by JC Grey
Blaze didn’t know much about dogs, except that heelers usually had some wild dingo blood and were smart and temperamental. Most farms used them as working dogs, but this one was skinny and unkempt, with patches of fur missing and one ear short a tip. If he had a home, it was a bad one or he hadn’t seen it in a while.
‘It’s okay, dog,’ she soothed in a low voice. Standing slowly, she watched as he jerked awkwardly to his feet, keeping his distance as she went to the door. In the kitchen, she found an old plastic bowl and filled it with tap water. When she returned to the veranda, the dog had retreated down the steps.
He looked around as Blaze followed him. Placing the bowl of water on the ground, she returned to her seat. The dog sniffed the air a couple of times, then with an unsteady three-legged gait, he moved towards the bowl. Lowering his head, he sniffed and looked up to where Blaze sat.
‘It’s okay. It’s just water,’ she told him. ‘It’s for you.’
The dog continued to stare. Then he gave a little yelp, which might have meant ‘Thanks’, and lowered his head to drink.
Blaze took her empty water bottle and plate into the kitchen, and when she came back out, the bowl was empty and the dog had gone.
Vaguely disappointed that he – or she – hadn’t stuck around, she wandered back upstairs. A shower would kick-start her into action. But when she took another look at the bathroom, there was no way she was stepping into the tub or shower until it was clean, and until there was hot running water. That meant she needed cleaning supplies, and she needed to make a call about getting power restored.
After a cool sponge bath, which proved surprisingly refreshing as the day’s temperature was already climbing, she spread out the contents of her bags over the bed. Skin-tight jeans and low-cut tops might be fine for getting Macauley Black hot under the collar, but if she was going to bring Sweet Springs back to life, she was going to have to be practical.
A grey button-neck T-shirt and loose chocolate pants were the closest things to work clothes she possessed, but she was at a loss for shoes until she found an old pair of Gram’s brown boots in a closet. With a thick pair of socks they weren’t too big. She would need a hat too, but that would have to wait until she could get into town.
That raised the question of transport. If she hadn’t been so jetlagged the other night, she would have asked about a hire car. Now she was stuck, unless . . .
Blaze ran down the stairs, out the front door and across to the listing barn where Gramps had once kept his utility vehicle. Even if it was there it was unlikely to be in running order, but it was worth a try.
Dragging open the heavy door, she squinted into the dim interior and then smiled. Surrounded by tools, old furniture and boxes of God knew what, the old red Ford still sat there in the far corner, the key in the ignition. When she turned it and nothing happened, her smile dimmed.
After several attempts, she gave up. The battery and probably other crucial parts were stone dead. That meant she would have to get a hire-car delivered, and God knew how long that would take. That’s if she even knew what number to ring.
Thinking, Blaze walked back to the house and fished her mobile from her bag. She got a signal, but she had no idea of the number to call for operator assistance.
There were a string of voice mail messages, including several from her agent, which she ignored, and one from the airport. Someone called Stella needed instructions about delivering her excess baggage.
Blaze got through to Stella immediately, and remembered her as the woman who’d handed her over to Macauley Black last night. After arrangements were made for her bags to be delivered, Blaze asked if Stella could recommend a hire-car supplier in Meriwether.
‘Are you kidding?’ asked Stella in her bright and breezy voice. ‘This airport may be small but we have a hire-car facility right here, although we don’t do fancy. Now, what are you looking for?’
‘I’m not looking for fancy. I need something I can use around the property that can handle off-road.’
‘Easy. Got a nice ute here. Grey metallic. This year’s model, too.’
‘Great. Thing is I can’t collect it as I don’t have transport. So I need it delivered.’
‘Well . . . today I only work till midday so I can drive it over for you after that with your bags. My boyfriend will come with me to drive me back. He’d love to meet you, Ms Gillespie.’
‘It’s Blaze, and actually I need to drive into town anyway for supplies, so I can drop you back,’ Blaze told her. ‘So your boyfriend is spared.’
Stella laughed. ‘I don’t think he’d see it like that!’
‘All right, well, I’ll see you later. And thank you.’
‘No worries.’
Blaze smiled at the expression as she put the phone down. Wouldn’t it be great to have no worries?
With the first step taken, Blaze felt a sudden rush of energy. Or maybe it was just the thought of a stranger witnessing the wreck her grandparents’ beloved home had become that spurred her on. Not that she’d been the slightest bit embarrassed at Macauley Black seeing it yesterday, but a woman was different. Whatever, she was on a roll, and by the time Stella arrived, the house was going to be liveable, even if it killed her.
A small laundry off the kitchen yielded ancient brooms, buckets and detergent. She was a novice when it came to housework, and there was only cold water – she would ask Stella who to contact about getting power reconnected – but after an hour the old bathroom fixtures were about as sparkling as they were likely to get, and she was making inroads into the years of neglect suffered by the kitchen.
By the time she laid down arms, she was drenched with sweat and soapy water, but the kitchen was presentable, and the debris littering the floors of the formal sitting and dining rooms and the study had been swept into one enormous pile. She could even see through the remaining downstairs windows, and upstairs the old bathroom was as hygienic as she could get it.
Bit by bit, as order began to be restored, Blaze rediscovered the beautiful, spacious proportions of the rooms with their high decorative ceilings, quaint fireplaces and hand-crafted timberwork. Remembering it through a child’s eyes, it had always seemed a cheerful and welcoming house, but now she could see it had real beauty, too.
But time was ticking on, and she couldn’t waste it standing here admiring the architecture. Hot water be damned, she needed to shower, wash her hair and change before Stella arrived. She squealed with the first blast of cool water from the showerhead, but after her cleaning bee, at least she didn’t have to worry about catching some disease. And the temperature meant she didn’t linger, which was just as well because she was still tying her damp hair into a knot on her head when she heard a car coming down the track.
Double-checking her face, she slid her sunglasses on, grabbed her bag and the house keys, and ran down the stairs, just as Stella knocked.
‘Hi!’ She wrenched the sticky door open to find Stella, knuckles at the ready to knock again. ‘Sorry, I was just upstairs. Come in.’ She was ridiculously excited about showing off her efforts of the morning.
‘Thanks,’ Stella said, following her into the kitchen. ‘Wow.’ She looked at the ancient kitchen units and old range, then back to Blaze. ‘Wow,’ she said again. Then, seeing that Blaze was struggling to hold back laughter, her round, pleasant faced relaxed.
‘I know,’ Blaze said. ‘It’s in a terrible state. But you should have seen it before I started sweeping and scrubbing.’ She pointed to the pile of dust and debris in the corner of the room.
‘It’s just, well —’ Stella stuttered. ‘I guess it’s not the kind of place you’re used to.’
‘It just needs some attention,’ Blaze said, stroking the wood. ‘It has lovely old features. Marble fireplaces in the reception rooms, ceiling roses, French doors.’
‘I guess so.’ Stella obviously wasn’t convinced. ‘Anyway, we should head. It takes nearly an hour to get to Meriwether. D’uh!’ She slapped a hand to her head. ‘You know that, hav
ing done the trip the other night with Mac. Sorry again about what happened at the airport. Our local copper roped him in at the last moment, and he got impatient when your flight kept being delayed.’
Stella led the way out to the porch, and waited while Blaze forced the door shut and locked it.
‘Well, this is the ute.’ She handed Blaze the key. ‘It’s pretty good to drive, and has everything you need out here. Four-wheel drive, of course, sat nav, four airbags. The upholstery’s not leather but it’s comfortable.’
After giving Blaze the paperwork to sign and taking her credit card details, Stella kept up her lively chatter about the car, her boyfriend and life in Meriwether on the drive into town, asking just the occasional question about Blaze. For the most part, though, Blaze was free to enjoy the woman’s uncomplicated company and concentrate on the poorly maintained road.
On the outskirts, Stella directed Blaze through the centre of town to a development of modern townhouses. Pulling up outside, Blaze made a note of the address, and thanked her again.
‘I really do appreciate the personal service. And actually, I was wondering if you could help me some more. While I’m here, I need to reconnect the power to the house, and also make some enquiries about hiring a carpenter or builder to work on the house. Who should I see?’
‘Oh, well, the first is easy. Coast Energy has a small office in the shopping centre in town. Second level. Just head back the way we’ve come and you’ll pick up signs for the shopping centre. As for builders, probably the best place to ask is the timber yard.’ She pulled a scrap of paper from her bag and sketched a map. ‘Here, follow Marshall Street out of town and you can’t miss it. Lalor Family Lumber. It’s only about three kilometres. If no luck there, give Mac a call. He’s sure to be able to recommend someone.’
‘Thanks, I’ll try the timber yard.’
Blaze would rather stick a finger in her eye than ask Macauley Black for advice.
Chapter Three
Feeling as if she had made a genuine friend, Blaze waved goodbye, drove back to town and found a shady spot in the shopping centre car park. With her sunglasses concealing half her face, no one paid any attention to her until she got inside, but there she was quickly aware of some double takes and speculative glances.
The shopping centre had been built after she’d left for the States, so it was unfamiliar. But Stella was spot on about the electricity supplier, and within five minutes, she had a promise that power would be on by the time she was home. The customer service assistant even smiled and wished her a good day without the slightest hint that he’d recognised her.
Next stop was the telecommunications provider, and then the florist to order a thankyou arrangement of pink roses, magenta gerberas and white button chrysanthemums for Stella. The florist clearly did recognise her, but was too professional to mention it. Liking the deep orange lilies on display, Blaze bought a bunch for Sweet Springs along with a dozen small pots of cheerful pansies, before venturing into the supermarket. Being mid-afternoon, it was quiet, and she enjoyed the novelty of doing her own grocery shopping.
She picked up cleaning products and kitchen supplies, food staples and fresh produce, along with tasty-looking ready-made lasagne and cannelloni dinners, and chose freshly ground coffee purely on the basis of the label. The bored check-out chick didn’t even look at her as she rung up the groceries, and it was the same next door at the bottle shop, where Blaze bought three bottles of a moderately expensive red wine, and one of champagne. A fresh start deserved a celebration!
It occurred to her that she should have shopped for groceries after a visit to the lumber yard, given the heat, so she added a cool bag for the chilled produce. She loaded up the car, and set off with Stella’s map on the passenger seat. Lalor Family Lumber was impossible to miss, and she enjoyed the double take performed by another motorist as she got out of her car. The man was so distracted, he nearly drove into a pile of timber.
The office was in a long, low-slung building that smelled wonderfully of freshly-cut wood. No one was at the desk, so she wandered for a few moments until someone cleared their throat behind her. She spun to face a middle-aged woman with a bad dye job and dissatisfaction worn deep into the creases beside her mouth. The woman’s eyes flared instantly in recognition, and her expression hardened with dislike.
‘Yes?’
‘Hi. I’m looking for a reliable carpenter or builder to help me restore a house.’
The scowl remained.
‘It’s the old Sweet Springs homestead out of town,’ Blaze continued. ‘Someone told me you might be able to recommend a tradesman.’
‘Sorry, I can’t help.’ A smirk turned up the corner of the woman’s grim mouth as she gave Blaze an odd look.
‘I’m happy to pay the going rate.’
‘I’m sure you are, but don’t make no diff. The tradespeople around here are all contracted to the new Lantana development up the coast.’ She sniffed. ‘And besides, folks around here are choosy about the kind of people they do business with.’ With that, she turned her back and disappeared into the warehouse.
Stunned, Blaze just stood there. The woman’s overt hostility was quite different to what she’d encountered in Hollywood. There, the insults had been delivered in whispered asides, insinuations and knowing looks. Deliberately, she released a breath. Clearly, her tribulations – even though they’d originated on the other side of the world – were generating equally strong reactions here.
Either way, she wasn’t getting anywhere standing here. Her once-crisp white linen shirt, knotted at the waist above a pair of cropped cotton pants, was beginning to lose its battle with the warmth of the afternoon. Time to head back home, where hopefully the fridge she’d cleaned so diligently this morning would be humming and ready to store the groceries she’d bought today.
Determinedly putting her unpleasant encounter with the face of Lalor Family Lumber behind her, she returned to the utility. As she swung out of the parking lot, she saw that right next door was a smaller warehouse with a big sign: Pampered Pets. On impulse, she turned in through the gates and parked close to the door so she had to spend as little time as possible without air conditioning. The store was quiet and well-signed, and within ten minutes, she was wheeling a jumbo bag of dry pet food, a dog bed, blanket and pack of frozen marrow bones to her car.
Her canine visitor of this morning had probably simply been a stray, and she’d never see him again. Not that she cared, much. But if the dog did reappear, there was no harm in being hospitable. None at all.
The February damp seeped through the thin walls of the down-market apartment building on the Los Angeles fringe, a few seedy miles from Venice Beach. It consisted of four levels of poky units, not quite hopeless enough to be called a slum – not yet, anyway – but the single lift functioned only on exceptional days and the stink of cheap, overcooked food clung to the narrow corridors.
Most of the tenants worked but at poorly paid jobs so this was all they could afford, and most of them accepted their fate without rancour. That’s life, they’d say with a shrug when an eighteen-year-old car simply gave up the ghost, or when hours for their cash-in-hand factory job were cut, or when decades of smoking and poor diet delivered a fifty-three-year-old neighbour to the morgue. No one expected anything better, and they got exactly what they expected.
For the inhabitant of Apartment 37, the choice of accommodation was more about convenience than necessity.
The faceless apartment had served its purpose. Here, no one cared about when you came and went. They didn’t care if you were legal. They didn’t even care if you were armed, because everyone was. It was easy to slip under the radar. But now it was time to move on. Maybe the next resident would appreciate the neatly folded blankets, the alphabetised paperbacks on the bookshelf and the pleasing way the cheap art on the walls had been lined up, but probably not.
Two large, inexpensive canvas travel bags sat by the door trimmed in faux leather. A bulky winter coat was s
lipped on, then a woollen hat pulled low over the brow and a scarf tugged high over the chin. Conversely, the bags contained not one item suitable for the North American winter.
Goodbye LA. Queensland, here I come. Phase two is in motion.
Beyond the waterhole closest to Sweet Springs and partly concealed among the soft green drape of willows, Macauley Black slouched in his smooth-worn saddle. Beneath him, the large horse stamped and snorted in impatience at the pause in proceedings.
‘Easy, True.’ Mac slid a hand down the charcoal neck, his eyes still on the crumbling homestead. With the glow of the evening sun painting it in vivid technicolour tones, it didn’t appear quite the wreck it had last night. Light glinted on the intact downstairs window panes, and a colourful cushion was tossed casually on the ancient wooden recliner sitting on the rickety veranda. A recent-model Holden ute sat outside the house, its opalescent gleam still visible under a thin layer of red dust.
Small things, but today there was life where yesterday there was none. You had to give the woman some credit for making the best of things, he thought.
In the room at the very top of the house, beneath the steep slope of the tin roof, mellow lamplight shone. She had power, then, so he could wait to tell her about the back-up generator in the barn.
As Mac watched, he wondered what Blaze Gillespie was doing up there. She’d driven up not fifteen minutes ago, just as he was approaching the waterhole from the far side. Looking as though she’d just stepped out of a salon, she wore a white shirt knotted sexily at the waist to reveal a sliver of skin when she leaned into the trunk of the car. It was a simple outfit of shirt, pants and flat sandals – not unlike that worn by most of the women who lived in the area, but somehow she made it look a million dollars.
For some reason, he hadn’t announced his presence, satisfied instead to observe while she carried three boxes of groceries and supplies into the house. She made a final trip for a bunch of trumpet-like flowers wrapped in brown paper. Moments later, she’d appeared at the kitchen window to run water into a vase containing the flowers. Then she’d disappeared from view, and ten minutes later the light upstairs had been switched on.
