It was barely dawn when outside her bedroom window, a bird tested its song in a solo prelude to the morning chorus. Before she opened her eyes, she felt Adam’s absence in the cold emptiness of her room.

Gone.

With a small cry, she grabbed for his pillow, wrapped herself around it, and stayed that way, inhaling the remnants of him, rubbing her cheek on it, like a cat trying to impart her own scent. Trying to unite them one more time.

She was hit by the thought that maybe he was right this minute leaving. Perhaps if she hurried to the window she could watch in the half-light, the trail of dust settling along the driveway, see him turn the car out onto the road. Watch him drive away. When she approached the window, she realized that the void in the house was already old. He had been gone for some time.

And exactly as she’d asked, he hadn’t said goodbye.

She stayed in the shower too long, just standing there with the water pouring over her, trying to rinse out that little fear she had of facing each day without him.

She bent to give Fala her breakfast. “Damn, this is hard, old girl.” It was harder still when Fala walked up the hall for the third time in an hour and stood staring into Marlo’s bedroom, waiting for Adam to appear.

* * *

Adam dropped his seat back and braced himself for thirteen hours on a plane with nothing but movies he didn’t want to watch and food and drink he didn’t want to consume, served up by pretty uniformed women who made him feel cold. He fingered his phone in his pocket, fought the urge to take it out and scroll through the photos of Marlo.

He’d even taken one last shot from the door of her bedroom before he left. In the dimness, without the camera flash, the image was not much more than a few dark tones, but he could find every part of her in it. He knew this because he’d looked at it so many times throughout the day.

When he closed his eyes, he had to dip into his busy mind and search for something like the farm or his friends back home to focus on. But Marlo was a persistent and demanding memory, and most of him welcomed her and wanted her to stay.

Whatever had happened before in his life, this was worse, because somehow he’d missed something that made him overlook some vital clue that would keep them together. He knew the initial attraction of Marlo had been the girl who needed rescuing, but the person who showed through after salvaging was the one he’d fallen in love with. What he’d thought of as strength when he’d first met her had turned out to be the fortress she’d built to protect herself. She had started as a hard shell with a vulnerable soft center. Like his favorite chocolate.

He smiled.

The new, quiet strength that emerged after she’d fought off Barrett was charming. That was the strength that made her confront and conquer her fears. And the way she did it, hosting the internal battle as she ripped through the barriers in her head, before standing up to the real-world ones, was magnificent.

Gone was the stone wall she’d operated behind. Please, God, don’t let her build that up again. His fists tightened. Did she understand how much she’d changed? That she didn’t need barriers, just the willingness to ask for help?

There were so many things he still wanted to tell her. He closed his eyes and pictured her that evening at the lake, floating, naked, filled with so much joy from her victory. He would happily allow her to drive him mad.

Although it had seemed unlikely, Adam managed to sleep. Two hours out of Auckland, one of the cabin crew woke him for breakfast, and he was relieved to discover the flight was almost over.

Once cleared through Customs and Immigration, Adam exited to the arrival hall in Auckland. He looked into the sea of expectant faces that looked back with that flash of hope, then disappointment, before their focus jumped to the next person coming through the door. Clive, his brother, was supposed to be meeting him.

“Hey, Tiny, over here.”

Yep, Clive was here. Although Adam was a couple of inches over six feet, Clive topped him by a couple more and, being younger, loved to remind him of it. He had his mother’s green eyes and curled hair that bleached-out blonde in the summer. But the jawline? That had his father’s genes stamped all over.

Clive chattered throughout the two-hour drive back to the farm and brought Adam up-to-date with all the farm news and district gossip. Adam watched the countryside that changed so rapidly once they dipped over the Bombay Hills and headed south into dairy country. In New Zealand spring had arrived, and everywhere was lush and green. Lambs and calves dotted roadside paddocks, and the trees were bursting with buds.

“You’re pretty quiet, mate.”

Adam rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, sorry, I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well on the plane.”

“So did you find yourself a nice Yankee lass up there?”

“Nah, too busy working.” He looked back out the window to hide the lie. He didn’t want to bring Marlo into this. Didn’t want to have to explain her and endure the ribbing, no matter how good-humored. He didn’t want her memory tarnished. She wasn’t some quick affair to keep at bay the loneliness of being away alone.

“Bullshit.”

“What?” Adam looked over to see if Clive was still joking.

“I said bullshit. You’re lying.”

Adam stared back out the window.

“I’ve scarcely had a word out of you since the airport.”

“It’s the jet lag.”

“You can’t have jet lag yet. You’ve only just arrived.”

“Now you’re being a smartass.”

Adam braced himself as they turned into the familiar oak-lined drive. At the end was the rambling villa of his childhood, the place he had once believed he and Emma would raise their own family. His mother would be baking, his father probably in the garden, and the image of that homely scene twisted his gut. Despite his love for them, he didn’t want to be here.

His mother celebrated his homecoming with a traditional Sunday roast lamb, delivered to the table with a beaming smile that said as much about her pride in cooking as it did about having her family gathered at the table.

His father, as well as Clive and his wife, Karen, were there, and Adam tried to fake a buoyant mood. But when his mother commented for the second time on how subdued he seemed, he blamed his silence on the effect of time zone differences.

He would stay the night with his parents and get down to open his house at Whalers Creek the following day. After promising Clive he would see him for milking, he made his apologies and went to bed.

At 4 a.m. the following morning, he quickly realized milking went on fine without him, although he hung around the shed and generally got in the way. When they were finished, he grabbed Nico, a semi-retired farm dog, and commandeered a quad bike to head over the back of the farm to his house. His family meant well, but all that concern was doing his head in. He needed space.

He cut the bike’s engine when he came over the top of the last ridge that threw the full view of the ocean at him. Nico jumped from the back and set off, nose to the ground, marking bushes and fence posts.

Below him, the hills diminished in size until they became rough slopes. Manuka and flax grew near the shore, and there was a release of tension from his chest when he spied the rustic red tin roof of his cottage through the stand of ancient puriri trees and nikau palms that had first attracted him to this piece of land. If he inhaled deeply, he could smell the sea. Suddenly the urge to get to the beach was overwhelming. He whistled Nico to follow, kicked the quad bike back to life, and headed cautiously down the unkempt track.

The door unlocked easily, but the hinges were noisy as he pushed it open.

Home.

Behind him, he could hear the surf crashing as he stepped inside. The cottage smelled dry, despite being unused all winter. With fresh eyes, he could see a few things that needed fixing as he opened the place up.

He walked through to the bedroom and pulled back the curtains. Emma watched him from a photo on the bedside table, and he sat on the bed and fingered the frame.

“Thanks for keeping an eye on the place for me, Em.” He rubbed his thumb across the picture and set it back down. That awful stab of emotion he usually experienced when he held her photo wasn’t there. The terrible yearning had eased.

Jet lag…Marlo? He needed to be outside.

He left the room, left the cottage, and walked down a short track onto the beach. There he was greeted by a couple of noisy oystercatchers who were alarmed by the unexpected human intrusion and squawked all kinds of unnecessary warnings to each other.

Piles of driftwood lay where they had washed up along the shore. Huge logs rolled smooth in the sea and bleached by the sun, strewn with seaweed from a recent storm, sitting now like a mermaid’s installation art.

A mermaid.

He checked his watch. It would be around 4 p.m. in Halo Peak. He wondered how Marlo and Lulah were getting on with their mountain biking. Had they seen Justice? He ached to phone and find out. To hear Marlo’s voice.

He looked up as a large set of waves rolled in. A swim would pull his mood a mark higher. Clive would be over in the afternoon to drop off his luggage, probably armed with another queue of questions. He’d take a swim, and after he could spend the usual few hours coaxing the temperamental diesel generator to life, so he could have some fresh water.

* * *

Sunday night, Marlo sat with the DVDivas, who kept throwing sympathetic looks her way while Sleepless in Seattle was ignored on the television.

“I can’t believe you guys brought over probably the only movie I’ve seen in the past ten years.”

Lulah licked some chocolate from her fingers. “Yeah, well, we figured we wouldn’t be doing a lot of movie-watching tonight, so we grabbed whatever was lying about.”

Marlo raised an eyebrow. “And what did you think you’d be doing instead?”

“Commiserating,” Sally suggested.

“What?”

“…over Adam.”

Marlo stood and headed out of the room. “Taboo subject, not going there,” she called over her shoulder. “You guys want tea?”

“No. Stop hiding and get your sexy little butt back in here. Divas still have stuff to discuss.”

Marlo returned. “I need tea.”

“No, you don’t. It’s a crutch.” Lulah pointed to Marlo’s seat. “Sit.”

She sighed and sat.

“Good girl,” Lulah said and threw a small piece of brownie at her as if she was tossing a treat to a dog.

Marlo caught it in her mouth, and they all laughed. Lulah and Marlo used the routine to break the ice when they demonstrated clicker training to nervous new students.

“Did you show Adam how clever you are with your mouth?”

“Sally!”

Lulah chimed in. “Look, you’re blushing.”

At the thought of blushing, Marlo’s face reddened even more.

“She showed him,” Sally said, and Lulah agreed. Sally grabbed the wine bottle and topped up their glasses. “That confirms it. We need a plan to get Adam back here.”

“Hey, stop right there. That’s a no-go zone.”

“Did you guys fight?”

Marlo looked directly at Sally. “No, we didn’t. You know we didn’t. His job was finished, so he had to go. He had a short-term contract. I had a fling…” She waited in silence that seemed even quieter, given that there were two of the noisiest people she knew contributing to it. “What?”

“You? Had a fling?”

“Yeah, so what? I can do that.”

“Of course you can do that. It’s just that you don’t.”

Marlo raised her tea to her mouth and spoke over the top of the mug. “Well, I guess I did.”

Lulah and Sally looked at each other and raised their eyebrows. “I guess she did,” they said in unison.

“Thank you, Divas. Now, if we’re not going to watch the movie, perhaps we can come up with some ideas on how to track down Justice, because I’ve reached a dead end. Either that boy has already been picked up and we haven’t been told, or he actually doesn’t want to be found.”

“Have you tried any pet psychics?” Sally asked.

Marlo pressed the smile out of her lips. “Ah, no, I don’t believe I have.”

Lulah closed her eyes and pressed the tips of her index fingers to each temple. She started off in her best attempt at a mystical voice. “I see him near running water and trees. He’s hungry, and he needs a bath and some dental work.” She opened her eyes and held out one hand. “That will be eighty-five bucks, thank you. I take all major credit cards. Tell your friends.”

Marlo was laughing when Sally said, “You asked for suggestions. I’ll have you know we have people at the clinic who have lost their pets, and they swear by the help they get from psychics.”

“Sounds like they need help,” Marlo muttered.

Lulah continued, “Those psychics always say the same thing, and it’s so generic that when the animal is found the psychic can furnish a little piece that proves they were on target with their reading. Running water is a perennial favorite. Works for an animal being locked in the bathroom, down a drain, at the beach, or by the river, and virtually every place in between.”

“Well, I’m going to give one a go, and if I’m successful, you two can buy me a day at a spa.” Sally looked around hopefully, but Marlo and Lulah shook their heads. “Have my nails done?”

Their heads were still shaking.

“Coffee and cake at the Well Bun?”

They shrugged a ‘maybe’.

Marlo stood to get more tea. “And in the meantime, I’ll continue to harass every shelter and breed rescue in Washington State.”