Free Blood Secret by Jaye Ford Page A

sign to Haven Bay was the first they saw with symbols for food and a caravan park. Jo was driving when they hit the small, tidy main street. She did a single, despondent lap and said, ‘One pub, one cafe, we ain’t going to be here long.’
    But the caravan park was on the water’s edge and the lake that afternoon was breathtakingly lovely – sailing boats skipping past, wisps of cloud, soaring gulls and a breeze that filled Rennie’s lungs with what felt like the first fresh air she’d breathed in . . . a lifetime. Maybe it was the counselling, maybe it was the sense of freedom or maybe it was the one personal goal the psychologist made her write down before she finished that final session – sketch a place through all its seasons. Whatever it was, after years of moving and running, Rennie had a sudden, urgent, burning longing to be still.
    They needed food and a stiff drink first, though. While Jo took the car to see what else the bay had to offer, Rennie walked the main street. Trish’s short-cropped, flame-red hair was hard to miss as she hauled tables from the footpath. Rennie followed her in, saw at first glance it was more than a pie, chips and milkshake joint. She hadn’t discussed it with Jo but their standard operating procedure had always been if someone landed a job, they gave it a minimum two weeks.
    Trish slapped her hands on the counter and doubled over laughing when Rennie asked if they needed staff. ‘Kitchen hand, waitress, barista?’ she’ d tried.
    Still laughing, Trish turned her head to the kitchen and called, ‘Hey, Pav!’
    â€˜What?’ he’d bellowed from inside.
    â€˜Come see what just walked in.’
    â€˜Trish, come on . I haven’t got time for this.’ He came to the door anyway, stood with his hands on his hips, more hot and bothered than angry by the look of him.
    Rennie had no desire to get caught in the crossfire of someone else’s argument but Trish shot her a glance, including her in a smug look of triumph and Rennie decided to give it a second to see where it went.
    It turned out Pav had just chucked a tantrum, stomping about only moments before, ranting about having no staff, the impossibility of finding staff, the glut of lying, stupid, money-pinching staff he was sick of firing and who were all too lazy to drive out to Haven Bay for work. Ra, ra, ra. He’d apparently shaken a fist at the ceiling, demanding the god of cafe owners to take pity on him and send someone with experience and maturity who could cook and make coffee and wait tables or any of the above. Then Rennie walked in and gave Trish her potted work history: fifteen years of cafe work and she’d have a go at anything they threw at her. Ten minutes later, she’d whipped up a cappuccino, passed Pav’s barista test and he was showing her the kitchen while Trish rang a friend to organise a better cabin at the caravan park.
    Two weeks later, when Jo was bitching about the lack of shifts at the pub and wanting to move on, Pav and Trish asked Rennie if she wanted to earn some extra cash helping them paint the inside of the cafe. That exercise had set her on a path she’d never seen coming. Of creat­ivity and belonging like she’d never known or expected. Things she’d ached for but had never been within reach. Things her sister thought were a load of fairytale bullshit that would only hurt her.
    Joanne was a hard case. The day she turned eighteen, she’d inherited custody of fifteen-year-old Rennie. She’d had no life, only a screwed-up family, bad memories and the burden of responsibility. Rennie figured that gave her every reason to have no faith in the concept of something better. But they’d once spent four months in a normal home with a mother and father and three laughing, joking, sports-mad kids and Rennie knew it existed. As she told the psychologist, though, she just didn’t think