Winds of Change (Hearts of the Outback Book 4)

by Susanne Bellamy

  “Jax. After your father left, you and I agreed we would never lie to one another. Now is not the time to break your promise.”

  He sucked in a breath and pushed to his feet. “You’re right. Sorry, Mum. It’s just—dammit.”

  “You don’t like giving in to anything, do you, darling.”

  Grimacing as he pushed through the pain shooting up and down his leg, he stepped towards her and draped a heavy arm over her shoulders. He needed her physical support until he mastered his body again. “It will get better given time. I’m—on medical leave.”

  “Does that mean I’ll still have the pleasure of your company when I get back from Sydney?” Her face lit up with joy.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “Two weeks. When you texted you were coming home for a short break, I thought you meant for a long weekend. Perhaps I can reschedule—”

  “Don’t. I’ll be here when you get back.” Jax couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to spend more than a handful of days with his mother since before his first posting to Afghanistan. And while it was good to be home, he’d have preferred it not to happen through injury.

  She patted his chest and blinked away a suspicion of tears. “Come and eat breakfast. By the way, your phone rang.”

  “My phone?” He looked at the bedside table where he usually tossed his mobile. Unable to remember when he’d last used it, he frowned.

  “You left it in the kitchen last night. I didn’t answer it but I heard the message. It was an army captain wanting you to call him as soon as possible.” She led the way into the kitchen and took two plates from the warming oven. “Eat up, darling. I don’t imagine you’ll cook much for yourself while I’m away.”

  “I can cook.”

  “Yes. Baked beans on toast and a steak on the barbeque—unless the army sent you on a cooking course you haven’t mentioned?” Her eyebrows rose and she paused as she pinned him with a maternal, all-seeing, all-knowing look.

  Reluctantly, he shook his head.

  She cut into her poached egg and spread the yolk over her toast. “I thought not. I’ll leave a few meals in the freezer. You can reheat them when you need a break from steak.”

  ##

  Jax watched his mother reverse her dual cab ute out of the driveway as he moved the rental car and parked beside the front kerb. Tomorrow he’d see about returning it. He limped back inside the house and sank onto the lounge. Lifting his injured leg, he absentmindedly massaged his left thigh as he listened to the message on his phone.

  Who the hell was Pertwee?

  He pressed the button to return the missed call.

  A pleasant female voice asked him to whom he wished to speak. “Major Heathwood returning a call from Captain Pertwee.”

  “I’ll put you through to Public Relations. One moment please, Major.”

  Public Relations? With a growing sense of unease, Jax waited as a pre-recorded male voice extolled the benefits of joining the Armed Forces. At last, he heard a click and the pre-recorded advertisement was cut off mid-sentence.

  “Major Heathwood, thanks for returning my call so promptly.”

  “Captain.” Jax left the next move to Pertwee. He’d never had business with the public relations arm of the service and could think of no good reason why they wanted to speak with him now. Only years of deep-seated self discipline could motivate him to return the call. He didn’t want to speak to anyone.

  “Sir, we’ve had an unusual request for assistance and you’re ideally placed to fill it.”

  “I’m on extended leave.”

  “In Mt. Isa, sir. It’s perfect. A big movie company is about to begin filming up there and has asked for an expert army advisor. Command has green-lighted the request.”

  Jax bit back a groan as he joined the dots. What were the odds of another film company working in the remote northwest at the same time as Willa? His mother would claim fate or the cosmos was at work. But Jax knew that karma was a bitch.

  A headache started throbbing behind his eyes and he pinched the bridge of his nose as the captain waited for his response.

  “Sir, it’s going to star—”

  “Willa Raynolds. Yes, I know, Captain. The answer is no.”

  A resounding no.

  Spending time with Willa . . .

  He didn’t want to. He wanted to tuck inside himself. There was so much going on inside his fucked-up mind that normal interaction for an extended period was beyond him. Yesterday had been intense and he’d managed only by feigning sleep for a chunk of time as Corporal Preston drove them west. A series of days working with Willa was out of the question.

  Willa had never allowed him to run away from the tough stuff in his life and he doubted much had changed, at least in that respect. She would push him for answers when his leg didn’t co-operate. Talking about his injury would lead to questions about how he sustained it. He refused to allow memories of that mission to invade his daylight hours as well as his nights, which meant talking with Willa about his past was off limits.

  “With respect, sir, your involvement in the project isn’t optional. The director has agreed to make two versions of a recruiting advertisement for the services free of charge in exchange for your expertise.”

  “And my medical leave?”

  “They aren’t expecting you to be active, sir. Your involvement is in a purely advisory capacity, with the benefit of working with Willa Raynolds. Sir, if I could have swung it, I’d have offered myself. Every rank will be jealous of your assignment.”

  Jax closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Pity young Preston wasn’t more experienced or he’d have suggested the corporal from Cloncurry but if the powers that be had decreed it, the plum assignment was his cross to bear. Accepting the inevitable, he opened his eyes. “Very well, Captain. Email details to me, along with my orders.”

  “Good luck, sir.”

  He disconnected the call and stared through the window. High in the clear blue sky a vapour trail grew towards the northwest. Wishing himself anywhere but here, Jax checked the time before slipping the phone into his shirt pocket. Was ten in the morning too early for a hard drink?

  ##

  Willa tapped her feet in time with the tune running through her head and set her script on the table at her side. Confident she had the dialogue and blocking down pat, she picked up her bottle of water and drank deeply. Los Angeles could be hot but was nothing compared with the dry heat of an Australian outback summer day.

  Two days into filming and this was her first break. Waiting for lunch, she watched from afar as the dolly crew set up an outdoor scene in the nearby gully and felt a stab of guilty pleasure that she wasn’t needed yet. When she’d walked through her scene earlier in the morning, the gully walls had magnified the heat and induced buckets of sweat. And when she tried the fancy sequence of moves Brodie had asked for, her prop gun slipped through her fingers.

  Laurie had walked with her back to the cast tent, red-faced and frazzled. “Shoot me now. If you’d told me before I accepted this job how draining the heat can be, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

  “Grab a bottle of water, Laurie. It’s important to stay hydrated. And join me in the shade as soon as you can.”

  “You betcha, doll. Back soon.”

  Willa dragged her hair tie off and ran her fingers through sweaty hair. Her body had forgotten how enervating the end of summer in the outback could be. Was this what overseas deployments had been like for Jax; all enveloping heat that built up, and battered the body relentlessly and fried the brain? She couldn’t imagine marching and fighting under such conditions.

  Despite the water she’d just swallowed, the back of her throat was drier than the desert. Tipping her head back, she drank again before slumping in the canvas chair and letting her hair hang loose over the back panel. Eyes closed, she groped for her script, and used it to fan her overheated face and chest.

  “You’ve gone soft living overseas, Willa.”

&nbs
p; Jax!

  She jumped out of the chair and spun around. For the second time in three days, her imagination had conjured him from her subconscious. Dressed in neatly pressed fatigues, he looked cool and in control. She glanced down and marvelled; even his boots had only a thin layer of red dust covering them. He looked more of a soldier than the actors dressed in camo gear lounging at the far end of the tent.

  She tipped her head trying to assess why. It was in the way he carried himself, radiating power and confidence and—her gaze met his and her heartbeat increased.

  The look in his eyes.

  She’d always loved his eyes—green with flecks of amber like summer leaves. And filled with heat and desire when he’d looked at her back in their dating days. But now, there was an emptiness where once there had been connection. How had she imagined he was the same Jax she’d loved and lost?

  He was a combat soldier through and through. A stranger.

  His gaze assessed her from head to foot.

  Conscious of her camo costume, she stuck her hands in her pockets and aimed for nonchalance. Maybe he’d decided to play nice and come out for a look at her work. The least she could do was play along. “What are you doing within cooee of a film site, Jackson Heathwood? I thought you’d avoid such frivolous activity like the plague.”

  “Believe me, Willa, if I had any say in the matter, I wouldn’t be here.” His eyes narrowed as his gaze passed over the group of actors and dismissed them with a flare of his nostrils. Muscles corded and rippled as he folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the centre pole of the tent. He was a big man but it was his presence that filled the space and distracted her.

  At last, his words registered. So he wasn’t here to play nice. What had she expected? She cringed as she remembered her naïve declaration of love for her biker boyfriend. Ten years ago he’d left her waiting in vain for him at the bus stop after an angst-ridden teenage argument.

  “Do something meaningful with your life, Willa, like you told me to. I’ve been accepted by the army. Come with me.”

  “But I’ve got an audition, Jax. On the Gold Coast.”

  “That’s only make believe stuff, not real life. You said you love me. If you love me, you’ll come with me.”

  “And if you love me, you won’t ask me to give up my dream for yours.”

  “I’m going, Willa. I have to. If you change your mind, meet me at the Greyhound bus stop. Sunrise tomorrow.”

  Head over heels in love, when it came to the crunch, she’d chosen Jax.

  He’d chosen the army and left town without her.

  By the time her father pulled up at the bus stop in the family station wagon, her eyes were red and her heart, broken. Why hadn’t Jax loved her as much as she loved him?

  But she’d landed a place in the prestigious acting school and learned to hide her broken heart. Rising to the heights following in the footsteps of other Aussie actors had eased the pain of loss. And now Jax was back in her sphere and more scathing about her make believe world than ever. How could she be naïve enough to think he’d come to see her work?

  “So if you’re not here to catch up with me then—” Brodie’s problem with the missing advisor and her flippant remark about using local talent had come back to bite her.

  Her mouth dried as the truth hit her like a proverbial runaway train. She curled her fingers into her palms until her fingernails dug into her skin. “You’re not—you can’t be—”

  The tent flap rose and Brodie entered. “Ah, Willa, I see you’ve met our replacement army advisor. Thanks to your suggestion about using local personnel on leave, we’ve got Major Jackson Heathwood’s assistance for the duration of his leave. Major, this is Willa Raynolds, star of Ronson’s Raiders.” From his parallel universe, Brodie beamed at her. A fragment of her mind registered his complete lack of awareness of her body language.

  Some director he is.

  But Jax knew. She saw it in the flare of awareness in his eyes before he held out his hand. She shook it automatically.

  “It will be interesting working with you—Miss Raynolds.”

  Chapter Five

  Silhouetted against a fiery sunset sky, the ragged line of soldiers filed along the top of the ridge above the gully. A dolly grip rolled the seated cameraman along tracks laid on the opposite side, starting ahead of the actors before panning across the group led by Willa in her role as Jackie Ronson.

  Jax shook his head and strode up to the director. “Didn’t you say these blokes are supposed to be fighting a guerrilla war?”

  Brodie closed one eye and peered through the frame of his hands at the scene being filmed. “Indeed they are. Great image, isn’t it, silhouettes and setting sun. Strong, powerful, active.”

  “Stupid. If they’re meant to have survived a massive invasion, escaped into the outback and set up a resistance group, they’re not going to be stupid enough to show themselves. An enemy would pick them off the first day and that would be the end of Ronson’s Raiders.”

  “You’re missing the point, Major. I want to show the tired band of brothers led by the indomitable Jackie Ronson, unflagging and determined to continue in spite of the loss of their second-in-charge lieutenant. I want—”

  “”You asked for an army advisor, presumably to create some authenticity in this movie of yours. And I’m telling you that real soldiers don’t do that. Guerilla tactics require soldiers to remain hidden. They’d keep to the shadows; make use of geographical features to disguise their movements. They use hit and run tactics and—”

  “The raid will be filmed later, Major. This is their return from a successful but sad raid in which one of their number has fallen. Emotions are mixed, pride that they’ve taken out an enemy base alongside anger and sadness at the loss of a mate.” Brodie spared a glance in Jax’s direction. “Are you confused by how we’re filming it out of sequence?”

  “No. But I’m wondering why you’ve asked for an advisor if you’re not prepared to take my advice.”

  “A little dramatic licence, that’s all it is. If we hid them in this landscape, how interesting would that be? Realism doesn’t make very good footage.” Brodie turned back to the cameraman. “Got it?”

  At the affirmative reply, he called a halt to filming for the day. “Dinner for all you good people. Sweets, a word with you.”

  As the director slung an arm across Willa’s shoulders, Jax turned his back on the set and headed towards the vast emptiness of the ancient landscape. If he kept walking, he could lose himself in the red heat. He could be alone with his nightmares, with the voices playing on a continuous loop inside his head. He could—

  “Major Heathwood—Jax?” An upbeat female voice, slightly out of breath, cut through his introspection.

  He half turned, surprised he’d allowed himself the basic error of staring at the blindingly bright sunset. How had that happened? It said a lot about his depression that a rookie mistake had overwhelmed years of training. A feminine outline slowly resolved into—“Laurie, isn’t it?”

  Even white teeth gleamed as she smiled. “Yes. I’m the production assistant. The crew is heading back for a celebratory drink and a few of us will take a look at the first rushes. Would you like to join me?”

  “No, thanks. I have to get back to the Isa.”

  Laurie’s smile faded a little before she stretched it wide again. “Maybe tomorrow night then. We’re going to find somewhere nice for dinner. Hey, you’re local. Maybe you could tell us where to go?”

  “I haven’t lived here in years. Sorry.”

  “Okay, I’ll interrogate Willa then.”

  “She hasn’t lived here for ten years either.”

  Laurie’s gaze narrowed and she nodded as though she’d just worked something out. “Of course, you both grew up here so you must know one another already. Well, that’s really interesting.”

  Dammit. Avoiding awkward conversations was part of the reason he hadn’t intended to acknowledge the connection with Willa. Could
he throw the assistant off the track? “You realise the Isa has a population of twenty odd thousand, don’t you?”

  “Are you saying you don’t know Willa? Come on, Jax. It’s just hit me the way she looks at you. You have a history, don’t you? What was it? Did she dump you?”

  “Excuse me, Laurie. Goodnight.” Keeping a tight rein on a flare of temper, he bypassed straggling groups heading towards the canteen, and skirted the actors returning their guns to the props manager. He gritted his teeth at the all-too familiar and unwelcome tightening in the muscles of his left thigh. Each step was an exercise in determination. If he could reach his mother’s ute and stretch his leg along the seat, and apply some massage before it seized up, maybe he’d be able to sleep tonight.

  As if nightmares are preferable to pain.

  He turned down the long side of the marquee. With the car park in his sights, Willa called his name.

  Her booted feet thumped, raising puffs of dirt as she jogged to catch up with him. “Jax, come and join us.” Smudges of soot and a streak of dirt—both makeup effects—couldn’t detract from her bright smile. She walked backwards alongside him and, when he didn’t stop walking, put her hand around his elbow and tugged. “Jackson Heathwood, stop right now.”

  He stopped, drew a deep breath and stared straight ahead. “What, Willa?”

  “And I see you’re as charming as you were at the airport. So a couple of nights sleeping in your own bed wasn’t enough?”

  He ground his teeth to distract himself from the throbbing in his leg. “No. It wasn’t. What do you want?”

  “To see you smile, Jax, like you used to.” She reached up and stroked his jaw with soft fingers.

  The light touch, no more than a butterfly brushing across his skin, distracted him in unexpected ways.

  Pleasant?

  The powerful urge to pull Willa into his arms and press her softness into his body was so much more than that vanilla term.

  The ache in his leg moved north and morphed into a primal need. Full on lust was more like it. Their relationship had never been soft or pleasant. Or easy. Willa had challenged more than just his attitude. She’d inspired his passion and returned it in truckloads.