by Rhyll Biest
It was noon already. ‘Actually, I was thinking about lunch.’
He glanced eastward. ‘There’s a truck stop maybe ten minutes from here on the highway. I can take you.’
Food. Her empty stomach, already in an uproar from her shotgun welcome, protested.
‘Don’t you need to stay here?’ She glanced at the police cars, the other officers.
‘We’ll see. Wait here.’ He loped off towards the other officers and there was a brief conversation before he returned. ‘Mark and Stan said they’ll secure the property. We’ll be gone an hour, tops, and I’ll bring some food back for them. Everyone’s a winner.’
She craned her neck. The other police officers standing by their cars looked familiar. De-escalation training?
‘You can fill up on bread and sugar and then I’ll bring you back here so you can do paperwork with the tow truck guys.’
She hesitated. ‘If you’re sure it’s not any trouble, that you’re not keeping any drug dealers waiting or anything.’
‘Let ‘em wait.’ His tone was surly.
‘I have to do something first.’
‘What’s that?’ He wiped sweat from his brow.
‘Leave water for the horses. It’s so hot, and they don’t have any.’
‘Okay, I’ll give you a hand.’ He gave her an expectant look when she didn’t move.
‘You don’t think there are any …’ She hesitated.
‘What?’
‘Booby traps. Like explosives and stuff to stop people from stealing the weed.’ She sounded like such a chicken.
He blinked. ‘I don’t think so. Anderson isn’t that bright, he’d likely blow himself up.’
Phew. She got out of her car and hoisted Stumpy into his sling.
Belovuk looked at the puppy, shook his head.
‘What?’
‘Isn’t that thing going to slow you down?’
She looked up at him. Why did he have to be so goddamn tall? ‘Stumpy is not a thing.’
‘I mean the sling. Give it to me.’
It was so hot, and now that the adrenaline was receding she was also tired. She removed the sling, passed it over.
Belovuk slid it over his head and took Stumpy, who wriggled with excitement, his tongue and ears flapping with joy at being near his number one male role model.
She took a mental snap of Luka in full uniform, service pistol at his hip, wearing a puppy in a baby sling. ‘The water tank is that way.’ She pointed. ‘There should be a bucket or two nearby.’
‘Okay, let’s go.’
Working together they placed the buckets of water in the paddock and a deep satisfaction filled Kat’s bones as the horses drank deeply.
Belovuk eyed her.
‘What?’
A ghost of a smile played on his lips. ‘Nothing.’
She narrowed her eyes at him. So it made her ridiculously happy to watch thirsty horses drink. What of it?
They returned to Belovuk’s car and she gave a sigh as she slipped inside its air conditioned bliss.
‘That better?’
‘Oh, yeah.’
He placed Stumpy on her lap. ‘This the first time you’ve been in a police car?’
‘Without being handcuffed, yeah.’
He gave her a look.
‘Just kidding, my dad was a cop.’
His expression recalibrated as he absorbed that bit of information. ‘Was?’
‘He died.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’ She waited for further questions but they didn’t come. She studied him, tried to guess what lay beyond the pearly grey of his irises and his silence. But whatever rolled around in his brain, those thoughts were so expertly hidden by his poker face she had no chance of divining them.
He patted the steering wheel, placid gaze fixed somewhere in the distance. ‘Ready to go?’
Her stomach growled an affirmative. ‘Yup.’
On the long dirt drive they hit a pot hole so deep she bit her tongue. ‘Ow. Jesus.’
He winced.
‘What?’
‘Sorry, religious upbringing.’
Suddenly she found herself hungrier for more information about his past than any roadside lunch. ‘Yeah?’
He nodded. ‘My mother dragged me to our local Serbian Orthodox church every Sunday. I even did a brief stint as an altar boy.’
‘Get outta here.’ She tried and failed to imagine his giant frame squeezed into an altar boy frock. And him singing hymns with a serial killer stare. Though now that he coached de-escalation skills on weekends he probably had little time for Sunday worship. ‘Somehow I doubt they have a Serbian Orthodox church in Walgarra.’
He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter, I don’t go to church anymore.’
She wanted to ask why but it was too personal a question. What if he’d lost his faith after scraping up one too many road accidents? Or notifying loved ones about suicides?
He glanced at her as they paused at a give way sign. ‘I stopped going in high school. Thought I was too cool to be an altar boy.’
‘Bet your mother was thrilled.’
‘She thought I’d become the anti-christ.’
If there were such a thing, Luka ‘Brick’ Belovuk would make for a deliciously dark and sexy anti-christ. He certainly inspired impure thoughts on her part.
‘You’re probably lucky you weren’t named after some saint.’
‘Yup. Or called Vuk Belovuk.’
She gave a startled laugh. ‘Why would you be called that?’
‘A few centuries ago, Serbian women who lost several babies in succession would name a newborn son ‘Vuk’ to frighten away the witches responsible for ‘eating’ the babies. They figured no witch would attack a wolf. So ‘Vuk’ was a popular name back then.’
So his mother had lost a baby? Sad. Did he ever think about his lost sibling and imagine what they would have been like? Or maybe he had a whole slew of siblings and never even thought about it. That was how little she really knew about him.
She looked out the window. Gum trees flashed by, tall and silent. ‘What other names were possibilities?’
‘Bogdan. Novak. Ivan.’ He pulled into the roadside cafe’s parking area.
Bogdan. ‘I guess you were lucky, then.’
Perhaps her tone tipped him off, or maybe it was something even more subtle, and for a brief moment his gaze focused on her with laser-like intensity. And I’d like to get even luckier. That’s what the look said.
Deliberately, tauntingly, he leaned across her to unlock her car door and push it open. She breathed pine-scented soap and men’s aftershave. He smells like a lumberjack, or at least how one should smell. The thought danced at the very edges of her brain, crowded out by his proximity.
A wolf in gentleman’s clothing. Wrapped inside a police uniform. No wonder he left her confused, there were too many fucking layers, like one of those Russian wood dolls with more dolls stacked inside it she’d had as a kid.
He eased back to his side of the car, but she caught the way he did it, with his face turned her way so that he could breathe in her scent as she had his.
Why, Grandma, what a big nose you have. Her lips tightened.
All the better to smell you with, the gleam in his eyes said.
‘We’ll sit outside at a picnic table. I doubt they’d welcome a dog inside the cafe.’
‘Okay.’ She put the sling on and Stumpy inside it before strolling with Luka over to the roadside cafe, the metallic smell of diesel and other fuel curling her stomach tight.
And it was just pure luck that she caught Luka’s fleeting glance at the petrol pumps and the way his skin pulled tight across his cheekbones. The haunted look in his eyes.
What was that about?
In a flash the look passed and he held the door to the truck-stop cafe open for her. She studied him more closely as she passed. Very on edge was Officer Belovuk. Why?
Inside the small, greasy eatery—everything tiled white—he pointed to a window
encasing hot food. ‘Can I interest you in the sausage?’
She sucked in her cheeks. ‘I don’t know, is it any good?’ She’d bet it was popular with the local ladies, a physique like his plus the bonus of a salary. Or maybe the Walgarra ladies didn’t like coppers. Hard to say. Though Sharon seemed keen enough for a second serving.
‘How do you take it?’
She stared at him for several appalled seconds. Were they still talking sausage?
‘Your coffee.’ His lips twitched.
Christ. ‘Just water for me, please.’ Her mouth was dry enough.
‘Okay, what sort of sandwich do you want?’
‘Tuna, please.’ She may as well have screamed ‘No sausage for me’.
Belovuk caught the plump cashier’s attention. Well, no, that wasn’t quite true—he’d had it since they’d walked in.
‘Hey, Luka. How are you?’
It took some getting used to the fact that many people in Walgarra knew one another’s names. No one had known the deadbeat dad’s name, though. How inconvenient was that?
She eyeballed the cashier’s blonde dreadlocks, picked her as the type to try to smuggle a souvenir African elephant dung picture frame in her luggage.
‘Fine thanks, Juanita. Can I get a black coffee, a bottle of water and two sandwiches, one tuna and one chicken to have seated outside? Please.’
He tended to tack on ‘please’ at the end of sentences as an afterthought, as though someone had once told him what a bossy prick he sounded and he was trying to change.
It didn’t work, he still sounded like a bossy prick. It was the voice. Law enforcement and military types who spent their days barking orders acquired a certain tone over time, one that screamed ‘do what I fucking say’. It seeped into their vocal chords like tear gas and took up permanent residence, so that whether they were proposing to their girlfriends or giving a speech at a baptism they sounded like they were negotiating with hostage takers or preparing to raid a meth lab. Hell, even when he was talking dirty, she’d bet he made it sound as if he were reading a perp their rights.
And it was so, so very wrong for that thought to make her stomach tighten.
‘And could I please get six more sandwiches to go, and some wrapped chips.’
He’d paid before Kat could even pull the folded twenty she stashed in her pocket. When she waved it at him he gave her a look like she’d questioned his parentage. ‘My treat.’
‘Thanks, I’ll get the next one.’
A twitch of massive shoulders that could have been a shrug and Luka led her outside to the picnic tables.
They sat and Luka looked at her. ‘So, your father was a cop.’
Oh, she should have seen this coming. ‘Yeah.’
‘And you didn’t like him?’
‘Very perceptive of you.’ She’d loved him, needed him—like any daughter—but hadn’t liked him. She’d been far too afraid of him for that.
‘Why not?’
‘Do we have to do this here? Now? Lunchtime psychoanalysis outside a crappy roadside cafe?’
‘Why not?’ He looked around the picnic tables. ‘It’s not that bad. And I didn’t like my father, either.’
She raised her brows.
‘He cheated on and emotionally abused my mother.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ She stared down at the table.
‘No need to be sorry. I’m proud of her for leaving him and now I get to protect women and children from dickheads like him.’
She grimaced.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ He frowned.
‘I’d rather live in a world where women and children don’t require protection.’
‘Yeah, well, I can tell you that we’re a long way from that reality, so in the meantime I’m just going to do the best I can to protect people who need it.’
She chewed on his comment. He probably thought her both a humourless heifer and a feminazi, but she knew male protection for what it was. It was a trap, and a threat, and a warning—about what would happen if male approval and protection were lost. ‘I’m not speaking for everyone, just for myself. Everyone has to wear their own underpants in life.’
He blinked. ‘What?’
‘I read this blog post once, and it was about how everyone’s life had to fit them the right way—like underpants. And how you shouldn’t try to make someone else wear your underpants. Your underpants might fit you perfectly but they won’t necessarily fit someone else.’
His gaze dropped to her waist. ‘Why would I want to wear your underpants? I’m pretty sure they look a whole lot better on you.’
The look he gave her almost melted her underpants right off.
Christ, what an idiot she was, using underwear as a metaphor when speaking to him. Now they were both thinking about sexy times. Shit.
Juanita chose that moment to save Kat, placing their meals and drinks on the table.
Thank you, Juanita.
***
Underpants? Given that she’d made it clear she didn’t want to fool around, the last thing he needed to be thinking about was her underpants. Or had she raised the metaphor because she did want him to think about her underpants?
He didn’t pick her as the type to play games. ‘So your old man was a cop and you didn’t like him. Is that why nothing is going to happen between us? Because I’m a cop too?’
‘That’s one reason.’
‘What makes you think all cops are the same? That’s like me saying that all RSPCA inspectors are the same, but you’re nothing like Nick.’ He sipped his coffee. It was hot and bitter, just like the woman sitting across from him.
‘I’m not saying cops are all the same, I know they’re not. But I don’t want to ever be in a relationship with someone who could make it impossible for me to leave if I wanted to.’
About to lower his coffee he stilled. ‘Is that what your father did to your mother?’
‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore.’
She had that bruised look again. He hated that look. To make her feel comfortable he gave her a light razzing. She’d feel better once she was mad at him. ‘Alright, you don’t want to talk about your parents, and you don’t want to wear my underpants—thank Christ—what do you want to do?’
‘Eat lunch. Quietly.’ She bit her sandwich far more savagely than was warranted.
‘Are you sure that’s safe? What if you find a phallic-shaped pickle among the tuna?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘You know what? I regret ever bandaging your hand and making you toast. I should have let you die of sepsis.’
‘You made me toast?’ He didn’t remember that bit.
‘Yeah, but then you fell asleep before ravishing me, so you didn’t get to eat it.’
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘The way I recall it you were the one who ravished me. But you remember it however you need to.’
She sent him a dark look. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Oh, you don’t want to know.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Would I have asked if I didn’t?’
‘Alright, I may as well say it.’
‘Yes, you may as well.’
‘I think you’re afraid of relationships.’
She sucked in a deep breath. ‘That’s rich coming from you.’
‘How so?’
‘Everyone knows how emotionally constipated men are, especially cops.’
‘Well, congratulations on joining the man club, hon, because you are right up there with some of the most hard-core repressed men I’ve met.’
‘Can I expect my honorary balls to be sent to me in the mail? Or are you just going to hand over yours?’
‘Can’t, sorry, I’m still using them.’ He stuffed more sandwich down to hide a smile.
‘Right, I forgot about Sharon, your one true love. Will you two be knitting together tonight?’ She used her fingers to make air quotes around the word ’knitting’.
He sipped his coffee, raised an eyebrow.
‘You just told me you’re not interested, so why ask?’
‘Just making conversation.’
‘I see. So, you coming to de-escalation training again?’
She frowned. ‘Why? So you can annoy the shit out of me some more?’
Before he could reply she stared hard at him, a crafty gleam entering her eyes.
Uh-oh.
‘Sure. I’ll come to training.’ She smiled, her eyes merciless.
‘Great.’ It was coming, whatever it was.
‘If you tell me something.’
‘What’s that?’ He crammed the last of his sandwich in his mouth, inwardly bracing himself.
‘When we passed the petrol pumps, you stared at them like you’d seen a ghost. Why?’
The bread he’d just eaten turned sour and as heavy as clay in his stomach.
She sat back. ‘I knew you wouldn’t answer.’ Her hand curled around her water bottle and she took a long, triumphant sip.
‘Oh, I’ll answer.’
Her brows lifted.
‘But I’m raising the stakes.’
The light of challenge flashed in her eyes and she set her water down too hard. ‘You’re on. Bring it.’
So feisty, so warlike. ‘If I tell you why, you have to agree to a one-on-one tutoring session in verbal de-escalation.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘How long a session?’
‘Four hours.’
‘Two.’
‘Well, that’s a bit of a dick punch but, okay, deal.’
She stared at him. ‘So, give it up, Belovuk.’
‘I found Mark Fairly’s cap next to a petrol pump. And I found his body in an old tractor shed nearby.’
Her body sagged, shoulders hunching, and the urge to gently correct her posture overwhelmed him.
When she spoke it was in almost a whisper. ‘You carry him around with you everywhere, don’t you?’
It wasn’t a jab at him. ‘For now I do.’
She looked away, thinking of the things she carried, no doubt.
The food he’d ordered to go arrived and he thanked the waitress, aware of Kat fidgeting as he chatted with her.
Once the waitress left he leaned towards Kat. ‘Next week. My place.’
Her lips parted in surprise. ‘What?’
God, those lips, he wanted them all over him and one part in particular. ‘Your training.’
‘Oh. Fine. If my car’s repaired by then.’ Her huffy stalk to the patrol car accentuated an arse he was already very fond of and hoped to see more of soon.
