by Jennie Jones
‘Are you worried about how I’ll find a way to provide for you and Frances, financially?’
‘No! I wouldn’t expect you to look after me financially.’
‘But I’d need to know I could.’
Jax would too, but not for the reason he was giving her. She’d need to know he could handle being here, and that he had a worthwhile role or job or task—something that would keep him focused and happy. Because she didn’t want it to get to the point where she wasn’t enough for him.
‘So is this it?’ he asked. ‘Are you saying you’ll marry me?’
‘How can I?’ She couldn’t go there. There was still so much to figure out.
His expression changed only slightly, but she saw a crestfallen look in his eyes, and it felt like she’d let him down. ‘Maybe Frances and I should think about leaving and go with you.’ There were some benefits—one, at least: Frances wouldn’t feel so isolated.
‘Are you crazy?’ he asked, looking askance. ‘When Frances is just getting it together out here? When you’re so happy here? I wouldn’t do that to you.’
‘I’m concerned they’ll take Frances off me.’ She spoke in a rush, but this was the other worry and she needed to talk to Jack about it, to see what he felt and whether or not he knew how it might go for her.
He pulled back a little more. ‘Because of today? No way. You were not at fault, and you were under police direction the entire time, from minutes after she ran away to when she drove into town. They won’t blame you for this, sweetheart.’
‘Will they believe you?’
‘Yes.’
So strong-willed and optimistic.
‘We’re three misfits, Jack.’
‘We’re a would-be family. Now, will you marry me?’
Her mouth curved in a smile at his persistence. ‘I thought you said you weren’t going to ask me again.’
His eyes darkened with so much warmth it burned her, and her heart went to him.
‘This is the very last time. I’m staying, Jax. I’m staying here, with you. Why would we want to go anywhere else?’ he asked, as they gazed at each other. ‘It’s a place with heart. I want to give it mine.’
Twenty-Seven
If a woman could say she felt silky, tremulous, desirable, and somewhat spent, Jax Brown was that woman.
Jack had slept on the sofa again the other night, after returning from his long drive along the Great Central Road. And as yesterday had been all about policing for him, they’d had no time to be alone together. Until now. Frances was with Solomon at the stables, helping him, as she’d wanted to, while Billy recovered. The late afternoon sun still shone on Jax’s garden. It was a particularly lovely time of day to smell the lavender and sage and lemon verbena.
Sex.
It had a way of changing a woman’s opinion of herself. She’d obviously been stifling her womanly, female reactions to the sultrier things in life.
Sex with Jack was a journey. Slow and sensual, like being in a rowboat on a calm, lazy pond, the light breeze brushing the skin and awakening it for the point of mid-journey—a little more frenzied, as though late for something you desperately needed. As though running across an airport tarmac, heading for the plane, begging them to let you onboard before they closed the door. From mid-journey to journey’s end she’d felt possessed, on the verge of pleasurable hysteria.
A noise behind her made her turn and she smiled at the man approaching, who was wearing only his jeans. ‘I can’t believe I’m semi-naked on my verandah at 5 pm on a Monday. Or any day!’
Jack acknowledged her with a grin. Barefoot, bare-chested, he walked towards her, a glass of red wine in each hand.
When he reached her, he kissed her, then put the glasses onto the verandah railing and dragged her into him. ‘You’re completely naked beneath that flimsy, pink T-shirt,’ he said, plucking at the hem of the loose, lightweight shirt. ‘By the way, have I told you how much I love the pink of your mouth?’ he murmured, biting her bottom lip. ‘Every last pink, womanly bit of you, in fact.’
Her body responded in exactly the same way it had reacted to him over the last few hours. This man burned her, inside and out, and it was such a beautiful burn.
Sex with Jack.
So intimate, and even fun. On one or two occasions they’d paused and just stared at each other, as though disbelieving of what they were experiencing together. That’s when laughter would strike them, spilling over at the unexpected shared enjoyment.
‘How about I call you JX?’ he’d asked at one point, halting their love-making.
‘Jayex?’ she’d said, baffled, and breathless from what his hands had been doing. ‘That sounds like the name of a toilet cleaner.’
He frowned hard. ‘Jay, then,’ he said in some sort of frustration. ‘Jack and Jay. That’s not so bad.’
She loved him so much. ‘I don’t care about the nursery rhyme,’ she’d said softly. ‘Jack and Jax is okay with me.’
‘We’ll be laughed at.’
‘Don’t care,’ she’d told him, shaking her head.
‘Neither do I,’ he’d said, and his hands and mouth had continued their assault on her body and her senses.
She hadn’t been shy; she’d known she wouldn’t be. Not with him. Although she’d had to draw breath the moment she peeled off her shirt, undid the belt of her pink work jeans and stepped out of them, standing naked in front of him.
For seconds, they’d just looked at each other. His eyes were on hers, but she’d had no doubt he was taking in every womanly shape and contour of her in his peripheral vision.
‘I’m an incredibly lucky man,’ he’d said.
She’d been the lucky one.
Between their bouts of love-making they’d rested, chatting about nothing important and everything glorious, like how the light looked as it streamed through the window and hit the little china ornaments on Jax’s dressing table. Or they’d stayed silent, holding each other in gratefulness.
‘Did you get hold of Solomon?’ she asked him now. ‘Is Frances okay?’
He picked up their wineglasses and handed her one.
She sipped. Luscious, thick red wine at 5 pm on a Monday, semi-naked on her verandah with the man of her dreams. The man she was sure was her soulmate.
‘Frances is having a ball,’ Jack said. ‘She’s working hard and learning heaps, apparently.’
Everyone was safe.
There was so much to be grateful for.
As they sipped their wine, Jack so close to her she was inhaling a hint of her own perfume emanating from his skin, she studied her land and thought about her future.
The dogs were paddocked, but in a number of separate runs. One day, she’d like to build solid stone kennels and take in more dogs and open a proper haven and rehoming centre. She’d had the majority of the dogs for close to a year and the bulk had become a pack. It was difficult to rehome them without copious advertising and constant social media monitoring—and money. Winston was pack leader, and he handled his family with a kingly care. Any trouble was quickly extinguished by a snapping growl and a jowly frown.
Winston was a big daddy-bear. Amazing, since he’d been abused as a youngster. But he trusted people he knew loved him or wanted to care for him. He loved them right back, as though saying thank you.
Jax wanted to be part of a pack too. Frances certainly needed a full, loving family.
She put her glass of wine onto the railing. ‘I love you, Jack,’ she told him, cupping his jaw with the palm of her hand.
‘Lower your voice,’ he said as his hand crept beneath her T-shirt and onto her back. ‘The rooster’s watching and the lamb’s too young to know what’s going on.’
Her laughter felt free and welcome. Rooster-Booster, as she’d heard Frances call him when she was feeding him, was strutting his stuff along the far end of the verandah railing, staying close to the lamb, who was in a child’s playpen on the grass.
‘If we keep the lamb, I’ll probably have to keep
the two ewes, maybe get a few more sheep.’ She didn’t want it lonely, and nobody had been able to find the owners of the stolen ewes.
‘You can be Little Bo Peep,’ Jack said with a sinful smile. ‘I’ll probably be Little Jack Horner, sitting in a corner, waiting for Bo Peep to tell him she’ll marry him.’
Her amusement left her, the air around her getting serious. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked, knowing she didn’t have to say more.
Jack released her and put his wineglass onto the railing. ‘We’re going to figure it out. I’ve been sussing out one idea. Security.’
‘For whom?’
‘For you and Frances, primarily.’ He leaned down and kissed her, his mouth warm and a little fruity from the wine.
When they pulled apart, they smiled the way they had been doing all afternoon. Surprised, all over again, by how much feeling they had for each other.
‘What security?’ she asked.
‘Mine site and airport. I contacted Zenith, made a suggestion they might like a man on the ground. A consultant.’
‘Are they interested?’
‘They’ve asked me to get a proposal together. I’ll do that, along with something I had an idea about while driving along the Great Central Road. I had a few hours to think about a lot of things.’
He took his gaze over her head, looking out at the property. ‘I want to run training courses, developing skills to respond to emergency situations for those who live remote—even more rural than we are.’
‘For people who currently don’t know how to handle things like that?’
Jack looked at her, and nodded, but she could tell his focus was fixed on his thoughts. ‘I’ll need Solomon’s help. Especially with the Aboriginal communities. They’d work with him, I’ve no doubt. I’d also need to coordinate all the bushfire and emergency services people dotted around this vast shire, get their cooperation, and then generate interest from the locals. Here, and also those isolated within a thousand-kilometre radius. Whatever it takes. But I’m going to do it. Not only because it would give me a job and an aim, but because I’ve seen how much it’s needed.’ He returned his attention to Jax. ‘Imagine it. A team of skilled volunteers able to assist police, ambulance and fire services. We’d teach them how to use rescue equipment. We’d teach them ways of hopefully saving people’s lives.’
‘Like when there’s a car crash?’ How many people had lost their lives over the years while driving down difficult tracks, or navigating floods and gravelly hills?
‘There are ways of looking at an incident before heading in,’ Jack said. ‘If you’re trained, it’s either a split-second, knowledgeable decision, or it’s obvious more thought is needed. I’d like to teach people about that. How do you get an injured driver out of the cab of a truck when the door’s smashed and stuck? How do you get the roof off a car in order to get to the unconscious passenger? Where do you aim the nozzle of the hose when the vehicle’s on fire?’
‘It’s an amazing idea.’ She could already see it working, or at least see how Jack would go about making it work. She saw determination in his eyes, and had no doubt it was in his heart too.
‘I’d have to find a way of getting more equipment out here, and a means to purchase it. I’d want a trailer of useful, necessary gear in situ at various small towns or pastoral stations or Aboriginal communities so that a team could deploy within minutes.’
Jax put her hands on his chest. ‘You’re really going to leave the department.’ She hadn’t known him very long, yet still, it seemed unbelievable.
He took hold of her hands in both of his, as though reassuring her. ‘Yes. I’m sick of being a detective, Jax. I want room to breathe.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I love you. Don’t you believe me?’
‘I believe you.’ How could she not? It was in his expression, in his eyes, in his care.
‘How about you finish your wine,’ he said with a devilish grin. ‘I’ve got an idea for what we can do next.’
She looked up at him. ‘We ought to go and get Frances.’
‘Why don’t we let Solomon babysit a little longer while we fetch another pail of water?’
The air was suddenly full of sultry passion.
He picked up her wineglass and handed it to her.
‘Drink quickly,’ he said playfully.
Jax smiled, and sipped the wine.
She turned to face the sinking sun, her back against him, his arms protectively and lovingly hooked around her.
He’d said he wanted to stay because Mt Maria had heart and he wanted to give it his.
Please let Frances want that too.
Frances’s throat was clogged so hard she wondered if she’d ever swallow again.
Jack stood by the kitchen sink, in front of her, looking at her with an expression of patience, but it was tinged with so much care that her chest tightened.
He wasn’t in his uniform; he was dressed in jeans and pale blue shirt, the cuffs rolled back.
Jax was wearing her usual clothes, her pink jeans and her wellies and a loose white blouse, tucked into her jeans. She was by the stove, her hands at her sides, her eyes shining but with a hint of fear in them, although love swam in the shine of her gaze. As though it were real. As though her love was real.
If Frances had been able to walk, her hands would have been outstretched, and if she made it the few steps forwards it would take to reach the table, she would have grabbed it and held on tight.
As it was, her knees were wobbling and her chest hurt and she couldn’t move.
‘I love your mum,’ Jack said again. ‘And I’d like to marry her, so we three can be a real family.’
Real. That word again.
‘And I love you, believe it or not.’
He loved her? He loved Frances?
She studied him hard, waiting to see the joke. Waiting to see him laugh.
She’d known this was going to happen. She’d seen them looking at each other adoringly. Linda and her father never had love in their eyes. She wasn’t used to seeing it, and definitely never expected it to be aimed her way!
He didn’t laugh, and her chest filled with something she’d never felt before. It was perhaps part panic and part fantasy-like elation.
‘It’s not up to me,’ she said, knowing she sounded defensive but that was because she was scared of all these new emotions she couldn’t yet name.
She’d had such a good day at the stables, learning how to stroke the horses and what to watch out for, because she’d been a little scared that one of them might bite her. She’d helped Solomon shovel stuff. There was a lot of shovelling or raking or scooping when you worked with horses. And now this …
‘No,’ Jack said, responding to her answer. ‘But we’d like your approval.’
‘We need your approval,’ Jax said.
‘I’m only thirteen.’
‘You’ve had a fair few adventures for a thirteen-year-old,’ Jack said. ‘Want to give this one a shot?’
‘You’re a young woman going through a difficult time,’ Jax said, stepping forwards. ‘You’ve got so many changes happening for you and you need to get used to them. I don’t want this one to be worrying for you. You’ll always have your own space. You’re part of this house, this town, this everything.’
‘Us,’ Jack said. ‘You’re part of us. We’re a family.’
Frances’s lips were suddenly so dry she had to lick them.
She’d never had any space in her life before. She’d always felt squashed; never having total freedom in the house she’d been brought up in because her bedroom was the only room she was allowed to use—and she had to keep it tidy and have the kind of pictures on the wall and the type of doona and sheets that Linda wanted. She’d been squashed between her dad and Linda too. Not allowed to breathe or speak her mind, always watching her manners and never behaving in a childish way. She’d never thrown herself at her dad for a hug. Not ever. Not like she had with Jack when that fi
ght happened outside the café and he sorted it out. Not like when she’d really needed to hold Jax’s hand after the driving episode, after Billy had been hurt.
Did she actually know what love looked like? Obviously not, because she was sure she was looking at it now yet she only half recognised it. It was so hard to let go of all the rules she’d placed on herself so that she didn’t care. It was hard to look at love, let alone allow it to just happen.
She paused as a new thought struck her. She’d made friends here, and it was hours from anywhere, but she no longer thought of it as Mt bullshit Maria. Look at the people she knew now, who’d all accepted her. Lots of people had spoken to her since the driving incident the other day where she might have crashed Billy’s vehicle into one of the town businesses!
Some of them congratulated her for being brave and handling it. Some had smiled, as though amused about what she’d done. But none had growled or frowned.
She’d even settled into the long-distance schooling thing. Especially when Saanvi said she was jealous of Frances doing school that way, and said it must be exciting to be out there in Mt Maria, so far from anything and having to rely on your own judgement for so much.
She had used a fair amount of judgement. Every chance she got, between school stuff, she was going to be working for Solomon while Billy was getting better. She’d made up her mind to visit the youth centre too, and she had a hundred thousand questions for Officer Donna whom she was hoping would teach her self-defence and tell her a bit more about how she might become a police officer if she decided that’s what she’d like to do. She had animals too, not just people. There were dogs and a bull—and a lovely little lamb and a tame rooster who didn’t even peck her fingers off when she stroked it.
‘Can I have some time to think about it?’ she asked, astonished at her bravery in asking, and terrified the derision would come any second.
‘Yes,’ Jax said.
‘Can I ask that you don’t take too long,’ Jack added, with a look that was almost jokey—in a serious situation like this! ‘Because I’m in a hurry to get this family gig underway.’