The Farm at Peppertree Crossing Read online

‘Y’know you don’t actually have a right to an opinion?’ She threw his words back with a grin as she scooped a handful of change from the bottom of her bag. The envelope she’d stuffed in the previous night fell out and she waved it at Rafe. ‘How old-school is this? Scam-by-mail.’

  Rafe took it, tapping his thumb on the return address. ‘Inner city. Doubt any scammer could afford that bit of real estate.’ He handed the grubby envelope back, turning to a customer. ‘Morning, mate. What can I get you? Must be a fake address.’ As usual, he carried on two separate conversations without missing a beat, despite the customer’s confused expression. ‘Why don’t you head up there, let whoever’s at that address know they’re being used as a front? Could be a reward in it.’

  Roni rang up the price of the cake the customer had warily pointed at. ‘Three-sixty, please. Figures you’d think that way, Rafe. Guess the exercise wouldn’t hurt, though.’

  Rafe bagged the cake and flipped the paper to twist the corners closed. ‘Reckon it will hurt. It’s all uphill, mate.’

  A few minutes later, bag slung across her chest, Roni emerged from the shops beneath the train station, blinking to acclimatise to the glaring sunlight as she trudged up the sidewalk. It took only seconds, though, to lose the sun in a forest of highrises. She walked slowly as her antiquated phone loaded the address she’d keyed into maps.

  Despite the hour, she couldn’t maintain a straight line on the pavement for the crush of pedestrians. Or she could, but unlike the woman who faced off with her, she wasn’t that rude. Also, she wasn’t wearing ten-centimetre heels that could double as weapons. Maybe that’s what Roni needed for her evening commute. Her life had been a reluctant creep toward the western suburbs for twenty years, despite the random memories that insisted her first foster parents had lived east, where manicured lawns edged with rose bushes bordered double-storey homes on tree-lined streets. But who knew the truth of it? Childhood was tricky like that. There was no way to sort out which memories were her own and which belonged to Saturday Disney.

  And no reason to want to.

  She halted at the base of a fanned flight of sandstone steps. Neither they nor the glass-fronted façade of the building to which they led were unusual in their overt ostentation. But the business nameplate, stencilled in austere black letters on the chrome-framed doors, lifted her eyebrows. Prescott & Knight, Solicitors.

  So she’d scored a ballsy scammer who’d pinched the company name along with the address?

  The stairs led to an expansive polished-stone landing. A wall of reflective glass prevented her seeing inside the building but provided a disturbingly clear view of her own approach. At school she had aspired—if dreams counted as aspiration—to be as perfectly presented, well-dressed and beautifully groomed as the young businesswomen on the pavement behind her. Instead, despite the elegance lent by her height, her work uniform of black pants and T-shirt permanently reeked of grease, and her pale skin, a curse from her unknown genes, necessarily remained naked: a session over the deep fryer dissolved make-up rated less than nuclear-apocalypse-proof, a lesson she’d learned the hard way on her first day.

  She ran a hand over her hair, the humidity frizzing her light-brown ponytail into wild curls. Pulled her shirt straight, as though that would disguise the cheap, casual clothes. The door swung open as a woman about her own age exited. Heels, pencil skirt, white blouse. No flyaways.

  Roni took a hasty step back. No, she did not need to do this. The scam, or identity theft, or whatever, was none of her concern.

  ‘Going in?’ The woman held the door wide.

  ‘Ah, sure. Thanks.’

  The industrial sole of her flat black lace-ups squealed on the white marble tiles, the noise echoing endlessly in the six-storey hollow core of the building. The reception desk lay on the far side of a vast foyer dotted with lush greenery.

  Cheeks warm, she squeaked past the sudden lull in meetings convened on chrome-and-leather lounges. Past a cluster of people waiting for a glass-fronted lift. Past coffee-toting minions. Everyone wore business attire. No one squeaked.

  Rafe had better be right about a reward.

  She coughed as chilled, pine-scented air caught her throat. The receptionist looked up from his computer screen, quirking an eyebrow as though he’d been unaware of her trek. ‘May I help you?’

  ‘Sure.’ She fumbled the letter from her bag, wishing it looked a little less crumpled and didn’t have a paw print in a distinct gravy shade marring the address, and held it up. ‘I received this yesterday, but it’s a …’ The word scam sounded foolish in this rarefied atmosphere. She crossed her arms over her chest, crinkling the envelope further. ‘It’s a mistake.’

  ‘May I see it?’ The receptionist leaned forward, all shine and sparkle. Manicured nails gleaming, chrome nametag glinting. Tristan.

  She pulled the letter from the envelope and handed it to him, trying to remember whether Scritches had also wandered over that. As the receptionist skimmed the words, Roni scanned the back of it and saw no evidence of her cat. Tristan held the page up. ‘And you are Ms Gates?’

  ‘Well, yes, I am. But obviously, that letter wasn’t intended—’

  ‘You don’t have an appointment with Mr Prescott today, though, Ms Gates?’ Tristan frowned, his focus shifting between the page and his computer screen.

  ‘No, I don’t need one. I mean, I wasn’t aware that Mr Prescott is a real person.’

  Without moving his head, the receptionist flicked his gaze up at her. Eyes as grey as the midwinter harbour. ‘A real person?’

  Roni shuffled closer to the chest-high counter. ‘I mean, I don’t have any business with Mr Prescott.’ She waved toward the page, as though it would somehow exonerate her. ‘I assume the letter isn’t really from him. Not your Mr Prescott, anyway.’

  Tristan reread the letter. ‘It certainly is from Mr Prescott. I’ll schedule you in.’ He tapped at his keyboard, craning toward the monitor as though an intent gaze would produce the desired result. ‘Ah. I’ve nothing available for some time. Can you give me just one moment?’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. It’s not me he wants to see. I don’t even know—’

  A finger raised for her silence, Tristan lifted the ivory telephone receiver alongside him and punched two numbers. ‘Good morning, Pauline. Would you please check scheduling for Mr Prescott. I need an appointment slotted in.’ His lips tightened as he drummed his fingers on the countertop. ‘Yes, I can see he’s full, but this is with regards to Ms Nelson. Marian Nelson. Yes. Tomorrow? Wait a moment, I’ll check.’ He cupped one hand over the mouthpiece and looked up at Roni. ‘I can get you in at eleven-thirty tomorrow, Ms Gates, if that would suit?’

  ‘But I don’t need to—’ She sighed. It would be quicker to accept the appointment so she could make her escape. Then she would ring back and cancel, explain the situation to someone with a lot less pretty and a lot more brains. ‘Sure. That’ll be fine.’

  Tristan smiled, and she winced at the flash of white teeth, either the product of the most amazing genes or, more likely, a bucketload of cash and a fine orthodontist. She ran her tongue over her own teeth, aware of the slight overlap of her left incisor. Tristan returned to his keyboard. ‘So the address we have on file for you is correct?’

  ‘Well, correct for me, but I’m not—’

  Tapping at his computer, Tristan wasn’t listening. ‘And allow me to confirm your phone number, please?’

  She briefly considered asking how they had obtained her number but figured that, like most anything, it would be available for purchase online. Except it wasn’t her information they had meant to buy. Someone’s head would no doubt roll over this mess. She gabbled the numbers, silently daring Tristan to be swift enough to check them against those on his screen.

  He took a pencil from a pewter mug on his desk and scribed neat, rounded letters on the back of a cream card. ‘Excellent. I know Mr Prescott will be pleased to have located you.’ He handed her the heavily embossed slip, alon
g with her letter. ‘Here’s your appointment time. We’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Ms Gates.’

  Early Thursday knock-off meant a train full of kids. Roni squeezed against the scratched glass, trying to look beyond Shazza sux and Climate change KILLS to the humdrum of suburbia flashing past. The sun occasionally broke through cloud cover to spotlight the graffiti-tagged fences bordering the tracks. Missing iron sheets created a gap-toothed grimace, allowing voyeuristic glimpses into houses, streets, other peoples’ lives.

  Not that she ever saw anything she wanted.

  She craved nothing more than familiar patterns, constrained by certainty and routine. The life she had created made for the safety that had been impossible to find in her youth. She’d thought Greg was part of that security, that she’d found someone who intuitively understood her need, without asking the reason. A rare relaxation of her teetotal rule five years ago had seen them become more than friends—slightly, and very occasionally, more. On those occasions, she would throw back a can of whatever Greg had brought over, dulling her thoughts. After, she would worm from beneath him and scurry to the bathroom to scrub away the memories. The evidence.

  A product of the system himself, Greg knew better than to ask what her hang-up was.

  And she had never asked about his. If she had, she would have realised he had no intention of being a responsible adult. Ever.

  She drummed her fingertips on the filthy window, blowing out a long breath. It didn’t matter; Greg didn’t matter. She hadn’t taken the test yet. She could be wrong.

  She needed to be wrong.

  Chapter Three

  Roni paused briefly at Mr Edwards’ apartment to drop off the bread and a box of the bitter Yorkshire teabags he liked, which she’d spotted on sale. Then she dashed up the stairs before he could insist she take more money. A few cents from him wouldn’t make any appreciable difference to her situation, but the slow smile that spread across the elderly man’s face went a long way to smoothing the sharp edges of the day.

  The floral curtain plastered against her legs as Scritches forced his way into the shower cubicle. He appeared slightly offended by the water splattering him—possibly due more to the sporadic bursts and changing temperature than the dampness—but he always insisted on sharing her shower.

  After drying off with a threadbare towel, she dropped the faded fabric on Scritches and gave him a quick rub down. His purrs echoing against the tiles, his fur stuck up in spikes, the tiger pattern darkened to a deep, rich rust by the water and the white blazes on his chest and face pristine.

  Until she met Scritches, she had never liked ginger cats. The stupid Garfield movie had ruined them for her.

  No, not so much the movie, but what had happened when she watched it.

  She thrust the memories aside, dragging on sweats and a T-shirt. Scritches pattered after her into the kitchen, where she spread paperwork across the kitchen bench. Lease agreement, pay slips, rental reference, tax returns, budget calculations. As though laying it all out there would make any difference. She couldn’t afford the new rent on this place, but nor could she afford anywhere else. Finding somewhere for her and Scritches would have been problem enough, but if she had to work the possibility of a baby into the equation, her options changed.

  Or not so much changed as disappeared.

  She scratched at her arm, peppered by a history of tiny deep-fryer splatter burns, her gaze repeatedly sliding toward the bathroom door. She sighed heavily; procrastination wasn’t helping. Time to find out for sure how screwed she was.

  Leaving the papers for Scritches to turn into confetti, she strode to the bathroom, pulled the pregnancy test from the drawer and scanned the instructions. Already bored with destroying the paperwork, Scritches shoved his way in. ‘Back off, buddy. You can’t help with this.’

  Pee and wait two minutes. There was no point staring at the white plastic stick she placed on the bathroom counter, so she stared at the cracked and mouldy ceiling instead, her hand absently caressing Scritches’ head.

  One hundred and twenty elephant-seconds.

  The last ten she counted super slowly, willing her frantic heartbeat to the same pace.

  Finally, she looked.

  Two pink lines.

  She’d read the instructions. Knew what that meant. Yet she read the page again, to make certain.

  Her stomach cramped, but not the way she wanted it to. Needed it to. Instead, it knotted in fear and denial.

  Pregnant.

  Still dressed, she crawled into bed, cupping her hands over her belly. Scritches hauled himself up with a characteristic lack of grace and burrowed under the covers, butting against her until she hugged her arms around him. Stretched full length along her side, he purred until the bed vibrated. She buried her face in his fur. ‘Holy crap, Scritch. What now?’

  The enormity of the situation filled her head, muting the noises of the crowded apartment block. Her chest ached as though she could breathe in but couldn’t expel her breath. There was nothing familiar or safe about this situation, nothing she could cling to, nothing to stop the sensation of the earth shifting beneath her, the world tilted and out of kilter. Two pink lines changed everything.

  No home, no boyfriend. But a baby and a cat.

  She was so screwed.

  They were so screwed.

  Scritches nudged her with a wet nose until she rubbed her thumb over the velvety expanse. The motion calmed her. Scritches hadn’t fared too badly since she rescued him. She had never wanted a pet, had baulked at the thought of anything being dependent on her. But they had worked out okay.

  Obviously, a baby was a whole different level of commitment—though realistically, how much more demanding than her neurotic cat could a child be? Her hand paused on Scritches’ nose. She’d been alone most of her life, looked after herself, even screwed this up by herself—because she couldn’t blame Greg, as that would mean she’d relied on him—so why did she instantly assume she couldn’t do this alone?

  The fact was, she had to do it. There were no options.

  She was going to be a mother.

  She reached under her head and punched the lumpy pillow into submission, staring at the ceiling as though it were the movie screen of her life. Deep inside her, rare excitement tingled. For once, the threat of the unfamiliar didn’t reek of darkness, alcohol and strange men. For the first time, perhaps it held a little potential. Busy surviving, she had never bothered to dream, but now she would be responsible for more than just herself and Scritches. Maybe a new life could mean a new beginning, because, if she could pull this off, she would have the thing she’d always craved: a family of her own. One no one could ever take away.

  Unplanned didn’t have to mean unwanted.

  The next morning, she dressed and hurried through the ritual of ensuring Scritches had supplies enough to last the day. Every thought and mundane action seemed imbued with new meaning. Zipping her jeans over the slight curve of her stomach became tucking her baby up safe. A plan to grab breakfast at work changed with the realisation she now had to improve her diet. Briefly, she considered finding a GP who would bulk bill, but quickly discarded the thought. The appointment would be loaded with questions about her family medical history, questions for which she had no answers. And would the doctor also question her living circumstances, her casual employment, her non-existent bank account, and judge her unfit to be a parent? Perhaps suggest her baby would be better off with someone else?

  She stroked a protective hand over her belly, calming her fear, knowing it was ridiculous. Still, her experience had given her no reason to trust the system; she was better off handling this alone, at least for now. She’d spent much of her life hiding between the pages of books at the library. Now she’d switch to non-fiction and use their computers to research all she needed to know about her baby.

  Maybe it was the hormones, but instead of the dread it would probably be smart to feel, optimism surged through her. Pregnancy would be the catalys
t for change, proof that life could be more than the routine existence she had cultivated. She would allow herself a little time to enjoy the thrill, then knuckle down to sorting out the mess she had created. Her hand stilled on her abdomen. No, not a mess. She would never let her baby be thought of that way.

  The opportunity she had been given.

  The smells of humanity crowded beneath a layer of smog, humidity and grime as she arrived at the station to see the rear carriage of her regular train disappear between the tall weeds bordering the track. The first crack in her routine, but she could handle it. Good practice for weaning herself from her obsessive need for familiarity and control. The next train would still get her to the city on time—she had only to dash down the stairs to reach Rafe’s lower-level takeaway shop. A grin tweaked her mouth. Lower-level in every sense. She would remember that line to share with him; Rafe loved a good joke. Hell, he loved a bad one. His sense of humour was part of what made him easy, non-threatening company.

  As she pulled the commuter pass from her bag, the solicitor’s card spiralled to the cigarette butt-pocked ground. Retrieving it, she clicked her tongue. She had intended to cancel the appointment yesterday but had been totally distracted by her discovery and new plans. Too early to call the office now; she would have to sneak away from Rafe to phone through later.

  The crowded train wheezed asthmatically into the station. She boarded and stood in the aisle, rising onto her toes to keep her balance each time the train squealed to a stop, then rocking back on her heels as it lurched off again. The vibration of her phone startled her, and she clutched her bag against her hip to silence the tune.

  Like Scritches’ yowl when she took too long to open his food, the phone rang louder every second it went unacknowledged. She scrabbled among the pens and crumpled tissues in the bottom of her bag, retrieving the phone as the other commuters frowned at the interruption to their sleepy journey. She hung up on the caller, but the phone rang again immediately.

  ‘Yes?’ she hissed, her cupped hand creating an oasis of privacy.