The House On Jindalee Lane

by Jennie Jones

  She glanced at Gemma. Gem had Josh now, and her twins who she kept in line simply by being as sporty and energetic as they were. They’d never been able to run rings around Gem, even when they were tearaway six-year-olds. But Gem had gone through troubles too. So had Ryan, now she thought about it. Their father was a bastard of a man. But Gem didn’t seem to hold any grudges with the world any more than Ryan did.

  Is that what community was all about? Putting your heart and soul into the place where you lived whether you were born there, or found yourself there, or as in Edie’s case, you’d been shoved back there. I live in a house on Jindalee Lane. It had a pleasant, tinkling tone.

  A sense of peace settled over her as she watched the women around the table boost each other up, whether for good things or sad things. She’d never felt so in tune. It was as if female empathy and that wonderful connection good women friends had was there for her too, inviting her in, if she ever decided to knock on the door.

  One day, she would write a play about the amazing things that happened in Swallow’s Fall, and how the extraordinary citizens of this remote little town not only coped with whatever was thrown their way, but loved.

  ‘Your turn,’ Olivia said, looking at Edie. ‘Zenda awaits.’

  Edie’s happy thoughts about what was before her if she stayed and became part of everybody’s lives again disappeared fast. ‘I don’t need to go.’

  Kate and Olivia stood. Kate swiped the wine glass out of Edie’s hand and Olivia pulled her by the arm.

  ‘Okay, I’m going!’ Edie said. ‘Stop with the shoving.’

  Minutes later Edie glanced at the cardboard-box-filled metal shelves in the back room and pulled at the lapel of her pale lilac blouse while Zenda—who wore a beige raincoat over her gypsy outfit and had a dull blue scarf around her neck because it was a little chilly in the storeroom—consulted her crystal ball. Thunder cracked and made Edie jump but Zenda didn’t move a muscle.

  ‘A producer is going to get shot and the detective is to blame,’ Zenda said, staring at her crystal ball, eyes seemingly devoid of expression.

  Edie narrowed her gaze. This lady was smart—and had to be a fake. She could have read about the play from the Sydney Morning Herald review, gathered her facts and was now spouting nonsense.

  How could Ted possibly shoot Marcus? Unless Marcus turned up in Swallow’s Fall and got into an argument with him. But where would Ted get a gun? Anyway, Marcus was too busy in Sydney sorting out how to end Edie’s career.

  ‘The man in your life will be there too,’ Zenda informed her, then raised her chin. ‘And you’re to keep a close watch on someone who works with horses.’

  ‘Really?’ Edie asked in an astonished tone.

  This was the biggest rip-off. She hoped Gemma hadn’t paid a fortune for Zenda’s prophecies. Edie didn’t have a man in her life. Unless Zenda meant Ryan, as in—can’t get over my attraction to him.

  Coming home was such a dumb idea. Just look at tonight—the whole loving atmosphere around the girls’ table and the way it affected her, giving her grand ideas of one day being happy to belong here again. It was unlikely to ever happen. She had to make a living, for a start.

  She’d learned one good thing tonight, though. Those women were not only smart, they bore the brunt of whatever hardships were sent their way. And what had Edie done? She’d run. She should have stayed in Sydney and faced the rumours—or faced off Marcus. She should have stood up for her rights as an almost-innocent woman. Almost, because she had kissed Marcus, but fortunately hadn’t slept with him.

  That instantly made her think of Ryan and the sweet, short friendship kiss, which had felt like more. He’d kept his mouth open for a start. What male friend kissed a woman friend with his mouth open?

  She let out a sorrowful sigh and glanced at Zenda. As for keeping an eye out for someone working with horses—everybody around here had horses. Her dad, Josh, and most of the farmers. There had to be one hundred horses within snap-your-fingers distance.

  Josh was going to lend her Dapple-Dancer for the play. A sweet, fifteen-year-old bay mare who was the gentlest animal on earth. Josh used her for pony rides at the annual town fair, and there were always crowds at the fair. At least two hundred people turned up. They’d rehearse Dapple-Dancer so she was accustomed to the lights and the applause—if there was any applause—and Edie would keep a crate of carrots offstage to keep her happy.

  She brought herself around from her mental note-taking. Zenda from Bombala was now peering at her quizzically.

  ‘What?’ Edie asked, and felt a zap of premonition shoot through her. Thunder cracked again and she shivered. She had some experience with premonition-moments these days, given her troubled thoughts about her career and whether she still wanted to be an actor, plus fate and its devastating hand of interference by giving Damien the part of Riff Raff, leaving her detective-less.

  Zenda’s face took on a strained expression. ‘I can’t see too much from your past, Edie Granger, actress. But I can see your future. Be careful of the man who handles the gun.’

  ‘I will,’ she said to Zenda, then remembered the silly dream. It was Ryan who’d tossed her the gun to shoot Marcus. But Ryan wouldn’t kill Marcus any more than Ted would.

  Zenda was talking nonsense.

  ‘How much do I owe you?’ she asked, standing and pushing a hand into the pocket of her black pants to get her cash.

  ‘What did she say?’ everyone asked when she got back to the table.

  ‘Total rubbish,’ Edie said, plopping onto her seat at the booth table. ‘She can’t even see into my past!’

  ‘That’s because it’s blocked by your undecided future,’ Gemma said.

  Thunder cracked overhead again and Edie trembled and picked up her wine glass. While the women around her decoded everything Zenda had told them, she casually glanced over to the table at the far end of the bar, checking on the man she wouldn’t have in her future for much longer.

  Ryan glanced at Edie as she came back from wherever all the women had been going to out behind the bar. He’d almost got up and followed her, and would have done so, except that Nick was in the bar too, chatting to Simon the farrier, so Ryan’s on-alert level had decreased from high to medium. Plus, all the ladies had gone there and each one had come back within about ten minutes, looking either overexcited—that could be the wine they’d been pushing back—or soft and dreamy-eyed.

  Edie didn’t look either. She looked confident, but it was an act. As soon as she sat down all the women leaned forward and asked her a question, and although she answered with a throwaway smile, she was plucking at the collar of her blouse. She was in agitation mode.

  He took his eyes off her and turned his attention back to Gary. He’d just admitted his deceit about Edie being gay, having first plied the man with three half-strength beers.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Gary said. ‘Because—and I know it sounds totally bizarre—I think I love her. Just the thought of her with another woman … well. You know.’

  It was the thought of her with Buchanan that kept tormenting Ryan. His thoughts on Edie with another woman were obviously a little different from Gary’s.

  Last night he’d just leaned over the bench and kissed her. He hadn’t been able to help it.

  ‘I don’t know what happens to me when I look at her,’ Gary said, ‘but it’s shattering.’

  ‘It’s a tremor,’ Ryan said. ‘As though the earth just shuddered beneath your feet.’ He swept another look over Edie’s face and all that glorious hair she kept pushing over her shoulder.

  ‘Yes. A tremor,’ Gary said. ‘That’s exactly it. How did you know?’

  Ryan took a breath. ‘I get the same thing, mate. I love her too.’

  ‘You too?’ Gary said in an astonished undertone.

  ‘Me too.’ Ryan picked up his beer and sipped while Gary took this news on board.

  Ryan did some quick thinking too. He’d reached out for Edie when he first arrived back in t
own by kissing her on the cheek after she told him she’d prayed for him. She hadn’t noticed what he’d thought was an obvious romantic moment when he told her he’d thought about her too. Misunderstanding what he’d intended by that might have been his fault, not hers.

  All this time since their first kiss three years ago, before he crash-landed on the walkway, he still felt the shadow of her mouth on his. Still felt her warmth sinking into him. He’d kept that sensation with him, over the following years. He’d be deployed, kitted up and on the aircraft. He’d tuck her into his mind and take her with him. There she stayed, in his head, like a charm he mentally kissed every day. When the tour was over, he’d take her home and let the memory of her go for a while. Until he needed to tuck her into his head again and take her on another trip to Afghanistan. She’d travelled the world and she didn’t know it. She’d seen everything he’d seen—the good and the terrible.

  Perhaps she hadn’t noticed his attention recently because he hadn’t shown her properly. By reaching out and testing the waters, had he simply neglected to see that his Edie, the real person, was still there beneath her outward glamour and theatrical personality? If he could get his head around the thought—the uncomfortable and unexpected notion that he’d been wrong—could he try again?

  ‘So, do you think either of us stand a chance?’ Gary said.

  ‘I’m not saying you don’t, Gary. I’m not saying I do. I’m saying I hope it’s me and not you.’ It was the truth, and he figured Gary needed to know how things stood.

  Gary narrowed his eyes, his focus firmly on Ryan. ‘It’s a fight to the death then.’

  Ryan held on to his smile. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.’ He’d reach out to her again, tentatively, and see what happened. Because he doubted he’d be able to cope if he was around to watch Edie walk into the sunset with another man, and there was always another man, waiting to catch what the other guy lost. He held out his hand.

  Gary stood, pushing his chair back. ‘If you think I’m going to shake the hand of the man who’s challenging me, think again.’

  ‘It’s not a challenge, mate.’

  ‘Don’t “mate” me.’

  Just what he didn’t need. A jealous Gary. ‘Look,’ Ryan said, standing. He held out his hand again. ‘Let’s shake on it, and see how we both go.’ Regardless of wanting to placate Gary, the rumble of a challenge banked inside him. ‘Why don’t we wish each other good luck?’

  Gary took hold of Ryan’s hand, gripping it harder than necessary. ‘You’re going to need it.’

  Suddenly, Edie was at the table, slipping on her jacket. ‘Are you ready?’ she asked Ryan. ‘Or do you want to stay a bit longer?’

  ‘Ready,’ Ryan said, attempting to take his hand from Gary’s. He let him give one last firm squeeze before he pulled away, unsure whether to laugh or let his annoyance loose.

  ‘Edie,’ Gary said. ‘If you’d like me to drive you home, just say the word.’

  Edie stared at him for a few seconds. ‘Thanks, Gary, but since Ryan is going to the same place as me, I’ll grab a lift with him.’ She frowned her incomprehension and checked with Ryan.

  He grinned. ‘Looks like I won this one,’ he said, still smiling at Edie although his words were intended for Gary.

  ‘It’s not over yet,’ Gary mumbled, then grabbed his jumper from the back of his chair, spent a few moments pulling it over his head, fighting with an inside-out sleeve, before stomping off, puce in the face.

  ‘What was that about?’ Edie asked.

  ‘Just a friendly wager.’ Ryan smiled down at her. He loved her, and that should be unconditional or else he’d have failed. So he’d better give this mission another shot. ‘Let’s go home.’

  14

  Game On

  ‘Gary wants to date you, Edie,’ Ryan said when the headlights on his four-wheel drive lit up the kitchen door at Jindalee House. ‘He’s serious. It’s like a fight to the death for him.’

  A bold scenario filtered into Edie’s mind. Where Ryan fought for her. Not to the death-what would be the point in losing him in such a dramatic manner after he’d shown his love for her in some brave way? But fight for her somehow. His standard flying high, his armour clinking as his horse thundered across the back paddock. Although Ryan didn’t ride much these days.

  The passenger door opened. ‘Dreaming?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ She hadn’t even heard him get out, and he’d never opened the door for her before. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘That’s all right. My pleasure.’

  She shot him a suspicious look when he held her arm as she jumped out. Then he closed the door for her, still holding her arm at the elbow.

  She removed it. ‘Something wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘Not a thing. I’ll take that.’ He took the canvas shopping bag out of her hand. It was filled with lemons from Burra Burra Lane’s orchard that Sammy had given all the girls when they’d left Kookaburra’s.

  She took the bag back. ‘It’s not that heavy.’

  ‘Does it matter? Can’t a guy be gentlemanly?’

  ‘I usually don’t mind that sort of thing,’ she said, ‘but tonight I made a decision. I’m going to handle my problems by myself.’ Even if it was a big bag of lemons.

  ‘That’s not a good idea.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked, walking past him, zig-zagging around the puddles from the rain.

  She stopped at the back door and tried to get her keys out of her shoulder bag one-handed so she didn’t have to put the bag of lemons down on the wet step.

  Ryan produced his key and reached over her shoulder, unlocking the door then pushing it open, allowing her to go in first.

  ‘I’m just saying you might as well make use of me,’ he said.

  ‘You’re already doing heaps for me. Stage manager, builder of stage, chauffeur.’ She crossed to the far corner and switched on the standard lamp. The kitchen was large enough to have an armchair and a big old sofa by the fire so she’d made it really cosy with lamps too.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ he said as he closed and locked the back door. ‘Make use of me. Give me an order.’

  ‘I’ll be ordering you around as stage manager,’ she reminded him. ‘Who’s Gary going to fight to the death?’ she asked, slipping her jacket off.

  ‘Me.’ Ryan took the jacket and hung it over the back of a kitchen chair.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘After I told him you weren’t gay, I told him I was after you too.’

  Edie’s eyes popped wide. ‘So you told him we were together?’ She couldn’t keep the emphasis out of her voice.

  ‘No. I told him he’s got competition. I told him I was going to chase you.’

  Edie checked his features. A flush? From Ryan? ‘Well, sorry about getting you involved in all of this.’

  ‘You’re pretty easy on the eye, Glam-puss. Maybe chasing you will be a pleasure.’

  She managed a laugh, then gave him a playful slap on his arm as she headed for the kettle.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ he said.

  ‘Nothing electrical has gone wrong for days,’ she reminded him.

  He gave her a smile as he came to her side. ‘But just in case, why don’t you let me handle the kettle?’

  Since he’d taken over, she had no choice.

  ‘Where were you all heading to behind the bar?’ he asked, gathering cups and coffee.

  ‘Gemma brought in Zenda from Bombala.’

  His eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘The fortune teller?’

  ‘She’s a fake. She’s got to be. You wouldn’t believe what she told me.’

  ‘Did she mention me?’

  Edie paused. ‘Why would she mention you?’

  The look in his eyes was a little abashed. ‘Just wondered,’ he said as he turned his attention to the mugs.

  They were quiet while the water boiled but Ryan had a pensive look on his face as he stared down at the kettle.

  Edie got the milk out of the fridge.
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br />   ‘So Zenda said nothing about your love life?’ he asked.

  Edie spluttered a laugh. ‘What love life?’ It was such an amusing notion that she pushed out a second laugh. ‘She talked about the play. The producer’s going to get shot.’ She nodded, reaffirming the ridiculousness of such a statement when Ryan gave her an incredulous look. She didn’t bother mentioning that Zenda also said the man in her life would be there when it happened, because that was utterly ridiculous. Just as soon as the curtain came down on the last night, he’d be driving off into the sunset. Without her.

  But she did remember that she had no leading man because he was cat-sitting. ‘By the way, since you seem unfathomably gentlemanly this evening, will you please stand in for Tony during rehearsals this week?’

  Ryan groaned, and any hint of the dreamy look she’d seen in his eyes when he’d asked if Zenda had mentioned him disappeared.

  ‘Can’t you get some other man from town to do it? Can’t Ted do it?’

  ‘Ted’s the detective, he’s on stage at the same time the leading man is.’

  ‘What about Josh? Or ask Dan.’

  ‘Ryan. There’s no manly man in town who wants to play-act, as they put it. They say it’s not their thing.’

  ‘Which is exactly why I’m refusing.’

  She sighed as he stared at her as though she’d asked him to fly to the moon in a paper row boat. ‘All right. I’ll ask Gary.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ he said quickly. ‘Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.’

  She scrunched her face. ‘You want me to push you around?’

  He brought the coffees to the benchtop and straddled the stool opposite Edie. ‘Whatever you want. I’m here.’ He put the mugs down then spread his arms, opening up that splendid chest as he offered his services. ‘Use me. Give me an order.’