Tears of the Moon by Di Morrissey Read Free Book Online

place and make a great house.’ She was entranced by the romance of the setting. The view was breathtaking and she wondered if Captain Tyndall, whoever he was, had sat on the verandah enjoying the tranquil panorama of the mangroves, creeks and brilliant waters of Roebuck Bay.
    In the distance, she watched a lone sail boat inch its way across the water.
    Lily continued her walk into town and found a trattoria-style restaurant and ate in the open air garden by flickering flame torches. Lily had long adjusted to being a woman alone in a restaurant and treated herself to a three course meal, chatting with the young waitress who was over from Denmark on a working holiday. Then, feeling pleasantly satisfied, she strolled back to the hotel in the cool evening air.
    There was a message from Tony waiting for her—he was off to New York and would call when hecould and sent his love. Lily felt the flush of love she always did when she thought of him, and tucked the message away …
    In the bright morning, she pushed her breakfast tray to one side—still no croissants or newspaper—and studied the basic map of the country north of Broome. She packed a bag of mandarins and two litres of bottled water in a holdall and set off in the four-wheel drive. In a few minutes she had reached open road and within half an hour the bitumen had given way to a long stretch of orange dirt road. The lightweight four-wheel drive was difficult to control in the loose dust and she forced herself to slow down.
    Lily drove in silence as there was no radio reception and no tape deck. Through her sunglasses the road looked deep sienna and it was obvious that no vehicle had passed this way for some time. She was glad she’d taken the precaution of telling the girl at the reception desk she was making this trip and if she wasn’t back by 8.00 p.m., to let the police know.
    The driving now required intense concentration as the wheels were wandering in deep powdery red dust. She tried to drive in the centre of the road, hopeful of finding a firmer surface. But in a moment, before she was aware of what happened, the little vehicle slewed and spun across the road towards a great red bank. Lily struggled with the car, praying it wouldn’t tip over, but instead it turned around and came to a stop against the crumbling bank.
    Shaking, she stepped out and sank into talcum powder dust that reached halfway up her calves. The car was in well over its axles. She looked around in the glare hoping to find a paperbark tree or branches that could be put under the wheels for traction. All around her there was nothing but open desert country and one tall spindly tree by the road which barely offered any shade from its frail sprays of leaves.
    She searched the immaculate new car. There was nothing in the way of tools other than a shiny jack. She tried scooping away the dirt from the wheels, but when she attempted to move the car, it just settled deeper into the drift as the tyres spun uselessly. Cursing, she sat by the car and ate a mandarin.
    The sun inched higher into the sky and with it the temperature. It was well over thirty degrees and Lily could feel heat radiating off the metal. She knew to stay by the vehicle—where would she go out here anyway?
    By late afternoon she had eaten all the fruit and drunk one of the bottles of water. She was now resigned to the probability that no one would be travelling this road so late in the day, if at all, and she’d have to spend the night in the car. By the time the girl at the desk raised the alarm it would be late and she doubted anyone would come looking till daylight. She wasn’t frightened, just irritated at getting herself into this predicament. They’d told her it was an adequate road so long as you had a four-wheel drive. But she could see she needed a solid, hefty vehicle, not the zippy little number from therental company which was best suited to beach roads.
    Lily dozed and stirred at sunset when she thought she