Outback Sisters

by Rachael Johns

  ‘Geraldton Senior?’ she said out loud. But that’s where she and Simone had gone. She didn’t remember him—although it was a big school and he would have been a few years ahead of her—but she’d sworn he’d mentioned going to boarding school in Perth like Angus and Olivia had.

  ‘Got bored waiting for me, did you?’

  Logan startled her as he came back into the room and she almost dropped the doona. She tightened her grip and turned her head to him, noticing he was holding a glass of wine. ‘Sorry, couldn’t resist a look.’ She pointed at the graduation photo. ‘Bet you had all the girls chasing after you at school.’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe a few.’

  She smiled and said nonchalantly, ‘I thought you went to boarding school in Perth?’

  ‘Ah …’ He looked sheepish. ‘I did … until I was expelled.’

  ‘What?’ She almost dropped the doona again.

  He stepped closer and offered her the wine. ‘Thought you might like this while you wait. Won’t be much longer.’

  ‘Oh no, you don’t,’ she said, taking the wine. ‘I need this story. Now.’

  ‘The pasta might overcook.’

  ‘Then you’d better be quick.’ She leaned back against the chest of drawers and took a sip of white wine.

  He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Okay. Promise you won’t laugh?’

  She cocked her head to the side. ‘I make no guarantees, but if you don’t tell me, I’ll get dressed.’

  ‘You’re an evil woman, Frankie Madden.’ But she’d won. ‘Okay, I had this business going in the boarding house. It was quite profitable actually. Started in year ten and by halfway through year eleven, I’d made a couple of grand.’

  ‘What were you doing?’ she asked, all sorts of possibilities running through her head.

  ‘Selling vodka oranges to the other boarders.’

  ‘Vodka oranges?’

  ‘Yep—I conned Sarah into buying the vodka and gave her a percentage of the profits. It was our secret; Angus would never have helped me.’

  ‘How did you inject them?’

  ‘With syringes I borrowed from Dad on the farm.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Borrowed.’

  ‘Okay, stole, but that’s just semantics. He didn’t miss them.’

  She smiled. ‘And no-one ever told on you?’

  He pointed a finger at her. ‘I told you not to laugh. Sometimes the boarding masters asked me why I was always getting fruit from the kitchen but I think they just assumed I liked oranges. I got away with it for over a year because everyone knew that if they said anything, the supply would stop, but eventually, some nerd dobbed me in. That’s when I got expelled.’

  She couldn’t help it. She cracked up at the image of Logan hiding away in his dorm room injecting vodka into fruit.

  ‘You promised.’ He shook his head but he was chuckling as he left the room.

  Frankie was still smiling at the story when he returned a few minutes later with a tray that carried the bottle of wine, another glass, and two steaming bowls of the most delicious smelling duck ragu. Maybe she was hungry after all.

  He put the tray on the bed, which she’d climbed back into. ‘Madam, your dinner is served.’ He handed her a bowl and a fork and then went to get in with her.

  ‘You better not be thinking of coming back in here with clothes on. If I have to eat in the nude, I don’t see why it should be any different for the chef.’ She felt so confident around him, far more so than she ever had around any other guy.

  ‘Fair point,’ he said. And then he undid his buckle and pushed his jeans down his legs before stepping out of them. Her eyes were drawn to one thing and it wasn’t his handsome face.

  He snuck into bed beside her, and she felt the heat from his thigh only centimetres from hers. She downed the last few sips of her wine. How she was going to manage to eat with all that beautiful nakedness so close, she had no clue, but at least they wouldn’t have to waste time taking off their clothes when they were done.

  Logan topped up her wine and poured a glass for himself. They began to eat.

  ‘Oh, this is amazing.’ She was thinking that if they ever got married he could be the household’s chief cook because although she loved it, she put all her enthusiasm into the café and couldn’t usually be bothered to cook when she got home. Of course, she kept this little fantasy to herself. Even though it felt like she’d known him forever, it was still early days and she didn’t want to jinx it. Or scare him off.

  ‘I can’t imagine going to boarding school. What was it like—were they really strict on you or was it like one long sleepover with your mates?’

  Logan laughed and, from the twinkle in his eyes, she could tell he was recalling more mischief. ‘Some of the boarding masters were stricter than others but we got to know who’d let us get away with stuff and who wouldn’t. One night I organised a midnight cricket match down the corridors between the rooms and we’d played for a good half an hour before anyone discovered us.’

  ‘You were a ratbag,’ she said, thoroughly enjoying hearing about his youth. He was entertaining her with more boarding school stories when her phone buzzed with a text message.

  ‘That’ll be Stacey, one my of my employees,’ she told him as she picked it up. She smiled with relief at Stacey’s message that everything was A-OK.

  ‘Good news?’

  ‘Oh, kind of.’ She sighed as she put her phone back down. ‘I had a missed call from Simone and I wondered if something had gone wrong at the café, but I really didn’t want to call her back. I feel sick just thinking about lying to her like I am.’

  ‘Aw, come here.’ Logan put down his empty bowl and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her against him. ‘I know it’s going to be hard, but we’re going to have to tell her sooner or later. Sooner might be better because then she won’t feel like we’ve kept her in the dark a long time.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right.’ But her heart beat too fast at the prospect.

  ‘Do you want me to come with you when you tell her?’ he asked.

  While she appreciated his offer, she shook her head. ‘I think this is something I need to do by myself. And I’m going to do it as soon as I get home. I don’t want my guilt and deception to overshadow our time together anymore. She might be angry at first but we’ve never held a grudge for more than a few hours.’

  ‘Good plan,’ Logan said, removing her empty bowl and placing it on the tray on the floor with his. ‘Now, are you ready for dessert or would you like to wait a while?’

  Frankie felt his large warm hand on her bare thigh and quivered right down to her core. ‘If you’re referring to your tiramisu, then I think I’d like to work up my appetite again first.’

  He grinned as she hooked one leg over the top of him and leaned in for a kiss.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Cruising down the Brand Highway, Dire Straits on the radio, Angus tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, excited about seeing Olivia. Now that she’d started uni in Perth, her trips home were less frequent than when she’d been at boarding school, and he missed her. Logan saw her more often because of all the travelling he did for work, but if it weren’t for Liv, Angus would have little desire to visit the big smoke.

  As he passed the turn-off to Bunyip Bay, he made a conscious effort to think about the weekend ahead, rather than about Simone. A crazy part of him contemplated turning into the little town and paying her a visit but he didn’t know exactly where she lived and the café would be closed by now. Besides, if he went into the café and Simone wasn’t there, what excuse would he give to Frankie about seeing her? And what exactly was he planning on saying to Simone anyway?

  Hey good-looking, I can’t get that hot night we had together out of my head and was wondering if you wanted a repeat sometime soon?

  The fact that Simone had registered for Rural Matchmakers proved she was looking for something more than he was, so the best thing to do would be to exorcise her from his head. Pro
blem was, that was proving harder to do than he thought.

  He was contemplating ways to achieve this when he saw a hitchhiker up ahead, her thumb held out to the road. She slowed her pace, turning his way as he approached and the first thing he noticed was her blue hair. He grimaced, unable to understand why anyone would want to draw such attention to themselves.

  The second thing he noticed was her age—mid-teens—and then he slammed his foot on the brake and pulled over because he recognised that she wasn’t just any old teenager, but Harriet, Simone’s daughter. What the hell was she doing hitchhiking? Hadn’t her mother ever told her how dangerous it was?

  He cursed, thumped the heel of his hand against the steering wheel and then pressed the button to open the passenger window.

  Harriet smiled—she obviously hadn’t recognised him yet—as she walked the short distance to the vehicle. ‘Hey there,’ she said, leaning into the window like some kind of streetwalker. Thank God he’d been the one to stop for her.

  ‘Hi Harriet,’ he said and her eyes widened in shock as recognition dawned. It looked like she’d been crying.

  ‘You’re Logan’s brother.’

  Nice, after the effort he’d made to chat with her when she’d visited the farm, she could have at least remembered his name. ‘I have a name. It’s Angus.’

  She shrugged. ‘You going to Perth?’

  He nodded. ‘Sure am. What about you?’

  She hitched her hot pink backpack higher up onto her shoulder. ‘Yep. Wanna give me a lift?’

  He thought about it a moment—no way was he taking a sixteen-year-old girl all the way to Perth without her mother’s permission, but nor was he about to leave her on the side of the road for the first sick fuck to come along and take advantage. He thought of what he’d want if this was Liv. What choice did he have?

  ‘Get in,’ he said, grumpy because this diversion was the last thing he needed. Seeing Simone again was going to ruin all the good work he’d done so far towards forgetting her. Not that he’d been so successful in that mission.

  Harriet’s expression brightened as she yanked open the door and climbed inside. ‘Thanks. I was beginning to think I was going to have to walk the whole bloody way.’

  ‘You’ve walked a fair way already.’

  She dumped her backpack at her feet, clicked on her seatbelt and thrust a finger at the stereo. ‘Can we change radio stations? This stuff is ancient.’

  He raised an eyebrow but nodded his head. It didn’t appear she knew the first thing about hitchhiking. ‘Why’s your mum not driving you?’ he asked, as he pulled back onto the highway and the ute’s doors locked automatically.

  ‘Because I’m done with her,’ Harried said, perching her feet on the dashboard. ‘I’m done with this whole dump of a town.’

  ‘You got a plan for when you hit Perth?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m gonna live with my grandma. She’s so much cooler than Mum.’ Something young and boppy—he guessed Taylor Swift—filled the cabin as she succeeded in changing stations.

  ‘And your mum is okay with this?’

  She didn’t answer and he glanced sideways to see guilt scrawled all over her face. Just as he’d suspected.

  ‘She doesn’t know, does she?’

  ‘So what? She won’t care. I only cause her stress. I’ll call her when I get to Grandma’s. Where exactly are you going in Perth? Gran lives in Inglewood. Do you know where that is?’

  It wasn’t at all far from where Liv rented in Bayswater but he didn’t tell Harriet this. Instead, he checked the rear-view mirror, then indicated right and did a U-turn so they were facing back towards Bunyip Bay.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Harriet screamed, looking back in the direction of the city. ‘I said I want to go to Perth.’

  He nodded. ‘I heard you. And once we’ve checked with your mum, if she’s agreeable, I’m happy to give you a lift all the way to Inglewood, but you’re not choosing the music the whole way.’

  Harriet didn’t seem to care about the music anymore. She grabbed the passenger door handle and rattled hard, trying unsuccessfully to open it.

  ‘I wouldn’t suggest leaping from a car travelling a hundred-and-ten kilometres an hour,’ he said, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

  ‘You can’t keep me in here against my will,’ she spat, folding her arms across her chest and glaring at him. Thankfully looks couldn’t kill because if so he’d have been a dead man.

  ‘Fine. Give your mum a call and let me talk to her. As I said, if she gives her permission, we’ll turn around.’ He was calling her bluff but his heart rate jumped at the prospect of speaking to Simone again.

  Harriet didn’t say anything; she turned away from him, sighed and leaned against the window. He contemplated changing the station back to his preferred one but didn’t want to rile her unnecessarily. After a few minutes he heard her sniff and although she was still staring out the window, he could tell she was crying.

  His grip tightened on the steering wheel. He wasn’t good with women and tears. ‘You okay?’

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands and glared at him again. ‘Do I look okay? I’m trying to run away from home here and you’ve spoilt everything.’

  ‘You want to … talk about it?’ He wasn’t a big talker but he figured they only had a few minutes and they’d be back in Bunyip Bay.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Possibly not, but you won’t know unless you try me.’

  She peered at him as if trying to make a decision. ‘You ever been in love before?’

  He thought of his son, Liv and Logan, and then nodded.

  ‘Love sucks. My boyfriend dumped me and I know Mum is going to be all smug and pleased when she finds out. She hated him anyway.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ he said, although as Liv’s guardian he understood that a parent never thought anyone good enough for their child.

  She screwed up her face. ‘And what would you know? You barely know my mother.’

  You have no idea, he thought, but didn’t say this for obvious reasons. ‘Maybe not, but I raised my little sister from when she was six years old and I know I’d have died if anything ever happened to her. Your mum will probably be worried sick right now. Do you really hate her that much that you want to cause her so much grief?’

  ‘How old’s your sister?’ she asked, not answering his question.

  He decided not to press the issue. ‘She’s nineteen. It’s her I’m going to visit in Perth. Now, are you going to give me directions to your place or am I going to have to drive around guessing?’

  She sighed. ‘I’m never going to forgive you for this.’

  He stifled a smile. ‘Fair enough. But I’d rather that than some crazed axe murderer pick you up on the side of the road.’

  ‘You obviously watch too many horror movies,’ she said and then rattled off her address. ‘You turn at the next right and we’re the fifth house along.’

  ‘Thanks, Harriet.’

  Neither of them said another word until they turned into the driveway of the house she said belonged to her mother. ‘This it?’

  ‘Yep.’ She scooped up her backpack and put her hand on the door. ‘Thanks for the ride. I’ll take it from here.’

  He switched off the ignition, unclicked his seatbelt and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’ Despite having sweaty palms at the thought of seeing Simone, there was no way he’d backtracked and delayed himself only to have Harriet run off again. ‘I’m taking you inside, and don’t think about running or I’ll chase you.’

  ‘Whatever.’ He couldn’t see her expression as she climbed out of the ute, but he’d bet his life savings she’d rolled her eyes.

  She stormed ahead of him up a path cluttered on either side with overgrown plants and an assortment of garden ornaments. Along the verandah hung mismatched baskets, overflowing with bright flowers. The house was an old fibro, also painted odd colours, and suited Simone down to a tee.r />
  He forgot his nerves and smiled just as the front door opened.

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ Simone shrieked, dashing out of the house and throwing herself at Harriet. She flung her arms around her daughter and held her in what looked like a very tight grip. As Simone sobbed and made a number of unintelligible utterings, Harriet stood like a wooden soldier and Angus waited awkwardly a few feet away.

  Finally, Simone pulled back and, still clutching Harriet by the arms, gave her a thorough once over. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ she asked, her voice still choked. ‘I was so worried.’ She blinked as if fighting further tears. ‘Oh, my sweet baby.’ She pulled the silent girl against her again and then looked up and met his gaze. She blinked as if she hadn’t noticed him until now, but he’d sure as hell noticed her.

  She was wearing a Frankie’s Café polo shirt and denim cut-offs, which showcased her tanned, taut legs perfectly. Despite the uniform, her hair was messy, as though she’d just woken up, which of course took him right back to the memory of them being in bed together. He tried to focus on the situation to cool his rising desire—to remind himself that the object of his sexual fantasies had two teenage daughters, one of whom was more than a bit of a handful. Even if there could be something more between them, the last thing he wanted was to raise someone else’s kids. He’d been doing that for the last thirteen years and although he adored Olivia, it was good to only have himself to worry about now.

  ‘You brought her home.’

  The way Simone spoke, he couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement, but he nodded, cleared his throat and said, ‘Yep. Don’t think I’m her favourite person anymore, but I doubted you’d approve of her hitchhiking.’

  Simone gasped. ‘Hitchhiking! What were you thinking?’

  Harriet, taking the opportunity to extract herself from her mum’s embrace, shrugged and looked at the ground, not saying a word.

  Simone, still clutching her daughter’s hand like she would never let go, looked at him with tears in her eyes and offered a heartfelt, ‘Thank you. I’ve never been so scared in my life.’