by Nicola Marsh
He’d been responsible for the deaths of seven people. No amount of soul-searching or relaxation or whatever the hell he was supposed to be doing here would change that.
‘Fuck,’ he muttered, pushing through the back door and letting it slam behind him. Fresh air wouldn’t help what ailed him but it wouldn’t hurt either and he’d spent too much time over the last month hiding away: from the media, from his manager, even from his best mates in his beloved band. He couldn’t face anyone, not when he could break down at any moment.
He trudged along a makeshift path, kicking up tiny clouds of dirt every now and then. The land here was prone to drought but the rolling green hills on the horizon belied that. He could spy cattle in a far paddock, sheep in another and his nearest neighbour’s house, about five hundred metres away. He followed the path as it meandered along the border with the adjacent property, the divide delineated by towering pines, and inhaled, his arms reaching overhead, the pungent freshness filling his lungs. The movement calmed him a little so he did it repeatedly, until he felt lightheaded.
‘Wow, we don’t see many guys doing yoga out here. Weird.’
He jumped, lowered his arms and spun around to see a young girl watching him. She had dark blonde hair snagged in a messy ponytail, hazel eyes and a frown that deepened the longer he took to respond. As she stared at him with curiosity, the damnedest thing happened.
He felt like he knew her.
He’d met many fans over the years so maybe she’d travelled with her parents to one of his concerts or to one of the intimate performances he did for radio stations. Yeah, that had to be it.
‘I’m not doing yoga, I’m chilling,’ he said.
‘Out here?’ Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Mister, you need to get a life.’
A bark of laughter escaped him, the first time he’d laughed in a month.
‘Where did you come from anyway?’ he asked, liking this kid and her wit.
‘I live next door with my mum.’ She jerked a thumb over her shoulder to the house he’d seen earlier. ‘I did a dumb thing earlier and I needed to get out of there.’
‘So you thought you’d trespass too?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I duck through the pines to walk here all the time because your house is always empty.’
‘It’s not my house.’
‘Then you’re trespassing too.’
Her sass got to him again and he chuckled. ‘How old are you? Eleven going on fifty?’
‘I’ll be thirteen in two months,’ she said, annoyance that he’d underestimated her age lacing her words. ‘How old are you?’
‘Too old for you to be asking that question. Didn’t your mum ever tell you it’s rude to ask old people their age?’
‘You’re not that old,’ she said, staring at him with renewed interest. ‘You look familiar.’
‘I have one of those faces,’ Kody muttered, eager to beat a hasty retreat before she recognised him. ‘Anyway, I better get back to my yoga—’
‘I’m Isla,’ she said quickly, as if desperate to keep him talking a little longer and it hit him that a kid living with her mum this far out of town wouldn’t have a lot of people to talk to.
‘Kody,’ he said, before mentally slapping himself upside the head. He’d planned on using an alias but this girl had somehow disarmed him and he’d slipped up.
‘How long are you here for?’
‘Don’t know.’
When suspicion glinted in her eyes again, he added, ‘Maybe a month or two.’
‘Well then, I might see you round.’ She paused and pointed at the gap between the pines. ‘You don’t mind if I walk around here while you’re staying, do you?’
He did, because kids these days were whip-smart and if she saw him again she might recognise him. But banning her would draw more suspicion, so he nodded. ‘That’s fine.’
‘Cool.’
She walked away, and he exhaled in relief. Short-lived, because she paused and glanced over her shoulder.
‘My mum’s a great cook and she hasn’t had a boyfriend in forever so if you get tired of being on your own, you should come over.’
She sounded serious so he stifled the grin tugging at his lips. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’
As she ducked back through the gap in the trees, Kody realised that Isla had made him feel lighter than he had in weeks. That’s the thing he liked about kids. They didn’t bullshit, they called it how it is.
But Kody had no intention of going anywhere near the mouthy kid or her spinster mum.
CHAPTER
5
Jane’s head pounded as her eyelids cranked open. She didn’t know what was worse, the rock band jamming in her brain, the grittiness of her eyes or the dryness of her mouth. She hated hangovers. Not enough to stop drinking though. She knuckled her eyes and used her pinkies to clean the crumbly bits from the corners before pushing into a sitting position. Disoriented, she blinked several times and moved her head slowly to stave off dizziness. Pale blue blinds, ecru walls and a desk … where the hell was she?
She glanced at the rumpled sheets on her left and had a flashback of hairy legs and a mermaid tattoo. That’s when it came flooding back and she groaned, flopping back onto the pillow. She’d popped in to The Watering Hole last night, met a trucker on his way through town and ended up in this motel room.
Shame crawled under her skin and she absentmindedly scratched her arm. Last night had been a mistake. She’d made many of those in her thirty years.
She’d let people wrongly believe the worst of her for too long. Allowing people to judge her for being too spoilt, too lazy, had started off as a game to annoy her mother, Gladys Jefferson, a doyen of the community. Jane didn’t have to work courtesy of the inheritance her dad had left her and in a town where most people were doing it tough and her mother practically ran everything, that had been a major black mark against her name.
So she sought validation elsewhere, flirting with guys to feel good about herself. She craved attention more than chocolate—and that was saying something.
A knock sounded at the door, way too loud, like a jackhammer to her head. She grimaced, tucked the top sheet around her and opened it a crack, wishing she hadn’t.
Her nemesis stood on the other side, staring at her with ill-concealed concern.
‘What do you want?’ Jane muttered, hating that Ruby Aston appeared radiant in a peacock blue sundress, her dark hair shiny, her make-up flawless and her eyes clear. Having Ruby discover her hung over and naked beneath a sheet in the motel attached to the roadhouse didn’t look good. Jane had been the gorgeous one once, the most popular girl in high school. She’d been a bitch to Ruby back then, doing many things she wasn’t proud of. But they’d called an uneasy truce when Ruby returned to Brockenridge.
‘I saw your car out the front and I wanted to make sure you’re all right. Fancy a cuppa?’
Jane’s stomach roiled at the thought of caffeine. ‘Got any peppermint?’
‘Sure. I’ll meet you in the roadhouse. Pop over when you’re ready.’
Jane’s chest tightened. Ruby didn’t owe her anything, especially considering Jane had virtually driven her out of town after implicating her in a theft on the day of their high school graduation, so her kindness in checking up on her made her want to cry.
‘Ruby?’
She glanced over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised. ‘Yeah?’
‘Thanks.’
Ruby’s compassionate smile left Jane feeling more inadequate than ever.
Thirty minutes later, after a hot shower and three glasses of water, Jane made her way to the roadhouse, wearing the same clothes as last night: a tight black dress that skimmed her knees and hooker heels, as her mum called anything above a sedate two inches. She hadn’t done a public walk of shame before. It wouldn’t have worried her in the past, strutting into a place wearing obvious night-out attire the next morning. She would’ve done anything over the years to get a reaction from her mum, to make up for the
emptiness that plagued her ever since her beloved dad died and she’d discovered the unthinkable: her mum had been responsible for his death.
She’d wanted to punish her mum so she’d hit Gladys where she’d hurt the most: her precious polished façade. Gladys ran every charity event, presided over the popular book club, and organised endless fundraisers for everything from the high school to the library, so Jane deliberately did the opposite. She cultivated her spoilt brat image by not volunteering, though she did donate anonymously to a lot of local charities. Flirting with men led to rumours but Jane didn’t correct those. Anything to get a rise out of Gladys. And it seemed to work—Gladys hated Jane’s layabout image. Her mum had a hang-up when it came to presenting the perfect front. She’d gone to extremes to maintain the illusion of a privileged life, when nothing could be further from the truth. Not in monetary terms, because her dad had left them well off, but in every other way that counted, Gladys’s life was a sham. Only Jane knew her mum was far from the generous, caring woman everyone in town saw.
But what had Jane’s juvenile behaviour accomplished? Her mother would never change and all she’d achieved was loneliness, because nobody in this town knew the real her. This stupid, impulsive one-night stand was the final straw. She needed to revamp her life.
Giving her head a little shake to dislodge thoughts of her mother, Jane entered the roadhouse. Thankfully, the place was empty, apart from a family who must’ve hit the road early and had stopped for breakfast. She pegged the parents as mid-thirties, wearing the harried expressions of those who’d already weathered too many ‘are we there yet?’ choruses. The kids, a motley crew of three ranging in age from a toddler to a teen, were making enough noise that her head started pounding again. They should’ve annoyed her yet somehow the sight of the tight-knit family travelling together brought a lump to her throat. She wanted that: a guy she could depend on; a guy interested in a relationship; a guy who could make her feel secure in a way her wealth couldn’t. And if she were lucky enough to have kids, she’d make sure she treated them a damn sight better than her mother had treated her.
‘Ready for that cuppa?’ Ruby touched her shoulder and Jane gathered her wits. Bad enough she’d been caught out by Ruby, she didn’t need to add a weird crying jag on top of her one-night-stand shame.
‘That sounds good.’ She followed Ruby to a small table set up near the office. Along with a teapot, Ruby had laid out a plate of scones and tiny bacon quiches and, to Jane’s surprise, a pang of hunger made her stomach gripe.
‘I’m hungry,’ Ruby said, taking a seat. ‘I thought you might be too.’
‘Thanks for all this.’ Jane sat opposite and helped herself to a scone, dolloping locally made raspberry jam and cream on top, before pouring a steaming cup of peppermint tea. She inhaled deeply, the familiar minty fragrance soothing her head and settling her tummy.
‘You okay?’ Ruby pinned her with a steady gaze surprisingly devoid of judgement, and for the second time in as many minutes, Jane’s throat tightened with emotion.
‘I screwed up last night and I’m not proud of it,’ she said, taking a sip of tea, wishing it would cool faster so she could down the entire cup. Though she knew her rumbling tummy had more to do with nerves at having this kind of conversation with Ruby than the remnants of a hangover.
‘We all make mistakes.’ Ruby shrugged and if she weren’t being so nice, Jane would hate her.
Jane snorted. ‘What mistakes have you made lately?’
Ruby’s mouth eased into a wry grin. ‘We’re talking about you, not me.’ She hesitated, before continuing, ‘Look, I know we’re not close and your private life has got nothing to do with me, but that guy you hooked up with didn’t seem your type.’
‘I had a bad day and came in here to chill. Then that truckie started paying me attention and—’ Jane shrugged. ‘You’re so smitten with Connor you wouldn’t get this, but that guy gave me the validation of being wanted …’ She trailed off and took another sip of tea so she wouldn’t sob. Crazy, to be sitting here offloading to a woman so perfect everybody in town adored her. Like Ruby would ever understand what she’d been through.
‘I get it,’ Ruby said, so softly Jane wondered if she’d imagined it. ‘You forget, I ran away from this town. I knew no one in Melbourne and I often dated guys who were wrong for me, just for attention.’
Surprised by Ruby’s admission, Jane leaned forwards. ‘The stupid thing is, I don’t sleep around, I just like flirting because it makes me feel noticed, you know?’
Ruby nodded. ‘Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.’
‘But what you don’t know is how the small-town mentality of many around here assume that flirting leads to more.’ Jane grimaced. ‘I haven’t helped myself over the years because I didn’t correct the misconceptions. Some of Mum’s cronies, the old biddies who think she walks on water, got me so mad I flaunted myself on purpose just to get a rise out of them.’ She tapped her temple and made circles. ‘Crazy, huh?’
Confusion creased Ruby’s brow. ‘Why didn’t you leave?’
How could Jane answer that honestly without reinforcing how crazy she was? Ruby had always had a great relationship with her mum. She’d never understand that Jane stuck around to make Gladys’s life a misery.
‘I ask myself that question every day.’ Jane forced a flippant laugh but could tell Ruby didn’t buy it. Thankfully, they weren’t close enough for her to push the issue.
‘For what it’s worth, there’s something to belonging in a town like this.’
Jane’s throat tightened so she aimed for levity again. ‘Are we actually having a bonding moment here?’
‘Don’t push it,’ Ruby said, with a smile. ‘I hated your guts for so long—but life’s too short to hold a grudge.’
‘I was a bitch to you. I know I’ve already apologised, but I was shitty to you all through high school.’ She shook her head, ashamed of how narrow-minded she’d been. ‘And for what? Because you lived here?’ She glanced around the roadhouse, at the gleaming polished wood of the tables, at the vintage posters on the walls, at the jukebox and stage in the far corner, and wondered what it would’ve been like to come home to this welcoming warmth every day. Her family may have had money but Ruby had a real home and, given a choice, Jane knew which she’d choose.
‘What do you want me to say? That you looked down your snooty nose at me? That you taunted me for no reason? That you were a stuck-up cow?’ Ruby held out her hands like she had nothing to hide. ‘Fine, you were. But that’s all in the past. How did that confident girl end up …’ Ruby hesitated, as if trying to find the right words, so Jane supplied them for her.
‘Judged? Shunned? Broken?’
‘Is that how you feel?’
‘Some days.’ Jane shrugged like it meant little when deep down that’s exactly how she felt most of the time, like a part of her had shattered the day she’d discovered the truth about her perfect family and nothing she said or did could put her back together.
‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
Jane forced a weak smile and gestured at the table. ‘What you’ve done here? Perfect.’
‘I mean is there anything I can do beyond a cuppa and brekkie?’
Jane didn’t know how to ask for help. She knew what she had to do—reinvent herself—but her intentions were nice in theory but hard in practice.
‘Thanks for the offer, but this is something I have to do for myself.’
‘You know, several of us have been judged and found lacking by the people in this town at one time or another.’
‘Who else, besides you and me?’
‘Tash.’ Ruby shook her head. ‘I can’t believe her parents disowned her and moved away when she came back to town pregnant. And I know some of the townsfolk disapproved too. But she proved to everyone how resilient she is and I think you can too.’
Jane wanted to hug Ruby for her encouragement but she settled for a muted, ‘Thanks.’
‘I’m
here if you need a hand, okay?’
‘You’re way too nice for your own good, Ruby Aston,’ Jane muttered, raising her teacup in a toast. ‘I might even be starting to like you a little.’
‘Wow, lucky me.’ Ruby laughed and raised her cup too. ‘To new starts.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Jane said, clinking her teacup gently against Ruby’s, wishing it were that easy.
Buoyed by her impromptu breakfast and the chat she’d had with Ruby, Jane had almost reached her car when she realised she’d left her earrings in the motel room. Ducking behind the roadhouse, she spied a woman pulling a housekeeping cart towards it and made a beeline for her.
‘Hey, do you mind letting me in? I left my earrings behind—’ As the woman turned to face Jane, shock rendered her speechless.
Louise Poole, one of her best friends back in high school, scowled and turned away.
‘Uh … Lou, I didn’t know you worked here,’ Jane said, wishing she had, because no way in hell would she have approached her for anything. Louise hated her guts. Her old friend had confronted her many years ago for supposedly breaking up her marriage, and their resultant showdown in the Main Street hadn’t been pretty. Jane had avoided her ever since and felt sick about what her friend thought of her. Unfortunately, Louise had been collateral damage in the plan Jane had back then to get the attention she wanted. Never in her wildest dreams had she anticipated her crazy stunt would hurt one of the people she liked the most.
‘Lou, please—’
‘Wait here,’ Louise snarled. ‘I’ll get your precious bloody earrings.’ As she unlocked the door, Jane heard her mutter, ‘You tramp.’
Tears burned the back of her eyes. She’d been a shitty friend and shouldn’t have let the lie be perpetuated for so long. If she intended to reinvent herself, perhaps now was the time to set the record straight?