Avalon Expandable Heart: The Wild Heart Series

by Shantelle McKinnon

  I step right into his personal space. He has to tilt his head down to keep my eyes in sight.

  My body lightly presses against his and every time we breathe in his chest taunts mine further. I’m literally freaking out now, but on a path my body is bloody over the moon about.

  His green eyes glow with red, hooded by long lashes. I feel his body shudder as I move in just a bit closer. His breathing becomes shallow and I know instantly I’ve done the wrong thing here. Every sense in my body switches from ‘ovulating girl’ to cautiously aware in more ways than well... one.

  Suddenly, with a groan, he reaches out picks me up and places me down giving him room to move away from me.

  Without touching me further.

  Without a word.

  Without a look.

  Not happening again, mate.

  “Your previous prediction of me wanting to whip you would be so coming true right now if I had one with me,” my voice cuts through the air like a razor and I realise I sound angry, probably cause I am. “You’re not running again.”

  He stops his hand on the door, I’m not sure why but all the swirls of strange girl feelings have evaporated into annoyance. I feel cheated or something, and I’m not friggen happy about it, even though a tiny voice is hammering inside my skull yelling, ‘Duh brain! You knew this would happen. It’s your fault! Too fast, too soon.’

  Maybe that’s why I’m all fiery now. Not angry at him, angry at me for not listening to myself.

  “I thought you’d probably want to keep your lips,” his voice is low, full of pain. He doesn’t look at me, but I can see his profile, he’s staring at white knuckles on the door handle. “I don’t want to hurt you again, Av. And right now, there’s a massive chance of it. I’m sorry.”

  He gets in his car and takes off like a bat out of hell, leaving me standing in the road like a three-day-old roo covered with rubbery smoke.

  What in hell did I just do?

  I think of what Nan would say, you followed your heart Av, there’s no shame in that. Live and learn from it.

  Firstly, I’m not sure that the whole episode was my heart.

  Secondly, did I follow something I wanted, or did I throw caution to the wind because he challenged me? It’s been known to happen. But serious truth here, I’m attracted to him. But attraction does not equal heart.

  Thirdly, what did I learn? I ponder that while making my feet drag back to Seth’s.

  Let’s see...

  1) listen to my first instincts not my overheated ‘girl’ bits that incidentally aren’t seeing daylight for a good while now since they are now officially on probation.

  2) challenges don’t always need to be answered. Yeah, not sure how I will fair with that one.

  3) he needs to take things really slow. Actually, he needs a friend. Not a friend that expects more or wants more. Just a fair dinkum friend. And that is what I’ll be.

  “I’m going to be his friend,” I repeat walking over Seth’s front lawn. Even to me it sounds forced.

  My phone rings making me jump, my heart rate increase as I pull it out, hoping for round two of teasing at least.

  Then it stops. Oh no. Nathan.

  “Why the hell am I having this insane urge to call you? What have you done?”

  “Don’t greet me or anything!”

  “Hello little sister, what have you done?”

  “Nothing.” As soon as I say I realise my mistake. Nathan has that ‘nothing’ library and I’m sure how that nothing was squeaked out he will know!

  “Well, that just confirms that whatever you were up to was the worst fricken thing in the world,” he growls. “Tell me, Av.”

  I look up at the sky giving my evil eye to whoever is picking on me now.

  “I tried to kiss someone,” I mumble knowing I better get this over with.

  He repeats what I just said in the drollest voice ever heard on planet Earth.

  I just keep quiet knowing what is coming.

  “Did you or did you not grow up in the same household as Nan and Pop?” he asks obviously through gritted teeth as the S’s are hissed.

  “Duh brain, what a stupid question,” I grumble. “I hate when you ask questions you know the answer to.”

  “Maybe I should tell Pop that you totally disregarded Nan’s advice to you,” he sounds smug, knowing that my heart would plummet into my stomach. Nan always said that men should treat women as their jewel and that included wooing them, and a woman should not throw herself at any man because you wouldn’t want him to think you weren’t worth all the wooing, that he fell for an easy woman. A woman, she said, must give off the air that she is worth everything. If she believed it so would everyone else, and people that believe that are worth something... are. Nan had amazing willpower obviously.

  Funny, how I thought of Nan but blocked out that piece of advice and funny my loving brother reminded me. I do believe I’m worth something, I just kind of forgot about everything else.

  “So, you said tried, what happened?” Nat’s voice is deceptive, I can hear that he’s desperately trying not to yell at me.

  “I don’t know, I just wanted to, but when I got close, he picked me up and put me away from him and then drove away,” it sounds so bad saying it out loud.

  “Arrrgh, I half like this guy because he didn’t kiss you, but I also want to rip his flamin’ head off because he didn’t!” Nathan gives up on containing the yelling.

  “I know, I feel the same,” I hmpf.

  “What? Did he think he was too good for you? Who was it?”

  Oh shit. Nat is coming, if I tell him he will literally hunt down Noah, but if I don’t, he will hunt him and Seth down and get the answer by any means.

  “Noah, but he said it was so he didn’t hurt me,” I try to explain.

  “Is he violent?” Nathan’s goes cold.

  Nathan and Noah are quite similar, they don’t mind a biff, yet I know they wouldn’t hurt me.

  “Not to me,” I smile knowing that won’t cut it.

  “Stay away from him.”

  “Oh, come on! That’s the pot calling the kettle black isn’t Mr Sainthood?”

  “Hahaha, stay away from him,” Nathan says again and means it.

  “No,” I reply meaning it as well, which is interesting.

  “Avy, I’ll be there next weekend and if he comes around, I’ll bloody show him what for, for even thinking of hurting you,”

  Sometimes I know I should be mad, but Nathan is always there for me, so when he says these things, it just makes me sigh and wish he was here now. Not hurting Noah of course, but if he were here, we would have a huge shouting match and start throwing things at each other, wrestling and by the end, we would be so exhausted we would just lay there and laugh.

  “I’d lasso you again and drag you into the dam,” I smile.

  “Yeah and I’d bloody tie you to the hook of the excavator and fit a fricken chastity belt on you,” he grunts amusement tinging his voice. “Look Av, don’t change, don’t become one of those girls Dell watches on TV.”

  “What’s going on?” I hear the fatigue in his voice. It’s not like Nathan.

  “That land we bought to the southwest of the Taylor’s has been deemed unviable by the bank. Dad got a letter today on the mail run. Apparently, a few others received the same.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask my forehead creasing.

  “I’m not sure yet, we have the main land as equity, so it’s not so bad for us, but Dad and Angus were going through the figures, we’ll probably need to try to move a lot more stock early on, pay that loan off quick in case it gets worse.”

  The drought he’s talking about. We bought some land from another station about four years ago and still paying it off. Land is worth millions. The loan is for millions, but when it doesn’t rain, sometimes, the banks start getting ansty about their investment. Dad and Angus would be feeling the stress, I wish I were there for them.

  “Anyway, slug guts, I better go and
all I can say is remember Nan if anything, okay? Because you are worth it. Love you.”

  “I will. Love you too, Nat,” I hang up as I feel that old pain in my heart starts to ache again, making me long for home.

  I push open Seth’s door and walk in thinking of the possibilities Dad and Angus are discussing.

  “Well, if it isn’t the instigator,” a deep voice booms as I pass the dining hall, lured by the smell of Sue’s amazing cooking.

  Glancing up, I feel my face scrunch at the scrutiny I’m under. A bunch of what must be Jennifer’s VIPs are all staring at me like I’m a mutant praying mantis or something.

  “Sit, sit,” one cajoles me patting a seat next to him. They are all dressed in suits and stuff with perfect hair. Instantly, the suits cause me to bristle, I’ve been party to countless of Dad’s rants about suit wearing people, how they don’t understand what they are asking of us. To me, suit-wearing people mean vultures circling to wheel and deal and ultimately rip off people that are stuck over a barrel. Farmers. My people. My family... right now.

  The fact that their table is so laden with food that it looks on the brink of collapse does them no favours in my eyes. My suddenly weary, tired eyes. The only thing that perks me up is imagining my dad’s face if he saw this scene. Taking out my phone I snap a shot.

  “We’d love to ask you some questions?” another one pulls out a pad and pen while mopping up some sauce or something with some bread. A bit of sauce gets stuck on his moustache.

  “Questions about what?” I don’t smile. My heart hurts so bad I want to clutch at it.

  “About tonight, about the strategies you employed to cause such an uninhibited mass reaction like we witnessed,” another man said. His hand poised above his iPad.

  “You sat up there and watched?” My voice is way colder than I’ve heard it. Always watching, never experiencing.

  “Of course, we couldn’t let a such a demonstration pass without academic interest rearing its head,” a lady laughs, sipping in her champagne or whatever it is. “We are all in that game, after all.”

  “I’ll tell you all something for free,” I smile like I’m going to let them interrogate me and humiliate my divorcee women. “One, you all need to take off your clothes and burn them along with your presumptions. Two, find some bloody manners, those people are real-life human beings hurting and trying to get themselves back on track. They aren’t insects for you to poke around in a jar. If you want to know what it feels like, get the hell out there and live it yourself because if I catch you invading their privacy again just to enliven your party conversation, I will give you something to damn well talk about, believe me.”

  Feeling deflated I turn on my heel, leaving them, quieter than they were when they were probably watching us. I head to the kitchen where Sue looks buggered, red in the face and flustered, dishes and stuff piled everywhere on every available surface.

  Wordlessly, I squeeze her on the shoulder and start to scrape the leftovers into a plastic bag then rinse the dirty plates. As I start washing up, I think... sometimes, I hate people. The higher people think they are, the worse they believe they can treat others. My thoughts start to resemble the sink; nice, clean, white fluffy thoughts and downright murky ones lurking underneath them. The murky ones are about my handling of the Noah situation, with that one, I’m a dickhead. They stick like the thick sauce that has congealed on the plates I’m washing or that man’s mo. I know I stuffed it with Noah but there’s this dark thought that keeps voicing its opinion. The opinion of having stuffed Nan’s advice too, what would that mean to his view? Part of me feels happy that I’m not putting myself in that position again, even if he wants it. That he missed his chance.

  I know it’s the part of me that protects me, but still, I can’t live like that. I’m too tired to think straight... almost.

  After I do as much as I know how, which turns out to be quite therapeutic for me, I beat down that one irritating voice, and turn to Sue. “Can I do anything else for you?”

  She just hugs me and hands me a heavy bag full of takeaway containers. She winks slyly at me.

  “Need fesh fish on Turday. Mista in bedhoom. Boss no happee.”

  “Thanks, Sue,” I grin at the bag now knowing where Seth is. “Fresh fish?”

  “No time for me to get. Too busssie. Pease, you get?”

  I nod. “Yeah, I get.”

  “What’s that?” I point to some vast whipped cream and fruit creation.

  “Palola,” she sighs.

  An evil smile spreads across my face, “Pavlova? For the guests in there?”

  She nods, suddenly interested.

  “Ah Sue, I just told them they should get their gear off. Maybe we should give them a little incentive to do just that,” I cackle evilly. “Don’t serve it yet. I’ll be back in a sec.”

  I dash off to Mum’s house which is dark, thank God, and go to that drawer where I grabbed the pills from before. For Seth.

  When I get back to the kitchen, Sue looks at the tablets with a raised eyebrow.

  “Let’s just say these will raise the old sausages in the house as well as a few eyebrows,” I giggle thinking of the pandemonium this could create. Dad would be proud and it could make him laugh. Others… not so much. Sue holds out this round stone looking thing and gestures to drop them in. The device reminds me of the curved stone the Aboriginals use to grind up roots at home. She pounds them with the rock stick and I scrabble the dust into my fingers sprinkling it on the pavlova pieces she’s cut up.

  “Let the games begin!” I high five her.

  She shoos me off handing me another takeaway container of clean pavlova but instead of going to Seth’s room where I might be cornered by his mum I head outside to chuck a pebble at his window.

  Jennifer’s voice sails through the air. “Seth, you’re doing things you would never have done before. That’s not a good sign.”

  “How is it not a good sign, Mum? I’m a better person for crying out loud. I haven’t been sleeping around or hurting anyone.”

  “Well, it’s not like you have to anymore is it? Hanging with the local vigilante,” Jennifer sits primly on Seth’s bed as his face screws up.

  “What?” he says echoing my thoughts as he throws a DVD into his backpack.

  “From what Nelson told his mother, it was like some instant and savage retaliation over a harmless joke,” Jennifer watches Seth come to a standstill. “A gross overkill.”

  “Are you even listening to yourself, Mum?” Seth stares at her. “Every time we come home from Nelson’s you say you have goosebumps at what you imagine he will do when he’s older. Avalon just put him in his place, something we’ve all dreamed of doing. Harmless? Please. Get over it and stop making it such a big thing in a negative way, when everyone should be congratulating her for giving him what for.”

  I can’t help the smile that spreads on my face. Seth is sticking up for me!

  “And who will stop Avalon?” Jennifer asks her voice somber. Seth ignores her. “That view is what worries me, Seth. It’s not for Avalon to serve justice, especially her brand. I had a talk with Samantha today and Seth, Avalon is not someone... that’s... that’s -”

  “That’s what, Mum? I wouldn’t believe everything Samantha says about Avalon, if anyone is the rotten apple, it’s that woman!”

  I feel like cheering and bite my lip at my ‘justice’ Sue is serving right now. Oops. If feel a little surge of guilt at my spontaneous action wash through my system.

  “Seth! You will not talk like that about an adult. Ever!”

  Seth mumbles something and throws his laptop into the bag.

  “Look, I know you think you get on with her but it’s the bigger picture I’m worried about, Seth, what we talked about just recently. You must keep on track and if you are fraternising with someone as volatile as that girl, you will make enemies in places you can’t afford too. Samantha didn’t say anything… bad about her just she just agreed that Avalon may be too wild for you. S
he has been bought up wild, Seth you have no idea, and it’s too deeply ingrained to think you could make her change.”

  “Too wild for me? Last month she was ready for Av to have my kids! What the hell has changed? And I don’t care about Nelson or his stuck-up family, they’ll never do anything for me anyway. Christ! You talk about her like she’s some rogue... crocodile loose in the city. She’s just a girl, Mum. A fun, loyal girl! I have no idea what you are imagining is happening, but we are just hanging out!”

  “Seth,” Jennifer is the epitome of patient. “Throughout history there have been people that have a gift, a gift to somehow invoke a response in people to follow them and follow them to do some outrageous things. They have a certain charisma and way with words that turn black into white by affecting vulnerable people’s perspectives. And the added danger in this situation is that the people that have the most influence on her are aiming for a certain outcome.”

  Seth looks as mystified as I do. I kind of sound gifted though, I’m just not sure at what… and what the hell is the certain outcome my big influencers are wanting?

  “I have no idea what you are saying, but Mum, just to remind you, you too were talking about us having your grandkids. I don’t get what’s changed about everyone’s opinion of Av. Av is still Av, the more I know her and get to understand her the more I like her.”

  Jennifer looks rather uncomfortable, “Avalon... definitely is one person that sums up the saying ‘more than meets the eye.’ My colleagues agreed that she certainly possesses the talent to incite emotions within people, but as I said over history, there have been examples of such people using those gifts for their own devices... power for example.”

  Seth chuckles, “Av isn’t after power, she generally leaves everyone alone unless they are doing something she is against, then she speaks up. Sorry, but I don’t see what is wrong with that, Mum. Are you like jealous of her success with the Divorce Club or something?”

  Wrong thing to say, Seth, I think as Jennifer flinches. I don’t think she would have been jealous of me, just maybe a little annoyed from the time I gave her a serve. I can’t stand when people are kept down.