by Stella Quinn
He held her there, his mind racing. Aaron was clearly a nutjob, this darned trial was stripping the life out of the woman he’d lost his heart to, and he didn’t know where he stood in all of this.
‘Vera? Honey? Are you okay?’
She nodded. ‘I will be.’
He held her face in his hands and gave her a thorough inspection. She looked tired, and strain had left shadows the colour of bruises beneath her eyes. He’d bet a million bucks she’d been worrying about the cat, or the trial, or god knows what else all night instead of sleeping. He ran his hands down her arms, stopping when he reached a rough cloth about her hand.
‘Holy heck, what happened?’
‘Oh,’ she said, holding her hand up. Blood was seeping through some scrap of chintzy-flowered fabric. ‘The scissors must have cut deeper than I thought.’
‘He attacked you with scissors?’
‘No! God no. I was doing some sewing when there was a knock at the door. I was surprised because I don’t get visitors. I jabbed myself.’
He ripped off the cloth and investigated. ‘You need stitches.’
‘Bloody hell. I wrapped it up so quick I didn’t see how bad it was. Faulty pain receptors … it’s a cook’s hazard from all the slicing and dicing and hot pans. Hell, the scissors were rusty, too.’
‘Lucky you, one tetanus shot coming right up. I’ll drive you to the hospital.’
‘Really, Josh, I don’t need—’ She paused, and he waited for her to finish.
She placed her hand—the one that wasn’t bleeding—on his chest. ‘Actually, I’d like that. I’d like that a whole lot.’
He tried not to let his wounded heart leap at the idea that maybe she was talking about more than a ride to the hospital.
‘And Josh? Maybe you and I could have a talk. There’s some stuff I need to say … that is, if you want to.’
He took a breath. ‘Once the doctor’s checked you out, you can tell me anything you need to.’
CHAPTER
42
‘You stay out, buddy.’
Josh frowned at the tall woman in scrubs barring his way into the triage room.
‘She needs someone with her, and that someone is me.’
‘Sorry. Medical staff and patients only on the other side of this door.’
‘I’m a vet. I promise I won’t faint …’—he scanned the tag pinned to her scrubs—‘Dr Pozzi.’
‘You could be Dr Seuss himself, you’re still not getting through these doors. We’ve got a backlog of patients after some idiot ran her quad bike into the middle of her own eighteenth birthday party, and we don’t need any extras cluttering up our space.’
He blew out a breath. ‘Okay. I’ll be waiting.’
‘There’s black stuff in the waiting room that someone’s mislabelled as coffee. Go grab a cup.’
The black stuff was as bad as predicted. He choked down a mouthful of it for something to do, and was just deciding which of the chairs in the waiting room looked the most promising for a lengthy sit when the handbag Vera had grabbed as they left her wrecked apartment buzzed in his hand. He unzipped it and looked in gingerly. A sister, a mother, a daughter and a variety of ex-girlfriends had taught him a woman’s handbag was a no-man’s-land that he never wanted to visit.
The buzz stopped, then set up again, as insistent as a jackhammer.
Crap.
He slid the screen to green and held it to his ear. A deep female voice was off and running in his ear before he could draw breath.
‘You want to explain this crazy text message to me, Vera? Aaron Finch drove all the way out there to woop woop to harass you? In your own apartment! My busy bee antennae are whipping around like wind turbines. This is big. This is stalker big. We need to take action.’
‘It’s not Vera.’
Silence, then, ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘Josh Cody. I’m Vera’s—’
Yeah. What was he exactly? Persistent admirer? Love-struck handbag guardian? ‘I’m her friend.’ He could be that, just that, if that’s what she wanted. No matter how much it hurt.
‘Where is she?’
‘Um. She can’t get to the phone right now.’
‘Look, Josh Cody, I’m Vera’s lawyer, Sue Anton, and she’s going to want to speak to me right this goddamn second. Put her on.’
Christ. Just what he needed, a lawyer in his face.
‘She’s not speaking to anyone right this goddamn second, Sue. She’s in hospital.’
‘What?’
‘She cut her hand. She needs stitches and there’s some delay.’
‘Holy crap. Is she all right? Oh my god, I wonder if that … how did she cut her hand? Was it that rat-faced ex-boyfriend named Aaron?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘How many rat-faced ex-boyfriends does Vera have?’
‘Don’t get smart with me, Mr Cody. I will chew you up and spit you out like pencil shavings. Tell me what happened?’
‘She was sewing and she was startled, and rammed a rusty set of scissors into the palm of her hand. It’s a minor wound. But yes, then ratface showed up. He was being pretty persistent when I got there, and wasn’t too keen on being told to leave.’
‘Hmm.’
There was a long pause, punctuated by the snarl and horns of big-city traffic. Wherever Vera’s lawyer was, it wasn’t Dandaloo Street, Hanrahan.
‘You know about the trouble Vera is in?’
‘Trial in a few weeks, hidden camera, possible jail time?’
‘I see you do. Vera tell you all this herself?’
‘Yep.’ About as willingly as a toddler visiting the dentist, but yeah, she’d told him, even if she’d left a few salient boyfriend facts out of the initial recital.
‘Hold the line. I just need to think for a second.’
He closed his eyes momentarily as he wondered about the ethics of plucking a woman’s phone out of her handbag, answering a call from her lawyer, and then talking over her criminal case. He let out a breath. He didn’t care. He was all in with Vera, and nothing the lawyer could say would change that.
‘Okay, let’s do this. First, are you Vera’s boyfriend?’
‘Er … it’s complicated.’
The snark in the lawyer’s voice softened a fraction. ‘When isn’t it? Okay, Josh, here’s the deal. You willing to make a statement about what you saw of Aaron Finch harassing my client at her home?’
‘Sure.’
‘Good. This is an opportunity, and Vera needs to seize it. We apply for a restraining order to keep him away from her.’
He looked at the sliding door through which he’d been denied entry. ‘I’m totally onboard with that. But—you better ask Vera. Whatever she decides, that’s what I’m supporting.’
‘Huh. You as cute to look at as you sound, Josh Cody?’
He rolled his eyes. Again. Sue steamrollered on as though her question had been hypothetical. ‘Get her to call me the instant she’s finished there, will you? I’m having a slow day, and it would give me a lot of pleasure to ring Aaron Finch and hand him his testicles minced into teeny-weeny little pieces.’
Josh raised his eyebrows. ‘Remind me never to piss you off.’
‘Wise call.’
The voice in his ear clicked off and he stared down at the phone. God, what a day. What a hell of a day.
CHAPTER
43
Vera lifted her hand, wondering how on earth she was going to construct six dozen prawn and vermicelli rice-paper rolls with this bandage-swaddled club at the end of her arm. She felt as weak as a lettuce leaf. A drop of blood she could cope with, but watching a needle and thread stitch her palm back together?
Her stomach flipped. No thank you.
The doctor who’d stitched up her hand had insisted she take a seat and drink a cup of tea until her colour improved, but had then bustled off through swing doors and disappeared.
Should she get up? Find someone?
Sooner or later she was going to have to haul hers
elf out of the recliner chair she’d been allocated and make some sense out of what had happened … but it was quiet in this little treatment room she’d been parked in.
She lay back against the vinyl headrest and closed her eyes.
Quiet and calm, like someone else was in charge and she could take a break from being Vera for a moment.
Aaron had lost his marbles, that was clear. To drive all this way to tell her she was mistaken, that he was really a great guy who could overlook her flaws? It was outrageous, and creepy as hell, which was why she’d texted the bare details to her lawyer on the drive in to the hospital.
Was asking for a restraining order an extreme reaction?
She wasn’t sure. She just knew she couldn’t face another scene like that alone.
But that moment when she’d finally had enough of being his victim, enough of feeling that he and Acacia View and the mistakes of her past were in charge of the shape of her future … she’d had a moment then. An epic moment.
Staring him down and pushing back at his bullshit had done more than shut him up. Seizing that moment had been like seizing back control, and the weight she’d been carrying for months had gone. She hadn’t seen the truth in her own words until she’d flung them in his face.
She’d been blaming herself, all this time, thinking she was a failure for not making better decisions, but now she knew. She took in a long breath and let it out, feeling the certainty build. She hadn’t been a failure; she’d made a mistake, and she was dealing with the consequences like a responsible adult. She’d had a valid reason for her actions: she’d been worried about her aunt.
What valid reason had Aaron had for dobbing her in to Acacia View? A fat deposit into the South Coast Morning Herald’s advertising account?
He’d used her for his own ends, and she’d been naive, yes, but she hadn’t been a failure.
What she was guilty of was letting her miserable history ruin her chance of a happier future when she’d pushed Josh away and kept the truth about Aaron from him.
A creak made her look up and there, holding open the hospital’s swing door, was the man himself. Josh. Her heart splintered into a thousand painful needle pricks. He was carrying flowers, a great messy bunch of … were they wildflowers? Billy buttons and triggers and daisies in pinks and yellows and silvers dizzier than Jill’s quilt.
‘Can I come in?’
A man with flowers. And not just any man, the man. The one who’d burrowed his way into her brittle lonely heart and made her feel again. Love and pain. Hurt and longing. And great deep swathes of want.
She tried to smile. ‘I thought you’d have had enough of me and my dramas by now, Josh.’
He shrugged a little in a way that made her realise he was feeling as unsure as she was. ‘Can’t a guy bring his girl flowers when the mood takes him?’
She frowned. ‘I wasn’t aware I was your girl.’
‘Well, shoot. Don’t tell Dr Dragon that; it took a thirty-minute question and answer session before she’d let me in here. Besides. I think we both know you could be. I know I want you to be.’
Crap. The tears she’d been fighting started leaking out every which way. ‘Oh, Josh, I want you to be my guy, too. I’m just so worried if I let you in, I’ll mess everything up.’
‘Vera, honey.’
She wanted this so badly, but she didn’t know what to say.
‘Vera? You’ve gone very still. You need me to call the nurse?’
‘Josh,’ she managed. ‘Would you do something?’
‘Anything.’
‘Squeeze your way into this recliner chair here and hold me?’
She opened her eyes and he was there, next to her, his eyes all soft and kind-looking, the way she loved them, and a smile on his face bigger than Lake Bogong.
‘Honey, I thought you’d never ask.’
CHAPTER
44
The Queanbeyan courthouse was baking in the sun on the second Friday in December. Vera wasn’t sure whether a summer heatwave was on the way or the gates of hell had been flung open. Standing on the courthouse steps on the cusp of her trial sure felt like her own personal version of hell.
She’d dressed before dawn in a sober grey suit, and had spent a quiet moment in her chair by the window with her bandaged cat in her lap and two kittens at her feet while she waited for Josh to arrive. He’d insisted on driving her to the city, and she’d been grateful.
What she hadn’t expected was for Graeme to turn up on the footpath outside her building too, with a waxed box of muffins he’d cooked in his own kitchen, and two freshly made coffees.
He’d handed them over to Josh and hauled her in for a hug. ‘Good luck, boss. Call me with the news, good or bad, and don’t worry about the café. I’ve got your back.’ He’d even tucked a note in with his muffins: You need me to bake a cake with lock picks hidden inside, just let me know :) love, G xxx.
Marigold had texted her as they’d driven down out of the alps and through the farming country of southern New South Wales, offering her love and support and a yoga breathing exercise called, of all things, Victorious Breath. Kev had been popping into the café every day for the past week to pat her hand, and even Kelly Fox, guinea-pig boy’s mum, had wished her well.
‘Ready to go in?’ said Josh.
‘Sure.’
She placed her hand in his just as Sue barrelled up the steps towards them.
‘Sue, you’re here.’
‘In the flesh, my lovely. And why have I not laid eyes on this handsome beast before? I’m your lawyer, Vera. I insist on knowing every detail of your life. Especially the inappropriate ones.’
Vera would have rolled her eyes if her anxiety levels weren’t at breaking point.
‘Josh, my lawyer, Sue Anton. Sue, this is Josh Cody.’
‘We’ve spoken on the phone,’ he said, holding out his hand.
‘Yes, we have,’ her lawyer said in a voice that resembled golden syrup. ‘Now I’m wishing we’d held our strategy meeting in person out there in woop woop where you’ve hidden yourself away.’
‘It’s an historic alpine town, not woop woop,’ said Vera. ‘Hanrahan, population of four thousand, birthplace of The Billy Button Café.’
‘Whatever,’ said Sue. ‘I have news. Let’s clear security and find somewhere we can have a huddle. My news has a capital N and you’re going to want to hear it.’
Vera raised her eyes to Josh who cocked his head towards the entrance.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘The only way forward is to get this day over and done with, so let’s get started. You’re not alone, and I’m not going anywhere no matter what the verdict.’
She held his hand close to her heart for a moment before dropping it to clear security.
The guards were just as brisk and impersonal as the first time she’d been here, and within a few minutes she was inside, where the air conditioning was battling to cope with the blistering conditions.
‘Follow me,’ said Sue, and marched them through a foyer, through a beige door clearly marked No UNAUTHORISED ENTRY, and outside again into an enclosed courtyard where one dead pot plant sat beside an old paint tin filled with yellowed cigarette stubs.
‘Smokers’ hangout,’ her lawyer said. ‘No-one will disturb us here; turns out nicotine addicts like me are going to be the next dinosaurs in the evolutionary chain.’
Vera took a breath. ‘What’s this news, Sue? The trial’s scheduled to start in less than an hour. Has there been a postponement? Is that it?’
Sue smirked. ‘You know that restraining order I slapped on Aaron Finch?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I dropped a word in the ear of the DPP—that’s the Director of Public Prosecutions—and suggested that Acacia View had commenced a private prosecution based on the evidence of a witness who had turned out to be not so shiny. They’ve had a word with Acacia View’s lawyer.’
‘What sort of a word?’ said Josh.
‘They think the proc
eedings should be discontinued.’
Vera took a breath. ‘Can you repeat that in plain English?’
‘They don’t want trivial matters cluttering up the courts, and they can’t see any public benefit to this case.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Yes, that’s what I said, only with a string of truly naughty adjectives. Acacia View weren’t pleased at all, but I sweetened them up with a deal.’
Vera felt cold suddenly, despite the sweat trickling down her back. ‘A deal,’ she said.
‘An apology, in person, from Vera for installing a camera in their aged care facility without their permission. In return, they will agree that Vera’s intent was to record her aunt’s movements and the presence of staff, not to record private conversations.’
‘But this is … well, it’s—’
She could barely stutter, she was so relieved.
‘The truth?’ suggested Sue.
‘Yes! The truth! My god, is this deal really a possibility, Sue?’
‘It’s a lot more certain that that. We have a meeting room booked for ten-fifteen. I’ll have to go see the judge and make sure she knows the DPP have taken your case off the docket, then we make our formal apology, and then … well. Then we say goodbye and I toddle on back to my office to type up my bill for a job well done.’
For a moment, the only sound in the grubby courtyard was the hum from the air conditioning motors running themselves ragged in the corner.
‘I’m having trouble taking this all in,’ said Vera at last.
Sue grinned. ‘You’re free, Vera. It’s over. The case of Acacia View Aged Care Facility versus Vera De Rossi is in the past.’
‘Oh my god.’
‘Girl, we’ve covered this. God does not have a licence to practise law in this state.’
Vera turned to Josh. ‘Did you hear that, Josh? I’m free. It’s over.’
He wrapped his arms around her and spun her in a hug that had her laughing and crying all at the same time.
‘Weeping will not reduce my bill,’ Sue said dryly. ‘Nor will public displays of affection with handsome men.’