If he'd been broken, Rex would have cut him some slack.
But an angry drunk, grabbing at Rex when he was wrapped around Al, where any missed blow could have landed on her? Risking her safety, when she was finally starting to relax into him, her shoulders untensing for the first time all day? On the anniversary of her mother's fucking death, no less?
All he saw was red.
"Back off, mate," Rex barked. "We don't want anyone getting hurt."
"Don't fucking touch her, mate, and no one has to," Harry spat. His mouth was curled up in a sneer, strands of sweaty hair falling in his eyes. His face shone with a booze sweat, and Rex wondered how long the footy watchers had been drinking. Harry looked like he was cooked, but his movements were controlled, only a slight listing of his balance to show his intoxication. "This what you wanted, Alannah?" he snarled.
"Leave her out of it." Rex took another step backward, so he was shielding Al behind the breadth of his body.
"Is he keeping my side of the bed warm, Allie? Are you just waiting for him to roll out of town again, so you can say you had an adventure and come back to me?" Harry got up close to Rex, barely sparing him a look before he focused on Alannah over Rex's shoulder. His voice was as icy as Rex's fury was scorching.
"Back the fuck off, mate," Rex barked.
Harry shoved him, and Rex felt Al's hands on his back as he collided with her body, and it was on.
There were some advantages to growing up the youngest of four brothers, and learning how to hold your own against someone who significantly outweighed you was one of them. It didn't hurt that he'd spent the last eight years training to defend the country, either. But Harry was incensed and had the power of alcohol behind his fists, and Rex was hampered by trying not to actually do any significant damage. There were hands all around, Harry's mates trying to pull him back, the security guard shoving them apart, and Harry's face was a mask of fury as he gripped Rex's shirt and dragged him close, beer-scented breath hot on his face. "Remember, you're just temporary," he spat. "She'll come back to me. You're just a distraction."
"How would you know?" Rex returned, shoving Harry's shoulders. "Why would she come back when you couldn't give her what she wanted."
"I was giving her a life," Harry snarled. "I was giving her a home. All you are is a fuck she can shower off as soon as she gets sick of feeling dirty."
Harry was growing more intense in his attack, but he was frantic now, messy with emotion, and it left Rex with openings. He punched Harry in the solar plexus so he doubled over, then he hit up into his face and felt bone break under his fist before he let the bouncer separate them.
"What the fuck, Mitchell?" the bartender said loudly over the jazz that had continued in the background the entire time. "It's a Monday night. Get out of here."
"His nose is broken," someone said. There was blood gushing down Harry's face, soaking the neck of his shirt, and Rex fought a surge of primitive pride that he'd done some obvious damage. Now the adrenaline was starting to fade, he became aware of the pain peppering his own body—he would have bruises, but he didn't seem to be bleeding anywhere—and the stares from the rest of the pub's patrons, now milling about their small group.
The furious bartender came around the bar with a cloth for Harry to stem the bleeding. "Don't get that shit all over the floor." He moved his glare to the rest of the footy boys, most of whom were among the small group of spectators. "Which of you fuckwits told him that was a good idea?"
They shifted, muttering.
"What are you, thirty? And you're pissed on a Monday. You're all idiots."
Muttering something that could have been gratitude or an apology, Harry pressed the towel to his face. One of his eyes, Rex saw with some satisfaction, was already beginning to swell. His battered gaze shifted between Al and Rex.
"I think they're ready to go home," the bartender announced in disgust. The bouncer folded his beefy arms and waited for the shamefaced footy bros to troop past him out the door. "You all right, Castlereagh?" he asked once they'd left.
"Fine," Rex said. "Bruised ribs. I've had worse."
"You did all right, mate," the bouncer said, sounding impressed. "Held him off 'til that last bit. Will you be good to get home?"
"I'll be right," Rex assured him.
"Do you want me to drive?" Al said.
"You look a bit shaken," the bouncer said to her.
"But I wasn't just hit in the face seventeen times," Alannah returned acerbically, "So I think I might be in slightly better shape."
"I'll be right to drive," Rex interjected. He glanced around the room, which looked remarkably normal given what had just occurred. "Did anything get broken?"
"I'll never listen to that jazz track the same," the bartender said, "but nothing's been damaged except Harry's pride. He'll be feeling a right mess in the morning. Sorry we didn't get him off you faster." This last, he directed to the bouncer, who looked as shamefaced as a bloke standing six foot seven and approximately four feet broad reasonably could.
"Didn't need you to," Rex reassured him. He was aware that he was stalling now but wasn't sure why until his eyes landed on Alannah, who was holding herself so stiff, she might snap in a stiff breeze. "Come on, sassy girl, let's go… home." For the first time, the endearment felt foreign in his mouth; for the first time, it felt wrong to refer to her house as home.
They were silent in the car, and though he could feel Al shrinking in on herself, closing off from him, he had no idea what to say to bring her back. Harry's words kept echoing in his head. I was giving her a home. You're just temporary. All you are is a fuck she can shower off as soon as she gets sick of feeling dirty. He was facing up to some hard facts now and not by choice.
Al didn't want the two of them seen together in public. She'd never suggested they go on a date, hadn't corrected anyone who thought she was giving him no more than a spare bedroom with a side of baked goods. She hadn't laid any kind of claim to him at the party, even when his family kept throwing women of marriageable age at him like so many cricket balls. She hadn't really responded to his insistence that they work toward finding a label for their not-really-a-relationship. When he'd said that he wanted her to have a claim on him, he honestly couldn't recall whether she'd expressed a wish for the same or just accepted that he was growing attached to her. The most public she'd been with a display of affection was kissing him in her front garden—and, yes, that could have been in full view of town gossip Joan Mooney, but from the lack of communal awareness, it seemed clear that she hadn't been home at the time. Had Alannah known that? Was that why she'd all but climbed his sweaty body by her vegetable patch?
All you are is a fuck she can shower off as soon as she gets sick of feeling dirty.
Yes, they were dynamite in bed, but was that enough? And even if he wanted what they had to turn into something more than physical, the question remained, did she?
Chapter 10
When she was in her teens, Alannah had a period where she'd almost exclusively read historical romances. The Regency period had been her favourite, despite the tight restrictions placed on the women of the time, but she'd also had a fascination with medieval stories, as described in corset-ripping retellings of classic fairy tales. There was something unspeakably romantic about a knight putting his body on the line to win his woman. She'd revelled in scenes of such dedication, sighed over the contests between two brave and besotted champions who, more often than not, hardly knew the woman whose favour they fought to win.
Reality was, of course, completely different. No armour, no jousting, no rose to bestow as her favour. Just two men, who she knew far better than the two-dimensional knights of the fairy tales, throwing punches that seemed to be less for her than for their own pride. She was somewhere between outraged and disgusted by the whole event. Or she would be, if she could stop feeling so damn responsible for their pain.
Logically, she knew she wasn't to blame for Harry's actions; he was a grown man, with his own
mind, and he'd made the choice to drink too much and get violent. But she was the source of his pain. Her actions were a significant contributing factor to the state he had gotten himself into tonight, even though they were broken up, even though he should be able to handle his own shit and know better than to start a fight in the pub on a Monday. On this Monday, of all days. Al wasn't sure if that made him cruel or just callous, or perhaps he hadn't realised what day it was. Why should he, when they weren't even together anymore?
Whether or not he remembered, that was a shitty thing to do.
The other part of her response to this whole situation—and it was a big part—was that she did feel guilty about the way things ended between the two of them. Even before Rex came back, she'd spent long nights lying awake in the bed she and Harry had once shared and wondered if she was making a big deal out of nothing. If the strangled craving in her for something more than the life she'd be settling into with Harry might not be making a mountain out of a molehill; if the logical and reasonable and sensible course of action—staying with the good man she'd loved, even if it felt like she was settling for a smaller life than she'd dreamt of—might have been the right way after all. If she was throwing away years of good memories, of ice cream in front of the TV on Thursday nights, of stolen kisses behind the shed at his parents' garden parties, of the promise of a family, and a quiet but pleasant life here in Shepherd's Creek, for no good reason.
The doubt had been quieter recently, easier to think around, and she wondered if that was because Rex had been there to provide the physical intimacy that she'd been missing, or if it was something else. Perhaps she would have been able to fill the space that she'd thought was Harry-shaped with anyone, because it hadn't been Harry she was really missing, only the idea of him.
Even now, having watched him throw down in some misguided attempt to prove himself against Rex, she mostly felt pity for him. Other things, too: sorrow at his pain, and guilt, for causing it, and outrage, that he would respond this way when she'd done her best to be nothing but courteous and stayed out of his way as much as was possible in a small town. But she really just felt sorry for him, for hurting him, for not being the woman who would stay with him and raise their blond babies and carve out a small but significant life defined by the borders of Shepherd's Creek.
Maybe, someday, she'd come back here. She wasn't selling her house, after all; she'd have a home to return to, the home that was the first project she could really call her own. She did plan to come back, someday. But Harry was ready to settle down now. He didn't have the need for more that Al did. He didn't have her drive for adventure, had openly wondered why people went on overseas holidays or pushed their bodies through mountain treks when they had everything they needed right here in Shepherd's Creek. Harry was safe, but he was complacent; he was manageable but not challenging. On paper, he was all the things she wanted: kind, strong, honest, dependable. He took his mother to church every week. His family loved her. But still, she wanted more; she wanted to see the world and hear her heartbeat pound in her ears and feel the kind of pleasure-pain she'd half believed was a figment of her imagination before she found someone who could give it to her.
Maybe someday she'd want the kind of life Harry was ready for now. But not yet.
She'd stayed silent as they drove home, as she unlocked the house and cleared the last of the detritus of her day of baking from the kitchen. Rex hovered for long moments, clearing dishes away, replacing the bag in the rubbish bin, and though she felt his eyes on her the whole time, she refused to meet his gaze.
Finally, she stood over the sink, rinsing the last of her baking things, and saw him come close in their reflection in the window before her. "Why didn't you—" he started.
"Don't," she said. "Not now. Not today. I'm too bloody tired."
"I don't—" Rex started, shifting behind her, but cut himself off. She watched his reflection's hands hovering like he couldn't decide whether to touch her shoulders and pull her closer or grab the bench on either side of her body to keep her in place. Eventually, he stepped away, and she felt the loss of his warmth like a sudden, deep wound. "D-do you want a cup of tea?" he managed eventually, voice slightly strangled, like he was trying to hold in the words.
"I'm going to get ready for bed," Al said, and she heard the echo of her mother's voice in every syllable of her own. Suddenly, the weight of her grief was too heavy to hold, and all she wanted to do was cry herself into unconsciousness, alone.
"All right, then." A long pause. "I'll come up in a minute."
"Rex?"
He finished filling the kettle before meeting her eyes, moving slowly like he knew what she was about to say. "Yeah?"
"I think I want to be alone tonight."
He was silent for a beat, and Al could see the exact moment he pushed a smile onto his face, as false as a Halloween mask. Seeing it made her chest hurt. I just need some space, she wanted to yell. I can't think straight with you around. You take up all the air and I can't breathe.
"I'll sleep in the spare room."
"Thank you," she said, and the words dropped from her lips like stones into still water.
Though the house had been oven-hot only hours earlier, her bed felt big and cold and empty, in a way it never had before.
Chapter 11
Rex knew he looked like shit when he returned from his lunch break and Jamie Cameron asked if he was too crook to be at work. After tossing all night, he'd finally risen as the sky began to lighten, gone for a run, and showered to wake himself up. He'd only discovered the savage bruise on his cheekbone when he wiped the mirror clean after he'd washed. Now it throbbed in time with his pulse.
Alannah's door was still closed when he left, and he tried not to imagine storming in and knocking down the walls that she'd built after last night, forcing her to speak to him. Why didn't you tell me? He wanted to snap, or maybe it was a plea. Do I mean so little to you that you won't even let me see who you are? Why are you hiding yourself from me, when all I want is to know you?
"I'll be right, mate," Rex said when he realised Jamie was waiting for a response.
"Harry give you that?" Jamie asked, eyes flicking to the bruise. He'd been eyeing it all morning, but apparently, it had taken this long for him to decide to say something.
Rex gave a non-committal grunt.
"Heard you laid him out pretty well."
"He was sauced," Rex said.
"He's not a bad kid. Alannah broke his heart."
"He's thirty fuckin' years old, mate," Rex tossed out. "That's too old for a punch up at the Local. He should have his shit sorted a bit more than to get in a fight over a breakup."
"No argument from me."
Rex held out for all of three seconds before his need for answers overcame him. "How long were they together?"
Jamie considered the question. "Years. Five, six maybe? Something like that."
Years? Five or six years, Al had spent with a man who made her feel unlovable for the things she needed from him in bed. Her hang-ups were years in the making. Rex's voice sounded choked when he asked, "Were they really engaged?"
"Yep. More than a year ago now."
"When did they split?"
"A bit before you got back."
"How long is a bit?"
"Whole thing started and finished while you were gone." The recrimination in his voice was about as subtle as a brick, as though Rex, in his absence, was to blame for the failed relationship. He hated the other man's implication that he'd done something wrong, but he loved it at the same time—loved the insinuation that, if he'd been around, Alannah might have already been with him.
"Good thing," Rex said, returning to the conversation.
"She ended it, Joan Mooney reckons," Jamie continued as though Rex hadn't spoken. "Al ended it, Harry left and refused to take the ring back. And Joan would know—she lives across the road from Alannah, so she would have heard if there'd been a fight."
"Was that normal for them?
Did he shout at her? Did he hurt her?"
Jamie eyed Rex from under one bushy brow. "Why do you want to know?"
So, I have an excuse to knock out his fucking teeth, Rex restrained himself from yelling. "Because if he hurt her—"
"Steady on, mate," Jamie said. "Nothing like that. We wouldn't've let it happen."
"No one was not letting it happen last night. What would've gone down if he went home to her, drunk and angry like that? Would you have let that happen?"
"She wouldn't have let it happen. Have a bit more faith in your woman. She's not made of glass."
Rex didn't know when he'd started pacing, but his feet wouldn't stop and his hands were itchy with the need to do something, to hit something. "Not as far as this bloody town would know. You're the one who told me to be careful with her."
"There's careful, and there's careful," Jamie said cryptically. "Harry Mitchell loves Alannah like she birthed the fuckin' sun, mate. There's not a chance on this earth he would hurt her. If he'd had his way, there would've been a wedding after their third date. Al leaving him, that's broken him. Seeing her with someone else…" He scrubbed a hand over his beard, exhaling gustily. "Would've damn near killed him, I reckon."
"No excuse," Rex said, unwilling to let his anger go.
"You're not wrong. Idiot's been banned from the Local until he gets his shit together if that helps you feel better."
"No, it bloody doesn't," Rex snapped, even though it did, a little.
"No one's okay with what happened last night," Jamie said, finally turning back to his tools. "Least of all, me."
"I should think the fuck not!" Rex shouted then reined himself in with a deep breath. "I'm not shitty with you, mate, just…" he trailed away, tried to close the gaping hole in his stomach and make some sense of what was missing. "If he can't respect her moving on, gets violent in a room full of people, what the fuck happened when they were alone? What did he do to her then?"
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