The Australian's Desire (Mills & Boon By Request)

by Marion Lennox, Lilian Darcy, Lilian Darcy

  ‘You’ve done an incredible job with the pool, Luke!’ Georgie exclaimed over breakfast. ‘Is it swimmable yet?’

  ‘Probably need to give it another few hours for the chemicals to settle.’

  ‘Did you see it, Janey?’ Georgie asked.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘She helped yesterday,’ Luke said, although he was giving her too much credit.

  ‘You wouldn’t let me help, Luke!’ she protested. ‘I wiped down a couple of chairs.’

  Half of Crocodile Creek’s medical personnel seemed to have converged on the kitchen for breakfast this morning. Janey’s head began to spin from the overlapping conversations, the belated introductions, the new, curious faces, and she couldn’t eat. The whole-grain cereal went gluggy in her bowl and the coffee tasted too bitter and strong. She hadn’t slept well last night, and Luke didn’t look as if he had either.

  She’d begun to regret their kiss as soon as it had ended but in the bright light of day it seemed like not just a minor glitch, like that other kiss they’d shared eight years ago, but a huge, glaring misjudgement. He’d once been her sister’s husband. Nobody needed this kind of complication, not Rowdy, not Luke, not she herself.

  Cal Jamieson came in, following an overnight stint in A and E. ‘Who did the pool? It’s sparkling.’

  ‘Luke,’ said Georgie. ‘Doesn’t it look great?’

  Cal clapped him on the back. ‘Good on you! The kids can swim after school. Now, if you want to help the clean-up team with the mess on the beach …’

  ‘Give him a break!’ Georgie protested. ‘He must have been out there before dawn.’

  They all seemed unreasonably impressed by Luke’s hard work, and made a big deal of it the way a parent might if a surly and unhelpful teen suddenly turned around and washed the dinner dishes without being asked. Janey wondered about it. He surely couldn’t have acquired a reputation as a shirker. However shallow and ego-driven she might have thought him eight years ago, she would never have accused him of slacking off where work was concerned. It was something else that had impressed them.

  ‘How’s Rowdy?’ someone asked.

  ‘You know, that’s going to be his name for ever, unless he protests,’ said someone else. Janey was losing track of who was who.

  ‘Is that OK, Luke?’ Georgie frowned. ‘We kind of … saddled him with it in a fit of frustration, because we had to call him something, but it’s up to you.’

  Luke gave a slow, reluctant smile. ‘I’m good with Rowdy. If he is. He responds to it, at least.’

  ‘I think he responds mainly to the sound of someone opening the fridge door.’

  They all laughed, but then the atmosphere went a little cautious and quiet. Not Alice’s ghost this time, but an awareness in all of them that for Rowdy/Felixx/Frankie Jay there was still a long way to go.

  Three doctors OK’d his discharge later that morning. Hospital caretaker and handyman Walter Grubb came and inspected Luke’s work with the pool. He tested the water and pronounced it safe for human immersion, someone rustled up a pair of boy’s swim shorts that more or less fitted, and Janey and Rowdy went swimming.

  They had the loveliest, laziest day, while Luke did a long shift at the hospital. Between swims, they lolled by the pool in the shade, sucking on icy poles or drinking fresh fruit smoothies that were thick with crushed ice, yoghurt and full-cream milk, and tasted of the very expensive peaches and strawberries and bananas that were now being trucked in to the stricken region on the damaged roads.

  Rowdy could swim like a frog, and he was a joy to behold, wriggling down to the bottom of the pool and back up again, doing cannonballs and twists off the side. He tired himself out by two o’clock and Janey insisted on a nap, giving him the double bed she was using because it had a ceiling fan above it, which made the room cooler.

  He went out like a light and she sat on the side of the bed and watched him, then felt so sleepy herself that she lay down beside him, thinking she’d just close her eyes for a minute or two … or five … and enjoy the precious, peaceful sound of him breathing.

  So much for that plan. She fell asleep herself, and neither of them stirred for two hours.

  Another long swim soon freshened them up and then the house started filling again towards the end of the day. Georgie brought Max and CJ home from school. CJ belonged to Gina and Cal, Janey had discovered. Charles dropped in to see how Rowdy was doing. Someone suggested a sausage sizzle beside the pool to celebrate its return to active service.

  Janey was amazed and impressed at the way everyone took up the idea and got into action. Mrs Grubb answered the appeal for salad ingredients, and promised her potato salad, still warm, with mustard dressing, in less than an hour, but the medical staff did most of the preparation themselves.

  The division of labour fell along gender lines. The women rushed around the kitchen, slicing onions, grating carrot, cooking tortellini, their conversation pitched at a level of urgency Janey would have expected during emergency surgery.

  ‘Wait! Don’t put the tortellini in until I find the jar of pesto sauce, because maybe there isn’t any!’

  ‘I don’t think we need watermelon salad as well, if we’ve got the tortellini and pesto …’

  ‘Where are the cherry tomatoes?’

  ‘And the carrot and raisin salad, too. It’s too much.’

  ‘It’s fine. There’s a ton of fresh mint growing around the bottom of the steps, we should use it. And how many are we, anyway? Has anyone counted?’

  Janey just kept her head down and did what she was told with a knife and a chopping board. She liked the lively atmosphere, but was content to be more of a spectator than a participant. What would it be like to live and work here? she wondered.

  Someone exclaimed again about Luke cleaning the pool. ‘It’s the first time he’s really got involved in something outside the hospital.’

  ‘Your influence, Janey?’ someone else suggested.

  ‘No,’ she said at once. ‘It’s because he’s found his son.’ And the women all nodded and murmured, conceding that she was right.

  Meanwhile, the men performed primal male rituals with the barbecue grill, about ten kilos of sausages and some lethal-looking stainless-steel forks and tongs. There was a brief panic over tomato ketchup, but somebody found it. Several kids, dripping with pool water, announced that they were starving. It was dark by this time, but the air was still steamy and warm, and someone had set up outdoor lights and mosquito coils to keep the bugs away.

  Everything smelt fabulous. The salads and cups and dishes and cutlery were ferried out to the poolside to the big picnic table that had been brought out from under the veranda. The sausages were pronounced ready. The kids ate them slathered with fried onion and ketchup, wrapped in bread slices, and flavoured slightly with chlorine from their wet fingers.

  The adults piled their paper plates with salads as well as the sausages and onions, and ate while watching the kids when they went back in the pool. Somebody set up the CD player on the veranda and put on some rock and roll.

  Sitting at the foot of her favourite lounging chair, Janey watched Luke finish loading his plate and come over to sit beside her.

  ‘The best get-togethers at Crocodile Creek are always the ones with no preparation,’ he said.

  ‘You can take most of the credit for this one, Luke,’ she answered. you hadn’t cleaned the pool, this wouldn’t be happening.’

  He Shrugged. ‘It’s Grubby’s job, but I knew he wouldn’t get to it for days because there’s so much else that has a higher priority at the moment.’

  ‘You’ve impressed everyone, I think.’

  ‘I’ve kept to myself a bit around here. Maybe they didn’t think I had that much community spirit.’

  She sensed that he was playing down the change in his own outlook, so she didn’t push the subject, saying instead, ‘Look at Rowdy.’

  ‘I know.’

  They watched him as they ate. Max and CJ were having a jumping-i
nto-the-pool competition, with Alistair and Cal acting as judges. They gave points for style and splash.

  Rowdy had shaken his head when asked if he wanted to compete, but he took part on the sidelines, waiting until the other two boys had completed each jump then trying ambitious imitations of his own. Cal and Alistair were both great about it, issuing the right wow sounds at regular intervals and applauding his most impressives splashes.

  ‘He’s a good swimmer,’ Janey said.

  ‘He seems to love it.’

  ‘I just can’t think of Mundarri as paradise, but he must have had some wonderful times up there. They had a waterfall with a natural pool at the base of it. Pristine and deep and clear, with a bed of pebbles. He learned to swim in that, they told me. He made dams and channels and pebble castles.’

  ‘Sounds great.’

  ‘It was.’ She made a face at him. ‘If you don’t mind getting a few leeches.’

  ‘City kids can be too squeamish about things like that. Look at him now!’

  ‘Rowdy! Gold-medal twister bomb there, mate!’ Joe exclaimed. He’d left Christina’s hospital bedside to come and eat, looking tired but content. Little Isabella Jane was in perfect health, he’d reported, and she was a natural at breast-feeding. Christina still felt pretty sore, but had insisted she’d be well enough to leave the hospital in time to get to Cal and Gina’s beach wedding in two days’ time, if someone could push a wheelchair onto the sand.

  ‘Dynamite!’ Cal agreed.

  Rowdy pulled himself out of the pool, streaming with water, hair plastered down on his head, grinning from ear to ear. He looked around for Max, as if wanting to make sure Max had seen the twister bomb, too. He took in a giant breath and opened his mouth. Janey clutched Luke’s arm.

  ‘He’s going to speak! He’s going to yell for Max to watch him. He …’ She stopped.

  Rowdy seemed to freeze where he stood. His wet hands clapped over his mouth and he seemed stricken and terrified out of nowhere. Cal, Gina and Alistair were all watching him as he stood there still streaming wet, looking suddenly so thin and small and alone in the middle of the barbecue crowd. Max and CJ took no notice of what was happening. Most of the adults were talking and hadn’t stopped to watch three little boys playing an ordinary water game.

  ‘Watch this one, CJ!’ Max said.

  ‘No, let’s do it together!’ Both boys made enormous leaps into the water.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Janey murmured. She made a move to get up and go to Rowdy, but Luke held her back with a hand planted on her shoulder, which meant they were both holding onto each other now, because for some reason she hadn’t yet let go of his arm. ‘Luke?’

  ‘Let’s give him a minute. I’m not sure what’s happening.’

  ‘I just want to hold him. He’s upset.’

  ‘But what’s going on in that little head? If we watch, maybe we can work something out.’

  So she sat back down and they watched, half-expecting that he’d forget whatever had troubled him and would be back in the water in another few seconds.

  But he didn’t forget. He crept forlornly over to the remaining piece of fence, where he’d hung his towel. He wrapped it around himself and began to pick his way towards the house in his bare feet. He gave off the impression that he was sending himself into exile.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘I WANT to go after him,’ Janey said.

  ‘No.’ Luke still wouldn’t let her move.

  She made another attempt to shake him off, but he only slid his arm around to her other shoulder and held her more firmly where she sat. He felt warm and strong, and she was very glad he was there, very glad they didn’t drive each other crazy any more.

  Far too glad, probably. Their blossoming connection was undeniably powerful, because it concerned a child who was linked to each of them by blood and heart and history, and whom they both cared so much about. But Luke Bresciano was Alice’s ex-husband, and that made it feel wrong. He’d loved Alice first.

  She had to shake off this aching need.

  ‘I’m thinking, Janey,’ he said, sounding as tense as she felt. ‘I looked up some stuff at the hospital today about mute children and post-traumatic stress disorder, but it didn’t seem to fit.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘It’s depressive mostly in those kinds of cases. It’s associated with generalised apathy and night terrors, and it often comes on gradually. I don’t know. Maybe it’s pointless trying to work this out.’

  ‘I want to hear it, Luke.’

  ‘A lot of the stuff I found related to refugee children in detention centres. It’s horrible and this country needs to make some big changes in how it handles those cases, but it just didn’t seem relevant to Rowdy. He wanted to speak just now.’

  ‘Yes, desperately. You could see it, feel it. I really thought he would.’

  ‘You’re right, he was on the point of it, and it was probably to get CJ and Max’s attention, to say, “Watch this!” just the way the two bigger boys are doing with each other.’

  ‘But then he stopped himself.’

  ‘Exactly. Because he remembered that he wasn’t allowed to. But why does he think he’s not allowed to?’ His thigh pressed against hers and she let the contact stay, despite all her reluctance and doubt. ‘What does he think is going to happen if he does?’

  ‘I don’t know. I have no idea.’

  ‘Surely we’ve all made it clear to him that he’s welcome and wanted and loved and has the right to say anything he wants!’

  ‘I’ve tried. And I’ve tried not to scare him with too much at once. Kids don’t always need high emotion.’

  ‘Georgie reminded me of that. Just to take it moment by moment, just to do the ordinary things together. And yet he seemed terrified.’

  ‘I want to go and find him. He’s disappeared into the house and I need to know that he’s safe, Luke.’ She gripped his hand, and then his strong wrists. ‘That he won’t just let himself out of another door onto the far veranda, wander down the steps and disappear.’

  ‘Yes. All right.’ He squeezed her shoulders again, then they both stood. He ran his hand down her bare arm as if he didn’t want to let her go, and she felt the same. No matter how hard she tried to keep rational about this, keep a safe cushion of distance, fight its deeper implications, she felt so close to him, linked by what they both felt for Rowdy and utterly safe in sharing all her fears. She belonged by his side, at least when they were following his son.

  ‘Situation in hand?’ Alistair asked as they went past him. Gina and Cal were still covertly watching, and Janey caught glances from a couple of others also.

  ‘Leave it to us,’ Luke answered. ‘Whatever’s going on, he doesn’t need a crowd.’

  They found him easily enough—in the kitchen, eating the leftover cubes of watermelon that hadn’t been used in the watermelon salad. He looked up at the sound of the screen door opening, then turned away deliberately, as if it wasn’t even safe to look at them.

  Because then he might be tricked out of his self-imposed silence?

  ‘Sweetheart, what’s wrong?’ Janey asked, coming close.

  Nothing.

  Luke pulled out a kitchen chair and sat in it back to front, leaning his forearms over the chair back and hunching down so he was almost at eye level with Rowdy. In the one light that someone had left on above the stove, his dark hair gleamed and his tanned arms looked like dusty teak.

  ‘Listen, little mate,’ he said, ‘something is making you scared to talk, and we want to help. People need to talk, you know. That’s how we understand each other, and we want to understand you. We really do. It’s not wrong. If someone’s told you that something bad is going to happen if you talk … That’s wrong, OK? That’s not true.’

  He waited.

  Silence.

  ‘Luke’s right, sweetheart,’ Janey said. ‘Nothing bad is going to happen if you talk.’

  But he said nothing, and he didn’t look as if he believed t
hem. Still frozen to the spot, so little and tightly held in, he blinked, squeezing his eyes shut until moisture appeared at the corners. That struggle was still going on inside him. Should they push? Should they try to get him over that edge of control somehow? Make him speak?

  But it was getting late. She looked at Luke and they reached a silent agreement not to push him any more tonight. They still didn’t understand enough about what was going on. ‘For now?’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes.’

  They gave each other a wry smile. At least their communication with each other was working, and that was worth a lot.

  ‘Bedtime,’ Luke announced. ‘How about another Thomas the Tank story?’

  Rowdy nodded. He wasn’t yet ready to smile.

  ‘Teeth first,’ Janey said. ‘And a good night’s sleep because we’re going on that picnic tomorrow, remember?’

  He nodded again. Still no smile.

  Twenty minutes later, Janey put on the electric jug for a cup of tea and Luke came back from Rowdy’s bedroom to report, ‘Almost asleep before the end of the story. I think he’s exhausting himself with whatever’s going on inside him. It’s not just the physical effect of everything he’s been through. What time did he wake up this morning?’

  ‘Eight-thirty.’

  ‘And he had a two-hour nap, and now it’s only eight-fifteen.’

  ‘I know. But maybe lots of sleep is the best thing for him.’

  ‘I think so. I think we just have to let all of this go at its own pace. Have to tell you, it’s very good that you and I are not at odds over this. A huge plus.’

  ‘I think so, too. Do you want tea?’ The electric jug had begun to sing.

  Luke glanced out the kitchen window in the direction of the pool. ‘People are still in the water, and a few have headed back to the hospital. It’s much quieter in here, isn’t it? Yes, let’s sit for a while.’

  Janey poured the tea and they both sat at the kitchen table, sharing many of the same thoughts, no doubt, but not many words. The refrigerator hummed. Laughter and conversation drifted up from beside the pool. The peace in here wouldn’t last. Soon, people would start bringing in the leftovers and the dirty dishes. CJ and Max would be ready for bed, too. But for now …