Free Stone Castles by Trish Morey Page A

about the provisions in the fridge and the rudimentary pantry if she wanted to have breakfast and get away early to the nursing home. ‘But you’re welcome over in the house if you want to eat with us.’
    Pip smiled and leant against her friend for a moment in the doorway before she left, breathing in the sweet smell of baby and a woman that smelled of apple pie and friendship. ‘I’m sorry, Trace. I’m tired and jet-lagged and cranky. I’ll be better tomorrow, I promise.’
    â€˜And I promise not to upset you.’ She kissed her friend on the brow. ‘Sleep well, sweetie.’
    â€˜I will. And Trace, I mean it. I’d love to be Chloe’s godmother. I’ll be there, subject to Gran. Just so you know.’
    Tracey smiled and pulled her into a goodnight hug.

Chapter Nine
    T he bed was wide and soft and blissful. But that wasn’t the best thing about it. The best thing was that it didn’t come with the drone of aeroplane engines or the muted sounds and lights of NYC outside her window.
    The best thing was that it came with the sounds of silence.
    Which was perfect for an entire ten minutes before the silence suddenly sounded deafening.
    It was a relief when she heard the car. It was definitely a car. She heard it coming, and coming, and still coming – and then she heard it go, and keep going.
    One car.
    And not even on the dirt road, she realised, but on the sealed highway between Moonta and Maitland that was the best part of a mile away.
    And then there was nothing again. Silence, as thick and dampening as a winter cloud.
    Silence.
    Nothing to hear but her thoughts.
    He wasn’t married.
    She rolled over onto her back and stared upwards into the darkness. What a surprise her thoughts would toss that gem up first?
    But what did that matter?
    It wasn’t like she was interested. She’d breathed a sigh of relief when she’d first read the news he’d married. He’d moved on. Everyone was moving on. It was how it should be.
    So what that his marriage was over? They’d all had failed relationships.
    She rolled over, punched her pillow and got out of bed to open the curtains. She was exhausted. She should have been asleep by now, but if she couldn’t sleep, she might as well look at the stars.
    All she needed to do was think about all those gorgeous stars.
    He’d looked so damned good today.
    Not that she’d been looking. Well, it had been hard not to. Didn’t mean anything.
    She gave up on the promise of the stars and rolled over again, wishing she could roll away from her thoughts, and cursing a man she’d had no intention of meeting up with, cursing the bastard fates that hadn’t let her get through even one day back without running into him, and were now promising a second encounter. What was with that?
    Luke Trenorden was nothing to her, and she had more important things to think about.
    Like her tiny, shrunken gran.
    No. Her amazing gran.
    Yes, that’s what she should be thinking about.
    Amazing Gran, who’d shown her how to milk cows and separate cream from milk in a separator, and then how to churn that cream into butter and pat it into blocks with wooden paddles.
    Amazing Gran, who’d taught her to use a treadle sewing machine so well that she’d won the sewing prize at high school – even when everyone else had been using electric machines.
    Amazing Gran, who could make a wood stove do her bidding, whether it was cooking a roast or a batch of her famous fairy cakes.
    Ninety years ago she’d been born, in a time when the fortunes of the Yorke Peninsula were already moving beyond the glory days of the rich copper mines of Moonta and Kadina and Wallaroo. Since then the trains had come and gone, and towering silos had risen high above the golden paddocks where mine shafts had once been dug.
    Ninety years between then and now, and still the silence of the night hung heavy on the land. Still the