by Ally Blake
But while she might look a little thrown together, and was deliberately vague in voicing her intentions, Sable was not lost. She was exactly where she was sure she was meant to be.
“Janie,” she said, “I can assure you, the last thing I want to do is hurt anyone.”
Janie cooed, “Gosh, look at those doe eyes of yours. So beseeching. So earnest. Just make sure you don’t do it anyway.” With that Janie jogged up the stairs and pulled the door open. “Come on, pretty boy! Your date is waiting!”
Rafe growled something from inside the van that sounded like Not a date. Then appeared in the doorway in dark jeans, slick dark boots, dark Henley, dark hair curling damply around his ears. Just big, and dark and so beautiful it hurt to look at him.
Sable might actually have sighed. Out loud.
“Yeah,” Janie muttered. “This isn’t going to end badly at all.”
Rafe picked his sister up by the upper arms and deposited her inside the caravan. “Be good,” he growled. Then he gave her a kiss on the cheek and closed the door in her face.
Janie’s words skittering about inside her head, her feet cold and wet, her belly empty, Sable found herself caught in Rafe’s tractor-beam gaze as he ambled down the steps.
“Hungry?” he asked, hands rubbing together.
“Mmm-hmm,” she managed.
“As I remember it, you’re buying. So, lead the way.”
CHAPTER FOUR
BOTH BRANDISHING FRESH COFFEE—Sable’s hot and dark, Rafe’s cool and bitter—made by an exceedingly curious Bear, they found themselves strolling into Radiance Reserve, a series of parks bordered by dense forest at the far end of town.
Rafe took the outside of the path, his strides shortened so she could keep up, and Janie’s “he has a thing about responsibility” speech niggled at the edge of Sable’s brain.
She only hoped this expanded sense of responsibility of his didn’t get in the way of her very good plan.
“So, this town, huh,” she said. “A few interesting new faces about.”
Rafe spared her a glance over the top of his coffee. Her throat came over all tight, her heart threatened to twinge. She told it to get a hold of itself.
“Bear, for instance,” she went on. “Met him yesterday, love him already.”
“You do know he’s gay,” Rafe said, sliding her a telling glance.
“Sure. Apparently, we have the same taste in coffee. And men.”
She earned a double-eyebrow lift for that one. Then a chuckle, deep and rough and delicious. She’d forgotten quite how much she loved it when that serious face lit up.
“What’s his story?” she asked, before clearing her throat.
“Rode into town a year or two back,” said Rafe, “hoping my team could wield some magic on his favourite Harley: a 1974 Shovelhead.”
“Your team?”
Another sideways glance, then, “Didn’t Mercy tell you? I took over Stan’s old garage a few years back. Renamed it. Expanded a little. Made a bit of a name for myself, bringing broken-down vintage cars and bikes back to life.”
“Well, that’s just fabulous! And no, Mercy did not tell me. Turns out she’s very good at not telling me much at all. Such as the fact that your father passed away. I’m sorry, by the way. It must have been a rough time.”
Eyes front, Rafe offered up a single chin lift by way of acknowledgement. And nothing more. Stoic as ever.
Mulling that over, she didn’t realise where they were till they got there.
“Oh!” she said, her boots scraping to a halt as a pile of crunchy autumn leaves caught in a whirl of wind and swept across the cracked grey path. “I didn’t remember this place being so close!”
Open during spring and summer, and during the autumnal Pumpkin Festival, Radiance boasted an old-style fairground named Wonderland Park. Complete with Ferris wheel, a carousel with the most amazingly detailed horses, and a hand-painted wooden Chair-O-Plane.
Not one for group events, or capitalism, or fun in general, Sable’s mother had flat out refused to ever give her a cent to attend, so she’d watched from the sidelines, listening to the clatter of machinery and the squeals of joy, on many a balmy summer evening from a spot in the playground nearby.
In fact, the playground had to be close... Searching the gaps in the frail-branched bushes, she found it. There—the ancient rusty slippery slide, and wonky wooden swings—
“Our first kiss,” said Rafe.
Sable jumped at his nearness, at the words he’d said, the rough edge to his voice. “What’s that, now?”
He angled his chin towards the playground. “Over there. That’s where we had our first kiss.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
She remembered, vividly. It had been the night of her seventeenth birthday when she’d seduced him. If dragging him up to the loft in his father’s barn, where she’d set out a dozen battery-operated candles around a picnic blanket, and pressing him against a tattered old hay bale and kissing him for all she was worth could be considered seduction.
She remembered being so impatient for her life to begin back then. So impatient for a future with Rafe. A future and a family. It had taken her a long while to truly believe Rafe when he said he would never have a family of his own. A while longer still before she’d left.
Rafe’s gaze swung to hers. “Do you really not remember? It was a week before the park was due to reopen that spring. A bunch of us came down here. Jimmy Dale had snuck a six-pack from his dad’s stash.”
Sable blinked and just like that it all came back to her.
She’d been fifteen, perhaps. Rafe a couple of years older. Jimmy had taken a shine to her, invited her along with a bunch of senior kids to “hang out”. She’d never have gone if Rafe hadn’t mentioned he’d swing by.
There’d been beer. Someone had brought a guitar. They’d built a fire. Stupid, what with all the winter kindling littering the scrub.
She remembered wishing she could go home. Feeling angry with herself for not having a richer vein of rebellion. Why did she flutter and float on the whims of others? Couldn’t she stand up and say what she wanted? What was she so afraid of?
Then Jimmy had dragged her from the swing and started to dance. Spinning and spinning her until she thought she might faint.
Till he’d spun her out to the end of his arm and let her go.
There’d been a moment of pure panic, when she’d been sure she’d trip, or fall, when her sense of balance would truly fail her, until a strong hand had taken her by the fingertips, curled her back in, gathered her close.
Rafe’s hand. Calloused, and enveloping and so very warm.
They had been friends for a couple of years by that point. Best friends, really. He being her silent protector as she scoured the forest for junk to photograph, she his adoring acolyte, watching over him as he fixed radios, washing machines, cars.
And while he’d held her hand a million times, to help her navigate a path across a stream, carried her piggyback all the way home from the base of Mount Splendour the time when she’d twisted an ankle, they’d never been face to face, body to body, nose to nose.
Her hand on his chest, she’d felt the racket of his heart. His hand at her back had tightened, gathering her dress in his grip.
“Rafe?” she’d whispered. Bewildered, hopeful, on fire.
And then he’d kissed her. A light, sweet sweep of his lips over hers.
The catcalls had begun. Whistles and howls and laughter.
Not that Sable had cared. For Rafe had been kissing her. Kissing her. Till her muscles had melted and her insides had sung. Fulfilling the deepest, most secret wish she’d ever wished in a lifetime of wishes.
When Rafe had pulled back, he’d looked as glazed as she’d felt. Until a shutter had dropped over his face, as impenetrable as steel. “Was Jimmy watching?” h
e’d asked.
“Who?”
A small smile, then, “Jimmy Dale. The bloke who’s been trying to paw at you all night.”
She’d glanced sideways to see Jimmy watching her glumly. “He saw.”
“Good. He’ll leave you alone if he thinks you’re with me.”
“If he thinks—Are you kidding me?” Mortified, all the way to her very toes, she’d made to shove him away.
But Rafe had only held her tighter still. Warm and protective. Even then. “Stop fighting me,” he’d ordered. “He’s trouble, Sable.”
“You’re trouble.”
Another crooked smile. Another arrow to her heart.
“The difference is, I’m only trouble for anyone who tries to mess with you. Don’t you ever forget that. Okay?”
Feeling tingly from the kiss, achy from the knowledge Rafe had only kissed her to protect her, Sable had rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever.”
From there the memory blurred at the edges, bleeding into a hundred other summer nights. A hundred other delicious kisses.
“I can’t believe I’d forgotten,” Sable murmured, her thumb tugging at her bottom lip.
Or more likely she’d blocked it out. A talent she’d inherited from her mother.
“Flattering,” Rafe rumbled.
She shot him a look to find him leaning against the side of the slippery slide, watching her. Expression still guarded, but there was a little crack there now, a glint. Subtle as it was, she felt it. Like stepping out of the shade into a patch of sun.
“I got a black eye for my efforts,” Rafe said.
Sable pulled a face. “You did not.”
The hairs on the back of Sable’s neck sprang to attention as Rafe pushed away from the slide, his moves slow. Measured. Focussed.
“After I saw you home,” Rafe said, “waiting for you to shimmy through your bedroom window being one of my favourite pastimes, Jimmy and his mates came around. My father was home. So was Janie. He had her hold the money as he took bets. Took three of them to hold me down for Jimmy to get one good hit.”
Sable’s chest rose and fell. If Ron Thorne was still alive today, she’d give him a black eye. “Rafe...” she breathed.
But the telling tightness in his jaw took her back. When it came to his father Rafe had never wanted sympathy. Or help. She wondered how good it had felt to tear down the bastard’s house.
“Hang on,” she said. “I remember. I couldn’t track you down for a few days. I thought you were avoiding me, because of the kiss. Then I refused to go to school, in case you showed up at home. When my mother found out I was skipping, she shrugged and went off to some herb festival in Yackandandah for three days.”
Rafe’s father had not been a nice man. But her mother’s lack of warm and fuzzies had left their own marks too, like an old break that made itself known when the weather turned. She found it hard to trust when people seemed to like her. Constantly held her breath, waiting for them to snap.
Her ex-partner’s therapist—the same one who’d told his client to come clean about his indiscretions, his lies, so that he might feel cleansed—had told The Chef that he believed Sable had “mother issues” that meant she deliberately put herself in situations that were doomed to fail. As if that excused The Chef’s behaviour. As if she’d asked for his dishonesty.
As if she found it a secret thrill when those who professed to care for her spun her out to the ends of their fingertips...and simply let go.
Shivering, she tucked her cold hands into the warmth of her fluffy feathery coat.
Was that what she was doing here? Hoping Rafe might still be the one person she could count on to catch her before she spun completely out of reach?
No. It wasn’t. This, coming here, was her way of catching herself.
“You okay?” Rafe asked.
She nodded.
Rafe tossed his empty coffee cup in a nearby recycling bin, and strolled away towards the fairgrounds, giving Sable a moment to collect herself. To rev her engine. To focus.
She took a deep breath and looked up. Looked around her. Letting the uniquely wondrous landscape of this place infuse her with the energy she needed. And it didn’t disappoint.
Right now, the fairground looked like something out of a Stephen King novel with the dormant contraptions looming over them beneath the low-slung pale blue sky. The Chair-O-Plane chairs drooping sadly. The horses’ faces on the carousel pulled back in heightened emotion as if they’d been turned to stone mid gallop.
Sable didn’t realise she had the box Brownie camera in hand until her finger slid over the shutter button. The pad rough beneath her fingerprint. The box cumbersome as she shifted it to waist height.
Muscle memory coming to the fore, she set her feet a little wider, softened her shoulders, let the camera sink into her hand, then squinted to look down through the small viewfinder. She moved so that the spindles of the Ferris wheel peeked perfectly through a gap between a clump of orange leaves overhanging above and rows of evergreens in the distance.
She tilted the box a fraction, knowing it always shot high, took a breath, held it...
Then let the camera drop, till it caught on the cord around her neck.
She shook out trembling fingers. Blinked back into focus. And blew out a long slow breath through a small gap between her lips.
How long had it been since she’d taken a photograph because it called to her? Her reputation had led to commissions. Portraits. Fashion gigs. She’d been paid an obscene amount of money to shoot a famous rapper’s dogs in an abandoned tyre yard. All of which was as far from those that had started her career as possible.
Her inspiration had waned correspondingly. Her ability to tap into her instincts disintegrating. Her confidence with it. She’d never been sure if it was age, waning talent, the different light, the lack of time, her lifestyle...
Or if she’d simply lacked her original muse.
Sable looked around to find Rafe over by the carousel. He’d hiked the sleeves of his black top to his elbows. Raked his dark hair off his face. He played with something he’d plucked along the way.
Sable’s hands went to the camera once more. Gingerly at first, before the heft in her grip felt right. She nudged the focus until the vision was a blur of shadow and light. Then again until it was sharp, in her sights.
There was no zoom on the thing. The negatives huge. Perfect for taking poster-worthy shots. But she imagined Rafe’s face in the distance. Such a good face. Strong. Serious. Achingly handsome.
Then he turned, looked dead into the lens.
Sable held her breath and...
Click.
She slowly let the camera drop. Her breath out a euphoric rush of air. When she looked up, the light, the edges of the vision, the reality beyond the iris, swarmed back into focus, like ink through water.
Rafe held his ground. Resting his elbows on the fence. Watching her across the distance as she watched him. Surely it defied the laws of physics, the way electricity seemed to crackle and arc through the air between them.
Then Rafe blinked, frowned and reached for his phone. Answered. And Sable’s next breath out shook.
The longer she left this, the more likely the hum between them would blur the lines. And she needed them to be crystal clear.
It was time.
She reminded herself, chances were he’d say no, right up front. Which was understandable. It was a huge ask.
But she had counter arguments. She had research. Doctor’s reports showing the bare facts of the uphill battle she was facing fertility-wise. But also her general excellent health otherwise. Financial records. Photos of neighbourhoods with great schools and hands-on programmes and parks...
She was ready for this. She needed this.
“Can’t make it happen if he’s twenty metres away, kid,” Sable muttered
under her breath before slinging the camera rope over the other shoulder, then making her way to the carousel.
“Right,” said Rafe as she neared. “Leave it to me. I’ll see you in a bit.” He hung up, slipped the phone into his back pocket.
“You have to go?”
“I do.”
“Work?”
He nodded. Yet he didn’t walk away.
She moved in beside him, mirrored his position leaning on the railing. Tried to appear nonchalant while her heart thundered and her palms began to sweat. And said, “Have you ever wondered what your life might have been like if I’d stayed?”
Rafe’s entire body stilled. Big effort for a guy that tall. “Sable, I don’t think this is smart—”
“No,” she said, holding out a hand. “It’s okay. In fact, it might be healthy to play out the disaster we would have become.”
His face shifted, just enough to glance her way. All dark eyes, and suspicion. “Disaster?”
“Total disaster! Don’t you think?”
His grunt didn’t actually give away what he thought at all. But she went with it.
“I’ll start. Okay, so you would have got a job with Stan. No doubt. You were always a magician with cars, and Stan was smart enough to see past the Thorne thing, even back then. While I would have probably ended up working at the Shop and Go.”
Rafe winced, as she’d hoped he might.
“Taking photos on the side, of course. During summer, if it was still light when I got home. On weekends. Maybe branching out to photograph newborn babies. Family sessions. School photos. And that’s if the townspeople let the witch’s daughter anywhere near their kids.”
Rafe was facing her fully now, slowly twisting and untwisting the long blade of grass over and around his fingers. “Sounds...dire.”
“Right? So you’re working, I’m working. We’re earning a little money. Saving for a place. Or a holiday. A trip to Queensland maybe. But we’re content. Because we have each other. So content we’d have been knocked up in a year. Probably had three in three years.”
Oh, the ache in her chest as those words came out, so light, so blithe.