Outback Reunion (Bunyip Bay #6)

Chapter Twenty

Is it really only nine-thirty?

Gabi scrubbed her face of make-up and brushed her teeth in the tiny bathroom. Today felt like the longest day of her life and one of the most traumatic. It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds that Luna was under water before Mark dived beneath the surface and dragged her out, but it felt like hours and must have knocked at least a few years off her own life.

When Luna had opened her eyes, she’d wanted to throw her arms around Mark and show him just how much she appreciated him, but she’d also felt like slapping him across the face.

If not for him, she’d never have taken her eyes off her daughter long enough for near disaster to occur.

Desperate to be close to Luna again, she came out of the bathroom ready to listen to her chat and to answer any questions she wanted, no matter how impossible, painful, or even crazy, but was surprised to find Luna asleep again.

The day had obviously taken its toll on her as well.

‘Big nose. Big nose. Big nose.’

About to climb into bed, Gabi frowned at Loud Mouth’s favourite insult from just outside in his night cage. Was someone out there? Maybe Eve had come to check on Luna before going to sleep? Everyone had been horrified to hear about what had happened at the beach and her in-laws had been slightly upset that she hadn’t called them but relied on a stranger to bring them back.

But the thing was, Mark didn’t feel like a stranger.

A knock sounded on the door, and she groaned. Oh, what it would be like to live with some kind of privacy? She supposed she should be glad Eve had knocked and didn’t just waltz in like Muriel sometimes did. That woman had no boundaries.

But it wasn’t her mother-or-grandmother-in-law. It was him .

‘What are you doing here?’ she blurted. ‘I can’t... Nothing can happen tonight.’ She’d all but made the decision that nothing could happen ever again, but her wayward body was already reacting to the sight of him with tingles down her spine and a heavy throb deep inside.

And even if her defences weren’t already crumbling, they would have when he smiled and his adorable dimple twitched in his cheek. ‘I wanted to check that you and Luna were okay after today and... I still don’t have your phone number.’

‘I told you I don’t have one,’ she said, trying desperately to hold onto her good intentions as she glanced left and right. There were still plenty of lights on around the lot and noises of chatter and other things coming from trailers and caravans.

‘So, what did Stella call you on that night you were at my place, then?’ he asked, his brows raised as he peered past her into the caravan and nodded towards the bedside table. ‘And is that iPhone over there just for decoration?’

Gabi sighed but failed miserably in hiding her smile. What was it about him that kept undermining her defences?

‘Whoops,’ she said as all her good intentions whooshed out the door. She grabbed his hand. ‘Quick, come inside before someone sees you.’

Thanks to Loud Mouth announcing his arrival, somebody probably already had.

‘How’s she doing?’ Mark whispered, nodding at the bed where Luna was curled up on her side.

‘Okay, I think. Just really tired. Hopefully she’ll be right as rain tomorrow after a good night’s sleep. Can I get you a drink? Tea? Coffee? Milo?’

He held up a calico bag she hadn’t even noticed he had and then pulled out a bottle of wine. ‘I brought supplies. I’ve also got chocolate, nuts, chips, Tim Tams, cheese and crackers.’

‘Sounds like you’ve brought half the IGA,’ she said with a laugh.

‘I didn’t know what you might feel like, but if you’re too tired, I can just leave it all with you. Now I’ve seen you’re both okay, I’ll be able to sleep.’

Good lord, he said the sweetest things. She wasn’t used to eating any of those things and she shouldn’t drink when she was so exhausted and Mark was so close—those two things were a dangerous combination—but with Luna sleeping only a few feet away, she should be safe.

It wasn’t like Gabi was going to give in to the urge to kiss him—to do a whole lot more—with her daughter in the same room.

‘Maybe just the one,’ she said, already turning to grab glasses from the cabinet above the pint-sized kitchen.

He put the bag down on the table. ‘You deserve it after the day you’ve had.’

Gabi shuddered. ‘Don’t remind me. What kind of mother takes their eyes off their seven-year-old daughter at the beach when she knows she isn’t a strong swimmer?’

‘You’re not blaming yourself for what happened?’ He screwed the lid off the wine bottle. ‘It was just an accident. No mother—no parent—can watch their child 24/7.’

She snorted as she put two tumblers down on the table. Dante would definitely disagree. ‘Sorry, these will have to do because I don’t have any wine glasses.’

Mark frowned. ‘Never mind about the glasses, you can’t seriously think you’re a bad mother?’

Gabi took the bottle and poured. ‘I try my best but fail on a regular basis.’

‘You fail ? How on earth can you think you’re failing?’

‘Parenting is the hardest thing I’ve ever done—and the best, don’t get me wrong.’ She didn’t want him to think she regretted having Luna; she might have lots of regrets, but her beautiful, sweet girl wasn’t one of them. ‘It’s like every decision I make can stuff her up. Or worse. It’s terrifying. And now...’ She glanced over at her sleeping angel. ‘She’s only got me, and I try my best, but... I’m scared I’m not enough.’

The pressure sometimes felt overwhelming.

‘She’s damn lucky to have you and I reckon Dante would be proud of how you’re coping. You’re more than enough, but what about his parents? Don’t they help at all?’

‘Yeah, they do. They’re amazing.’ She passed him a glass, then lifted hers to clink against his. ‘Cheers.’

As she took a long, much-needed sip from her tumbler, he said, ‘It can’t be easy dealing with your own grief and theirs.’

Her own grief . The guilt gathered like a ball of cement in her stomach.

‘Is that him?’ Mark asked, pointing over to the photo on the bedside table.

She nodded. ‘I wouldn’t have it there if it wasn’t for Luna.’

‘Too painful?’

Her grip tightened on the tumbler. She couldn’t go on letting him think she was a mourning widow. ‘Yeah... but not in the way you’re thinking. Did you say you had cheese or something?’

She’d eaten after the show but had nervous energy to burn.

‘Yep.’ He stood to go get the bag. ‘You got something to put it on? I forgot to bring a platter or anything.’

A platter? She stifled a laugh. They no longer even had matching plates in the caravan—Dante had got angry one night and smashed a few—but she found a wooden chopping board and a small knife that would do the trick.

‘Do you wanna sit?’ She gestured to the tiny table, and they sat down on the booth seats on either side.

Mark opened the circle of brie he’d bought, she immediately sliced off a chunk—not even bothering with a cracker—and popped it into her mouth.

‘God, that’s good,’ she moaned, closing her eyes as the flavours melted on her tongue. It was almost as good as sex. Actually, it was way better than sex with Dante, but nothing could be as good as sex with Mark. She reckoned sex with Mark could provide all the sustenance she’d need for life. If only.

He chuckled. ‘Sounds like you’ve never had brie before.’

‘Dante never let me buy anything like this. He’d have had a coronary if he saw the contents of your bag.’

‘What do you mean he didn’t let you?’ There was an edge to Mark’s voice as he lifted a cracker with cheese to his mouth.

‘He didn’t want me to get fat.’

‘He what?’

‘Shh.’ She pressed a finger to her lips as she glanced towards the bed. ‘You need to keep fit for what we do. My looks, body and image are important.’

‘Sure.’ He nodded. ‘It’s the same in my line of work—well, my old line of work—but aren’t you old enough to monitor your own diet?’

Gabi nodded, biting down the ridiculous urge to defend her husband. The more distance she had from him, the more she realised how wrong their relationship had been.

‘I’m also old enough to have my own phone,’ she said, ‘but Dante never let me. He said I didn’t need one. That I didn’t have anyone to call except him. When I was scheduling circus promotions on socials, he’d look over my shoulder the whole time to make sure I wasn’t messaging anyone. I couldn’t even speak to another man—a circus employee or anyone in the audience—without him accusing me of wanting to fuck them. This is his old phone. I took it when he died, but he was right, I don’t have anyone to call.’

‘You’ve got me.’

Her stomach tumbled at Mark’s sweet words, but she couldn’t allow herself to get swept off her feet.

‘That’s coercive control, you know.’

She nodded. She did now. When he was alive, she’d convinced herself it wasn’t abuse, that sometimes she just rubbed him up the wrong way and that all relationships had their ups and downs, because that was the only way she could continue to share a caravan and a daughter with him.

‘Did he ever hit you?’

‘No!’ Gabi laughed bitterly. ‘He was too smart for that. I thought he might have a couple of times, but he always managed to restrain himself, punching a wall or smashing a plate instead. I bruise easily and as you’ve seen, my costumes are skimpy, so if he ever laid a finger on me, it would have been immediately obvious. But if I made him really angry, he punished me in other ways.’

Mark’s frown deepened. ‘What kind of ways?’

‘He’d withhold food from me, say things to Luna to make her think I was stupid, belittle me in front of her. Sometimes he’d even encourage her to do the same. Whenever I made a mistake, he didn’t let it go, continuing to remind me about it until I made another one. Once he locked me in a cage.’

‘He fucking what?!’ Mark slammed his hand over his mouth as his words echoed around the caravan.

They both looked to Luna and froze, but Gabi knew the difference between her daughter’s normal breath and her sleeping, and she was still dead to the world.

‘The Globe of Death,’ she whispered.

‘That’s the big steel thing that the motorbike riders do tricks in, right?’

She shuddered. ‘Yep. One night, I wasn’t in the mood. We had done two shows that day, which is rare, and I was exhausted. He wanted to have sex and I didn’t want to because Luna was in here. We used to steal moments when she was training her dogs or with her grandparents. I hated doing it with her here.’

Mark nodded. ‘Fair enough.’

‘Anyway, he said he was sick of me putting her needs before his, so he dragged me into the Big Top where the Globe of Death was still set up. We had sex in the ring and then when we were done, he shoved me into the globe and locked it. Then he left.’ A lone tear slid down her cheek. ‘As you’ve seen, the cage isn’t small, so I had plenty of room, but it wasn’t a comfortable night’s sleep with the metal bars digging into my back. He came back to let me out just before dawn, acting as if it had just been a fun game.’

Mark reached across the table and wiped the tear with his thumb. ‘He raped you and then he locked you in a cage.’

‘It wasn’t rape; we were married.’

‘Did you want it?’

All she could do was shake her head.

‘Then it was rape, and that bastard is fucking lucky he’s dead because if he wasn’t I’d do more than lock him in a bloody cage.’

At his words, she couldn’t fight her tears. She realised that no one—not Dante, not even Eve or Lorenzo—had ever spoken in a way that made her feel like she really mattered.

‘Aw, Gabriela.’ Mark stood and slipped into the booth next to her. There was barely any room, but it didn’t matter because he wrapped his arms around her and drew her close against his broad chest. ‘You’re safe now. He’s gone and he can’t hurt you again.’

‘I know.’ She sighed as she allowed herself to take the comfort he offered. ‘It wasn’t completely his fault though.’

Mark pulled back and looked down at her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I cheated on him. Even though he stood by me, that’s when things really started to go bad. I think he knew that I never loved him the way he loved me. If I’d been a better wife maybe—’

‘Bullshit. He didn’t love you,’ Mark said, taking her face in his hands, forcing her to look into his eyes and hear the truth as he spoke. ‘He was abusing you, Gabriela. It sounds to me like you suffered years of gaslighting, verbal and emotional abuse—even making you question your ability as a mother. You’re an amazing mother. Anyone can see that, and none of his behaviour was your fault. You say he loved you more than you loved him, but no one who loves anyone treats them like Dante treated you. He didn’t deserve you.’

Mark’s words were like a knife to her heart—she knew he was right, but she’d never allowed herself to admit it. She’d wanted to be stronger than that. She’d wanted to be the kind of woman who wouldn’t allow herself to be walked all over and manipulated.

Maybe she would have been if not for Luna, but she’d known the only way he’d ever allow her to leave was without their daughter. No matter what she had to go through, she wasn’t abandoning her child the way her mother had done to her.

‘Tell me you understand,’ Mark said. ‘Tell me you know he didn’t deserve you. Tell me you’re a good mother. Tell me you’re more than enough.’

She nodded, still crying but they were lighter tears now.

‘Say it,’ he urged.

‘I know. He didn’t deserve me. I’m a good mother.’

‘And you’re more than enough.’

She smiled. ‘And I’m more than enough.’

‘That’s it. Now I want you to look yourself in the mirror and repeat that every day until you believe it.’

And then, he slid his hand up her neck and gently drew her lips to his.

The kiss was nothing like any of the kisses they’d shared before. It was soft and slow and felt like it held the promise not of sex, but of something more.

Something had shifted in the caravan tonight—she’d bared her soul to Mark, which wasn’t something you did with someone who was just a fling. She’d been stupid to think she could give him her body while protecting her heart, but despite the pain she knew was coming at the end of the week, she couldn’t bring herself to regret these last few days any more than she could regret having Luna.

She didn’t know how she was going to walk away from him when the circus left Bunyip Bay on Saturday, but right now, she was too tired to worry about that. She simply wanted to enjoy this perfect moment, drinking wine with not only the sexiest man she’d ever met, but also the kindest.

As if he could read her mind, he refilled her glass and she snuggled into him as they drank, ate and talked. Neither of them mentioned Dante again, choosing instead to fill their conversation with good memories. Gabi told Mark about some of the times when her mum was clean and trying to get her shit together and they’d had mother-daughter adventures in the various towns they were visiting, and he shared stories from his own childhood, growing up on the farm, how his dad used to drive him as far as Perth sometimes so they could watch the WAFL games together.

She was telling him about the time she climbed Uluru with her mum—before it was discouraged and during one of the times her mum was trying to go clean—when the lights suddenly went out in the caravan. So much for only one drink. Now it was almost midnight and the bottle they’d shared was empty.

‘Is that my signal to leave?’ Mark asked.

She laughed. ‘Welcome to circus life, where we only have power sixteen hours a day.’

He smiled and tucked some strands of flyaway hair behind her ear. ‘I should go anyway. It’s getting late and you need to get some sleep.’

But neither of them made a move.

A few minutes later Mark broke the comfortable silence. ‘Can I ask you a question?’ He didn’t wait for her to give him the go-ahead. ‘If it wasn’t for Luna, would you stay here, in the circus, with Dante’s family?’