Unforgettable You: Destiny Romance

by Georgina Penney

  ‘W-we didn’t stay with our aunt like Mum and Dad told everyone. We ran away and lived on our own, staying under the radar while we both finished school and I started earning us m-money. It wasn’t you. I’m sorry for ever letting you think it was you, but I couldn’t tell you. Not with Dad ready to go off any minute if anyone found out.’ She bit her lip to stop it quivering with nerves and the sheer upheaval of telling him something so shameful.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Stephen sounded winded, his expression horrified. ‘No. Jo . . .’

  ‘Yes. Just let me finish, all right? Dad’s a two-faced bastard. You’ve only seen one side. The plan was to get Mum away safe up here so I could tell the police about him tomorrow. That way he couldn’t hurt her if he flipped out, but she found out this morning, and by the sounds of it she didn’t like our plan and told him about it.’ Jo paused for breath, deliberately not quite making eye contact. ‘I’d do anything to keep you out of this and to take back all the shitty stuff you’ve probably thought about yourself over the years, but we . . . we need you. While you’re around, Dad won’t do anything stupid. He values his job and reputation too much.’

  ‘Stupid? Like what?’ Stephen demanded, his voice rising, words coming rapid-fire. ‘You think he’s going to try to hurt you girls again? Ken? You sure about this, Jo?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure. We can go into that later, all right? I just need you to believe what I’ve told you for now.’ Jo ignored the sharp pang in her chest at hearing the hurt in Stephen’s voice that she’d been dreading. She risked a look at his face. The weather forecast was stormy.

  ‘Keep talking,’ Stephen said tightly, the muscles in his face were so taut, his cheekbones stood out in stark relief.

  Jo shifted from foot to foot a few times, ran her sweaty palms down her thighs and stared at the massive frangipani tree that dominated Amy’s unruly front garden.

  ‘The job at Evangeline’s Rest means everything to Dad, so this shouldn’t be a big deal, but I warn you there might be a bit of shouting, and maybe a few . . . a few threats. So can you just uh . . . just back me up?’ How was it that she, a woman who made grown men wet their pants in terror on a regular basis, oil men for God’s sake, was having trouble explaining a simple thing like her parents being crazy to her boyfriend? Oh, just wait, she didn’t have to worry about the men at work smashing her heart into smithereens.

  Stephen didn’t say anything for a few seconds, his expression a war of anger and disbelief before he exploded. ‘Fucking hell, Jo! It would’ve been nice to be told about this earlier. Like, I don’t know, “Stephen, my dad’s psycho.” Now that would’ve been a good start. You think I would’ve left you alone at your parents’ place that day if I’d known? Why didn’t you tell me? Do you trust me that little?’

  ‘Save the outrage for later. Just trust me, please?’ She bridged the gap between them to give him a brief, tight hug, rigid arms, furiously tense body and all.

  ‘Please go with me on this?’ Jo pleaded.

  ‘I’m so angry right now, Jo—’

  ‘There’s no time for that. You can be angry at me later. Trust me now. Just enough to get through this, all right?’ Her knees almost gave out when she felt him relaxing a fraction.

  ‘Yeah. But you better tell me the full story soon. The thought of you getting hurt . . .’ Stephen rasped, shocking her completely by suddenly returning her hug, pulling her so tight against him, she felt her ribs creaking.

  ‘I promise.’ Jo sagged with relief, resting her forehead against his until the sound of crockery breaking had her unceremoniously pushing Stephen away and running for the house.

  ‘Amy? Stephen, stay outside,’ she ordered before she opened the door.

  ‘Like hell.’ He started after her.

  ‘No! It’s only Amy and Mum in there. I don’t want this getting any messier than it needs to be and I need you here just in case Dad comes.’ She only paused long enough to see Stephen had registered what she was saying before racing inside.

  Jo found Amy in her tiny kitchen, her back to the room, gripping the bench with white-knuckled hands. Shirley was standing in the open back doorway, ever-present cigarette clamped between her fingers, lips pressed into a thin, severe line. Unlike Amy, she was dressed immaculately in ironed jeans and a pink blouse with her hair neatly braided. The only things that gave away her less-than-calm state were a few flecks of black on her eyelids where she’d botched her mascara and the way her hand holding the cigarette was shaking.

  ‘Well, Amy?’ Shirley demanded, voice hard.

  ‘Mum, we were doing this to help you. Please calm down,’ Amy pleaded.

  ‘Oh, and here’s the cavalry. Right pair of geniuses the two of you are.’ Their mum rounded on Jo, no doubt hearing her feet pounding through the house over Amy’s old floorboards. ‘Think you’re a pair of avenging angels, don’t you? Don’t think I don’t know this is your idea, Jo.’ Shirley curled her lip in disgust.

  ‘Yeah, it was.’ Jo ignored Amy’s astounded expression. ‘So stop taking it out on Amy, Mum.’

  ‘I’m not taking anything out on anyone.’ Shirley turned and tapped her ash on the mossy paving stones just outside the back door. ‘I just wish you’d back off. I never asked for any of this. I’ve told you before to leave it alone.’ She shook her head and gave Jo such a look of tired disappointment, Jo felt herself morphing back into a five-year-old again being told off by her mum for trying to stop her dad from hitting her. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Her mum was supposed to be happy they wanted to help her. Jo and Amy had been planning this, dreaming of this for years. Obviously those dreams had to be just that. Dreams.

  ‘Well, maybe I don’t want to leave it alone any more, Mum,’ Jo said, her own weary disappointment tinting her voice. ‘You can’t want to live in that house with him. I saw the way you were moving months ago. He hasn’t stopped all these years, has he? He’s been exactly the same. Getting drunk every night and—’

  ‘What, Jo?’ Shirley Blaine’s smoke-raspy voice overrode hers. ‘What exactly has he been doing? How would you bloody well know? It’s not like you ever come to see me. It’s not like you’ve ever indicated you care. If Amy here’—she jerked her head in Amy’s direction—’didn’t call me and visit every now and then, I’d think you two had dropped off the face of the earth.’ She took a long, harsh pull on her cigarette and looked from Jo to Amy and back again, her hard expression partially obscured by her exhaled smoke.

  ‘It’s not like we don’t try to help you, Mum. We tried years ago. We’re trying now. I can’t believe you’d want to stay with him!’ Jo felt tears prickle behind her eyes. There was no way in hell she’d shed them. Shirley hadn’t seen her cry since she was a kid, and she wouldn’t now.

  ‘Well, you bloody well should,’ Jo’s mother said sharply. ‘You gave up the right to having a say when you left home with Amy. You gave up the right to judge me or your bloody father. He was heartbroken when you girls left.’

  ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. He was the reason we left, Mum!’

  ‘Well, believe it, sunshine. Because you’ve got a lot to learn.’

  ‘Like what? How to let your kids get the shit kicked out of them every other day? How to defend a total bastard? He almost killed us years ago. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

  ‘You’ve always overreacted, Jo,’ Shirley said coolly.

  ‘I’ve got reason.’ White-hot rage surged through Jo. ‘So can you guarantee me he won’t be on his way right now with that gun of his ready to take pot shots at Amy or me because of what you’ve said? Because I’m not so sure. Actually, I’ve got half a mind to call the cops just to make sure someone’s here when he turns up.’

  At this her mother’s face went white. ‘You wouldn’t.’

  ‘I bloody well would. You might think your arse is covered, but what about Amy, Stephen—’

  ‘Stephen?’ Shirley asked, but Jo ignored her.

  ‘And me, hey? What happens if he shoots
one of us? You’re responsible, and I’ll bloody well testify against you if there’s a charge that would stick for you as well as him. My God! I can’t believe how much shit Amy and I put up with over the years because we were worried about you, but you couldn’t care less, could you? Could you?’ Rage and bitterness at the realisation it had been for nothing, that she and Amy had been trying to protect Shirley for absolutely nothing, that they’d been almost killed trying to protect her years before for nothing tainted Jo’s words. She stalked across the kitchen until she was towering over Shirley, who didn’t budge an inch.

  ‘What’ya going to do, girl? Hit me?’ Her mother asked sarcastically, sticking out her jaw and blowing smoke in Jo’s face.

  ‘Why not? You seem to like it.’ Jo felt the urge to grab the woman in front of her by the shoulders and shake her until she admitted she was wrong. She wanted the mother she remembered from when she was little back, but it looked like that woman was long since gone. How had she and Amy not seen that?

  ‘Jo?’ Stephen’s voice coming from outside spun Jo around and had her mother turning red in the face. There was the sound of a car pulling up in the drive, and Amy ran for the front door, her feet pounding over the floorboards.

  ‘Who is that?’ Shirley demanded.

  Jo sneered. ‘Stephen Hardy. If you’d bothered to know anything about my life, you’d know we’re together. He’s waiting out the front. I thought we might need his help, since you gave Dad Amy’s address.’

  ‘Dad’s here, Jo,’ Amy called frantically.

  ‘I need to pack my things, then.’ Their mum dropped her lit cigarette on the kitchen floor and pushed past Jo and then into Amy’s spare bedroom.

  The rage in Jo’s system, combined with a healthy dose of dread, left her lightheaded as she ran towards the door where both Stephen and Amy were watching her dad get out of his battered old Hilux in Amy’s driveway.

  Ken Blaine stalked up Amy’s driveway, looking nothing like the genial old boy Stephen had known, trusted and respected since he was a kid.

  The older man’s usually ironed shirt was wrinkled and stained where he’d spilled something on it, his shorts were equally filthy and he wasn’t wearing any shoes. He hadn’t shaved, and his face had such a black look of fury that it distorted his features to the point he was near unrecognisable. Dumbfounded by the transformation, Stephen barely noticed Jo stepping in front of him as Ken advanced on them.

  ‘You. Fuckin’. Bitch!’ Ken roared, his pupils pinpricks in his bloodshot eyes, his voice high-pitched, cracking. Almost eerie.

  ‘Amy, get in the house,’ Jo ordered quietly. ‘Now.’ She reached to the side and shoved Amy towards the door, not once taking her eyes off Ken.

  He screeched over the top of her, ‘I’m gonna fuckin’ kill—’

  Stephen’s surprise dissolved in a blinding instant, pure rage setting in as he shoved Jo behind him. ‘You’ll what, Ken?’

  Ken stumbled when he saw Stephen, the mad expression on his face suddenly warring with shock and a sickening congeniality.

  ‘Stephen?’ he asked faintly as he immediately straightened himself, pulling down his shirt and running his hand over the scraggly stubble on his chin. ‘Ah, how—how’s your dad, mate?’

  ‘Good,’ Stephen replied, arms crossed over his chest, his stomach feeling as if it was bubbling with lava. ‘He’ll be a sight better when he never sees you again.’

  ‘What?’ Ken’s voice rose. ‘Now, mate. Mate, don’t be hasty. This is just a misunderstanding between my girls and me, all right? Every family has a few misunderstandings every now and then. You know how women are.’ He tried a conspiratorial smile, but it failed in the face of Stephen’s stare.

  ‘No, I don’t, mate. I think you better explain what you mean by misunderstandings,’ Stephen said in a lethally quiet voice as he took a step forward to the edge of Amy’s porch. The enormity of what Jo had kept from him, what his family had allowed to happen, what he’d believed was his fault, what he could have fixed if someone had told him the truth, was a cacophonic roar in his ears.

  Ken held up his hands and took a step back. ‘That’s what I’m trying to do here. Jo, love? Jo, you tell him. This is just a misunderstanding. Why don’t you tell Stephen here so he can go and we can sort it out?’ Ken asked, his voice oozing amiability as he looked at Jo with a fake smile on his lips and murder in his eyes.

  ‘Fuck you,’ Jo snarled.

  ‘Now, that’s not very nice.’ Ken’s fake smile slipped until it was just a show of yellow teeth. ‘I hear you were going to have a word with some mutual friends of ours about a few misunderstandings we’ve had in the past. I think it would be helpful if you told Stephen that they weren’t serious, or you and I might have to discuss this later.’

  Ken’s threat was blatant and no one missed it. Stephen shot a hand out and wrapped it around Jo’s waist in a vicelike grip as she launched herself forward towards her father.

  ‘Jo. Stop,’ Stephen ordered, holding her back, but it was as if she didn’t hear him.

  ‘Jo!’ Stephen’s bellow in her ear finally got her attention.

  She stopped struggling and stood in his arms, eyes trained on Ken with years of pent-up rage pouring out of them.

  ‘Nice had nothing to do with it, you bastard,’ Jo hissed. ‘Nice stopped the day you tried to kill us fourteen years ago. Nice stopped when you put a bullet in my goddamn thigh the other day, and nice stopped when you called my house threatening to finish the job. By the way, that wasn’t me who answered the phone, Dad.’ She spat the word. ‘It was Rachael Hardy.’

  ‘Kill you?’ Stephen roared as he let Jo go and pushed her out of the way. ‘You telling me your dad shot you on our farm?’ Forgetting his previous efforts to prevent a physical confrontation, he launched himself at Ken.

  Jo’s boots scraped on the boards of the porch as it was now her turn to hold him back.

  ‘Now, mate. I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, here. You know me, mate. Come on, I’ve known you since you were a kid. I don’t know what Jo here’s told you, but you surely couldn’t believe any of it. You’ve known me for years.’ Ken spoke quickly, voice rising in his panic as he held up his hands to ward off Stephen.

  ‘Ken, that I’ve known you for years just makes this worse. My family trusted you. Let me go, Jo,’ Stephen growled.

  ‘Can’t.’ Jo’s voice was strained as she fought to hold him back. ‘He’s not worth you getting done for assault. Can’t . . . let . . . you . . .’

  ‘Screw that! He hurt you. You just said he’s the one who shot you!’

  ‘Yeah, one of many times he’s bloody well hurt me,’ Jo wheezed in his ear. ‘He’s still not worth it.’

  ‘Now, mate. Calm down. How about we have a talk about this man to man?’ Ken said, backing up, stumbling over the uneven bricks in Amy’s driveway.

  ‘He didn’t shoot anyone.’ Shirley Blaine’s raspy voice came from the house, and Jo and Stephen temporarily ceased their struggle with each other to watch her wheeling a battered, squeaky black overnight case through the front door. She stopped in front of them, surveying the scene with a hand on one hip, bored expression on her face.

  ‘If he didn’t, who did?’ Jo demanded.

  ‘Me. I didn’t mean to hit you, but you bloody well deserved it.’ The woman said the words so casually, she could have been talking about her favourite brand of laundry detergent.

  ‘What?’ Jo let go of Stephen, her hands dropping limply to her sides.

  ‘Mum?’ Amy cried out at the same time from where she’d been standing just inside the house, keeping tabs on what was going on but staying out of Jo’s way.

  ‘Just get the message, will you?’ Shirley barked. ‘If you’d left well enough alone, me and your dad would be happy. Instead, you get him upset every time you try and help’—she sneered the word at Jo, who flinched—’and I have to deal with it.’ She turned away and wheeled her bag past Ken, up the driveway to the Hilux, hoisting it onto the tray
.

  Jo and Amy stood in stunned silence, mouths open.

  Ken acted as if Shirley hadn’t said a thing. He warily kept his eyes focused on Stephen while nervously running his hand up and down over his shirt.

  ‘I give up,’ Jo said faintly, her voice thick with an avalanche of shock and resignation. ‘That’s it. Screw the both of you. I give up. Mum—no, Shirley—you and Ken are welcome to each other. Perfect bloody match,’ she said in disgust and walked back into the house.

  Amy, openly crying, looked at Shirley and then Ken. ‘Screw you both.’ Her voice was waterlogged, but her jaw was firm as she followed in Jo’s wake.

  Stephen waited until he heard the creak of Jo and Amy’s feet on the floorboards fade out of earshot before rounding on Ken Blaine. One thought played over and over in his mind, getting louder and louder until it was a deafening scream. How had the Hardy family not known? How had they not known? They’d paid the man’s salary for years. His dad treated Ken like a good mate. Jesus, Rob would be shattered finding out what had happened to Amy and Jo on his land if he even felt half the guilt and anger Stephen was feeling right now. ‘Leave,’ he said in a low, furious voice, the word containing everything he was feeling.

  ‘Mate, come on,’ Ken began. ‘You know how women exaggerate. I’ll just go in and have a talk with the girls and—’

  ‘Shut up, Ken. If you ever, ever come near either of them again—and that goes for her too,’ he jabbed a finger at Shirley, who was waiting in the passenger seat of Ken’s Hilux looking bored, ‘I’ll . . .’