Chapters (48)
- Cover
- Praise
- About the Author
- Also by Tricia Stringer
- Title Page
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Author’s Note
- Acknowledgements
- Excerpt
- One
She had to smile at that. There had been no ceiling fans in the farmhouse when she’d moved in. The summer they swapped with her in-laws from the quarters to the main house she’d organised ceiling fans to be installed in the kitchen, the main bedroom and the bedroom next door they used as a nursery. She’d paid for it from her own savings. Olive had declared it a terrible waste of money but by next summer she’d had fans installed in every room including the quarters. No further comment was made, and when Laura was a baby Olive had also arranged air conditioning for the bedrooms and the kitchen. Natalie thought of those fans now and contemplated the picture in front of her. She wondered about the advertising person who’d used the word sexy to describe a ceiling fan.
She continued to flick then paused at the section called ‘Travel Insider’. At the bottom was a picture of a beautiful beach with no-one on it and the heading ‘Exploring Dampier Peninsula’. She’d never heard of Dampier Peninsula but the article boasted unspoilt landscapes and the promise of a spiritual awakening. She put her head back and closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure about a spiritual awakening but her heart and soul were in need of some kind of restoration and she hoped a holiday in Broome would do that for her.
She opened her eyes again at a change in engine noise. The pilot said something about seeing whales in the bay. Past her neighbour’s head, the tiny window was filled with the aquamarine of the Indian Ocean stretching to the horizon as the plane did a slow loop and lined up with the airport runway.
“There.” The young man stabbed at the window.
She leaned closer. She caught a glimpse of a tiny dark shape and a splash of foam but wouldn’t swear on her life it was a whale.
They zoomed lower over white sand dotted with beachgoers, next came glimpses of bush and vibrant red earth, and then the wheels shuddered onto the tarmac. She gripped her hands tightly in her lap. She’d done it. She’d left her family, her work and community, and the cold of a South Australian winter behind and flown halfway across Australia to Broome. She seesawed from excitement to disbelief to panic.
The heat hit her as soon as she stepped from the aircraft. She was totally unprepared and overdressed in jeans and a lightweight jumper she’d dragged on in the pre-dawn chill of Adelaide. She squinted into the mid-afternoon glare reflecting from the tarmac and hoped her sunglasses were in the bottom of her bag somewhere.