by JD Nixon
“On the front of my leg because I sleep on my side or back,” I managed to squeak, eyes still firmly closed.
His fingers touched me again as he adjusted the sheath. He cleared his throat. “How’s that?” he asked.
“A little to the right, please.”
“How can you tell? You have your eyes shut.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
“I can feel it.” I didn’t want to look at him; I didn’t want to think about him.
He moved my knife to the right and then his weight on the bed shifted. “Tessie, look at me.”
I opened my eyes to find he’d moved closer and now had a hand either side of my head, leaning down over me so our noses almost touched. For a heart-stopping moment, I thought he was going to kiss me, and I wasn’t sure what I would do.
But of course he didn’t. And I didn’t know if the emotion that flooded me when I realised that was relief or disappointment.
“I want you to keep your door completely open tonight. You’re in no state to look after yourself, and I want to be able to hear everything just in case Red Bycraft decides to pay a visit. Okay?”
I nodded, eyes glued to his.
“I would have been happier sleeping in this room with you, but I imagine that would cause you all sorts of problems with Jake.”
I nodded again fervently. It sure would.
He stared down at me for a few moments, searching my face, that crease appearing again between his eyebrows. “Are you okay? You seem a little . . . agitated.”
“I’m okay,” I whispered.
After further puzzled scrutiny of my features, he stood up, and I scrabbled under the blankets, worried that my inappropriate thoughts showed too clearly on my face.
“How about we get these out of the way?” he said, moving my shoes to the side of the room. He picked up my equally carelessly discarded dress, handbag and underwear and draped them over the arm of the room’s chair. He inspected the room, trying to spot any other hazards.
“Night, Tessie,” he said softly and his warm lips pressed on my forehead.
“That’s a boring kiss,” I mumbled without thinking, muffled in the blankets with only my face poking out. My eyes were closed and I was half-asleep, brain fully occupied with trying to stop everything from spinning around.
He laughed softly. “You want me to kiss you like Jake would?”
My eyes shot open. “No . . . yes . . . wait, no. No! Um . . . what was the question?”
He laughed again. “Goodnight, Tessie.”
“Night, Finn.”
He paused at the door “What did you say?”
“I said ‘night, Sarge’.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“You said Finn.”
“I didn’t.”
“I heard you.”
“You didn’t because I didn’t say it.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Whatever. Go away, I’m tired.”
“You did say it.”
“Who cares if I did or didn’t?”
“Me, that’s who.”
“Well, you’re the only one.” I rolled on my side to face the door and one of my pillows fell off the bed. “Aw.”
He walked over and picked it up, handing it back to me. I clutched it to my chest.
“Sarge?”
“Mmm?”
“You called me beautiful before.”
“Did I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t,” he teased with a smile, looking down at me.
“You did,” I insisted tiredly. “Why?”
He strolled to the doorway again and turned off the light. I could see his silhouette but not his face.
“Because you are,” he said and turned and left.
Chapter 20
With the comforting softness of the pillow clasped in my arms, I quickly drifted off to sleep. But during the night I dreamed.
I was in the public bar at The Flying Pigs, standing on the stage, about to commence a karaoke song. The crowd had called out for me by name, so I felt pretty special and appreciated, excited at the opportunity to entertain others doing something I loved.
The lighting was unusually dim in the room, my audience barely visible, nothing but an amorphous mass moving and chatting below me. Only one person was distinguishable through the gloom – the Sarge. He stood off to the side, not mingling with the others, his arms crossed and his eyes wary.
The music started and I sang. About halfway through the tune, I noticed the crowd gradually shifting closer to the stage. Bodies pressed up against the edge, hands reaching out to touch my ankles and feet.
I stopped singing, disconcerted, and stepped backwards, away from the grasping hands.
“Hey, back off everyone. It’s getting a little jam-packed around here,” I said nervously.
The hands grew more aggressive, the stroking morphing into grabbing, fingers trying to close around my ankles. Instinctively I knew if I allowed that, the hands would drag me into the crowd and something very bad would happen to me.
I kicked out and stomped on the hands closest to me, dropping the microphone in my effort. Some of the audience climbed on to the stage, stretching out to me. A flash of light revealed they were Bycrafts. When I looked around in panic, I realised the whole room was full of Bycrafts, hundreds of them, clambering towards me, trying to pull me down into them.
Backed up on the stage to the furthest point I could retreat, I desperately sought out the Sarge’s eye.
“Will you catch me?” I asked, fearful, the Bycrafts closing in on me.
“I’ll always be there to catch you,” he promised.
So without another thought I threw myself off the stage, arms out, expecting to be caught in his strong arms and carried to safety.
But he didn’t catch me.
Helpless, I fell and fell and fell, deep into an inky abyss, screaming all the way down until I smashed into the ground –
I sprung upright in bed, shaking and breathing heavily, eyes darting around the room, my hand on my knife and my heart galloping. The Sarge sprinted down the hallway into my room.
“Geez, Tess! You were screaming loud enough to wake the dead. Are you all right?” he panted.
My face crumpled. “I trusted you, but you didn’t catch me.”
He sank on to the bed next to me. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. It was just a dream,” he soothed, pulling me towards him. I resisted, violently pushing him away.
“You promised!”
I leapt out of bed and fled to the bathroom. He followed me, leaning on the doorway, watching as I splashed cold water on my face.
“I don’t know what you were dreaming, Tess, but it was just that – a dream. Nothing that happened in it was real, including me not catching you.”
“I’m sorry.” I met his eyes in the vanity mirror. “I know it was just a dream, but . . .”
“It felt real?”
“It felt . . . prophetic.”
He didn’t laugh or even smile at my fancifulness. “I wasn’t there when you needed me?”
I avoided his eyes, unnecessarily splashing my face again. “It’s okay. I’m fine. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.” My stomach rolled unpleasantly and I groaned, clutching it. “Oh, I don’t feel so good.”
“My poor girl,” he sympathised, taking me by the elbow and guiding me back to my bedroom.
While I crawled into bed, he fetched me a glass of water, which I gulped down, my throat dry and raspy. When I told him my head pounded, he brought me a couple of paracetemol and another glass of water. After taking them, I sank back on the pillows, pulling the blankets up to my chin.
“You’ll be able to go back to sleep?”
“I think so.”
He hesitated, before saying, “I could stay for a little while.”
I balanced that tempting and comforting offer with the lingering bad feeling about him from my dream. “Thanks,
but I’m okay.”
He switched off my light and left me staring up at the ceiling in the darkness, trying to wipe the memory of my dream from my mind.
What seemed like only a second later, I was roused by my shoulder being shaken. “Wake up, Tessie.”
I cracked open one eyelid. Sunshine flooded the room and the Sarge loomed over me, showered, shaved and dressed in his uniform, holding the phone out.
“The Super wants to talk to you.”
I rolled over and closed my eye again, uninterested in having a conversation with anyone.
“I’ll just put her on,” he said into the phone and propped it between my head and the pillow, up against my ear.
“Tess?” barked the Super.
“Mxhgitmkl . . .” I murmured indistinctly into the pillow.
Her tirade was fierce. She used swear words I’d never even heard before, but despite my most earnest desire to be an obedient subordinate and take my bollocking over Red Bycraft without complaint, I fell completely back to sleep and missed most of her rant. It was only when I rolled over and the phone clunked to the floor that the Sarge investigated. He must have picked it up, because I heard murmured voices and a few clear sentences when he raised his voice.
“Just cut her a bit of slack, will you?” he demanded. “That’s what Red Bycraft told her, so why wouldn’t she believe him? Everything was done in good faith.” Silence for a moment. “She wouldn’t waste your time on purpose. You know that.” More silence. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m not waking her up just so you can yell at her some more. Let her sleep. She’s having a stressful week.”
I didn’t hear any more because I dozed again and stayed there, warm and relaxed in the bed occasionally hearing soothing domestic noises as the Sarge pottered around his house, soft music coming from the radio. When I finally woke up, I sleepily laid in bed for a while staring without purpose out the bedroom doorway, thinking about Dad and then about Jake and whether he’d recovered from his snit yet.
It was only after a while I realised the voice I could hear wasn’t the radio, but was the Sarge on another call. I didn’t mean to listen in, but his voice grew louder, and it became difficult not to overhear without stuffing my fingers in my ears.
“Don’t come then, Melissa. Frankly, at this point I’m beyond caring . . . Stop using her as an excuse . . . No, I won’t do that. I’ve told you a hundred times she can’t be by herself at the moment . . . You don’t seem to understand or you don’t want to understand . . . Oh, for God’s sake, grow up! Of course she isn’t . . . You wouldn’t have a clue what it’s like for her . . . You know, it wouldn’t kill you to show some empathy for once . . . Stop being so childish . . . I’m not listening to this bullshit anymore. This conversation is over. You can ring me back when you’re in a less bitchy mood.”
He swore loudly, and I heard a clunk as he slammed his phone down on his sideboard. I felt guilty, wondering if they’d been arguing about me again. I’d never set out to be such a bone of contention in their relationship.
The Sarge wandered past my bedroom, pulling up at the doorway when he noticed my eyes were open. He leaned on the doorjamb regarding me with a slight frown.
“You planning on getting up today?” he asked. He checked his watch. “You’re supposed to be at work in five minutes.”
“I can’t go to work. I don’t feel too good,” I moaned.
“What a surprise,” he said dryly. “You’re not skiving off work though. I don’t allow sick days for self-inflicted illnesses.”
I groaned and leaned back on the pillows. “Don’t be such a hardarse.”
“You only have yourself to blame. So hurry up and get out of bed.”
Grumbling and complaining, I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower, letting the restorative qualities of the water spray relax my thumping head. Dressed back in my pyjamas, I shambled to the kitchen, plonking down on a chair and planting my face on the table.
“You wearing those to work?”
“I’d think about it if I didn’t have such a horrible boss.”
“Speaking of horrible bosses, the Super wasn’t very happy about last night.”
“Did she ring me or was that just a bad dream full of expletives and impossible physical suggestions?”
“Unfortunately, it was real. And let’s just say that we’re not exactly covering ourselves with glory lately in her eyes. In fact, she sort of implied that you drinking last night killed the one functioning brain cell we shared.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose she’ll get over it eventually,” I said, not really convincing either of us, but hardly in the mood to care much.
“Do you want some coffee?”
I weighed up the unpleasantness of my roiling stomach against the much-needed caffeine boost. “Yes, thanks.” While he poured, I considered his broad back, wanting to ask, but afraid of his answer, and a little ashamed when I recalled the previous evening – what I could remember of it. “Um . . . did I do or say anything . . . um, inappropriate last night?” I hoped like hell those unexpected thoughts I’d had about him had remained only thoughts.
His answering glance was amused. “Why? What do you think you said or did?”
“It’s all a bit of a blur,” I admitted.
“Hmm, let me think,” he said, assuming a melodramatic pondering pose. “You harassed the DJ, accused me of being a party-pooper, got into a fight with Foxy, threw yourself off the stage, tried to stab a man, and implied I’m a boring kisser.”
Redness crept up my neck to my cheeks, and I laughed uneasily, flustered. “Oh, is that all?”
“And,” he held his index finger and thumb about a centimetre apart, “you came this close to telling me that you loved me.”
“I did not!”
He adopted a mock-sad expression. “I’m only reminding you of the unpalatable consequences of drinking too much. People tend to speak their hidden truths.”
Crap! Hadn’t I said exactly that to myself last night? Or had I? It was hard to remember.
Not knowing how to respond, I blustered. “In your dreams, Maguire. And anyway, even if I had said that, I wouldn’t have meant it.”
“Sure, Fuller. You keep telling yourself that. But in summary, I’d have to say the evening was a fairly quiet one for you. I can’t help thinking I got off lightly.”
I laughed again and gulped some of the coffee he handed me to hide my embarrassment. “Sorry, Sarge.”
“Are you hungry?”
I thought about it, deciding that I could probably eat something. “I think so. I didn’t have much to eat last night.”
“Why not? I saw the spread that Abe’s chef prepared. It looked great.”
“It did, but I spent a lot of the evening hiding from Lavinia. She was trying to corner me, and I really wasn’t in the mood to hear how badly Red Bycraft was going to mutilate me before he killed me. I wanted to have some fun for once.”
“Fair enough, but it’s not like you to miss out on good food. Or any food for that matter.”
“Even what you’ve cooked.”
“Gee, you’re an absolute riot this morning, Fuller,” he said dryly. “And just for that crack, I’m not cooking for you. You can make your own breakfast because I’m off to work, like the conscientious cop that I am. God knows, somebody has to be around here.”
I started rolling my eyes, but it hurt so much I stopped. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it through the day. At the back door, he halted and turned around.
“I’m not, you know.”
“You’re not what?” I asked, puzzled.
“A boring kisser.”
My cheeks flamed again and I giggled awkwardly. “Oh gee . . . um . . . Okay . . . Obviously I wouldn’t really know . . . um, I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.”
He left without saying anything further, closing the door quietly behind him and leaving me holding a carton of milk, not remembering what I was going to do with it. I put it back in the frid
ge and leaned against it, closing my eyes in mortification. God, what on earth had possessed me last night to say something so stupid?
Kicking myself mercilessly, I quickly gobbled a tub of low-fat yoghurt and a banana and dressed at warp speed. Though already late for work, I was going to have to detour to my house to fetch a fresh uniform and to feed my girls.
Too embarrassed to speak to him again, I bolted into the station, snatched up the patrol car’s keys, and threw him a garbled explanation over my shoulder as I gratefully took off again. At my house, I parked at the front but walked up the side of the house directly to the backyard where my chicken coop was located. Though I usually let them be free range during the day, I’d left them in their coop, knowing I wouldn’t be home to usher them safely inside at sunset when the foxes and feral cats came out to hunt.
The hens bustled eagerly over to the coop’s hatch, keen to be out scratching in the grass. But expecting to be hauled before the Super for an up-close and personal bollocking, I decided again to leave them inside. They had a spacious run attached to their coop, so it wasn’t as much of a hardship as they made out.
Though head hen, Lady Sara wasn’t as much of a prima donna as Miss Chooky had been, she knew how to throw her weight around and kept the other hens firmly in their place. She was also the most vocal, loudly clucking her displeasure with my recent neglectful attitude. I threw her an extra handful of feed which went some way to mollifying her.
With the chooks contentedly eating and the eggs collected, I let myself in the back door, regretting the empty, abandoned feel of the house. The Sarge was a generous host, but it would be nice to be back home again with Dad. I guiltily passed the music room where Jake’s bass guitar reproached me for my lack of practise lately. I was meant to have mastered ‘Brainstew’ by Green Day by now. But it didn’t matter how many times I practised, I lacked one of the key necessary features of a good bass player, and that was talent. I’d warned Jake I was never going to advance as a guitar player, but his faith in me remained strong, which was touching, but painfully unrealistic.