Needed: Her Mr Right

The possibilities tossed around and around in her head like debris swirling down a drainpipe and finally she gave up trying to sleep. Slipping out of bed, she padded in bare feet through the dark flat to her study, blinked at the brightness as her computer screen came to life and read Belle and Claire’s emails for the zillionth time.

Belle had written:

Oh, Simone! What a shame about your diary. I know how hard you worked on it—will you be able to put together your article without it? If you need any details, I’ve got the stuff I wrote for my reports that you can have. As for anyone connecting us with it, I wouldn’t worry too much. It’s most likely in some airport waste compactor by now.

That was a comforting thought. If only she could believe it.

Claire had been equally sympathetic and reassuring:

Don’t beat yourself up about this. It’s disappointing and frustrating, but I can’t imagine it will cause any problems for any of us.

Simone closed down her email programme, hoping the girls were right. It wouldn’t be so bad if she hadn’t included so many personal ramblings in her diary. She hadn’t meant to get deep and meaningful. Her intention had been simply to record the cycling challenge, but for years now she’d kept her inner self so tightly under wraps that once she was out of the country and had started to write, all kinds of thoughts, hopes and fears had tumbled on to the page.

So many dreams and dreads, memories and secrets…

Up there in the Himalayas, close beneath the stars, she’d looked at the vast dome of sky and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her parents. Both dead. She’d never known her father—he’d died before she was born, fighting in Vietnam. Her mother had died when she was seventeen.

She’d thought a great deal about her grandfather, who was very much alive, although she hadn’t seen him in over a decade.

Belle and Claire had been going through something similar, she’d discovered later, which was why they’d eventually made their pact and why Simone had pledged to go to Jonathan Daintree, her grandfather, to tell him what she should have told him years ago.

But now, back in Sydney and sitting alone in the dark, her courage seemed to have abandoned her totally.

In the eerie darkness, her eyes sought the familiar shape of an old cardboard box on the bookshelf beside her. It held all the Christmas and birthday cards her grandfather had sent her. Each card had come with a generous cheque and she’d written polite notes to thank him, but on both sides their correspondence had been guarded and coldly polite for some time now.

And it was her fault.

After her mother’s death, she’d distanced herself from the old man. At first there had been occasional fleeting meetings in cafеs when Jonathan had come to town. A kiss on the cheek…

A handful of words…

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, thanks, Grandfather.”

“You know you’re always welcome at Murrawinni.”

“Yes, but I’m so busy.”

She’d had to force the distance between them. It was awful and she knew she’d broken his heart, but if she’d remained close with Jonathan he would have asked too many questions. Questions about her stepfather, Harold Pearson’s, death, about her mother Angela’s involvement. Questions Simone could never answer.

Her mother had begged her never to tell anyone.

But could her mother have guessed the unbearable burden that ban had imposed?

Living with such a terrible secret had not only soured her relationship with her grandfather; her refusal to talk about it was at the root of her string of broken relationships with men. For Simone, the whole getting-to-know-you dating scene was fraught with tension.

Each time she went out with a new boyfriend, she always hoped that this would be The One. She would give anything to fall completely, obsessively, permanently in love with one wonderful man, but the burden of her secret always held her back.

In the Himalayas, she had come to the alarming decision that Angela had been wrong to silence her. The guilty secret had blighted her life and the pain of separation from her grandfather was too great. She owed him the truth.

And now she had to find the courage to tell him everything. And she had to do it fast, because—oh, help—because the person who found the diary might let her secrets out and her grandfather would, most definitely, never forgive her then.

Simone felt her eyes sting, couldn’t bring herself to look at the other larger box that held letters from her mother. Just looking at it brought a rush of painful memories and a wave of guilt and fear. She bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from crying, turned on her desk lamp and began to type a bravely hopeful reply to Belle and Claire.

Next morning, stomach churning, she dialed Murrawinni’s number before she lost her nerve. Her grandfather’s housekeeper, Connie Price, answered.

“I beg your pardon?” she said. “Who did you say is calling?”

“Simone. Simone Gray, Jonathan’s granddaughter.”

“Simone?” Connie’s voice quavered with surprised disbelief. “Lord have mercy, child. This is going to be quite a shock for him. It’s been so long.”

Simone’s stomach lurched. “Is my grandfather well? I don’t want to upset him or make him ill.”

“I don’t think there’s any fear of that, Simone. He’s well enough. Fit as a fiddle, in fact. Keeps us all on our toes. Just a moment and I’ll fetch him.”

Connie took more than a moment and Simone’s heart accelerated to a gallop while she waited. Would her grandfather be angry? Would he refuse to speak to her? Would he hammer her with a thousand questions?

“Simone?” It was Connie’s voice again.

“Yes?”

“I—I’m sorry, my dear. Jonathan—” Connie paused and cleared her throat. “I’m afraid he can be a little stubborn these days.”

“What does that mean? Are you saying that he doesn’t want to speak to me?” Simone’s voice broke pitifully. She screwed her face tight, fighting tears. “I was hoping to ask if I could come out to Murrawinni to—to visit him. Th-there’s something I need—”

She broke off, couldn’t get the words out.

“I’m sure he’ll come round, dear. It’s just that your call has been quite a shock. It’s been such a long time.”

“Yes.” The word came out as a despairing squeak. “Perhaps Grandfather will ring me l-later, if—if he changes his mind.”

Simone gave Connie her number and hung up, felt an overwhelming sense of defeat. She’d already lost her diary. What else could go wrong?

By the end of a few days of self-imposed vacation, the printer’s ink in Ryan’s veins drove him back to The Sydney Chronicle newsroom. He was greeted with flattering enthusiasm and predictable curiosity about the row that had ended his time in London.

“What was that about?” asked Jock Guinness, the chief-of-staff and Ryan’s former mentor. “Brash young Aussie clashes with ultra-conservative British establishment?”

“More like—Aussie black sheep spits the dummy when intrusive, cashed-up father tries to jump his boy up the British promotion queue.”

Jock’s jaw gaped. “Your dad did that?”

Ryan’s lip curled. “Who else?”

Everyone in the newsroom expected Ryan to resume his old post. The chief-of-staff announced openly that a desk could be cleared for him in ten minutes flat. But Ryan shook his head. He wasn’t looking for another spot as a general news gatherer. He’d had a gutful of being sent out on tame stories pulled off the daily job sheet.

Jock accepted this with grudging good grace. “You’ll do well as a freelancer,” he admitted. “You were one of the few people in this place who always had a string of good stories on the back burner.”