by Jennie Jones
Ethan picked up the napkin from his lap and held it in his hand on the table. ‘I hope I don’t appear rude by not answering your question, Charlotte, but I don’t talk about my father. Not in public.’
Now Julia’s interest perked up. She looked at Ethan, a query in her eye that had nothing, so far as Dan could tell—because it wasn’t there long—to do with any knowledge she might have about Ethan’s response. It was more like an understanding of a situation. Something long-lived. Something not spoken of. What had Charlotte done? What was he missing?
Julia picked up the bottle of merlot and topped up her wine glass. ‘You know, you should ask Charlotte to cook up some of her fancy pastries for your restaurant, Dan.’
‘Good idea,’ Dan answered quickly, because he didn’t like the feeling of discomfort around the table that Charlotte’s enquiries had produced. ‘Want to do that?’ he asked her with a smile, looking at her and willing her, silently, to catch his gaze.
She turned to him slowly and the sensitivity in her eyes tied his heartstrings into a knot. ‘Sure,’ she said, her voice soft but toneless. ‘Good idea.’
Whatever it was she’d done, she was shocked by the response, the atmosphere she’d created. She looked across at Ethan and smiled. A tender smile, a smile that asked forgiveness. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Maybe we’ll talk about it another time.’
She turned to Ira and asked him a question about his journey from Queensland as Ethan’s brow furrowed. He was still for so long Dan almost knocked his beer over on purpose to break the executioner’s look on his friend’s face but Sammy moved first, scraping her chair back and bumping into Ethan’s shoulder.
‘I’ll get coffees,’ she said chirpily. The shoulder bump woke Ethan from whatever darkened thoughts had been in his head. He straightened in his chair, caught hold of Sammy’s hand and kissed it. She patted his shoulder lightly.
A show of love and unity. Not unusual from either of them, but there was an unspoken thread of a story in this one. What had Charlotte done to Ethan by asking about his parents?
After late-night murmurs of thanks, kisses on cheeks for the women and handshakes for the guys, Ira set off down the drive towards the unit by the surgery and Julia got into her car, waving to Dan as he escorted Charlotte to her 4WD.
Charlotte unlocked the car, threw her handbag onto the passenger seat and stood quiet for a moment, her gaze following Julia’s sports car. When the taillights rounded the bend from the driveway onto Burra Burra Lane, she turned to Dan.
‘I’m a bit tired tonight.’
Code for not getting together. ‘Yeah, me too,’ Dan said as she got into the driver’s seat. ‘Drive safely.’ He caught the door as she was closing it. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
She paused, staring out of the windscreen, then sighed softly. ‘It’s hard to keep secrets in this town, isn’t it?’
Dan bent to her. She’d said that once before. ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s scaring you?’ She had locks on her doors and windows. ‘What are you running from?’
She looked at him, her eyes wide and vulnerable. ‘Nothing. I’m trying to get somewhere.’
‘Do you want to tell me?’ He should have insisted on driving them both tonight. That way he could have kept her at his side. Her fear was becoming his. ‘It has to do with Ethan.’ Pointless making it a question, everyone had felt the undercurrent around the table after her keen questioning.
She nodded, turned it into a shake of her head. ‘I don’t know.’
He nudged the door open wider and hunched down, on eye level with her. ‘We’ve got a thing going on, Charlotte.’ He indicated both of them. ‘You and me. Don’t you think I’d listen?’
‘I won’t bring you into anything.’
‘I’m not asking you to, I’m saying—why won’t you tell me what your problem is?’
She shook her head, decisively this time. ‘I made a mistake tonight, I’m sorry about it but I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘I know about the bad dreams you have.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The night before we got together, when I took you home.’ She sat as though trying to hold herself together. Fragile and lost. ‘And you talked about a monster.’
No response, apart from her lips compressing. Dan stood and clenched his hands to fists so he wouldn’t drag her out of the vehicle and pull her against him. ‘I want you to talk to me. Really talk to me.’ She was going to drive off alone and she didn’t want to see him later. She’d be in the house on her own with some nightmare hovering in her mind, making her sleepless and restless while he sat in his back room in the bar, awake and listening—in case she changed her mind and knocked on his door. In case Lucy barked. In case she needed him.
She shook her head and stared ahead, hardly breathing.
Stubborn as all hell. Dan took hold of the door. ‘Drive carefully. I’ll be right behind you.’
She nodded, pulled the door closed, fired the engine, hit the headlights and drove down the driveway, leaving him with worry in his gut, tension in his shoulders and a heart full of something he hadn’t sampled before. Helplessness.
Charlotte parked the 4WD in the carport behind the B&B, got out, beeped the lock and walked swiftly to the laundry door. She didn’t look as Daniel drove his car down Main Street, halted when he reached her house, then turned into the alley at the back of the bar.
Her hands trembled as she took the keys from her bag. Lucy padded forwards from her bed and waited patiently as Charlotte struggled with the lock on the flyscreen. Stupid lock had jammed. Like her brain tonight.
Had Ethan known about Charlotte’s mother and what happened to her? Had he known about Charlotte? If he had, and if he was her half-brother, he’d ignored her. He hadn’t come forwards to claim her from the foster care the authorities placed her in.
Now she’d never know. She could no longer ask anything of anybody. She’d spoken out of turn and too soon. Couldn’t swallow her words or take back her imprudent outburst. She wouldn’t be in Swallow’s Fall long enough for the impact of lost friendship to hurt, but she had a feeling the void would follow her for the rest of her life.
Whether she deserved the desolate feeling inside her or not, tonight, just tonight, she wanted to be wrapped in the comfort and safety of Daniel’s arms. All night.
Through the dream and into the daylight.
Fifteen
Dan leaned his elbows on the bar and re-read the article from the British newspaper. This one had been written about a month before Charlotte had won over the big execs, and was giving him cause for real concern.
Forsters have hinted a satisfactory conclusion is imminent. Their lawyers, McStone & Hulmes, say the information they have discovered on Miss Simmons was found, not by a deliberate act to seek the derogatory, but by chance.
Although they have not put out any statement regarding the information, this reporter did discover the veiled—and to this reporter’s mind, threatening—reasons why they are attempting to force Miss Simmons’ hand in this manner.
Dan’s unease heightened. They’d certainly thrown the works at Charlotte and he understood now that she hadn’t won anything: she’d lost her home and a part of herself, and had been left with nothing but a healthy bank balance. A glamorous yacht without a mooring. Maybe that’s why she was so tense all the time and hadn’t let anyone know how wealthy she was. The reporter who’d written these articles appeared to be a journalist with a conscience, but Dan couldn’t imagine what the big execs might have found on Charlotte and the article wasn’t giving him any answers.
Miss Simmons’ history should remain her own. It is neither a threat to Forsters nor any business ventures she is currently undertaking or intends to undertake. It is merely a reminder to society that we play hard, but not always by the rules.
Some might say this attempt to undermine Miss Simmons is the big boys’ way of manipulating a situation by bullying but this is business and business is a co
nfidence game. Regardless of Miss Simmons’ personal and surely private past, this is a typical business-playground scenario—but one that might hold everlasting or at least long-term consequences for the small kid on the block.
The scenario was scaring the daylight out of his morning. More than losing her home and lifestyle, the article suggested she’d lost her childhood. This is where the monster came in and the nightmares. But what the hell did it have to do with Ethan? She’d been in shock when she’d first met Ethan on the walkway, and Dan had turned on her, thinking she was after his friend. Man, his blow must have been a tough one for her to take. He’d goaded her, pushed her. She’d dealt with it, hadn’t backed down. A witty comment, a couple of self-defence moves and a bear hug later and she was in his arms. Making love and laughing. Sighing with him.
Dan’s heart seemed to stop beating as the woman who’d given him such concern he’d hardly noticed night turning to day came through the doors of the bar, a smile on her face and a bounce in her step. ‘Got your coffee machine up and running?’ she asked, hand on the opened door.
Dan nodded, closed the lid on his laptop and slid it beneath the bar.
She breezed in, the door clunking closed behind her. ‘Good. I could do with one. Got a lot to do today.’
Whatever had happened last night, she wasn’t going to talk about it. Looked like she wasn’t even willing to remember it. ‘You had a good night’s sleep?’ he asked.
‘Mmm. Didn’t you?’ She grinned. ‘Or did you miss the sex?’
Pieces of information from the article he’d read filtered into his mind fast. Jesus. That was it: the bad thing in her past. Someone had hurt her. Is that why she’d taken self-defence classes? Alone and looking after herself, and doing a damned good job, after someone had ruined something in her life. Nobody—nobody— messed with his friends. Some guy, probably. He couldn’t bear the thought she’d been abused. He’d had this woman in his arms and some guy … He didn’t want to visualise it, couldn’t see how any man could have—
He took a breath deep enough to push the wrath away and settle the shock to simmer level. If the man was still around, Dan resolved to find him. And if the man had put physical pressure on his girl, in any way, Dan would want to kill him. And might even do it.
When the blood came back to his head she was halfway across the bar, heading for the staircase at the far end, inside the family restaurant area.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
‘Why don’t you show me your apartment space and I’ll tell you my new plans for the B&B.’
He’d renovated the staircase simply because it sat in full view of customers, but he’d put a locked gate across it so that kids and nosey punters couldn’t wander up the stairs.
‘New plans?’ he asked, joining her and unlocking the gate with a key he kept hidden in a small wall cupboard.
‘Yes.’
He led her up the carpeted stairs, hand on the polished wooden rail, their footsteps almost silent on the thick navy-blue carpet with plaid-patterned edges. ‘When are you planning on opening up for business?’ he asked.
‘Haven’t got that far in my plans.’
‘Like I said, I might be bringing in a couple of guys soon who could be your first customers.’
‘Who?’
‘Work guys. Plumbers and electricians.’ At the top of the stairs, he let her go before him. She made her way through the fallen partitions, weaving between plaster boards until she got to one of the windows.
Dan followed, and pulled her into his arms, moving them away from the window into a darker space beneath the rafters. It was good to have her next to him again. He’d missed her last night, no question and no argument, and he wasn’t referring to sex. He’d missed Charlotte, the person. ‘Can I say how good it is to be cuddling with you again? Thought I’d messed up last night.’
‘Did you really think I fancied Ethan?’
Dan’s hold on her loosened a little. Was she going to open up? ‘You’re a sharp shooter,’ he said, with a grin. ‘Where’d you learn that?’
She smiled and slipped from his arms. ‘From Mrs J.’ She laughed, spreading her arms and twirling around in the box-shaped area that would become bedroom number three. ‘This is going to be a huge apartment once you’ve knocked the rest of the original bedroom walls down.’
‘I like space.’
‘Three hundred and fifty square metres’ worth?’
A yearning to spill the truth rose in his chest and thickened his throat. He closed his eyes for a moment but all he saw was the B&B at the beginning of Main Street with a For Sale sign on the front lawn and a rush of customers coming in and out of Kookaburra’s.
‘By the way, the twins spoke to me about their predicament.’
Dan opened his eyes.
‘I presume you know about it?’ she asked.
‘Yeah.’ He nodded. He’d think about how to tell her what he was up to with the hotel once he’d given consideration to how she could keep her B&B running. Then he’d tell her the truth, followed quickly by a plan. So fast she wouldn’t have a chance to look shocked and hurt and he wouldn’t need to feel like Brutus. ‘I think Ted’s sorting out a lawyer for them.’ He paused. ‘Guess he might not have got around to that since he’s been unwell.’
‘I’ve got the names of two lawyers. I’ll give them to you as well as to the twins. So you can keep an eye on things.’ She frowned. ‘What is wrong with Ted?’
Daniel shrugged. ‘It’s funny but it’s not.’ He paused for a second time. She was giving him the names of the lawyers for what reason? In case she forgot or something?
‘Ted?’ she asked, eyebrows rising.
Dan gave her the rundown on the space study and the aliens. ‘It’s relatively harmless, but we need to keep an eye on him,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘It’s good to see you smile like that, Charlotte.’ She turned and sauntered to another window, leaving his arms aching with the want of holding her again.
‘Has anyone considered it might be because Ted is bored?’ she asked, drawing a box shape in the grime on the window. ‘He runs the store and looks after the gavel but he must be bored stupid. He’s got brains. Look at that letter he wrote me.’ She added an inverted V-shape to the top of the box.
‘I wrote the letter,’ Dan reminded her.
‘You typed it. Ted dictated it. The wording is all Ted.’
‘True—but I put in more pleases and thank yous than he dictated.’
‘There’s quite a bit the people in town could do to help themselves, you know.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ve been thinking …’ She drew four squares and a rectangle inside the box with the V-shaped roof. A house. She scrubbed it out with the palm of her hand, turned to him and wiped her hands together, cleaning them of about eighty years’ worth of dirt. ‘I’ve got a lot of information on a number of the committee members now. Like Mrs J. How she lost her husband. Lily and her knuckling down together and making do. It must be hard on them. And Mrs Tam’s all alone.’
‘Yeah, but they’re doing okay.’
‘They could do better though. What this town needs is more tourists. They also need more recreation and community entertainments. The type of things that bind them but also allow them to grow in their own way. In their own time.’
‘Well, we’re certainly doing a lot of talking this morning.’ He crossed the space but stopped before he reached her. Didn’t want her walking away from him again if he tried to take her in his arms—that would be one rejection too many in a twelve-hour period. ‘You been thinking all night, Red?’ It was good to use the nickname again; it built a walkway over the gap between them, taking them back to yesterday, before the dinner party.
She shrugged. ‘I’m just saying it needs to be their idea.’
‘You should put it to them.’
‘They wouldn’t listen to me.’ She raised her face to him. ‘I was wondering if you’d like to take Lucy.’
‘What?’<
br />
‘She follows you everywhere.’
‘She’s yours, Charlotte. You found her. You rescued her, why would you want to give her away?’
‘She’s a community soul. I’ve seen her pop in and out of every shop in Main Street.’
‘So keep her and just let her roam a bit.’
Charlotte shook her head. ‘I’ve got a lot to do with the B&B and don’t think I can give her the attention she needs. You take her.’
‘No.’ He moved towards her. This friendly little chat was scaring him and he had to get his hands on her.
‘Oh, and one last thing,’ she said, holding her hand out, palm up, to stop him. ‘I’ve decided to keep the weatherboard pink.’
Dan stilled.
‘You can tell the committee.’
‘You’re backing down?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I see sense in it. Why spoil what they already have? They want it pink, they can have it pink.’
Dan sank his weight on his hip. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I’m seeing sense.’
‘Let me talk to them about the weatherboard. I’ll bring them around to yellow. I’ll even help you paint it.’
She smiled. ‘Turn it to a mushroom colour, then hit them with honeyeater yellow.’
‘It took me seven months to go from frog-green to navy. I reckon it’ll take the same timeframe to go from pink to yellow.’
‘That would keep us busy.’
She gave him her cheeky smile. The impish one he found impossible to resist. Yeah, he could take seven months with Red. He could probably take a lot longer.
‘How are you getting on with the committee?’ she asked. ‘With your apartment plans?’
‘I’m working on a way through.’
She turned to the window. ‘Word around town is you took delivery of seven toilets and seven showers.’
‘Yeah.’ He put his arms around her, bear hugging her. ‘It was an error in the order.’ She didn’t move from him. He kissed the side of her head. ‘My handwriting, I suppose. They mistook a one for a seven.’ God, it was good to hold her.