He pointed south. ‘The river’s too fast for Zoe, but there’s a billabong down that way a bit, hiding in the ring of gums and willows.’
Without self-consciousness, she stripped off her white dress to reveal a modest yellow tankini. ‘Last one in’s a rotten egg!’ After putting on Zoe’s floaties and covering them both in sunscreen and zinc for their noses, she grabbed Zoe’s hand and dashed off to the billabong at the river’s edge.
An image flashed into his brain: two sated bodies, naked and sheened with sweat, eating a lazy picnic before reaching for each other again—
‘Coming, Claudius?’ The faint cry was sweet and mocking as a kookaburra’s call. He was beginning to love that stupid nickname. He stripped off his shirt and bolted after them.
After an hour of playing piggy-in-the-middle and Marco Polo, and tossing Zoe between them, they left the green stillness of the pool and returned to the picnic basket.
A slight shadow slithered into oblivion behind the low branch of a tall eucalyptus tree before his trained peripheral vision could decipher it. It was probably a kookaburra or a koala, but a niggling sense of unease lingered. Since the attack on Elly’s car, he’d begun looking for shapes in shadows, meaning in the slightest movement.
Australian law didn’t allow cops to carry weapons outside shift, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to register one at home with an impressionable four-year-old to bring up. Violence was part of his life at work, but never would be at home. But now he wished Sarge had offered a pistol, along with the satellite phone. Sure, the pranks so far didn’t warrant armed protection, but the thought of this jerk terrifying Elly into leaving town—and then do what to her, when she was alone?—filled his soul with an overwhelming violence.
Elly looked so tired, so vulnerable. He didn’t want to spoil the day for her. If she wanted to relax, he’d make certain she would.
After lunch, Zoe fell asleep under the shade of the tree he always came to, the mighty red rivergum stretching the biggest of its boughs over his fair-skinned daughter—but when the sun changed position he scooped Zoe and the blanket up in his arms, and carried her to another tree about twenty feet away that had the best shade when the sun turned, so she could sleep undisturbed. He put a sun umbrella up and over her for further protection. She sighed and flipped onto her tummy, cuddling her favourite stuffed toy, Kev the Koala, which she called Cammy.
‘So what happened at Kutringal yesterday?’ he asked Elly as he lay beside her on the blanket under the larger tree. ‘What were the presents for?’
She twisted her head around, her lip caught between her teeth. ‘They gave us all gifts. It was their way of thanking us for our care.’
‘Elly.’ He lifted a brow. ‘What was the other thing? It felt—solemn, somehow.’
‘Are you sure you want to know?’
He grinned to hide the sudden trepidation. ‘Why do I get the feeling this is something that’ll scare me?’
She didn’t smile back. ‘It might,’ she conceded quietly, ‘but I won’t hold you to it.’
He frowned, intrigued now. ‘What did Mirimi say?’
Her gaze fell. ‘She—she asked if you were my man.’
‘And?’
‘You answered her question for me.’ Her fingers were twisting around each other now. ‘In our culture, if you’re playing around, you do it in private. If you take a woman’s hand before the whole clan, you’ve made a public statement.’
The connection hit him then. ‘When he laid his hand over ours … Did Minyenbarra marry us, Elly?’
‘Only in a spiritual way. It only becomes legal if we both acknowledge it, and send for the relevant papers. He’s a registered celebrant.’ Her worried gaze roamed his face. ‘When Minyenbarra told you to take care of me—’
‘My answer was like a vow.’ He looked at her, frowning still. ‘Why did you let him do it?’
Turning to look out over the water, she shrugged. ‘It was a bit of fun, right?’
‘No. So … we’re married,’ he murmured, trying to take in the shock.
‘Like I said, it’s not legal, and it doesn’t ever have to be. Because we didn’t give the obligatory thirty-three days’ notice, the marriage was spiritual only. If we ask him to send in the papers to the relevant authorities, in thirty-three days, he’ll send us papers to sign. He’ll only send them in if we sign and return them to him. Then, according to Australian law, we’ll be husband and wife.’
His gaze locked with hers. ‘So I’m your husband, if you want me. Do you, Elly? Did you claim me as your husband?’
Her lower lip pulled into her mouth for a moment before she spoke. ‘I won’t ask Minyenbarra to send the papers, Adam. You’ve given me enough.’
She was stating a simple truth. But which truth did she believe—that this stalker would soon run her out of town, that Danny Spencer would kill her? Or that, like every other Jepson but Aunty Hat, he’d want to get rid of her as soon as he could without looking bad in the eyes of his community?
‘Did you claim me, darlin’?’ he asked again, trailing a finger down her cheek.
Her eyes closed. Something like a hiccup came from her throat. ‘You know I did,’ she whispered. ‘Just this once.’
A haunting echo of her words this morning. He felt their farewell coming. Over before they’d begun.
‘What if I claim you back? What if we make this real?’
She shivered, but didn’t answer. They both knew she didn’t have to. She still didn’t believe, and he couldn’t blame her.
So he took the conversation into less dangerous territory. ‘Tell me about your life since we lost contact.’
‘What’s to say?’
‘A lot, I think. If you trust me enough to tell me.’ He didn’t make it a question.
Lying beside him, he felt her tiny shrug. ‘I went to Nana’s a few weeks after your wedding. Being my weird self, I didn’t fit in there, either, although I know they love me. My second or third cousin—I can never work it out, her grandfather’s my nana’s cousin—anyway, Kara and I are good friends. We were born two months apart, and she’s a nurse, so we have a lot in common. But a few others in the family thought my uncertainty about our culture and a family I’d never known meant I was ashamed of my Koori heritage. I copped a few lectures on Koori pride.’
He watched the play of emotions across her face. Tiredness had opened her to him in a way he hadn’t seen since she’d returned to his life. ‘Aren’t you? Proud, I mean?’
‘I don’t see the point. If my parents weren’t who they were I wouldn’t be alive. Why be proud, or ashamed, of what I had no hand in? Princess or pauper, Caucasian or Koori, I’m me.’ She frowned. ‘Mum never told me about her background. I’ve since found out she was a Stolen Child, taken from her family in Narrabri and put in a religious foster home for no good reason in the late sixties. She had fair skin like her dad’s family, and the religious people thought she could pass for a white person. They might have meant well, but they never understood what it meant to be taken away from her family. Mum never got over it. See, Dad got to stay with his family—and then after having my brother and me, he left Mum, like she didn’t matter. Looking back, I realise she was pretty bitter about that—and about his taking my brother. I went to Narrabri once, but there was none of Mum’s family left in the area. I guess I’ll never know why she hid my heritage from me.’
‘It must have been hard for her, losing husband and son at once, if she was a foster kid,’ he said quietly. ‘Have you ever tried to look for your brother?’
She nodded, sighing. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
Guessing at what she’d been about to say, Adam changed the subject. ‘Do you like the Indigenous part of you? I thought you’d feel stronger about it, considering the life you’ve chosen.’
‘I do. I like being part of one of the longest continuing cultures on earth. I’m glad to see my people fighting to keep our heritage.’
‘Is that why you joined the Abo
riginal and Islander Medical Commission?’
‘No. I joined for the confidentiality Uncle George—Kara’s father—promised.’ Her eyes turned sombre. ‘I joined the Flying Doctors so I could treat anyone in need.’
‘That sounds like the Elly-May I remember. You love helping out. You have to be needed.’
She relaxed, laughing. ‘Two of a kind, Claudius.’
He grinned, acknowledging it. ‘It surprised me when you told me you were a doctor. I always envisioned you becoming a vet. It was all you ever talked about when we were kids.’
She rolled over to pluck a stalk of wild grass, and tickled his face with it, like she had when they were kids. But this time its effect wasn’t amused tolerance. He struggled to concentrate on her words.
‘Living in the city changed me, seeing so many sick people instead of critters to tend. Nana talked me into medicine, and I’m glad she did. I signed on with the Flying Doctors, and found my passion. Treating my people, learning from them as I help, I’m discovering my heritage, my spirit. I love the bush, and bush people. I love the diversity of bush medicine, the innovative spirit of working here. I’ve delivered six babies on isolated farms. I’ve operated on an opal miner trapped down a broken mine shaft while I was suspended by ropes. I’ve answered calls to villages and towns, road accidents, even a train derailment. But it’s just as well I didn’t get into medicine for a Lamborghini, because I’ll never earn enough.’
‘Don’t the Aboriginal and Islander Medical Commission pay well?’
‘Most of that was with the Flying Doctors.’ The smile faded. ‘Uncle George—Kara’s dad—sends me cash every month, in an envelope. I text him my latest address with a burner phone, and I only send to the burner I bought Uncle George. Danny found me last time through a banking transaction in Western Australia.’
‘Computer tap, or a rat in the bank?’
‘A well-paid rat is my guess. Danny carries a mountain of cash in his sack. I suppose he and Jeremiah change their burner phones weekly, like Uncle George and I do. Anyway, I withdrew everything I had from my account the day I left WA. I’ve been living off it ever since.’ She turned onto her side. ‘Tell me about your life.’
He made himself laugh, knowing her confidences were at an end for now, and it was her turn to probe. ‘You know it all, Elly-May. It’s all been pretty boring and predictable.’
‘Even in the SRG?’
He looked at the ring of trees lining the river. ‘Classified. I can tell you about policing in a general way, but the SRG’s out of bounds. I thought you meant my family life.’
A long hesitation, and he knew that whatever she was about to say, he wouldn’t like it.
‘How did you really cope with the accident?’
His body turned tight and hard with the memory, but it was only fair—he’d probed her pain. ‘Take old Abe’s death, and multiply by about a hundred.’ His heart pounded in a strange release he hadn’t expected. He’d hidden this for so long. But Elly wasn’t trying to fix his life for him, and somehow that made it easier. ‘How could I cope with what I didn’t know? The family was right. I shouldn’t have kept Zoe. I wouldn’t change my life, even for her. Policing was the only thing I was good at. If I’d stayed home with her, I’d have gone right over the edge.’
Gentle hands soothed his shoulders. ‘Zoe’s fine, Adam.’
‘Not then she wasn’t. She had two years of night terrors, and instead of being there for her, I made it worse by diving headfirst into all the riskiest cases. I don’t know why—diversion, dulling the memories, or trying to kill myself—but Zoe deserved a lot better than she got. Being shot changed my life for the better—and hers.’
Her laugh broke into his black mood of self-recrimination. ‘That sounds like my Claudius. Only a maniac like you could be grateful for taking a slug in the chest.’
He grinned at her, glad to leave his past behind. ‘We’re a pair of wild ones. Two of a kind.’
‘I’m not grateful for my life-altering incident.’ She rolled away and sat up, her face turned to the shining brown-green river. ‘It’s warping me, Adam. My life’s consumed by where he is now, how he’ll feel about what I do. How he’ll react.’
‘We’ll get him, Elly.’ He sat up.
A soft rustling came from high above and a light rain of ghost-gum leaves drifted around them. A phalanx of pink galahs flew out of the tree, bright against a blazing blue sky, their screeches fading. Lizards scattered from the base of the tree, bolting to the reedy ground near the river’s edge. He smiled at her relaxed body, hand caressing the grass and weeds in absent absorption. She was in her milieu here, belonging to the natural world around her. How had she coped, living in Sydney all those years?
She shivered. ‘Sometimes I think I’d give my life for one normal day. A day when I don’t wonder if he’ll find me. What he’ll do to me.’
Feeling unsettled, but not understanding why, he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her back against him until she rested on his chest. ‘You’ll have it, I swear—more than just a day. I won’t let him get to you. I won’t let him hurt you again.’
She twisted around, gazing at him with fierce intensity. ‘Even if you could promise that—and we both know you can’t—I don’t think I know how to be normal any more.’
Dear God, how that hurt. All the more so because he understood. ‘You were never normal, Elly.’ When she stiffened, he caressed her damp curls. ‘Outstanding, amazing, incredible, yes—but never normal.’ He cupped her face in a hand. ‘You have an amazing power to give laughter, love and healing to animals or people. You’ve done that for me twice—and both times, in less than three days. That’s your magic for me. You make me love life, open my eyes to its possibilities and its beauty. Don’t underestimate it, or lose it. Your looks—and your job—are the least of your gifts.’
The pain in her eyes died. She smiled, luminous through the sheen of budding tears. ‘Thank you, Claudius. You’ve always known how to make me believe in myself.’
‘And you’ve always known how to make me laugh, and be happy in the moment,’ he murmured. ‘Until you came, I’d forgotten there was more to life than being a cop and bringing up Zoe. I’d almost forgotten I was a man.’
‘If this morning was any indication, you’re a man all right, in perfect working order.’ She flashed him a sweet, mischievous smile, desire hidden in its depths, but she didn’t move. She left her hands on his shoulders, giving him the choice.
Just this once, she’d said. She wouldn’t ask again. The next move was his.
‘I’m not sure,’ he said, slow and mischievous. ‘I might need some more practice. Just to be sure.’ And moving closer still, he kissed her.
When her tongue explored the cavern of his mouth with tender aggression, he made a low, growling sound of pleasure. Her palms and fingers drank in the rough warmth of him from shoulder to thigh in a dragging touch of unashamed need.
‘I’ve wanted to do that for so many years,’ she sighed.
He pushed down the straps of her top, letting her breasts spill into his hands—but she made a tiny sound of distress, trying to cover herself.
‘Elly, don’t hide. The scar makes no difference to me, except for hating the pain you suffered. Your breasts are still beautiful. You’re beautiful. You’re my wife—mine. I claim you,’ he whispered, acknowledging the words he’d wanted to say from the moment she’d told him about their ‘wedding’. Feeling the kick at a subliminal level. Don’t forget me, Adam. Don’t forget your promise. But even Sharon’s ghost had no hold over him when Elly was in his arms.
She gave a tiny gasp, and looked into his eyes with devastating honesty. ‘Don’t say that unless you mean it, Adam. Please don’t. You—you’ve always meant more to me than anyone I’ve ever known.’
Past and present melded with her words, beauty and suffering, and he searched for the right words. ‘You’re in my veins, Elly. Don’t you know that? You always have been. They couldn’t get you out of here
’—he touched his chest—‘no matter what they said or did. Even when I’d have given anything to forget you, just to shut them up, just for peace, I couldn’t not love you. You’re the only person who ever knew me, all of me.’ He looked into her eyes, her beautiful, disbelieving eyes, and then he knew what to say. Sharon’s face came and went in his mind, in fading reproach. Nothing he did could hurt Sharon now—but his power to hurt Elly left him humbled. ‘If you’ll give me the number to call, I’ll ask Minyenbarra to send in the papers.’
‘Adam …’ Her eyes closed, and tears trickled into her hair.
‘Don’t cry, baby,’ he whispered, kissing her cheek, her forehead.
She opened her eyes again, and his heart stuttered at the shimmering joy in them. ‘Even when you were gone, when you were with her, no other man could ever touch me here.’ She touched her chest too. ‘I waited for you.’
Unbearable light filled places in his soul that had been dark for too long. She couldn’t have told him her feelings more clearly with the time-honoured three words. Elly was his. Only his.
Now wasn’t the time for passion, much as he ached for it. She needed to know he was hers, too—that he would wait for her, as long as it took. So he pushed her straps back up to cover her, kissing every inch of her skin with tender reverence. Even so, she writhed beneath him, crooning his name. His heart filled with joy: the exaltation of a man arousing his woman. He’d never known it could be like this. Never in his thirty-three years had a woman given him all of herself, no reservation, no hesitation or holding back.
When she tugged his shorts down, he came back to earth with a thud. ‘We can’t, Elle.’ He kissed her once, twice, glancing at the other rug.
She gave a whimpering protest and locked her arms around his neck, tugging him down to her. ‘I want to make love so much,’ she whispered.
Above them, a bough of the massive eucalyptus creaked and swung in the gentle breeze. Slivers of bark fell to the ground, landing in her hair. It suited her, his lovely wild thing. With a smile, he brushed the tumbled chips out of the curls on her face, drinking in the sight of her rumpled, sexy confusion. ‘So do I. You don’t know how much. But Zoe might wake up.’
Beneath the Skin Page 18