Chapter 1
One Monday evening, in a quiet south-west London pub, a woman, having a gin and tonic 'night cap', watched a pleasant looking guy approach her table. He asked politely with an accent Riley Ranfurly (32), couldn't quite identify, "Is this chair taken?"
It was, because no one was sitting on it or the other five vacant chairs around the table.
Riley, surprised by such a stupid question, blurted no without thinking, and the smart-arse sat beside her without spilling beer and gave her a stunning smile and said, "As the English say, it's an arsehole of a day, weather-wise."
Never in her life had Riley heard English weather described using the rude term 'arsehole'. Releasing her clenched teeth, she snapped one didn't describe English weather in that way and besides, it was rather a settled day for that time of year.
He laughed and said teasingly, "Don't get your britches in a knot. I was only attempting to be friendly."
Her eyes narrowed and her lips appeared to thin, marring her pretty face.
"How dare you refer to my clothing."
"Huh?" he said as if caught on the hop but recovered quickly.
"You're not wearing britches in the true sense of the word. Under that dress you'll only be wearing knickers, presumably."
She found herself apologising, while wondering why they were discussing her clothing when ignoring his. For goodness sake, he was wearing shorts and it was cold outside and not all of the top buttons on his shirt weren't done up. Omigod, what a chest.
The guy introduced himself as Tom Parkes from New Zealand and asked why had she stopped talking mid-sentence and, exaggerating, asked why did she include an apology in practically every sentence.
She stared at him, fascinated and blurted, "I really have no idea. Are you attempting to pick me up?"
He bared his teeth in a big smile, and so began an extremely interesting four years of her life.
That night they engaged in niceties and sex as if they really meant it and two weeks later, Tom Parkes returned home, Riley having enthusiastically cooperated in her farewell to him by placing a hand over her heart and swearing she would resign from her teaching job and apply under temporary New Zealand immigration special easement for one of the two vacant teaching positions at the secondary school twenty miles (32 miles actually) from his home.
That arrangement was completed satisfactorily and Riley spent almost four happy years with her darling before he was tragically killed on his parent's farm. The young couple lived in a contract milkers' cottage before the property was converted fully to farming beef cattle, to escape the hostility of his mother, who believed Riley was sentencing her son to damnation for forcing him to live with her 'in sin'.
Forcing Tom to live with her? Ha, Riley laughed hollowly when Tom had delivered the news of their pending eviction from the family farmhouse after only their first night of cohabiting.
Riley attended the burial of the man she'd been living with for almost four years, her grief-stricken face devoid of tears. The mourning parents, the Parkes, continued to reject her.
Tom was gone and Riley was aware that no flow of tears and wailing could bring him back.
Eight days earlier, he had been an hour overdue returning home and she went over to the back of farm on her hand-down farm motorbike and found him sprawled on the tractor seat and wedged in, with his skull shattered, part of a broken chain embedded in crushed bone.
Riley held Tom's body in her arms for more than an hour, weeping and wailing in absolute privacy and then returned to report her gruesome finding to his parents.
Tears flowing, Mr Parkes called the police.
He came from the phone sobbing and Riley said, "Tom urged you three times to my knowledge to buy a stronger chain to replace the old chain being used to haul stumps from the ground after recent tree-felling on the southern boundary."
"Shut your mouth, you whore. Say another word about that and I'll knife you," yelled Tom's distraught mother.
Riley fled to the cottage and, greatly distressed, called her parents 140 miles away at the hotel in Auckland where they had arrived from England the previous day to visit their daughter and begin a two-week holiday tour.
At the funeral, Riley suffered further humiliation at the conclusion of the church service when Mrs Parkes stood and, pointing to Riley, cried: "We don't want that Scarlet Woman at the burial of our son."
Riley's mother Trish, already upset by the Parkes' appalling treatment of her daughter following Tom's death, leaped from her front pew and struck Mrs Ranfurly down with a heavy blow.
Quick intervention by two burly farmers prevented a possible wider skirmish from developing and led the upset Ranfurly's from the church. Riley and her parents immediately left for Auckland, the two women hugging in the back of the rented Mercedes SUV.
When Tom's assets were being prepared for filing for Probate, it was found there appeared to be little of value in Tom's possessions until his father cried, "Where is the $887,700 from his late grandfather that I unsuccessfully took legal action to have the Court overturn that bequest?"
The deceased's lawyer and the Parkes' lawyer conferred and agreed from information before them, the deceased had bequeathed that money and all earnings from it to Miss Ranfurly in the event of his death. As the Will appeared totally in order in making that bequest, and as his de facto partner had clearly continued uninterrupted to exceed the statutory minimum of three years living in that relationship, it appeared that inheritance would most likely be incontestable.
Almost four months later, everything was settled.
* * *
Early February, the last month of summer in New Zealand, Riley returned to that country where she'd originally obtained citizenship after completing minimum residency requirements under special immigration easement for incoming school teachers recruited in the UK to assist relieving a secondary school teacher shortage, especially in rural districts.
The $887,718 that she'd inherited was spread in term investments at three banks under different ownerships, ready for use if she decided to settle permanently in New Zealand or England.
While in England, she had resigned from her New Zealand school where she had taught for more than three years and recently had successfully applied to teach at another school on New Zealand's North Island east coast, more than 140 miles across rugged country from her previous school as the crow flies, but non-direct route on highways skirting rugged mountainous ranges added another 75 miles of road travel.
Her new job was at a girls' secondary school on its own working farm situated on the plains of Hawkes Bay, a major fruit-growing, wine-making and fattening livestock region. The school was about 10 miles from a village, or what New Zealanders called a small rural servicing town.
