by Ros Baxter
Piper’s eyes moved from one man to the other. Lou realised Gage’s daughter had probably never known what her grandfather had been like before. Lou supposed she may have heard the odd reference, or rumour, but it’s amazing how your own experience shapes the way you see the world. The whole scene must be very confusing for her. She sat back down and slipped an arm around the girl’s shoulders, and Piper leaned in to her.
Suddenly, Bo seemed to come to life. He stood violently, jerking up out of his seat, and grasped Gage’s arm. ‘We need to make a deal,’ he whispered, spraying spittle in his son’s face.
‘Don’t touch me,’ Gage said, so slowly and menacingly Lou wondered if there really would be more blood shed this night. ‘Don’t you dare touch me.’
Bo’s eyes were darting around the room like he expected someone to be hiding behind the couch. ‘They’ll come for us,’ he whispered again. ‘They’ll hurt her.’ He flapped a hand in Piper’s direction.
Gage was suddenly very still. His eyes narrowed and his face shut down further as he grabbed his father’s arm and swung him around as though he weighed no more than Lou. ‘Who?’ He shook the older man. ‘Who’s going to hurt her?’
As Lou watched the unfolding scene, it became clear what was going on. Bo was terrified. Something had happened today. Something to scare the living daylights out of him and make him fall off the wagon at the same time.
Bo muttered to himself again, becoming unintelligible once more, his eyes swerving wildly around the room. Then they came back to lock on Gage’s. ‘They cut the fences,’ he said, his eyes appealing to Gage’s. ‘And they told me, if we don’t make a deal, they’ll cut her.’
‘Shut up,’ Gage snarled, pushing his father back onto the couch. He looked quickly at Piper and Lou. ‘Get her out.’
Lou nodded quickly. Whatever was going on here, Piper didn’t need to see it. She stood and held out a hand to the girl, and Piper held tight to her as they walked together into the kitchen, Sharni following. None of them spoke as they sat down around the old kitchen table, until Sharni finally broke the silence.
‘My ma would say we need tea,’ she said, moving towards the kettle with determination.
Lou’s reflexes creaked into action. ‘And biscuits,’ she said, reaching for the jar she had become well acquainted with in the last week.
Once tea was made, crockery laid and biscuits distributed, the three women sat silently at the kitchen table.
‘What’s happening?’ Piper said, a little of the colour returning to her cheeks. Gage and Bo had still not returned from the living room.
Before anyone could answer, they heard the high squeal of an ambulance.
It was only later, once Bo and Gage had gone to hospital, and Sharni had done all she could and decided it was best for her to head home, that Lou looked at the clock and realised it was six pm. She had never had the conversation with Piper. Piper had never made her date. And Lou had never made it to the cemetery.
After all that had happened, she couldn’t pretend with the girl any more. ‘You missed your date,’ she said.
Piper’s eyes widened a little, then she nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said, chewing her lip. ‘Lost track of time.’ But her face told a different story. Sure, they’d been preoccupied, with Bo’s accident and its aftermath, but there was a shift in Gage’s daughter, and Lou was sure she was maybe thinking things happened the way they did for a reason.
Lou nodded as well. ‘So did I,’ she said, fussing with dishes at the sink. ‘I was supposed to be somewhere this afternoon too.’
Piper nodded. ‘The grave.’
Lou’s stomach dropped. ‘You know?’
The girl nodded again. ‘I’ve been there, with Skye.’
Lou’s brain worked hard to rearrange itself around this new information. She wondered what exactly Piper thought she knew, about Skye, and about what had happened. She studied the girl’s face. It was open and composed, but there was definitely something she wanted to say. ‘Shoot,’ Lou said.
The girl chewed her lip some more. ‘Well,’ she said, slowly and finally. ‘Sometimes stuff happens. Like my mum leaving. It sucks.’ She fiddled with the ends of her hair. ‘But at some point you’ve got to say: these are the crappy cards I’ve been dealt. I can either get over them and move on, or die from the unfairness of it.’
Lou didn’t blame Piper for her strange, adult advice. In fact, it sounded very much like some she might have been given herself. Something about the arrangement of the words – the crappy cards you’ve been dealt – rang of Gage. So Lou didn’t blame her, and she knew that the advice was solid. But.
‘Piper.’ Lou’s voice was harsh and hoarse. ‘Leave it. Please.’
Chapter
11
Hungry heart
Piper’s voice was cool and businesslike, and, for the second time in as many days, a part of Lou tried to convince herself she should stop eavesdropping, while the other part stayed rooted to the top step, listening to words floating out through the window on the cool morning breeze. She could picture the scene inside. The clink of crockery suggested Piper and Gage were sharing their usual early breakfast at the long dining table after the first round of chores. She could almost see them in their matching blue jeans and sensible work shirts, so exotically beautiful that they could have been dressed in rags and they would have made a master painter dizzy with passion.
‘I think we should think about it.’ Piper was taking that tone she did sometimes – deceptively casual, but with a low insistence she’d learned from Gage.
‘No.’ Gage sounded tired, even at eavesdropping distance.
‘Why not?’ A childish whine crept into Piper’s voice, but she reined it in. ‘It’s a good offer. And it’s only access and exploration rights.’
Gage made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. ‘That’s where it begins.’
There was a pause so long Lou wondered if they’d left the table. She tried to work out how long she should stand on the top step before going in to eat.
But Gage wasn’t done. ‘It’s my land,’ he said, his voice low and decisive. ‘Our land,’ he quickly corrected himself. ‘Yours one day.’ Lou imagined him focusing on the words, trying to get them exactly right. ‘Once this stuff starts, it never ends. You hook your wagon up to these guys, and you’re on a path you can’t detour from.’
‘But why would you need to?’ Piper was determined, but she also sounded genuinely curious. As was Lou. Why was he so resolved, when the gas partnership offered an easy solution? Perhaps he just didn’t understand?
‘Is this about Grandpa?’ Piper’s voice was quieter as she said the words, like she was feeling her way carefully. ‘About what he said?’
Lou had spent the night tossing and turning, thinking about exactly the same thing. She didn’t believe for a moment that Bo had been threatened by gas company representatives; there were strict laws about how these negotiations went, and they’d be mad to contravene them: it wouldn’t be worth it for their community licences. Lou knew how much the companies put into getting communities on side, through all kinds of social investment sweeteners. But someone sure had put the jitters on Bo. She turned it over again in her head. There were any number of interests in this town who might want to see gas here, but unless the company could secure all the access they needed, they’d move on elsewhere. Had someone who stood to make a buck scared Bo?
One thing was for sure – he’d clammed up once he’d returned from hospital. Lou could only assume he was still sleeping it off. She wondered if Gage would ever forgive him.
‘No,’ Gage barked, startling Lou out of her ponderings. She had almost forgotten where she was. ‘That –’
But he was interrupted by Skye’s sugary tones. ‘Hey, babies,’ she purred, and Lou imagined her joining them at the table, reaching for her regulation heart-starter coffee.
There was an awkward silence before Piper rallied. ‘How’s Grandpa?’
‘Oh, he’s fit as
a fiddle this morning,’ Skye sang gaily, but Lou knew her well enough to hear the shake in her voice. ‘Bit sore, you know.’ She clucked her tongue. ‘All those cuts, my God.’ Then she laughed a little. ‘Not enough to stop him going out riding.’
Lou almost fell off the step. He was horse riding?
Piper and Gage both laughed – Piper with what sounded like relief and Gage as though he was doing it in spite of himself. ‘Mad old bastard,’ Gage said.
There was a short pause, then Skye started up again. ‘I heard you two talking.’ Great, at least one Samuels woman was comfortable with eavesdropping. ‘About the gas.’ She paused again. ‘I have to say I agree with you, Gage. They say this shit –’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Oops, sorry, Piper. They say this stuff is good for the community. Well –’ Skye made a noisy job of blowing out her breath and Lou imagined her using the gesture to billow her fringe, as was her habit. ‘I say these companies never do anything that’s not for their own good. They couldn’t give two damns about anyone else.’
Gage cleared his throat. ‘Thanks for that, Skye,’ he said, and Lou was sure she detected some wryness in his tone. ‘But I’m done talking about the bloody gas.’
That seemed like a reasonable cue for Lou to enter.
The scene she came upon was exactly as she had imagined it. Piper and Gage were bejeaned and looking as though they had already put in a solid couple of hours of work. Skye was dressed in another dressing gown and communing with her coffee like it held the answers to the big questions of the universe. She didn’t meet Lou’s eyes as she entered. Lou hadn’t seen her the night before, after standing her up at the cemetery. Skye had gone straight to the hospital once Gage had let her know what had happened and by the time she’d returned, Lou had retreated to the guesthouse. She just didn’t need another scene. The effort of the one with Bo – and of keeping Piper occupied while they were all at the hospital – had completely drained her.
‘Hey,’ she greeted them all, sitting down and accepting the coffee Piper poured.
‘Hey,’ Gage replied, smiling briefly at her. He looked even more tired than he’d sounded from outside. His eyes were bloodshot, his shirt crumpled, and his mouth grim. But the smile still undid her. There was a raw vulnerability in it. Whenever he did that – allowed a peek of the teenage Gage she had known to show through – it was a physical jolt. It was so powerful; such a reminder of who he was, how far he had come, and of their shared history. And this morning, it didn’t matter how tired and shabby he looked – in fact, maybe because of it – he was breathtaking.
The crumpled shirt was a forest green soft corduroy that made his eyes look like he’d bought them in a coloured contact lens shop. His hair was messy and one stray piece stuck up from his forehead, lending him even more of a little-boy-lost look. But the rest of him was all grown-up. His long body, folded into the antique dining chair, had that same caged-tiger wildness he always emanated whenever he was required to be still. His shoulders strained against the shirt, which looked to have been hastily buttoned, so an even deeper V of tanned skin and soft hair showed than normal. Lou swallowed and reached for another gulp of coffee to avoid leaning over and licking the cheeky peek of skin instead.
Oh God, she really was going mad.
Not for the first time, she reminded herself she needed to wind up her business and get the hell out of Stone Mountain. Because being around this man was pouring fuel on the ridiculous crush she’d had since high school, and kissing him and making mad mountain love with him had done nothing to abate it.
And the crush was pointless. She wasn’t going to do anything about it, and by the looks of Gage’s sweet date a couple of nights prior, he was also keen to move on. Prolonging this agony was just going to end badly. Lou quickly ran through what was left. She needed to talk to her father today – tell him what she had found, and the lack of options available to deal with it. Then she needed to finish up with the insurance company – they had left a message for her on her voicemail yesterday afternoon, but by the time she’d finished with Bo, business hours were over. Still, she was hoping it was good news and maybe they’d heard from the police that the investigation was wrapping up. Perhaps – all going well – she could get out of here in a day or two.
She swallowed as she looked over at Skye, busying herself with toast.
There was no doubt that before she left Stone Mountain she was going to have to talk to Skye about her failure to meet her at the grave, and about what came next for her mother, given her illness. Lou closed her eyes briefly. Could she really go back to the city, knowing that would mean Gage and his family may end up caring for her mother as she became sicker? Perhaps she could arrange a full-time carer. She swallowed hard, imagining how that might work. She tried not to think about what Gage would make of that, Lou disappearing off to the city again, leaving him and his family to care for her mother. Lou’s heart sank. She really needed to make a better plan.
As she came back to the moment, she found Gage looking at her, a small smile playing around that wicked mouth. ‘Earth to Lou?’
She blushed. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘My mind was somewhere else. Did I miss something?’
Gage rose and pushed back his chair. ‘I said I’m heading into town if you want a lift?’
Did she? Hell yeah. She wanted to greedily take every moment, every second, she could get with this man. At the same time she wanted to put as much space as she could between them. Being near him was a dangerous drug – it infiltrated her veins and messed with her senses. But Gage, Piper and Skye were all looking at her. A small, knowing smile toyed with Skye’s lips.
Damn you, Skye.
‘Sure,’ Lou said, going for casual as she drained her cup and stood up. ‘That’d be great, thanks, Gage.’ Her tone was so chummy she had a ridiculous image of punching his arm jovially, and groaned internally. ‘I just need to grab my things.’
Gage treated her to a smile so big and broad she wondered what she’d done to deserve it. ‘Sure. Meet you out the front in ten?’
Gage slid into the driver’s seat of the ute like it was as comfortable as his faded Levis, and gave the kind of unconscious, whole-body sigh Lou reserved for climbing into bed in her comfiest pyjamas. Lou knew nothing about cars, but she knew this one had a lot of grunt, and wasn’t taking any prisoners. Gage flicked up the sun visor, gunned the engine and left Sunset Downs in his dust. He had a look on his face that suggested this wasn’t going to be a chatty trip, but as they drove, Lou could almost see the tension pouring from his body as his shoulders relaxed and his breathing steadied.
Skye had always told Lou that you could tell the kind of lover a man was going to be by how he danced and how he drove. No-one watching Gage would be left in any uncertainty about the kind of lover Gage might be. He was comfortable, in control and loved every minute of it. He was an excellent driver and offered a very smooth ride, with the occasional exciting detour, just to mix things up a bit. Some people were meant for movement, and being in control. For Gage, driving was like coming home. Since Lou had been staying at Sunset Downs, she had seen Gage mount a horse, ride a motorbike and drive a tractor, and she couldn’t decide which was the sexiest experience. It was a close-run thing.
Lou was so damn hot by the time they hit the outskirts of town she couldn’t stop thinking about the afternoon on the mountain. How good it had been. As it was, the ute had a bench seat, which meant every time Gage took a corner too hard, she slid perilously closer to him. At one point, her thigh pushed hard against his and she closed her eyes in an agony of awkwardness and visceral pleasure.
It was only once the sign announcing Stone Mountain came into view that Gage finally spoke.
‘I didn’t say thanks,’ he said quietly, turning to look at her. He was wearing Aviator sunglasses and Lou had to mentally kick herself to jettison the Top Gun theme song that played through her brain as she took in his dark good looks.
‘Thanks for …?’ From where Lou was sitting, all she co
uld see was that she and her family had been a pain in his arse. For starters, she and her unpredictable mother were freeloading. Then there was the fact that they’d both managed ambulance calls in the last few days. And, of course, Skye was giving Piper unhelpful and imprudent romantic advice, not that Gage knew that – hopefully.
‘Last night,’ Gage said, honking the horn at some kids who ran across the street in front of him and almost got themselves killed. They just waved with the nonchalant invincibility of teens the world over. He swore under his breath as he pulled into a park across the road from the council chambers, under a shady tree.
‘Oh,’ Lou said, looking around and realising he had parked right in front of the Queen’s Arms. In fact, he’d parked right in front of the big old jacaranda tree where eight days before he had pushed her against its hard trunk then kissed her so comprehensively that her brain hadn’t worked right since. She tried not to show any outward signs of concern, but her mind was going berserk. Had he chosen the spot deliberately?
‘No probs,’ she said, trying to smile but aware it came off a little weak. She was glad he’d brought it up. ‘Did you guys talk? Did you get to the bottom of it all?’
Gage shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he said, taking off the sunglasses and folding them carefully back into the compartment above the sun visor. ‘He clammed up once he was sober.’
Lou chewed her lip. ‘He seemed pretty freaked out.’
‘Yeah,’ Gage agreed, unhooking his seatbelt and turning to face her. ‘Something happened, that’s for sure.’ He ran his hand through his hair in that familiar gesture. ‘Y’know …’ He paused, returning his hands to the steering wheel like they were more comfortable there. ‘You wouldn’t believe it, but he really has been sober seventeen years, give or take.’ His voice was serious, like he thought maybe Lou didn’t buy it, thought maybe he was somehow making excuses for his father.
‘I believe it,’ Lou said. ‘He looks good.’ She paused, feeling like that sounded kind of stupid. ‘Well, y’know, before last night he looked good, at least.’