Hollywood Hills Collection. Lynne Marshall

a few months be there to give your father a break?’

      Zack didn’t answer.

      ‘I still don’t get why you’d choose a hotel over an apartment.’

      ‘It suits me.’ Zack said.

      ‘Company on tap,’ Freya said, and was cross with herself for the jealous note to her voice. She couldn’t knock it as that was how they’d met after all.

      Zack said nothing and Freya got up and sorted out the plates, which had Cleo wake up, suddenly interested. Freya knew why—he had saved some steak and thought she didn’t notice when he sneaked it to Cleo.

      ‘I’m going to take her for her little walk,’ Freya said.

      ‘I’ll clear up.’

      She was suddenly unsettled.

      Freya carried Cleo down the stairs and took her for her little nightly outing and was, despite a wonderful day and one of the nicest evenings, very, very close to tears.

      He didn’t deny that his life was the life for him.

      Zack didn’t make excuses about his ways with women.

      She wished, in some ways, that it had stayed at one night.

      One amazing night instead of a very intense glimpse of a future that Freya now wanted but could never have.

      She’d been snarky.

      It had been but a few weeks and already she was counting down the days left to her, or biting her tongue to stop herself from suggesting he ditch the hotel and stay with her instead.

      He’d decline, Freya knew.

      And that was just as well because imagine having three months of bliss and...

      Two months.

      January would be over soon.

      ‘I’m going to be without both of you soon, aren’t I?’ In the darkness all she could see was Cleo’s pink tongue and her fur baby was out of breath from the shortest walk. ‘You’d better be here when he goes,’ Freya warned Cleo. ‘I’m going to need you so much.’ And then she picked Cleo up and buried her face in her fur. ‘I’m so selfish...’ Freya said, but she had to tell her friend. ‘Cleo, I think I’m pregnant.’

      Cleo just carried on breathing. Just kissed her face and cuddled in till Freya’s panic subsided.

      ‘I can’t be,’ Freya said to Cleo, who really didn’t care if she was or not.

      She just loved her back.

      Freya carried Cleo back up the stairs and put her on the sofa with her toy. The kitchen was tidy and Freya could hear Zack in the shower and it hurt that it felt so nice to turn off the lights and get into bed and know that he’d join her.

      Zack wasn’t sure that he would.

      Here was everything he had always avoided and possibly with good reason because it made him want more.

      He should get dressed and go, Zack thought.

      Cleo had got off the sofa and was crying at the bedroom door, and Zack grinned when he came out.

      ‘I’m sleeping in her bed.’

      ‘Yes, and she’ll hate you for it, even if you did sneak her some steak. Did you have pets?’

      ‘A few,’ Zack said, and got into bed and tried not to think of home.

      ‘I’m going to start seeing clients,’ Freya said. ‘I haven’t told James yet, but I’m going to.’

      ‘Good.’

      ‘I was thinking about it while we were riding.’

      ‘I was thinking too,’ Zack said.

      ‘About?’

      He didn’t answer. Zack just lay there thinking about plans that had been made and might be broken. He was tired, not physically, though. For the first time he was tired of hotels and starting over, of borrowing a horse, leasing a car, starting out, over and over again...

      He wanted this but did not want it, just as he wanted home but not to be there.

      Life was easier with no names.

      Except she had one and, lying in the dark, he told Freya what he hadn’t been able to over dinner.

      ‘I stay away because I’m worried that I might end up telling them that Toby wasn’t happy when he died,’ Zack said.

      He’d told no one.

      Ever.

      ‘We’d gone camping for a weekend,’ Zack said. ‘I was surprised when he suggested it but we just went out into the bush. It was great...’

      Actually, no, it hadn’t been. It had been revealing.

      ‘He told me how unhappy he was,’ Zack said, and Freya looked at him.

      ‘He’d been going out with Alice since they were teenagers and she’d stuck by him while he’d gone off and studied medicine. He said that he’d had enough and wanted to move to the city. So when I am home I get to hear how happy Toby was, what a great son, husband, doctor, and how happy he’d been there and how he’d hate how I’ve let them down. I dread that one day I’ll tell the truth: that he was planning on getting out...’

      ‘He was going to leave his wife?’

      Zack nodded.

      What a terrible secret to carry, Freya thought, to be the only one to know and be able to say nothing.

      ‘That was why he’d asked me to go camping with him. He wanted my take on things.’

      ‘And that was?’

      ‘I had lots of takes on it,’ Zack said, and he told her about that last night. ‘Never knowing that the next day he’d be dead.’

      ‘Was he killed outright?’

      ‘No. At first I didn’t think it was that serious,’ Zack said, but then he shook his head. ‘Actually, I think I did know because I activated the locator beacon and you only do that if things are dire. And then it was a matter of waiting.’ The longest wait ever. ‘I love the outback,’ Zack said. ‘You have never seen anywhere more beautiful and the remoteness is hard to comprehend, but it’s a long wait if someone you love is dying.’

      ‘How long?’

      ‘Four hours,’ Zack said. ‘Well, three spent dying, one hour with him dead. I told him I’d live for both of us...’

      And he had.

      Zack crammed everything in.

      Then he corrected himself in his head.

      He had crammed everything in bar a relationship.

       CHAPTER TWELVE

      FREYA SLEPT WITH the windows open.

      For everything Zack liked about hotels, windows that didn’t open were one of the things that he didn’t like. It was a cool night and the sound of rain was lulling.

      Not for Freya.

      She lay listening to the sound of night-time from her bed but with Zack by her side, and all in her world was shaken.

      Beautifully so but scarily so.

      And how could you let yourself simply enjoy something when you’d been told it couldn’t last?

      And what if what she had discussed earlier with Cleo turned out to be right?

      ‘What’s wrong?’ Zack asked, as Freya turned to get comfortable again.

      ‘Nothing,’ she