by JC Grey
Fortunately, it seemed that the cattle and horses hadn’t suffered. Still, Beau was ready to walk, young Lewis refused to meet his eye, and even Amos had been muttering under his breath about his priorities being in his pants. After Mac set the record straight with the younger men and then sent them off, he got a beer for himself and Amos, sat down on the bench alongside the older man and pinned him with a look.
‘You calling your boss a dickhead, Amos?’
Amos managed a half-grin. ‘Yes, boss.’
Mac sighed. ‘You may be on the mark, but you need to keep it to yourself around here. I’ve already got a minor mutiny on my hands.’
‘Sorry, boss. I was out of line.’
‘Hell, I can’t believe things got so bad in under a week. I mean, Woodall’s gone. Peg’s back – hallelujah – what’ve the boys got to get shitty about?’
‘Peg was back.’
Mac frowned. ‘Is she all right? She told me she was ready to start back just before I flew to LA and I didn’t hear any different while I was away.’
‘She quit,’ Amos told him baldly. ‘Day after she came back. And the rest of us felt like following her.’
Mac wanted to grind his teeth in frustration. He’d been in touch with Beau every day while he’d been away, and the guy had said nothing – presumably because he was the problem.
‘Right,’ he said tightly. ‘Do I need to give Beau his notice?’
Amos’s white brows nearly reached his thinning hair line. ‘Beau’s not the problem, boss. Inexperienced, yes – needs a kick up the pants for not telling you what was going on – but he’ll learn.’
Mac did grind his teeth. It was like trying to get blood from a stone. ‘For God’s sack, spit it out, Amos.’
‘It’s the bloody cook.’
What the hell? ‘The Williams girl? I thought she was long gone? I told her she could finish up the day before Peg started back. Paid her out with a bonus before I left.’
‘Well, all I know is she stayed on to help Peg settle back in, do some of the heavy lifting. She said you insisted.’ His look turned dark. ‘Don’t know what went on, but Peg was gone the day after she came back to work. She told Beau she was retiring.’
‘Well, hell! Didn’t Beau ask her why?’
Amos shrugged. ‘Too busy tryin’ to handle the fall-out, boss. We both were.’
‘Bloody hell.’ Mac rubbed a hand over his face. He’d been running on adrenalin for the past few hours, but now jet lag was setting in. He hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours, and despite the fact that he needed sleep, he wasn’t looking forward to his lonely bed. He’d got too used to Blaze’s warm curves beside him.
His fingers touched the small box in his pocket. He should have just asked her and got it the hell over with. Maybe then he’d be able to get some clear air to handle the Rosmerta shit storm. Since when was he so fucking cow—
‘Boss!’ Amos’s voice cut through his thoughts and, with reluctance, he turned back to the old man who was looking at him in concern. ‘I thought you’d done fallen asleep on me, boss, except your eyes were open and you looked like you were about to wrestle a bull.’
‘Wrestling something a hell of lot more volatile,’ Mac said. ‘Never mind. Tell me what happened with the cook. She was pretty unremarkable but her cooking was edible.’
‘It was all right. Not in Peg’s class. And she was out to cause trouble from the start. Playing the guys off each other. Had young Lew and Smithy looking at Beau like he was a dog turd, for no good reason.’
Mac thought for a moment. ‘Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’ll talk to Peg, beg her if necessary to come back. Then I’ll set things straight with Beau and the boys. And the girl is out of here first thing tomorrow.’
‘Too late, boss. Moved out yesterday.’ Amos stood and stretched. ‘Soon as she knew you were on your way back, she said she was finished. Expect she knew you’d have her out of here quick smart. Good riddance.’
Mac shook his head in bewilderment as he stood. He was going to hit the sack; clearly, nothing was going to make much sense until he’d had some sleep. Tomorrow he’d straighten out the station, get Peg back and then he was going to put the damned rock on Blaze’s finger. No more pissing about. If he could stare down bushfires and brown snakes, he could have an honest conversation with his lover.
Amos said goodnight and headed out to his quarters, leaving Mac on the veranda staring out at the vast night sky, wishing tomorrow would hurry up. One night without Blaze was about as much as he could stand.
Thinking about Blaze reminded him that he needed to speak with Andrew Ryan and push him to find out what was going on with Blaze’s case. It still made him uneasy that the LA cops had had a gilt-edged opportunity to arrest her if they thought they had cause. Evidently they hadn’t, but he had a bad feeling about it. It was almost as if the case was in limbo – and sleeping dogs often woke up snapping, in his experience.
He also wanted to know what was happening with the attack on Peg. That way, he’d have something to discuss with her before tackling her about returning to Rosmerta. She’d probably be fine once he made it clear the kitchen was all hers again.
Hell! When had life become so complicated? Until a few months ago, life had been simple: tough and testing but simple. Now, every day brought a new twist and turn. Ever since Blaze arrived, there’d been one drama after another.
He smiled wryly. He could hardly lay the station’s problems at Blaze’s door. Nevertheless, life with her would never be dull. Was he ready for that? No, but what man was ever ready for a ring through his nose? His smile broadened. Blaze Gillespie was his woman. Come hell or high water, he was going to claim her. Then spend the rest of his life trying to tame her, failing and yet enjoying the battle all the same.
Mac looked out at the clear night sky shot with stars, the shadowy land stretching into the distance. A tiny gust of wind blew the dust across the paddock, and an open door in the house slammed shut. In the distance a dingo’s keening cry raised the hairs on his arms and dried the sweat on his nape. Like him, it was probably hunting for its mate, but in the dark it sounded like a warning.
Chapter Fourteen
Blaze hummed to herself as she walked down the street towards the ute. It had been a good morning, especially the specialist’s all-clear to resume ‘intercourse’, as the doctor termed it. She would invite Mac over for supper one night this week and seduce him. Turning right towards her car, she hit a wall of chest muscle clad in a plaid shirt. Big work-roughened hands shot out to steady her.
‘Mac!’ Surprise and pleasure bloomed inside her as she looked up at his face, half hidden by his dusty brown hat. ‘What are you doing in town?’
He gave her his characteristic lazy smile but hesitated before answering, as though weighing up his words before he spoke. ‘Places to go, people to see.’
Blaze narrowed her eyes. Prevarication wasn’t usually in his repertoire. ‘What places and people?’
The street behind him contained a bakery, dancewear shop, health-food store and massage parlour – all now closed for the day – and Meriwether’s police station.
‘You’ve been helping police with their enquiries.’ It came out more accusingly than she’d intended.
‘Wrong. They’ve been helping me with mine.’ He didn’t elaborate so she assumed he was pressing them about progress on the investigation into the attack on his housekeeper.’
‘Any news?’
He shook his head. ‘Where’s your car?’
‘At the garden centre. I took the rental ute back today and bought a new station wagon.’
He looked at her. ‘You get any more domesticated and you’ll be joining the Country Women’s Association.’
‘I somehow doubt they’d have me.’
‘I’m just here.’ He nodded towards the dusty truck a few metres further down the street. ‘I’ll drive you to yours.’
A minute later, he pulled up beside her new dark green station w
agon. She saw his frown deepen as he got out and went to inspect the tree stashed in the back. When she hit the remote, he opened the back, stroked the rough bark of the Moreton Bay fig and looked at her.
‘For Skye?’ His voice was thick and deep but steady.
Blaze shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans and, like him, stared at the deep green of the leaves. She cleared her throat. ‘I went in to order one, and they said that, funnily enough, you’d ordered one when we were in LA I told them it was for Sweet Springs. I sent you a text saying I’d picked it up.’
He looked at his phone and away. Then at the sky. ‘Let’s plant it today. It’ll be cooler by the time we get home.’
The way he said ‘home’ curled warmly through Blaze, cutting through the sombre mood.
‘All right.’
As she opened the driver’s door, he reached out and squeezed her hand with his for a brief second as if he wanted to say something. But what was there to say?
At Sweet Springs, he unloaded the tree from her car. Rowdy and Trent had already left for the day, but Paddy was unusually conspicuous. Most days he didn’t appear until dusk, when he came in looking for food and company, but today he was waiting for her on the porch. He came up and gave Mac a sniff of welcome, then licked Blaze’s hand and followed her into the barn, watching intently from the doorway as she collected a shovel.
She gave him a look. ‘I’ll get your dinner in a while.’ He barked as if in response and then trotted at her heels across the yard towards the waterhole. While Mac dug the hole, Blaze carried over a bucket of water. Paddy walked between them restlessly before plonking himself at Blaze’s feet. A second later, he was up, tail swishing, and across to Mac, who interrupted his digging for a second to scratch the dog behind his ears before resuming the rhythmic pace of his digging.
He’d stripped off his shirt and his upper body gleamed with sweat. Shoulder muscles and biceps bulged as he dug, but his breathing didn’t change. He looked like a supremely fit male animal, and within a few minutes, he had a good-sized hole for the tree. It was the perfect spot, a short distance from where he’d found her that terrible day, but far enough from the fringe of green around the waterhole to stand apart.
Blaze helped him lift the fig into position. When he had resettled the earth around it, she watered it in.
‘You’ll need to keep up the watering until it gets established,’ Mac said, when it was done. He leaned on his shovel and squinted into the dusky sky.
‘It’ll live for decades, won’t it?’ she said, her voice husky.
‘A hundred years or more, well after we’re long gone.’
She went to him, laying her cheek on his chest as he looped an arm around her shoulders. Maybe she should say something, Blaze thought, but words seemed superfluous. So they stood there as the day lengthened, and a late breeze in the dark green leaves of the young tree whispered a gentle prayer. Even the waterhole’s usually cacophonous dusk chorus hushed as if in reflection on a life returned to its source.
At long last, Blaze stirred and turned her head so she could look into Mac’s eyes.
‘I wanted her even though . . .’ her voice tailed off.
‘Sometimes the best things are those we don’t plan.’
He was exactly right. She smiled just a little as they walked hand in hand towards the house, Paddy trotting just ahead of them.
Suddenly, he growled low in his throat and took off. On the veranda, he sat down on his haunches and snarled at the kitchen door.
‘I don’t think Paddy approves of the renovation,’ Blaze remarked but Mac didn’t smile.
Instead, he broke away from Blaze and jogged to the house. When he pushed the door, it opened under his hand.
‘Did you leave it unlocked?’
Blaze shook her head as she joined him. ‘Rowdy and Trent were still working in the kitchen when I went into town. I left them to lock up. Maybe they forgot.’ She went to walk into the house but Mac tugged her back.
‘Wait. I’ll go.’
‘Mac, they probably left by the front door and forgot to lock up out here.’
‘Probably, but Paddy’s pissed off about something. I’ll take him with me. You stay here.’
Irritated by his high-handedness, but knowing his plan made sense, she folded her arms and waited.
Paddy’s toes clicked against the slate as he trotted into the kitchen. He ignored his food bowl and continued through the house to the study. The desk was a sea of paper. Mac glanced through it, shuffling a stack of quotes, invoices and receipts from contractors, scrawled notes from Rowdy and glossy catalogues of upmarket bathroom fixtures. It looked messier than when he’d seen it last, but otherwise untouched.
His hand glanced over the mouse pad of her laptop, which hummed to life and what he saw there made his stomach clench.
Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze Bitch Blaze
The words covered an entire document page. It was untitled, so clearly it wasn’t something that had been sent to her. Unless she’d sent it to herself. He shut off the little voice that wormed its way into his head, fed by the conversation he’d had with Ryan and his boss, the formidable Inspector Elsom.
‘Mac?’ Blaze’s voice came down the hallway from the kitchen. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Give me a sec. We’re just going upstairs. Stay where you are.’ Before heading for the stairs, he checked the formal living room and dining room and guest toilet. He didn’t spot anything untoward. A nod of his head and Paddy scampered ahead up both flights of stairs into the newly renovated attic suite. Mac hadn’t seen it since it was finished, but he gave a low whistle as he walked in through the door.
The high sloping ceiling complete with magnificent chandelier gave it a dramatic edge, and the large sleigh-style king bed looked a damned sight more accommodating than her old childhood bed. But he wasn’t interested in the furniture.
Paddy stood quivering at the door to the ensuite bathroom. Mac cautiously opened the door into a room big enough for a freestanding tub and separate shower. A towel was draped messily on the closed toilet seat and the vanity was strewn with various tubes and bottles. Above it, the wide mirror was filled with the same malicious message as the laptop, written in red in a wild and looping hand.
It looked like dried blood.
Careful not to touch anything, he walked out again, calling Paddy to his side. He had Ryan’s number on speed-dial. As he waited for the cop to pick up, he leant down and gave Paddy an appreciative pat. ‘Good dog,’ he murmured. Paddy wagged his tail and then trotted back downstairs, no doubt to his mistress.
‘Ryan,’ he said without ceremony when the detective sergeant answered. ‘You need to come out to Sweet Springs. There’s been another incident. No one’s hurt, but you need to see this.’ He explained what he’d found. ‘I know you’ll need to speak with Blaze, but just remember she’s the victim here.’
He listened to Ryan. ‘Fine, keep an open mind. But this is not attention-seeking or whatever the hell you call it. Someone is out to hurt her and I want him found and stopped. And by the way, I’m about to tell her what we discussed today. She deserves to know.’
He cut Ryan off as the man began to argue, and jogged downstairs. Blaze was already in the kitchen pouring dry dog food into a bowl.
‘I told you, they probably just forgot . . . what?’ she asked him, frowning.
‘Don’t touch anything else.’ He grabbed her hand and led her into the study. ‘You need to see something. It’s sick, but the cops are on their way, okay?’
‘You’re frightening me!’ She pulled her hand from his grasp. ‘What’s going on?’
He showed her the ugly words filling the screen.
Blaze went pale, and then two bright flags of colour appeared in her cheeks. She stared at the screen. ‘Who would write that?’
‘I have no idea. And I
take it you don’t, either.’
‘No.’ She bit her lip. ‘I mean it’s no secret that some people think I’m a sex-crazed monster, even a murderer. But here in Queensland, everyone I know is a friend, pretty much.’
‘A friend doesn’t do this.’
‘No.’
‘There’s more of the same upstairs on the bathroom mirror written in what looks like lipstick.’
‘I don’t need to see it,’ she said quickly and went out to the car.
Mac was glad. He grabbed a couple of drinks from the fridge and followed her out. She sat in the driver’s seat staring at the steering wheel. Paddy was in the passenger seat so Mac chased him into the back and climbed in beside her. He handed her a drink.
‘The cops in LA have apparently been reconsidering the DNA from the scene of Mitch Redmond’s murder. Did you know?’
She stared at him, shook her head. ‘My fingerprints and DNA were at the scene, along with his cleaner’s and a few other friends’. And his own, of course. My DNA was on the knife that . . .’
‘Go on.’
She looked down at her fingers. ‘They showed it to me. It was a kitchen knife; one of his. Maybe I touched it in the kitchen. Mitch and I were in there talking while we prepared dinner.’
‘All Ryan told me is that the LAPD is looking into something that doesn’t ring true.’
Her head came up. ‘Is that good or bad?’
‘Ryan wasn’t specific but I kind of think it may be good news. If the anomaly strengthened the evidence against you, why not arrest you when you were in LA?’
‘So why didn’t the LA cops tell me that?’
‘Because cops always play their cards close to their chest, and because they want to leave themselves with the option to move against you at a later stage if the evidence supports it. That would be my guess, anyway.’
