Dylan sat back and rested on her palms, her naked chest heaving. Rose ogled her for a moment. As Rose adjusted her bra, Dylan reached back across the bed for Rose’s cardigan. When she handed it over, Rose looked down at her, her brown eyes clear. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Dylan focused on Rose’s fingers as she slipped her singlet over her head and worked the buttons of her white uniform shirt closed. Was she okay? Probably. She wasn’t in love with Rose, not yet. But as she watched Rose put herself back together, she couldn’t ignore the way disappointment tightened in her chest. It was a warning too obvious to ignore.
“I get attached really easily,” Dylan blurted. “I’ve seen myself do it. I think I could get attached to you, and I don’t think you want that.”
As she zipped her leather boots, Rose looked down at Dylan curiously. Had she been anticipating this?
“So, no offence,” Dylan whispered, “but I don’t want to see you again.”
Nervous, Rose worked her hair into a braid. “Dylan, I didn’t want to…upset you.”
She stared at the end of the mattress. “You haven’t.”
“Right,” Rose said, unconvinced. Dylan watched as she licked her swollen lips. Could Rose still taste her on them like Dylan could taste her? “Maybe that’s best for both of us before this…escalates.”
Dylan nodded.
Rose’s expression softened. “Will you walk me out?”
She reached across the pallets for her jumper and tracksuit pants. “Of course.”
As they took the winding staircase down to the kitchen, she pressed a hand to Rose’s back, urging her on. “Watch your head,” she warned, and felt Rose tense, falter in step. The whip-crack of the wind was unsettling. Rose had always hated walking through the house alone. On the nights she stayed, she’d wake up, stiff beside Dylan. Can you hear that? she’d whisper, and Dylan would pull her closer, blame the wind. The only ghosts keeping them company were Dylan’s, and years of therapy had taught her how to manipulate their horrid faces like a marionette master. Any vengeful Blaxland spirits lurking in the shadows of the homestead had nothing on Dylan’s ghosts.
They crossed the turning circle to Rose’s car in the parking bay. Dylan cleared her throat. “I can still come past and finish working on your landing.”
Rose shook her head. “You don’t need to do that for me.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Really,” Rose stressed. “It’s fine. I’ll get it taken care of.” She paused. “So what do you make of Beth?”
Dylan blinked. “Beth? How do you know about Beth?”
“She’s living with me. Renting upstairs.”
You have got to be kidding me. “How the hell did she get in contact with you?”
“Well, I connected with her, actually. Through an LGBTQ house-sharing group on Facebook.”
“So she’s gay, huh?”
“I can only assume.”
“Right. She’s, uh…she’s fine. I like her fine.”
“When I got into contact with her via Facebook, she mentioned that she was here in the Lakes. Ten years ago. The same year…”
“If you’re asking me if she remembers Kyle’s accident, I don’t think she does. I know when Beth was here doing her research—it was just before I moved in—and Kyle’s accident happened months before that.”
“Still, I’m sure she would have heard about it from Elma when she did arrive.”
“Yeah, well, even if she did talk about it with Elma back then, what would suddenly make her think I was related to him?”
“Elma could have told her over the phone, after you started working here—”
“She didn’t, okay? Once she got to know me, Elma didn’t talk about Kyle’s accident with anyone. Elma wasn’t like that.”
The moment stretched. Feeling Rose’s guilt radiating off her tense form, she slid a hand along the arm of Rose’s dark coat. “Hey?”
Rose looked up, her eyes hooded.
“About what I said upstairs? Don’t feel guilty,” Dylan said evenly. “I just like you—too much for what this is.”
Rose nodded. She leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to Dylan’s lips. “You’re very sweet.” She paused. “You’ve always been good to me, you know?” Dylan could see her breath between them on the cold midnight air. “So very respectful,” she said softly.
Dylan dropped her gaze. She nodded, reached around Rose’s hip and opened the driver’s door. “Take care,” she whispered when Rose was settled inside, the engine running.
She stood, watching as Rose’s car rounded the abandoned fountain and headed down the tree-lined driveway to Old Quarry Road. She sank her fists into her pockets and waited until the headlights disappeared over the hill before she returned to the house.
Chapter Five
Jack O’Connor poked his head out the canteen window of the bistro. “Lincoln! You here again?” he called out. “For Christ’s sake, third time this week! Haven’t you bastards got anything better to do than waste taxpayers’ money?”
A few heads turned in the dining room of the bowling club. “If they aren’t here, they’re over at the pub,” Old Bill Wilson shouted from a table by the windows.
“Keep your knickers on, Jack,” Lincoln said. “We’re on our lunch break. Nobody makes a good schnitty like you do.”
Jack pushed his reading glasses down his nose as he took in the two policemen crossing the bistro toward him. He closed the local paper. “Bloody hell, Robbo,” he said to the younger of the two. “Looks like you’re trying to compensate for something with that gun belt. It’s about three sizes too big on you, matey. Didn’t your mother ever tell you to eat your Weetbix?”
“Time to stop picking on him, Jack,” Lincoln said. He perched an arm up on the bar of the window. “Shorty here made Constable last Wednesday.”
“You did?” Jack reached through the window and shook Robson’s hand. “On ya, mate. That’s a big bloody deal. You’ve always had a good head on ya.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
“When you gonna get your act together and make Senior Constable like this one?” He nodded to Lincoln.
Robson smirked. “When he finally retires.”
“Not likely,” Jack teased. “The good Constable Lincoln will be six feet under before he gives up the badge.”
Lincoln scoffed. “Speaking of six feet under, we passed by the homestead this morning, Jack. Saw Dylan.”
Jack frowned as he took in Robson’s young, mischievous grin. “What’s that look about?” he demanded.
“Your daughter’s a real jester,” Lincoln said. He craned his head through the canteen window and looked past Jack. “Oi, Mikey,” he shouted into the bistro kitchen, “Come over here and listen to this.”
Mikey closed the freezer door. “You two back again? Bloody hell.”
“Well put us out of our bloody misery,” Jack demanded. “What’d Dylan do now?”
Lincoln clicked his tongue. He paused to smirk. “Dylan’s loo went missing.”
Mikey cackled as he joined them at the window. “The letterbox loo? Hey, remember that time someone desecrated—”
Jack held up a hand. “Yeah, all right, all right, Mike. We all remember.”
“This is even better. Get a load of this,” Robson said. “So Dyl calls the station early this morning ’round six and she tells us that the loo’s been pinched—but thing is, she knows who did it.”
“Who?” Jack asked.
“Apparently, that new chick who’s working over there with her—”
“This Beth,” Lincoln interrupted.
“Mate, are you telling the story, or am I?” Robson asked.
The older officer rested both forearms across the shelf and chuckled. “All right, princess, go ahead, go ahead.”
“So, this Beth’s been badgering her about it all month.” Robson grinned. “She didn’t want it out front, said it was crass.”
“What?” Mikey asked. He swatted the canteen ledge
with a dishrag. “She’s not a fan of toilet humour?”
Robson shrugged. “She’s a bit…” He pushed up on the tip of his nose. “She’s a doctor. Not a real one—just one of those university ones. Bit of a babe, though, if you’re into the uppity thing. So, like I said, she’s been badgering Dyl about removing it for a month—”
“She been here a month already?” Jack said. “I haven’t seen her round.”
“Been here almost two months. Blond. Leggy. Anyway, I was like, are you sure she’s the one who pinched it? And Dyl thought it was pretty funny that the loo’s been out there for almost five years and nobody’s ever pinched it until now. She didn’t know how this Beth did it, but right or wrong, she knew that she did. So Dyl says, come on over this morning and we’re going to pull Beth’s leg—”
“You two are dickheads.”
“So, we’re there before this Beth arrives, no more than five minutes and she’s comin’ down Dyl’s driveway.”
“What’d you have?” Mikey asked. “The sedan or the paddy wagon?”
“Paddy wagon. Dyl even made us turn the lights on to really put the wind up her. Classic.”
Jack shook his head. “Dyl’s a bloody idiot.”
“She’s a bloody crack up. You should’ve seen her, just lying back on the steps, takin’ it all in. So, this Beth gets out—I tell you what, you should have seen the look on her face, priceless—and she looks from the lights to Dylan, then to us and she goes, ‘What’s happened?’, puts her hand to her chest like she’s Nicole bloody Kidman. And I go, ‘I’m Constable Robson, this is Senior Constable Lincoln. You’ve been robbed.’”
Jack looked to Lincoln. “She look worried?”
“Nah,” Lincoln said. “Barely blinked, dug her own grave. Turns to us and says, ‘What did they take?’”
“Yeah,” Robson interjected, “And Dylan sits there and goes, ‘Somebody stole the letterbox.’”
“And this Beth says, ‘You called the police because somebody stole the toilet?’”
“And Dyl’s like, ‘Well, yeah. We were robbed.’ And she tells this Beth that I went to school with her and not to worry, that I’ll be really on the ball about it because we go way back. Tells her that I think I’ve got a few leads, that it might be old Jonesy down the road who pinched it.”
Lincoln smirked. “She looks from Dyl to us and then back again. And she’s still not sayin’ a thing. So I get on my radio and I tell you what, you’ve never seen a face just drop. I put the fear of God into her. ‘It was me,’ she says, ‘I took it.’”
Robson chuckled. “Her face lit up like a tomato. Anyway, we’re pissing ourselves, and Dylan’s just sittin’ on the steps all smug. And this Beth’s head snaps round and she goes, ‘You knew? You all knew?’”
“Made my fuckin’ morning, it did,” Lincoln said.
“Best part though—Dylan goes, ‘What I can’t understand is how you did it by yourself,’ says something along the lines of it being bolted down, heavy as all hell. Then Blondie tells us that it wasn’t that heavy, says she rolled it to the car. And let me tell you, she must have had a bloody job of it, ’cause this chick’s like a rake. Real slender lookin’.”
Mikey slapped the counter. “She pinch it in the middle of the night or something?”
Robson nodded. “And I says to her, I says, ‘What’d you do with the loo, sweetheart?’ Boy, was she tight-lipped. Not a friggin’ word.”
“I don’t know, mate,” Lincoln laughed. “The second you called her ‘sweetheart’, those eyes shot daggers at you. That said more than enough.”
Robson grinned cockily. “She may have been shootin’ daggers, but you see the way she looked at me after? Lady likes the uniform.”
“You’re dreamin’, mate.” He pulled back from the canteen window to peruse the lunchtime specials on the blackboard. “She’s got a nice set of pins on her, though.”
“How old’s this Beth?” Jack asked.
“Older than Dyl,” Robson said. He paused, smirking. “But I tell you what, even if she likes to dictate the way Dyl runs things, I don’t think Dyl minds having an older woman around at all.” He rattled the paddy wagon keys on the metal benchtop. “If you ask me, Dyl’s in her bloody element.”
“What do you mean?” Jack asked.
Robson grinned. “You know those Looney Tunes? When their eyes pop out of their head? Between you and me, girl’s like a dog with a bone.”
* * *
When Beth drove out the gates at the end of the day and set her eyes on the white toilet planted by the side of the driveway, she almost mistook it for the original she’d unbolted in the black of night not forty-eight hours before. But as her car drew closer to the end of the driveway, she realised that this toilet was different, the cistern a more rectangular shape, the seat much lower. She groaned. You have got to be kidding me.
When had Dylan had time to do this? The shiny new toilet hadn’t been there that morning when she’d arrived. Where the hell had Dylan found another toilet in the space of two days? Do I even want to know?
Stopped at the end of the driveway, she squinted into her side mirror. There was something bright yellow attached to the closed lid of the toilet.
She put her car into park and walked the few metres back.
Just steps away, she could read her name, scrawled across a Post-it note in Dylan’s handwriting. Dylan had taped it to the plastic lid with red electrical tape.
She lifted the lid. Beneath the day’s uncollected mail, she found another Post-it taped to the back of the toilet bowl.
I like your gusto, Lizzie. But the john stays.
Yours,
Sarah Blaxland
Chapter Six
Balanced precariously on the edge of a step, Beth slammed the hammer against the head of the final nail. She battered it again and again, securing the thick padding to the ceiling edge that had left her black and blue two months before.
She stood back to admire her handiwork. She was impressed. The leather-covered protrusion looked tidy, professional, just like the kneeler of a church pew. I can fix it if I must, Dylan had reluctantly offered, but Beth had witnessed the way Dylan handled most issues around the property. Dylan would get the job done—eventually.
Satisfied, she lowered the hammer to the carpeted step behind her. Careful not to topple forward, she reached out and pressed both hands against the padded lip of the dropped ceiling. “Well, if I may say so myself—”
Beth shrieked as two hands grasped her firmly by the waist.
Dylan cackled loudly, her grip tightening around Beth’s ribcage as she stilled her on the step. “My own personal handywoman—hot.” She squeezed Beth once, twice, her thumbs gently probing between Beth’s ribs before she let go.
Beth inhaled at her spirited touch. “Jesus, Dylan! I could have gone headfirst!”
Dylan only laughed. “I had you. Besides, we know from experience that your head is like a brick. You would have just ricocheted.”
She raised a hand to her sternum. “Where did you come from?”
“Side stairs.”
“I thought you were outside.”
“Came in for lunch.” She passed Beth on her way down the staircase.
“There are meat pies in the microwave. I stopped by the bakery and picked them up on my way back from the hardware.”
Dylan pivoted dramatically on the second step from the bottom. “Again? That’s the third time this week!” Her enthusiastic grin was contagious. “Bless your heart, Beth!”
As she gathered the packet of nails and off-cuts of leather and foam from the stairs, she could hear Dylan in the kitchen, the opening and closing of drawers, the clatter of a knife in the sink. Elma had always moved so gracefully, so lightly that there were times Beth hadn’t realised Elma was in the house until she walked into a room. But Dylan? Dylan was loud and rough and boisterous.
Getting used to Dylan had been strange at first. When they weren’t leading tours, they were passing each other in
the kitchen between shifts. Each day they ate lunch together and there had been the odd dinner too. Beth had cooked twice in Dylan’s kitchen, and the Friday night before, after a particularly long day, they’d ordered Chinese takeaway.
She stepped into the kitchen to find Dylan sitting on the counter in the corner beside the microwave, her legs dangling from the edge as she covered the pastry lid of her meat pie in tomato sauce. As Beth packed her tools away, she could feel Dylan’s eyes on her. Abruptly, she looked up. Dylan looked away. Beth smiled. “What?”
“Nothing,” Dylan mumbled.
Was Beth imagining that tinge on Dylan’s cheeks? She licked her lips, her own skin warming. This little crush Dylan had on her…it was endearing. Day by day, as Dylan became all the more obvious about it, it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Dylan was striking, and to be the object of her affection was flattering. But that was where it had to stop.
“So where did you run off to yesterday afternoon?” Dylan asked. “Hot date?”
She scoffed. “No. I had to make some phone calls to Qantas.”
Dylan paused, the pie an inch from her lips, the paper bag held beneath her chin to catch flakes of pastry. “Qantas? Why? Are you going somewhere?” Her blue eyes shined with disappointment.
She shook her head. “No. My parents are flying to Perth for the week and they were in a flap about online check-in. Then I had to pay some bills, sort out Internet connection stuff with Rose—”
“So no hot date?”
Beth folded the leftover leather strips into the box. “I’m not even considering dating right now.”
“Well you aren’t giving Jembala Lakes that impression.”
Her eyes shot up. “Excuse me?”
Dylan grinned. She took another bite of her pie. “Your profile. On Crush. It’s been active for two months.”
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