by Mandy Magro
Cold fear seeped beneath Joel’s skin. ‘Please, Levi, stop, please, she doesn’t deserve this.’ The hoarse voice didn’t sound like his own.
‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ Jackson bellowed, clearly starting to lose it, the hand holding the knife shaking. Convinced his throat would be slit, along with Juliette’s, Joel clamped his mouth shut.
Juliette’s soft whimpers were all that could be heard over Levi’s grunts and groans as he tried to tug his jeans down fully.
Revolted to his very core, Joel squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the sting of tears behind his lids. Shudders filled him. He didn’t want to watch, didn’t want to witness the love of his life, the one woman he felt compelled to protect, being sexually assaulted by a man as immoral and repellent as Levi Muller. He had to do something. Anything. Now. Or forever hold himself accountable for what happened next. He’d never be able to live with himself if things got even worse. He prayed for god to give him the strength to do what he had to, and to forgive him now for what might happen if he somehow got his hands around Levi’s throat.
A violent rush filled Joel, the longing to hurt another something he’d never felt before. The urge to do whatever it took, even if it meant losing his own life to do it, overcame him. He sucked in a deep breath, readying himself to push to his feet and somehow get to Juliette before it was too late. He was primed to fight until his very last breath.
Suddenly, crashing out of the bushes, a huge rock in his hands, Ben sprang for Levi. ‘Nooo,’ he cried. ‘Leave her alone!’
Before Desmond or Jackson could react, Ben brought the rock down on Levi’s skull with an almighty crack. The loud thump seemed to echo as Levi collapsed atop Juliette, blood spilling from him. Pinned down, probably suffocating beneath his weight, Juliette fought to roll free. Ben took one last look at Joel, petrified, before vanishing back into the scrub – he was running for his life.
Jackson and Desmond dove in to help their brother, now in a heap beside Juliette. Desmond slapped his brother’s face, desperately trying to wake him, but to no avail. Joel kept one eye on them as he wriggled to where Jackson had dropped his knife and, grabbing hold of it, frantically cut through the zip ties at his feet. His hands would have to remain bound.
So much happened, yet it all went down in a matter of seconds. So fast that Joel’s head was spinning. And then, as his and Jules’s eyes met, just like that, it was as if a switch had been flicked and time seemed to slow, falter, stop. Struggling to stand, he stumbled over to Juliette and fell to his knees beside her. She reached for him, sobbing.
With hands too steady for the situation, Joel tugged her dress down and then pulled the top of it closed as best he could. ‘We have to get out of here,’ he whispered into her ear.
She nodded, lips trembling. She looked so vulnerable, so broken. If Levi survived, Joel was going to make it his mission to make him pay for what he’d done tonight, along with his bastard brothers. Slipping the knife beneath the zip ties around her ankles, he freed her feet so they could make a run for it. Helping her up, he watched cautiously as Desmond heaved a limp Levi over his shoulder. Unmoving, his hair and face covered in blood, Joel couldn’t be sure that Levi wasn’t dead. Part of him hoped he was.
But he wasn’t about to wait to find out.
He pulled Juliette into the shadows and they took off down the worn path that led to home, with Jackson Muller yelling out something incomprehensible behind them. Joel made sure to keep Juliette in front of him, constantly looking over his shoulder. If they came for them, he would be the barricade that kept her out of harm’s way. Looking at what had been his favourite white T-shirt, he shuddered. There was so much blood. Was it his? Was it Juliette’s? A wave of dizziness almost sent him crashing to the ground, but he fought it off. Juliette needed him. He needed to be strong. His heart hammered. His ribs hurt. His head pounded. The world around him blurred, twisted and spun. He pushed through all of it. For her.
It didn’t take them long, although it felt like forever, to reach the outhouses of the farm. Only then did they slow.
* * *
Stopping by the back of the stables, Juliette heaved in deep breaths, looking to Joel, behind them, and then back to Joel again, terror gripping her. ‘Are they gone?’ The voice, twisted with fear, didn’t sound like her. ‘Please tell me they are.’
With a quick glance into the darkness, Joel nodded. ‘I think so.’ He turned back to her. ‘I don’t think they’d be game enough to follow us here.’ Sadness and fear shadowed his eyes as he considered her. ‘Oh, Jules. I’m so sorry.’
She shook her head, a big part of her not wanting to admit something so horrifying had just happened. ‘I’m okay.’ It was a lie. She wasn’t. All of her hurt. She craved for Joel to take her into his arms, to soothe away her fear and disgust as he made her feel safe and loved. But his wrists were still bound.
As if sensing her need, he looked to the doorway. ‘I’ll go and grab something to cut these off.’
She nodded, her bottom lip clamped between her teeth as he stepped into the darkness and flicked on the overhead light. She stuck to his side like glue, her breathing shallow, unable to take a full, free breath.
Joel grabbed a Stanley knife and freed her. ‘Can you do mine now, Jules?’
There was so much concern and pity in his gaze that a rush of anger surged through her. She didn’t want to be pitied. She wanted this to somehow never have happened, and if she couldn’t have that, to forget this ever happened.
With trembling hands, she freed him, operating on autopilot, as if having an out of body experience. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if she could hold her shattered pieces together.
Joel looked to the bright red bloodstain on her torn and tattered dress. ‘How bad is the cut on your stomach?’
Her knife-bitten flesh stung, but she brought her hand to cover it. ‘Not bad enough for stitches.’ There was no way she could go to the hospital.
Joel pulled her to him and her resolve broke. She sobbed against his shoulder, arms wrapped tightly around him. He combed his hand through her tangled, dirt-matted hair, rubbed her back, kissed her forehead. ‘I’m so sorry, Jules.’ He sniffled, as if holding his tears at bay. ‘We’ll call the police and tell them what’s happened.’
No, no, nooo, a voice in her head screamed. They couldn’t tell the police. They couldn’t tell anyone. It would be a sure way for her parents to find out she’d snuck out. Then the atonement for her sin would begin. She couldn’t risk being banned from going to uni, or worse. She pulled back and looked him straight in the eyes, shaking her head. ‘Nobody can know about this, Joel. Not ever. Do you understand me?’
He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. If only he knew the depth of her battles. ‘What? Why?’ he breathed, eyes wide.
‘My father is why, Joel. He’ll blame me, for all of it.’ She choked back more sobs and sucked in a shuddering breath as she dropped her arms from him. She needed to get a grip before she said more than she should.
‘No, he wouldn’t. He’s your father, he’d understand and want justice,’ Joel said soothingly, but she stepped free of his touch.
‘Stepfather, Joel. Malcolm will most certainly blame me. I snuck out to meet you tonight, remember?’ She wrapped her arms back around her waist. ‘I don’t want anyone to know about this. What Levi did to me, it’s shameful. Filthy. Repulsive. I will not allow myself to be gossip for the whole town, and I’m not going to let the Muller boys make an impact like that on my life, or on yours.’
‘But, Jules, the Muller boys can’t get away with this. Levi almost raped you.’
‘Almost. Thanks to Ben, he didn’t.’
Joel regarded her with sad eyes. ‘I’ll check in on Ben soon, to make sure he’s okay, but … Jules …’
Joel tried to close the distance she’d created between them, but she stepped back, and he faltered. ‘Surely Malcolm would want a man who did that to his stepdaughter behind bars?’
‘Stop, Joel
, please. I can’t deal with all this pressure right now,’ she cried, pulling together the torn parts of her dress. How would she explain it to her mother? ‘I just want to pretend tonight never happened.’
Hurt seized Joel’s already tense features. ‘All of tonight?’
‘Yes, all of it,’ she snapped back, regretting her harsh tone instantly but unable to rein in her turbulent emotions.
Joel closed his eyes, shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Juliette, but you seriously can’t expect me to stand back and let Levi think he’s gotten away with something so disgusting. The arsehole has to pay for doing this to you and so do his brothers.’
She felt a flash of dark emotion, fear and anger mingling. ‘Don’t push this, Joel. You can’t do anything about it.’ She fought to gather every bit of strength she had left to stop from crumbling to the floor. If only Joel could understand the truth of her life at home. ‘Not if you want us to be together.’
After a moment’s contemplation, Joel heaved a frustrated breath. ‘Fine then. We don’t have to go to the police. I’ll just take matters into my own hands.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she demanded, watching him swallow down hard.
‘I don’t think I need to elaborate, Jules. It’s best you don’t know.’
‘Oh no you don’t.’ She pointed at him. ‘You won’t go and do anything so stupid, Joel Hunter, and if you do, we are well and truly over.’ The words fell from her trembling lips before she’d thought them through or even understood what they might mean. She hated not being able to tell Joel everything, but for his sake, and hers, it was imperative she didn’t.
Joel threw his hands up in the air. ‘Jules, you can’t be serious. You’re not thinking straight right now.’
He didn’t understand. He couldn’t. She was doing this to protect him, to protect herself, to protect her mother … one day, he might understand, when she was free to tell him the truth. But not now. ‘I’m thinking real straight, so try me.’ Refolding her arms, she stared at him fiercely. ‘I’m not going to have you hurt them and then go to jail for years, or even worse. They hurt you really bad. Just imagine my life then, without you. It’s not worth it, Joel. The Muller boys aren’t worth ruining our lives over.’
Joel looked down at his muddy boots for a long moment before nodding. ‘Okay.’
Juliette exhaled the breath she’d been holding. ‘Promise me that you won’t tell anyone, or go to the police, or do anything stupid?’
He looked at her, his mouth in a tight line. ‘I promise.’
‘Thank you.’ She tipped her head, assessing him, the authenticity written all over his face. She could believe him. She trusted him. ‘What was Ben doing down there?’
He hesitated before replying. ‘I asked him to hide in the bushes and film me asking you to marry me.’
‘Oh.’ She softened now, her heart reaching for Joel’s as she closed the gap, falling back into his arms – she wasn’t in the right frame of mind, nor was it the right time, to tell him she would have said yes. ‘We’ll have to make sure Ben keeps his mouth shut too.’
‘I don’t think we’ll have any problem with that.’ Joel held her tight.
Gathering comfort from him, Juliette clung to the hope that they were going to make it through this, but she had to go. She needed to get back home. Now. Before this night got any worse.
CHAPTER
3
Rosalee Station, Central Australia
Eleven years later
It had taken only two weeks to break his promise.
Exactly fourteen days later, Joel lost his cool after trying to drown his sorrow and guilt. He’d never been a drinker until that day, but the amount of hatred and rage brewing after watching his beautiful Jules suffering in silence had made it impossible to stop himself, no matter how hard he’d tried to keep it at bay. In an all-out pub brawl, after being baited by the three Muller boys, he’d got a few good punches in and broken Levi’s nose and, in turn, the agreement he’d made with Juliette. He hadn’t fared too well either, staggering away with his fair share of injuries.
The town’s senior sergeant, Wombat, off-duty at the time, was the one that broke up the fight and persuaded Levi not to press charges – Joel had thrown the first punch. Everyone thought Levi was the better man, but Joel knew it was because Levi didn’t want the motivation for the fight to be mentioned in a statement.
Battered and bruised, nursing a couple of broken fingers and a busted lip, and with his ego copping a pounding, Joel had gone and lost the best thing that had ever happened to him. Juliette had stuck to her promise, and no amount of apologising had changed her mind. Broken-hearted and with nowhere and nobody to turn to – even his own family – he’d done the only thing he could at the time and left Little Heart, their secret, and the only life he’d ever known behind.
Warding off the familiar heartache the painful memories evoked, Joel shoved the last of his buttery damper into his mouth and willed the whitewash of another hangover away. Washing it down with the last of his sweet billy tea, he huffed and eased out his aching neck. Becoming the black sheep of the family in the blink of an eye hadn’t been easy, but he’d grown used to it. He’d had to, even though he’d never got over the fact his father had basically turned his back on him. He’d been deeply disappointed his son had succumbed to violence, and Joel, unable to tell him the real reason why he’d lashed out at Levi, had apparently broken his heart and his wholesome reputation even more when he’d upped and left town the night his father kicked him out.
No matter which way he turned, he just couldn’t win.
In his dear mother’s words, his father believed Joel was the one who had gone and turned his back on them and the church by not owning his crime of violence by apologising to Levi. Over his dead body would he ever give Levi the satisfaction, or humiliate Juliette by doing so. When he’d asked his mum if she felt the same way, stone-cold silence had been her reply. At least she still spoke to him and told him how much she loved him and missed him when he called about once a month. His little sister, Zoe, was piggy-in-the-middle. His father behaved as if he were dead.
He had to admit that, in a way, his mum was right. His faith in the church, and his father, had wavered a hell of a lot. What kind of god allowed such a horrendous thing to happen and the culprits to get away with it? What kind of father didn’t have his son’s back no matter what? It stung like buggery, had him questioning everything he’d been raised to believe, and made him even more determined never to step foot in Little Heart again, despite the fact he missed the farm and his family like drought-affected land missed the rain. As for Juliette Kern, as much as he missed her and reminisced about their good times, and as much as he wished he could give her the engagement ring he’d luckily found down by the river the day after the attack and for her to accept his proposal to be his wife, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she’d never be his again. She’d moved on. Married her rich, snobby-nosed neighbour – her father would be tickled pink. According to Zoe, they were trying to have children. Juliette would make a wonderful mother, and he wanted to be happy for her, but was struggling to push past his grief and heartache. So that’s as much as he needed to hear, from Zoe or anyone else. Any more information and his already snapped heart might shatter irretrievably.
Life went painfully on.
With his head pounding, the bellows of mustered cattle brought his attention back to the here and now. Wanting to avert his depressive, antagonising thoughts – he knew they did him no good, sometimes even drove him to the bottle – he focused on the untainted land surrounding him. It was hard to feel lonesome when filled with so much wonder for Mother Nature’s heart. Against a never-ending outback sky, the rising sun pierced the extensive stretches of hard-baked treeless earth with pewter light, igniting it to blinding brilliance. Despite the promised warmth the golden orb would bring, he stood shivering by the holding-yard gate as he watched two fellow stockmen, Bluey and Nugget, saddling up their h
orses, their throaty laughter compelling. His wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his shaggy brown hair, and his bearded chin tucked into his Driza-Bone, he chuckled quietly as Nugget tripped over thin air – the younger of the two was a true klutz.
This right here was what made him step from his swag every morning. As hard as it could sometimes be – the extreme weather, days on end in the saddle, no hot showers, and the lack of fresh food – it was all in a day’s work as a stockman, and he loved the challenge. A place where lightning could strike for nights on end, Central Australia could go from one extreme to the other in a matter of just twenty-four hours. At night, the wind seared his lungs with bitter cold, and during the day it covered him in dust and sweat and incessant flies. The unforgiving countryside called for those who could fight the battle of isolation and drought. For Joel, it was a cinch to survive it compared to the dark cloud of grief and shame he was surrounded by every waking day, both for not being able to save Juliette and then for breaking her heart. Still plagued by nightmares of that night by the river, and tortured by endless thoughts of what-ifs and how-comes, bone-tired didn’t even begin to explain how he felt. Hollow, destitute, desolate … every day spent in survival mode. That was the way of his life now. It was his kind of purgatory.
His lower back aching, he moseyed towards his trusty old horse, Ratbag, satisfied with the past week and a half spent in the saddle, but also looking forward to a long hot shower when they got back to the main camp this afternoon. Then, tomorrow, they’d all scrub up and head into the big smoke of Mount Isa for some well-earned time off. About nine kilometres from the main part of the station now, they’d been lucky enough yesterday to herd another twenty head just before dusk, with the help of the mustering chopper. The Rosalee Station owners, Georgia and Patrick Walsh, were going to be mighty happy with their mob of market-worthy cattle.
Two of the wild micky bulls that had proved to be absolute handfuls along the muster stomped and snorted impatiently as he passed them. ‘Bit grumpy this morning, aren’t we, fellas?’ he said. ‘You might want to pull your heads in if you want to be sent back out to pasture, my friends.’