A Place With Heart

by Jennie Jones

‘Solomon Jones’s stables. He’s ex-Commando. He’s Sergeant Luke’s best buddy though, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.’

  Jack sighed again. ‘I’m not worried. Take the turn.’ There was a fair amount to absorb regarding his new position, but it wasn’t as if he was devoid of experience. The majority of people thought it all happened in the big cities and, mostly, it did. But Jack had seen it all while he’d been in Kalgirri too—a mere 400 kilometres from Mt Maria. No distance at all out here. Murder, drug trafficking, organised crime, theft, the lot—from prostitution to search and rescue for missing tourists and prospectors. Cops had a front row seat on the best and worst of the human condition. Davidson hadn’t learned this yet of course, but neither had he taken much notice of whatever experience he thought his superiors might have.

  ‘Is there some reason for this visit to Solomon Jones I should know about, Sarge?’ Davidson asked.

  ‘I’d like a word about the bull before we get to the Brown place, that’s all.’

  In the few minutes they’d been driving Jack had been contemplating how to approach Jax without disturbing any relationship they had yet to determine was between them. He’d worry her by just turning up on her doorstep, on police business or otherwise. Having two official issues he needed to clarify and chat to her about—the fence, plus rehousing Tonto—meant he’d feel on a better footing. He had every authority to visit, but having two reasons somehow made it more plausible. More like policing than a desire to see her and talk on a personal level.

  The last thing he wanted was to be the person who caused her concern. If it wasn’t for that miracle thing happening in his chest—okay, his heart—he’d be tempted to advise himself to leave it be and move on. But the miracle thing had taken him off course for the first time in his life. If he were truthful with himself he wasn’t here because of the op. He was in Mt Maria for Isabelle Jaxine Brown, and if that wasn’t being truthful with himself, he didn’t know what was.

  Five minutes later he made Davidson wait in the wagon while he unlocked the gate to Solomon’s property, closing it behind him.

  Solomon paused at the far end of the stable block, clocked Jack, then went back to shovelling something from a wheelbarrow into a stall.

  It was peaceful, if a little warm, walking up the rough earth track. Rough it might be, but it was pristine in that countrified way; the earth packed down, the verges whipper-snipped, and even the smell of horses didn’t over-permeate the air with that livestock aroma. Paddocks either side were green and horses with flynets over their eyes grazed on the grass or stood quietly beneath gum trees.

  ‘How are you, Solomon? Good to see you again.’ Jack held out his hand and Solomon threw his shovel into the wheelbarrow.

  Solomon accepted the handshake. ‘You’re here about the bull.’

  Interesting to note Solomon was the first person not to ask up-front and outright why he was in town as a police officer. ‘I’d like it moved as soon as. Vet can’t get up here until the end of the week.’

  ‘It was too sick to move before now. I’ve spoken to Jax. We’ll move it in my horse van.’

  ‘I’ll help.’

  ‘Are you good with animals?’

  ‘I’m hoping you’re good with bulls because I don’t want Jax getting close to it.’

  ‘You think she’s not capable? Or are you being over-protective?’

  Jack paused. Why the rapid-fire questions? ‘I’m being careful.’

  Solomon nodded at Jack’s shirt and glanced at the epaulettes on his shoulders. ‘Are you here for a change in lifestyle? Or for Jax?’

  Jack sighed. So much for thinking he’d got away with not being questioned about why he was here … ‘What’s it to you?’

  Solomon didn’t answer, but he was weighing him up and Jack let him do it, taking the opportunity to study him right back.

  Solomon was a loner but that didn’t mean he was an oddity. He’d spent years in Special Forces and had returned to Mt Maria a while back to settle down and rescue horses. But he was also the nephew of Tani—an Aboriginal elder and sometime mind-reader, who still had some of those intuitive skills that Aboriginal people in this land had used for millennia.

  ‘Did you give Luke this much trouble?’ he asked, referring to the case Luke had been working on when Rachel had been in danger three months back. That was when he’d first met Solomon.

  ‘Not the kind I’m contemplating giving you.’

  Was this some kind of challenge? ‘Do I need to be concerned?’

  ‘Depends how you handle it.’

  Jack had a sudden reminder of how the bad guys who’d been after Rachel had been caught. Luke wouldn’t tell him who’d done it but Jack had his suspicions. Not a cop, but someone who could tie fancy knots and take charge of four big bad guys on his own.

  Luke had talked a little about Solomon but not in-depth. As though he wanted to keep the deep friendship he had with the man undercover, or at least not shine a spotlight on it. Jack wondered why, but it had to be because Solomon had helped Luke. Maybe not quite on the right side of the law, but he was ex-Special Forces, and if Luke had reason to use his skills, Jack wasn’t going to question it. He didn’t want to get Solomon offside. There was no point.

  ‘Luke knew why Rachel was hiding out in Mt Maria almost from the start of the trouble she found herself in,’ Solomon said. ‘I didn’t need to interfere in that. He was looking out for her from the get-go.’

  Jack reflected on this. So he was talking about that time, but what was the reference? ‘Are you telling me I have to look out for Isabelle?’ Is that where this zigzag conversation was going? ‘Or are you suggesting it’s unlikely I would look out for her?’ He had to force down anger at that.

  ‘Isabelle?’ Solomon asked.

  ‘It’s Jax’s first name.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Well now you do.’ On one hand, he was glad that the man hadn’t known; on the other, he was still boiling at the suggestion he wasn’t going to look out for her. ‘I happen to be on my way to her place now. Someone’s mowed down the fence on her back paddock.’

  Solomon pursed his mouth as he considered this. ‘If I were you I’d be taking a drive to the Baxter boys’ places.’

  ‘If you were me you’d be wearing a badge on your sleeve.’

  Solomon smiled, slow, like thick treacle seeped from a spoon—in its own time. ‘Whether you like it or not, Jack, I’ll be keeping my eye on her place.’

  ‘I’d prefer you didn’t do that. Leave it to us. The police.’

  Solomon lost the smile almost as slowly as it had appeared and stared at Jack until his features became expressionless. ‘I care for her,’ he said after a few seconds.

  This proclamation stunned Jack into silence.

  Had he wrongly imagined that she was alone? First a child, now a man. Possibly an old lover, possibly a current lover, possibly a future lover.

  He suddenly had trouble inhaling. ‘Are you after her?’ he asked. ‘Or already with her?’ Best if he got this intel up-front, because he’d be challenging Solomon Jones if—and Jesus if this didn’t push a spike into his chest—if he determined that Jax might be thinking along the lines of hooking up with Solomon. If they were already together it was clandestine, but Luke would have known. Luke would have told Jack—

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ Solomon said.

  ‘You don’t know what I’m thinking.’ Jack took a few seconds to make a measured appraisal of the man, not bothering to hide his interest. There was a sense of danger about Solomon but it sat so comfortably alongside a sense of worth that he understood it would take a long time to work the man out. If anyone ever managed to do that.

  One thing Jack was good at was playing poker like a pro. He’d trained himself to show the world expressionless features whenever needed, but there was something going on here—something Solomon knew that Jack didn’t—and he felt a muscle twitch at the side of his mouth.

  ‘What are you te
lling me?’ he asked.

  ‘She was hurt, Jack.’

  A sense of rage filled him as this information sank in. ‘When?’

  ‘Go figure it out. I’ll let you know when we intend to move the bull.’ Solomon turned and headed for his house, and Jack let him go.

  Pointless getting pissed off without first knowing the reason for the anger. Facts. He needed facts. Emotion tore a person up and engulfed all reason. Jack couldn’t afford to let that happen. But he hadn’t got to the position he was in now in the force by being stupid.

  Jax was the type of woman who was totally together. She looked after her animals, her business, her younger sister and her friends. She was the dependable type. People turned to her because they knew she could be trusted and that she’d always have good, solid, decent advice on how to handle any situation. But what did he know about Jax’s life out here?

  Maybe not as much as he’d thought.

  To begin with he hadn’t noticed the wariness in her during their first reunion yesterday—apart from her obvious concern about meeting up with him again. But when Frances had come into the café and interrupted them, she’d changed. She’d been out of her depth on a level he’d never seen before.

  However she’d been hurt, he knew instinctively it was something to do with Frances. Or, more likely, Frances’s father.

  Seven

  By the time Davidson pulled up outside Jax’s farmhouse, Jack had his mind focused on the issues at hand. If he could sneak in a question about Frances, he’d do it. If not, he’d return to that problem at a later stage after Jax got used to seeing him around. He had no intention of taking this visit in any direction other than official unless the opportunity arose.

  Jax and Frances must have heard the police wagon drive up because they were both standing at the open front door, Jax holding it with one hand. Jack wondered if she was gripping it for support.

  He nodded hello as he got out of the wagon, then climbed the verandah steps, acknowledging the peaceful country atmosphere of her front garden in his peripheral vision. He’d never been to her house. ‘I’m here about the fence,’ he said to Jax, heading straight in.

  Irritation flickered in her eyes and he knew Donna might be getting a telephone call later; then she relaxed and gave him a tight smile. But it was a smile. Maybe she’d known all along that her friend would report this to her OIC. Maybe this was the way Jax preferred to handle contact with him. That was fine with Jack; so long as they had contact he could take the rest as it happened.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, releasing her hold of the door and stepping back.

  Frances stepped back too.

  Jack smiled at her but she wasn’t looking at him; she had her eyes fixed on his belt.

  She shot a look at the yellow-handled Taser, then at the Glock in his holster.

  ‘It’s all safely looked after,’ he told her.

  She raised her gaze to his and he was taken aback at how similar her eyes were to Jax’s. Everything about her face, apart from the mouth—he couldn’t decide while she pouted—was like a younger version of Jax. High cheekbones beneath those eyes. Although Jax’s were blue and enquiring, sometimes quite sharply so if she felt the need to be on her guard. Frances’s eyes were blue and wary. The kid had been hurt. The kid was hiding her emotions, or trying to.

  He felt immediate compassion for her.

  Many grown-ups tended to view children as incomplete and incompetent compared to adults. Jack didn’t. He’d had a tough childhood and had learned how to be an adult long before he should have. Frances was going through a similar process of evaluation of her life and whatever it was that had happened to her, although she was only at the start. Is this why Jax was having so much trouble with her? It was obvious the kid didn’t want to be with Jax. He longed to know why. More now than before his chat with Solomon.

  He followed Jax down the hallway and into the kitchen, noting the living room on his left and what must be bedrooms down the hall at the back. He took his eyes off the bedroom area as a vision he’d never expected thumped his brain and hammered his chest: Jax with a man in her bed.

  He heard Davidson come in behind them, and he heard Frances’s soft footfall too, following them because maybe she was interested in what was going on, or maybe she just didn’t know where else to put herself.

  The atmosphere of peace and cleanliness in the relaxed clutter of Jax’s home almost overwhelmed him. It was the warm, fresh, family kind of house he would have liked to have grown up in. Part of the reason he became a cop—a detective in particular—was because it was a persona he could put on each day: hide the real man. Nullify the crappy memories.

  On almost every evening for the first five years of his life his mother had locked him in the dirty bathroom in the flat he’d been born in while she entertained one of any number of drug-dealing crazy guys. He’d slept in the bath as soon as he turned two and could climb into it. Other times, while his mother was out cold or sleeping it off, his bed was a mattress on the floor and his toys were empty beer bottles.

  ‘Hey, it’s Jack and my man!’

  Jack’s smile bloomed when Rosita, sexy as an ice-laden cocktail on a hot day, strode into the kitchen and threw a flirty smile at Jack as she passed him, making her way to Davidson.

  Jack turned at the shoulder and watched her throw her arms around the rookie’s neck and smack a kiss on his mouth.

  ‘Hi, baby,’ Rosie said to Davidson.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Davidson asked.

  ‘I’m on a break from the café.’

  Davidson held her tentatively, and raised worried eyes at Jack.

  Jack frowned.

  ‘Not now, Rosie,’ Davidson said, untangling himself. ‘I’m on duty.’

  ‘So am I,’ Rosie said, flicking a thumb at Frances. ‘Niece duty. Hey, niece, this is my man, David.’

  ‘Probationary Constable David Davidson,’ Jack said to Frances. ‘He’s only David when he’s not on duty. But don’t forget you can call me Jack anytime,’ he added with a smile, wanting to make her feel at ease.

  ‘Why don’t we all go outside for some fresh air?’ Rosie said, beaming. ‘You too, niece. Stick by me because the grown-ups need some space.’

  As it was Rosie who had suggested it, Jack was unsure if she was showing sense and taking Frances away from any discussion of the reason for Jack’s visit, or whether she simply wanted to spend time with Davidson.

  ‘Need me with you, Sarge?’ Davidson asked.

  Jack shook his head. He’d get more information out of Jax regarding the destruction of the fence if he was on his own with her.

  Rosie headed outside, a bounce in her step. She paused briefly on the stairs to check that Frances was following. ‘Come on, tortoise,’ she said, moving off again. ‘Catch up or lose out.’

  Jack felt for Frances. He wanted her to turn and look at him so he could smile reassuringly at her again, but she moped along after Rosie and Davidson, pulling her iPhone out of the back pocket of her shorts and keeping her head down, focused on the screen, so she didn’t have to show any interest or participate in any conversation. Poor kid. He didn’t even know why he was terming her ‘poor kid’ but something was seriously bothering her.

  He brought his focus back to Jax who was watching him watch her daughter. She was pouting now too, but it wasn’t sullenness, not with a full mouth like that, licked with a light-pink lipstick. It was guardedness. ‘Can you show me where it happened?’ he asked, and stepped back to allow her to go outside before him.

  There was a tension around her shoulders as she strode off without waiting for him.

  She was so caring of everyone around her, and so damned stubborn, it made him want to catch her by the waist, spin her around and make her look into his eyes so she’d see he was intent only on protecting her, not trying to find a quiet shady spot where he could kiss her. Although …

  Rosie & Co were now at the fence where the dogs were eagerly jumping and yipping. A few hu
ng back, probably unsure. He was surprised that Jax let them live in a pack situation, until he noticed another fenced area further back where five dogs were housed in makeshift runs, away from the other dogs and each other. They were likely the recently rescued dogs, unsure of what was expected of them or what might happen to them.

  Not unlike Frances.

  Davidson had Rosie in his embrace, her back to him and his arms around her. Frances still had her iPhone in her hand but was now looking at the fence with a scowl, as though worried about getting too close to the dogs in case one of them jumped the fence, or just plain embarrassed at her aunt’s behaviour and deciding that turning her back might make it go away.

  ‘Davidson!’ Jack called. ‘Don’t forget we’re aiming for an eight.’

  Davidson dropped his arms and took a step back from Rosie.

  ‘What was that about?’ Jax asked when they headed on towards the rear of the house.

  Jack let out a quick laugh. ‘I’d tell you but I ought to remain professional.’

  ‘An eight?’ she persisted, thinking about it with a crease of her brow. ‘Something about his policing intelligence? Are you scoring him?’

  He gave her a reluctant but appreciative smile. ‘You’re too smart, Isabelle.’

  She halted and stared at him. ‘No-one’s called me that in a long time.’

  ‘Jack. Jax. Too similar,’ he explained. ‘You said it yourself.’

  ‘I meant it as a joke.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful name,’ he said softly. ‘I’d like to call you Isabelle.’

  Her gaze honed on his for a moment, then veered away. ‘I won’t answer.’

  Jack took a step back, mentally and physically. ‘Nice looking dogs,’ he said, turning to look at them as he changed the subject.

  ‘These are the good ones. I’ve got two up for rehoming already.’

  He let her talk. Her voice had changed; she was speaking about her favourite subject.

  ‘I occasionally get a wild dog,’ she continued. ‘If they’re unlucky, they’re run over and left to die on the side of the road.’

  ‘And if they’re lucky, they’re brought to you.’