by Jennie Jones
‘Tell Josh what happened in the arena with Sho-Sho.’ Edie rolled her eyes to the metal roof. ‘I tell you, Josh, some horses are nutty.’ She struck her finger to her chest. ‘And I’ve got one.’
‘What did he do?’ Josh asked.
‘I was only riding gently and he started bucking. Nearly threw me.’ She grabbed the inside of her thighs. ‘I had to hold on tight.’
‘He’s too young, Edie,’ Josh said. ‘You need an older horse.’
‘But I want Sho-Sho.’ Edie looked at her father.
‘Sorry, Edie,’ Ethan said. ‘Josh is right.’ He grinned. ‘Which one, Josh?’
Josh took a step back and looked down the stables. ‘That one.’ He pointed to a brown filly who had her head over her stall. About fourteen hands high. The other horses had been eating, kicking up sawdust, some of them fretting, but the filly had stayed where she was, unperturbed. Josh walked down to her. Ethan and Edie followed. ‘Yeah,’ he said as he rubbed her nose.
‘How’d you know?’ Edie said.
‘Josh can tell at a glance,’ Ethan told her.
Josh was surprised he still had the knack, but he knew alright.
‘Did you know how naughty Vicious Vic was when he was given to my dad?’ Edie asked.
Josh nodded. ‘Straight away.’ He grinned at Ethan. ‘Remember trying to get him out of the float? He almost kicked a hole through the side panel.’
‘I can’t believe he tricked us into getting him in it,’ Ethan said.
‘He floated easy,’ Josh told Edie. ‘I reckon he knew what he was doing. Went into the float like a baby but getting him out was one of the most strenuous things I’ve ever done. He was on to us and he wanted to make our lives hell. Should have called him the Beast.’
‘What happened to him in the end?’ Edie asked. ‘Why isn’t he still here?’
‘I’m afraid he was too dangerous, Edie,’ Ethan explained. ‘After Josh left, we couldn’t control him. Couldn’t even catch him. I tried to dart him so I could geld him, which might have helped.’
‘Not so sure it would have,’ Josh said, remembering the number of times the horse had thrown him. Once, it had reared up over him as he lay on the ground and Josh had believed the horse was about to kill him. It had sent him to the hospital with a broken collar bone and three broken ribs. It wasn’t the animal’s fault—it was the many neglectful owners he’d had before he’d been sent to Ethan.
‘You didn’t dart him?’ Edie asked her dad.
‘No. He jumped his paddock fence and tore his leg from the knee to the fetlock. That didn’t stop him. He terrorised three mares and half the sheep on the hill.’
‘How’d you catch him?’ Josh asked.
‘Sammy and I chased him down with the ute. Cornered him. He was in a bad way.’
Ethan didn’t have to say what had happened next. ‘Shame,’ Josh commented. Some horses couldn’t be controlled or eased down. ‘But I doubt even I could have done more for him.’
‘You might have,’ Ethan said. ‘Some of them need more time than others.’
And of course, Josh hadn’t been around to give the horse more time. He’d left.
‘Think I’ll get on back to town.’
‘Will you come again?’ Edie asked, taking his hand and smiling up at him.
Josh grinned. ‘Try and stop me. I want to know how you get on with the mare you’re going to be riding.’
‘Stay for lunch,’ Ethan said. ‘The pub’s great but you must be sick of being incarcerated in the four walls of your hotel room.’
Josh contemplated everything that had kept him sleepless all night and how he was going to handle it all. He glanced over his shoulder at the paddocks outside, white-washed with snow, and thought about Gem.
‘Actually, Ethan, I’m thinking of moving into the farmhouse.’
The shop doorbell dinged and Gem looked up. ‘Hi again,’ she said to the purple-coated woman who’d been in a few days ago. Now she thought about it, she’d seen the woman in town a couple of times. Couldn’t miss that purple trench coat against a backdrop of snow—it would even stand out against the slush.
As would your fuchsia cast, you fool.
The lady clutched the hand of her son. Gem smiled at the boy. ‘Hello.’
‘We’re just looking,’ the woman said, peering around the shop as though she were looking for someone not something.
Gem acknowledged her request for privacy with another smile. One thing Gem loathed was being pestered by shop assistants. If the woman wanted help, she’d ask for it. She looked down at her monthly spreadsheets, gathered into a pile, and flicked through them, as though her attention was actually on last month’s profit and loss sheet and next month’s forecast.
‘Wipe your feet,’ the woman said to the boy.
‘Don’t want to.’
Gem held her grin. There was a thick, rubber-backed doormat for those who wished to use it. Gem had long since learned that some people did, and some didn’t.
‘Do as you’re told, please, or we’ll be going straight back to the car.’
Gem raised her eyes. If the woman left, the kid wouldn’t get to buy a toy and Gem would lose a sale. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘It’s winter, we can’t help getting a bit wet, can we?’ She looked back down at her spreadsheets. It was enough to placate the woman, who moved further inside the shop. ‘Hold my hand,’ she told the kid. Gem resisted the urge to tell her that everything in the shop was there to be picked up, touched or held—whatever the child wanted. The breakables were too high on the shelves for any kid under the age of eight to reach anyway. Gem wasn’t daft.
Not about her business, anyway. It appeared she might not be so smart when it came to kissing a certain handsome man who’d walked back into her life and was about to walk out of it again.
While struggling to shower with a plastic bin liner on her leg this morning, she’d given herself an overdue talking to. By the time she’d got her track pants on, having had to cut the elastic hem off the right leg, she’d got herself in line.
Josh had appeared to agree to her request for a week or two to sort out her finances. So what to do about the fifty grand? If she persuaded him to make that three months so that she was cast free, she might come up with ten grand. Possibly more if she sold her artwork, all the karma, mind, body and spirit illustrations of chance, fate and destiny that so fascinated her. She could come up with a proposal for a book, an illustrated diary; call it A Visual Journey through the Year. Was there time for that, before Christmas? And did people make any money from selling books? She had no idea. She could still get a second job though. She’d earn more from painting and decorating than she would from playing shopkeeper. People had started moving into the housing estate. She’d design some flyers, print them off and do a letter-box drop. Once she was mobile.
‘We’ll take this.’
Gem started, surprised that she’d forgotten her customers. ‘Lovely choice.’ She picked up the tin wind-up monkey—another on-sale special, but a cute one. ‘You’ll have lots of fun with this,’ she told the three- or four-year-old boy.
‘Want the super hewo,’ he said.
Don’t we all, Gem thought and smiled at the kid whose eyes were blurred with disappointment and perhaps over-tiredness. But we can’t always get what we want. And she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.
‘Do you run the shop on your own?’ the woman asked.
‘Yes, I do. Is there something else I can do for you?’
The woman shook her head and avoided Gem’s gaze by opening her handbag. ‘I just wondered.’
Gem took the cash offered, wrapped the toy in light blue tissue paper, added one of the homemade, real-fruit, preservative-free lollipops the twins sold in the grocer’s and bagged the goods in a plain brown bag, which had been stamped with paw prints, kittens’ faces and ice-cream cones. Perhaps she could use her drawings for cards. That wasn’t a bad idea. She could do that anyway and have racks of them in th
e shop.
Sammy would help her by pointing her in the right direction for selling her art. Sammy knew all the commercial art websites and organisations.
Two hours later Gem looked up when the shop door opened and stared, her mouth drying and her heart emptying.
Josh stood in the doorway, the top of his head not far from the doorframe, his shoulders taking up the width. He wore his camel overcoat and he had a suitcase in each hand.
The life drained from her. He was leaving? She swivelled on her stool and reached for her crutches, trying to subdue the panic inside her. Her hands shook and her heart was still emptying. How long did it take to say goodbye?
Two minutes to get over him.
‘Don’t get up,’ he said.
Gem paused, gripping the handles on her crutches, and glanced at him. Don’t get up? Don’t hug him before he left? Miss the opportunity of touching him one last time? Maybe kissing him …
‘This is not going to be easy, Gem.’
Nothing about his features suggested he was having any distress over it. His smile was soft—maybe apologetic, maybe a half-grin. Where was his soul? The beautiful one that would allow her some time to get used to this sensation of loss.
He put the suitcases down inside the door, threw his car keys up in the air, caught them and pocketed them. ‘Don’t give me any trouble.’
Her mouth fell open. ‘You won’t get any trouble from me,’ she said eventually. She looked away and gripped the handles of the crutches tighter. She lowered her face, closed her eyes and tried to breathe.
‘Oh, Gem,’ he said, his footsteps loud on the wooden floor as he approached the other side of the counter. ‘Is it that bad, baby?’
See no love. Speak no love. Hear no love—for fifty years. Yes, it was that bad. ‘I’ll be … fine.’
‘Come on,’ he said, and put a hand on her shoulder—maybe her last touch from him. ‘Everything’s arranged.’
Everything except the rest of her life. She forced herself to meet his eyes. ‘Why, Josh?’
He leaned on the counter and smiled. The dreamy, rich smile. ‘You need help, Gem.’
She nodded, a wave of misery shrouding her. She’d be in counselling for the rest of her life.
‘This is all my fault,’ he said.
‘It is,’ she managed, nodding her head like one of those doggie ornaments people kept on the dash of their cars. If he hadn’t had such a beautiful soul, if he wasn’t so strong and protective and handsome, she might have fallen out of love with him. ‘So you’re going right this minute?’
‘No. I’ll go tonight. Where can I put my suitcases?’
‘What?’
‘I knew you’d be miserable about it. I expected a fight but I’m afraid you’re going to lose.’
‘I’ve lost everything, Josh.’ She hadn’t known how unbearable this parting moment was going to be.
‘You haven’t lost anything yet.’
True—she had about thirty seconds.
‘And I promise you, you’re not going to lose. How long have you suspected?’
Crap. He’d guessed her dirty secret. ‘I knew when I was seven,’ she admitted, misery engulfing her.
He whistled. ‘Jesus. That’s astute for a kid. I thought it was later, when you were around fourteen or so.’
‘Oh, no. It’s lifelong.’ She placed the palm of her hand over her breast bone as she looked at him. ‘It’s living. It’s deep in my heart.’
‘God, Gem, I’m sorry all this shit floored you at such a young age.’
He didn’t seem to care that she was opening up her innermost feelings to him. Her shoulders sagged. Why should he care? It was her problem that she’d loved him all these years, not his. ‘It’s alright,’ she said graciously. ‘I’ve lived with it forever—well, since I was seven—I can deal with it.’ Eventually. ‘But I think it’s best that you leave now.’ So she could crumple to the floor and cry for a month.
He frowned. ‘Are we talking about the same thing here?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Your father.’
‘What’s my father got to do with this?’
‘The shop, Gem. Your inheritance. The books.’
‘What about them?’
‘I think he’s cooking the lot. That’s why I’m moving into the farmhouse tonight, so we’ve got time to work this out. I’m also taking over the running of the shop for you. So you can rest and not worry about it.’
Surprise punctured the pain in her belly. ‘I thought you were …’
He took hold of her hand and played with her fingers. ‘What did you think? Are you alright?’
She moistened her dry lips with her tongue. ‘The farmhouse?’
‘Yeah. I’m staying until you’re out of that cast.’
Five-and-a-half weeks to love him—um—get over him. How many days was that?
‘I’ll come over every morning, early, and run the shop for you.’
‘Really?’
He released her hand and came around the counter, taking the crutches off her. ‘How did you manage on the stairs this morning?’
She’d come down them on her bottom. ‘Let’s just say it wasn’t dignified.’
He chuckled. ‘I’ll carry you up. Fancy a cup of tea?’
‘Thanks.’ A beautiful soul. No wonder she loved him.
He bent and kissed her. Not a brief peck, not a full and meaningful, but his lips were on hers long enough for the touch to inflate her heart again. She trembled, and her bottom slipped off the stool.
‘Woops!’ He caught her. ‘Not too steady, are you?’
‘I’m okay.’
He stilled, a query on his face. ‘What were you talking about?’ he asked quietly, peering into her eyes. ‘What’s been deep in your heart since you were seven?’
She swallowed, her mind in a tizz as one excuse then another struggled to find shape in her brain. She’d dragged herself through the pits of Hell and nearly admitted her feelings. She had admitted them!
‘My rabbit,’ she said at last.
‘Huh?’
‘I’ve got a rabbit. You couldn’t bring him upstairs too, could you? The thought of being stuck up there all day without him is too much to bear. I love him, you see. I’ve loved him since I was seven.’
‘I didn’t know rabbits lived this long.’
‘Oh, yes, they live forever and my love for him is deep.’
He leaned down to her. ‘Are you on painkillers or something, Gem?’
She shook her head.
He grinned. ‘It’s going to be okay. Come on, let’s get you upstairs—then I’ll come back for your rabbit.’
Fourteen
‘Try to walk up sideways. Ouch!’ Gem took her arm from around Josh’s neck and patted her head, which had just hit the wall. This had been happening since he’d moved into the farmhouse on Tuesday. Three days of pleasure in his arms, being carried up and down the stairs at the shop, and bumping either her head or her foot.
‘Sorry. I’m trying to walk up sideways.’ He inched his body to the maximum angle the staircase would allow.
‘I know you’re trying,’ Gem said.
‘I’m six-four. You’re five-six and your cast is the size of ten-kilo bag of potatoes.’
‘Thanks. That makes me feel one hundred per cent feminine.’
‘Sorry.’ He kissed her quickly on her cheek. ‘Let’s try to keep some humour about us, shall we?’
Gem clamped her lips, then couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘You have to stop kissing me.’ No soccer. No tobogganing. No walking without two metal sticks. Only hobbling, limping, dragging or being carried. She’d never been so tethered! Her nerves were crackling. No more kissing Josh. She’d faint from the pleasure and likely end up in traction.
‘Not going to happen,’ he said. ‘And every time we kiss, I’m going to be holding on to you—in case.’ He kissed her on the cheek again. ‘You know, you’re a pain in the neck, Gem.’
‘T
hanks.’
‘Tomorrow, I’ll get here at six am. You are not—I repeat—you are not to try cleaning the shop again. Understand? You’re not even to try and get down the stairs on your own.’
‘Were you this tough on your crew?’
‘Much worse.’
He deposited her on the sofa. ‘I’ll get your crutches.’
They’d got into a routine of sorts, but her agitation at being cooped up was too much to bear, so this morning she’d got herself down the stairs all by herself—and easily, her ankle didn’t feel so precious, she was even putting weight on it now—and had decided a good sweep through was needed.
‘Jesus, I hate those stairs,’ he said, as though to himself, as he came back into her flat with her crutches.
‘I keep meaning to take a sledgehammer to that wall on what should be the open side of the stairs,’ she said. ‘If there’s one at the farmhouse, bring it over tomorrow. It’ll give me something to do while I’m cooped up.’
‘How did you sleep last night?’ he asked.
‘Fine. How did you sleep?’
‘Good.’
‘Don’t you feel a bit strange living there? In Grandy’s space?’ she asked him as he flicked the switch on the kettle and set out their cups, hers a bone china teacup and saucer, his a mug with I Love Rabbits splashed across the front.
‘Funnily enough, no. I thought it would be odd, but it’s not. It’s cosy.’
Gem envisioned him in front of a roaring log fire in the evenings, getting comfortable on the sofa with a book and a glass of whiskey. Maybe it was so warm in the living room that he’d undressed from his day clothes and wore only a sweatshirt, boxer shorts and thick white socks. His tan would look good in the light of a fire. The tattoos would stand out. His eyes would be dreamy rich brown. Perhaps, if he got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water, he’d be naked as he walked through the house. He didn’t look the type to wear pyjamas. What would he look like, naked?
‘What are you thinking?’ he asked. ‘You’ve gone as pink as your cast.’
Gem shuffled her bottom on the sofa. ‘There aren’t any ghosts?’
‘None that I’ve met yet.’ He grinned. ‘You’d do well to take the farmhouse off me, Gem. You’d look good in it. It’s cosy, but it lacks a woman’s warmth, if you know what I mean.’