“Yeah, and what is that?”
The intensity of Ally’s glare burned through her. “What are you trying to do here? Do you want me to fight you for Annie? You may have sole custody, but Annie belongs to me now just as much as she belongs to you.” Ally’s eyes searched her face for an answer. “Are you trying to start something with me because you just can’t get over how good last night was? How good we were together?”
“No,” Bron said. “Of course not.” She looked away from Ally’s scrutinizing gaze.
“Really?” Ally scoffed. “I know the whole Boston thing had to come up some time, but I think you’re bringing it up now because you’re overwhelmed. You’re acting out. It’s what you do.”
A small lizard ran along the edge of the lookout and Tammy barked at it, turning the heads of the few locals standing nearby.
“What do you want?” Ally said lowly. “You want me to beg you to stay?”
Angered by the accuracy of Ally’s assumptions, Bron shook her head and tugged gently at Tammy’s leash. “I’m going home.”
The uphill walk home was silent and tense. She was surprised to find an unfamiliar car parked in their driveway and a brunette stranger at their gate. When they came closer, the woman turned. “Ally, hi,” she said, smiling widely. She couldn’t be any older than twenty-five. “Talk about good timing!”
“This is Gabby,” Ally explained. “We did a job at her dad’s place yesterday.”
Bron smiled politely. “Hello.”
“How are your eyes?” Gabby asked Ally.
Ally grinned. “Perfect—now.”
Gabby shifted on the spot. “You and Daniel were gone before I was back from town.” She reached out, handing an envelope to Ally. “Here’s the rest of what Dad owes you.”
“You didn’t have to rush it over,” Ally said.
Gabby shook her head. “Oh, it’s no trouble.”
Bron took in the way Gabby’s gaze tracked Ally. It was obvious. Gabby was infatuated. “Maybe I’ll bump into you in town?” Gabby said, backing away toward her car.
Ally nodded. “I’m sure. Thanks again, Gabby.”
Opening the gate, Bron smiled good-bye to Gabby and tugged on Tammy’s leash. As she started up the driveway, she heard Gabby’s car reversing. Seconds later Ally was beside her.
“So are you fucking her too?”
Ally scoffed. “Not biting, Bron. I’m done arguing with you.”
Bron stopped to undo the metal clip of Tammy’s leash and the dog sprinted up the hill in search of her water bucket. “Do I need to get tested?” she asked bluntly.
Up ahead, Ally spun. Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Have you been tested recently?”
“I was tested a year ago,” Ally said simply.
Bron’s eyes widened, her blood boiling. “A year ago? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Ally clicked her tongue. “I hadn’t been with anybody for two years before last night.”
Bron paused, the weight of the confession catching her off-guard. Was that why Ally had been so responsive to her touch? Two years? “I don’t believe you,” Bron said.
Ally’s stare penetrated Bron’s. She shrugged and walked away from the conversation toward the house. “Believe what you want, Bron. But do you really think I’m so selfish that I’d put you at risk if I didn’t know for sure that I was clean?”
Just as Bron was beginning to prepare dinner, Jackie called from the McDonald’s alongside the highway, the halfway point between Sydney and the mountains. Although her stepmother had always been a great long distance driver, she could hear the tiredness in her voice. “I was so glad to get Daniel’s call this morning, I tell you. Thank God the fires have been contained. Bloody Carol was starting to drive me up the wall.”
“Was she?” Bron asked distractedly, peering out the kitchen window. Daniel had returned and was out on the veranda with Ally, going over the job list for the next week.
“She wanted to come everywhere with us,” Jackie continued. “And I didn’t mind at first, but then we got to the zoo, and she wanted to have a whinge about the price of the bloody ticket, the food, everything.”
She chuckled. “That’s Carol.”
“I couldn’t stand another night there, Bron. She’s my sister and I love her to death but she’s a loon.”
With Annie and Jackie eating at the highway rest stop, Bron began slicing enough broccoli, carrots and potato to go with the chicken for herself, Ally and Daniel. On the top of the fridge, the radio had been tuned to the local channel. For once, Bron didn’t detest the overplayed Christmas tunes. While they usually did her head in each Christmas, she could only think of Annie and how excited she would be on Christmas morning when she realized that yes, there was Santa Claus.
She watched through the window as Ally disappeared around the veranda. Moments later, her feet padded down the hall, and as she came into the kitchen, she could feel Ally’s dark stare on her back.
She pressed a gentle hand to the small of Bron’s back and a tremor of excitement travelled up her spine, the hairs at the base of her neck standing of their own accord.
“I’m sorry,” Bron said softly.
Ally nodded. “So am I.”
Annie was over the moon to be home, and Bron was over the moon to be reunited with her niece. Annie chatted nonstop about her Sydney adventures, and when she finally drew breath, Bron asked, “So it wasn’t all that bad, was it?”
After they’d unpacked the car, bringing load after load of photo albums, bags and storage containers back into the house, Jackie was adamant about getting the washing done that night. She’d been in the laundry for no longer than a minute when she wandered into the kitchen.
Left to clean the kitchen alone, Bron glanced at her. “What’s up?” she asked.
“Ally’s sheets were still in the dryer.”
In the sink, Bron’s hands tightened on the lip of a dinner plate. Heat rose to her cheeks. She placed the sudsy plate on the drying rack with extra caution. “Are they?”
“Mmm,” Jackie hummed. “I should give them to her. Wouldn’t want her sleeping on a bare mattress again.”
With her back to Jackie, Bron rolled her eyes at a handful of dirty cutlery, knowing that her mother knew very well that Ally had not slept in her own bed. She dropped the knives and forks into the sink and reached for the tea towel to dry her hands. “I’ll do it.” Avoiding her mother’s gaze, she took the sheets from Jackie’s arms.
Silently cursing the armful of bedsheets, Bron took the stairs two at a time. By the time she reached the top landing, the shower had shut off. In an effort to not make a sound, Bron manipulated the bathroom doorknob and stepped inside.
Standing before her, completely naked, Ally grinned. “Hey—”
She gestured wildly with the sheets in her arms. “You left your sheets in the dryer!”
“Oh, thanks,” Ally said obliviously. “Can you pop them on my bed?”
“No,” Bron hissed. “Mum knows!”
Ally blinked twice. “What?”
“Mum knows you didn’t sleep in your bed!”
When realization dawned on her, Ally laughed. She moved closer, her nude form dampening the sheets. She grasped Bron’s face in her warm, wet hands, and pressed their lips together.
It took a moment for Bron’s lips to catch up, and even when they did, she still couldn’t relax. She was hyperaware of Ally’s stiff nipple pressing against the back of her hand that curled around the sheets. Ally quickly sensed her rigid state, and without breaking the kiss, took the sheets from her arms and dropped them onto the lid of the toilet. This time, her needy hands found home on Bron’s hips, her fingers flexing as she pulled Bron closer. Bron’s hands suddenly had a will of their own, reaching out to grasp the slim curve of Ally’s waist, pressing them together.
Ally’s mouth ran across the junction of her neck and shoulder, and Bron gasped softly. “I have to put Annie to bed.”
Ally didn’t pull
away. “You feel so good.” Her lips parted and her tongue skimmed across Bron’s freckled skin. Bron’s eyes closed. She seemed to liquefy at the touch. Had anyone ever wanted her this much?
“Bron,” Ally murmured, her mouth closing over Bron’s collarbone.
With a hand on Ally’s jawline, Bron brought the taller woman’s lips back to hers. For a moment longer, she indulged them both before she slowly withdrew.
Ally’s eyes were starving. “Can I come to you tonight?”
Annie’s footsteps at the bottom of the stairs were loud and forewarned the immediate call of her name. She quickly let herself out of the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She took a few large steps down the hall just as Annie rounded the top of the staircase.
Annie twisted on the spot. “Nanna says bedtime. Eugh.”
“Yep, bedtime. You’ve had a very big day.”
“Can I please sleep with you tonight?” Annie asked softly.
Annie had been all over Bron since she’d gotten home, crawling up into her lap, peppering her with kisses. She’d stalled during bath time as she revelled in Bron’s undivided attention. Bron had sat on the toilet lid, watching tiredly as the shampoo bottle and Safari Barbie fought over—of all things—the last table at a busy restaurant. Of course, the soap holder was the restaurant table. What on earth had she been watching at Carol’s?
“Please?” Annie whined.
She was torn between her motherly instinct and Ally’s request. She knew when it came to Annie, she’d have to put her foot down eventually. As sweet as her sister was, Libby had never indulged Annie enough to let the little girl have such a strong hold over her.
“No,” Bron said firmly. “There’s no reason why you can’t sleep in your own bed tonight.”
“But, Aunty Bron…” Annie moaned.
“Al’s in the bathroom,” Bron changed the subject. “Go and knock and wish her a good night. Then bed.”
As the finale of a cooking competition drew to an end on TV, Bron and Ally exchanged glances across the lounge room. Next to her, Jackie turned her head. Bron quickly focused back on the TV. She shifted on the lounge, pressing her thighs together in an effort to relieve as much of the building pressure as she could until she wished her family good night.
Brushing her teeth, Bron heard Ally’s feet on the stairs. The toothbrush stalled at the back of her mouth, and she stared into the mirror for a moment until she heard the sound of Libby’s bedroom door closing. When she stepped back into the hall, the house was in darkness. Everybody had gone to sleep.
Bron laid awake, listening to the pitter-patter of raindrops as they sprinkled against the tarp covering the tray of Daniel’s ute. She had barely been in bed fifteen minutes when her bedroom door opened and closed behind Ally, followed by the soft click of the lock. Without a word, Ally slipped into her bed and pressed against Bron. Her breath fanned Bron’s lips. “Is this okay?” Ally whispered.
“Yes.”
Her palm tracked Ally’s abdomen across the thin cotton of her ribbed singlet to her back. Their bare legs tangled as Bron peeled off her own singlet and then Ally’s, tossing them both to the end of the mattress.
Ally was smiling into their kiss. She could feel it. Ally pulled back, her lips travelling lower, over Bron’s jawline, to the base of her throat and her sternum. Those lips found one of Bron’s nipples, and her body arched into the touch, her mind completely blank. When Ally abandoned the nipple she had lovingly suckled, in order to pay homage to the other, the cool breeze stiffened the tip even more so.
Bron glanced down, wanting—needing—to see what it looked like to have Ally’s lips against her chest again. There was little light in the room, but she could make out the perfect line of Ally’s nose, the darkness of her brows. Oh, god.
She closed her eyes and relaxed against the pillows as Ally’s ravenous mouth moved south. Nothing had ever, would ever, feel this good, Bron thought. She wet her lips as a ferocious and untamed anticipation fired in her chest. But that feeling was immediately followed by an awareness that was much larger, almost too devastating to accept when Ally’s warm lips were already there, working against her so softly, so gently.
I’m in love with her.
Chapter Fourteen
Bron was on the veranda lapping up the end of a full, uninterrupted afternoon of work when Annie came skipping up the hill of the driveway, sans her oversized backpack. Bron laid her pencil down on the sketch and sighed that her few hours of solitude had drawn to a close.
Granted an early leave by Daniel, Ally had said she’d pick up Annie to give Bron some extra sketching time.
When she thanked her over the phone, Ally had joked, “I’m expecting something out of it, you know.”
With Jackie in the room, she’d fumbled for a reply, finally settling on, “I don’t doubt it.”
She didn’t. It had been almost two weeks since the fire and since they’d first slept together. And it seemed as though Ally was still very much into her. Only a few nights had gone by that they hadn’t slept together. When Annie hadn’t monopolized the empty space in her bed, Ally was there, slipping in next to Bron after the house had fallen silent and withdrawing from the warmth of Bron’s body just before the sun rose.
She squinted in the bright sun, wondering how far behind her niece Ally fell.
“How was your last day of school for the year, missy?” Bron called.
“It was good,” Annie said as she rounded the driveway. “Hardly anybody went to school, so we had a pizza party and watched movies all day.”
Tammy bounded across the front yard at full speed, appearing as though she would almost bowl Annie over, but she skidded to a stop directly in front of her, anticipating the moment Annie’s skinny little arms would envelop her. “Ally’s got a surprise for you…” Annie sing-songed.
Bron pulled the cover over her sketchpad, watching as Tammy licked a cringing, laughing Annie all over her face and neck. “A surprise for me?”
Annie reefed open the front screen door, already reaching behind her neck for the zipper of her dress. “Can’t tell, won’t tell!”
For a brief second, Bron was stumped. A surprise? Ally hadn’t gone out and done anything stupid like buy a car, had she? Had she found a different job? Oh god, please don’t let it be a stray animal.
As soon as she saw Ally with a handful of mail, it clicked. Bron grinned, pride swelling in her chest. “You got the mail,” she observed.
It was easy to guess by Ally’s ear-splitting grin and the way she looked down at an opened white envelope in her hands for a brief, reverent moment that she was attempting to rein in her excitement. She dropped Annie’s backpack on the bottom step and leaned against the post of the veranda, smiling up at Bron.
“Congratulations, Al,” Bron said warmly. “Getting into uni is a huge deal.”
Ally shrugged modestly, but her pride was too pure, too good to be masked. “I start in February. I’ll only have to go in once a week for a seminar, but the rest is completely online. I mean it comes out of my student loan, so it’s not totally free, but you know…” She trailed off, the corners of her lips curling into a brilliant grin. “Plus, I get a free laptop.”
Bron’s first instinct was to offer to buy one for Ally, but she stopped herself. As much as she wanted to help make things easier for her, she knew Ally was fiercely independent. It was so profoundly important to her that she was building a life for herself. Bron deeply respected that. She walked down the porch steps and stopped at the last so that she was at eye level with Ally.
“You think I’m pretty hotshot now?” Ally asked cockily.
She clicked her tongue, amusement tugging at the corners of her mouth. Ally’s eyes glistened as she watched Bron closely, trying to read her. A weight in Bron’s abdomen pulled pleasantly. She had never seen such sincere adoration reflected in another woman’s gaze.
Bron licked her lips. “Yeah. I think you’re pretty hotshot.”
“I can start payi
ng you board real soon. Dan, can you pass the butter? And then with my fancy new diploma I can get my own place and get out of your hair for—”
At Ally’s abrupt stop, Bron looked up from her steak. She followed the direction of Ally’s stunned gaze to where Annie sat beside her. Annie was holding a half cob of corn by the cob holders, staring down at it in disbelief. The sun-coloured pillow of kernels was tainted blood red.
“Oh no,” Annie said shakily, her lips parting and revealing the front gap where, until then, an only slightly wobbly tooth had resided. Her very first loose tooth now hung from a thread over her bottom lip. Dainty fingers reached up to touch the overhanging tooth. Annie’s eyes widened. The kitchen fell completely silent. Each adult watched Annie with rapt attention, waiting on baited breath for Annie’s outburst at the sight of blood on her fingertips. Thankfully, Ally dropped her fork to clap enthusiastically. “This is so exciting, Ann!”
For a brief moment, Annie weighed the possibility of excitement entering the equation. Quickly, her face brightened. “The tooth fairy is going to come tonight!” she informed the table.
The five of them went up to the bathroom. The four adults looked between themselves, silently arguing who it would be to do the honours. Jackie, Bron and Daniel looked to Ally. The brunette sighed in defeat.
“I can’t watch,” Jackie mumbled dramatically and disappeared.
Bron stood beside her brother, watching as Ally knelt down on the bathmat in front of Annie. She inspected the hanging tooth for a moment before finding a tissue to soak up the little bit of blood. Bron felt her own eyebrows rise as she watched Ally grip the hanging tooth. “Just be careful, Al,” she inserted without censoring herself.
Fear cast over Annie’s face at Bron’s slip. Annie looked into Bron’s eyes and then Ally’s.
“Bron,” Ally chastised, her focus entirely on Annie. “It’s all good. Everything’s good,” Ally told Annie. She must have been smiling that smile she reserved just for Annie because the little girl’s shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath, and her expression relaxed.
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