The House On Jindalee Lane

by Jennie Jones

‘Stop!’ Gemma said firmly.

  Edie pressed her lips together.

  Gem pulled a tarot pack from beneath the counter, slapped the cards down and poked them with her forefinger. ‘Tarot says differently. There’s love all around.’

  ‘Oh, please, Gem,’ she begged. ‘Don’t tell me all the gushy stuff. I want to know—’

  ‘All I can tell you,’ Gemma interrupted, ‘is that the Cups keeps coming up for you and Swords for Ryan.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘When someone inspires you, Edie, they become your muse and most beloved person. Ryan has to inspire you.’

  He was her most beloved person, outside of her family, but how could he inspire her if he left?

  ‘Ryan,’ Gem said, ‘gets Swords. That means being understood is the most important thing to him. He forms an immediate connection with someone who knows how to communicate with him. You have to communicate with him, Edie.’

  Like writing letters to him in the Northern Territory?

  Gemma looked at Edie’s wrist. ‘I see you’re wearing both protection bracelets.’

  Edie’s hand automatically went to her wrist, where her fingers worried the bracelets. ‘We swapped because I liked his more. Then he gave mine back too, so I’d have double the protection.’

  Gem nodded. ‘It’s his way of telling you he’ll give you everything he’s got. He might have poo-pooed that bracelet when I put it on his wrist, but he didn’t take it off, did he? Not until he swapped it with yours. Now he’s given you both. You have to thank him, Edie. Communicate.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing but thank him for everything he’s done since he came home. I mean—came to town.’

  ‘Home. This is where he wants to be. With you.’

  ‘This can’t be right, Gem.’ He was doing internet searches for properties in the Northern Territory. ‘Do the tarot again!’ Frustration was quickly rising, but her heart was going wham wham at the thought of losing him.

  Gem shook her head. ‘No need. Although I’m not sure how long it’s going to take for you both to realise what you’ve got. Because—and this is the scary part.’

  Edie inhaled and held her breath.

  ‘If you don’t start communicating, and he doesn’t start inspiring, it’s going to go kerplunk before you get to the lamppost.’

  Edie shot a look over her shoulder and stared at the spot where they’d had their unsuccessful kiss. ‘Our lamppost?’ she asked for clarification. Ryan was innocently standing next to it, waiting for Cameron.

  ‘It’s going to be the place where it either works or all is destroyed,’ Gem said. ‘Zenda told me.’

  Edie shivered.

  ‘What did Zenda tell you that night?’ Gemma asked quietly. ‘Did she portend something fatal?’

  ‘She said the producer would get shot.’

  Gem’s eyebrows rose. ‘Your producer?’

  ‘He’s not mine! Gemma—’ She lowered her voice. ‘This is going to sound crazy, but do you think there’s a chance Ryan will shoot Marcus?’

  Gemma pondered this and the humorous challenge in her eyes was replaced by a serious consideration. ‘I don’t know.’

  For a sunny, spring morning, Edie was doing a lot of shivering suddenly. ‘Call Zenda.’ Any port in a storm—and Zenda was it, apart from Gem’s tarot.

  ‘She’s gone to southern Spain for a Romani gathering,’ Gemma said. ‘She goes every year.’

  ‘Didn’t she take her phone?’

  ‘She doesn’t need one. She’s a prophesier. She knows what’s going to happen.’

  ‘That’s not helpful, Gem.’

  Edie shook the nonsense away. If Zenda hadn’t made such stupid prophecies in the first place, Edie wouldn’t be panicking about Ryan shooting Marcus and ending up in jail.

  A half-hour later, Edie came out of the library and walked down Main Street with Nick at her side, since Ryan was talking to his friend Cameron. They were now waiting on Vince.

  It was embarrassing having a constant bodyguard. Nick made her blush, just by being so tall and strong and commanding, like Ryan was. If it wasn’t Ryan at her side, it was Nick. Or her dad, or Josh. Or Josh and her dad. Their businesses must be suffering with all the close protection they were doing.

  ‘I’ll be fine now, Nick,’ she said. Everybody in town kept staring at her, then staring at whichever bodyguard was trailing her. People were nice though, and smiled and waved. Plenty came up to chat about the play and make some off-the-cuff remark about the sordidness of the situation. They were disgusted with their local newspaper—and yet it was now out every day instead of three times a week, and printed copy numbers had soared, and there was talk of a glossy magazine for the weekend. Edie wasn’t sure she had enough resilience to supply a glossy mag with enough sordid content for the foreseeable future. But then, what did she know? Her future was before her like a strewn pack of tarot cards. It was anyone’s guess what might happen next.

  Nick took a swift look around the street then ran an eye over the rooftops, as though he expected a sniper up on the roof of the toy shop or his wife’s antique and curio shop.

  Edie cringed.

  ‘Where are you headed next?’ he asked.

  ‘Kookaburra’s. I need to see Olivia.’

  ‘Okay, let’s cross the street and find her.’

  Hopefully once they’d found her, he’d go away.

  ‘Ryan’s just there,’ she pointed out. ‘With his friend Cameron. I’m doubly protected.’

  Nick smiled, as though amused but not about to do what she was silently pleading with him to do.

  She shot a look at the bus shelter, where Ryan and Cameron were leaning against Ryan’s four-wheel drive, talking. Both men had their arms crossed over their mighty ex-Special Forces chests.

  Ryan glanced up as Edie and Nick crossed the street. Nick gave him a lift of his hand in an everything’s cool manner and Ryan nodded. Edie was aware of him watching her and Nick as they trod the stairs to Kookaburra’s.

  ‘I’d prefer you to have your conversation with Olivia outside,’ Nick said. ‘Where Ryan can see you and where I can see you from the hardware store.’ Without asking her opinion on that, he beckoned one of the bartenders through the open door of Kookaburra’s and told him to go fetch Olivia.

  Nick made his way to the hardware store next door and Edie waited for what seemed like an eternity.

  She’d been in the library earlier because she’d needed to speak with Mrs Tam and Ted about the ticket bookings and about the ice-cream that would be for sale in the interval. She’d regretfully informed them the play would run for a week only, as originally planned. She just felt that all this publicity wasn’t as good as it looked. Nothing had been settled with Marcus, Simon might still be a murderer and Edie didn’t want her cast and crew in any more danger than necessary. Strike that. She didn’t want them in danger at all, but as there was no way they’d let her cancel the play altogether, she’d told Mrs Tam and Ted that it was best to keep it just a week’s run for the moment, and if it went well they could consider putting it on again in a few months’ time.

  Her mobile vibrated in the back pocket of her jeans, but she ignored it. It was either David Whitcombe again or the press and she still had nothing to say to either.

  According to the editor of the local paper—who was on fire as far as notoriety was concerned, since he was in such close proximity to Edie and apparently believed he knew her innermost thoughts—it looked like Marcus was going to be forced into issuing a statement about the photographs and maybe an explanation, followed by an apology. Edie couldn’t see this happening. He’d get out of it somehow. But at least his wife had grown some sense. She’d hired a PR company and a hard-hitting bunch of lawyers. She wasn’t divorcing him after all. She’d brought in all those brains in suits and had Marcus under her beautifully manicured thumb nail.

  There shouldn’t be a need for Killer and Crusher to join forces with Grit any longer, but Ryan said he wasn’t taking any chances because
Marcus was culpable, and he was also more famous now than he’d like to be—for all the wrong reasons. That would make him even more vindictive.

  Her phone stopped vibrating at last. She had no definite answer for Whitcombe yet, even though he’d offered the part via a lengthy text message. She’d had to text him back, of course, and had kept the idea of accepting the part ‘open’.

  Should she stay in town? Without Ryan? Or should she take the part of Millcent Gray and start the lengthy process of getting over him?

  She tapped her foot as she waited for Olivia, and ran her eye over Main Street, noticing how calming the gentle business of Swallow’s Fall was.

  The town had had a bit of a clean-up in preparation for any press or Hollywood producers who might turn up.

  Stray weeds had been dug up. Windows sparkled, having been newly washed. Someone was out checking all the solar-powered lights on the claret ash trees. The town’s road sweeper had been busy too—there wasn’t a speck of dust or any rubbish on the verges. The park behind the stock feeders had been recently mowed and someone was even painting the football posts a fresh, gleaming white. Gary had got rid of the fireweed and planted geraniums in the big brown half-barrels either side of the doors.

  Edie sighed. She’d wanted to do something wonderful for the town, but not quite in this manner …

  ‘What do you want?’

  She spun around at the sound of Olivia’s voice. ‘I need to talk to you. Where have you been?’

  ‘Hiding. Come in.’ Olivia beckoned, glancing across the street at Ryan and his mate.

  ‘Can’t,’ Edie said. ‘My bodyguards won’t let me. I need to be in their line of sight at all times.’

  ‘I’m not coming out,’ Olivia said with a wary, slightly scared expression.

  ‘Nobody will shoot you,’ Edie said. ‘It’s me they’re after.’

  ‘Don’t joke about that!’

  Edie found a plug of humour. ‘What’s up?’

  Olivia gave a brief nod towards the bus shelter. ‘The stranger.’

  ‘Cameron?’

  ‘Crusher,’ Olivia said, then slunk back in the doorway as though he might have heard her even from this distance.

  Edie’s mobile vibrated in her back pocket but she ignored it.

  ‘Who has a name like Crusher?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘It’s because of his brute strength,’ Edie said, looking at the two big guys leaning on the black four-wheel drive. She’d met Cameron and Vince and they were very gentlemanly, for sniper-bodyguard types. Although Vince wasn’t exactly handsome. He was more bull-dog to Ryan and Cameron’s solitary, stalking lion qualities.

  ‘Oh, God, he’s looking at us, quick—look the other way.’ Olivia stepped back, half hidden by Kookaburra’s doorframe. ‘I had a strange moment with him last night in the bar.’

  ‘With Crusher? What happened?’

  ‘He wanted to buy me a drink. It was the fourth time this week he’d asked.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I told him I was gay.’

  Edie spluttered such a big laugh, Ryan looked up to check on her. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Olivia. ‘But why the heck did you tell him that?’

  Olivia shrugged. ‘He keeps looking at me. I just … you know … feel awkward in his presence. Like a rose among the thorns. I’ve never felt like a rose before. I’m usually the sturdy weed.’

  ‘So he fancies you.’

  ‘Not anymore. At least I hope not.’

  ‘He’s safe,’ Edie said. ‘Well, I think he is. His name’s Cameron Sinclair.’ That sounded ordinary, didn’t it? As ordinary as Ryan Munroe. But Edie understood Olivia’s concern. Killer, Crusher and Grit. It hardly painted a romantic small-town picture.

  ‘He looks lethal,’ Olivia said, stepping onto the walkway next to Edie, although she stayed behind the lamppost.

  ‘I expect he is, if need be. So is Ryan,’ Edie reminded her.

  ‘Yes, but I’ve known Ryan for years. I trust him. Would you trust a man called Crusher?’

  ‘I do in this instance.’ She had to.

  ‘How did he get the nickname?’

  Edie gave Olivia a smile. ‘It’s quite exciting actually. When he was younger, on his first day in army training, a few bullies bet him he couldn’t pick up one of their cars. He did. He picked the back end up so high that when he dropped it, he bust the suspension. He’s been known as Crusher ever since.’

  Olivia shuddered.

  Edie’s mobile vibrated. She ignored it and looked across at the two big men. ‘They probably have a chest full of medals.’

  ‘They’ve certainly got a chest full of muscles,’ Olivia reflected.

  Vince’s truck pulled into town and headed for the bus shelter, and another, older truck followed.

  ‘That’s Killer Vince,’ Edie informed Olivia. ‘He’s nice.’

  Vince got out and shook hands with Ryan and Cameron, then a woman got out of the truck behind. Her truck had a lot of business on it—like Ryan’s four-wheel drive—although her outdoor adventuring gear looked old. She was tiny, only around five feet tall. Possibly less.

  ‘Who’s the woman?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Edie said with a frown. ‘Vince isn’t behaving like it’s his wife, or girlfriend. Maybe she’s a relative.’

  She wore a crisp white blouse buttoned at the collar and the cuffs, pleated black trousers and solid leather boots. Her dark brown hair was cut in a chin-length bob.

  Cameron and Ryan gave her a friendly kiss on the cheek. Then Vince started talking and the elfin-like woman pulled a piece of paper out of her trouser pocket and showed it to Ryan.

  After a couple of seconds, Ryan laughed, his head thrown back. He pointed down the street to the stock feeders, and the elfin strode towards it. Actually, she marched.

  ‘Maybe she’s ex-Special Forces too,’ Olivia observed.

  ‘She’s too short, surely?’

  ‘Well, whatever she wants with Gary, she looks determined to get it.’

  Edie’s mobile went off.

  ‘Your bottom is vibrating again,’ Olivia said. ‘Is it the press?’

  Edie winced. ‘It could be.’ She decided to tell Olivia about David Whitcombe. She hadn’t breathed a word to anyone else. Only Tony knew. She hadn’t even told her parents and neither would she.

  ‘Wow,’ Olivia said, wide-eyed, after Edie explained the situation and role of Millicent Gray.

  ‘I know,’ Edie said. Millicent taught girls, young women, single mothers, married women—all races—to believe in themselves and to know their rights. She had guts and a daring compassion. She hadn’t been afraid of anything.

  ‘She was an amazing woman,’ Olivia said, still looking awed.

  ‘Tell me about it.’ She’d been tragically killed at an all-woman motocross event when one of the woman riders crashed through the barrier, killing Millicent instantly. Some said if she’d lived, the country and possibly the western world would have been forced to change its views on sexism a lot faster. Although many dispute this even today.

  ‘Have you said yes yet?’

  Edie took a breath.

  ‘What will you do about Ryan?’ Olivia persisted.

  Edie glanced across the street. She didn’t have an answer to either question.

  25

  Blackout

  Ryan was still smiling broadly and couldn’t remove his grin. He’d love to be a fly on the wall of the stock feeders. Gary was about to be woken up.

  ‘So he’s okay, this Gary Waterman?’ Vince asked.

  Vince was here under the pretence of wanting to purchase a few of Josh’s retired horses for his family. It was a sad ruse in many ways. Vince only had one family member left in his life—his sister, Sonya. ‘He’s a bit of a pain in the neck, but he’s got a decent heart. If he gives Sonya the job, she’ll handle him.’ Probably better than Ryan had.

  Vince looked more settled. Sonya was his little sister—in years and stature. She’d been looking for a job for m
onths. Warehouse managing was her speciality, but she’d been having trouble getting someone to give a woman the job since there were big, strong, sturdy guys to employ before four-foot-nine-inch females. This had infuriated her. Once she discovered her brother was in the Snowy Mountains, she’d researched the area, found the ad for an assistant at the stock feeders and advised Vince she was driving down to take a look.

  ‘I’ll head off to the stables, then,’ Vince said. He looked at Cam. ‘Anything interesting going on at Kookaburra’s?’

  Cam paused. ‘Something’s a little odd, but it’s got nothing to do with what we’re looking out for.’

  ‘I’ll give Sonya directions to the stables,’ Ryan told Vince.

  Vince got into his truck and headed south out of town, shooting a look at Edie and Olivia across the road.

  ‘So what’s the odd thing that caught your attention at Kookaburra’s?’ Ryan asked Cam.

  ‘What’s the story with the redhead who runs the place?’

  ‘Why?’ Ryan said, and gave his mate a grin.

  ‘I’ve been asking if I could buy her a drink since I got here. Last night I asked again and she turned redder than her hair. Then she told me she was gay, and ran off to the back of the bar. I didn’t see her again until this morning, when I got the same blushing, scared-mouse routine.’

  Ryan kept his laugh light. ‘There are quite a few surprises in this town, mate.’

  ‘But is she gay?’ Cam asked.

  ‘You’re going to have to work that one out for yourself.’

  ‘Weird.’ Cam sighed. ‘I only wanted to buy her a drink.’

  Ryan checked on Edie who was now surrounded by the women from Ryan’s fitness class. He’d cancelled the classes, but some of the women were obviously eager to hear the gossip from the town’s famous daughter themselves.

  Tony came out of Kookaburra’s where he was staying, glanced at Edie and changed direction when he saw her surrounded by so many enthusiastic women. He walked down the stairs and made his way towards Ryan and Cam.

  He was supposed to have stayed at Jindalee House, but Ryan didn’t want anybody there except him and Edie—and Cam, unobserved outside each night.

  ‘Morning, gentlemen,’ Tony said.