by JC Grey
Back on the road, she went over in her mind how she planned to handle the meeting. She figured the council officers would either be bedazzled or belligerent. Most people were one or the other when meeting someone in public life for the first time.
In fact, both were perfectly polite and only the guy was slightly star-struck, but in a charming way. The woman had been both friendly and firm, and thoroughly professional. Their main concern was to protect the heritage aspects of Sweet Springs, and ensure improvements were sympathetic to the original aesthetic. Blaze talked them through the modifications to the attic level, including the balcony, agreed to compromise on its size and the style of windows, and found herself back out on the street within an hour, having extracted a promise that a decision – probably favourable – would be forwarded in the next five days.
Relieved that she’d have good news to tell Rowdy when she got back, she stopped off at the shopping centre to buy a celebratory bottle of wine and some fresh salmon. She was on her way back to her car when she heard her name called. Turning, she saw Marianne waving. The girl, her pregnant belly protruding even more noticeably, came over.
‘Hi, Ms Gillespie. I didn’t realise you were still here. I thought you would have gone back to America by now.’
Blaze smiled. ‘I’m on a break; just chilling for a while.’ She glanced at the girl’s belly. ‘How’s everything going?’
Marianne rolled her eyes, but she seemed more upbeat. ‘Mum’s as bad as ever, but I met some people who live in a squat in Brisbane. They’ve said I can go there and stay with them.’
‘In a squat?’ Blaze stared at her.
‘Yeah, it’s not great with the baby on the way, but what can I do? I’m not staying around to inflict my mum on the kid.’
‘What about friends, other family members?’
‘Yeah right. Like they want Mum camped on their doorstep, blasting them about giving sanctuary to a fallen girl, as she puts it.’ Marianne arched her back and rubbed her hands over her bump. ‘No one likes her but they know what they’re in for if they cross her. Even Dad just sits there and agrees with her for the sake of a quiet life.’
After they’d parted and Blaze had navigated her way back to the road home, she pondered Marianne’s predicament. She knew what it was like to be a teenager, wanting freedom and yet being stifled by parents whose priorities were not yours.
Still, the squat sounded as if she’d be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Blaze wondered if it even had running water or power. It wasn’t her problem, but she’d been Marianne once – without the belly, true – and the girl’s situation struck a chord.
Back at Sweet Springs, Rowdy was packing up for the day. She hid the bottle of wine for later and persuaded him to stay for an early salmon dinner. Over the meal, she told him about Marianne and her mother.
‘I’m just worried she’s going to find herself in a worse mess if she goes off to Brisbane. She doesn’t even really know these people.’
‘Sounds like someone needs to knock their heads together,’ Rowdy said.
‘I want to find somewhere local for her to stay, where she’s safe but doesn’t have her mother in her face.’ Blaze chewed thoughtfully and looked at Rowdy. ‘Can you think of anywhere?’
He shrugged. ‘Bound to be a boarding house or a shelter somewhere round about.’
‘But somewhere where she won’t fall in with the wrong crowd. Can you ask around?’
‘All right. I suppose if she was really desperate she could have the studio out the back of my place for a while, till something better comes along.’
‘What studio?’ Blaze asked. She was curious. Apart from that one peek inside Rowdy’s place the first day she’d met him, she had no idea how he lived.
‘People we bought the house from had a granny flat out there. It’s got a combined bedroom and living room with a little kitchenette off it, and a toilet and shower. When,’ he cleared his throat, ‘Helen was still alive, we sometimes had people renting it to help us with the mortgage. Haven’t been back there in a while. It would need a clean-out, I guess.’
‘Hmm, well, it’s a thought,’ Blaze said, although not a particularly good one in her opinion. She couldn’t imagine it being an attractive prospect to a teenager like Marianne, and Lord knew what the locals, let alone the girl’s mother, would think when they discovered she’d all but moved in with a middle-aged alcoholic.
Maybe some nice, relaxed family had a granny flat out back. She’d ask Stella next time she went into town, hopefully before Marianne decided to do a runner.
A finger stroked lovingly down the wicked blade of a sharpened chopping knife, before it was replaced in the block beside all the other knives. Knife-work really did have appeal. It was so personal, so up-close and intimate.
But it was too soon after that Hollywood queer for the blade. Over-indulgence tended to lessen the enjoyment, and there was satisfaction in rising to the challenge of a new instrument of killing. Plus, it would confuse the hell out of the fuckwits that comprised the local police force.
The plods were still trying to pin the attack on Black’s housekeeper on some hayseed he’d sacked weeks ago, except they couldn’t make it fly because the guy had been in jail at the time. It was too funny. The cops were a joke; couldn’t find a pot to piss in unless someone gave them directions to the lav. And while they were following the scent way off course, the next phase would be taking shape right under their noses.
Next time required something different in the way of method. It would take some thought, as would the target. Not the slut herself, not yet. But someone close enough to send a strong message, like her lover.
Stupid sucker deserved to die, although a hulk of a man like that might be difficult to bring down in close combat unless it was an ambush of some sort. As well, he hadn’t seen her in days so it was probably already all over. Either he’d found out the hard way that Blaze Gillespie didn’t keep men around for long, or he’d had the good sense to call it quits while he was ahead. Maybe there was a better option. Now, who would Blaze Gillespie most mourn?
Whoever the target was, it would have to be soon to stop the torment of the worms that crawled without mercy just beneath the skin. Already, the urge to scratch was unstoppable. The unbearable itching always started in the forearms first before spreading.
Eventually, it would become agonising and the only thing that could appease the worms was death.
‘Rowdy? Rowdy!’
He didn’t answer, and when Blaze swivelled the study chair to peer out the window, his truck was gone. Glancing at the clock, she saw it was nearly five. He’d probably left at his usual time, around four thirty, and had called out but she’d been so engrossed in the paperwork she hadn’t heard a thing.
‘Damn it! Where are you?’ She flicked through the pile of invoices, estimates and statements of account, trying to find the plans for the upstairs extension. She knew she’d had them when she went to meet with the council. Blaze just prayed she hadn’t left the paperwork there. The architect had already sent her one set of copies after the originals had gone missing, and now the copies had vanished, too – unless Rowdy had them, but if he had, he hadn’t said anything.
All right, she’d lost them. She admitted it. She was starting to wonder if she was sleep-walking at night and moving things around. Usually, they turned up in a different file or pile, but she’d looked everywhere for the plans and, damn it, now she was going to look like a real idiot. It was particularly disheartening after she’d spent a full morning just last week organising her study yet again.
Exasperated, she stomped into the kitchen, grabbed a soft drink and headed outside. The unrelenting heat was fraying everyone’s tempers, including hers. Yesterday, she’d yelled at Rowdy when he’d accidentally knocked a hole in the floor, shouted at Paddy when he brought a dead mouse inside and would have kicked the cat if she’d had one.
‘Buggery bollocks!’ She parroted Rowdy’s favourite curse and kick
ed the rocker for good measure.
‘Bad hair day?’ quipped a lazily amused voice from behind her, and she whirled to find Macauley Black astride his big grey horse, raising a lazy dark eyebrow at her.
His mouth was quirked in a half-smile, while his powerful body controlled the big horse with ease. Blaze stared at him with a dry mouth, her eyes running helplessly over the powerful shoulders that stretched the blue cotton shirt he wore.
It struck her suddenly that he was the cause of all her ills. He was the one who gave her sleepless nights, who fried her mind so she couldn’t remember her own name, who left her temper so ragged she was like a volcano ready to explode. All because he wasn’t giving her any sex, which she shouldn’t want anyway because she was off men.
‘What did you say?’ She put her hands on her hips and advanced towards him, fire in her eyes and desire in her belly.
The look he gave her was just as hot. He indicated her wild hair, coming loose from its top-knot, the T-shirt exposing one shoulder. ‘Every photo I’ve seen of you, you seem polished to perfection, but in reality —’
‘What? What? I’m a mess?’
He held up both hands. ‘Whoa. I didn’t say that. You just look like a . . . what’s the word . . . virago?’
‘You’re calling me a shrew?’
‘Maybe it wasn’t quite the right word. I meant fired up, messed up and very sexy.’
His words took the wind right out of her sails. She just didn’t have the energy for sustained bouts of fury these days, especially when she felt anything but sexy. She scuffed her boot in the dirt. ‘I can’t find anything,’ she mumbled lamely. ‘I was rude to Rowdy and I yelled at the dog.’
‘I’m sure they’ll both hate you forever.’ A full-blown smile broke across his face.
‘Yeah, well.’
‘Going to invite me in?’ he asked over his shoulder as he swung easily off the horse and tied it to the veranda post, before coming up the steps to stand in front of her.
‘Don’t see why I should.’ As a line of defence it was dismal, but what else did you expect when he was standing there looking and smelling good enough to eat.
‘Anyway, where is that vicious dog of yours? I don’t want to get on his wrong side.’
‘He left when I told him off for chewing the rug in the living room,’ Blaze led the way into the house. ‘He’ll be back for supper, probably. And if you give me any trouble, he’ll rip your throat out.’
‘Will he?’ Mac’s hand came up to tilt her chin so she couldn’t help staring into those dark, compelling eyes. ‘What would you say if I told you it might be worth it?’
Not giving her time to answer, even if she could have, he bent his head to hers and took her mouth in a long, drugging kiss of lips and tongues and sighs and wet seeking. There was no urgency, although when he lifted and pressed her to him, Blaze could feel the thrust of his erection against her. His mouth was all slow and thorough, making her tremble and shiver.
When at long last he put a millimetre or two between them, Blaze actually, embarrassingly, moaned. But his lungs were pumping like bellows so that kind of made them even.
‘I’m not having sex,’ she told him when she could speak. ‘Men are the enemy.’
He nodded agreeably. ‘Your commitment to celibacy is completely obvious from your body language.’
‘Shut up,’ she muttered and wished for a little willpower. He might find her lack of self-control amusing, but she certainly didn’t.
‘Maybe we could start again with “Hi” and go from there,’ he suggested.
She pouted but only a little. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi. Invite me in for dinner,’ he murmured.
‘Why would I make time for an obnoxious, overbearing man who sleeps with me, insults me and then doesn’t even call to apologise?’ It was a good question and one she wished she had a better answer to than pheromones!
‘I thought I’d let things calm down and then try the personal touch.’
Blaze sized him up. ‘If I invite you in, it’s just for dinner and I’m not on the menu.’
‘Can you really cook?’ He followed her down the hall to the kitchen, which wasn’t yet affected by the renovations.
‘You’d be surprised.’ She checked on the lamb roasting in the oven. Her intention had been a warm lamb salad, but she figured Mac would need some extra bulk so she cleaned two potatoes and stuck them in a pot of boiling water.
He looked around with interest. ‘You obviously haven’t been working Rowdy too hard. This place looks exactly as it did the last time I saw it, except with electricity.’
Blaze gave him a tart look. ‘We started in the attic. Rowdy’s been ripping everything out. Just got plans approved to extend it to include a bathroom and a balcony. I might show you later if you behave.’
‘So you’re remodelling the scene of our crime. Interesting.’ He moved aside a curl of hair that had fallen against the back of her neck and pressed a lingering kiss there.
Blaze shivered before she reluctantly slid out of reach. If he could wait two weeks to see her, he could wait a little longer for anything else, the bastard.
‘Stop it. Why don’t you do something useful and pour some wine? It’s in the fridge.’
‘I’d prefer a beer.’
‘Well, tough. Wine is all I have. I didn’t want to put temptation in Rowdy’s way.’
Mac retrieved the bottle and studied the label as he opened it. ‘Margaret River, very nice.’ He looked up. ‘My sources tell me that Rowdy seems to be cleaning up his act.’
Blaze took the chilled green salad from the fridge, sized up Mac and added another half a lettuce and handful of snow peas to the mix.
‘Yes, apart from the first day when he didn’t show, he’s been great. I don’t know what he does at home, but he’s been sober as a judge each day he’s worked here and it’s been a few weeks now. It was his idea to create a master suite in the attic, and he’s also suggested knocking through from here into the dining room to create one big space, which I’m considering.’
‘Good. All he needed was a second chance, but once people around here judge you . . . well, I’m sure you know about that.’ Mac found glasses and poured wine for them both, before handing one to her.
‘Thanks.’ She got flatware and cutlery from the drawers. ‘He told me about what happened to his wife and daughter.’ She turned to face Mac. ‘Anybody would go insane after something like that.’
‘Sure; his whole world just crumbled and drink was a handy solution.’
‘So was anybody charged?’
‘Nup. Accidental death. He didn’t even have anyone to blame – except himself for not predicting the crash.’
Blaze reached over and clinked glasses with him. ‘Well, maybe he’s turned a corner. Actually, the day he told me the story about the accident, he said that all the light went out of his world. I think as well as the loss, he was just incredibly lonely.’ Mac regarded her steadily over his wine glass so she rushed on. ‘Maybe if he had people around him at home, it would help.’
‘What people?’
Blaze hesitated. Was this the stupidest idea of the century? Oh well, if it was, Macauley Black wouldn’t hesitate to tell her.
‘A person. A tenant.’ She explained Marianne’s circumstances. ‘I asked Rowdy if he had any ideas about alternative accommodation close to home, and he mentioned a studio out the back of his place.’
Expecting ridicule, she turned back to the stove and lifted out the lamb to rest and transferred the potatoes to the roasting pan to crisp up. When he remained silent, she turned back. ‘So what do you think?’ she prompted. ‘Is it the worst idea in the history of humanity?’
‘Probably close, but what I’m actually thinking is that you always surprise me.’
Blaze was so confused she stopped what she was doing. ‘I don’t know if that’s good or bad.’
‘Good for you, bad for me,’ he murmured. ‘But going back to your question, if it was going to
work, Rowdy would need to set out the ground rules from the start.’
Blaze nodded. ‘That’s what I thought, so Marianne’s coming over to meet him when he’s fixed the place up a bit.’
When the potatoes were done, she put them on the plate along with a heaped pile of meat for him and about a quarter of the quantity for herself. She set the salad in the centre of the table while Mac topped up their glasses. As she slipped into the seat opposite, she watched as Mac sniffed appreciatively at his plate. He sliced into the lamb while she helped herself to salad, chewed, swallowed and grinned.
‘You cook as pretty as you look.’
The compliment was so unexpected and so sweetly genuine that Blaze just stared at him for a moment. ‘Thank you.’ She smiled at him, thought a moment and narrowed her eyes. ‘But compliments won’t work with me. Do you really think I’m pretty?’
Mac gave her another of those larrikin grins that had her heart tumbling in her chest. ‘You know you are. You have men queuing up to shower you with superlatives.’
‘Yes.’ She frowned. ‘But where I work everyone’s attractive and everyone’s jostling to get ahead. Compliments mean nothing except that the giver is hoping you can help them get to where they want to be.’
He put down his knife and fork and looked at her so intently Blaze thought he was sizing up her soul. And as she wasn’t sure her interior was in as great shape as the exterior she shifted uncomfortably.
‘What matters is what you think,’ he said eventually. ‘Everyone else can go to hell.’
Blaze knew there would never be a better chance to set things straight. ‘You know what they’ve been saying. The stuff about me and all those men . . . the tape.’
‘Your business,’ he said, though his jaw tightened a fraction, and Blaze felt her shoulders slump. He was right, it was her business and no one else’s, but still something inside her wanted him to say that he didn’t believe it. Or at least that if it was the truth, it didn’t matter.