The House On Jindalee Lane

by Jennie Jones

  ‘I can’t believe you kept this news till last!’

  ‘Olivia,’ Edie said, ‘I think I’m shunning him.’

  ‘What the heck for? Was sex that bad?’

  ‘Of course not! It was the best sex I’ve ever had. I never expected to have that type of sex.’

  ‘Oh, God—spill. What kind of type?’

  ‘Exhausting. Amazing. Beyond the realm of my vocabulary.’

  ‘I’m so jealous.’

  ‘But, Olivia, I think I’m attempting to put him off.’

  ‘Why?’

  Edie spread her hands. ‘Because I don’t know who I am! I’m neither Rita nor Gilda.’

  Olivia folded her arms and pulled a puzzled frown. ‘You’re a far more complicated person than I’d first thought, and I’ve known you since you were three.’

  ‘Olivia, help me out here. What’s your advice about Ryan?’

  ‘You can’t rush big decisions any more than you can rush love. Although, obviously, you’ve rushed sex, so that’s a starting point.’

  ‘It wasn’t rushed, it was unexpected.’

  ‘Do you love him?’

  Edie took a breath. ‘I’ve loved him since I was ten. Definitely since I was nineteen.’

  ‘And now you’ve had sex, you don’t love him?’

  ‘Of course I do! But it’s like he’s a different man.’

  ‘Only in your head.’

  ‘That’s what worries me. I don’t know what’s in my head anymore.’

  ‘Ho! Ryan!’

  ‘How’s it going, Ted?’ Ryan asked. He’d just come out of the hardware store where he’d had a word with Nick who had reassured him that the three men in town earlier were long gone, and that he’d scoured the surrounding countryside for an hour.

  ‘There was a right ruckus with Mrs Tam,’ Ted said when Ryan got to the ice-cream van.

  ‘Heard about it. Any idea how old these youngsters were?’

  ‘Youngsters?’ Ted said, eyes bulging. ‘Thirty-year-old men, you mean. Nearly collided with them as I came back from my round at the village.’

  Ryan pondered this. To Mrs Tam, a man in his late twenties or early thirties would be a youngster. And these ‘youngsters’ could have been Buchanan’s men. Hanger might be one of them.

  There were murmurs—and Vince reckoned most of what he’d heard was exaggerated rumour—about Hanger being an illegal immigrant who’d paid a biker’s gang to smuggle him into the country. But the exchange resulted in the death of two of the gang members and Hanger had been obliged to do his time with the chapter, as repayment. He’d spent ten years paying off the additional debt and in that time, he’d not only put his already considerable criminal skills to good use, he’d earned the nickname Hanger. Vince said that’s where rumour ended and truth stepped in. Mostly, he was the arm twister. The muscle. The man they sent in when a person refused to pay their debt. Quite a few of those persons ended up in hospital without a limb or two. Some had been found swinging from a rope.

  ‘I’m thinking of organising a Neighbourhood Watch, Ted,’ Ryan said. The townspeople would accept it after the trouble earlier today, and they’d all be on the lookout for each other while also keeping an eye out for any stranger who happened to arrive.

  He’d thought about bringing the police in but there was nothing definite to tell them, apart from a conversation he’d overheard about a possibly fictitious man called Hanger from a bunch of movie lawyers swapping news around The Green Room. The cops would put someone on the case for twenty-four hours, write a report then forget about it. There had been no written or spoken threats to Edie and there was no-one in town who shouldn’t be—even Simon’s being here was seemingly legit. All Ryan had to go on was supposition, with some new and interesting facts thrown in recently thanks to Vince.

  It was time to arrange a meeting with the men around town he trusted. The men he knew wouldn’t overreact. He’d need them all to be on the lookout. He was aware Edie didn’t want people knowing her problems, but she’d have to live with his decision. Ryan was not going to take chances with her safety.

  ‘We do have a Neighbourhood Watch scheme,’ Ted said. ‘It hasn’t been active for years but I can start it up again. I don’t want a repeat of the 1996 episode.’ He shuddered, as though reliving the memory of twelve young people refusing to move their overcrowded campervan from in front of his town hall. ‘I’ll sort it out,’ he said, shoving his gavel in his belt.

  Ryan hadn’t noticed it was in his hand before now. ‘What are you carrying that around for?’ he asked, indicating the precious gavel.

  ‘I’m practising my fast draw moves—like a gunslinger.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For the play! The detective has to check the gun for evidence and fingerprints.’

  ‘There aren’t any fast draw moves in the script. Nobody even fires the gun.’

  ‘I just want to get used to the feel of a weapon in my hand. It’s called method acting, or something. I have to live with my gavel, which is my gun, by my side day and night.’

  Ryan held on to a smile. ‘I’ll leave the Neighbourhood Watch thing with you. See you later, Ted.’

  He let Ted go back to his van then stepped into the alleyway beside the stock feeders and pulled his phone out of his back pocket. He’d spoken to Cam Sinclair a few days ago and Vince had also filled Cam in on what he’d discovered: photographs. Incriminating, or seemingly so.

  His friend answered on the fourth ring, and with the slight delay, it sounded to Ryan like he was using a sat phone.

  ‘Buchanan doesn’t know any criminals,’ Cam said. ‘He doesn’t hire or use thugs that anybody knows of. He’s got two bodyguards. I got close to one in a bar a few nights ago. Told him I was ex-army. Asked him for a job.’

  Ryan listened as Cam detailed what he knew in minimal, unadorned phrases.

  ‘The guy said they didn’t need a third bodyguard,’ Cam continued. ‘He said Buchanan does most of his thuggery through his lawyers.’

  Ryan wished he’d been the one in the bar. Or that he was tailing Buchanan the way Vince was, but he couldn’t leave Edie alone. No matter how much he trusted Nick—and that trust was one hundred per cent—he would never forgive himself if something happened to her when he wasn’t around.

  ‘Thanks, Cam.’

  ‘No worries, mate. What next?’

  ‘I need you down here. If this guy Hanger is around …’ He didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘I’ll be there in a couple of days.’

  ‘Couldn’t make it tomorrow, could you?’

  ‘Would if I could. But Iraq is a long way from Australia.’

  ‘What are you doing there?’

  ‘This and that,’ Cam said, and cut the call.

  Ryan walked back onto Main Street and caught sight of Edie coming down the stairs outside Kookaburra’s. He’d have to tell her about Cam, and about the meeting he was planning with Nick, Josh, Dan—and her father. She wasn’t going to like it.

  As much as he was smiling at her, he wasn’t happy about her refusing to let people know they were together. Not after what they’d shared and what they’d learned about each other’s bodies. He knew where she was ticklish, where to touch her with his fingertips and make her draw breath, and how her voice sounded when he kissed her in her most secret places and she begged him not to stop.

  So why was she pushing him away?

  22

  Scene Change

  The spring sunshine had disappeared and with it, the warmth of the day. Edie shivered, even though the fire was built up and she’d pulled on a thick woolly jumper over her summery top. ‘It’s going to be so embarrassing,’ she said, staring at the flames in the hearth. Ryan was sitting on the sofa and she was in the armchair.

  ‘It’s for your safety,’ he said.

  She glanced at him and gave him a weak smile. He’d arranged a meeting tomorrow at Nick’s place. All the men in her life—her father and Josh, plus Olivia’s dad and Nick—would hear
about the sorry state of Edie’s life.

  ‘I told Olivia today.’

  ‘Did it help, talking to a friend?’

  She nodded, biting her bottom lip. ‘I told her about us, too.’

  In her peripheral vision, she saw him inhale. ‘Thank you.’

  She caught his eye and gave him a questioning look.

  ‘For not denying it,’ he explained. ‘It means a lot to me that you told Olivia.’

  They sat for a little while, the fire burning, the wall clock ticking pace with the silence.

  Edie fiddled with her bracelets. ‘Ryan?’

  He shifted his gaze off the fire in the hearth and onto Edie.

  She took courage in hand and rose from the armchair. She kneeled in front of him, her hands on his knees and looked up at him, meeting his eye. ‘Can we have sex?’

  He gave her a slow, welcoming smile. ‘Only if you beg me.’

  She felt her face heat up. ‘Can we please have sex?’

  He took hold of her faster than she’d imagined possible, and hoisted her onto his lap, her legs either side of his.

  ‘I think I can manage that.’

  He obviously could, going by the sudden muscle tautness beneath her.

  ‘I love having sex with you, Ryan.’ She loved the freedom of being able to say so now that she was comfortable with it.

  She pulled her jumper up and over her head, managing to get one arm out before Ryan slipped his hands beneath her summer top. She shuddered with pleasure as he slid his hands to her back and undid her bra.

  ‘And I love you, Edie.’

  ‘You what?’ she asked. She’d put her arm through the off-the-shoulder hole in her top instead of the arm hole. Damn it. She was blinded by wool and silk as she fought all the fabric now over her head.

  ‘Want some help?’

  He pulled the jumper off and she managed the top. She paused before she wrapped her arms around him, and held his gaze. ‘What did you say?’

  His eyes were smouldering and there was a hint of a smile on his mouth. ‘I said what you think I said. I love having sex with you.’

  Had he said that?

  ‘I love having sex with you too,’ she said, testing cautiously.

  Was this some code? Was he saying he loved her, as much as she was saying she loved him and did it mean she was over her indecision about needing him as a man in a way she’d never expected to, and that she felt free to love him, unconditionally? Except she wasn’t free, because there were too many conditions.

  ‘You’re doing a lot of thinking,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I just wondered what you said.’

  ‘You heard me,’ he said a second before he kissed her. ‘I love this.’ He kissed her mouth, lightly, as his hands stroked her back, making her arch.

  ‘I love this too,’ she said.

  Love. Had they both put a little more emphasis on the word than necessary?

  ‘Stop thinking,’ he said as he kissed her throat. ‘Just let it happen.’

  But did he mean sex? Or love?

  The next morning the sun was shining again as Edie walked down Main Street at Ryan’s side, viewing her town as though seeing it in a different light.

  They’d just been to the library, where Mrs Tam had told them that ticket bookings had soared. Mrs Tam had been doing a great job and the townspeople had obviously spread the word about the play too, because they were booking tickets for themselves and for family and friends in Cooma. Unbelievably, there was even a coach load of relatives of people in the village coming down from Canberra.

  That meant the press might turn up. Edie had better get a press release organised. She didn’t want to let the town down by being unprepared for whatever might happen. If the play was well received maybe she’d write another one.

  A consideration filled her head. There’s a possibility I love it here so much that I do want to stay. The thought of more touring didn’t appeal, and neither did the cold and impersonal rental apartment in Sydney. Not now she’d found all this warmth and love. Although she’d have to get the Marcus problem sorted out before she made a full decision, based on what she wanted and not what was being forced on her.

  Lord only knew what she’d do for a living if she stayed, and she still couldn’t fathom how this dilemma of no longer wanting to be in the theatre, surrounded by the people she admired and learned from, had even found a space in her head. But it punctured her thoughts so often and at odd times. If she was cooking, or in the shower, it was natural to start thinking. Everybody did that. But Edie’s thoughts and concerns about her life and her career came to her in the oddest moments. She wondered if it was because of Ryan.

  ‘What’s on your mind?’ Ryan asked as they reached the stock feeders.

  ‘Nothing. Just amazed about all the ticket bookings.’

  Those sneaky, demon thoughts would pop into her head when she was watching him. Or having sex with him, even. You don’t want to act, you want the real thing. Or, This is the real thing, why can’t you want it? And the sneakiest of all traitorous thoughts: Your heart tells you that you have everything you’ll ever need. You just can’t accept it.

  So full of indecision. But she had to keep thinking it through, because if her heart were wrong she’d stuff it up and hurt Ryan—and hurt herself. Or maybe she was thinking too fancifully and not seeing the realities, when she should be thinking like an ordinary, sensible woman. What would a younger Edie have done? The child who jumped off gates and climbed trees believing she really was a super-girl hero. That Edie would have gone with her heart.

  But the older Edie was wiser, through experience, and the older Edie knew life wasn’t a play and you had to work hard for a wonderful life.

  Swallow’s Fall was going about its daily business. The newspaper van had arrived to deliver the local paper, which came out three times a week. It was a free paper, and the stock feeders and the grocer’s had it available for Swallow’s Fall and also for the village outside town. Gary was helping the driver by carrying his pile of papers.

  Edie didn’t want to catch his eye and have him and Ryan get all macho again so she stopped walking before they got to Gary’s plastic horse.

  ‘What time is your friend Crusher arriving?’ she asked Ryan.

  ‘Tomorrow. Vince is coming too.’

  Killer and Crusher, coming to visit Grit. It made her shiver but she wasn’t sure if it was fear of what these men would be like, or anticipation. ‘Will they stay at the house?’ She almost said our house, but stopped herself in time. There was no ours until all this mess with Marcus and the incriminating photographs of Damien and maybe also Polly and Dick had been sorted out. There was sex though, which was satisfying in a way like no other. Neither of them had said how much they loved sex again. It had been soft and sensual last night. If she let herself think about it, she could still hear Ryan’s whispered words in her ear as his hands roamed her body, coaxing her and telling her what he was going to do for her next …

  ‘I’ll get Cam set up at Kookaburra’s,’ Ryan said, bringing her out of her sensual memories. ‘Vince is going to be renting one of Josh’s huts. I want him close to the farrier.’

  Edie reflected on Zenda’s words. You’re to keep a close watch on someone who works with horses. It seemed unfeasible that big, jolly and slightly irritating Simon might be working for Marcus, but that’s what Ryan had told her this morning.

  ‘Simon is smug, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘His performance is a bit too polished.’ She’d been noticing this for a few days. ‘He does a fair amount of upstaging too. Especially with Ted.’ But she couldn’t believe that Simon would hurt her. ‘Did Gemma get a prop gun?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ryan said. ‘It’s not the kind of toy I was expecting. I’m surprised it got through customs.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It looks real. I’m going to keep it in the safe in the barn. It’s not usable—all parts are soldered, apart from the trigger—but if you showed it around town, you might frighten
a few people, and the police might want to have a word with you.’

  ‘What did Gem say about it?’ Edie hoped it hadn’t caused any problems for her.

  ‘Gem didn’t see it, she just handed me the parcel. I’ll keep it in my possession at all times.’

  Be careful of the man who handles the gun.

  But that couldn’t be Ryan. Why was she even remembering Zenda’s prophecies about all this?

  ‘Do you think Marcus will send one of his lawyers down here?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  Ryan moved on.

  ‘But you think he’s going to send someone,’ she said, skipping to catch up with him. ‘Or already has.’ Simon.

  He didn’t answer, and the way he firmed his mouth told her he was keeping quiet on purpose.

  ‘Why else would you send for Crusher and Killer?’ she persisted.

  He paused, so Edie stopped too.

  ‘You don’t need to call them Crusher and Killer,’ he said, with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Only if we’re taking the piss out of each other. You can call them Cameron and Vince.’

  ‘Not quite so dramatic,’ she said, smiling.

  He looked into her eyes. ‘I really want to kiss you.’

  ‘You’re changing the subject.’ Although she really wanted to tell him how much she loved having sex with him. Just now though, there was a more important issue to consider.

  ‘What time is the meeting?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m on my way there now.’

  Edie glanced around and noticed her father’s four-wheel drive already parked across the road.

  ‘I’m scared, Ryan.’

  He took her hand.

  ‘Not of whoever Marcus sends down here.’ Because she didn’t believe he’d do that. But because her friends and her family would soon know her sordid history.

  ‘Nobody is going to judge you, Edie,’ Ryan said, his voice steady. ‘They all love you too much.’

  There was that word again: love.

  She squeezed his hand in thanks. ‘Let’s get on with it then.’