Lindsay just wants to be a mother. And when she discovers her partner is leaving her for another woman, her dreams are left in tatters. He was her last chance at a family … or was he? Then she meets Jack …
All She Wants is the thrilling new novel from Aussie author Kelli Hawkins — read an extract below!
Kelli Hawkins
LINDSAY
Sweat pooled between Lindsay’s breasts. One hand shielded her eyes against the nor’wester, the other pinned her dress to stop it flipping up and exposing her underpants.
Almost there.
It was unseasonably hot and dry for October. She was overcome by a sharp urge to drop the whole thing. To turn around. She could be at Newcastle Beach in less than a block, wading into the white-capped, wind-whipped surf: floating over the breakers, dodging zinc-covered kids on boogie boards, and leathery old women in baggy swimsuits – instead of walking headlong into this fucking wind tunnel.
And now – finally – here she was, outside a four-storey sandstone office. She examined the list of the building’s occupants on the silver and gold nameplates. Lawyers. More lawyers. Psychologists. Archaeologists, strangely enough. And then, there it was.
Davis Investigations.
Her heart thrummed. Fuck. Was she doing the right thing?
Through the glass, the interior appeared cool and inviting. Lindsay blinked sweat from her eyes, glad she hadn’t bothered with mascara. Not that she ever really bothered. The five- year-olds in her kindergarten class didn’t mind and her principal cared more about Lindsay’s teaching ability than her skill at wielding a mascara wand, thank God. Today, however, she had applied foundation in the staff toilets before she left work. She imagined it melting away in the afternoon sun, sliding off like one of those sheet facemasks, leaving her blank and smooth beneath. A new person.
A part of her quite liked the sound of that.
In the lobby, there was no air conditioning. Heat draped over the space like a blanket, thick and heavy. The air smelled of furniture polish and men’s aftershave, but underneath something funkier lurked. Davis Investigations was on level four with a psychologist, a law firm and a chartered accountant.
The ancient lift bounced and clanked all the way up, and Lindsay emerged into the high-ceilinged corridor with relief. A sign on the immaculate black door opposite the lift read Davis Investigations in a font so serious it almost made Lindsay get straight back in. Above the door, the rounded opaque eye of a security camera watched her like a cyclops. At shoulder height, to one side of the door, was a sleek intercom.
Lindsay hesitated. This was it. Pressing that button meant she didn’t trust Mark. That she actually thought he might be cheating on her.
For a moment she wavered, her hand hovering mid-air. She’d be thirty-seven in less than three months. Mark had promised she could go off the pill then. He wouldn’t do this to her now, surely? He couldn’t.
The moment stretched out as if weighted with its own importance.
And then she pressed the button.
A buzz sounded, then a click. Lindsay pushed open the door, stumbling over the threshold into blessedly cool air.
A woman was seated on the far side of the room. Dark- haired, tanned and petite, with her glossy hair in a ponytail. As immaculate, Lindsay marvelled, as the font on the office door. She regarded Lindsay with the sort of self-possession that comes with such extreme beauty, then smiled. More a stretching of her lips than a real smile. She looked like an exquisite doll, but one with a bite; one you half expected to set a booby trap when you left the room, or poison your cup of Earl Grey. Lindsay ran her fingers through her hair, wishing she’d searched for a bathroom in which to touch up her make- up before she’d entered.
‘I’m Natalie Davis,’ the woman said, with a cut-glass British accent. ‘How can I help you?’
‘You’re the private detective?’ Lindsay managed. ‘I thought you were the receptionist.’
Natalie laughed with a genuineness that surprised Lindsay. ‘I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted.’
‘God, I’m so sorry. I haven’t met a private detective before. I just meant you looked young.’
‘Well, now I’m definitely flattered. What was your name?’
‘Oh fuck, I’m sorry,’ Lindsay said, again. ‘And now I’m swearing. Shit. I mean, sorry.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m Lindsay Winters.’
‘I can handle a little swearing, Lindsay, believe me. Take a seat.’ She gestured to a black leather armchair on the other side of the desk.
Lindsay hurried over and sank into the cool leather with a shiver.
Would it put you at ease if I gave you my elevator spiel?’ Natalie asked. ‘A potted history of my illustrious past? Then you can tell me what brings you here.’
Lindsay nodded, setting her handbag on the floorboards at her feet and trying to subtly air her armpits.
‘As I said before, I’m Natalie Davis, Private Investigator. I’m thirty-nine.’
Lindsay found herself sitting taller in her chair, leaning forward as if at a job interview – one for which she wasn’t qualified. It wasn’t just the woman’s beauty. It was everything. How her black wrap dress emphasised her collarbones. Her neat, tanned décolletage and toned triceps. The narrow silver watch loosely circling her wrist. Lindsay instinctively knew Natalie was a different kind of woman. Smarter. Put together. More confident.
‘I’m British, as I’m sure you can tell. My brother and I moved to Newcastle six months ago. We found ourselves in need of a change of scenery.’ Natalie’s eyes flickered from Lindsay’s to a place just beyond her ear and Lindsay knew she was lying – children in her class couldn’t meet eyes when they fibbed either. ‘I’ve been a PI for thirteen years, predominantly in Peterborough. I do all sorts of investigative work, from surveillance for workplace compensation claims to simple online searches to fraud investigations. But I specialise in adultery.’ Natalie paused.
‘Oh, OK. I get it.’ Now it was Lindsay’s turn to smile tightly. ‘You know why I’m here.’
NATALIE
Lindsay hadn’t made a great first impression. With windswept mousy brown hair, her freckled face perspiring, she’d burst into the office like the manic cartoon Taz the Tasmanian Devil that Natalie used to watch as a kid. She could almost feel Jack nestled under the crook of her arm on their worn sofa, could almost smell the sourness of the spilt wine leaching from the fabric. She could conjure up the pattern of the cigarette burns on the armrest, the ones she’d always likened to a constellation of stars. The childhood memory was as unsettling as a hand extended from a freshly dug grave. She shoved it back down, plastering a professional smile on her face. Perhaps her ways of coping with the past weren’t so different from her brother’s after all.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Identifying people’s concerns and problems is an occupational hazard.’
‘I guess you see all sorts of things in a job like yours, Ms Davis.’
‘Call me Natalie.’
Lindsay sat back and crossed her legs, her dress riding up to reveal an expanse of lightly dimpled white thigh. She had the soft look of someone who considered that a twenty-minute walk counted as ‘exercise’. Even so, Natalie decided she was attractive, in a pale, rounded way. She had full lips and wide eyes – like a naïve milkmaid from an overblown romance novel.
‘So, Lindsay darling, what can I do for you?’
‘It might be nothing. I’m probably being ridiculous.’
‘You think your husband is cheating on you.’ Natalie found being blunt usually helped. ‘You’d like me to confirm or allay your suspicions.’
‘Yes. I mean no. I mean, he’s not my husband, although we’ve been together nine years now. And yes, maybe.’ Lindsay’s cheeks reddened. ‘Maybe to the cheating part. Though I’m hoping you find out he’s not, of course.’
‘Tell me what happened.’
Lindsay was hesitant.
‘So, I caught him lying to me …’
Natalie knew which questions to ask and she soon had the usual story.
Several weeks earlier Lindsay’s partner, Mark, had made up some bullshit story about working late, only for Lindsay to uncover – accidentally, so she said, though Natalie found clients often fudged that part – evidence that didn’t back this up. A couple of unexplained purchases on his bank statement, a restaurant meal at a cosy French bistro, and flowers, no less. Such a cliché. Then clandestine phone use, hanging up or putting it aside when she entered the room. Lindsay challenged him. He denied it. Too vehemently. Wanting to be comforted, Lindsay confided in her best friend, Alana, but Alana – smart woman – was having none of it. She said Mark’s actions sounded suspicious and advised her to hire someone to ferret out the truth. A PI. For a couple of weeks Lindsay had managed to convince herself she was being stupid. But the last of her trust had crumbled the previous evening. They had been sitting on the lounge drinking a bottle of pinot gris, watching old episodes of Schitt’s Creek. But when she leaned across to look at his phone as he texted, idly wondering why he was smiling so broadly, he’d angled the screen so she couldn’t see it, saying, Hey, leave it out, Lindsay, I don’t read your texts. And that small gesture, Lindsay told Natalie, was the last straw.
The mobile on Natalie’s desk vibrated. Jack. She picked up the phone and tucked it out of sight on her lap.
Lindsay leaned forward. ‘The truth is I don’t care if he’s cheating, not really. That’s not the main reason I’m here.’
Well, this is different. ‘Why are you here then?’
Lindsay’s pale blue eyes filled with tears. ‘I want a baby.’
Her breath hitched on the word. ‘I’ve been with Mark for nine years now. Nine years. I’ve wanted children since, well, forever I guess, and when I met him he said he did too. But he kept putting it off. I didn’t even mention getting pregnant for the first two years; I didn’t want to scare him away. But finally I asked him when he thought he’d be ready. “Soon, Linds,” he said. “Soon. After our holiday to Vanuatu maybe.” Then that came and went, and he was, like, “Maybe after I get this promotion at work, then we’ll have more money for prams and schools and nappies.” More years passed. Years, Natalie. I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve tried everything I can think of. I’ve been scientific, researching fertility statistics and telling him about studies where older parents made their kids neurotic. But all it does is make us fight.’ She shifted in her chair, averting her gaze.
‘For a while I thought of just doing it anyway, you know. Getting pregnant. Just going off the pill and notching it up to a mistake.’ She exhaled and turned back to Natalie; her expression pained. ‘But I couldn’t. I wanted Mark to want the baby too. And then, last New Year’s Eve, we went to my friend Tim’s apartment to watch the fireworks. Mark stood behind me on the balcony, his arms around my waist, and he said, “We’ll do it this year. When you turn thirty-seven. Let’s wait till then and you can go off the pill and we’ll try.” My birthday is December twentieth. I remember thinking, But that’s almost a year. But he said, “I need one more year where it’s just the two of us, Linds. Just us.” Which is fine. Whenever I remind him of his vow he smiles and nods. “I know,” he says, “I haven’t forgotten.” But he has this look in his eye, Natalie, and I’m worried that it’s not the look of a man who wants to have a baby.’
The rawness of Lindsay’s pain was palpable, filling the room like the heat outside. Unfiltered, desperate; it was the sort of pain Natalie recognised. Not that she wanted a baby. Fuck no. But there were other things she wanted. Things she wanted very, very badly, in fact. She lowered her gaze, fiddling with the fine silver links of her wristwatch.
‘He wouldn’t take away my chance of having a baby, would he?’ Lindsay asked. ‘I can’t believe he’d be so cruel. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. A family. A baby. Mark knows that.’ Her voice fell to a whisper. ‘I started folate tablets last week. I bought them six months ago, so I’d be ready.’ Lindsay peered out the window at the blue sky behind Natalie’s head. ‘I could forgive him for cheating, you know, if that’s what he’s doing. Honestly, there’s a small part of me that thinks maybe if I have proof he’s having an affair, then he’ll feel bad and give me what I want.’ She turned to Natalie and gave a hard smile. ‘I just want my baby. My family. That’s all.’
You poor, deluded woman, Natalie thought. Her phone vibrated against her thigh and she tensed. She heard herself say, ‘I’ll find out if he’s cheating. Give me two weeks.’
Natalie jotted down the details of Mark’s workplace and habits, then explained her terms. After receiving a sum up front, she would start surveillance. She’d let Lindsay know when the money was almost gone and Lindsay could decide if she wanted to continue. Natalie named an amount. Lindsay blanched but reached down into her handbag, pulling out her phone.
Lindsay took the payment details from Natalie’s extended hand, made the transfer and gave a single nod. Then she rose, dignified despite her reddened cheeks and puffy eyes, her flyaway hair. She turned to the door, her dress creased at the back where she’d been sitting on it, the handbag over her shoulder pulling it askew so her flesh-coloured bra strap showed.
Natalie extracted her phone from her lap. Five missed calls. All, unsurprisingly, from Jack. He must be having a bad day. A pounding started up in her skull as she said goodbye and watched Lindsay tug the door shut behind her. Lindsay was so desperate to have a child. Maybe she could be the one?
Natalie’s smile disappeared as the door clicked shut.
Maybe.
—All She Wants by Kelli Hawkins (Hachette Australia) is out now. Limited signed copies are available while stocks last.
All She Wants
Limited Signed Copies Available!
Lindsay just wants to be a mother. And when she discovers her partner is leaving her for another woman, her dreams are left in tatters. He was her last chance at a family ... or was he?
Then she meets Jack, they fall hard for each other, and suddenly everything seems perfect. But why is his sister Natalie so strangely protective of him, yet eager to pass the responsibility to Lindsay? Who are these siblings, why did they really leave the UK, and what terrifying secrets lie in their past?
And does Lindsay really want to know?...
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