by Piper Stone
Fel was halfway through her meal and the dead body had just been discovered when someone approached the table, making her jump. Fel looked up from her book, a forkful of chip halfway to her mouth. She breathed in the scent of delicious-smelling aftershave.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Is it okay if I join you?”
Nick Loxton stood in front of her, glass of beer in one hand, thick paperback novel in the other. He was out of uniform now, wearing an open-neck blue shirt and black shorts that showed off his well-toned arms and legs. Fel felt colour flood her cheeks as she realised she couldn’t avoid conversation now; she could hardly say she was meeting somebody because he’d soon learn she was lying. Still, it wouldn’t take long to finish her meal. After that, she’d make her excuses and leave. So, “Yes, of course,” she said, pointing to the empty chair opposite. “Be my guest.”
Well, that had been easier than expected. For a second he’d thought she was going to say no. Nick set his beer and book on the table. “Thanks. I didn’t fancy a ready-meal from the Tarwin Point store tonight, so thought I’d check out the nearest pub.”
“Good choice. The store’s overpriced and the food’s good here.” Fel prodded what remained of her fish with her fork. “Basic but good.”
He’d gathered that from the menu and the specials on the blackboard – good, old-fashioned comfort food. He’d ordered lasagne, chips and salad and come outside because all the tables indoors were taken. He’d spotted Fel alone and although there were a couple of unoccupied tables on the veranda, he wanted to break the ice.
“Hope it wasn’t bad news earlier,” he said casually, lifting his beer.
Fel started cutting her salad, which he noticed she’d left till last. Did that mean she liked it best or least? “What do you mean?” she asked him.
“You had to rush out when we were having coffee and cake. And I saw you on the phone when I left. I thought it might have been bad news.”
Fel’s cheeks matched the beetroot she was slicing in half. “Ah, no, it was nothing bad. Just someone I needed to talk to before they go away for Christmas.”
“Good.” Nick let her lies go and swallowed more beer. “How are your parents, anyway?”
“They’re good, thanks. What about yours?”
“Mum’s doing well. Still lives in the same house next to where your gran lived. Dad died a few years back, cancer.”
“I’m sorry.” Finally, Fel looked up from her meal and met his eyes. She seemed genuinely sad to hear about his father, and that touched him. “I liked your dad. He used to let me come round and help hand-feed the possums in your backyard.”
“You always did like animals. Mum remarried a couple of years ago. Geoff’s a really nice guy; she’s very happy and we all like him.” The dark-haired waitress arrived with Nick’s lasagne and conversation was suspended while she laid the plate before him along with a knife and fork wrapped up in a serviette. Nick unwrapped the cutlery, spread the serviette on his lap, and picked up a chip. He bit into it; crunchy and not too salty, just how he liked chips. “I’ve got to ask,” he said. “When did you start calling yourself Fel? You were Fizzy as a kid.”
Fel grinned. “My family still call me Fizzy. But I started calling myself Fel when I went to high school. It sounded more grown-up.” She finished her salad and laid her knife and fork on her plate.
“I suppose it does,” he acknowledged. Fel picked up her glass, settled back in her chair, and took a long slug of beer. Nick felt a rush of panic. Once she’d finished her drink, she’d have no reason to stay and he wanted to keep her talking. He wanted to know if she was single, and if she was, whether she’d go on a date with him. He longed to know, too, if she still liked being spanked. But tonight was too soon to ask. He needed to get to know her a lot better, for her to be a lot more relaxed with him before he brought up the ‘S’ word. He cast around his mind for more conversation openers and settled for “How long have you been a ranger?”
“Since uni. I worked at a park in Melbourne before I came here. I was glad to leave the city.” Fel wrinkled her nose. “All that bustle and noise and pollution.”
“I know what you mean. I had a few years in the city myself.” He told her about policing in the Melbourne suburbs and the opportunity to be an agricultural liaison officer. “Do you think you’ll stay at the Point?”
“If I can. I’ve got a little house here in Darby Creek. I like visiting Melbourne, but I’m always glad to get back to the peace and quiet. I know there is crime out here, but I’ve never been affected by it. Never had a burglary and my car hasn’t been stolen – touch wood.” Fel patted the table with her palm. “Whereas the first car I ever bought was nicked in Melbourne. I’d saved up for it working in bars to support myself through uni, and someone stole it from the street in broad daylight.”
“Joy riders?”
Fel shrugged. “No idea. I reported it to the cops but never heard a thing about it.” She grinned. “You know what’s ridiculous? I can still remember the registration number even though I only had the car six weeks before it was stolen. Yet I struggle to remember the rego for the car I’ve got now.” She sculled the remainder of her beer and set the glass down on the table.
“People often remember their first car number,” said Nick. “Another drink?” he asked quickly as she reached for her handbag. Please say yes.
Fel hesitated, glanced at her Fitbit. “Yeah, why not? I have to go when I’ve finished that, though. I’ve got an early start tomorrow.”
Nick couldn’t prevent a cheesy grin spreading over his face as he headed to the bar. She was talking to him, having a second drink with him! He wouldn’t have predicted this three hours ago when she’d concocted a tale to avoid him. It sounded like she was single too. There had been no mention of ‘we’ when she had been talking about her life. Now that she’d got over her initial awkwardness at seeing him again, perhaps she might agree to a date after all.
Chapter 4
Nick seemed nice, Fel thought, as she leaned back in her chair looking up at the darkening sky. He’d been nice as a kid, of course, but that had been a long time ago. She was enjoying talking to him, which was why she’d said yes to another drink. But she still couldn’t tell if he remembered all that spanking. And she certainly wasn’t going to ask him! Maybe she’d never find out.
He returned carrying two glasses of beer. “They’ve turned off the 1970s Christmas songs and moved on to Christmas carols,” he said, handing her a beer. “Cheers.” He clinked his glass against hers, sat down and took a long swallow.
Fel sipped her beer. The other tables on the veranda had emptied now; it was just her and Nick and the chirping of cicadas.
“Small world,” Nick said, “meeting you again.”
“Yes.”
“So are you married or…” He let the question hang, taking another slug of beer.
Did he like her? Fel’s insides fluttered and she felt colour rise in her cheeks. At least he wouldn’t notice her blushing on the dimly lit veranda. “There’s no one at the moment,” she said. Not for a very long time. “What about you?”
“I’m single as well.”
She was surprised by her delight at his answer. Surprised, too, that a hot guy like Nick hadn’t been snapped up by now.
“Which I guess explains why we’re both working over Christmas and New Year,” he said, relaxing in his chair and nursing his beer. “Is Tarwin Point as crazy busy over Christmas as people keep telling me it is?”
“It can be,” Fel said. “There’s a lot of drinking, and with the tents all close together, people can get cranky with one another. Sometimes there are fights. It’s usually okay till Boxing Day. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the focus is on the kids. On Christmas Eve, we sing Christmas carols in the campground, Gerry dresses up as Santa Claus and hands out lollies to the kids. Christmas Day is fine as well. The kids play with their new presents, everyone’s happy. But Boxing Day, people start to get hung over and irritabl
e. New Year’s Eve is the worst. They’re not supposed to set off firecrackers in the bush, but some of them do.”
“There’s always an idiot,” he said.
“Yes. And they all come here in summer. It’s a relief when these five weeks are over, though a lot of it is fun as well.”
“Well, I’m happy enough to be here for summer.” His eyes caught hers and she saw the desire in them, was aware of her own. “Perhaps we could get together one night after work, for a meal, something like that. You know, catch up a bit.”
Was he asking her on a date? The look in his eyes said yes, but his words suggested nothing more than friendship. “That would be great,” she said. “I’d love to hear how your brothers are doing and more about what you’ve been up to since I last saw you.” His brothers had been a few years older than him, well into their teens when he was ten.
“They’re both married now, kids on the way. I guess if we want to have a meal together, this is the only place in town?”
“There’s the fish and chip shop,” she joked and he laughed. “Oh, and a pub in Wattle Creek; we could go there. It’s only half an hour from here.”
“Well, once Kane and I have got our shifts properly sorted out, we’ll have to pick a date and book.”
It wouldn’t be this side of Christmas then. Tomorrow, the schools broke up, and tourists driving to the park were likely to book into the pubs for an evening meal. Saturdays were always busy, and then Sunday was Christmas Eve. Fel masked her disappointment with a hasty gulp of beer, then changed the subject. “So what made you become a cop? When you were a kid, you wanted to create computer games.”
It was the wrong thing to say. His eyes caught hers again and she knew for a fact that he could remember the spanking games; that he was thinking about them now.
“Maybe it was all those games of cops and robbers,” he joked.
Fel wished the ground would swallow her up. She wished she’d said no to a second drink, wished he’d never come to Tarwin Point, wished she’d never played those games with him as a little kid. What had she been thinking? Hadn’t she known she was making a bad move, that it would come back to haunt her as an adult?
“Fel, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
Fel put her glass down on the table and snatched up her handbag. As she rose to leave, he stood up too, and placed his hand gently on her arm. She pushed him away, fled across the veranda, heading inside and downstairs, aware of Laura’s eyes on her.
She was crying when she reached her car. She wiped the tears away with the heel of her free hand as she switched on the engine. How the hell was she going to get through the next five weeks of work with Nick Loxton here?
It was only when she pulled up outside her house that she realised she’d left her Kindle on the table.
Damn – why had he said that? He was such an idiot. All that self-talk about taking things slowly, all the tiptoeing around asking her out, even saying a meal together would enable them to ‘catch up’. Then he’d made that stupid comment about cops and robbers. He’d embarrassed her, ruined every chance there might have been of intimacy between them.
Time he wasn’t here. Nick drained his beer. As he reached for his book, he noticed Fel’s Kindle. He picked it up, planning to give it back to her tomorrow, and apologise. Buy her a big box of chocolates or a bunch of flowers. Or both. Not that the gift would make any difference, judging by her reaction tonight. She’d been mortified.
You idiot, Loxton.
He went back indoors and headed towards the stairwell. The room was still full, the rum-pum-pumming of “Little Drummer Boy” audible over the hum of conversation of the diners. The red-haired barmaid was collecting empty glasses from one of the tables. She caught up with him as he reached the top of the stairs.
“Fel looked a bit upset. Is anything wrong?”
He didn’t know what to say and settled for something close to the truth. “Just a bit of a misunderstanding. She’ll be okay.”
She glowered at him. “I hope so.” Her eyes fell on the Kindle. “Did she leave that behind?”
“Yeah, I’ll give it back to her tomorrow.”
“I could take it. I live next door,” she explained. Her face clouded with concern. “But I finish late and I know she gets up early.”
“It’s okay. I’m working at the Point. I’ll see she gets it back.” Nick hurried downstairs before the redhead persuaded him to hand it over. He needed a reason to talk to Fel again tomorrow, to try to break the ice again.
The road into the park was quiet now, lit up only by his headlights. Kangaroos grazed on both sides of the road, and he slowed down to pass a wombat. As he rounded a corner, a kangaroo bounded off the grass and onto the road in front of him. Nick hit the brakes hard.
His book and Fel’s Kindle flew off the passenger seat and hit the floor of the car with a bump.
The kangaroo had bounced away. Nick manoeuvred the car off the road and picked up Fel’s Kindle. Devices were notoriously fragile when dropped. He hoped the Kindle wasn’t broken. That would be something else to apologise for. He would have to buy her a new one given he’d been the reason why she’d left it at the pub in the first place. He pressed the on switch to ensure it still worked. To his relief, the Kindle came to life and displayed its contents list. Fel had organised her books into genres – crime, romantic suspense, urban fantasy, romance, erotica. He hesitated before examining the Kindle further – after all, if she knew he was looking, she’d hate him even more – but he just had to know. He pressed his finger on the erotica folder.
What if Nick checked out her Kindle and found all those spanking romance books? Fel sat in the car in her driveway, fingers drumming the steering wheel, debating whether to drive back to the pub. Her mobile interrupted her indecision. She glanced at the screen before answering: Laura.
“Hey, Laura.”
“Hey, Fel. You okay, girlfriend?”
Fel answered cheerfully, “Yeah, I’m okay. What’s up?”
“You left the pub in a hurry and you seemed a bit upset.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I knew Nick years ago. He lived next door to my gran. We were talking about when we were kids.” That much was true, at least.
“You left your Kindle behind.”
Fel breathed a sigh of relief. Laura had her Kindle. Not Nick – Laura. Then she panicked. What if Laura checked out the Kindle and had a peek at the erotica folder? She shuddered at the idea of Laura coming across her secret spanking romance reading.
“The man you were with took it.”
Fel’s heart plummeted.
“He said he’s working at the park, that he’ll give it to you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Fel said dully.
“That was all right, wasn’t it?”
Fel hastened to reassure her. “It’s fine. Thanks for letting me know.”
All she could hope now was that Nick didn’t take a peek at her books.
His lips weren’t the only part of his body that quirked when Nick checked out a few pages of the first book in Fel’s erotica folder. Deep Vermilion opened at 62% in. The artist, Skye, had just returned home. Gallery owner Hayden was back from a meeting with a French artist and was on the phone to an employee.
“That was Luke,” Hayden said, putting his mobile down on the table. “He told me you had him and a couple of delivery guys lifting a car today.”
“Yes.” Skye looked down at the ground. “What happened was, the delivery guys came in saying there was a car parked in the loading zone. Luke looked outside and thought it was my car. It was the same make, same colour, everything.”
“But it wasn’t yours?” Hayden crossed the room and sat down on the leather sofa.
“No. I thought it was. I searched everywhere for my keys, and when I couldn’t find them, I asked if they could move it out of the way for me so the guys could deliver the paintings.” Skye lifted her eyes and looked beseechingly at Hayden. “I knew you really wanted those paintings delivered. And I
didn’t want to risk getting a ticket because my car was parked in the loading zone.”
“So they moved it for you. And?” Hayden prompted. He picked up a ruler from the table next to the sofa and started tapping it against the leather. Thwack, thwack.
Skye’s insides curdled. “And I remembered I didn’t drive to the gallery today,” she wailed. “I took the tube.”
“You. Took. The. Tube.” Thwack, thwack against the leather again. Why couldn’t he stop doing that?
“Yes. I took the tube.”
“So my employee – not to mention the two delivery guys – risked back injury because you couldn’t remember you hadn’t driven to the gallery?”
“Yes,” she admitted, “that just about sums it up.”
Hayden crooked his finger at her, summoning her to the sofa. She trudged forward reluctantly.
Hayden patted his knee with the ruler.
Skye draped herself over his lap, wriggling to get comfortable. That earned her a smart slap on her right buttock. Hayden flung up her sundress and yanked her panties down to her knees. He placed the ruler on her bottom. “Do you know why you’re getting spanked?”
“Yes. Because I didn’t check properly that the car was mine.”
“And?”
“And I made Luke and the guys risk injury because of that.”
“And what might injury mean for the gallery?”
“It means they could sue us. And we might have to close down.” The thought of that was too awful to contemplate. Hayden had worked so hard to build up the gallery from nothing to one of the finest in London. Her eyes pricked with remorseful tears before the first stroke of the ruler landed hard across her bottom.