All They Need

He set his glass on the nearest flat surface and wove through the crowd. It took him five minutes to find his hosts to say goodbye, then he made his way to the foyer and out through the open double doors into the portico. He was about to start down the drive when he noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye.

It was Mel, standing in the shadows beneath the carefully manicured hedge that bordered the driveway. She was facing the street, her husband’s tuxedo jacket draped over her shoulders. Gravel crunched beneath his shoe and her head swung toward him. They locked gazes across twelve feet of driveway.

There was no mistaking the unadulterated misery in the depths of her gray eyes. After a few short seconds she looked away.

He opened his mouth to say something—what, he had no idea—as his phone rang. He pulled it from his jacket pocket and saw that it was his father. He glanced at Melanie again. Her focus was once more on the driveway. Waiting for her husband to bring the car around, he guessed.

He hit the button to take the call. He kept his gaze on her tall, straight back as he spoke. “Hey, Dad, what’s up?”

“Flynn. Thank God. You have to help me. I’ve tried to get home but none of it makes sense. The roads have all changed…?.”

Flynn’s grip tightened on the phone as he heard the panic in his father’s voice. “Sorry, Dad. I don’t understand. Where are you?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. I was driving home. But the roads are all changed. Nothing’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

Dread thudded low in his gut. This man did not sound like the assured, confident father he knew. This man sounded scared and confused and utterly lost.

But he was only fifty-eight.

Flynn pushed his own panic from his mind. There would be time for that later.

“Okay, Dad. Listen to me. We’re going to work this out, okay?” Flynn said, keeping his voice calm and clear.

“Why can’t I recognize anything? Why has it all changed?”

“We’ll sort this out, I promise. I want you to look around. Are you on a highway or in a residential area? Are there houses around you?”

“Yes. Lots of houses.”

“Good. I want you to pull the car over. Turn off the engine, and walk to the nearest corner to find the street sign and tell me what it says.”

He could hear his father’s panicked breathing. He dug in his pocket for his car keys and started down the long driveway at a jog.

“I’ll be with you every step of the way, Dad. We’ll do it together, and I will be with you as soon as I can. No matter what happens, I will find you. So take a deep breath, pull over and find me that street sign.”

CHAPTER ONE

Eighteen months later

MEL PORTER GLANCED UP as she exited her house. A smile spread across her face as she took in the clear blue sky.

Despite the fact that it was barely June, Melbourne had been in the grip of winter for over a month—including overcast skies, rain, bitterly cold wind, overnight frosts—and it had been particularly bad here on the Mornington Peninsula, where her turn-of-the-century farmhouse was located. Today, however, the weather gods had granted the huddled masses a reprieve. The winter-bare liquid-amber tree in Mel’s front yard stretched its branches toward the sky as though worshipping the unexpected warmth. She wondered what the neighbors would say if she did the same.

She settled for turning her face to the sun and closing her eyes.

She’d never been a winter person. Summer was what it was all about as far as she was concerned. Long days at the beach, barbecues, zinc on noses and the smell of coconut-scented sunscreen… She couldn’t wait for the warmer weather.

Rubbing her hands together, she walked down the porch steps and across the driveway to the letterbox to collect the morning’s mail. She pulled out a number of smaller envelopes with transparent windows—bills, hip hip hooray—and one larger, thicker envelope. Curious, she turned it over.

Everything in her went still when she read the words typed across the top left corner. Wallingsworth and Kent, Lawyers.

She stared at the envelope for a long beat. Then she started walking to the house.

Strange, after waiting and waiting for this moment, it had snuck up on her.

She waited until she was standing at the battered wood counter in the kitchen before she tore open the envelope and pulled out its contents.

There was a short covering letter, but she didn’t bother reading it, simply flipped to the next page. Divorce Order, the heading said in crisp black font, accompanied by an official looking seal from the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia.

Mel’s breath rushed out in a woosh.

There it is. It’s over. Finally.

Her knees felt a little weak and she rounded the counter and sank into one of the oak chairs she’d inherited from her grandmother.

Six years of marriage, gone. At thirty-one, she was single again. Free.

She blinked rapidly and tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. This was a good thing. She’d had a lucky escape. There could have been kids involved, it could have been so much messier and uglier. No way was she going to cry.

This was a good thing.

The urge to call her mother or her sister gripped her, but she resisted. She’d leaned on her family and friends enough in the past few months. They’d comforted her, held her hand while she negotiated to buy the old farmhouse and holiday cottages that now constituted her combined home and livelihood, pitched in whenever she needed help…

It was time to start standing on her own two feet.

Her gaze found the clock on the kitchen wall and she gave a little start. She needed to get moving—she had guests arriving before lunch and she needed to clean Red Coat Cottage in preparation for their arrival.

She grabbed the keys on her way out the door and took the scenic route via the garden path to the first of the four cottages on her four-acre plot of land. The property had once been part of a vast orchard that had stretched along Port Phillip Bay from Mount Eliza to Mornington. The land had been broken up and sold off years ago for residential development, and Mel’s plot included the old manager’s residence as well as four of the compact workers cottages that had once housed the pickers and other laborers. The former owner had reconfigured the latter to appeal to vacationers, and when Mel bought the property six months ago she’d revamped all four cottages, updating the decor, kitchens and bathrooms so that they would appeal to a more affluent market.

At the time, her parents had said she was crazy, wasting money on antiques and fancy bathroom fixtures when the cottages had been attracting perfectly good business for many years as they were. But if there was one thing Mel knew about, it was people with money. She might never have been fully accepted by them, but she understood what they liked. She knew that if she wanted to increase the income from her business by attracting a wealthier client base, she needed shiny, imported things that screamed of luxury and exclusivity.

Once she’d renovated the cottages to a higher spec, her good friend Georgia—the only one of her so-called “friends” to maintain their relationship postseparation—had used her network of contacts to spread the news. Between word of mouth and the ads she’d been running in various publications, Mel was hoping she was in for a busy year.

She pondered today’s guests as she cleaned the bathroom. She’d met Flynn Randall a handful of times during her six years as Mrs. Owen Hunter. He’d always struck her as being halfway decent for someone who had been born with not just a silver spoon, but a whole cutlery service in his mouth. Owen had done his damnedest to turn their casual acquaintance into a friendship, but Flynn had perfected the knack of being friendly while somehow keeping people at a distance. A necessary evil, Mel imagined, when your family was amongst the richest in Australia.

Georgia had secured the Randall booking for her—she and Flynn were old friends—and Mel had already sent her flowers as a thank-you. Next time she made the trek into Melbourne she planned to take her friend out to lunch as well.

She gave the bathtub a final swipe with the sponge before stepping back and giving the room a last inspection. Everything looked good, so she moved into the kitchen. Once she’d finished there, she laid out fluffy white towels and made the bed with high-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. She arranged luxury-brand soaps and toiletries in the bathroom and hung matching robes on the back of the bedroom door. She fluffed the king-size quilt and arranged the down pillows, then spent ten minutes in the garden gathering a bouquet of flowers to go on the tallboy.

There was champagne in the fridge, along with Belgian chocolates and a selection of gourmet teas and coffees. The living room boasted the latest magazines—cars and business for male guests, home decoration and fashion for the women—and there was kindling and wood for anyone who wanted an open fire.

Mel did a last check to ensure everything was in place before locking the cottage and heading to the main house. It occurred to her that Owen would be horrified if he knew what she’d done with her divorce settlement. The thought made her smile grimly. The notion that his ex-wife routinely got down on her hands and knees to scrub away other people’s dirt would make his eyes roll back in his head.

Mel made a rude noise and offered a two-fingered “up yours” gesture to her absent ex as she crossed the rear lawn. She didn’t care what he thought anymore. It was one of the many blessings of being a divorced woman—along with having the whole bed to herself, never having to argue over whether the toilet seat belonged up or down and the luxury of reading into the small hours if the mood took her without having to worry about keeping her husband awake.

Oh, yeah. Divorced life is one big party.

Mel paused. She didn’t like the bitter note to her own thoughts. She’d fought hard to claw back her confidence and her sense of herself in recent months; she hated the thought that she might still be grieving the loss of her marriage in some secret part of her heart, that she might miss Owen in any shape or form.