Page 26 of Whispers of Sweetwater

‘Hey, Case.’ His voice was low, nearly lost to the wind. ‘I know it’s been a while. I’ve been … I don’t know. Treading water, I guess. But things have been moving again lately. Changing.’

He reached down and fiddled with a loose thread on his jeans. The silence around him was unbothered. Peaceful. ‘There’s this vet in town. Brianna Steele. New. Smart. One of those people who knows what an animal needs without them having to make a sound.’ He hesitated, feeling a little like he was doing the wrong thing, when deep down he knew he wasn’t. ‘She’s got a way about her. Like she doesn’t even realise how deeply she cares. It just lives in her, like it used to live in you.’

His throat thickened, the words pressing up like a tide he couldn’t quite hold back. ‘At first it was nothing. Or I told myself it was nothing. Gavin dared me, the bugger, a stupid bet. Said I should try to win her over by the end of the month.’ He shook his head, jaw clenched. ‘And I went along with it. Didn’t think it through. Didn’t think it would matter.’

The wind stirred through the bottlebrush trees overhead. A magpie warbled nearby, a bright contrast to the quiet throb in his chest. ‘But then I got to know her. Just a little. And it stopped being a joke. It stopped being anything like that.’

He swallowed hard, fingers curling around a blade of grass. ‘I haven’t told her she was a bet. But I know I should. She deserves honesty. She deserves more than some game. And you …’ His voice cracked. ‘You deserve better from me too. Because you, of all people, know that I’m not a game-playing kind of man.’

Silence might have met him, but he could feel Casey’s presence, in the wind, in the sound of the leaves swaying, in the bright blue butterflies flittering near him.

Blinking faster, he looked up at the sky, where streaks of burnt orange and plum bled across the scattered clouds. ‘I think I’m scared, Case. Scared that if I let someone in again, it means letting go of you. And I can’t. I won’t. Not ever.’ His voice steadied. ‘But maybe, I don’t know, maybe it means carrying you with me. Just differently. Like I have two hearts, one for you, allowing another for someone else.’

He glanced back at the headstone, his chest aching with deep love that still lingered like phantom pain. ‘I miss you so much, Case. Every bloody day.’ He cleared his throat, softer now. ‘But something’s starting to shift in me. She’s not you. She never could be. But she might be something new. And I think you’d want me to know that’s okay, right?’

He sat there for a while longer, letting the evening settle in around him like a blanket. With the first stars starting to appear in the darkening sky, the breeze picked up slightly, rustling the leaves. Knowing he had to go before pitch blackness fell, he pressed his palm against the sandstone, warm from the sun’s memory. ‘Thanks, Case, for listening. I love you, always have, and always will.’

Then, he stood slowly, brushing off his jeans. It was always hard to walk away. But he had to. He’d done it hundreds of times, if not over a thousand, since Casey had passed. As he walked back towards the LandCruiser, the last light slipped behind the hills, casting long shadows across the path. And though grief still walked beside him, for the first time in a long while, it wasn’t dragging him backwards.

CHAPTER 8

Brianna’s wake-up phone call from Molly had been both extremely early and extremely devastating. Pulling her robe in tight, making sure not to tread on any large shards of glass – her thongs wouldn’t provide much protection – she inhaled a sharp breath as the door creaked open under her hand, the familiar chime of bells absent. They had been ripped clean from the hinges, destroyed like everything else that made Molly’s bookstore-café a sanctuary for Sweetwater residents and travellers passing through. Inside, destruction lay thick like fog. The scent of yesterday’s coffee, bitter roast and steamed milk was muddled with the sharp tang of violation.

This wasn’t a random smash and grab.

It felt personal.

Violent.

But who’d want to do something like this, to someone as gentle and radiant as Molly? She thought about this as she stepped lightly over scattered pages and carefully around overturned furniture. Shelves once bursting with poetry and novels and cookbooks now gaped like broken ribs. Toppled teacups lay shattered near the counter, the fragments of what had been Molly’s pride and joy slicing at Brianna’s heart. Sensing the foreboding energy, Sherlock pressed close to her leg, tail down, ears up. Alert. Ready to protect her if need be. And she loved him all the more for it.

‘Molly must be so heartbroken, buddy,’ she murmured.

The damage was worse than she expected. It had to be targeted. Deliberate. The back till was smashed, the café’s cash float gone, but oddly, none of the new espresso equipment had been touched. A robbery, yes, but rushed. Erratic. Maybe even, dare she think it, by someone familiar with the establishment. She turned away from the shattered heartbreak as the rumble of a diesel engine approached, headlights flicking once across the smashed front window. Relief bloomed in her chest when she spotted Gavin hopping out first, followed by Hayden, his expression unreadable. He closed the door with a finality that echoed in the ruin.

Gavin waved at her. ‘We saw Molly outside the cop shop and she told us what happened,’ he explained. ‘Cops have already dusted for prints and taken photos, so we thought we could help clear up.’ He stepped into the wreckage. ‘Jesus. It’s like a bloody cyclone swept through.’

Hayden said nothing at first. He simply walked past the threshold, eyes sharp, taking it all in.

‘I think it’s safe to say they weren’t after books,’ he said eventually, crouching near the counter. ‘Or coffee. They were definitely looking for something.’

‘Or someone,’ Brianna added softly.

A long, weighty pause followed.

‘Any chance this could’ve been rebellious kids?’ Gavin asked, though his tone lacked conviction. ‘She was a teacher years ago, before deciding it wasn’t for her, so maybe that enticed some young idiots to target her.’

‘Maybe, but she hasn’t been a teacher in over twelve years.’ Brianna shook her head slowly. ‘And besides, most kids don’t pry open safes or know how to kill the power. Which whoever did this must have, because Molly said the alarms didn’t go off.’

Hayden’s jaw tensed. ‘Then it was planned. Someone who knew the place.’

No one said what they were all thinking.

It had to be someone local.

With the police having already done their investigations, and Molly still down at the station giving her statement, they worked in tense silence, moving with purpose. While Gavin patched the window with a temporary board and Brianna righted display tables, Hayden found the alarm wires, sliced clean. Wide-eyed, Brianna looked from the mess of wires to him. Whoever had done this knew exactly where to look. She couldn’t bear to think that someone she’d met, someone she may have brushed shoulders with at one of the local stores, or the bi-annual shindig the previous weekend, had done this.

A few hours later, showered, with toast and tea swirling in her nauseated belly, Brianna headed over to the main street of town to run a couple of necessary errands. Whispers had already started snaking their way through town, as they would in any small community. Standing in line at the post office, she overheard the conversation taking place at the counter where people wrote addresses on letters and parcels, the one where there was often a string that a pen should have been attached to, but wasn’t.