Lyrebird Hill Read Online Free PDF Page B

so unexpectedly, that I flinched.
    For the past three years I’d longed for him to open up, to tell me how he truly felt – if indeed he felt anything at all. I knew better than to rush him, knew better than to press the issue, but three years felt like an eternity for love to go unspoken. I had tried to be understanding, tried to remember that despite Rob’s outward strength he still carried the scars of his own troubled past. So, I’d waited. And told myself that although Rob had a knack for extracting personal confessions from other people, the workings of his own heart were a tightly guarded secret.
    Until now.
    I love you , he’d finally said. I love you .
    I gazed into his eyes. His irises were dark, nearly black. As fathomless as the sea. Though we had shared only three years of history, it felt to me at that moment that there lay an eternity between us.
    I love you, Ruby.
    I groped for the appropriate answer, but none came. Maybe later, I reasoned; maybe after a strong cup of tea and a good night’s sleep. Tipsy was no state from which to declare anything of importance, least of all love.
    Pulling away from him, I stared up at the sky. A full moon drifted weightlessly above us, haloed by misty clouds. Rain was coming. A day away, maybe two.
    I shivered. Despite Rob’s words, despite his tender kiss and confession of love, I sensed a shift. A boundary had been crossed, a layer torn away.
    All day I’d been dreading his honesty, making myself sick with worry in anticipation of hearing the truth. What I hadn’t counted on was the possibility of a lie.

    The headlights bored a tunnel into the darkness as we sped back to Coffs. Roadside trees thrashed in the wind, and the sky was a starless black wasteland of ragged clouds. Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ drifted from the dashboard speakers, its bittersweet piano casting a spell of melancholy over me.
    I’d intended to doze until Ebor, where we would stop to eat, but I was too wound up. Every time I shut my eyes I was standing in front of Mum’s walnut-tree painting, hearing Esther’s voice.
    They never did find out who was responsible, did they?
    The stereo lights shimmered. Dark waves of music rushed at me. Gone was the sweet melancholy; the tempo was now pure agitation and it made me jumpy.
    ‘Mind if I change this?’
    ‘Go ahead,’ Rob said, not taking his eyes off the road.
    Flicking on the overhead, I scrabbled through the CDs in the glovebox. Mozart, Shostakovich, Liszt. I would have loved to hear some Roky Erickson right then – his quirky lyrics andgravelly voice always managed to lift my mood – but a blast of psychedelia from the seventies would have really blown Rob out of the water. I chose a soothing Brahms instead, but as I pulled it from the pile another disc toppled out.
    I looked at the cover in surprise.
    A young woman in jeans, with a gingham shirt tied jauntily at her waist, open at the cleavage. She had bottle-blonde hair and spider-black lashes and was sitting on the backboard of a dusty ute nursing a huge Dobro guitar. Her smile was broad and friendly; the gap between her front teeth made me like her.
    Removing Beethoven, I fumbled this new CD into the player. The woman’s voice filled the cabin. Her guitar style was laid-back, a bluesy metallic twang that suited her clear, strong vocals.
    ‘Ainslie Nash,’ I read from the cover, then looked at Rob. He was staring straight ahead at the road, apparently lost in his thoughts. ‘I never picked you as a country fan.’
    Rob’s fingers tightened on the wheel. ‘You’re always telling me to broaden my musical horizons.’
    I frowned. In three years Rob had never strayed from the classical. Why now? I tried to tell myself I was edgy after Mum’s show and my conversation with Esther, and after my drama with the bra this morning – but the heaviness in my chest warned me that something was off. Rob sounded defensive. His mouth was pinched in a line, and the furrow between his