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She went on. ‘When you’re traversing the cave please remember to use three points of contact to give you balance. Safety is the most important part of stepping off the boardwalk. As you know, we’re heading for the dry riverbed which is more than forty metres below the surface and there’s no lights down there.’
A few murmurs greeted that. ‘If your heart does start to pound—’ she slowed so everyone could hear ‘—if you can feel yourself becoming anxious, take a couple of deep breaths and remember…’ They were all listening. She grinned. ‘This is fun and there are more of these tours every week and we haven’t lost one person yet.’
A ripple of relieved laughter eased the tension. ‘Let’s go.’ Faith ducked her head and stepped down onto the sloping boardwalk. The air temperature cooled as she moved ahead, not too fast, because she could still remember the first time she’d entered the cavern and her open-mouthed awe of the ceilings and floors, but fast enough to encourage people not to stop until she made the point where they left the wooden planks.
A few minutes later she counted eight adults. ‘Right then.’ She crouched down, slid under the rail and put her weight on the uneven rocks off the main path, the stones like familiar friends under her feet. Then she slid sideways through a crevice, down an incline, and stopped to point out a particularly wobbly rock and let everyone catch up. ‘Try to plant your weight on the big rocks—not into the holes.’ She heard the crack of a helmet behind her as someone bumped their forehead. Bless the helmets.
‘Now sit down on your bottom to slide off this small drop into the darkness below.’ A stifled gasp from right behind her suggested someone had sat down too quickly and hit the wet spot on the cavern floor.
She raised her voice a little. ‘It might be time to turn that headlamp on. Shine it on your feet, not into the eyes of the person in front, or into their faces behind you when you turn your head.’
This was all the fun stuff but she knew that most of the tourists behind her would be stamping down the claustrophobia of being in a small tunnel space underground with someone in front and someone following them.
It was lucky Raimondo was at the back because the others might forget how much space he took up. Not something Faith could forget, though for a different reason.
She paused at a fork in the path and waited for everyone to catch up, then pointed at a magnificent curtain of rock.
‘That veil of rock is where hundreds of years of dripping water have formed a bacon-rind-shaped rim of curved ice that divides the ceiling.’ She remembered enthusing about that to Raimondo all those years ago.
She shook the thought off. The beauty truly did make her astonished every time. Lifting her chin, she pulled her imaginary cloak of confidence tightly around her again. ‘Ahead are more joined stalactites to reach towards stalagmites and if you look over here there’s a magnificent column that stretches from floor to ceiling. What a gift of nature—that took thousands of years.’
The reverence was back in her own voice because, despite the man at the end of the line of tourists, every time she came down here she shook her head in wonder. Which was why she still marvelled that Dianne actually paid her to savour this subterranean cathedral she loved so much.
They’d come to one of the tricky spots. ‘This opening’s narrow—be careful not to scrape yourself here.’ This was the point she had wondered if Raimondo would have difficulty with sliding through.
He seemed even bigger than when she’d met him before. Hard to imagine but true. More wedge-shaped. Toughened and toned. Muscled and honed. Hopefully not so broad that he’d jam in the crevice like a cork in a bottle—but she had a contingency plan for the others if he did. Not so much for him. She stifled an evil grin. Tsk, Faith, she admonished herself.
Still, there was another, less accessible exit for emergencies, and nobody had ever really been stuck.
Yet.
She waited.
Tried not to hold her breath.
Her heart rate picked up as she heard the subtle crunch of rock fragments in a long agonising squeeze, then he pushed through into the small cavern they were all standing in with a slight rush. Close fit.
Her breath puffed out.
He was fine. Bet that made the sweat stand out on his manly brow though. She smiled.
Then frowned at herself.
Another tsk. Not nice, Faith.
This was unlike her and a measure of how much that grim visage of his had affected her equilibrium.
Stop thinking about him.
‘We’ll edge down this rock face now. The path narrows so please don’t touch that glistening rock there,’ She shone her headlamp at the shimmering silver wall. ‘It has beautiful fragile crystals so you can take photos and admire it, but it will become disfigured if you accidentally touch it.’ She watched them and saw with satisfaction how they all leaned the other way to protect the wall.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘Almost there.’ There were a few Hail Marys behind her and she stifled a laugh. The shy quiet man had turned out to be a Catholic comedian. You had to love him.
Finally, after another ten minutes of winding and uneven descent, she stepped into an opening with a sloping floor. It spread out into a wide cavern and she heard the sighs of relief to be able to spread out a little. The distance narrowed between roof and floor and she resisted the urge to duck her head. Enough of that soon enough.
‘If you shine your lights down towards your shoes you’ll see you’re standing on red sandy soil.’
All lights tilted downwards and there were some comments of, ‘All the way down here. Wow.’
‘So, we’re here. You’re standing on the bed of a river from thousands of years ago, stretching away in two directions.’
She let that statement sit in the silence as the others thought about that and shone their headlamps around. ‘As you can see with your lights…’ and that was all they could see with, as no other light could penetrate this far into the cave ‘…there’s a line of white rocks marking off a section of the cave. Also, in front of us, a circle of the same stones to protect an area of new stalactite formation.’
She crouched down and even now she could feel the excitement as her heart rate sped up with the wonder of all this subterranean world so far below the surface. ‘See this—’ She pointed out the new holes burrowing into the dirt in the centre of the circle.
‘Every drop is making the hole larger and eventually it will form a pencil of creation.’
She breathed out and those standing next to her murmured their own awe. This was why she loved these tours. When she felt the connection from others at the opportunity to see something so few people had.
‘If you look across from us—’ she angled her head and the light shone on the roof ‘—hanging from the low roof like eyelashes, those are thin tendrils of tree roots that are searching for the water that left eons ago, but the moisture remains and even though the roots don’t touch any water the filaments absorb moisture from the air.’
Someone said, ‘Amazing.’ She smiled in their direction.
‘There’s no natural light—the creatures who live here are small, without eyes, their bodies are see-through, almost like albino slaters.’ She crouched down and drew an example the size of a cat in the red dirt with her finger.
Her comedian said in the darkness, ‘That looks too big for comfort,’ and laughed nervously. Several other voices murmured.
Faith grinned. ‘Not drawn to scale.’ She pointed out a tiny white beetle-like creature on a tree root. ‘But if you see one of them in front of you when you’re crawling, please scoop up a handful of dirt and shift him aside.’
The young woman next to Faith who’d changed into jeans said in a small voice, ‘You say we are crawling?’
‘Yep, we’re sliding under that overhang on our stomachs, using our elbows, for about thirty metres, but it opens into a small cavern after that.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said in her lilting accent, ‘I can stay here and mind the bags?’
Faith looked at her and noted her pinched nostrils and darting eyes. ‘Perfectly fine. We’ll only be about ten minutes’ crawl away, though you mightn’t hear us because the riverbed bends a little. Then it opens into another cavern where we can sit up. We’ll be gone for about thirty minutes by the time we spend ten minutes there as well as crawling there and back. Will you be fine with that?’
She laughed nervously. ‘I find it very peaceful here.’
‘I’ll stay with her,’ one of the teenage boys offered with pretended resignation. It was so obviously what he wanted to do that everyone laughed.
Faith nodded. ‘The rest of us can drop all our extra stuff, like cameras and jumpers, here. Too hard to crawl on your belly dragging a drink bottle or camera.’
There was a small wave of tense laughter as people dropped surplus bits and crouched down. The black semi-circular opening above the red sandy floor looked about three feet high and maybe ten feet wide, based with the red sand of the ancient river. A little too much like a mouth that would eat them, Faith had thought the first time, and she guessed a few of the others now thought the same.
‘I’ll go belly down into the damp dirt first so you know I’m ahead, but I need a volunteer to go last. Someone needs to make sure we all keep going.’
‘I will go last.’ Raimondo spoke quietly, his thick accent rolling calmly around the tiny space. When the others expelled breaths of relief he said, ‘I have been on this tour before and have no concerns.’
Faith knew this last stretch tested the first timers’ resolve as they slithered forward in the dark, seeing the backside and feet of the person in front, the circle of light from the person behind washing over them, the roof closing in over their helmeted head. She’d had the occasional talk down of a panicked group member at this part but in the end they all agreed the challenge was worth it.
Faith knelt down until she was lying on the damp sand and glanced at Raimondo, looming above her. He nodded calmly and with a last flashing grin at the rest of the group she propelled herself forward along the riverbed, the circle of her headlamp piercing the darkness ahead with its warm glow.
She heard them behind her and the flicker of the others’ lights occasionally shone past until she’d crawled all the way to the cavern.
She sat up and waited, watching the circles of light approach one by one as each crawled out of the hole and into the circle of the cavern.
‘You can sit up now. There’s a good foot over your head.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ the first arrival, the other of the solid woman’s sons, muttered mock complainingly, and she grinned in his direction.
‘Just shimmy around so the next person can sit up and move next to you until we have a circle.’ It didn’t take long for all of them to arrive and she wasn’t sure how Raimondo ended up sitting next to her, but she doubted it was by accident.
Faith cleared her throat. She couldn’t change the next bit and he probably knew it. ‘We’re going to turn out all our lights and just sit here, in the belly of Mother Earth, in the dark, and soak in the wonder of what we are experiencing.’
The same smart alec said, ‘Why not?’ But everyone laughed. Except Raimondo.
There was a murmur of further surprise and then slowly, as they all began to feel the magic of the space, she could feel the agreement.
She pushed on. ‘And we’ll sit in silence for a minute or two just to soak it in—where we are, how long this cavern has been here, and how amazing you all are to do this and still be having fun.’
A few murmurs of pride.
‘After the silence I’ll share an Aboriginal legend I was told about a good spirit from the ocean and a bad spirit from the cave, and how these caves were formed.’
Like good children, one by one they turned out the lights until the darkness fell like a blindfold over them.
Faith closed her eyes. She always found this moment, this silence, incredibly peaceful. The air she breathed felt moist on her nose and throat as she inhaled and she dug her fingers into the damp earth and collected two handfuls of the sleeping riverbed and held them with her eyes shut tight—not that it made any difference, open or shut, in the total dark.
She always felt blessed to have been given this moment in time to embrace the idea of being a part of this river under the earth. Breathing in and out quietly as the silence stretched for several minutes. Nobody fidgeted or spoke until she judged enough time had passed. Then she began to tell the story of the battle of the ancients.
CHAPTER TWO
RAIMONDO BRUNO SALVANELLI closed his eyes as Faith’s lilting voice rose from the darkness beside him. He allowed her words to flow over and through him because he’d heard the cave story before, privately, and he wanted to find the peace she’d once told him she found here—for himself.
So, instead of listening to the story, he savoured the cadence of her voice and the reality that she had still been exactly where he’d left her so long ago. Again, he inhaled the oh, so subtle scent of her herbal shampoo and welcomed the warmth in the air from her body so close to his.
The sudden rush of possessiveness he’d felt when he’d first seen her from the tourist shop door had shocked him. An emotion he had no right to, a stranger very briefly in her life almost six years ago, a stranger still, and one who had told her he would never return after he had broken her heart.
That first time had been Sydney Airport where he’d caught her eye, she’d smiled, and he’d instantly invited her to join him when he’d seen her flight had been postponed along with his.
Then, hours later, because still he wasn’t ready to lose his new companion, they’d shared dinner in an airport bar, jostled by other stranded passengers yet alone in their own world of discovery, and she had captivated him. He’d watched her mobile face as she’d described her beautiful Lighthouse Bay. Her work as a midwife, her hobby of cave tours and her love of life.
Their flights had been rescheduled again and they’d spent the night stranded, and then, imprudently, tangled together making love in an airport hotel, lost to the wild weather outside that had grounded their aircraft.
The crazy urgency had grown until he’d done something so out of character, so reckless and impulsive, even years later he was still surprised. He’d changed his flight to match her re-booked one, delayed his return to Italy for two days, followed her home to the house on the cliff for the one night and two days he hadn’t scheduled and found himself lost in unsophisticated and trusting arms.
This was a world of tenderness he hadn’t known since he’d been a child and his parents had been alive.
When she’d taken him the next morning for a personal cave tour before he’d left he’d been captivated again by her passion for the natural wonders she’d shared. Had silently begun to plan to return and see where this craziness between them might lead.
Then the return to sanity from the craziness that had come upon him with Faith. He could have vanished into it for ever if not for that call from his brother—his grandfather lay dying, the man who had raised them since he was seven. The news had been a deluge of cold water that had dashed his dreams and dragged him home to filial duty and deathbed requests. His brother had warned him what lay in store so he had said goodbye to Faith with finality.
Never to return because they were from different worlds. Because of the commitment he’d made to his dying grandfather—one he would never have broken until it had self-destructed—his fault, his ex-wife’s fault and also partly this woman’s fault because his heart had not been available. His new wife had seen that and hardened her own heart even more. Then his twin brother’s tragedy and the need for Raimondo to shoulder the leader’s role until Dominico could recover.
At the time, returning to Australia had seemed impossible. His brother had agreed that the woman he’d had so brief a liaison with would have married by now, then the years had slipped by so fast after his marriage had dissolved—his new direction into a general practice for the needy, and the occasional international aid work, placating his feelings of failure and he didn’t have the time to fly across the world on a whim.
There had never seemed a future, with Faith settled here and him a son of Italy for ever. Had he been wrong?
He would never have come back except for the news he’d heard.
News he hadn’t believed.
News he hadn’t been able to risk not investigating.
It had been the mention of a place called Lighthouse Bay in Australia, in a discussion of a wedding one of his colleagues had attended before she’d returned to Florence.
Raimondo had been drawn like a moth to the flame of that conversation.
‘So, you have seen Lighthouse Bay?’ he’d asked, unable to stop himself.
‘Yes, I have been to two weddings there, now. This wedding in the church and one on the beach. Both very beautiful.’
His colleague had appeared mildly curious that he too had seen the place. Again unable to help himself, he had asked about Faith and the answer had stunned him.
‘Yes, I met many people. And yes!’ There had been an amused glance. ‘In fact, I remember Faith, the bridesmaid, and her little girl—so cute.’
He had not known she had a daughter. ‘So, she’s married then?’
‘No, Mr Puritan. She has a daughter without a husband. The child looked about four or five.’
So he’d come.
And on his first sight of Faith, the woman he’d never forgotten but whose charisma had endured as if she were a distant enchanted dream, he’d felt the swell of an emotion he shouldn’t have. Here he was, sitting on the sandy bed of an ancient river, forty-five metres below the earth’s surface, listening to her so-charming voice as it caressed his ears and wishing he had never left.
That voice was still as restful and as calming. She was as beautiful as he remembered, with her slim but curved body poured into that ridiculous T-shirt and so tight jeans. It proved difficult to resist the urge to slide his fingers through the damp earth and find her hand to take in his, as he had when she’d brought him on a private tour of this place.
His empty hand could even remember the warmth and softness of her small fingers interlaced with his from all that time ago. How could that be? He didn’t know. What he did know was that he had not planned well.
A week would not be long enough.
He knew that now from his first sight of her, the way his whole being had come alive from what felt like a deep sleep. And that was without the added possibility that they shared a child.
Faith. He’d lost her and her conviction in the goodness of others and perhaps he would find both again in this place of dark caves and far oceans. He’d forgotten so much about her and he wanted to learn it all over again.
Which would require some negotiation with the life he’d left behind. And his need to encourage his twin brother away from his obsessive focus on the business after losing his family. Raimondo’s busy life suddenly seemed far less important than it should, compared to what was happening at Lighthouse Bay.
But that was for later.
He realised the story had finished, the cave silent for those few seconds after a well-told tale, and then soft questions broke out.
Faith answered them quietly then concluded, ‘Okay then. Lights on. Those nearest the entrance can start to crawl back and congregate in the next cavern. I’m sure those waiting will be glad to see us. When we make our way back to the main paths and under the rail again, I’ll do one more head count then you’re free to wander. Just drop your helmets and headlamps back at the shop when you’re finished.’
‘What if we get lost?’ The comedian.
‘You’ll be on the main path. And they’ll switch the spotlights on and off in the cave when it’s shutting, so you’ll know when we are about to close. In about four hours.’ There was a smile in her voice, one he remembered too clearly, and the group laughed.
‘I’m used to the dark now,’ someone said and the person next to them snorted.
He waited. He knew she would be the last to leave this cavern deep in the earth in case someone became lost or panicked. So he waited with her. As he should have waited before.
Six years! She’d been so young, beautiful, excited and as attracted to him as he’d been to her—the two of them like two silly moths mesmerised by the moment—grounded in an airport cocoon of wild weather and overwhelming fascination increased by the improbability of any future. Once he’d finished his business in Sydney he’d be flying home to Italy, her back to her seaside town and her beloved midwifery. She’d been barely twenty and he eight years senior and should have known better.
But they’d talked until their mouths were dry. Been amazed by the rapport that had sprung between them as if reunited friends from childhood. How could that be? From opposite sides of the world?
From a past life, Faith had said, and he’d hugged her to him for the endearing ridiculousness of that statement.
Though, once she’d laid her head against his chest, it was then that everything had spun out of control. For two full days until his brother had grounded him with familial duty, then he knew their love castles were built on dreams he couldn’t follow. Could never follow. A truth he’d left her with. But was that all he’d left her with?
CHAPTER THREE
FAITH WATCHED THE headlamp lights disappear one by one. Damn, she’d missed her chance to send him first.
She tried telepathy.
Go!
She urged the man beside her to move off with the others but he obviously wasn’t picking up the vibe. She couldn’t go until he had, it was her way, and she broke the silence between them as the last lamp disappeared under the curtain of rock.
‘I need you to go now, please.’
He didn’t say anything, just moved forward and crawled away from her.
Faith took a moment to breathe deeply and centre herself, and here in the arms of the earth on the soft sand of millennia was a good place to do it.
Okay. She’d get them all back to the safety of the walking path and then they could talk. She didn’t have to pick up Chloe until two p.m., just before work, when preschool finished. So she had a couple of hours to discover why Raimondo had returned to rattle her composure and her world.
She wondered what her aunt would say when she told her Chloe’s father had arrived, far too many years too late.
Twenty minutes later she left the group at the boardwalk and her job was done.
Except one of the participants didn’t stay behind and she could feel the heat from Raimondo’s body as he walked beside her to the exit of the cave. His arm swung beside her arm and she tucked her fingers in close to her body so she didn’t accidentally knock his hand.
Out in the bright sunshine Faith stopped on the path and the man beside her stopped too. She lifted her head and met his gaze steadily. ‘So why are you here?’ She’d done nothing wrong.
His eyes were that deep espresso brown of unfiltered coffee, dark and difficult to see to the bottom of the cup or, more to the point, to the bottom of his heart.
‘I have come because I heard you had a child.’ His cadence was old-fashioned, she remembered that, formally stiff, but it was a way of speaking she’d found incredibly sexy when she’d been young and silly, in its translated whimsy of sentence structure.