Outback Reunion (Bunyip Bay #6)

Chapter Two

Gabi’s whole body shook as she threw the groceries into her old wagon, wincing as she remembered the eggs. Hopefully she hadn’t just broken them, but her heart had been pounding so hard after Mark had literally run into her that it was a miracle she’d even remembered to pay.

Slamming the boot shut, she hurried around to the driver’s side, slumped into the seat and closed her eyes as she replayed it all in slow motion.

The annoyance she’d felt as a trolley had rammed into her because some idiot was rushing around the corner of the aisle without looking where they were going had evaporated the moment she’d laid eyes on said idiot. He had at least a three-day growth and his hair was shorter now, cropped close to his head at the sides, only slightly longer at the top, but it was still that rich, brown sugar colour. His voice sounded deeper than she remembered, yet it was as she looked into his eyes that recognition dawned, and her knees threatened to give way beneath her.

Déjà vu.

She’d never forgotten the connection she’d felt that night eight years ago when she’d first looked into them—nor the conversation and mind-blowing sex that followed—and she’d met no one with that unique electric blue colour since.

But Gabi could only imagine what he must have been thinking about her—dressed in her grubby build-day clothes, her hair so messy even a bird wouldn’t nest in it and her face entirely bare of make-up. Wasn’t it everyone’s worst nightmare to run into an old boyfriend when you’re looking less than your best? Not that Mark was an old boyfriend—and right now he was probably thanking his lucky stars.

She opened her eyes and glanced outside, looking up and down the street, taking it all in now from a different vantage. When they’d arrived in Bunyip Bay late last night, she’d thought it a gorgeous little town and was excited about squeezing in some time at the beach with Luna between shows. Towns like these were few and far between and the closest they ever came to having a holiday. She’d even bought herself a bikini so she could lie on the beach and read her book in the sun while her seven-year-old daughter built castles on the sand.

Suddenly this cute little coastal country town didn’t feel quite so like paradise, because now everywhere she went she’d be paranoid about running into Mark again.

Would that be so terrible?

Ignoring the voice in her head, she finally started the wagon and turned out of the carpark, back down the road towards the oval where the circus was setting up. The king poles had been put in place early that morning and the guys should be drilling into the ground to form the peg line by now. Soon it would be all hands on deck as they ran out the skins and then everyone would focus on the lacing to secure the Big Top, especially important in a place like Bunyip Bay, which had a reputation for getting rather windy.

Luna ran up to Gabi as soon as she parked inside the lot, her ginger hair flying messily around her face and her four performing dogs—Russell, Basset, Princess and Cruella—following behind. ‘Mum! You’ve been gone for ages. Did you remember to buy me a snorkel?’

‘Sorry, they’d run out,’ she lied, feeling a prick of guilt, but she wasn’t about to tell her daughter the truth, that she’d been looking for one when Mark happened and then everything else had completely slipped her mind.

Luna pouted, then seemed to think better of her mood. ‘Can we still go to the beach later? Granny said maybe we can have a barbecue dinner down there.’

Tonight, at the end of their first build day, she and her mother-in-law, Eve Jimenez, would cook up a feast for everyone, before an early night, so they could all get up at the crack of dawn to finish setting up. Usually, this meal was had on the lot but when they were in a place as magic as this, they sometimes mixed things up. Everyone would welcome a swim in the ocean after working in these sweltering temperatures.

‘Did she now?’ Gabi wiped a hand against her sweaty brow, struggling to think as far as dinner with Mark still front and foremost in her head.

‘What took you so long?’ asked Muriel, perching her hands on her bony hips as she nodded towards the wagon.

Gabi’s heart thudded. What was with Dante’s grandmother having the ability to appear as if from nowhere?

Almost as old as the circus—at least she looked and acted that way—Muriel Jimenez didn’t perform anymore but was still very much the matriarch and boss of them all. Everyone except Luna was terrified of her.

‘Um...’ Gabi swallowed. ‘I... it was busy.’

‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ Muriel spat.

This almost made Gabi laugh: it was as apt a description as anything. The only thing more surprising than Mark appearing in front of her would be Dante doing the same.

She shook her head. ‘I’ve just got a bit of a headache. In fact, I think I might go lie down for a little while.’

‘What?!’ Luna and Muriel exclaimed in unison; Luna’s dark-brown eyes wide and Muriel’s many wrinkles stretched as if Gabi had just suggested she might fly to the moon.

You didn’t lie down in the circus—especially on build day. If you had a headache, you simply took two strong painkillers and soldiered on. Circus folk didn’t do sick days. The only excuse not to work or perform was death, and she wasn’t kidding. Once one of their Globe of Death riders had broken their leg and instead of getting six weeks’ rest like a normal person, they’d been given a wheelchair and told to come up with a few clown acts they could do while seated. Gabi had been performing almost up until she was in labour with Luna. And when Dante died, they’d cancelled exactly two shows—the matinee the following day and for his funeral.

‘I won’t be long.’ She leaned down and kissed Luna on the top of her head.

‘What about the food?’ asked Muriel, thrusting her finger towards the wagon, the boot almost full of grocery boxes and recycling bags. ‘Are you just going to leave it in the car to rot?’

Dammit; she’d totally forgotten about the groceries, and if she left the eggs, milk and meat in the car in this heat, it would be inedible. She sighed, desperate for a moment to think.

‘Don’t worry, Mummy, I’ll do it,’ Luna offered, already moving towards the boot, the dogs dancing at her heels. Although they were impeccably trained and well behaved in the ring, they tended to fight for their owner’s attention when not. ‘You go rest. You don’t wanna miss the beach later.’

Gabi’s heart swelled with adoration for her girl. ‘Thank you, my darling. Have I told you lately how much I love you?’

‘Only every day,’ Luna said, grimacing. She was getting to that age where PDAs or words of affirmation from your mother were embarrassing, but that wasn’t going to stop Gabi showering her with love and affection. Especially now she only had one parent left to do so.

Yet, although she wanted to flee to her caravan on the edge of the lot, Gabi couldn’t leave her little girl to carry all the heavy things. ‘We’ll do it together, and then I’ll have a quick lie-down before I’m needed.’

‘You’re a sight!’ Loud Mouth squawked from his cage as she approached after loading most of the food into their storage trailer. ‘You’re a sight. You’re a sight.’

Ignoring the parrot’s insults—she was used to his less than complimentary comments—she opened the cage so he could jump onto her shoulder before she headed inside into the cool air of the caravan.

Praise the lord she’d remembered to turn on the air conditioning earlier.

While Loud Mouth flew across to the sink and helped himself to a drink from the permanently dripping tap, Gabi grabbed her water bottle from the fridge and took a long sip. She wasn’t sure if she was hot because of the weather or because of her encounter with Mark.

‘What am I going to do?’ she said, retrieving a packet of painkillers from the bathroom.

‘Consult the cards,’ replied Loud Mouth. ‘Consult the cards. Consult the cards.’

She snorted as she popped the pills. They’d had a fortune teller called Jenny in the circus a couple of years ago and Loud Mouth had loved sitting with her during her readings in the intermission, so now this was the bird’s answer for everything.

‘This is serious. What am I going to do about Mark?’ Not that she needed to do anything, but she suddenly found herself desperate to know if he had a partner or kids.

‘Consult the cards,’ repeated Loud Mouth, and this time, his advice had her reaching for her phone.

The cards might not provide answers, but the internet might. ‘You’re a smart bird,’ she told him.

‘Pretty bird. Pretty bird. Pretty bird.’ Loud Mouth flapped across to land on the lamp next to the bed.

She’d thought about Mark many times over the years, and although it would probably have been easy to find him if she’d googled ‘Mark’ and ‘Essendon’, she’d never given in to the urge.

What good would it do?

Even before she’d found out she was pregnant, she had responsibilities to the circus, to the people who were as good as family to her. She couldn’t just up and leave them because of one night, but she hadn’t forgotten him. And sometimes when she’d slept with Dante, she’d fantasised that he was Mark. Even though she wasn’t Catholic, this caused almost as much shame and guilt as cheating had.

But although Dante’s presence still lingered in every corner of their caravan—Luna had begged Gabi not to remove his clothes or even his toiletries from the bathroom—he was gone now, and getting some intel on Mark couldn’t hurt.

Loud Mouth peered over the phone screen as she swiped it open.

She started on Instagram where she managed the circus account, posting photos of circus life and snapshots of their performances regularly, but couldn’t find Mark there. No luck on Facebook either, but thankfully Google provided the goods. There were dozens of photos of him online—on football sites, online newspapers and magazines, and his face was littered in selfies across other people’s social media. She read stats about his game and an article about an award he’d been longlisted for year before last.

On his arm at one of these night of nights was a gorgeous blonde who seriously gave Barbie a run for her money in a hot pink, sparkly, fitted silk dress with spaghetti straps and a split almost up to the top of her thigh. The caption read: Mark Morgan’s wife, Tahlia, steals the show in a glittering gown she designed herself .

‘He’s married!’ Gabi gasped and dropped the phone as if it had burned her.

‘Married. Married. Married,’ echoed Loud Mouth.

It shouldn’t matter to her. She was married too, or at least she had been until the middle of last year when her whole world had changed in an instant. Shock, guilt and sadness melding together so she didn’t know how to feel, she moved the paperback spread open on her bedside table so she could look properly at the smiling face of Dante in the frame that also sat there.

If not for Luna she’d have put it away by now.

Half an hour later she was still staring at her husband when a knock sounded on the caravan door. A second later his mother—Eve Jimenez—let herself inside.

‘Muriel said you weren’t feeling well.’

Gabi bet that’s not all Dante’s grandmother had said. Ever since he had died, Muriel had been treating her like scum, as if she blamed Gabi for his death, but there was no possible way she could know.

‘What’s wrong? Is there anything I can do to help?’ Eve sat down on the edge of the bed and stretched out to touch her forehead as she’d often done when Gabi was young and sad or not feeling great.

Even before her own mother had died, Dante’s mother had always been more of a mum than hers. Despite this, no way she was telling Eve that the guy she’d cheated on her son with eight years ago lived here, in this town, and that she’d run into him only an hour ago.

‘I’m okay. It’s just a headache.’

Her mother-in-law’s gaze drifted to Dante’s photo, and she frowned, highlighting the crows’ feet at the corners of her dark eyes. These lines were the only indication she was in her mid-fifties. Circus life took its toll on some people, and for others, like Eve, it seemed to give them eternal youth.

‘No one expects you to be okay all the time. We all miss him. The last six months have felt like the longest yet also the shortest of my life.’ She scooped up Gabi’s hand. ‘I’m proud of how you’ve coped, taking care of Luna, me, Lorenzo, and the circus. I don’t really know how you’ve done it, but I’m grateful. We would have fallen apart if it wasn’t for you and I know Dante would be so grateful.’

Gabi’s gut tightened, bile rising in her throat. She tried to extract her hand, but Eve held on tight.

‘But you don’t have to bottle up your grief. I’m here for you, Lorenzo’s here for you.’

‘I know, thank you, but I’m fine, honestly.’ Gabi squeezed her mother-in-law’s hand and when Eve let go, she launched herself out of bed. ‘I didn’t miss the skins, did I?’

She pulled back the curtain and looked out into the lot to see every member of the circus—from the tent boss, tent boys, lighting and sound technicians to the solo and group acts, and even Luna’s teacher—taking their positions around the edge of the canvas, ready to run outwards as fast as they could when the tent boss yelled, ‘Go.’

‘We’re just about to start,’ Eve said, pushing to her feet, ‘but why don’t you stay here and rest a little longer? We can make do without you.’

This was the first time ever Gabi could remember being given permission to skive off build day. Maybe they were making allowances because of Dante, but if anyone should get that grace, it was Eve and Lorenzo—his parents. When Dante had died, she’d merely lost a husband, whereas they’d lost a son.

Gabi shook her head. ‘No. My Panadol’s kicked in. Let’s do this.’

Then, without allowing time for second thoughts or for Eve to protest, she opened the caravan door, stepped down, and held it while Eve and Loud Mouth followed her. Hopefully the hard work and then the team barbecue on the beach afterwards would take her mind off Mark, and with any luck, she wouldn’t see him again.