Blood Ties

by JD Nixon

  “I have them,” he said, rummaging in his pocket. “I’ll drive.”

  “Thanks, Sarge.” Painfully slow, I climbed up into the passenger seat and we drove off as well.

  “I need a shower after being with the Inspector for so long,” he confessed in a rare moment of openness. “She made everything I did and said seem so sordid, like my life goal was trying to get you into bed with me.” He glanced over, obviously feeling awkward. “I hope you don’t think . . .”

  “No, of course not, Sarge.” I reassured. “You’re engaged.” And as if any man would be interested in seducing me, considering my current appearance. “But that’s just her way. She’s very protective of me.”

  “I’ve noticed,” he replied dryly.

  We drove in silence for a while. “Where did you learn to fight like that?” he asked, screeching to a sudden halt to let a mother duck and her four little ducklings cross the highway. I smiled as best I could as I watched the little family safely reach the shelter of the other side of the road and ignored the Sarge’s question, hoping he’d forget that he’d asked, distracted by the cute scene.

  He didn’t and asked me again when we started driving. “Where did you learn to fight so well?”

  “From a little emotion called desperation,” I said lightly.

  “Bullshit,” he said mildly, shaking his head. “You’re a lot tougher than you pretend to be and a lot more modest than you ought to be.”

  “That sounds like confusing big city talk to me. I’m just a simple country girl, trying to do her job and get by.”

  He snorted rudely. We drove in silence again for a while. “You don’t like to give in to the Bycrafts, do you?”

  “Not normally, but I’m prepared to give in to Jakey now and then. It stops him feeling emasculated.”

  He sighed with frustration. “You’re not going to talk to me about any of this seriously, are you?”

  “Nope,” I admitted. “I’ve just been grilled for hours and I’m done with being serious for the day. I want some food, some painkillers and some good loving, that’s all, and maybe not even in that order.”

  “I don’t have any painkillers on me and I’m too afraid of the Inspector to even dare to offer you good loving, but I can pick up some food if you like.” He threw me his quick smile. “Feel like Chinese takeaway?”

  “Takeaway? That doesn’t sound healthy enough for you, Sarge,” I teased wearily.

  “Tess, tonight I’d happily eat three deep-fried triple bacon and cheese burgers if it made you feel better.” The expression on his face was too far from light-hearted for me to return, so I busied myself studying my nails. Despite my shower, there was still dried blood embedded under them.

  “I’m sure you’d regret eating those, but thanks for the offer anyway. Jakey said he’d make something for me. You’re welcome to join us,” I said into my lap, quietly polite, hoping he’d decline. I’d had enough of him for one day.

  “I better not. I don’t think he’s too keen on me at the moment. I just arranged the arrest of four of his relatives.”

  Another silence.

  “Tess?”

  “Hmm?”

  “When we arrested Red Bycraft, he had his shirt off.”

  I knew what he was going to say and continued to sit silently.

  “He has a tattoo.”

  “He has a lot of tattoos,” I said with no emotion.

  “This one’s on his stomach. It’s unbelievably obscene. A man who is the spitting image of Bycraft himself seems to be raping a woman while he stabs her in the chest with one hand and strangles her with the other.”

  I glanced out the window at the darkness and crossed my arms defensively. I saw my own face reflected back at me in the glass. I stared at myself sadly.

  “Tess, the woman looks exactly like you.” In the window reflection his eyes were on me, eyebrows furrowed. “And she’s smiling while he does it.” He shook his head in disgust. “Smiling, for God’s sake!”

  I didn’t speak for a while. “I know,” I sighed. “He’s taunted me with it enough times.”

  “That kind of obsession is incredibly disturbing.”

  A humourless laugh erupted from me. “Don’t worry, Sarge. You’ll be safe. He’s not interested in you.”

  And that was the last thing I said to him before he pulled into my driveway. I jumped out as soon as possible. He walked over to the patrol car and drove off while I made my slow way up the stairs. He honked the horn, but I was too tired to wave back at him.

  I went into the lounge room to give Dad, who had returned and was watching the news, a kiss and followed my nose to the kitchen where Jake was cooking. It was an activity for him that involved much swearing, misreading of the recipe and more dirty pots, pans and utensils than could ever possibly be warranted by the end product. But damn, he looked hot while he did it! He was wearing Nana Fuller’s huge frilly flowered apron to protect his white t-shirt from the tomato sauce he was making for the pasta. When I silently entered the kitchen he was leaning down, his elbows on the messy bench, frowning in puzzlement over one of my food-splattered cookbooks, his cute butt sticking out, a smear of tomato paste across his cheek.

  I went up behind him, squeezed his butt and then hugged him tightly, moulding my body against his, nuzzling his neck. “I love to see a man cooking in my kitchen. It’s so sexy,” I murmured in his ear.

  He turned around smiling and moved to kiss me, then remembered at the last second that he couldn’t. He made a sad face. “I never realised that I’d miss kissing you so much, Tessie. Damn those Bycrafts,” he said with a sad smile as I reached up to wipe the paste off his face. He kissed me on the forehead instead and turned back to his recipe.

  It was lucky I arrived when I did because he was about to add a bunch of coriander to the pasta sauce instead of the flat-leaf parsley that the recipe called for, even though I’d told him at least twenty times about the differences between the two herbs. After teasing him mercilessly, I went outside to my herb garden to snip some parsley for him. It was a beautiful night, clear and warm, the jasmine that grew wild up the side of the house redolent with perfume, the sky bright with stars. I had to admit that the marvellous night sky was something I’d missed a lot when I’d moved to the city. You just couldn’t see the stars properly in the glare of the city’s lights.

  I took a minute to breathe in the calm darkness, a moment of peace, to remind myself that I was still alive, still fighting. For now at least. I looked up at the stars, identifying the Southern Cross, Alpha and Beta Centauri and bright Venus, the planet of love. I hoped there would be love for me tonight and much love into the future. And I hoped I would be here to experience it. I moved over to my well-tended herb garden and was leaning over the raised garden bed, when a large shape rustled near me. I shrieked in fright, dropping my secateurs and startling my sleeping chickens, who clucked loudly in alarm. The shape pounded away down the side of the house. I was enraged beyond belief.

  “Piss off, Denny Bycraft!” I screamed after him as he ran off. “Stop bloody spying on me!”

  Jake ran out to see what the matter was and found me standing in the yard, my hands covering my face, trying to control myself, on the verge of tears again, my heart thumping. I don’t cry, I reminded myself, my old mantra from since I was a kid. I don’t cry.

  He clutched me to him. “What’s wrong, baby doll?”

  I took a deep breath and gave him a fake watery smile. “I’m fine, Jakey. It was only Denny. He startled me, that’s all.”

  “Shit! Of all the nights to come here, he had to pick tonight.” He hugged me tightly. “He only wanted to see for himself that you were okay, you know that.”

  “I know, but I’m a bit fragile at the moment. I don’t need any extra adrenaline in my life,” I laughed weakly.

  “You don’t need Bycrafts in your life, is what you mean to say, isn’t it?” He sounded as bitter as I’d ever heard him.

  I looked up at him. He looked down at me
. He was very serious for once. So was I.

  “I really need one Bycraft in my life, that’s all. The rest can rot in hell.”

  “This is my family we’re talking about, Tessie.”

  “This is my life we’re talking about, Jakey.”

  We searched each other’s eyes for a long time in the luminosity from the backyard spotlights. Then he sighed and let me go. And once again we avoided the most important and sticky question between us – how could a Bycraft and a Fuller ever possibly have a long-term, loving relationship? I had no doubt at all that we loved each other sincerely and deeply, but it was still an intractable, and maybe even unanswerable, question. There was too much history, too much bad feeling between the two families.

  “Which is the parsley again?” he asked lightly, changing the subject. “I thought I’d memorised the herb garden last time you lectured me on where everything was, but there we go – we almost ended up with Asian-flavoured spag bog.”

  “That would have been interesting,” I commented, equally light, leaning over to retrieve my secateurs and cut a bunch of parsley for him. “I never know what I’m going to get for dinner when I set you loose in the kitchen.”

  “I’m not that bad, babe,” he pouted, his arm around my shoulder, the parsley in his hand, gently but determinedly leading me back to the bright light of the kitchen.

  I let myself be led, I let myself be fed, I took the painkillers Jake gave me, I let Dad wash up, I let Jake lead me to the bathroom to brush my teeth and then to my bedroom where he undressed me and undressed himself. We lay on my bed, naked, face-to-face, our eyes locked together. I made him turn the light off because I didn’t want him to look at my damaged face a second longer.

  “I want to kiss you, Tessie, but I’m afraid to,” he whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you.” He tenderly kissed my cheek and my earlobe.

  “Lower,” I demanded. He kissed my chin and my neck and my shoulders.

  “Lower,” I demanded. He kissed my collar blades and my breasts.

  “Lower,” I demanded. He kissed my stomach and my bruised hips.

  “Lower,” I demanded. He moved down even lower.

  “Is this where you want me to kiss you, baby doll?” he asked, gently pushing my bruised thighs apart and flicking out his tongue.

  “Oh God! Yes!” I gasped. “Yes, that’s the place, Jakey.”

  And I couldn’t think or talk for a while. And when he had finished down there and my body was throbbing with unadulterated satisfaction, he pushed himself inside me and I wasn’t able to think or talk again, heading for another heavenly experience at his expert hands. Afterwards, we slept for a couple of hours in each other’s arms until I woke him up and made him do it to me all over again, my eyes rolling back in my head with complete and absolute pleasure. My bones and my brain felt like jelly when we’d finished.

  We slept for the rest of the night, entwined, blissful, exhausted. And the last thought in my mind before I gave into sleep was that Fiona had been right – good loving was the antidote to all the horrible things in the world. I had been afraid I was going to have nightmares about Red Bycraft tonight, but his brother Jake had driven all of them away with his unconditional love, and that seemed very fitting to me. I closed my eyes and fell asleep quickly, safe in his arms.

  Chapter 19

  When I woke up, feeling fantastic as I always did after a night with Jake, he was already gone. In return for staying the night with me, he’d agreed to pull a double shift today and had to be at the prison ready for the six AM morning shift changeover. Poor baby, I thought. I’d worked him hard last night. He’d be shattered by the time he finally got to bed this evening.

  I stretched, all my injuries protesting at the motion. I had to keep moving or I’d seize up, so I forced myself out of bed to at least go for a walk. I had my usual glass of juice and discovered a note on the kitchen bench addressed to me in Jake’s careful scrawl. Sitting on top of the note in a glass of water was a fresh-picked golden hibiscus from my mother’s long-neglected flower garden.

  Tessie my darling

  Your so beautiful when you sleep. I love you. I wont see you for weeks, but I’ll be thinking about you all the time. Dont forget to ring me & email me, every day!!! I love you. I know I alreddy wrote that.

  Lots and lots of love Jake xxxx

  I smiled as I read that note, spelling mistakes and all, especially loving the hand-drawn lovehearts surrounding it. I clutched it to my chest as I opened the back door to look outside. It was a beautiful morning – the sun was shining, the sky was a brilliant cloudless blue, the kookaburras were going insane with laughter in the nearby gum trees, the magpies were warbling on the ground searching for grubs, and the chooks were clucking contentedly. I went out and collected the five eggs, fed and watered my girls, set them free from their coop, then went inside again and dressed in my running gear. When I limped to my gate, Romi was there, but not the Sarge.

  “Oh Tessie, you look so terrible!” she hugged me tightly, sobbing, fat luxuriant tears rolling down her cheeks when she saw me, not thinking for a moment about the effect that might have on my self-esteem. “Abe had to tell me ten times that you were okay before I could believe him, because those Bycraft kids were telling everyone at school that Red Bycraft had killed you. I was crying so much that they had to ring Abe to come and collect me.”

  “No, sweetie,” I replied calmly, touched. “Here I am, still alive. Red Bycraft didn’t kill me.”

  Yet.

  We set off together, and I warned her that I could only walk, but assured that I was still determined to make the fun run, regardless of everything. We walked briskly, despite my continuing pain and complaining muscles. I was self-conscious, feeling the eyes of the few people who drove past us lingering on my facial injuries, sympathetic but curious. I wasn’t sure if I was going to go to work today. I was entitled to some sick leave, surely.

  To hide my insecurity, I listened attentively to Romi all the way as she confided everything about her life, her thoughts and her current idols, one of who was still clearly the Sarge. She brought him up in conversation every couple of minutes.

  “Romi,” I said, not wanting to do it, but it was best that she found out from me and the sooner the better by the sound of it. “The Sarge told me something very interesting about himself yesterday.” God, was it only yesterday? I thought to myself in surprise.

  “What?” she asked breathlessly, pretty blue eyes huge. I had her undivided attention as we walked.

  “He’s engaged to be married,” I told her and felt like a monster as I watched her face instantly crumple in a study of intense emotional teenage pain. And hating myself, I embellished further, hopefully crushing those feelings forever. “He can’t wait for her to join him here in town. Maybe they’ll get married here? Wouldn’t that be romantic?”

  “Yes,” was all she said, in a small, quiet voice. She didn’t speak much for the rest of our walk. We parted at my gate and she rode off on her bike, her shoulders slumped in dejection, for once politely declining to join me for breakfast. Poor little thing, I thought, leaning on my gate watching after her. Being a romantic teenager could be so hard sometimes, especially living in a small town where you were usually bored with the boys you’d grown up with and were longing for someone new and exciting to come along. It was a blow to all the single women in the town to have an eligible man like the Sarge join the community and then to learn that he wasn’t free. More than a few dreams would be crushed by that bit of news, I suspected.

  I had a shower and an easy breakfast of Weet-Bix and a glass of orange juice. I still hadn’t decided whether I’d go to work today and was mulling over the pros and cons, sipping the juice carefully through my sore lips, when the phone rang. I moved as quickly as was possible for me to get to it before it woke Dad up.

  It was the Sarge, checking that I was coming into work.

  “I can’t make up my mind,” I admitted. “I’m so battered that I should probably giv
e my poor body a rest and stay home for a few days. The doctor told me to take it easy for a while.”

  “If anyone deserves some time off, it’s certainly you,” he agreed.

  Rare vanity overcame my better sense and I blurted, “Plus, I look so awful. I don’t want anyone to see me. Everyone was staring at me this morning when Romi and I went for a walk.”

  “You don’t want those Bycrafts to think that they have you beaten though, do you?” he asked slyly.

  I knew I was being manipulated, but I couldn’t stop the tide of rebellion that washed over me at his words. “Of course I don’t, but –”

  “You don’t want them to think they have you too scared to show your face around town, do you?”

  I replied heatedly, “I’m not scared of them.”

  “You better come to work then and show them that you’re not.”

  “I know you’re using psychology on me,” I said angrily. “And I hate the fact that it’s working.”

  He laughed, a pleasant warm chuckle down the line into my ear. “See you soon, Tess.”

  I was dressed, kitted up and ready to head out the door when Dad awoke. He rolled up to me in dismay, taking my hand and squeezing hard.

  “You’re not going to work are you, love? You need to recuperate,” he protested. “Stay home and let me look after you, for once.”

  “Dad, if I don’t get back on the horse, everyone will think I’ve lost my nerve. I won’t let those Bycrafts think for one second that they’ve got the better of me,” I answered, grabbing the keys to the Land Rover and planting a kiss on his forehead. He knew there was no point arguing with me once I’d made up my mind. I was a lot like him in that respect, he’d acknowledged ruefully one day. Unhappily, he rolled on to the verandah to watch me leave and his furrowed face full of worry was the last thing I saw in the rearview mirror as I drove out of the gates, waving.

  When I arrived at the station, the Sarge wasn’t even there I noted with indignation. He had hurried me into work, but then decided to dawdle himself. When I walked into the back room, I stopped. Someone had been in there after we’d left last night – the back door was wide open. I knew we’d locked it when we’d all departed the previous evening, because I’d watched the Sarge checking it.