‘Oh hell,’ she muttered in a low voice, then turned large, shadowed eyes on Stephen. ‘Can you stick around a few minutes?’ She reached out to rest an ice-cold hand on his arm. ‘Just to say hi. Please?’
‘Yeah. Sure. You and your dad having some problems?’
‘No more than the usual family crap. It’s nothing to worry about. I just don’t want to give Dad a reason to think I’ve put you off being social.’
They’d only just stepped onto the baked brown lawn in front of the house when the front door opened and Ken Blaine stepped out wearing his usual work clothes—an immaculately ironed faded blue shirt and green shorts and spit-polished work boots. Stephen couldn’t be sure but the older man looked thinner than when he’d last seen him and his short grey hair looked a little sparser.
‘Ken. How are ya?’ he called out.
‘Stephen, mate. Haven’t seen you in ages. A couple of months now. How ya going? Your dad know you’re here?’ Ken boomed out in an easygoing voice. The same voice Stephen remembered instructing him on how to ride his motorbike properly when he was a kid.
‘Yeah. All right, mate,’ Stephen replied, walking with Jo at his side, feet crunching over the dead grass surrounding the Blaines’ house to shake Ken’s hand. ‘I’m about to drop in on Dad now. We’ve got a few things to talk about, and I offered to bring Jo down since I was coming this way.’
Ken flashed him a wide, nicotine-stained smile. ‘Thanks, mate. Thanks. Well, I’ve got to get to work running Les’s sheep down to the yards for tomorrow’s sales.’ He scratched his stomach and flicked his eyes over Jo. ‘Didn’t know you two knew each other nowadays. Small world, eh?’
‘Yeah. Well. Jo’s been kind enough to share her place with me the last few months.’ Stephen smiled at Jo, but her face had turned stark white and her expression unreadable. He felt his smile slip. What the hell was going on?
‘That’s nice. Yeah. That’s really nice. Jo lives in a good area too, right? Where was it again?’ Ken reached into his pocket to pull a blue packet of Drum tobacco and some rolling papers. He deftly rolled a thin cigarette with his meaty, scarred fingers and lit it up.
Stephen opened his mouth to say that Fremantle was great, but Jo wrapped her hand around his wrist in a tight grip before he could get the words out. He shot her a confused look, but she wasn’t looking at him, she was still watching Ken.
‘Stephen, cancel what I said earlier. How about you head off, and I’ll meet you later?’
He opened his mouth to argue, but she turned to him with a tight smile.
‘I’ll see you in an hour or so.’
‘You sure?’ He tried to read her expression, but she had a world-class poker face and he didn’t want to push it in front of her dad. Not when he didn’t know the lie of the land, not when he knew that the whole reason she was probably uncomfortable around her father right now was because of what he’d done years back. Seeing Jo’s expression right now, he wished he could go back in time and boot himself up the arse five ways till Sunday.
‘Yeah.’
‘All right, but call me if you need anything or if you want me to pick you up instead.’ He turned to Ken. ‘I’ll catch you later, mate. Can’t keep Angie waiting. She’ll tan my hide if I don’t turn up for breakfast.’ It was entirely true, but Jo still had a grip on his wrist and he wasn’t moving until she let go.
Ken wheezed out a chuckle that sounded like an accordion with a leak. ‘Yeah, mate. Don’t want to keep a woman waiting. Never know what they’ll do when they’re pissed off.’
‘Don’t let us keep you, Dad,’ Jo said tightly.
‘No, love. No. I was just going, like I said. Wouldn’t want to go to work without you giving me a kiss hello, though, would I?’ Ken held out his arms expectantly. ‘C’mon, love, give your old man a kiss.’
Jo stayed right where she was, her grip on Stephen’s wrist tightening momentarily before she relaxed and let him go, not moving an inch closer to her father.
After a while Ken dropped his arms and whistled through his teeth around the cigarette he had clamped between them. ‘Women! Must be that time of the month, eh?’ He gave Stephen a conspiratorial wink. ‘Good to see ya.’ He turned on his heel and walked away.
They watched him drive off. He waved as he passed them.
‘You all right?’ Stephen asked Jo, who was watching Ken’s dust.
She shuddered once before turning to face him. ‘Yeah. I’m all right. Like I said, the old man and I just don’t get on that well and we’ve had a bit of a fight recently. It’s nothing you need to worry about, though. Thanks for waiting. I’ll see you in a while.’
Stephen scanned her face, trying to come up with the right things to say. Before he could speak she gave him a tight smile that didn’t meet her eyes.
‘Really. I’m fine. I’ll see you soon. Nothing to worry about.’
‘You sure?’ He met her gaze directly, holding it long enough for her to know he was serious. ‘Because I can stick around and keep you company while you visit your mum if you want.’
‘I’m fine.’ Her tone was adamant. ‘Go have breakfast with your family. The walk over’ll do me good. It’ll help me unwind and relax a bit.’
‘Yeah. All right.’ Stephen gave in. Leaving against his better judgement but knowing he couldn’t push things any further, he braved a quick kiss on Jo’s lips before following in Ken’s wake.
Shirley Blaine was at the sink by the kitchen window, wiping dishes, when Jo let herself into the house. She was wearing an impeccably ironed blousy pastel-pink shirt tucked into a pair of high-waisted blue jeans that made her birdlike frame appear even more fragile than normal. Her hair was pulled into a tight French braid. Neat as always.
Seeing her mum standing there, Jo felt herself transported back to the times when she’d been little, before they’d had this horrible awkwardness between them. She’d play with Amy on the kitchen floor while her mum would be at the stove cooking something that would fill the whole house with rich, mouth-watering scents and make Jo’s tummy rumble. Those moments had been few and far between, but the memory of them still caused a lump to form in her throat when she thought of them.
She cleared her throat softly. ‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Hello yourself,’ Shirley said in a tight, husky voice, similar to Jo’s but raspier from her pack-a-day habit.
‘How are you?’
‘Good. No thanks to you,’ Shirley snapped, facing Jo in a quick, agitated movement and giving her a too-familiar long-suffering glare.
So much for nostalgia and small talk. Jo didn’t even bother to ask what Shirley had been referring to. ‘He hasn’t touched you, though, has he? It was worth it.’
She had her answer from the easy way Shirley moved when she snatched a packet of cigarettes off the bench next to her and lit one, taking a long drag.
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Shirley retorted, blowing smoke out at Jo in a long exhalation through pursed lips.
A stabbing headache began at the back of Jo’s skull. Shirley had always looked the other way when Ken behaved badly, even when he was behaving badly towards her mother. No doubt she’d defend him now just as she had years ago. The thought left Jo feeling as if she was cracking open inside.
‘Yeah, you do,’ Jo said sadly. ‘Mum, I’m not sticking around long. Stephen Hardy just dropped me over here so I could check on you.’
‘And you can see I’m just fine. Just like I was a few months ago before you butted in.’ Shirley took another long draw and shook her head, unwittingly contradicting her verbal response.
‘I can see that,’ Jo replied tightly.
‘If you want a cuppa, I’m too busy,’ Shirley said brusquely, turning back to the sink and her dishes, furiously inhaling through her cigarette.
‘I don’t need one. Mum, I know you’re angry . . .’
‘Too right I am.’
‘But promise me, if you have any trouble, you’ll call me or Amy.’ Jo put her hand o
n her mother’s bony, tense shoulder. Shirley flinched but otherwise didn’t acknowledge the gesture. ‘I know you’re fine, but you never know what the future will bring.’
Shirley gave a curt nod.
Jo sighed. ‘Well. I have to go. I promised to meet Stephen. Bye, Mum.’ Feeling like an awkward, bumbling giant, she bent down and kissed Shirley on the cheek.
She felt like an idiot for the gesture, sick to her stomach and overwhelmingly guilty. Like she was doing something wrong in trying to stop her old man from beating her mum, like it was her fault he’d been beating her in the first place. If she and Amy hadn’t left . . . No. Not going there.
She waited for Shirley to turn around, to say goodbye, to say anything.
‘Close the door properly when you leave,’ her mother said eventually.
Shoulders slumping, Jo did just that.
It was a massive relief to walk out of the yard through the large paddock next to the house. It was lying fallow this year and was covered in short, spiky stubble and nibbled-down green grass shoots that were broken up with random, rutted sheep trails. The weather was cool, almost cold, but Jo welcomed it as a distraction from the persistent, familiar ache in her stomach.
No wonder she’d been overweight as a kid. She’d spent her whole childhood with this ugly feeling, trying to push it down with food but not succeeding until she’d finally gone numb one day when she was fifteen and hadn’t felt hungry for a long time. She snarled and kicked a dried sheep turd with the bottom of her boot, sending pebbled fragments skittering in all directions. Why the hell did everything have to be so hard?
Her phone vibrating in her pocket provided a welcome interruption to her thoughts, and she felt herself automatically relax at the sound of Scott’s voice booming into her ear.
‘Want to come diving with me today? I’ve got a sweet photo shoot organised on Rottnest Island,’ he asked before she could even get through a hello.
Jo winced. She loved scuba diving and would normally jump at the chance, cool weather or not. Rottnest, a small, picturesque island off the Perth coast, was a particular local favourite of hers. ‘Damn. I’d love to, but I’m on the farm right now.’ She gripped the phone in the crook of her neck while undoing a homemade wire gate, letting herself through to the next paddock and securing it again.
‘What? Why? What’s happened? You by yourself?’ Scott demanded in quick succession.
‘Nothing major, so relax. I needed to check on Mum after last time. Stephen gave me a lift, and yeah, I’m walking by myself over to your uncle’s place now.’ Jo counted off answers on her fingers even though no one could see her.
‘Everything all right? You doing okay?’
‘Yeah. No. Actually, I’m crap. At least the old man hasn’t done anything since I warned him off. Mum’s her normal stubborn self and isn’t thanking me. I saw him this time. I nearly puked all over my shoes, Scott. Thank God Stephen was there.’
She’d told Scott about her call to her dad a few days after she’d come back from George Creek the last time. As usual, he’d tried to argue that she get him involved to sort the issue once and for all, using the photographs he’d taken of her and Amy after the beating they’d received fourteen years back, the same ones they’d used to pressure Jo’s dad into not coming after them. As usual, she’d told him no.
‘Aw, babe, that sucks. Stephen know what’s going on?’
‘No, and I don’t want him knowing if I can help it,’ Jo said firmly. ‘Don’t even think about saying anything.’
‘Any reason?’ Scott asked. ‘I mean, I’m surprised you and he took a drive down there.’
‘I knew I’d be safe with him. He and I are . . .’ Jo caught herself.
‘Like that, is it?’ She could hear the smile in his voice despite the worry.
‘Yeah. Might be.’ Jo made her way gingerly through a large, sandy rabbit warren. There were at least forty rabbit holes. Double the number there had been when she and Amy were kids. Obviously no one bothered to go shooting any more to keep the numbers down, she thought wryly, watching a mangy-looking rabbit race away.
Scott was silent for a while on the other end of the phone. ‘Should I be happy for you or worried?’
‘Big girl, Scotty boy. Remember our deal? I don’t ask about yours, and you don’t ask about mine.’
‘Yeah, but that was before yours was my cousin.’
‘Who you loaned my apartment to behind my back and tried to match-make me with in Kings Park. Don’t try this. Amy did already. Just admit that you two devious fiends were trying to play Cupid, and it’s working. Maybe working,’ Jo corrected.
‘I’m not admitting any—’
A small explosion of sand flew up at Jo’s feet milliseconds before she heard a sharp cracking sound cutting off Scott’s words.
‘Jesus.’ Jo jumped, heart taking a dive as she quickly looked around, trying to work out what had caused the noise.
‘What was that?’ Scott exclaimed, and Jo heard banging at his end as if he’d dropped something.
‘Uh. I don’t know.’ Jo looked around frantically. She was standing in the middle of a bare paddock, only sheep and rabbits in sight in the foreground, a few old jarrah trees at its edge. There was a sharp, hot, dry smell in the air.
‘Sounded like gunfire.’
‘Nah. Couldn’t be.’ Jo shook her head.
Another loud crack split the air. She felt a stinging sensation in her right thigh.
‘Fuck!’ she yelled, spare hand automatically dropping to her leg before she brought it up in front of her eyes.
‘Whoa,’ she exclaimed in a dazed voice. ‘That’s blood.’
‘Blood? What the fuck? Jo, what’s going on?’ Scott’s voice was still in her ear. She was still holding the phone but her body felt wrong, all rubbery, not hers.
‘Think I’ve been shot.’
‘Shot?’
‘Maybe.’ Jo twisted around, stumbling on unsteady legs as she scanned the paddock around her. ‘No one’s around, though. Can’t be. Nah.’ Her whole leg was beginning to throb now. She looked down. A patch of red was quickly spreading down the leg of her jeans. ‘Hell, Scott. It’s real. I think I’ve really been shot.’ The words only registered after she said them. Her leg began to feel as if someone had smashed it with an iron bar, but the rest of her felt detached from it. There was pain, getting sharper now, radiating from her thigh, but not quite real. ‘Hurts like hell, too.’ She spoke as if making a casual observation.
Hold it. She’d heard about this. She was probably in shock. She looked around again and still saw nothing, let alone anyone with a gun.
Scott was yelling orders intermixed with expletives in her ear, but she ignored them until he bellowed her name again.
‘What?’ she asked, trying to shake off her confusion.
Another crack sounded to her left, kicking up more sand.
‘MOVE! NOW!’
She didn’t need to hear the command twice. Instead, she started running as quickly as she could for the grapevines in the distance, thinking if she could get there she’d be able to hide until whoever it was stopped firing. Another shot echoed behind her, this one hitting the ground near her foot, and she dropped the phone. Half running, half limping, she headed for the Hardys’ house and Stephen.
Stephen started on his second homemade scone slathered with jam and cream care of his grandma, Angie, who was sitting across from him. She looked exactly the same as always, tall and angular, her long silver hair loose, wearing jeans and a fitted black T-shirt. His brother, Clayton, and his dad, Rob, were lounging at either end of the dining table, looking like two peas in a pod, wearing matching serious expressions. He’d just finished telling them about the latest deals he’d arranged for local wine distribution, and Clayton was starting on his projections for the next grape harvest.
All in all, they’d concluded things were looking good. Things were always good when Angie baked and no one was asking Stephen personal questions. Just as long
as they kept things to business, this visit would be without incident. Thank God Rachael was still on holiday and Mike had stayed in Perth at Scott’s, or the inquisition would have well and truly started.
‘So how are things with your apartment? Lauren sold it yet?’ Rob asked when Clayton paused to grab himself another scone.
Ba bow.
‘These things take time, Dad.’ Stephen did his best not to tell his dad to mind his own bloody business.
‘Yeah, well. Mike said you’re staying in young Jo Blaine’s place. Not a good look, mate,’ Rob said gruffly. ‘Especially not after what happened years back. Hope you’re being a gentleman.’
Stephen mentally wished Mike all manner of mayhem.
‘Rob,’ Angie warned, eyes narrowed.
‘Leave off it, Dad,’ Clayton chimed in before playing his usual role of diplomat and moving the conversation back to his plans to plant some riesling in one of the north paddocks.
Rob and Clayton were well into a heated debate on the topic when Stephen’s phone rang. Glancing at the caller ID, he answered. ‘Scott, hey, mate. How’s it going?’
‘Stephen, Jo’s been shot. Don’t know where she is. Somewhere between you and her place.’ The urgency in Scott’s voice brought Stephen to his feet.
‘What?’ Stephen exclaimed, mental gears grinding to cope with what he was hearing.
‘Jo’s been shot!’ Scott yelled. ‘She’s dropped her phone. Don’t know where. Hell, man, just get out there and find her.’
‘Calm down,’ Stephen said, shaking his head and holding the phone away from his ear while all manner of expletives showered down on him. ‘Scott. Scott, calm down! How do you know?’
‘Heard it, you idiot!’ Scott yelled. ‘Now go and find her! I’ll be there in two hours.’ Stephen heard Scott’s phone click off.
‘What’s up?’ Clayton asked. All three, Clayton, Rob and Angie, were staring at Stephen, obviously having heard Scott yelling.
‘Said Jo’s been shot somewhere in between here and her place. She was walking . . .’ As Stephen spoke, the enormity of what he was saying finally registered. His heart rate doubled. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. Jo was hurt. She needed him.
Unforgettable You: Destiny Romance Page 14