The Royal Wedding Collection. Robyn Donald
same creepy sensation tightened her already-taut nerves another notch. She put the list down on the scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen and prowled once more through the cottage, switching lights on and off as she examined each room.
Back in the inconvenient little living room, chilly now that the fire had collapsed into sullen embers, she stopped beside the bag on the sofa that held necessities for tomorrow’s journey. Everything else she and Michael owned—clothes, toys, books—was already stuffed into the boot of her elderly car. Not even a scrap of paper hinted at their three years’ residence.
Yet that persistent foreboding still nagged at her. All her life she’d loved to lie in bed and listen to the more-pork call, but tonight she shivered at the little owl’s haunting, plaintive cry from the patch of bush on the farm next door. And when she caught herself flinching at the soft wail of the wind under the eaves, she dragged in a deep breath and glanced at her watch.
‘Stop it right now!’ she said sturdily. ‘Nothing’s going to happen.’
But the crawling, baseless unease had kept her wired and wide-eyed three hours past her normal bedtime. At this rate she wouldn’t sleep a wink.
So why not leave now?
Although she’d planned to start early in the morning, Michael would sleep as well in his child seat as he did in bed. He probably wouldn’t even wake when she picked him up. No one would see them go, and at this time of night the roads were empty.
The decision made, she moved quickly to collect and pack her night attire and sponge bag and the clothes she’d put out for Michael in the morning. She picked up her handbag, opened it and groped for the car keys.
Only to freeze at a faint sound—the merest scrabble, the sort of sound a small animal might make as it scuttled across the gravel outside.
A typical night noise, nothing to worry about.
Yet she strained to hear, the keys cutting into her palm as her hand clenched around them. Unfortunately her heart thudded so heavily in her ears it blocked out everything but the bleating of a sheep from the next paddock. The maternal, familiar sound should have been reassuring; instead, it held a note of warning.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop being so melodramatic,’ she muttered, willing her pulse to settle back into a more even rhythm. ‘No one cares a bit that you’re leaving Nukuroa.’
Very few people would miss her, and if they knew that she’d been driven away from their remote village by a persistent, irrational foreboding they’d think she was going mad. After all, she’d scoffed at Gemma.
But if she was heading for a breakdown, who would look after Michael—?
‘No!’ she said firmly.
If she were losing her mind, she’d deal with it once she and Michael were safely away.
She yanked the car keys from her handbag, swearing under her breath when she accidentally dislodged an envelope onto the sofa. It gaped open, light from the centre bulb transforming the fine wavy strands of hair inside to a tawny-gold glory.
Abby’s lips tightened. She glanced at the dying fire, but before the thought had time to surface she’d pushed the envelope back into her bag and closed the catch on it.
Shivering, she took in three or four deep, grounding breaths. As soon as she got settled again she’d burn that lock of hair. It was a sentimental fetter to a past long dead; her future was devoted to Michael, which was why the miracle of modern hair colouring now dimmed her bright crown to a dull mouse-brown. A further disguise was the way she wore it, scraped back from her face in a pony-tail that straightened the naturally loose, casual waves.
She endured the change, just as she endured the cheap clothes in unflattering shades that concealed her slender body. She’d even bought spectacles of plain glass, tinted to mute her tilted, almond-shaped eyes and green-gold irises.
Nothing could hide her mouth, wide and full and far too obvious, even when she’d toned it down with lipstick just the wrong colour. In spite of that, and the cleft in her chin, the camouflage worked.
She’d turned being inconspicuous into an art form. Anyone who took a second glance saw a single mother with no clothes sense and no money, working hard to bring up her child, refusing dates, content to lurk on the edge of life. In a year’s time no one in Nukuroa would remember her.
If that thought stung, she had only to recall Michael’s laughing, open face when he came running towards her each evening in the child-care centre, the warmth of his hug and kiss when she tucked him into bed, his confidence and exuberant enjoyment of life.
Nothing and nobody was more important than Michael.
And if she was going to take him away tonight, she’d better get going!
Keys dangling from her fingers, she lifted the pack and set off for the front door, only to stop, heart hammering again, when her ears picked up the faint murmur of a car on the road. After a second’s hesitation, she dropped the pack and paced noiselessly across to the window. Slowly she drew back the curtain a fraction and peered into the darkness. Headlights flashed on and off like alarm beacons in the heavy darkness as the car moved past the line of trees separating the farm paddock from the road.
When the vehicle continued out of sight she let out a long, relieved breath. Her wide mouth sketched a curve at the familiar fusillade of barks from the dogs at the homestead next door, but the smile soon faded. Odd that a car should be on the road this late; in this farming district most people went to bed early.
Taut and wary, she stayed at the window for several more minutes, listening to the encompassing silence, her mind racing over her plans. First the long trip to Christchurch, where she’d sell the car for what little she could get. Tomorrow evening she and Michael would take flight to New Plymouth in the North Island—with tickets bought under a false name, of course.
And then a new safe haven, a different refuge—but the same life, she thought wearily, always checking over her shoulder, waiting for Caelan Bagaton—referred to by the media as Prince Caelan Bagaton, although he didn’t use the title—to track her down.
Yet it was a life she’d willingly accepted. Straightening her shoulders, she drew the scanty curtain across and went into the narrow, old-fashioned kitchen, where her gaze fell on the list of things to do. Oh, hell! She’d have to get rid of that before she left. Still listening alertly, she screwed up the sheet of paper and dropped it into the waste-paper bin.
Only to give a short, silent laugh at her stupidity, snatch it out and hurry back to the living room to toss it onto the dying embers. It didn’t catch immediately; some of the words stood out boldly as the paper curled and blackened, so she bent down and blew hard, and a brief spurt of flame reduced the list to dark flakes that settled anonymously onto the grate.
‘Nobody,’ she said on a note of steely satisfaction, ‘is going to learn anything from those ashes.’
She stood up and had taken one step across the room when she heard another unknown sound. Where?
Twanging nerves drove her to move swiftly, noiselessly, into the narrow hall and head for the door. Two steps away from it, she heard the snick of a key in the lock.
Fear kicked her in the stomach, locking every muscle. For a few, irretrievable seconds she couldn’t obey the mindless, adrenalin-charged instinct to snatch up Michael and race wildly out of the back door.
I must be dreaming, she thought desperately. Oh God, please let me be dreaming!
But the door flew back at the noiseless thrust of an impatient hand, and every nightmare that had haunted her sleep, every fear she’d repressed, coalesced into stark panic.
Every magnificent inch an avenging prince, Caelan Bagaton came into the house in a silent, powerful rush, closing the door behind him with a deliberation that dried her mouth and sent her blood racing through her veins. He looked like some dark phantom out of her worst nightmare—tall, broad-shouldered, his hard, handsome