The House At the End of the Street

by Jennie Jones

  ‘This and that.’

  Gem’s exasperation bubbled, overwhelming the original idea of coming out here to calmly persuade him to leave town. ‘This and that. Here and there,’ she parroted. ‘Is that it? Is that all you’ve got? Why don’t you want anyone to know what you’ve been doing?’ Other than the obvious: making a stash of money; refining his natural attractiveness; and no doubt spending a lot of time choosing what sort of woman he wanted to spend some darkened hours with out of the queue he had waiting for him.

  The way he bowed his head and studied the ground, his broad shoulders slumped in some kind of despair, caused Gem some remorse.

  ‘Are you in trouble, Josh?’ she asked in a whisper. Maybe that’s why he was so evasive. Maybe he’d made a big mistake and had been covering it up. Maybe he’d been in prison. No—he had a tan.

  He cocked his head and smiled at her, the skin creasing around his eyes. A little more depth to the crinkles now, suggesting that he’d done a lot of smiling over the years. That he’d enjoyed himself.

  ‘No. I’m not in trouble.’ He seemed to come out of his reverie. He lifted a hand and swept it through her hair, brushing it back from her forehead. ‘Not the way you’re thinking.’

  Gem stilled. The gesture was one she remembered from their best-friend days of long ago, but there had been nothing more than friendship in it then—this touch spoke of everything undealt with and unsaid between them since their moment this afternoon.

  ‘Would it be so bad, Gem? You and me. While I’m here.’

  Her breath hitched. ‘Yes.’ It would kill her to have him then lose him. ‘You’re leaving at the end of next week.’ So she already had more days than she wanted before she could get over him.

  He studied her for a moment then dropped his hand. ‘So I am.’

  Gemma clenched her fingers into a fist so as not to run them through her hair, where his had just been.

  He looked down again, contemplating either the worn boards on the walkway or his answer. ‘Did you get into trouble?’ he asked. ‘Back then.’

  Back when her mother had walked in on them. Back when she’d been in his arms and had been about to give him everything. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s not Mum’s way.’

  He breathed deeply and sighed. ‘Good. I’m glad. You didn’t do anything wrong.’

  ‘Neither did you.’

  He laughed but it sounded hollow.

  ‘Did you get into trouble?’ she asked, surprised, as she remembered that time. Her mother might have teased Josh, and maybe warned him to take things easy, but she’d never—never—have taken the shotgun approach. Her mum wouldn’t have made Josh feel like he was in trouble.

  He looked at her, his eyes soft and a little sad. ‘Want to take a walk with me, Gem?’

  In the moonlight? She’d have to be crazy. ‘Where to?’

  ‘How about the lonely homestead?’

  ‘Why there? What’s going on?’

  He sighed out whatever brooding thoughts were bothering him. ‘Sorry. Don’t worry about it. Go back inside.’ He looked over her shoulder. ‘Just be careful of that guy Dave,’ he said, his tone suddenly serious. ‘Believe me, if you push him, he’ll lash out.’

  Something about Josh’s worried demeanour made her want to placate him. ‘Okay. I’ll watch out.’ She thrust her hand into her back pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys. She took one off the key ring and handed it to Josh. ‘In case you want to go inside Grandy’s place.’

  He took it off her. ‘What are you doing with a key?’

  ‘I pop in every week or so. Do some cleaning inside. Tend the garden a bit.’

  ‘Jesus H.’ He seemed particularly disturbed by this news.

  ‘What?’

  He closed his eyes for a second, then took a breath. ‘Nothing.’ He turned and took the steps down to the road, stuffing his hands in his pockets again. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said, looking back over his shoulder. He took his hand out of his pocket and pointed behind her. ‘Go on back to the pub, Gem. It’s cold out here.’ He headed down Main Street, towards Piralilla Farmhouse.

  Gem didn’t know why he was heading that way or for what reason—and she might never know—but she did understand one thing: in a few short minutes, standing together beneath the night sky and having a reasonably grown-up and more-or-less non-confrontational conversation, she was filled with the belief that little had changed between them. That the years apart had been a broken bridge. He’d gone one way and she had gone another. But the magic hadn’t disappeared. She felt it this afternoon; even sensed it between them when they were bickering half an hour ago at the bar.

  She longed to kiss him. She yearned to know where he’d been and who he’d shared his life experiences with. And it hurt like hell. So much for being a tough nut.

  Seven

  Gem inhaled the morning. The weekend! Saturday! New day, new spirit. Life was bountiful.

  Okay, maybe not, but at least she’d woken with a freshened energy; mental and physical. She’d also been able to stall any further business chats with Josh, telling him she was sorting out the finer points of her finances. He’d said he’d give her all the time she needed—since he was staying a bit longer.

  She gave Thumper another carrot top when he nudged her hand. ‘Eat up, Thumps.’ Gem bent and kissed the top of his black and white head.

  Her mobile phone rang. She picked Thumper up and plopped him on the floor in the baby corner of the shop, which was cordoned off so that toddlers could play with the stuffed animals scattered within. They loved the rabbit and he loved the attention, gentle old daddy-rabbit that he was. Thumper hopped around the soft toys, getting himself settled.

  ‘Mum!’ Gem said when she answered her phone, recognising the caller ID.

  ‘I’ve spoken to him,’ her mother began, her crisp and supportive tone suggesting she’d been up for hours and had already cooked a week’s worth of dinners and gone through the last financial year’s accounts of her business, ‘and I’ve told him I will not take this from him, Gem.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Gem said. ‘Are you talking about the shop? How’d you know he isn’t going to give me my inheritance money?’

  ‘He rang me to gloat about how good his new girlfriend was in bed.’

  Urg. ‘Which one? Summer? Or April?’

  ‘I don’t know which one, but she’s got him covered through all seasons.’

  ‘Ah—Solstice.’

  ‘What sort of name is that?’ her mum demanded.

  ‘A model’s.’

  ‘Look, my lovely girl. You’re not going to let him get away with this, are you?’

  ‘I don’t have a choice, Mum. He’s got me by my short and curlies.’

  ‘Josh Rutherford,’ her mum pronounced suddenly.

  ‘Yeah, he’s back.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Did the shit tell you that Josh was back?’

  ‘Sammy told me.’

  Gem’s shoulders dropped. The town’s matchmaker had been on the blower.

  ‘I’ve told him to get his act together.’

  ‘Josh?’

  ‘Your father.’

  ‘You told him to do that years ago.’

  ‘But now I have power over him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I can’t make him do my bidding but I did tell him that if he considered doing anything but my bidding on this occasion, I’d let it slip to a journo friend how he couldn’t do the necessary without help from medication.’

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘A lie of course, but the journalists might be intrigued about the old fart, playboying around Queensland as though he were a young prince. I’m guessing that you need a windfall to buy the shop. I’m also guessing that you’re keeping all this information to yourself.’

  Gem sighed.

  ‘Sammy’s on her way into town to see you.’

  Uh-oh. Sammy would be on the love warpath.

  ‘I have to go in a minute, lovely girl. I’m interviewing a
new receptionist for the business.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Your brother Tod is dating.’

  Gem gasped in delight. ‘That’s great!’

  ‘No news from Ryan but I’m searching for him.’ Last they’d heard, Ryan had scuppered the landlubber’s life and headed off to sea. ‘Now,’ her mother said, then inhaled so deeply Gem not only heard it but felt its effect. She could see her mother now, checking the clasps on some humongous beaded gold earrings as she peered out of her kitchen window onto the swimming pool with bright, ever-inquiring eyes. ‘Listen to your mother. Ask Josh for more time. Josh Rutherford was a superb young man. No matter what he did to you before he left so abruptly—’

  ‘He didn’t do anything!’

  ‘It must have been more than stealing a kiss. I wondered if he’d taken your virginity.’

  ‘Mum!’ Gem put a hand over her eyes. Talking to your mother about sex was like being stripped naked and sacrificed on national TV. ‘Please.’

  ‘Is he or has he been married?’

  ‘No—um—don’t think so.’ Damn, now she had visions of wives clinging to Josh’s arm and simpering up at him with blinking baby-blues and sweet puckered lips.

  ‘Check with Sammy. She’s bound to have found out by now. How long is he in town for?’

  ‘Until the end of next week.’

  ‘What’s he look like these days?’

  Pretty dreamy. ‘He looks alright.’

  ‘Where’s he been?’

  ‘Don’t know, but he’s got a rich man’s tan.’

  ‘But is he the same, Gem?’ her mum asked. ‘In his heart. Is he the same?’

  Gem closed her eyes and imagined Josh Rutherford, her ill-starred fate, subject of her unlucky love, standing in front of her in the moonlight. A head taller than Gem. His long, artistic fingers running through her hair, his deep brown eyes soft and fastened only on her. ‘Yes,’ Gem said in a small voice. ‘He’s the same.’

  ‘I’ve got to go, lovely girl, the receptionist woman has just arrived.’

  ‘Okay, Mum.’

  ‘And give that boy Josh my slushiest kiss on the cheek.’

  It wasn’t his cheek Gem was thinking about kissing. She put her phone on the counter and drew a deep breath.

  Sammy was on her way and Gem had better rid herself of all thoughts about Josh’s lovely soul. Don’t, she warned herself. Stop thinking about Josh Rutherford in that way. In that sex-fuelled manner. He isn’t staying.

  ‘So they roped you in for the speed-dating after all!’

  Gem swung to the shop door. ‘Hi,’ she said to Sammy, then glanced to the floor to check that Thumper hadn’t found a way out of the toddler pen but he was safe, curled up and sleepy.

  ‘How’d they do it?’ Sammy asked, putting two Kookaburra’s takeaway coffees onto the counter. ‘I thought I might have to trick you into it.’

  ‘Why would you want to?’

  ‘Josh Rutherford.’ Sammy peeled off her gloves then unwound the scarf from around her neck.

  Gem took the lid off her coffee and blew on the froth.

  ‘I spoke to Mary.’

  ‘I know, Mum just rang.’

  ‘And I have a plan.’

  ‘Don’t need one.’ Sammy’s plan would involve Gem getting it together with Josh. ‘Got one of my own.’

  ‘But your plan probably involves persuading me to get off your back, and my plan involves getting Josh out of town as fast as we can.’

  The froth on Gem’s coffee flew into the air as she coughed in surprise.

  ‘You haven’t exactly had the best experiences with men,’ Sammy continued, ‘which is why you’re guarding your heart where this man is concerned.’

  ‘Which man?’

  ‘The tall, sexy one with the expressive brown eyes.’

  ‘Oh, him.’

  ‘So I think we ought to shoo him out of town as fast as we can.’

  Gem sipped her coffee, giving herself the chance to swallow her shock. ‘Me too,’ she said cautiously. Unreal. Sammy wanted Josh out of town? Had he been rude to the Grangers, or shown them his uncaring side—if he had one? Hadn’t she already discovered that she thought the heart of Josh Rutherford held the same wonderful sensitivity it had always held?

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Shoot,’ Sammy said.

  ‘When Josh left, was there any …’ How to put it? ‘Any trouble?’

  Sammy took the lid off her coffee. ‘Well … I remember talk about it being sudden, but I can’t say there was a particular story about it going around. Why?’

  ‘He didn’t tell you and Ethan why he was going?’ Surely her mum wouldn’t have ticked Josh off badly enough to make him leave? God—what a horrid thought. Gem might have been the reason for his leaving town, leaving his mother. Nobody had ever known about that close encounter in the back room of the toy shop. Or had they? Who in town would have given Josh a verbal beating about it? Who would have known?

  ‘So what’s the story with the shop?’ Sammy asked.

  Gem leaned an elbow on the counter. ‘I’m fifty grand short. The all-time shit won’t let me take it from my inheritance.’

  Sammy frowned. ‘You didn’t deserve a father like that. By the way, any news about Ryan? I forgot to ask your mum.’

  Gem shook her head. ‘Nothing. Mum’s still searching.’

  ‘He’s not a stupid boy. He’ll be fine and well, I’m sure.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Until they found her nearly sixteen-year-old younger brother, there was nothing they could do but hope so.

  ‘So your plan?’ Sammy asked.

  Gem put her coffee down. ‘Actually, I haven’t got one. But I was thinking I could stall the process by smiling nicely at Josh and telling him I deserve at least a month’s leeway due to the fact that I’m the only person who wanted to lease his shop and he’s been getting an income from me for the last three years.’

  ‘Ooh, tough love. It might work.’

  ‘I’m going to tell him I’d prefer to work with his trustees too.’

  ‘Why would that be?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Josh is too …’ Attractive. Tempting. Kissable. ‘Shady.’

  Sammy lifted her eyebrows.

  Gem carried on: ‘He hasn’t told me—I mean us, as in anyone in town—what he’s been up to for the last ten years. That’s weird. Don’t you think?’ Gem didn’t get an answer. ‘He’s got a tan. Did you notice? I mean where’d he get that? Not in Queensland, I’m betting. Has he said anything to you about his past? Like—’ Gem shrugged and pulled her coffee towards her. ‘Like—has he been married?’

  Sammy’s eyebrows rose a fraction further.

  ‘Or has he been in prison or something? Has he told you anything?’ Gem asked. ‘Anything that might indicate where he’s been and who he’s been doing it with?’

  ‘Doing what with?’

  ‘It.’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t understand.’

  ‘Has he got a wife? Or has he had a wife. He might have a dozen kids. That’s why I don’t want to deal with him personally. I don’t trust him. I don’t think anyone in town should trust him. Do you trust him? I don’t trust a man who can’t come clean about his past or his intentions. For all I know, when he nearly kissed me, he might have been doing it on purpose.’

  ‘He nearly kissed you? When?’

  ‘Yesterday. At the scaffolding.’ Gem sipped her coffee. ‘He’s so full of the charming, dreamy stuff. He even asked me to take a walk with him to Grandy’s farmhouse last night. In the moonlight—like he thought I was nuts enough to do it.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘No way. I’d have to certify myself.’ Gem stopped talking when she sensed she’d gone too far.

  ‘Good heavens,’ Sammy said, her brow creasing.

  ‘What?’ Gem asked, worry that her real concerns about wanting to be kissed by Josh in the moonlight, or any light, had come to the fore while she blabbered on to the town’s matchmaker.


  ‘I thought I was going to have to come up with some major scheme. Maybe something underhand even, and here you are—’ Sammy picked up her coffee and aimed it Gem’s way, ‘—behaving so casual and calm, having got everything sussed. Am I losing my touch?’ she asked, looking forlorn.

  Relief coursed through Gem. No more blabbering. ‘No way, Sammy,’ Gem assured her as she clung to the warmth of her heated paper cup. ‘You’re the best matchmaker I’ve come across.’ She smiled. ‘Sorry it doesn’t work on me. I know you’d like it to.’

  Sammy waved her apology aside. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not daunted by one little setback.’

  ‘There are plenty of women working up at the wind farm place. And new people moving into the estate who have daughters. You’ll find others to matchmake. I know you will.’

  ‘Thanks. I appreciate your support. And there’s no need for my interference. There’s magic in the air, Gem. Magic doesn’t need me to shove it along, it hits home all by itself.’

  Magic? How had magic got into the conversation? They were discussing Gem needing a quick fifty thousand and how to get Josh out of town fast. Not exactly a charmed plan that sprinkled fairy-tale romanticism from the tip of a silver wand. It was slightly underhand, if anything. Lying in order to cover up true feelings. Wanting-to-be-kissed-by-only-one-man feelings. The shady one she had to get out of town.

  ‘Magic,’ Sammy said again. She tilted her head and smiled at Gem as she flicked the little brass bell sitting on the counter. It pinged with a pleasant, reverberating soprano tone and Gem wondered if an angel had just got its wings.

  Or if she’d just been played.

  Eight

  Nerves fluttered as Gem walked reluctantly into the restaurant area of Kookaburra’s, where the speed-dating event was about to start.

  Apart from needing fifty grand and wanting to be kissed by the tall, handsome, shady guy she’d been in love with all her life—well, since she was seven—her big problem tonight was that she knew she wore her heart on her sleeve and she hadn’t been able to decide which outfit would hide it and her nerves. Not to mention her desire for the shady guy. In her art, the colours she used came to life with clarity—and a lot of hard work, perspiration and intent. In real life, she was inspired by the aura of a colour, and that’s what she’d looked for in her wardrobe half an hour ago. Red for passion, orange for balance, yellow for mental clarity and green for hope and growth. Trouble was she hadn’t been able to decide which colour most suited her needs tonight, so she’d worn the lot.