‘Might have.’
‘Did it sink in?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What’s supposed to sink in?’ Amy asked, waddling into the kitchen, giving a huge yawn and stretching like a small kitten. She was wearing heeled slippers with pink pompoms on the toes and a pink-and-green-striped nightie.
Jo and Scott simultaneously rolled their eyes at the overwhelming cuteness that overrode Amy’s messy hair and tear-streaked face.
‘That you should’ve given up on your mum years ago,’ Scott answered calmly.
Amy stopped mid-stretch, arms collapsing at her side. ‘Ease me into it, why don’t you?’ she muttered, tottering over to the kettle and beginning to make a cup of tea.
Something niggling at the back of Jo’s thoughts kicked in. ‘Why’s Boomba at your place?’
Scott raised a brow. ‘Took you long enough.’
‘Just answer me,’ Jo demanded impatiently. ‘Where’s Stephen?’
Scott spoke slowly, as if thinking his words through. ‘He’s gone back to Evangeline’s Rest for a while.’
‘A while? How long? Why?’ Jo asked, her brow furrowing in confusion as she felt the first pebbles of worry roll, signalling an incoming panic avalanche.
‘Didn’t say exactly. Did you know his ex sold their apartment and finally coughed up half of the money she owed him?’
‘No.’ Jo felt as if she’d just been punched. Stephen hadn’t said a thing. Why wouldn’t he have told her? Was he planning on moving out?
‘He didn’t tell you?’
‘What did he say to you, Scott? Why has he gone down to George Creek?’ Jo demanded.
‘He looked pretty cut up about what happened,’ Scott replied, shaking his head, mouth downturned. ‘Pretty upset you hadn’t said a thing and it was all sprung on him like that. He said he’d had a lot of time to think about things yesterday and this morning. And after you didn’t call him or return his calls . . .’ He let his words hang while Jo launched out of her chair and ran into the living room to find her phone. It was sitting on the floor where she’d left it and was as dead as a doornail.
‘Shit! No battery,’ she exclaimed. ‘Amy, I need to use your phone.’
‘You know where it is,’ her sister called from the kitchen.
After being put through to Stephen’s voicemail five times, Jo’s anxiety level was nearing supercritical. She stalked back into the kitchen and found Scott wrapping his arms around Amy, his tall, wide frame dwarfing her sister’s. Amy was wiping a tear out of her eye, but Jo was too panicked right now to think of offering comfort. Scott was doing a good enough job.
‘What’s going on with Stephen, Scott?’ Jo demanded.
He whispered something in Amy’s ear before looking Jo in the eyes. ‘I honestly don’t know. He just said he needed to get away.’
‘Get away? From me?’ Panic warred with shame that she’d pushed him away. That he’d taken one look at her real life, where she’d come from, and had run. She should have told him the truth. She didn’t know how, but she should have.
Her panic must have showed because Scott’s expression softened. ‘I think you two just need to talk.’
‘How? I’m here and he’s run off to George Creek!’ Jo threw up her arms and then quickly caught the towel wrapped around her before it slid to her feet.
‘What’s to stop you from going to George Creek after him?’ Amy asked in a small voice, eyes wide with worry for Jo.
‘Yeah. Follow him, Jo. I know you’re dealing with a lot of crap right now and you’ll be dealing with it for a long time, but Stephen’s your future. He’s pretty wrecked over the fact he’s just found out he hasn’t been able to protect the woman he loves. I should know how that feels after years of being around you two terrors. He hasn’t had the practice I’ve had.’ Scott gave Jo and Amy sad smile that made a liar of the tough-guy act he’d been pulling earlier. ‘Follow him. Talk to him and work it out. You need him.’
‘How?’ Jo yelled again and then stopped, brain whirring.
Stephen couldn’t be leaving her now. Not now. Not after they’d told each other they loved each other, well, sort of. She’d just quit her job, for Christ’s sake. Okay, not for him, but she had been thinking how great it would be to spend more time with him. A lot of time. She had no clothes, though, no phone and it was George Creek, George bloody Creek. Her parents were there. Everything that had happened in the last thirty years, in the past few days, was waiting there to jump up and bite her on her backside. Again. Dammit.
She felt miserable pangs of loss and complete desertion from the day before combine with a gut panic at the thought of losing Stephen. It couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t end it. She wouldn’t let him end it. Not like this. She let the feelings fight for a while then stuck out her jaw and made a decision.
‘Get out of your clothes.’ She pointed at Scott’s T-shirt and jeans.
‘What? Why?’ His eyes widened.
‘Mine are in the wash, and I need to go. Now. Strip.’
He spluttered coffee on the floor. ‘Bugger off! If you take my clothes, what am I going to wear?’
Jo looked pointedly down at her towel. ‘Pink has always been your best colour, Scott.’
It began raining an hour into the journey down to George Creek, and Jo cursed her bad luck, the weather and motorbikes in general. It was the beginning of summer. It shouldn’t be raining, and certainly not this heavily. After twenty minutes trying to navigate her way through the steady downpour, she felt even more miserable than she had when she’d raced into her apartment to find it completely empty of cat and man. She’d only spared the time to get changed out of Scott’s clothes and into her own before running downstairs and setting off, only realising once she was well on her way that she’d picked up her spare helmet with the broken visor.
She knew she was riding too fast and that it was stupid given the bad weather, how saturated her clothes were and her overwrought state, but all she could think of was watching Stephen’s taxi pulling out of Amy’s driveway. She should have asked him to stay. She should have tried to explain everything to him but she hadn’t. All she’d felt was shame that he’d seen it all, heard how fucked-up her life was. All she’d been able to think about was how it felt to see Stephen’s expression when Shirley had admitted to firing a gun on her own daughter. Shock. Outrage, and like a punch to Jo’s stomach, disgust. In that moment Shirley had slashed cleanly through any of Jo’s illusions that she could ever be anything other than ‘Rabies’ Blaine.
No matter how far she ran, no matter how much money she saved, how much education she got, she was still running on the same spot. Going nowhere. She’d thought she’d moved on. Had fought for, forged, a new life, a new worth. What a fucking lie. She was still the stupid kid in the picture, dreaming she could be a part of something better one day. Stupid. So fucking stupid. She began to cry again, but the rain washed the tears off her face quicker than they could fall.
She desperately tried to ignore the poisonous litany of self-doubt, disgust and shame playing through her thoughts, but it got louder and louder the closer she got to George Creek. It wrapped itself around her, blanketing her, smothering her until she had to pull her bike over at a bare gravel truck stop on the side of the road ten minutes out of town. It was either that or vomit on a motorbike moving at high speed. Never a good idea.
She soon discovered there was nothing in her stomach to bring up. Just a mouthful of the coffee Scott had made her that morning. After getting so cold from the rain, she was shaking with hunger, her stomach lurching and rumbling, sore from dry heaving. She must be insane. She didn’t want to do this. She’d almost shattered to pieces the day before; if Stephen rejected her again today, there wouldn’t be a whole lot left. She crouched on the muddy gravel next to her bike and rubbed her wet face with her hands as wave after wave of nausea rolled over her. She knew she had to find him, but the fifteen-minute ride to Evangeline’s Rest might as well be five hours just now. She closed
her eyes, stayed crouching and hugged herself, willing the horrible feelings to pass so she could find Stephen and try to make things better.
‘You all right there, mate?’ a familiar voice straight out of Jo’s past asked, and Jo shot to her feet, swaying unsteadily and gripping the seat of her bike for support, knocking her helmet to the ground.
‘Yeah,’ she wiped her mouth with shaking, pale fingers, using her bike to support her. She needed it, considering who’d come to her aid.
Standing less than two feet away, a worried scowl lining his brow, was Jeff Rousse.
Jo wiped the water out of her eyes, hoping he’d be gone when she opened them again, but no, he was still there, looking older than when she’d last seen him face-to-face, a lot less scrawny too. He was still an inch or two shorter that she was, but he’d filled out a whole lot in the chest and shoulders. Sometime in the last fourteen years he’d lost the god-awful red goatee he’d had as a kid, and a charitable woman would say he looked handsome in Levi’s and a black wool pullover that contrasted strikingly with his close-shaved ginger-gold hair and dark tan.
‘Jo Blaine?’ His ultra-pale blue eyes widened in surprise.
‘Yeah,’ Jo said, bracing herself for the Rabies comments that were no doubt forthcoming. They sure as hell had been whenever she’d encountered him in the past.
‘You all right? You don’t look too good,’ Jeff said, taking her by surprise. He surprised her even more when he picked up her helmet and handed it to her.
‘I’m okay,’ Jo muttered. ‘Shouldn’t you be insulting me or something?’
‘I think I’ll leave my foot out of my mouth today. You don’t look up for a fight,’ Jeff said gruffly. ‘You don’t look up to riding that bike right now either. You want a ride somewhere? Your bike will be fine here until someone gives you a lift back. If you want, you can give me your number and I’ll pick you up, even.’
When Jo didn’t say anything, he scowled. ‘Don’t look so amazed. You’re making me feel like a right prick. Just bring your helmet and hop in the bloody car.’
‘That’s because you are a right prick,’ Jo said faintly.
‘Yeah, well, I’m trying to not be one today, so feel lucky. Get in the bloody car before it starts raining again.’ He looked red-faced and embarrassed instead of angry at her words. It was the embarrassment that had Jo following him to a new black Monaro.
She stopped. ‘I’m saturated. I’ll spoil your car seat.’
‘It’ll survive. It’s just water,’ he said impatiently, walking around to her side and opening her door for her when she didn’t move. ‘Hurry up,’ he snapped, not meeting her eyes as she climbed in, slamming the door behind her.
He pulled the car on to the highway and began driving towards town. ‘Where’d you want to go?’
‘I wanted to go to Evangeline’s Rest. I’m looking for Stephen.’
‘Stevo?’ Jeff raised an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t know he was down here.’
‘He is. Came down this morning.’
‘Why didn’t you come with him? Clayton said you two were together. It’s a bit rough that he expected you to ride down in the rain.’ Jeff sounded indignant on her behalf, and Jo looked at him, incredulous. Could things get any weirder?
Her stomach growled loudly, interrupting her thoughts and reminding her she’d recently emptied it of its meagre contents.
Jeff looked at her sideways. ‘You got a tiger in there or something?’
‘I didn’t eat this morning,’ Jo mumbled. ‘I was in a hurry.’
‘Yeah? Sounds bloody scary if you ask me. I was headed into town to get a burger at Bruno’s. Mind if we drop in there for a few minutes? Stephen won’t be going anywhere if he’s at the farm, and you look like death warmed up. Probably better if you get some food into you.’
‘Okay, stop right there.’ Jo leaned against her car door and regarded Jeff with narrowed eyes. ‘What the hell is going on here? If you’re setting me up so you can have a laugh at my expense, you can bloody well drive me back to my bike and take a flying jump off a cliff, because I’m not up for it today.’
Jeff’s face screwed up into a fierce frown and she braced herself for a fight, but instead of biting her head off he snapped, ‘I’m trying to be nice, all right? You’re not making it easy.’ He slowed down the car and pulled into a parking space out the front of a small café painted bright green with a large blue sign that read Bruno’s over the window. Jo hadn’t seen the place before. Not that she’d really looked around George Creek for the past fourteen years.
‘Come on. Move your arse before I change my mind.’ Jeff got out of the car and walked into the café, not waiting for her to follow.
Jo contemplated getting out and walking back to her bike, rain be damned, but her stomach rumbled again. She was hungry, and there was no way she wanted to confront Stephen with a light head and queasy stomach. She climbed out of the car, winced as her wet jeans rubbed on her already raw thighs, and walked into the café.
Chapter 19
The café turned out to be a small, cosy room, painted a bright lime green with five red mosaic café tables. The smell of deep-fried fast food smacked Jo fair and square in the face, and her stomach immediately began singing an approving symphony. Jeff was already talking to a tremendously fat, balding man behind the counter, and Jo was shocked to recognise him as Bruno Jones. He’d been a right little bastard when she was in school, teasing her about her weight, her height, her clothes, anything else he could single out. That he was quadruple the size now didn’t give her any satisfaction. All she saw was more of Bruno to make her day miserable. She braced herself for him to say something, but much to her surprise Jeff spoke first.
‘Bruno, you remember Jo Blaine from school, right?’
‘What? Oh, hi.’ Bruno looked Jo up and down with a blank expression. ‘No. Doesn’t ring a bell. Jo, right? Were we in the same class?’
Jo’s stared at him in disbelief. ‘Yeah, we were.’
‘Oh, come on, mate, remember Jo Blaine? She’s the chick who decked me when I was sixteen,’ Jeff said casually.
‘Oh.’ Bruno’s eyes widened as recognition dawned. ‘Oh yeah. You used to work at the feed suppliers, right? You were in my chemistry class too, from memory.’
‘Yeah.’ Jo’s voice was a few degrees below zero.
Bruno’s expression turned serious, and he rubbed his chubby hands over his stomach. ‘Long time ago, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah. We were all dickheads then, weren’t we?’ Jeff interjected.
‘Too right,’ Bruno said fervently while Jo looked from him to Jeff and back again, feeling as if she’d stepped into an alternate reality.
‘What’ll you have, Jo?’ Jeff asked.
‘I don’t know. A ticket back to reality would be good.’
‘They’re all out. Bruno, can you knock up two burgers and put’em on my tab? Thanks, mate.’ Jeff turned to Jo. ‘Come and sit down before you fall down. Might want to pick up your jaw before someone steps on it too.’
‘What’s going on, Jeff?’ Jo demanded, sitting across from where he’d sprawled out at a table closest to the window.
‘Nothing.’ He shrugged. ‘Saw you needed help at the rest stop and I helped. You have a problem with that?’ He was looking out the window at the one car slowly passing the café. It wasn’t tourist season yet, so the town was dead quiet. In a few more weeks it would be impossible to move for city people on their summer holidays, soaking up the sun on the beaches around Margaret River and Dunsborough and getting sloshed at the wineries in between.
‘I might,’ Jo said. ‘It’s not like we’ve ever been friends. Actually, I’d say the opposite. Frankly, while I’d normally be up for having it out with you, today is not the day. I’ve had a horrible twenty-four hours, I’m starving and all I want to do is eat then find Stephen. If you’ve got something to say, get to the point.’
‘I do have something to say,’ Jeff said slowly.
‘What?’
Jo waited impatiently as Bruno brought over their food. While Jeff thanked him and talked about the weather and local grain prices for a few minutes, Jo used the time to dig into her burger. Her stomach was still cramping with anxiety, and it tasted like gummy cardboard to her panic-numbed senses, but she ate it anyway.
‘You were saying?’ she prompted once Bruno left.
Jeff didn’t touch his burger and resumed staring out the window. His face was all screwed up, ginger brows almost meeting in the middle.
‘I’m sorry.’
Jo choked on a piece of lettuce. ‘What?’
‘I’m sorry, all right?’ He shot her a challenging look. ‘What I said to Clayton the other day after you got hurt . . . shot. I know you heard me. I thought about it after. Worked out what a bastard I’ve been since you punched me out when we were kids.’
‘Serious?’ Not for the first time in the last twenty-four hours, Jo felt her whole world shift on its axis.
‘Yeah, but don’t rub it in.’ Jeff scowled. ‘I know you had a pretty rough time as a kid, and I didn’t help. Thing was, I kinda liked you, and it was embarrassing. I mean you were younger than me but bigger than me, in more ways than one for a while there, and I didn’t want anyone pulling the piss . . . you know?’
‘No,’ Jo said, voice hard.
‘Jesus. Don’t make me spell it out,’ Jeff snapped.
‘No way!’ Jo smacked the table with the flat of her hand. ‘Now I know you’re having me on. There is no way you liked me like that. If this is your idea of having a joke at my expense, you’re even more of a bastard than I thought.’
A dark-red flush travelled up Jeff’s neck to his forehead. ‘Nah. Nah, Jo, I’m not. Serious.’ He sounded earnest enough and embarrassed enough for her to sit back in her chair, amazed. ‘Wish I was, because I wouldn’t be making such an idiot of myself now. Look, can you just accept my apology so I can stop feeling like a dick? This whole deep-and-meaningful shit is tiring.’
Jo stared at Jeff, eyes wide, mouth open, completely stunned. Jeff’s unrelenting teasing had been a huge reason her school years in George Creek had been so miserable. By rights she should be shoving her burger in his face and telling him he could stick his apology where the sun didn’t shine, but she couldn’t do it.
Unforgettable You: Destiny Romance Page 27
