Free Wild Flower by Eliza Redgold

staying with a school friend as a cover story.
    ‘Well?’ Borrie pulled off her gloves, clutched them in one hand. ‘What’s been going on? I know you’ve been away, because I’ve been told by three different people in town that you’d been seen at the airport with that American. It’s not like you to keep secrets. Did you go away for the weekend with the new young man of yours?’
    Dianella winced. ‘There’s no new young man, Borrie. Not anymore.’
    Borrie frowned. ‘What’s happened? What are you hiding, Dianella? You’ve never done anything like this before.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’ Dianella realised Borrie appeared more anxious than usual. There were shadows under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept well, even though Borrie usually only needed a few hours of sleep a night. She was always up at the crack of dawn, pottering in the garden, sometimes still in her nightie. The threat of losing Go Native had hit her hard. ‘I didn’t mean to make you worry. I went to Singapore.’
    ‘To Singapore! You flew all the way there and back?’
    ‘Yes. I went to see my Chinese family to ask for help to save Go Native. I wanted to do it face to face,’ she added.
    Borrie gripped her hands together. ‘And can they? Help, I mean?’
    Dianella shook her head. ‘They don’t need to.’
    ‘What?’
    Dianella explained the whole story.
    ‘Go Native belongs to you.’ Borrie gripped the gardening gloves so tight her knuckles whitened. ‘It’s been yours all along.’
    ‘It’s mine and yours, Borrie.’
    Borrie leaned against the counter. ‘Go Native is safe.’
    ‘No one can ever take it away from you now,’ Dianella promised. ‘Not the gardens or the shop, or your home.’
    ‘To keep that information from you, that your father had left you provided for in his will. To keep it from me! It’s outrageous. And to march in here as if she owned the place! I can’t believe Diana is going that far.’
    ‘Mum isn’t making trouble anymore,’ Dianella pointed out. ‘She’s given me the deeds. The nursery is ours.’
    Borrie sniffed. Holding back tears of relief, Dianella guessed. ‘I’ll be giving her a piece of my mind.’
    ‘She’s flying to the Gold Coast today. To try to sort things out with Gary.’
    ‘Scuttled away again, has she? That mother of yours.’ Borrie shook her head. ‘Sometimes I can’t believe she’s my daughter.’
    ‘She came through in the end.’ Standing up to her mother had been empowering. She understood her differently now. And Dianella had changed too, found courage inside.
    ‘Well, she’s made her bed, I suppose. She’ll have to lie in it. We all have our own faults. Mine is that I always put my hoe in when I shouldn’t.’ Borrie sighed. ‘Oh dear. I’m about to do it again.’
    She gripped Dianella by the shoulders. Stared her in the eye. ‘Your American young man. Wade Hamilton. He’s a good one. I knew it the minute I saw him, like my Harry. And he’s crazy about you. What’s gone wrong?’
    Dianella slipped out of Borrie’s grasp. ‘He’s going back to California.’
    ‘For how long?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ She’d given Wade no chance to clarify his travel details, or to share more of his news about the takeover, she realised with a guilty pang. ‘He kept talking about getting me a new computer so we can keep in touch long distance.’
    ‘And what did you say to him?’
    ‘I told him goodbye.’ The heavy word thudded in her stomach. ‘I’m not interested in long distance relationships.’
    She’d never break her rules again.
    ‘What! You mean you’re going to let an opportunity like this pass you by, with a nice young man like that? He’s a good looker too. It will all turn out as long as you don’t let your abandonment issues get in the way.’ Borrie snorted. ‘Abandonment issues. I’ve been watching too much Dr Phil.’
    Dianella stiffened. ‘I don’t have abandonment issues, Borrie.’
    ‘You’ve had your share of long distance