by Mandy Magro
‘It’s not like him to take to someone straight away, especially a bloke.’ She shook her head slowly, eyes wide. ‘He’s had years living under the same roof as Lachlan and still hasn’t really taken a shine to him.’
‘Can’t blame the little fellow for being a good judge of character, can we?’
Juliette gave him a friendly slap. ‘Now, now, that’s enough of that.’ She shook the Pringles at him. ‘Eat, so you stop putting your foot in your mouth.’
‘Good idea,’ he said, stuffing his hand down the tube and skilfully grabbing a handful of the crispy morsels.
They both munched in comfortable silence for a few moments. Juliette was the first to break it. ‘We used to eat mountain-loads of these things, then complain because our bellies hurt.’ Draining the last of her drink, she crunched on the ice cubes.
‘Those were the good old days, when the only thing we had to worry about was what we were going to eat, and do, for the day.’ He sighed wistfully then licked the eye-squintingly sharp tang of vinegar and salt from his fingertips.
‘Yeah, they were.’ Hugging her knees to her chest, she tipped her head to the side, gazing at him as though trying to read his thoughts. ‘Why didn’t you take me with you?’
Joel garbled through a mouthful of Pringles, ‘When?’
Juliette arched her eyebrows. ‘When do you think, Einstein?’
‘Oh.’ Joel finally swallowed. ‘Because I believed you wouldn’t want me to. I truly did, Jules. I left because I had no place here anymore, and I couldn’t be living in this town without you.’
‘So … how does it feel now, living here, without me?’ Very deliberately, she shifted her focus and took a huge interest in her bright pink toenails.
Joel never took his gaze from her. ‘You want me to be honest?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She didn’t seem to want to look at him.
The easy atmosphere changed, shifting to something deep and intense and impenetrable.
Joel heaved a sigh, closed his eyes momentarily. ‘I don’t like it, not one little bit. But I’m going to have to cop it on the chin because I take someone being married seriously. I’d never condone cheating, or stepping over the line, and I know you’re not the kind of woman to take kindly to any of that either.’
‘That’s good to know.’ She turned and smiled at him now, but it was a sad smile, one that spoke of how he felt in his heart. ‘I’m glad we can be friends, Joel. I really am.’
‘Me too. It means the world.’ He desperately needed to change the subject before he forgot his morals and gave in to his feelings, his innermost desires. They never got to make love, and it hurt knowing he was never going to know how it felt to be so intimate with her.
A long intense moment passed where they just stared at each other, the magnetic pull tremendous. He quickly steered his thoughts away from the hopeless track. ‘I went and spoke to Ben about what happened to us.’ He spat it out, shocking himself in the process.
Juliette inhaled a razor-sharp breath. ‘You did what?’
Joel zipped his stupid mouth shut. She’d heard him, crystal clear, and he wasn’t about to repeat himself. The good vibe came to an abrupt stop.
She shot to her feet and stood ramrod straight, her stormy eyes burning a hole right through him. Then, she started to pace, fear etched across her petite features. ‘I told you not to go and do anything like that, Joel! I don’t want all this dragged up. It’ll only make me have to relive it again, and cause so much heartache and drama for my family.’
‘What about the heartache and drama it’s already causing, Jules? Have you seen what the secret has done to Ben? I know it’s not easy to face what happened, but honestly, Jules, you can’t just hope it goes away. It never will. Not until you get justice.’
He could see the wild fury – hot and raw – rise up inside of her. ‘How dare you try and tell me what I need to do to get over it. And how dare you go and do this kind of thing behind my back.’
‘I simply went and asked him if he’d help us if we went to the police.’ He gave a small shrug, trying to make light of a very dark situation. Bad move – it only made her angrier.
‘I think you should go.’ Her voice shook.
‘Please, Jules. Don’t shut me out.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’m only trying to help, to do what I should have done all those years ago.’
‘And what’s that, Joel?’
‘Protect you. Get justice for you. Make them pay the right way, instead of with my fists.’ He dropped his head now, ashamed.
‘You couldn’t go and do that when it happened because I asked you not to speak a word of it.’ Softening now, she took a step towards him, but stopped just short. ‘We were both young and terrified.’ Cautiously, she reached out and placed a hand on his arm. ‘Nothing we do is going to change the fact it happened. And dragging it up now is only going to cause tremendous grief, believe me.’
‘I get that, I really do. But Jules …’
‘What the hell is this?’ Lachlan appeared from the homestead, all golden-haired, tall and wearing a black muscle shirt with tailored, very neatly ironed slacks.
Snatching back her hand from Joel, as if she’d been touching a venomous snake, Juliette took a big step backwards and spun to greet her husband. ‘Oh, Lachlan, hi. You’re home early.’
‘Yeah, I am. Surprise.’ He eyed Joel lethally over the top of his sunglasses as he stormed past Juliette. ‘What in the hell are you doing here, Hunter?’ He ripped off his glasses, his accusing gaze going from Joel to Juliette and back again.
Just trying to woo your missus, he wanted to say. ‘I just called in to say g’day.’
‘Is that so?’ With a sneer, Lachlan shook his head. ‘Well, you’re not welcome here, so I suggest you leave.’
Juliette shot to her husband’s side, her gaze fierce. ‘Lachlan, that’s enough.’
Joel unclenched his hands and raised both in submission. Belting Lachlan would feel good, but it wouldn’t change a damn thing – once a spoilt brat, always a spoilt brat. ‘All good, Jules. I’m leaving now anyway.’ He tipped his hat, swallowing the smirk begging to appear. ‘Thanks for the Pringles. I’ll catch you round.’
‘Hopefully not,’ Lachlan barked after him.
Unruffled, Joel just gave him a wave over his shoulder. He wasn’t interested in arguing with a fool.
As he climbed back into his LandCruiser, something told him there was way more to Juliette and Lachlan’s story and, if his instincts were right and he treaded carefully, he might find out just what was causing such shadows in her beautiful eyes.
CHAPTER
15
It was the morning after Joel’s impromptu visit. Juliette stared at Lachlan, the tension crackling between them so thick, it could be cut with a knife. She’d joined him at the table to work out how they were going to do things, fairly, without making too much of a fuss, but he was behaving like an insubordinate child, as if everything wrong in their lives was her fault. He didn’t want her to leave. She had to. Having reached a stalemate, he now sat in silence, pretending she wasn’t even there. Hit by another overwhelming rush of hurt and anger, she tried to swallow past the terrible constriction in her throat. Lachlan had created such a vast crevice of pain inside her, she could barely stand it. And yet he did nothing to help her or to make up for his actions. With each and every breath she took, she was fighting to handle the unfathomable ache clenching her heart.
Her leg bouncing anxiously beneath the table, she hauled in another tight, unsteady breath. In a strange kind of way, she honestly didn’t know who she was anymore, other than an almost thirty-year-old, childless, imminent divorcee. A divorcee who was going to need somewhere to call home when she left here – a home that would accommodate a dog, a horse, and hopefully had the essential furniture included. Not an easy feat in a town with a shortage of rentals, and she certainly wasn’t in a position to buy until their finances were sorted. And it was over her dead body that she would ask to live beneath her
stepfather’s roof again. She’d rather live in a tent.
Wishing Lachlan would at the very least say something, anything, to break the monotonous silence – the room was so quiet, she would hear a pin drop – she got up and switched the radio on for some background noise. Then, sitting back at the dining table, her favourite breakfast of poached eggs on sourdough toast she’d made now cold, she glared over her cup of tea at Lachlan seated at the opposite end of the eight-seater table. She couldn’t bear his ignoring her any longer. ‘Are you going to even acknowledge I’m still sitting here with you, trying to somehow work out what we are going to do about a divorce?’
Heaving in a deep breath, Lachlan remained staring at the newspaper clasped in his hands. ‘Nope,’ he finally replied.
She blinked, astonished. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You heard me,’ he grumbled.
Juliette felt like she was about to scream. Deep breaths, she told herself over and over. ‘Are you forgetting that you are the one who cheated, ruining any chance we ever had of making it?’
‘Nope,’ he retorted. ‘But I haven’t gone and had my lover visiting me here, at our marital home, like you just have, have I? So, same, same, really.’ He didn’t even bother to lift his eyes to her but continued to peruse the paper as if this wasn’t an important, life-changing discussion.
Fury rendered her momentarily speechless. Her breath hitched and like a rubber band pulled taut, something inside her snapped. ‘Stuff you, Lachlan.’ She shot to her feet, her chair tumbling backwards with a loud clatter. ‘I didn’t ask Joel to visit me, he just turned up. It’s not the same in the slightest. I would never have done anything to jeopardise this marriage. You know that.’
‘Actually, that’s where you’re wrong, because …’ He smirked. ‘I don’t know that for certain.’
Juliette ground her teeth while taking a moment to find some sense of calm amongst the inevitable storm. ‘Did you actually come home early yesterday afternoon, or did someone give you the heads up that Joel was here? Were you hoping to find me in bed with him, so it would justify what you have done to me?’
He met her gaze then, his eyes distant, withdrawn. Entrenched frown lines proved that, although he appeared somewhat detached, he was extremely annoyed. ‘Mum did the right thing when she rang me. Have you got a problem with that?’
His bluntness made her flinch. ‘Yes, I do, Lachlan. I’m entitled to my privacy, and she’s a nosey old cow. She should learn to keep out of my damn business,’ she snarled.
‘Here we go again, with you attacking my poor mother.’ He closed his eyes for a moment, sighing. ‘I’ll be sure to pass your annoyance on to her.’ The emptiness in his tone was unmistakable.
‘Oh, I’m sure you will.’ Her voice was strained to the limit. ‘Enjoy your mother–son bitching session.’
He flicked the paper shut and smacked it down on the table. ‘I don’t want to do this right now, Juliette. I’m tired and I have a headache. I don’t have the energy for another of your goddamn speeches.’ He looked to his watch. ‘And on top of all that, I have to be at a meeting in less than an hour. I don’t need all this crap to contend with.’ With eyes as cold as steel, he narrowed his gaze and stood. ‘You need to grow up and realise life is never going to be this picture-perfect, picket-fenced existence you long for it to be. This isn’t one of your romance novels. This is real life.’
Red-raw anguish stabbed through her and the pain of his betrayal seeped into her soul. Her vision blurring, she hauled in a tight unsteady breath. His indifference was killing her. ‘You’re a cold, selfish bastard, Lachlan Davis,’ she rasped as she slipped the wedding band and matching engagement ring off her finger and smacked both down on top of the newspaper. ‘I stupidly thought I could stay here and we could work this separation out like adults. Clearly not. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I find somewhere to move, and we can sort out our finances and the divorce with lawyers, seeing as you don’t want to play fair.’ As the words scraped past her lips, her voice trembled, and she went to make a quick exit before she broke down in front of him. He didn’t deserve her tears.
‘You’ll be sorry if you speak a word of what you know, Juliette,’ he called after her. ‘And don’t think for a second you’ll be leaving here with a penny of my money.’
She skidded to a stop and, her heart in her throat, turned back to face him. ‘What do you mean your money?’
‘You married into money, dear Juliette, and you’ll be divorcing out of it.’ His smug expression, so like his mother’s, was infuriating.
‘I’ve worked for a lot of what we’ve got, too, including the apartment in Cairns.’
He folded his arms, staring at her with indifference. ‘Do you recall signing anything when we bought the apartment?’
No, she didn’t. Her heart stalled as she frantically tried to remain poker-faced. ‘You’re just trying to blackmail me with bullshit threats,’ she said, calling his bluff while silently praying. There wasn’t a way for him to strip her of everything she deserved to have half of, surely?
‘No bullshit. All fact,’ he said with a sly smirk before turning and slipping back into the kitchen.
‘We’ll see about that,’ she called after him.
Racing down the hallway, she stormed outside, both for fresh air and to avoid saying anything more in the heat of the moment. Pressing her palms against her eyes, trying to regain some sort of grip on her spiralling life, she choked back one sob after another. She’d given this marriage her all, had given Lachlan everything she was, and for what? To be lied to, mistreated, cheated on, and now threatened and blackmailed. It was so hard to breathe, she felt as if she was underwater. Lachlan was no different to his parents, a Davis to the very core – immoral, self-seeking, cruel. As was her very own stepfather for putting her in this position, for pawning her off for the house and land he called home. A naive young girl with a broken heart, desperate to get out from beneath his roof, she’d gone and played right into their plan. And now, Lachlan had her by the throat, but she refused to be helpless. She would stop his stranglehold on her.
Racing like a bullet from where he’d been sunbaking on the lawn, Brute skidded to a halt at her feet, greeting her as if it had been a year since he’d seen her, his tail wagging like the clappers. Looking down into his kind, innocent eyes, a bit of her tension faded away. She bent over to pluck her loyal companion from the ground, cuddling him to her. His unconditional company was a godsend – she needed all the love and support she could get right now. As if sensing her anguish, Brute whined then swiped his tongue up her cheek, collecting some of her tears. His concern for her evident, she couldn’t help but melt.
‘Thank god for small mercies like you,’ she said, kissing him on the head and placing him back down. After a few short yaps, he bolted off, chasing butterflies around the garden.
Turning towards the east, where Hunter Farmstead lay beyond the distant row of towering pine trees, she caught her reflection in the double-glazed window. Gasping, she covered her mouth. She looked like death warmed up, times ten. She needed to get a grip. But how, when it all seemed like too much for her to handle?
As if a sign from the heavens, the wind picked up and the old windmill up the hill circled creakily, drawing her attention away from her grim appearance and to the untainted beauty of the bush. It beckoned her, away from humanity, and away from Lachlan. Her nerves strung out like a worn guitar, she decided a run up the mountain might help. The view from the top might help give a little clarity, a little peace. She could use the time alone, surrounded by Mother Nature, to get her head straight. Things had just gone from bad to worse, making her feel all the more trapped in a life she hated, with a man she detested with every fibre of her being.
Slipping back inside, relieved to see the bathroom door shut, she raced to her bedroom, changed into her running gear and joggers, got Brute comfy in his bed at the foot of hers, and quickly made her way back outside. With long-legged strides, she headed
towards the track she’d run many times before. Passing the long-forgotten barn leaning precariously to the side, as if it were about to slip into a pile of rotting timber, she settled into a jog that ate up the distance. The muffled thump of her running shoes on the soft earth became a rhythmic background to her racing thoughts, gradually slowing them, releasing the hold they had over her, if only for a little while. Pushing herself harder, striding wider, the physical exertion made her feel stronger, more capable of handling what was ahead. There had to be a way forwards, out of the mess.
A steady breeze blowing across the untainted countryside spoke to her soul, whispering sweet nothings and filling her with gentler thoughts. It brought forth heart-warming memories of her and Joel and Zoe racing across these flats on their horses, reckless and carefree. Of her and Joel climbing to the top of this mountain from the other side so they could feel on top of the world while sharing some tender kisses. Those had been the days. She’d been so happy back then. Joel’s love for her, and hers for him, was something she now knew was a one-in-a-million kind of feeling. They’d been blessed to fall for each other. Then Levi Muller had gone and taken it all away in the blink of an eye. Not wanting to lose herself in the anguish of that night, as she had many times before, she pushed her body harder, forcing her thoughts to the present. There was nothing to be gained from going back to the past, to that night.
Up ahead, warm morning sunlight illuminated each stalk of grass, and the gentle wind shifted and moved it, revealing a plethora of wildflowers still to open their hearts to the warmth of the sunshine. Slipping her headphones in and choosing her Spotify list for jogging, she moved in time to the beat. Mounting the stone steps the council had put in when improving the hiking paths of the Crystal National Park, one foot after the other, she went upwards and onwards, her breathing laboured and beads of sweat cooling her skin. She pushed through scrub, ignoring the scrape of the branches and the whipping of leaves as she took a small shortcut. Legs burning and heart pounding, she could see the summit from here, not that far away now. Lost in the thrum of music, she quickened her pace, pushing through the pain of her muscles. And just when she was sure her legs were about to give out, the path levelled, and the scope of the 360-degree view absorbed her.
