Which meant putting up with country life-putting up with the gossip and the people-and staying uninvolved. But, for heaven’s sake, he’d only been here for a few days and already he was involved up to his neck. He should ring Shanni and tell her their Sunday date was off.
‘I do not want to go on a family picnic with a baby and a gorgeous girl and her grandma and grandpa and her brothers and sisters…’
Yes, he did. Sort of…
He wanted to be there, he knew, but he wanted to walk away at the end, heart-whole and fancy-free.
But he was starting to think there was no way that could happen, and the thought scared him witless.
Friday and Saturday were endless. Even the witnesses and defendants in court seemed to know what was happening in his life and to be summing him up.
‘They think you’re turning the place upside down,’ Mary told him at the break of a long and boring case deciding whether a farmer’s cows were damaging an access road. ‘You arrive, we’ve had a hostage drama which will keep the district talking for years, the kindergarten teacher has broken off with her intended…’
‘He wasn’t her intended.’
‘John sure intended, even if Shanni didn’t. And now…the kids have spread it all over town that their sister’s in love with you.’
They’d asked for that with their kissing stunt in the car, Nick thought wryly, and grimaced.
‘I’m darned if I can see why everyone thinks it’s their business.’
‘This is Bay Beach,’ Mary said simply. ‘Everything’s everyone’s business. Speaking of which…’
‘Don’t…’
But she was unstoppable. ‘I meant to tell you before this case started… Bill Nuggins could quite easily drive his cows to the dairy across his back paddock instead of using the road. He’s using the road because the folk bought the place next door as a weekend home and he wanted to buy it himself. So now he likes the idea of them having to drive through cow dung.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ This was useful information but it wasn’t up to his clerk of court to give it to him.
‘Think nothing of it,’ she said blandly. ‘They’re nice people and he’s giving them a hard time so I thought you should know. I’m off after this, so I’ll see you Sunday at the picnic. Oh, and you’d best make your mind up about Shanni. She’s not one to tread water very long.’
What did she mean by that?
Nick didn’t know, and he couldn’t allow himself to care.
But he did care, and not just about Shanni. He finished work-advising the farmer to re-route his cows-took himself for a solitary walk on the beach and found his feet taking him to Harry’s home. It was bedtime, and Wendy greeted him as if she’d been expecting him.
‘He’s been waiting for you.’
‘I didn’t say I’d come.’
‘He knew you would.’
Nick figured he’d have to ignore that. Its implications were enormous. ‘How did the assessment go today?’
‘We’re giving him another two weeks,’ she said. ‘If he doesn’t settle by then…’ She left the words unspoken but Nick knew exactly what she was saying. If Nick hadn’t pulled off a miracle…
He shouldn’t be here!
But, despite his reservations, he sat by the little boy’s bed and read him a story about a Very Dirty Dog until Harry’s eyes closed in weariness and he slipped into sleep. There was nothing else to do. And Harry needed him…
‘He’s so little and his body’s still healing,’ Wendy told him as he emerged, surprised by how ready for sleep Harry had been. ‘He needs an afternoon sleep but he won’t let himself relax. He’s exhausted but he fights sleep every inch of the way.’
Why did that sound familiar? If he closed his eyes, then things could happen. Bad things. Nick remembered the sensation all too clearly. The world wasn’t a safe place to sleep in…
‘Shanni’s taking him clothes-shopping tomorrow morning,’ Wendy told him, closing the door on the sleeping child. She was carrying a little girl on her hip and there were two older boys making hot chocolate in the kitchen. Much as Wendy might care for Harry, there were limits to the personal attention he could get here, and Shanni must know it. ‘She’s picking him up at ten. Would you like to go with them?’
‘No.’ Nick shook his head. ‘I’m busy.’
But the next day it took an iron will to keep him reading legal briefs in his apartment when he knew they’d be shopping. He had to read the briefs-if he didn’t keep up with the legal world he’d turn into a country bumpkin-but Shanni and Harry were out choosing clothes without him and for some reason the thought was deeply disturbing.
This was crazy! He was going nuts.
One week down, he thought desperately. One hundred and three to go…
Beach day. Grandpa’s birthday.
Nick woke at six and spent an hour composing urgent messages telling Shanni why he had to go to the city right now. Then he went for a jog on the beach, thought of a few more messages, showered, composed a few more…
Combed his hair flat. City-lawyer style.
Picked up the phone. Put down the phone.
Headed back to the shower, washed his hair again. Dressed. Combed his hair roughly and allowed his curls to dry any which way.
Went to collect Shanni.
‘I was expecting you to cry off.’
‘Were you?’ He cast her a sideways glance. Shanni had been waiting on the verandah as he’d driven into the farmyard and she looked absolutely, breathtakingly lovely. She was simply dressed in a pink halter-neck top, the briefest of brief pink shorts and simple sandals. Her hair was sort of tousled and bunched on top. Her look was a million miles from that of any woman he’d dated in the city-and she looked a million dollars.
She wasn’t his style. No!
‘I was expecting myself to cry off,’ he admitted. ‘This isn’t my scene.’
She grinned, teasing. ‘Chicken.’
‘I’d rather be a chicken than a dead hen.’ He said it flippantly enough, staring at the road ahead, but she wasn’t fooled for a minute. She looked at him for a long moment as he steered back onto the highway, and the smile she gave him became sympathetic.
‘Hey, we’re not that scary,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t judges get to face murderers, gang lords and drug barons? What’s a family picnic compared to that?’
What indeed? So there was no reason at all why his insides were telling him this was much, much scarier.
Harry was waiting, too, standing stolidly on the front porch with Wendy, with a look on his face that said he hadn’t expected them to arrive at all. He didn’t smile when he saw them, but the look of resignation lightened just a little, and when Wendy walked him to the car he didn’t drag behind. He looked straight ahead, staring directly and unwaveringly at Nick-as if he was still expecting him to drive off fast.
Then he paused and looked at Nick’s car-seeing it for the first time. The lightness faded, fear flooding back.
‘I don’t want to go…’ he whispered.
‘Harry doesn’t like cars,’ Wendy said, allowing him no time for protests but scooping him up and lifting him into Nick’s minuscule back seat. ‘But sometimes it’s the only way to get where you want to go. Right Nick?’
‘Right.’ Nick turned and gave Harry a reassuring grin. There were two of them in this together, then. Two males who were both scared to death. And there was nothing for it but to go forward. Concentrate on something else but the fear…
‘Hey, I like your shirt,’ he told Harry, starting the engine and giving Shanni a sideways glance that begged for help.
He didn’t need it. His comment was, apparently, exactly the right thing to say.
‘Mmm.’ Harry put his chin deep down on his chest and tried not to look pleased.
‘We bought it yesterday,’ Shanni told him. ‘Harry and I went shopping for clothes, didn’t we, Harry? It’s a swimming T-shirt.’
‘So I see.’ The little boy’s shirt had fish an
d sharks and octopuses all over it. Nick approved absolutely. ‘It’s a fine choice for today.’
‘Your hair looks funny,’ Harry said.
‘Yeah.’ It did too-and it felt funny. Nick put his fingers up and raked his curls self-consciously. He felt exposed like this. Weird.
‘But it’s a fine choice for today, too,’ Shanni said solidly, and Nick looked across at her-and grinned. Maybe it didn’t feel so bad after all.
‘Nick’s shirt’s a bit boring, though,’ she told Harry. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘Hey…’
‘I’m wearing pink spots and you’re wearing fish,’ she went on, confining her conversation to the child in the back. ‘You’d think Nick could have found a shirt to wear that wasn’t white.’
‘It’s short-sleeved,’ Nick said, protesting. ‘I’m not wearing a tie. It’s fine.’
‘It’s white. Do magistrates have to wear white?’
‘Yes. Always.’ In truth, he owned nothing else.
‘I’ll bet they don’t,’ Shanni said thoughtfully. ‘What do you reckon, Harry? I think Nick would look better in pink spots. Do you?’
Silence.
Then, to Nick’s absolute astonishment, Harry chuckled.
At first he thought he’d imagined it. Shanni, too, looked as if she’d been struck by lightning as the child’s rich chuckle slowly formed and echoed around them.
They looked at each other. Nick and Shanni… Co-conspirators in lighting this child’s life.
And then, slowly, Shanni’s face broke into a smile that said all her Christmases had come at once-and then some.
‘Pink,’ she said, and if her voice was choked with emotion, then who could blame her. ‘I’m buying our Nick a pink-spotted shirt first thing tomorrow morning, and no one in the whole world is going to stop me.’
And, after that, there was nothing to do but enjoy the day and accept that things were out of his control.
Shanni’s extended family was enormous, with assorted cousins, aunts, nieces and nephews, boyfriends and hangers-on like himself, all equally welcomed into the chaos. There were kids and dogs and food and more food. There was beach cricket, swimming, sandcastles… Nick was drawn into the fray the minute he arrived.
He’d worn his swimming shorts under his clothes; his trousers and shirt were hauled from him by Rob the moment he arrived, half a gallon of sun lotion was slapped over him, Harry’s cast was tied in an enormous plastic bag to keep it clean, and he and Harry were declared official cricket umpires.
‘Magistrate work,’ Rob decreed, and Shanni chuckled and disappeared toward the water.
‘That’s right. Make him useful.’
There was part of Nick that wanted to follow Shanni-but she didn’t look back.
Then they were made sandcastle judges.
‘Biggest is not best, either,’ Shanni told him in passing as she headed to prepare the picnic. It was almost as if she was avoiding him.
And it kept happening.
After lunch Harry was scooped up and placed on a floating air-bed, the towrope was put in Nick’s hand and he was sent out to sea with his passenger. And Shanni, again, was elsewhere. The family assumed Nick was here with Harry-not with Shanni. Nick found the sensation odd. Not bad but…odd.
He was accustomed to women taking notice of him-to women sticking as close as Harry-but Shanni wasn’t sticking at all. To Shanni he seemed just one of the mob. She was taking Mary’s kids out to sea on their own air-beds, she was swimming races, diving, surfacing for air, laughing with delight whether she won or lost, and then setting up the next race.
Then she swooped in and made her own sandcastle-when he and Harry were batting at cricket, with Nick guiding the little boy’s hands.
Anything he was doing, she wasn’t.
It finally started to rile him. By mid-afternoon he was sure it wasn’t happening by accident. He could watch her all he wanted, but only from a distance. And she was so lovely…
‘You’ll have to move fast,’ Mary said into his ear, and he jumped. He’d been a million miles away. Harry was settled on a towel by his side, three-quarters asleep and leaning heavily against him in sleepy contentment. They were sated with sun, sand and picnic, and Nick was finding it as hard as Harry to focus.
But while Harry was finding it hard to focus on anything, Nick was simply finding it hard to focus on anything that wasn’t Shanni.
‘I…what do you mean?’ For some reason it was hard to get his voice working.
‘Just what I said.’ Mary plonked herself down on a towel and looked affectionately over at her sister. ‘There’s never much of a gap between Shanni’s men.’
‘I don’t know what business…’
‘There never is for any of the McDonald girls,’ Mary said smugly, ignoring his interruption and looking across at her husband with affection. ‘They’re always snapped up, by the most gorgeous of men. My Mike included.’
‘Mary…’
‘Take me, for instance,’ she said placidly. ‘I was married at nineteen and I could have been married a whole heap earlier if I hadn’t been very, very fussy.’ She motioned across to where Louise and her young man were building a sandcastle together. ‘I’m betting this little sister won’t be far behind-she and Alastair can’t keep their eyes off each other-and Hatty already has boyfriends even though she’s only fifteen. It’s only Shanni who’s slow on the uptake, and that’s because she can’t choose.’
‘I don’t…’
‘Eleven proposals,’ Mary said sagely, shaking her head at the wonder of it. ‘And that’s just the serious ones. It’s now starting all over again. Mum tells me, since the town found out John’s a thing of the past, the phone’s been running hot.’
‘Your sister’s very attractive,’ Nick said stiffly, and Mary chuckled.
‘She is and all.’
‘I don’t…’ he started, but she shook her head.
‘You do, so why not admit it?’ she said, rising and shaking the sand from her towel. ‘Ugh. I’m coated.’ And then she fixed Nick with a stern look. ‘But, whatever you do, do it fast. Because, as I said, there’s a queue.’
She would not go near him.
Shanni was aware of the eyes of her family on her-what had started out as a joke had them all so interested it was almost sickening. They were agog-and she wasn’t interested!
She wasn’t!
If only Nick wasn’t so…wasn’t so…
Different.
And that difference was impossible to define. In so many ways he was the same as other men she’d gone out with. He had a great grin-yes, it was wonderful. But other men had great grins. He was strong-he must have swum since toddlerhood-his lean figure had towed Harry effortlessly on his floating mat and he’d won every race with her various male cousins. But…other men were strong.
And tender… He was amazingly tender. The way he had lifted Harry, the way he had put sun lotion on the little boy and wiggled patterns down the child’s back, making him squeal in delight. The way he’d said something great about every kid’s sandcastle…
Other men were great with kids.
It was more than that. It was the way he just was. The way he was just…Nick.
She saw so much that she knew he didn’t want anyone to see: the way he looked at Harry, as if he couldn’t believe he was committing himself, the way he looked around at her family, as if he was hungering for something he’d never had, and yet wanted so badly, the way he looked at her…
The way she seemed to know what was right there in his heart.
It scared her rigid. And…all her family were watching.
She wasn’t interested. She wasn’t!
She avoided him like the plague.
It was almost dusk as they drove home. They’d eaten tea on the beach-Shanni’s grandpa had ordered pizzas, and one of the enduring images Nick would take home from this day was the pizza delivery boy hiking over sand-hills with a dozen or more boxes balanced precariously before him.
Then Shanni’s mum had produced a birthday cake, grandpa had blown out seventy candles, the birthday song had been bellowed by the entire family and the day had been declared officially over.
And it had left Nick feeling…empty? As if he’d been allowed to glimpse something that could never be his.
He’d half expected to go home alone with Harry, but as he’d put the little boy into the car-he was already fast asleep-Shanni had emerged from the crowd of her family and tossed her bag in beside him.
He was therefore deemed her chauffeur. According to Mary, he should feel honoured.
He didn’t. He just felt…more empty. As if he was being allowed more insight into what could never be his.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ She smiled at him as he started the engine. Her hair was escaping every which way from her crazy topknot, she was sand-coated, her nose was pink-tipped from too much sun-and he had an almost overwhelming urge to stop the car and kiss her.
He did no such thing. The emptiness was almost tangible. But emptiness was his life. It was what he was accustomed to, and he didn’t know how the heck to cope with anything else.
So he steered the car toward the town and he clenched his hands on the steering wheel and he said nothing.
For a few minutes she watched him in matching silence. ‘Nick, what’s wrong?’ she asked at last, and the teasing tone had become serious.
‘Nothing.’
‘When I say that to my kindergarten students and they say, “nothing,” it usually means they’ve just made a puddle.’
He grinned at that. ‘Miss McDonald, I can assure you that I haven’t made a puddle.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it.’ She looked at him for a long moment, questioning, and then gave a slight shrug and turned to look over her shoulder at the sleeping Harry. ‘He’s had a wonderful day,’ she said softly.
‘Yes,’
‘And you, Nick? You’ve had a good time?’
‘I…yes.’
‘I’m glad,’ she said warmly, probing no deeper. ‘My family think you’re great.’
‘Because I’m not John?’
A Child In Need Page 10