It dawned on her that the man sitting across from her wasn’t the bully she’d known years ago. He’d changed. Along with that thought came the realisation that if he’d changed, then maybe she wasn’t the same kid she’d been years ago. The small spark of hope that thought brought was enough to thaw some of the icy dislike she’d harboured for him.
‘Apology accepted,’ she said grudgingly.
‘Thank God.’ Jeff picked up his burger and began to inhale it. ‘Thought you were going to be a bitch and make me crawl.’
‘Now you’re pushing it,’ Jo grumbled, but there wasn’t any bite in her words. For the first time in the past two days, she felt slightly better. It could just be the food, but she had a hunch it had a lot to do with the knowledge that her existence as ‘Rabies’ Blaine in George Creek was over.
She sat with Jeff in an awkwardly companionable silence until the driving urge to see Stephen that had brought her to George Creek became unbearable again and she was gripping the edge of her chair, grinding her molars as he finished his burger.
‘You want to go?’ he asked finally, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Yeah, that’d be good.’ Jo stood up and was relieved to feel her jeans were a lot dryer from the warmth of the café.
‘All right. I’ll drop you off with Stephen, and then we’ll sort out your bike later. Looks like it’s going to rain again soon.’ Jeff pushed his chair away from the table and led the way to the door.
‘Bye, Jo. Good to see you again,’ Bruno called from behind the counter. Jo automatically returned his smile with a brief one of her own before turning her thoughts back to what she’d say to Stephen about the past two days.
Clayton Hardy was standing on the lawn out the front of his family’s house, smoking a cigarette, when Jeff and Jo pulled up. His curly brown hair was a mess, and his sun-darkened face was creased into a worried frown.
‘I didn’t know you’d taken up smoking,’ Jeff called out, climbing out of the car.
‘I haven’t. Cadged this off one of the blokes working in the sheds. It’s not helping.’ Clayton scowled. ‘What’s up? We’ve had the shit hit the fan here today, and I don’t have a lot of time or patience, mate.’
‘Picked Jo up on the highway. She wasn’t feeling too good. Her bike’s still there if you want to give her a lift later.’ Jeff casually pulled the cigarette out of Clayton’s mouth and threw it down on the gravel at their feet before putting it out with his boot. ‘Stephen around?’
‘Jo? Jo who?’ Jo got out of the car, and Clayton’s eyebrows hit his hairline. ‘Jo Blaine? You gave Jo Blaine a lift? And neither of you is dead?’ He appeared so shocked, Jeff thumped him on the back.
‘I know. It’s a miracle. The second coming’s next. Got a beer? I’ve been on best behaviour the last half hour, and it’s beginning to wear off.’
‘In the house,’ Clayton said distractedly, not taking his eyes off Jo, who bridged the gap between them. ‘Jo. How are you? How’s the leg?’
‘Hi. Fine,’ Jo replied with a grimace masquerading as a smile. She didn’t want to be talking pleasantries, she wanted to know where Stephen was.
‘You down here to see your mum and dad off, eh?’
‘I’m looking for Stephen,’ Jo said at the same time, then registered Clayton’s words and had to do her best to keep her jaw from hitting the ground. ‘See Mum and Dad off?’
‘Ah, yeah, your dad gave his notice out of the blue yesterday. He hired a trailer to move out of the old house and had it all packed up first thing this morning. Don’t know if they’re gone yet, though, so you might catch them. I tell you, he’s left us in a right lurch. Thought you’d know about it, but from the look on your face, I see you didn’t.’
Jo shook her head, dazed. ‘No, I didn’t, but that’s not important right now. Where’s Stephen?’
‘Haven’t seen him since he got in this morning. He only stopped to grab some breakfast then took off again.’ Clayton’s brow furrowed. ‘He was acting like his arse was on fire. You two have a fight or something?’
‘Yeah. I don’t want to talk about it right now. Any idea where he could be?’ Hearing that Stephen’s mood had still been bad when he’d arrived injected Jo with a renewed sense of urgency. She felt an icy chill at the thought of something happening to him. What if he’d tried to confront her dad again? She was no longer worried about her mum; Shirley had made her choice and could live with it. Jo was more worried what Ken would do to Stephen before her parents took off for wherever they’d decided to go.
‘If you want to go looking for him, you can take the dirt bike parked out the front of the shed. It’s fuelled up and ready to go,’ Clayton offered, making it clear he knew when to get out of someone’s way.
‘Any idea which direction to take?’ Jo asked. Evangeline’s Rest was huge.
‘Try your old place. He said something about wanting to speak to Ken, though that was hours ago. They’ve probably left by now, come to think of it. Finished packing round eleven this morning, according to Dad.’ Clayton narrowed his eyes. ‘You have any idea why your dad quit?’
Jo shook her head. Stephen was involved in her mum and dad leaving, she knew it, but until she saw found him and saw that her parents were really gone and no longer a threat, she didn’t have time to talk. She needed to find Stephen. ‘The key with the bike?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Thanks.’ Jo spun on her heel and headed for the shed before Clayton could ask anything else.
A minute later she was heading through the rows of grapevines towards her parents’ place at top speed.
As Jo caught sight of the house she’d lived in for the first sixteen years of her life, the breath left her lungs in a rush. The place was devoid of human inhabitation, including any cars that would indicate that her parents—or more importantly, Stephen—were around.
The moment she’d skidded the dirt bike to a halt, she climbed off and walked towards the house, feeling as if someone had just repainted her world without telling her.
The dilapidated weatherboard cottage was naked. There were no faded curtains in the windows now to hide how warped the frames were, no bricks to mask the broken front step. The front door was open, and she could see the inside was completely empty; no old clapped-out furniture, none of her mum’s collection of cheap porcelain ornaments. In a daze Jo hiked herself up through the entrance and stepped inside.
Immediately, the reek of decades-old cigarette smoke, beer, sweat and the sickly-sweet scent of pine floor cleaner assailed her nostrils. It mixed with a new smell of staleness and mildew whistling through the half-inch cracks in the floorboards, exposed now the furniture and carpets were gone.
Jo’s footfalls echoed as she walked through the house, looking around wide-eyed until she reached the tiny room she and Amy had shared for twelve years. No record of her or Amy’s existence was left in the small square space. It was just a minuscule, bare room with warped floorboards, a termite-eaten window frame and a sagging ceiling with a gaping black hole in one corner. Jo turned around and scanned the peeling floral wallpaper, trying to feel something, anything, over seeing her childhood home vacant like this, but there was nothing other than numb incredulity.
A tiny kitchen, a small living room, two postage-stamp-sized bedrooms and a combined bathroom and toilet. That was it. The whole place could easily fit into her own apartment at least one and a half times, if not twice. This was the place she’d spent the first sixteen years of her life in?
Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember her life here in this decrepit structure, but only a few meagre memories floated to the surface. Huddling with Amy in their bedroom one stormy night while Ken was raging at Shirley in the kitchen, watching Saturday-morning cartoons with the volume off so they didn’t wake up their dad. She tried for more, but nothing was forthcoming.
It was as if Shirley and Ken had taken away all the shitty memories along with their crappy furniture. It was as if she’d never lived here
. Come to think of it, she’d barely ever been home as a kid. The house had been more of a pit stop to quickly fill up with food, sleep, bathe and dodge her dad.
Most of the time Shirley had been too occupied anticipating Ken’s every need to want Jo and Amy underfoot; the few times she’d spent quality time with them were so hard for Jo to remember now, she wasn’t sure they’d been real. Ken, for his part, had spent all of his time at home occupying an old armchair in front of the TV, getting up every now and then to piss, pass out or punch on. Neither parent had cared if their daughters disappeared for hours, days or sometimes weeks at a time.
Jo looked out the window at the land she and Amy had traipsed over so many times. That’s where she’d lived, really. Out there, not in here. She’d never really lived in here.
She exhaled as the realisation sank in.
She had never lived here.
She didn’t care where Ken and Shirley had gone or why they’d left so soon.
They weren’t important; this place wasn’t important. Not really.
Looking outside, Jo felt the rush of memories she’d been searching for only moments before flood her senses. Making mud pies with Amy on newly ploughed ground, walking for hours on end in the moonlight through wheat stubble, dreaming about what they’d do when they grew up, camping out, swimming, meeting Scott. Her eyes prickled. Out there was home. She’d missed it all these years but hadn’t recognised it until now.
She’d been so focused on the events that had happened in this house, in town, at school that she hadn’t comprehended they didn’t count. She and Amy had survived and thrived in spite of them all, and they’d done it on their own. They’d made their way in life, and they deserved to be happy and proud of what they’d achieved. Suddenly, the confines of the house were too much. Jo didn’t want to be here any more, didn’t need to be here. She wanted to be out there.
Jo strode over to the bedroom’s crumbling sash window and pushed it up with a grunt. It groaned in resistance, pieces of decayed wood and termite dung falling on the bedroom floor. Once she’d made enough of a gap, she squeezed through it and fell awkwardly onto the damp grass outside. Righting herself, she started walking towards the gate and the land beyond without looking back.
It took her a lot longer than she remembered to walk to the dam at the back of Evangeline’s Rest, the same one where she’d met Scott in secret for years. The same one Stephen had been chasing his sister on when Jo and Amy had been spying on him the day they’d met Scott.
She’d forgotten how to climb over barbed-wire fences, and her jumper had a few impressive holes in it after the first two attempts. Her jeans were looking the worse for wear too, covered with wet dirt and muck after a failed attempt at vaulting a particularly stubborn makeshift gate. The walk was worth it, though. With every step she could feel herself becoming lighter, the panic and the smothering shame and worthlessness that had been sitting with her all day—who was she kidding, for her whole life—dissolving away, replaced with the smell of damp earth, eucalyptus, sheep and cow manure and the faintest smell of the sea coming in from the west.
By the time Jo climbed up the dam bank, which was smaller than she remembered, the sky had turned an ominous grey and the land around her had taken on an eerie gold glow that signalled a thunderstorm.
It was perfect.
Smiling a genuine, wide smile, breathing the place in, Jo sat down. Oblivious to the rocky, rough clay poking at her backside, she opened her eyes wide and gazed over the brown muddy water and the bush she and Amy had camped in so many times in the past before throwing her head back and looking up at the enormous, brooding sky above it.
Chapter 20
‘We’re going to get saturated in a minute.’ Stephen’s voice shattered Jo’s reverie and she shrieked, spinning around, the smile freezing on her face.
‘Stephen?’
‘Last time I looked,’ he growled, bending at the waist, hands on knees and puffing slightly. His face was damp with sweat, his blue eyes standing out against his red, flushed cheeks.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Perfecting my sprinting technique in jeans.’ His voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘Looking for you, you idiot. I’ve just had two major coronaries in the past two hours thanks to you. Spanking has never been my thing but I’m seriously thinking of taking it up just for you.’
‘You’ve been looking for me?!’ Jo exclaimed, pushing to her feet. ‘I just spent the morning from hell thinking you’d left me, and you tell me you’ve got it rough?’
‘Yep.’ He narrowed his eyes, hands on his hips, shoulders tensed for war. ‘Did you find my motorbike unattended at a truck stop and then have to worry that I’d been kidnapped by a serial killer or had an accident or something?’
‘No . . .’
‘After a lot of flapping around, did you then find out that I’d taken off on another bike only to abandon that one too?’
‘Well . . .’
‘Next to your bloody parents’ house, no less.’ His voice rose to a roar that echoed through the vast open space around them, scaring off a distant flock of sheep. ‘Jesus, Jo, you can’t begin to imagine what I was thinking. Last time I saw you, you were a wreck. You’d just had your parents spring anyone’s worst nightmare on you! So to find out you’d turned up here . . .’ He shook his head, his expression momentarily showing a fraction of the worry he’d felt, causing Jo’s stomach to lurch. ‘Lucky it’d rained earlier and I could see only one set of footprints heading up here, otherwise I would’ve had the entire farm, including anyone visiting the winery’s cellar door and restaurant, out here looking for you!’
‘But—’
‘But nothing. What the hell were you thinking? I told Scott to let you know I was coming back this afternoon to pick you up from Amy’s. I was so pissed off yesterday, I’m not lying, it felt like a total fucking kick in the teeth that you’d kept it all from me and you’re going to have to bloody well swear on all that’s holy you’re never playing with secrets like this again or so help me God—’ He puffed out a breath. ‘Yeah, I don’t even want to think of that. I don’t want to think of you ever being in a situation where you’d think you needed to do that again.’
‘I won’t—you’ve got to understand—’
Stephen kept talking. ‘And I’m sorry I left you alone after what happened, so sorry, Jo, but I had to fix things down here and sort all this out in my head before we hashed it out. I’ve been holding on to a lot of stuff and it’s like everything that I thought was real wasn’t. I needed to make sure I didn’t lose it at you and say stuff I’d regret.’ He closed the gap between them and pulled her roughly against him, knocking the wind out of her lungs. ‘What I really want to say, what I wished I’d been able to tell you yesterday is that I’m so sorry. Sorry I didn’t know. If we’d known about what was happening to you and Amy, my family would’ve helped you girls. We would’ve done something. You have to believe me.’
Jo tried to push away, but Stephen didn’t let her go anywhere, the heat from his sweat-soaked body enveloping her.
‘What? What are you talking about?’ she asked, reeling with confusion.
‘I came down to make sure your parents cleared out and . . .’ Jo’s earlier words must have sunk in. ‘Why would you think I’d left you?’ he demanded in an outraged roar.
Jo pushed away again and succeeded this time. She raised a hand to her ringing ear. ‘We fought! You were angry at me. So angry you couldn’t even talk to me. You left! And then I couldn’t get hold of you, and Scott said you’d left Boomba at his place and packed up to come down here. What else was I to think? It’s not like you were doing somersaults over what happened at Amy’s. I thought you’d decided it was all too much and . . . well . . .’
‘You’re insane,’ Stephen said incredulously.
‘Thanks. Pretty insulting of you to say so,’ Jo retorted, eyes narrowing.
‘Like you didn’t insult me just now by implying I’d abandon you to deal wit
h everything on your own?’
‘That’s different.’
‘Like hell it is!’
‘So you weren’t leaving me?’ Jo demanded, feeling hope blossom in her chest. ‘I thought you were so disgusted by everything that happened with my family that . . .’
‘Oh, for the love of God,’ Stephen bellowed. ‘If I ever hear you say the words disgusted or disgusting again in relation to yourself, I’m going to strangle you. I was psycho-furious you lied to me, Jo, but it didn’t take much to work out why. I get why you lied. I get why you hid stuff from me. I would’ve done exactly the same thing in your situation. Just the thought of you having to carry the burden of all this crap alone and keeping it inside leaves me feeling physically ill. I didn’t want to add to it all by losing my temper and saying something stupid I didn’t mean that would’ve just left you feeling worse. I was just trying to get some space so I could cool down and think things through. I was trying to give you space to deal with what you’d just gone through with your mum and dad. Next time I’ll just stick around and yell at you like a total bastard.’
‘You were trying to be . . . considerate?’ Jo asked, bemused, all worry obliterated by the vehemence of Stephen’s indignation.
‘Yes!’
‘Oh. All right. Ah.’ Suddenly feeling foolish over the panic that had driven her all day, Jo looked down at her muddy steel-cap boots, shuffling first one and then the other across the loose clay on the dam bank. ‘You forgive me?’
‘For the thing with your family? There’s nothing to forgive. Honestly, I’m in awe that you’ve held it together all these years and become the unbelievable woman you are today. You’re amazing, Jo. You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. But do I forgive you for scaring the shit out of me today? Not for a while.’ Stephen’s eyes searched her face, his voice softening to a low, husky rumble. ‘You really scared me, Jo.’
Unforgettable You: Destiny Romance Page 28
