“This is my brother, Kim,” Mai said.
“Nice to meet you.”
Kim frowned. “Yeah.”
“Kim dropped by for a visit.” She turned to her brother. “We were heading out to lunch.”
“It’s three o’clock.”
“Late lunch,” Nicholas amended. “Maybe afternoon tea.”
Kim shook his head, but his lips turned up at the edges. “You should invite him to the family dinner tomorrow night, Mai. I’m sure Mum and Dad would love to meet him.”
The idea of meeting more of Mai’s family appealed to him, though hopefully under better circumstances than this. “I’ve met Bian,” he said. “She’s leasing one of my units.”
At that news Kim’s eyes almost boggled out of his head. “You’re the property developer.”
Nicholas nodded.
Kim’s eyes flicked between him and Mai. He shook his head. “All right then.”
Mai took her brother by the arm and led him to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She pushed him through the door and shut it. Then she sighed and turned to Nicholas. “Sorry about that. I told him to stay downstairs.”
“Hey if my sister got a bag out of a strange car, I’d follow her to check out the situation too.”
Mai chuckled. “I hope it didn’t make you uncomfortable.”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” Was she going to invite him to the family dinner?
“Shall we go and get something to eat?”
The disappointment was swift, which was ridiculous. They’d only been on one date. “Sure.” He followed her out of the apartment.
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun caressed his skin. It was too nice to be indoors. He took Mai’s hand and they walked down the street together. “Shall we get something to go and eat by the river?”
“Yeah. The cafe on the corner has some nice sandwiches.”
Mai took him between a couple of buildings, avoiding the crowds on the footpath. She waved to people they passed, but didn’t stop to chat. Quite a few looked at them with speculation. He wasn’t used to that level of scrutiny, but he liked staking his claim. Mai was with him now.
“Is there a reason we’re avoiding people?” he asked.
“Everyone will be talking about the crash, and you don’t need that yet.”
No, he didn’t.
“Mai!” The shout had them both turning around.
Fleur jogged towards them.
Mai dropped his hand and gave her a hug. “How are you?”
“Great,” she said. “What are you two up to?” She didn’t appear surprised to see them together.
“We’re getting lunch,” Nicholas answered.
Fleur grinned. “Had a longer siesta than normal, did we?” She winked.
“Sure did.”
Mai took his hand again and he felt warm all over
“All right, I’ll leave you be, but I wanted to ask if Friday night is a good time for a girls’ night.”
Mai frowned. “I’m not sure. The next couple of weeks are going to be full on setting up the new bakery so I’m not sure if I can handle the lack of sleep.”
“What’s this?”
Mai ran a hand over her hair. “I’m leasing the Mortimer Road place. We’ve got to paint and that kind of thing.”
“Why don’t we do a busy bee then?” Fleur said. “I’ll check if the girls can get Saturday free. You know you suck at painting.”
Mai didn’t seem offended by the comment.
“That would be great.”
“All right then. I’ll rope Jamie and the guys in too. See you later.” She walked away.
“You have nice friends.” Blackbridge was a real community.
Mai nodded. “They’re the best.” She let out a breath. “If everyone turns up, we could have the cafe finished on the weekend.”
“I’ll help too.”
She beamed at him and kissed his cheek. “Thanks. Now let’s get some food, I’m starving.”
They bought a couple of gourmet sandwiches from the cafe and wandered down to the river. The foreshore was relatively empty with only a single family making use of the barbecue facilities.
“So what do you need to do on the weekend?” Nicholas asked.
“The big thing is prepping the walls and painting.” She grimaced. “Not my favourite thing to do. I also need to put up shelving in the store room and cafe, and I need to buy some more tables and chairs.” She sipped her drink. “Outside the grounds need tidying and I want to put a ramp up to the front door, but I might need to get a builder to do that.”
“I can do it.”
Her eyebrows raised in surprise.
“It’s one of the things I can do,” he reminded her.
She grinned. “That would be great. You can come to the cafe during the week and tell me what tools and supplies you need.”
“Sure.” Excitement built in him. The idea of building something again appealed. It had been so long since he’d worked with his hands.
When they finished eating, Mai asked, “Do you want to go kayaking?”
“Yeah, why not?” They threw their rubbish in the bin and went to chat to the guy hiring kayaks, who Mai knew of course.
“Half an hour or an hour?” the guy asked.
“An hour,” Mai answered, shooting a look over her shoulder at Nicholas. “Are you up for that?”
He nodded though he wasn’t convinced. He hoped Mai knew what she was doing.
Mai got in the back of the kayak, so he took the front and they started up river. “It’s really nice this way,” Mai said. “You get to see some of the town and then paddle into the countryside.”
Nicholas paddled slowly, getting used to the rhythm. The trees lining the bank were a mixture of paper barks, with their white, flaky bark, and gums. The scent was fresh and rich, and as they paddled, a family of black swans kept pace with them for a short while before losing interest.
They crossed under the main traffic bridge and the further away they went, the quieter it became. In the distance a lawn mower hummed, the cicadas whirred and a child shrieked in play, but here there was only the quiet splash of their oars.
They had nowhere to be, nothing to do, for the next hour it was just him, Mai, the kayak and the river. Exactly what he needed. “This was a good idea.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
He twisted to look at her and the kayak rocked alarmingly. He clutched the sides and waited for the rocking to subside.
Mai laughed. “Careful. I don’t want to go for a swim.”
He grinned, loving the sound of her laugh. “It might be a little fresh,” he agreed. The river was shaded and the gentle breeze cooled the day a little more.
“There’s a place a kilometre or so upriver that’s nice,” she said. “We can stop and rest.” She winked at him.
He grinned and paddled harder.
Chapter 13
Mai followed the river up its twists and turns. It was such a beautiful day and Nicholas relaxed further as they paddled out of town. She was pleased she could help him, pleased his eyes had lost some of the haunted look he’d had when he’d arrived. It would take him some time to come to terms with what he’d seen at the accident, to decide whether he wanted to continue to respond to those kinds of emergencies.
“Does the river go through Kit’s property?” Nicholas asked.
“Yeah, it’s one of the borders.” He had a good sense of direction. “On the weekends, when we were teenagers, we’d occasionally take Fleur’s dad’s dinghy and motor all the way up the river to visit her.”
“That sounds fun.”
She smiled. “It was. We’d pretend we were adventurers off to discover new lands. Fleur was always the captain.”
“Didn’t your parents worry?”
“Kit would bring a two-way radio down and let her parents know we’d arrived safely and they’d call our parents.”
“How did she get down to the river?”
&n
bsp; “Motorbike. We all learnt to ride at Kit’s farm.” Those were some of her favourite memories, the days when it was just the four of them or five if Jamie came over. They would swim or ride or talk about life and what they wanted out of it. It was there that she’d first confided to her friends that she wanted to leave school and become a baker. Hannah would talk about the retreat she wanted to build, Fleur would worry about telling her father she wanted to become a nurse, and Kit was adamant that all she wanted to do was inherit the dairy farm and be a farmer.
“We did the first official musketeers ceremony by the river at Kit’s place,” Mai said. The memory was sweet.
“What’s with that nickname?”
“Kit, Hannah and Fleur were inseparable from the time Hannah moved here when she was eight,” she said. “At school it was always the three of them, and whenever they were in town, they were together. They started getting called the three musketeers.”
“Then you moved to town.”
She nodded though he couldn’t see her. “And we became the musketeers.”
“It must have been rough coming in when they were already so tight.”
“It actually wasn’t.” She smiled. “Kit and I clicked straight away. We bonded over having younger siblings to look after and that was that – I was part of the gang.”
“What about Jamie?”
“He’s an honorary member,” she said. “He didn’t hang around us at school and had his own friends, but whenever we visited Kit he was there. They lived next door to each other, the only kids in miles.”
“There’s Lincoln too, isn’t there – he’s Jamie’s brother?”
“Yeah, but he’s six years older – way too old in those days to pay any attention to us.” Mai chuckled. “We did give him the title of being our knight protector though. We had a ceremony and everything, and good sport that he is, he went along with it, vowing to protect us for as long as he lived.”
“That’s nice.”
“It was. Occasionally he still uses the title to boss us around, but he really is born to protect.” She glanced at the shore to get her bearings. “The clearing is around this bend.” Her back muscles were protesting slightly at the unfamiliar motion.
The bank sloped into a sandy beach only a few metres wide and she directed the kayak on to it. The grass that came down to the beach was longer than she’d anticipated, though it had been flattened in places. “Keep an eye out for snakes,” she told Nicholas as she followed him out of the kayak.
Nicholas paused mid-stretch and examined the grass behind him. “What do you get here?”
“Just tiger snakes and dugites.” She stamped her feet and there was no rustling in response. They were probably fine. She walked around the area, treading down the grass and when she’d made a space big enough for the two of them she lay down, propping herself up on her elbows.
Nicholas frowned.
She patted the ground next to her. “It’s fine. All my stomping would have scared away anything nearby.”
As he sat Mai heard the thud of hooves. She sat up and spotted the rider cantering along the trail that ran parallel to the river on the other side. Recognising Trent’s girlfriend, she waved. The girl waved back and continued on.
“How far does the trail go?”
“A fair way. It’s shared by horse riders, motorbikes and cyclists, so there are often disputes about going too fast.” She lay down again and this time Nicholas joined her, turning on his side to look at her.
The intensity in his eyes stirred her. She had never felt this level of passion or intimacy with a man. “You know we’re all alone out here.”
His lips quirked upwards. “You mean aside from the occasional trail user across the river?”
“We’d hear them coming.” She raised herself up on to her elbow and brought his head close to hers. Their lips met in a soft, sweet kiss. She felt it all the way through her body. This was right, so very right.
He deepened the kiss, pressing her back so she was lying down and he was on top of her, his body warm.
She hummed in approval when his hand slid up her top to her breast. He had such clever hands. She cupped his butt and brought him closer to her, his hardness pressing into her. She caressed him and he broke the kiss breathing heavily.
“Mai, we should head back to your place.”
She grinned and took the condom out of her pocket.
His glanced at the opposite side of the river.
She didn’t want him to be uncomfortable. “Come on.” She got to her feet. “We’ve got a record to beat.” She winked and pulled him up and then walked further along the shore up river where the paper barks met the water. There was another spot where they could have a bit more privacy. She pushed a bush aside and a sharp ammonia smell hit her, making her eyes water. “Wait.” Her arm shot out to stop him.
The ground in front of them was covered in a blue liquid coming from a whole lot of white plastic containers of kitchen cleaner scattered on the ground. How could anyone use that much all at once? The grass around it was already dying. Someone didn’t care about contaminating the ground or river. Selfish bastards.
“This reminds me of the containers in the shed at Foley’s place,” Nicholas said.
He was right. Worry replaced the anger and she took her phone out of her pocket and dialled. “Lincoln, I hate to bother you on your day off, but I thought you’d want to know.”
“What’s wrong, Mayday?”
“You know those barrels at Foley’s?” she asked.
“Yes.” His voice was suddenly more alert.
“Nicholas and I have found a pile of similar chemicals by the river. They’re mostly empty but a couple are leaking on the ground so we need to notify Parks and Wildlife too.”
“Where exactly are you?”
“We took the kayaks upstream to Lovers’ Landing.”
Nicholas’s eyebrows raised and Lincoln chuckled. “I’m not going to ask what you were doing.”
“Best not to,” she agreed.
He sighed. “All right. It’s going to take me some time to get out there. I’ll have to call Albany and wait for the detectives. Can you see any car tracks?”
“No.” Maybe they came via the river.
“Send me some photos so I can forward them to Albany. Can you wait out there until I arrive?”
“Sure, as long as you let Ted know we’re going to be late back with the kayak.”
“Deal.”
She hung up and took a few photos, careful not to disturb anything further.
“What did he say?”
Mai repeated the conversation as she sent the photos and she gestured him back towards the landing. “We’ll wait on the shore.”
Nicholas smiled. “Lovers’ Landing? Were you planning to seduce me this whole time, Miss On?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Well I do believe you said you wanted to break a record today.”
He grinned at her. “I do indeed.”
But there would be none of that while they waited for Lincoln.
“Do you think this is drug related?” Nicholas asked, nodding towards the barrels.
“Maybe, but whoever dumped them can’t be local. Everyone knows this spot is popular. Those drums were bound to be spotted sooner rather than later.”
“Yeah, or someone was desperate to hide them quickly.”
He had a point. Could it have been Gordon? She still hadn’t called him. “Shoot.”
“What’s wrong?”
She couldn’t tell him the whole truth. “I just remembered I need to call Gordon about last night.”
Nicholas’s face went white. “Shit. I didn’t tell you.”
She grabbed his arm. “Tell me what?”
“The accident this morning.” His voice hitched. “Same blue sedan as outside your cafe, driver was called Gordon.”
Mai’s legs buckled and Nicholas hauled her against his chest.
The drug dealers, the guns.
What had sh
e done?
What had she allowed to happen? She shook her head. Get the facts first. “My age, bald, kind of shifty looking?”
He nodded.
She closed her eyes. It had to be him. She should have called Lincoln last night. If she’d called him, he would have arrested Gordon, and Gordon would still be alive. “What caused the accident?”
“Jeremy thought he’d missed the curve in the road. He was high as a kite, delusional as well, saying someone was trying to kill him.”
She’d left him in that situation, left him at the mercy of men with guns. But it didn’t quite make sense. Creepy Guy could have shot Gordon, but he’d let him go, let him drive home high.
He hadn’t been high when she’d seen him. And he’d said he wasn’t a user – but he could have been lying. She needed to ask Lincoln for more details, had to know if the crash was an accident.
“Mai, are you all right?”
She nodded, stepping away from him, straightening up. “I’ll call the hospital when we get home.”
What if Creepy Guy had given Gordon the drugs, or run him off the road? Gordon must have done something to irritate him. And if Creepy Guy was behind it, was she putting herself in danger by calling Lincoln?
She didn’t know what to do.
Nicholas’s arms came around her in a hug. “They might have been able to save him.”
Mai could tell he didn’t think so, but she could pretend as well. “I hope so.” She tilted her head so she could see him. His eyes had the haunted look again. “How are you feeling about the crash?”
“I won’t forget it in a hurry,” he said. “But I’m all right.”
“I’m glad.” She looked at him, really paid attention to his face. He was a lot kinder than she’d given him credit for, a lot more fragile than she’d expected him to be. She enjoyed being with him, being someone he turned to. In a short space of time she’d come to care for him. “Do you want to come to my parents’ for dinner tomorrow night?”
His eyes widened and she hurriedly added, “No pressure or anything. You might enjoy a home-cooked meal.”
“I’d love to. What time?”
“Six. I’ll pick you up just before.”
“I’ll be ready.”
They settled into a comfortable silence. Another family of swans, or perhaps the same ones, swam past and there was the occasional splash as a fish jumped. Little wrens flitted amongst the trees, calling to each other and some kind of insect chirped. She lay back using one hand as a pillow as she stared up at the tree branches above her. It didn’t seem right to enjoy this peace, when Gordon could be dead, when her decision had directly affected whether someone lived or died.
Nothing to Gain Page 16
