The Maxwell Sisters

by Loretta Hill

  ‘They are interfering too much.’

  She glared at him. ‘So is your mother. I don’t want to put any unnecessary stress on anyone, especially my parents.’

  His heart squeezed. ‘But you’re more than happy to do it to me.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’ She wrung her hands. ‘Look, I have my reasons for getting everyone so involved. I told you that I wanted to bring the family closer together. Especially now.’

  ‘Closer together, yes,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s more than that, Phee, isn’t it?’

  She chewed on her lower lip, watching him uncertainly like she was trying to figure out whether he was someone she could trust. How did we get here?

  ‘Look,’ she began desperately, ‘you know having the wedding here is important to me. Please let’s just do it and when the wedding is over life will go back to the way it was.’

  Spider shut his eyes, gripping his cup of tea. ‘Don’t you see how that’s not what I want? I don’t want to have to get through my own wedding. Just tell me what’s going on, Phee. If you would just confide in me then maybe I could help you. Maybe we could do this together, like we’re supposed to.’

  When he opened his eyes, she was staring at his mug. ‘It’s not like you aren’t keeping secrets from me as well,’ she muttered.

  He slowly lowered his hands. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said,’ she lifted her chin, ‘it’s not like you aren’t keeping secrets from me with your sudden interest in tea, for example.’

  He looked heavenward. ‘You don’t want me to drink tea? Fine. I won’t drink the bloody tea.’ He tipped the remaining contents of his mug in the dirt before shoving it back in her hands. ‘But this is not how I want our wedding to be, let alone our marriage. I love you but there’s gotta be some compromise. A little give and take, huh?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He waited but she said nothing. With a large sigh, he finally turned around and started walking down the gravel path to the gardens.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she cried after him.

  ‘For a drive …’ he called back, and then hearing her footsteps behind him on the gravel looked over his shoulder and said firmly, ‘Alone.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He faced forward again and kept walking. All he knew was this was not how he wanted to marry anyone.

  Chapter 19

  Phoebe watched Spider disappear into her mother’s garden, which was providing her with anything but tranquillity right now.

  Was Spider really this hurt with her? Over what? A few wedding chores that he really wasn’t that interested in, anyway?

  What am I going to tell the others?

  As if to expedite the task, Tash came striding out of the restaurant looking as upset as she was. Ironically enough, she was also holding a cup of tea. ‘Oh,’ she seemed to start when she saw Phoebe, ‘I forgot you were out here as well.’ She said the words as though she had been hoping to be alone.

  Great! Another person who doesn’t want my company.

  Tash seemed to centre herself though and with trembling lips, curved her mouth into a smile. ‘Where’s Spider?’

  ‘He needs a break,’ Phoebe said shortly.

  Tash nodded, flexing one of her wrists. ‘I will admit it was pretty full-on this morning. I could do with a nap.’ As she gazed across the lake, she breathed in deeply. ‘Wow, I never realised how much I missed this place until I stood right here on this spot.’

  ‘Tash,’ she paused. ‘Do you and Heath fight a lot?’

  Tash started, a faint flush infusing her face. ‘What makes you ask that?’

  ‘Oh, no reason …’ Phoebe bit her lip and then started again. ‘Okay, there is a reason. I think I’m having a bit of a serious fight with Spider right now. And I’m feeling worried.’

  Tash’s shoulders seemed to relax slightly and she came closer. ‘About what?’

  ‘About the family.’

  ‘Is it Dad’s attitude? He was a little hard on Spider last night.’

  ‘I wish it were just that. But no, he thinks everyone’s too involved with the wedding. And he wants some space from us.’ She walked over to a nearby park bench and sat down. It was made out of two thick logs for legs and a couple of wooden planks nailed together over the top. While simple and very rustic looking, it was an excellent vantage point for taking in the view of ‘Crazy Man’s Lake’.

  Tash came over and sat down beside Phoebe, cradling her mug in her lap. ‘Well, you know, we are all very involved.’

  ‘Yes, but isn’t that what happens with weddings?’ Phoebe insisted defensively. ‘I know Mum will take any opportunity she can get to stick her oar in but his mum is exactly the same!’

  ‘The thing is, you didn’t have to divide up the wedding planning like you did last night. Personally, I wouldn’t have done that.’

  How could she explain to Tash, without revealing what she knew, why it was so vital to her that everyone in the family got along? ‘Tash, I feel like there’s been a lot of distance in the family the last two years. Everyone’s sort of drifted apart and I just want to bring everyone back together. I thought our wedding would be the perfect opportunity. And so far it’s almost worked. I mean, look at you and Eve. You guys were laughing and reminiscing. And I was happy because I felt like I was partially responsible for that.’

  ‘Phee, it’s not your job to fix whatever is wrong with this family.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ Phoebe nodded resolutely and as Tash opened her mouth to protest she put up a hand to stall her. ‘I know things that you don’t. I have reasons. Promises I need to keep.’

  Tash’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is that why you’re fixing up the restaurant – in order to fix up the family?’

  She nodded. ‘Partially. I’m also hoping Eve might come home. We used to be such good friends and …’ Her voice trailed off. ‘When you had a fight with her, it was like I had a fight with her too.’

  Tash sighed, putting her arm around her. ‘You know what, I’ve been acting like a baby for far too long. So absorbed in my own little world I had no idea what was going on anywhere else. But I do now.’

  Phee smiled, her vision blurring as her eyes filled with tears. ‘Are you going to do the older sister thing and take over?’

  Tash slung an arm about her shoulders, pulling her close. ‘Well, I’m certainly not going to let you do this whole “bringing the family together” thing on your own. Especially when half the reason we’ve fallen out is my fault.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘There you go, trying to take responsibility again. Don’t do it, Phee. The truth is everyone has had their part to play … including Spider.’ Phoebe pulled away slightly and saw Tash’s mouth harden into an expression she didn’t like. It put her in mind again of the other reason she had allowed him to walk away from her just now.

  Tash felt her sister’s body tense. ‘What’s the matter, Phee?’

  She hesitated and then her voice came out on a croak. ‘There’s something else I haven’t told you about Spider.’

  Tash, who had been rubbing her arm, stilled. ‘What else is there to tell?’

  ‘I can’t be absolutely certain,’ Phoebe began, ‘but I think there’s another woman in his life.’

  To both her surprise and concern, Tash didn’t seem all that shocked by this. ‘All right,’ her older sister sighed, dropping her arm and sitting up straighter, ‘you might as well tell me everything, from the beginning.’

  Slowly, Phoebe put her trembling hand into her pocket, wondering whether she was a little psychotic for carrying this note around with her constantly. She drew the creased envelope out and passed it to Tash.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I intercepted this message on its way to him two days ago.’

  Tash opened the envelope and then her eye fell to the page. She whistled softly. ‘Geez, Spider, you sure are popular.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Phee pounced on this. />
  ‘Nothing.’ Tash refolded the note quickly and looked up. ‘But, Phee, I do know one thing. If you can’t trust this man, you can’t marry him. Can you trust him?’

  Phoebe was silent for a minute, chewing worriedly on her lower lip. She knew her sister’s words were true, she just hadn’t wanted to hear them. Desperately, she searched her brain for a defence. ‘Spider is a wonderful man. He’s very thoughtful. If anything he’s too sensitive. Just ask Eve, she –’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Tash pressed her hand, ‘I believe you. I know you love him. But that’s not what I’m asking you, is it?’

  Phee groaned. ‘Like I said, I can’t be certain. This is just my own conjecture. I don’t want to believe it. But after today …’

  ‘Well,’ Tash’s lips tightened, ‘there is one way we can find out what game Spider is playing, if there is one.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Let’s go confront her.’

  ‘Her?’ Phee looked up in surprise. ‘But we don’t know who the note is from.’

  ‘We do know where she’s going to be though. This afternoon, three o’clock at Wildwood Bakery. Let’s have a stake-out. See who shows up.’

  Phee’s skin prickled. ‘You really think we should do that?’

  ‘Why the hell not?’ Tash smiled. ‘We’re taking a break on the restaurant, aren’t we? And I’d love to give the bitch a piece of my mind. Who goes after an engaged man? It’s despicable.’

  Phoebe gasped. ‘Would you say that to her?’

  ‘Amongst other things,’ Tash nodded, slapping a fist to a palm. ‘And then I’d tell her to stay away from your man or she’ll answer to me.’

  ‘I think I’ll do that bit, if you don’t mind.’ Phoebe perked up a little and sat up straighter. ‘Which means I guess I’ll be going with you. Let’s do it.’

  Tash held out her hand and they shook on it like kids, laughing as they did so.

  ‘Okay,’ Tash nodded, ‘we better go in and tell everyone that work is over till tomorrow.’

  And the real job has just begun.

  Chapter 20

  Tash had been hoping that back-breaking labour might be more therapeutic than emotionally stimulating. She should have known that if Heath was in the room, she never really had a hope. That and the fact that he was completely in his element. Construction was his life. Fixing the floor of their little restaurant was peanuts compared to what he was used to. He organised them into groups and showed them how best to remove the broken beams before pitching in himself. She couldn’t help but feel a little proud of him until she realised what she was doing.

  He doesn’t belong to you any more. You live in different states. And as soon as this wedding is over, you’re going to have to tell the family.

  The thought filled her with dread and she gritted her teeth. One thing she’d always prided herself on was her strength in the face of adversity. Like her father said, she had missions, not goals. And this would just be another one. She would get through it, and she would build a new life better than the one she had left behind.

  Is that what you really want, to leave Heath behind?

  She staggered slightly under the weight of the beam she was lifting. Eve, who was helping her hold up her end, glanced at her.

  ‘Are you okay? Do you want to stop and rest?’

  ‘No,’ Tash shook her head, firmly ignoring the fact that at Eve’s words Heath’s head had jerked up from his task and he glanced over. ‘No,’ she said quickly again. ‘I’m fine.’

  But he was already by her side, taking the weight of the beam from her.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she protested, forced to step back and watch as he completed her task with Eve, carrying the charred and broken beam outside and dropping it onto the ever-growing pile of discarded timber. As soon as the floorboard was laid, Heath came back to her. He pulled off a glove and cupped her face.

  ‘You look rather flushed,’ he noted. ‘You should have some water.’

  Whilst she would like to blame her redness on the warmth of the day or her lack of fitness, she was certain it was because Heath was invading her personal space again. She wished he would stop touching her. He’d been doing it all morning. Nothing of note, of course, a caress here, a brush there. But she was powerless to stop him with all her family watching. She had to stand there like she was now, looking up into those melt-your-heart brown eyes, with his hands on her face, and take it.

  The nerve of the man!

  It was beginning to dawn on her that he was going to take every opportunity to exploit their deception to his own advantage. Whatever that advantage may be, she was sure he had an agenda that would shortly become all too clear.

  ‘Here,’ a soft voice said at her elbow and gratefully she pulled away to see that Eve was holding out a bottle of water to her.

  ‘Thanks.’ She took the water. Eve was definitely a welcome distraction. In more ways than one. She was now dying to apologise to her. After everything their father had revealed at the gazebo this morning, she felt bad about not enquiring more closely into her sister’s life. She had just made all these assumptions and thought about everything from a business angle, which in hindsight was really rather cold. It was no wonder Eve had never felt she would understand.

  Spider, on the other hand, was a completely different story. She realised, painfully, that she had completely misjudged the man. Now that her senses were heightened to his behaviour, she had watched him closely during the entire morning and came away feeling even more dissatisfied than before.

  She was cluey enough to conclude that he was sulking. Something was bothering him, though of course she couldn’t be sure what. His grumpiness was only detectable because she was looking for it. Men like Spider were always so nice. It was only now that she was realising that he covered his disappointment with a sort of passive aggression. Of all the men helping renovate the restaurant, he was the slackest, arriving late, taking frequent breaks and being easily distracted. He’d also approached Eve a couple of times, talking to her in a low voice that made her sister look decidedly uncomfortable. She didn’t hear what was said, but she did watch the body language. Eve had the look of a rabbit cornered by a fox. For every step she took back, Spider took one step forward. He seemed to be frustrated by her lack of response and unwillingness to engage.

  At lunchtime, when their mother turned up, he seemed to become positively frosty and stopped talking to anyone. At first glance, it didn’t appear that Phoebe noticed this. Or if she did, she certainly didn’t care. She was too busy talking to Eve and their mother about how good the restaurant was looking already and how pleased Dad was going to be, and so on and so on. Phoebe, in fact, was just a gush of goodwill until Spider decided to have a cup of tea. That’s when the two of them had gone outside.

  ‘See anything suspicious?’

  She jumped as Heath’s hand rested on the back of her neck again, his thumb caressing her nape, his breath on her ear. Her eyes darted away from Spider to the rest of the group. Her mother, Spider’s parents, Eve, Adam, the vineyard worker and Eric. They were all talking and laughing around the main counter. Her mother raised a bottle of juice at her.

  ‘Do you want some, Tash?’

  ‘No thanks.’ She smiled and then whispered between her teeth to Heath, ‘Will you stop touching my neck.’

  Heath’s low chuckle reverberated in his chest. ‘If you don’t want me to touch it, you should stop tying your hair up in high ponytails.’ He leaned down further so that he might murmur seductively in her ear. ‘It’s incredibly sexy, you know.’

  She sucked in a breath as memories swamped her. He used to say that to her all the time.

  His hand dropped from her neck only to catch both her hands and turn her to face him. There was nowhere to look but into his face. She couldn’t even snatch her hands away for fear it might arouse suspicion.

  ‘I noticed you’ve been watching Spider all morning. Did you speak to your dad about him?’

  ‘I did,’ she s
aid coolly, with no intention of elaborating for his benefit.

  ‘You know, Tash,’ he said carefully, ‘you could just as easily have asked me. I know all the answers to the questions you have.’

  She remembered how her father had said it was Heath who’d found a kerosene can under Spider’s desk. She was tempted to question him more closely but she hesitated. Involving him in her search for answers would only exacerbate her inability to get away from him. The problem was that she had no choice. Heath’s testimony was the logical place to start.

  ‘What’s the matter, Tash?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘Well, you did keep this a secret from me for a long time. You knew I had a big fight with Eve about it. It would have helped me to know about this back then.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to focus on it any more,’ he said solemnly. ‘Shortly after your fight with Eve, we found out we were pregnant, remember?’

  She closed her eyes at his words, but it was difficult to shut out the memories they conjured. They had been over the moon when the doctor had confirmed the result of her home pregnancy test. She remembered lying on that uncomfortable hospital examination bed listening to their baby’s heartbeat through the ultrasound and feeling so full of joy her ribcage was fit to burst. How odd that a repetitive beeping and splotchy indiscernible image had the power to bring her to tears. Standing right beside her, Heath had squeezed her hand so tightly the blood had almost left her fingers. It was the moment they had been waiting for, for nearly three years. It was a glorious day that was supposed to be a turning point in their lives. They were going to be parents!

  Only now, in hindsight, could she see that it was the beginning of the end.

  Heath’s quiet voice broke through her thoughts. ‘I didn’t want you to worry about Tawny Brooks. We both know that if I’d told you back then you’d just be doing exactly what you are now. Setting yourself a mission to catch an arsonist. I just wanted you to take it easy – focus on the baby.’

  A knot in her belly tightened. Her own shame lashed her like a whip. ‘But I didn’t, did I? I didn’t take it easy. And I ruined everything.’