down the back roads towards the highway to Kadina.

Luke smiled. The dog was right. Turbo had seen him with human company – of the female variety at any rate – and hated every mismatched minute of it. And most of the time he had no need for two-legged companionship anyway. Turbo was a better companion than just about any friend he’d had. Honest, hardworking and loyal to a fault. If only the dog could learn to rustle up a steak sandwich or a feed of chicken and chips for them every now and then, he’d be just about perfect.

Luke changed his plan of attack as he drove by the local agricultural supplies dealership. The Ag store car park was in gridlock, a combination of harvest needs and pre-Christmas shopping. Forget waiting in line, he’d come back after lunch when there might be more chance to catch a minute with his mate Craig, the manager. He needed to check the details for Sunday’s christening – it wouldn’t do to turn up late, not given he’d agreed to be Chloe’s godfather.

The supermarket welcomed him with air-conditioned comfort, canned music and the occasional nod from other customers, none of which he minded as he made his way around the aisles filling his basket. Until Sheila Ferguson bailed him up in the frozen food section, her trolley blocking the only part of the aisle her ample body didn’t. And damn it all, she was between the Potato Gems and him.

‘Did you hear the news?’ she crowed, bright eyed and delighted, holding her ground after exchanging the usual pleasantries. Luke raked fingers through his hair, scratching for a clue. Sheila headed the local native animal rescue network and was famous for her work adopting orphaned wildlife. There was hardly a week went by where Sheila and the latest orphaned babies weren’t featured in the local newspaper. Maybe she’d finally been awarded an Order of Australia for her efforts and he was the only one who hadn’t congratulated her for it?

His seeking fingers gave up, drawing a blank. ‘Sorry Sheila. I’ve been busy with the harvest. What did I miss?’

The woman’s eyes widened, as if she’d just hit the mother lode. ‘You really haven’t heard? Then it’s lucky I found you. Priscilla Martin is coming home.’

He blinked. A really slow blink. To give his gut a chance to deal with the shock and move on before any hint of surprise might show in his eyes. Before any hint could be transmitted that he might actually be interested in the news. Because he wasn’t – interested, that is – he just had to get used to the concept.

And he was glad he’d taken his time, because when he opened them he found Sheila Ferguson examining him much like he imagined she’d examine one of her marsupial roadkill victims. Closely. Intently. Studying them for any signs of life before she plucked whatever newborns were hanging around the pouch waiting to be rescued.

He grimaced. Lucky for him he wasn’t brandishing a pouch. The woman did good work, it was true, but he wouldn’t fancy Sheila’s gnarled hands rummaging around his nether regions.

‘That’s nice,’ he lied, as nonchalantly as he could. And, after all, why shouldn’t he be nonchalant? It was long since he cared what Pip Martin did. So long ago it was ancient history. ‘So, what brings her back?’

‘Violet Cooper is fading,’ the woman continued, nodding sadly, her fingers tightly wound around her trolley, still blocking the aisle and any chance of escape. ‘They say she’s not long for this world.’

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Pip’s grandmother had managed to hang on for so long she was almost part of the furniture at Kadina’s nursing home. She had to be pushing ninety years old. But the bigger surprise was finding that her granddaughter actually cared enough to leave her highly paid job in New York City to come. As far as he knew, she hadn’t visited for nigh on a decade. Why bother now?

Not that he was about to ask Sheila that, because then she might think that he cared. And then everyone Sheila spoke to might think he cared. And that would be wrong.

Because he didn’t care.

Not about Pip, at any rate. Long ago she’d more than severed any connection they’d had.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said instead, because it was far safer territory and he truly was sorry. And because he felt guilty. He’d loved Pip’s grandmother like his own once. But his had been taken out by a sudden stroke while Pip’s had lingered through the slow decline of Alzheimer’s. And while he’d meant to pop in and say hello from time to time – and had, once or twice, in the beginning – the visits had tapered off as Violet’s disease had taken hold. ‘Thanks for letting me know, Sheila, but Turbo’s waiting in the car. I better get going.’

Port Wakefield Road was even more chaotic than she remembered. It had always been busy, sure, but now it seemed more frenetic than ever, its sides heaving with businesses hawking the likes of caravans, boats and prefabricated houses. As Pip passed mile upon mile of new suburbs backed up against the highway, she found herself wondering if the expanding city would ever end.

Norah Jones singing on Pip’s phone did her best to soothe her fraying nerves, and for all its showiness, the Audi ate up the bitumen with ease, but still the sprawling city seemed interminable.

This had all been open paddocks once, the highway nothing more than a long straight ribbon of asphalt heading north-west through flat, drab countryside.

Not that it had been any more inspiring then.

But at least it had been familiar.

Finally the long belt of city fell away and broad paddocks opened up either side. Flat and brown, this was how she remembered it – just about as different from Manhattan as you could get. The tallest things around her now were the B-Double trucks hurtling along the highway, and there wasn’t a yellow cab in sight.

It should have felt wrong after so many years living away, the first five years in Sydney, the last nine in New York. She should have felt like a stranger. But it didn’t feel wrong and she didn’t feel like a stranger.

Instead, it felt – she felt – sad.

It was a long flat road back to nowhere. Nowhere she wanted to be, at any rate. Nowhere she would be heading now, except for . . .

‘Oh, Gran.’

And maybe it was mad, rushing home to be with a woman who hadn’t recognised her the last two times she’d visited and wouldn’t know she was here now. Except that Violet was her grandmother and she had no other family.

None that she knew of anyway.

Damn.

Pip swept a stray tear from her cheek. She’d known coming home would stir up all kinds of questions from the past, but right now she couldn’t afford to let herself think of anything besides Gran.

The Audi rolled on, past the oddly named towns of Dublin and Windsor and the more fittingly named Two Wells and Wild Horse Plains. Weariness dragged at her. She’d bought a business class ticket in the hope that it would give her the comfort and space to sleep, but she’d been kidding herself. She’d been too worried about her Gran to get anything more than patchy sleep, and once she’d landed in Auckland, the knowledge that she was nearly home had been too powerful to let her rest. Now the time wasted at the airport hung heavily on her. By rights, she should already be there.

The town of Port Wakefield appeared before her, a cluster of bakeries and crowded fuel stops, and then disappeared before the road split and suddenly it was quieter, the bulk of the traffic traveling north while she swung west, the low domes of the Hummocks rising before her, the range that had always signalled the divide between Adelaide and the Yorke Peninsula.

The range that was the final barrier to her former life. She shivered, and not only because she was worried about her Gran.

Not long now ...

Chapter 3

The groceries safely stashed in the esky in the back of the ute, Luke pulled up outside the post office. He didn’t bother turning off the engine, he’d only be here a minute. He was pulling out the wad of mail curled tightly inside his letterbox when the post office door opened beside him.

‘Luke Trenorden!’ he heard. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

He groaned inwardly, even as he recognised the voice and turned to greet his high school English teacher. Jean Cutting liked nothing more than to talk. And talk.

‘Hi, Mrs Cutting,’ he said, a habitual greeting forged through three years of classes and somehow never shed. No matter how long ago his school years were, she’d never be anything but Mrs Cutting. ‘How’s it going?’

Her eyes were bright and her ruddy cheeks were lit up like a pair of red delicious apples, and for a moment his stomach tightened and he wondered . . . But no, there was no reason to panic, because his old high school English teacher was always glad to see him. It didn’t have to mean anything.

‘So what brings you into town today?’ she asked, studying the pile of mail in his hands and nodding knowingly. ‘Looks like you haven’t been in for a while.’

‘Got to pick up a part for the harvester. Figured I might as well grab the mail while I’m here.’

‘Oh,’ she said. And then gave a lilting girlish laugh. ‘And here was me thinking you’d come in to see Pip.’

Good grief.

So much for those ruddy cheeks and bright eyes not meaning anything. The bush telegraph was clearly alive and well. ‘Pip?’ he asked, and was grateful his voice didn’t squeak.

‘Pip Martin. I hear she’s coming home today to see Violet Cooper before she goes. I thought maybe you’d come in to catch up with her.’

‘Uh, actually, no.’

‘Because you two were so close in high school, of course.’

He scuffed an imaginary clod of dirt from his boot against the concrete verandah. ‘Yeah, well, that was a long time ago.’

‘And a lot of us were hoping that one day you might end up as more than just friends.’

‘It’s funny how things turn out, for sure.’

Her eyes turned sympathetic as she shook her head. ‘I know. It was so sad about you and Sharon not working out.’

He scratched his head, wondering how long he was going to have to stand here while she prattled on about all his past failures. Any minute now and she’d launch into a blow-by-blow critique of every miserable essay he’d ever written. ‘Yeah, well –’

‘Do you think you’ll look her up?’

‘Who? Sharon?’

‘No. Pip, of course.’

He looked towards his car where Turbo was sitting panting in the driver’s seat, the engine still running. The dog looked like he was ready to reverse and drive away, and Luke had never wanted to change places with him more. ‘I really hadn’t thought about it. I imagine she’ll be pretty busy with her gran ’n’ all.’

‘Well, it’s not a very big town, is it, really?’ And then she did that lilting laugh that had always set his teeth on edge. ‘You’re bound to bump into each other somewhere along the line.’

Not if he had anything to do with it. In fact, as soon as he was done with the Ag store, he sure as hell wouldn’t be setting foot anywhere near town again until he knew she was gone. ‘Anyway, I probably should be getting on. Get those parts, you know. Nice seeing you, Mrs Cutting.’

‘Call me Jean.’

‘Sure, um, Mrs Cutting. Catch you later.’

Pip’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier. She’d imagined when she’d scaled the Hummocks that she was nearly at Kadina, but she’d been kidding herself. Forty kilometres to go. Forty kilometres that had never seemed so long. She felt a pang of guilt passing the turn-off to Melton, the tiny collection of farmhouses clustered around the one-time railway siding where she’d lived what seemed a lifetime ago, but she’d make time to visit the old place later. Turning off now would mean passing those