Barbara Hannay - A Miracle for His Secret Son / Proud Rancher, Precious Bundle - A Miracle for His Secret Son / Proud Rancher, Precious Bundle

When Poppy finally, but unhappily, acquiesced, they moved on to the Battle of The Dress.

‘I can do wonderful things with a sewing machine and a bucket of dye,’ Poppy suggested.

Freya was beyond horrified. She loved her mum, but she flatly refused to go to the formal dressed like a tie-dyed hippie.

‘All the other girls are getting their dresses from Mimi’s in Dirranvale. Phoebe’s mother’s even taking her to Brisbane to buy her dress.’

‘That girl’s mother never had any sense,’ Poppy muttered darkly. ‘And you know we can’t afford so much as a handkerchief from one of those fancy salons.’

‘That’s OK. I’ll earn all the money I need.’

‘How?’

‘I’ll sell aromatherapy candles at the markets.’

Poppy rolled her eyes. She’d gone through her ‘market phase’, as she called it. She’d sold handmade soaps and candles and jewellery and she’d made quite good money, but she hated the long hours of constant toil that were required to replenish her stocks week after week, and she’d opted for a part-time job caring for seedlings at a local plant nursery instead.

Freya, however, was determined. She went with her best friend Jane and Jane’s mother to Mimi’s in Dirranvale and she fell in love with a most divine off-the-shoulder dress and put it on lay-by. Then she gathered used jars from all her neighbours’ households and spent hours in the evenings melting wax and adding essential oils and wicks, then decorating the candle jars with silver and gold calligraphy pens.

For a month she spent every weekend doing the rounds of the craft markets in the local seaside towns. She was exhausted, especially as she had to catch the bus back and forth, and she had to burn the metaphorical candle at both ends, sitting up till midnight to finish her homework.

But it was worth it. She’d earned enough to buy her dream dress from Mimi’s, as well as divine shoes that were dainty enough to make Cinderella jealous, and there was money left over for a trip to the hairdresser and a French manicure.

On the night of the formal, Freya slipped into the soft misty-blue chiffon dress that everyone said matched her eyes perfectly. And she felt—amazing!

Gus arrived at her door with a corsage and he looked all kinds of perfect—so tall and dark and handsome in his black tuxedo that Freya thought she might die and go straight to heaven.

And that was before they danced, touching each other for the very first time.

WALKING home with Gus that night was even more sensational than dancing with him. They had to go all the way along the beachfront because Poppy’s house was at the far end of the Bay, and it was Freya who suggested they should take off their shoes and walk on the sand.

Gus agreed with gratifying enthusiasm, and they left their shoes beside a pile of rocks. Gus shoved Freya’s evening bag into his trouser pocket and rolled up the bottoms of his trousers, while Freya scooped up the hem of her dress in one hand, leaving her other hand free to hold his. Bliss City!

If there were other couples on the beach that night, they stayed well in the shadows and Freya and Gus felt quite alone as they strolled hand in hand on the edge of the sand beneath a high, clear sky blazing with stars.

Freya could have stayed out all night. She’d never felt so happy, so unbelievably alive. She kept wanting to turn to look at Gus. To stare at his gorgeousness. There were so many things she loved about the way he looked—his dark hair with the bit that flopped forward, his deep-set dark eyes, his strong, intelligent profile, his broad shoulders, his long legs, his sturdy hands.

Then there came that moment, the moment when Gus let go of her hand and touched the back of her neck.

Freya usually wore her hair down, but that night it was swept up by the hairdresser into a romantic knot.

‘Did you know you have the most gorgeous skin right here?’

The feel of Gus’s fingers on her nape made her want to curl into his arms.

‘I sit behind you in History,’ he said. ‘And your hair falls forward, and I spend hours admiring the back of your neck.’

‘So that’s why I get better marks than you in History.’

‘Could be.’ His fingers stroked just below her hairline. ‘I love this bit just here.’

And while she was melting from the touch of his fingers, he touched his lips to her neck.

Freya was shaking. His gentleness was excruciating. She bowed her head, exposing her skin in a silent appeal, begging for more. The touch of his lips on the curve of her neck made her ache deep inside, made her want to cry and to laugh, to dance, to lie down in the shallows.

Then Gus kissed her lips.

Of course it was late when they finally reached her house, especially as they forgot their shoes and had to go back to search for them, and it took ages to remember which pile of rocks they’d left them beside. They were laughing, giggling like children, drunk with happiness.

Gus kissed her again on the front steps. He was still kissing her when Poppy flung the front door open, letting bright light spill over them, and making them blink.

Arms akimbo, her mother glared at Gus.

‘Freya should have been home hours ago. Who do you think you are, coming down here and making all sorts of assumptions about my daughter?’

To his credit, Gus was very restrained and polite, but he left in a hurry. It was Freya who lost her cool, later, after he’d gone.

‘How could you be so mean, Mum? We were only kissing. Why did you have to be so awful to Gus?’

‘I don’t trust him, or any of that snobby lot up on the hill.’ Poppy picked up the damp hem of Freya’s dress and frowned elaborately at the clinging grains of sand.

‘Well, I trust him, and surely that’s what counts?’

It was an argument that came back to bite Freya four months later, at the end of the summer, after Gus had already left for university in Brisbane and she missed her period.

Now, Freya was so lost in the mists of the past that when the bell at the front door rang, letting her know that yet another visitor had come into the gallery, she didn’t look up. Most people liked to be left to wander about looking at paintings without being observed, and she wasn’t in the mood for an exchange of happy banter with a tourist.

When a shadow fell over her desk, she realised she was out of luck. She looked up and heat rushed into her face. ‘Gus!’

Gus’s heart was pounding, actually pounding. As he’d walked into The Driftwood Gallery, he’d seen Freya sitting at the pale timber desk in the corner. She had her back to him and she was wearing jeans and a grey knitted top that shouldn’t have looked sexy, but it was soft and it clung lovingly to her shoulders before falling loosely to her hips, and somehow it managed to look incredibly feminine.

She was leaning forward so that her hair, light brown and streaked with gold, parted like a curtain to show a V of smooth, pale skin on her neck. And suddenly he was remembering every detail of falling in love with Freya Jones and the heady, blinding happiness of that magical summer.

Their summer.

To his dismay, he felt the sting of tears and he found himself recalling all the silly nicknames Freya had given him—Huggy Bear, Hot Stuff, Angel Eyes.

Her favourite had been Sugar Lips, while he’d simply called her Floss.

Memories pulled at him as he approached her desk but, when she looked up, he saw shock in her eyes and then unmistakable fear, and their happy past disintegrated like a jigsaw puzzle breaking up into a thousand separate scattered pieces.

Gus was wrenched back into the present in all its unhappy complexity.