A Secret Vengeance. Miranda Lee

      And now here she was, mid-afternoon, with a lovely glass of wine in her hands, a million-dollar view to enjoy, and two days of blissful peace and solitude to look forward.

      Celia kept on sipping the wine and gradually, the tension melted out of her knotted neck and shoulder muscles till she was leaning back, feeling deliciously mellow. Alcohol, she decided, was proving much more relaxing than all the head rotating exercises she’d been trying on herself every night this week. And infinitely more relaxing than Joanne’s solution.

      “What you need, honey,” Celia’s fellow physio at the clinic had said yesterday, “is to get laid.”

      Pig’s ear, she did.

      Sex never relaxed Celia. Her only feelings afterwards were disappointment, disillusionment and dismay.

      But that was just her, she’d finally accepted. Sex was widely accepted as a very pleasurable activity, as well as being touted as mother nature’s sleeping pill. She was the abnormal one.

      Her mother had obviously been very partial to sex. With Lionel, anyway.

      More than partial. She’d been possessed by it.

      Celia wondered what it would be like to experience the sort of uncontrollable passion that turned an otherwise intelligent, independent woman into some kind of mindless sex slave. Had the pleasure of the moments spent with Lionel compensated for her mother’s pain afterwards? Had a weekend of sex and excitement with him been worth weeks of subsequent depression?

      Celia had to assume her mother thought it had. Otherwise, why keep on doing it?

      Maybe if she was ever swept up in a grande passion—or even a petite passion—Celia might understand her mother’s masochistic behaviour. As it was, from an objective, outsider’s point of view, such an all-consuming passion seemed nothing better than a slow-acting poison. One of those corrosive substances that ate away at one’s insides till there was nothing left but a dying shell.

      Her mother had been well on the way to being reduced to such a shell long before Lionel had died. Hopefully, his death had come just in time and Aunt Helen was right: with a bit of tender loving care Celia’s mother might not end up having a complete nervous breakdown, nor going stark raving mad.

      On the other hand…

      Celia scowled at herself. She really didn’t want to think about her mother’s ill-fated relationship with Lionel Freeman this weekend.

      Difficult not to, however, considering where she was. The place still reeked of the illicit lovers. Celia might have cleared all the rooms of her mother’s things, but Jessica’s highly individual decorating touch remained, as did loads of Lionel’s personal possessions. Clothes. Stacks of CDs. Shelves full of books. And bottles and bottles of wine.

      Celia sighed. It had been a mistake to come here. She’d been right to reject the idea when it had first occurred to her. What on earth had she been thinking of?

      But she was stuck here for now. She’d had too much to drink on an empty stomach to drive anywhere at the moment. Maybe later on this evening, she would go home.

      And maybe not.

      The bitter truth was she’d end up thinking of her mother at the moment, no matter where she was. Might as well stay here, Celia decided wearily.

      Might as well have another glass of wine, too.

      Luke was lost. Hopelessly lost. He’d thought he knew the way. But it had been nearly twenty years since he’d been to Pretty Point and, even then, he’d only been a child passenger, not the adult driver.

      The relatively new freeway showed no turn-offs to Pretty Point, nor to any other place names he recognised. He realised after sailing past the turn-off to Morisset and Cooranbong that he probably should have taken it. He’d been driving north way too long. Nearly two hours from Sydney. He took the next turn-off to Toronto, drove into the town and bought a local map at a newsagent’s.

      After studying it for a while, he made his way back onto the expressway, took the correct turn-off, and fifteen minutes later began to finally see some familiarity in the roads.

      Even so, the area had changed dramatically.

      Bush had been cleared and housing estates had popped up all over the place, even on Pretty Point. It was certainly no longer a backwater. As he drove down the now tarred road which led to the far end of the Point—and his father’s property—Luke began to appreciate how much ten acres of waterfront land was worth here in the present climate.

      Ms Jessica Gilbert, whoever she was, had done very well for herself out of his father’s generosity.

      Luke’s tension grew as he drew closer, his eyes narrowing as he glimpsed a building through the trees, a triangular-shaped house with a sloping green roof. He slowed, then braked, then scratched his head. Had his memory played him false? The area looked right, but the house was all wrong.

      He drove on slowly, looking for a sign that this was the right place. And there it was, on the big white gum tree with the gnarled branches. His childish message, carved into the trunk all those years ago. LF was here.

      Luke’s stomach contracted. The place was right. But the house was definitely wrong. He stared at it again.

      It looked almost new, built on exactly the same spot where the old cabin had stood.

      If his father had built a new weekender up here, then why hadn’t he ever mentioned it to him?

      Don’t jump to conclusions, he warned himself. All will be explained once you meet its occupier in the flesh.

      Meanwhile, Luke clung to the hope that the new place had originally been built as an investment property—possibly when he’d been living in England. Maybe his father had intended to sell it, but then had generously allowed this Ms Gilbert to live there, once he’d heard her hard-luck story.

      Luke directed his car down the gravel driveway which wound a gentle path through the tall trees and up towards the back porch of the A-framed dwelling.

      A sporty white hatchback was parked next to the steps.

      Not a car that an elderly spinster would drive.

      Luke tried not to keep jumping to a not-very-nice conclusion, but it was increasingly hard.

      He climbed out from behind the wheel and rather reluctantly mounted the long back porch, all the while frowning down at the pine decking, then up at the pine logs which made up the entire back wall of the house.

      One of his father’s favourite woods had been pine.

      Luke knew then that his father had not just had this place built, he’d designed it himself. Had designed and had built it without telling him. Without telling his wife as well, Luke warranted.

      Clenching a fist, he rapped on the door. There was no doorbell, of course. His father had hated doorbells. He’d hated phones as well. He’d hated anything that made irritating interrupting noises.

      Luke knocked again. Louder this time.

      Twenty more seconds ticked by. Twenty more silent tension-twisting seconds.

      Why didn’t the woman answer? Was she deaf?

      Suddenly, Luke hoped she was just that. Deaf. Elderly people were often deaf.

      The door was reefed open and she stood before him.

      In the flesh.

      She wasn’t old. Nor deaf.

      She was young. And beautiful. With full lips, slanting green eyes and glorious red-gold hair.

      It was up. But not like Isabel wore hers up, all neat and smooth and confined. This hair defied order, rebellious curls easily escaping their loose prison to kiss the skin on her slender neck and rest lightly against her smooth, pale-skinned face.

      “Ms Gilbert?” he demanded to know, his voice curt, his stomach