Ringer

by C. J. Duggan

  I butted out my smoke in an ashtray on the outside table. “Let her figure it out, mate, and she will. But in order to discover her destination, she’s going to need a way to get there.”

  Steve nodded. “Well, what’s say we make that our first mission then? Get the beast up and running.”

  I slapped Steve on the back. “Mate, we’re going to need some holy water and a priest to exorcise the evil from that car.”

  ***

  By lunchtime, we had returned on our quad bikes in a blaze of dust. After fixing Miranda’s car we tended to the stock in the far-end paddock. The caretaking was routine and manageable, and with each delegated task, Steve seemed to visibly relax as if mentally he was edging towards a break from the farm for a bit.

  We housed the bikes in one of the out buildings and headed around towards the shearers’ huts.

  “I’m just going to freshen up for lunch,” I said, veering off to the shower block.

  “No worries, see you in a bit.”

  Aside from wanting to wash the dust and sweat from the hot summer day, I hadn’t really wanted to walk past Miranda’s room with her dad. I could see from the shower block that her door was open, and I didn’t really know if she would feel comfortable if her dad and I stopped by for a chit-chat. I guess it was inevitably going to happen over lunch, but still, at least she would get the good news about her car, I thought, as I splashed cold water over my face and across the back of my neck. I stood clasping the sink, looking at my sodden complexion, dark circles under my eyes from no sleep, my skin darkened from my days in the sun.

  What if she did want to leave? After all, it’s what she wanted more than anything, and after last night, I am sure her objective would be to avoid me. I didn’t know how I would feel about that; the minute she slammed the door on me last night was the equivalent of throwing iced water over me. She was right, if I thought it was a bad idea, why did I stop her from leaving my room in the first place?

  Because I didn’t want her to go.

  But I also didn’t want to sleep with her and have her despise me in the morning, which didn’t really matter because, regardless, I’m pretty sure she felt the same anyway.

  I splashed more water on my face before it hit me; what if her dad told her how I had helped fixed her car, that I had suggested it? He was probably in her doorway right now telling her the good news.

  I grabbed the towel, drying my face, and broke into a jog back to the shearers’ huts; Steve wasn’t anywhere to be seen but her door was still open. I quickstepped up the steps and strode towards her door and without so much as a pause, walked into her room.

  “Miran …” I paused.

  The room was bare, more than just her not being there, but all her things were gone. The room had been stripped of bedding, it was a barren shell. I slammed my hand on the door jamb.

  “Shit.” Making my way up the verandah, my heart thumping in my chest as I went to investigate what I suspected, and to my surprise what I dreaded, I turned the corner and came up short.

  Her car was still in the drive.

  The tension melted in my shoulders; she was still there, but for how long?

  I didn’t have time to process the thought before my attention snapped to something else in the drive, something so completely unexpected I had to blink twice, thinking maybe fatigue was playing with my head.

  I stared at the unmistakable white Toyota Hilux for the longest moment.

  What the fuck was Sean Murphy doing here?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Miranda

  “Mum says you have to pack up and move back into the house.”

  Moira stood in the open doorway to my room, catching her breath, having delivered her message on the run.

  “What?”

  My heart thundered. Had someone seen me leave Ringer’s room in the early hours this morning, or even worse, had he said something? Did he want me away from him after I as good as attacked him in his sleep?

  Maybe they found out I went to the Commercial last night?

  Had Bluey found out about the car I borrowed off Mel, did they know about the barroom brawl? All these wild scenarios played in my head; I felt sick to my stomach.

  “W-Why?” I asked, sitting down on the edge of my bed.

  “I don’t know, Mum just got off the phone and asked me to tell you to move out.”

  Oh God!

  She knew about the Commercial; it was probably one of the local gossips telling her that I was hanging out with some young troublemaker on parole who had roughed up Tom Hilton last night. The very reason why I hated small towns.

  “I wouldn’t mess her around either, she seems like she is in a real flap,” Moira added helpfully, as she spun out of the doorway and jogged back to the house.

  Oh great, this was just great.

  ***

  My new focus of clearing out my gear from the shearers’ huts at least distracted me from the worry of what had happened last night, kind of, sort of, okay … so not really at all. As if I hadn’t had enough to worry about with the nervous anxiety of seeing Ringer in the light of day, worried how he would treat me, if he would speak to me, now I had to face off with my manic mother about lying to her last night. It was all too much, too complicated, and as I zipped up the last zipper on my case and lugged my belongings back to the house, I took in a calming deep breath and readied myself to face the music.

  I juggled my belongings, struggling to open the screen door, and making my way into the house, I dumped the heaviest of the bags inside the door.

  “Oh, Miranda, honey, can you put those in your room, please?” my mum called out as she frantically wiped down the kitchen bench. Okay, so this is not what I had expected, and witnessing my mum in a cleaning frenzy could only mean one thing.

  “Are we expecting someone?” I asked.

  Mum sighed, rubbing the back of her hand across her brow.

  “Max just called and said a few of his friends are going to drop in on their way to Geraldine, and asked if they could camp here for the night?”

  “Is Max with them?” Hope lined my voice.

  “No, he has to work,” Mum said, dunking her mop into a soapy bucket.

  So that had been the phone call and the reason behind Mum’s panic, and then the penny dropped.

  “So his friends will be staying in the shearers’ huts?” I asked innocently.

  “Well, they’re certainly not staying in the house,” Mum said, all wide eyed.

  “Of course not, we could all be murdered in our beds,” I quipped.

  “Just put your things away, please. They’ll be here for lunch, as if I don’t have enough to do.” Poor Mum attacked the kitchen floor, which already looked spotless to me; in fact, the entire house was pristine as always, and yet Mum would dust, polish and scrub every inch of it knowing we had company. I gladly picked up my bags and took them to my room, a sense of relief sweeping over me knowing that all this chaos had nothing to do with me, for once. And just as I went to walk down the hall …

  “Oh, Miranda,” called Mum.

  I turned to see her smiling. “Your father wanted to tell you, but he’s fixed your car; try and act surprised, okay?”

  Yep! Things were definitely looking up.

  ***

  The one real thing in my favour was knowing all too well that when Bluey Sheehan said he was leaving at a particular time, you could always add a sound four hours on top of that. The Sheehans were late for everything. So in an effort to escape my mother’s shouted demands for housework assistance, I gauged the time, and set off to sneak out the laundry door, descending the steps, leaving my mother’s shrill voice behind me. I cut across the paddock in the exact same direction I had come only mere hours before, climbing over several barbed fences including the very one where Ringer had snared his jeans. I smiled at the memory until my thoughts drifted to his bedroom. I didn’t want to think about how I had acted, how I had tasted him in the most intimate of ways. And the most disturbing
thing of all was, even after how the night had ended, the thought of Ringer still excited me. I don’t know exactly when I had gone from hating him to … not hating him. Maybe it was when he saved my boots from getting wet? Or how ridiculous he looked in my cardigan to prove a point, or his taunting insinuations in the shower block? Or maybe it was the way something dark pressed inside me when I saw Jenny’s hand on his thigh at the Commercial? Who knew? All I knew was it was enough to send me into his arms last night, it was enough for me to remember vividly what his mouth, touch and skin felt like against me. But probably the most telling sign of all was I would do it all over again, but with a different ending. That was the only thing I regretted. The part where I left. I now know that if I could have another chance, I would want to stay. I wanted Ringer. Possibly for more than just sex.

  I seemed to regret so many things in my short, wicked little life, and one of them was staring right at me: Mel’s Land Cruiser. If I learnt anything from last night, I could see that even after all this time I still acted on impulse, and that is where all my troubles stemmed from. I opened the driver’s door with a pained screech before sliding into the interior, the keys still in the ignition from last night, the perks of living in the middle of nowhere. Stilling for a moment, I grabbed the steering wheel with a deep sigh. I should never have borrowed Mel’s car, and of all the places to go, to the very one place where all my troubles had unravelled four years ago.

  “What must you think of me, Mel?” I whispered, recalling the innocent blue eyes of my trusting friend as she made me promise I wouldn’t drink and drive. Instead, I had been too hell bent on worrying about my own selfish distractions to concern myself with how leaving Mel in a cloud of dust would make her feel. I sat in her car, clenching the wheel with a white-knuckled intensity as I let the full brunt of guilt wash over me. I didn’t move for the longest time; the only thing that snapped me from my reflection was the distant, high-pitched whine of a dirt bike. I blinked, sending a watery trail down my cheeks. I sniffed, wiping them away, and glanced into the rear-view mirror of the car. Sure enough, there it was, a long line of dust approaching my way.

  My eyes welled with the flow of unshed tears, seeing Mel come to a stop next to the car. She killed the thrumming sounds of the bike, before flicking out the stand and pulling off her helmet, blinding me with an astonished smile when she noticed me in the car.

  “Ha! Looks like great minds think alike.” She laughed.

  It was all I needed to make my move. I pushed open my door and quick-stepped a determined line around the front of the car. Mel’s smile slowly faded catching the sight of my bloodshot eyes before I wrapped my arms around her in a bone-jarring hug. My shoulders vibrated with the heaves of my sobs, as I let the weight that had been lodged in my chest release into the arms of my friend.

  “Miranda, what’s wrong?” Mel’s panicked voice was muffled by my hair. She pulled away, clasping my cheeks, trying to look at me. “Good God, what is it? Are you okay? Is it the car?” Mel’s eyes were wide, catatonic almost with fear.

  Through my blubbering I managed a head shake, my chin trembling as I looked her, really looked at her. “I’m so sorry, Mel.”

  Mel’s brows narrowed in confusion. “What for?”

  I shrugged. “For everything: for what happened, for leaving you, for asking so much of you and never thinking about anyone else but myself.”

  Mel smiled. “Is that why you’re crying?” Her shoulders sagged in relief. “Seriously, is that all?”

  My mouth gaped. “What do you mean, is that all?”

  Mel sighed. “I am guessing this is all a rather delayed reaction,” she said with a wry smile. “It was a long, long time ago, Miranda. We were just young and dumb and in true fashion, young and dumb people make mistakes.”

  “Then why am I still making them?” I said quietly.

  I could feel Mel’s eyes on me. “Are we still talking about the car?” she mused.

  I straightened my back, shaking off the probing question. “I should never have asked for it, I honestly don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Well, you obviously weren’t.” Mel raised her brow. “The question is what, or who, were you thinking about?”

  Escaping Ringer.

  Oh, the irony: in order to escape him, I had run straight into him.

  I changed the subject, or at least tried to keep it in line. “Do you think you can forgive me?’

  Mel thought long and hard, which surprised me. I didn’t think she would be into making me suffer as it wasn’t in her nature, but perhaps that was what I was so used to taking advantage of.

  She crossed her arms and tilted her head. “I’ll forgive you under one condition,” she said.

  “Anything,” I replied without pause.

  “Tell me all about Ringer.”

  My mouth gaped open as I was genuinely stunned by the question.

  How did she know about him? How did she even know his name? And what made her think I had anything to do with him?

  I tried for cool and casual. “What about him?”

  Mel shrugged. “It’s not every day I overhear my dad threatening grievous bodily harm if he so much as lays a finger on Miranda Henry.”

  “Whaaat?” I breathed out.

  Mel chuckled. “So if he has gone against that threat, he must be pretty keen.”

  I could feel my cheeks flush crimson as I broke away from her knowing eyes.

  I heard Mel gasp. “Oh, my God! He so has. Wow! He is either very brave, or very …”

  “Stupid?” I said, lifting my eyes to meet hers.

  “Well, I was going to say smitten.”

  “Oh.”

  Mel got off the dirt bike, handing me the helmet, but pulled it back at the last second.

  “You have my full forgiveness, after you tell me everything.”

  I swallowed. “Everything?”

  “Everything!”

  And so I did; well, a sugar-coated version, to say the least.

  ***

  I had never realised how much of a weight I carried around from the unresolved guilt for so many years. Knowing that Mel harboured no ill feeling towards me, and my stupid actions, made me feel decidedly lighter. And now knowing what Ringer must have endured at the hands of his visit to Bluey had me thinking.

  Had that been the reason he rejected me?

  Or, like he said, I would only hate him in the morning. Is that what he thought? I guess I hadn’t given much of a reason for him to think anything else. I had been such a bitch to him. But, did he actually hate me?

  I had to let him know the truth. I had to tell him that I didn’t hate him, not at all. That in the light of day, I didn’t feel any regret, and if anything, if he wanted, well, I kind of wanted to do it again.

  My heart thundered at the thought, the realisation that what I felt was something deeper than just using him for my own selfish needs. I had been selfish for far too long and it only ended up in trouble. And maybe where I was headed was for trouble? But I knew that I had to find out, I had to know if, in the light of day, did Ringer regret last night? I had to know. Only then would the last of the weight be lifted from me, and only then would I be able to decide.

  Should I stay? Or should I go?

  ***

  I heard the sound of deep voices echo down the hall. It drew me from my bed and I paused, standing near my opened door.

  I heard the shrill laughter of my mother and I knew that was strange. Moira, no doubt, was elsewhere in the house, remaining in the shadows. I made my way out of the room and into the kitchen area.

  “Oh, Miranda, honey, come meet Max’s friends from Onslow.” My mum was all flushed and smiles as she stood before four men all seated around the kitchen island. The one nearest stood, towering over me, and offered his bear-like hand.

  “Max is a dark horse, he never mentioned he had a sister. I’m Sean.” He took my hand in a manly shake.

  “He must be ashamed of me.” I smirked.

&
nbsp; Sean grinned, stepping aside, as the other moved forward to shake hands.

  “Oh, I doubt that; I’m Stan.” A blue-eyed boy with a beaming smile.

  “Toby.” Tanned with striking dark eyes that looked like they housed a million mysteries.

  “Chris.” The more serious of the group, but his smile was warm and sincere.

  Silence swept across the kitchen that soon settled into awkwardness as Sean coughed. “Um, I hope we aren’t intruding?”

  “Oh no, of course not.” My mother waved off his words, which amused me no end; she was so overly accommodating I wouldn’t have been surprised if she shipped us all out to the shearers’ huts so they could have the house.

  “I hope you’re all hungry, we’re just about to dish up some lunch.”

  “Sounds great, Mrs Henry,” said Stan.

  “Oh, please, call me Penny.”

  Ugh, she was so embarrassing.

  ***

  “Moira, stop staring,” I whispered.

  “I am not.” She glowered.

  I continued to wash the salad at the sink. “Well, get a good look, because they won’t be here when you get back. Are you all packed?”

  “Nope.”

  “What? Mum is going to kill you.”

  Moira looked confused. “Why, we’re not leaving till the morning.”

  Wait. What?

  I turned to Mum. “Are you leaving in the morning?”

  “Well, we can’t just leave Max’s friends unattended,” she said quietly. “That would be a bit rude.”

  No, of course not. We wouldn’t want to abandon Max’s friends, but you were ready to abandon your daughter who had only just returned back to the family home after four years. Not that I would complain, the presence of Max’s friends and them staying for the night took the pressure off what I would endure being faced with here, alone with Ringer.

  The kitchen door opened and my heart stopped. In walked my dad … alone.