by Cooper, Tea
Cassia stepped back, away from him, her hands feeling for the smooth glass of the window, its cool touch dousing the heat flooding her body.
“Times may change, but we are eternal.” With his final comment ringing in her ears, she watched him hit the lift button with a determined slap. “See you soon.”
Cassia stared at the lift door as it slid to a close.
Oh great.
So he thought he was going to see her soon? Not if she had anything to say about it. She was staying away from him. Her heart was locked tighter than the steel heart, and she wasn’t going to feed the addiction of her treacherous body.
No way. No chance.
CHAPTER FIVE
The unbelievable change in Cassia’s style astounded Jake. Her fanciful, quirky quality had disappeared and been replaced by a harshness, all hard angles and corners. It was such a contradiction from his Cassia, or at least from the Cassia he knew, and he wasn’t sure how to respond. What was she trying to say?
Jake knew what he wanted to say. He loved her. She made him laugh. He didn’t want to let her go, and he wanted to see her get everything she deserved in life, not a half story from him, not unexplained events, and he certainly didn’t want to put her in danger.
He pulled into the outside lane of traffic, neatly avoiding an overloaded truck, but he was caught in the slow crawl of traffic clogging the roads and making the trip as sluggish as the thickened blood staggering through his veins. He wound the window up as the smell of exhaust fumes snatched at his throat. Pollution. Was it any wonder he chose to live outside the city? How could Cassia stand it?
The city had changed her; she was usually so open, naïve, and carefree, but today there had been an underlying wariness. Her eyes were shadowed, and they held an uncertainty he hadn’t seen before. What had he done to her? He had to take some responsibility for this change in her.
Exhaling a pent-up breath, he turned onto the freeway at Turramurra. Thank God he was almost out of the city, but how long would it be before he would see Cassia again? He drummed his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, willing the traffic to clear. Damn this case and the secrecy. It was dragging on forever.
Dusk was falling as he turned off the main road and into the national park; he rolled the window down and held his hand out into the rushing air, hoping to detect the sweet dampness of the sea among the shadowing eucalyptus trees. He was almost there.
***
“Out here, mate.” The laconic voice floated in through the glass doors as Jake walked into the house. He spotted Lyle’s head, just visible over the teak lounger on the deck.
The old codger is going bald.
He walked up behind the chair and flicked his brother’s head affectionately.
“Losing a bit there, bro.”
His brother heaved himself to his feet and turned. Jake stretched out his arms. For one frozen moment, he heard his father: Men don’t hug, boy. Be a man. A handshake is enough. Says it all.
He pulled Lyle into his arms, and his exuberant back thumps practically knocked Lyle off his feet. Jake pushed him away and looked at his older brother. The last eighteen months had taken their toll. No wonder he had thought of their father; his brother had aged.
“What are you doing here? Good to see you.”
“Yeah, and you. Take the weight off your feet,” Lyle replied, flopping back down onto the teak lounger and rummaging in the cooler at his feet. “Here. Have one.” He threw the beer across to Jake, who caught it deftly and twisted the cap open.
Leaning against the balustrade, Jake tipped the beer back and relished the cold liquid as it slid down his throat. “So how come you’re here? I thought this was no-man’s-land?”
“Nah. That’s why I’m here. It’s pretty much over. The trial’s finished. They are just waiting for the judge’s summing-up. The barrister’s confident. They’re going down, and they’re going down for a long time.”
“You’re beginning to sound like one of them.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me.”
Jake glanced around. The house was in darkness, and an eerie stillness shrouded the concrete mausoleum he’d created. He was glad he’d sold it; his heart wasn’t in it, never had been. The milky reflection of the moon cast an oily slick across the ocean, its reflection bouncing back at him through the plate-glass windows.
“Where’s Maddy?” he asked, needing to break the silence and the encroaching feeling of gloom.
“She’s taken Jade down to Sydney to see her parents. She couldn’t wait any longer. They were dying to see her. I think they were having second thoughts about whether their grandchild actually existed.” Lyle laughed, but Jake could hear the pain just below the surface of his bravado. This whole mess hadn’t been easy on any of them.
“So there’s no problem? Not worried about anyone following her or doing anything stupid?”
“No, it’s all over. There’s really nothing they can do now. They’re all behind bars already.”
“That’s great. I had my doubts we’d ever get this far.” Cassia, never out of his thoughts, drifted through his mind. God damn it! If he had known this bit of information three hours ago, he could have leveled with her. He wanted to pick up the mobile straight away and ring her, tell her about it all. Explain why it looked like he had been living with Madeleine and fathered her child.
Slow down. Damage control. He’d have to think it through, work out what he was going to do next.
Lyle watched him closely, and it was almost as though he could read his mind. His next words proved just how well they knew each other. “Have you seen Cassia lately? Are you going to tell her?”
“Yes, I saw her this afternoon. I’ve just come from her place now. I delivered a whole load of driftwood for her. She…”
Jake didn’t want to have to go over it all, explain to his brother he wasn’t even sure they would ever get back together. He slapped at a buzzing mosquito. It might be too late.
“She what?”
“She’s pretty pissed off with me.” It was a bit of an understatement. He slammed the beer bottle against the railing, then turned his back on his brother, his voice bitter as he continued. “I don’t really know how to sort this mess out. I’m not sure she can take much more.” He leaned against the deck rail, staring out across the blackened water. “I’m not really sure she wants to.” He kicked his foot against the stainless steel wires, making them reverberate like a discordant guitar string. The memory of Cass’s flight along the beach uppermost in his mind. “She’s over it. Over me.”
“Oh, come on. You two are a match made in heaven. You’ll sort it out.”
Fat chance.
Lyle hadn’t seen the new Cassia—brittle, competent, and dedicated. His older brother only knew the girl she had been—passionate, creative, whimsical, and loving. The girl he had crushed with his bunch of lies and rejection. The Jacuzzi filter hummed, fighting for dominance with the night insects. “I really do appreciate what you did for me, Jake. I know what it has cost you,” Lyle said quietly.
“Mate, you don’t know the half of it,” he snapped. Taking a series of short, staccato breaths, he glared at his older brother and fought back the bitter words. “I’ll sort Cass out one way or the other, you don’t need to bother about it.”
Bravado. Bullshit.
He picked up the warm beer bottle and lifted it to his mouth, surprised to find it empty.
“Here.”
He took the bottle his brother was holding out to him; the icy chill of the beer washed away some of his remorse and frustration.
Change the subject. Don’t go there. Later.
“The house is sorted,” Jake said.
“Maddy told me. The auction was a success then.”
“The auction was more than a success. The price we got was unbelievable. I signed the final papers this morning. Settlement is in four weeks. We need to finalize the paperwork for the farm, and then I can get you the money.”
“There’s no hurry. I’
m on my way down to Sydney. I’ve been up at the farm. I just wanted to stop by and fill you in. I said I’d meet Maddy in Sydney.”
Jake didn’t want to dwell on Sydney. The breeze lifted his hair, and he wiped a hand across the back of his damp neck, massaging the tension threatening to immobilize him. “If we drink any more of this beer, you’ll be sleeping here.”
“Sounds good,” Lyle said, leaning back against the cushions. “I’ll miss Australia.”
“Stay the night. Stay as long as you like. It’s good to have company. There are a couple of steaks in the fridge. I can throw them on the barbeque.” Jake experienced a pang of regret. He had been thinking of his own problems and hadn’t noticed how tired Lyle looked. Really tired, worn down. Maybe he was being selfish, but he didn’t want to be dragged out in the middle of the night because of an accident on the freeway.
“Dinner would be good, but I need to be in Sydney tomorrow. I want to see Maddy and book the tickets, sort everything out while we are there,” Lyle said. “We should be on the plane to New Zealand in a couple of weeks. I’m going to rent a house on the South Island somewhere, maybe around Otago, outside Queenstown. Somewhere for about six months until we can find a place to buy. A place where we’d like to settle.”
“It’ll be a bit bloody cold after the North Coast.” Jake’s heart went out to his brother. It would be the first time he’d lived anywhere other than the family farm in his entire life—well, except for boarding school. It was a lot to give away for one’s principles. And he’d missed the birth of his daughter. Jake had to admire the man. Lyle had stuck to his convictions, his beliefs, despite what it had cost him.
“The cold will be worth it. The trade-off will be the skiing. We’ll expect to see you and Cassia soon. For the wedding.”
“What?”
Wedding? What is he talking about?
“Whose wedding?”
“I thought Maddy and I would get married again, do it properly. I know Maddy and her parents would love it, and maybe we could incorporate it with Jade’s christening. I want you both there, as Jade’s godparents. Make it all official.”
Announce to the world she’s your woman and Jade’s your child.
Maybe then Cassia would understand and believe him. Jake stepped forward and ruffled his brother’s thinning hair affectionately. “Didn’t know you were such an old romantic, baldy.”
“There’s a lot of things I didn’t know about myself, kiddo. This escapade has taught me a lot about people and”—he paused—”love and commitment. Yours especially.”
“Mine? Nah. I owed you. Owed you big time. I wouldn’t even be here to do it if you hadn’t saved my hide more than once with Dad, especially after, you know.” Jake nodded, emphasizing his point. It was almost an afterthought, because he had not given a thought to Lyle’s covering for him for years. Now the tables had turned, and he had been able to pay him back a bit.
“Let’s not go there. We do what we have to do and that’s it. Family, mate. It’s all about family.”
“So what are your plans for the farm?” His brother’s change of subject came just in time. The lump in Jake’s throat was threatening to choke him. They’d both be blubbering all over each other at this rate. “Are you going to farm the macadamias?”
Jake shot his brother a questioning look, one eyebrow raised, his eyes half-closed. Surely Lyle wasn’t going to go back down that track. “No way. All those chemicals, all the spraying. Have you any idea what it does to the environment? Never mind the runoff into the river.”
“Okay. Okay. Get off your high horse. I’ve heard this argument a million times with Dad. So what are you going to do? Rip out all the trees? Some of them are over a hundred years old. You’ll have the old man turning in his grave. Grandfather will probably come back and haunt you. Make your life a misery.”
“I’m going to keep the trees. There’s no reason why the place can’t be farmed organically. There’s a really good market now. It’ll take me ten years to get organic certification, but I can wait. In the meantime, until it starts making money, I’ll use backpackers, travelers, and cheap labor. There’s stacks of space for accommodation in the shed, and I’m going to turn the packing shed and office into a gallery and studio.”
Where had that come from?
He paused and let his words sink in. It didn’t take his brother long to comment.
“A gallery and studio? And what might you be displaying in this gallery and who might be working in the studio?”
Jake stepped forward into the patch of moonlight slanting across the deck. “If everything goes according to plan and if I can convince Cassia I am not the devil incarnate, I’m hoping she might take the offer. It’ll be an uphill battle, but as you know, I’m a patient man.” He hooked his thumbs into his pockets, drumming his fingers on his legs.
“Sounds like a plan. But what makes you think people are going to trek up to the North Coast to look at a gallery? That’s where the whole problem started, wasn’t it? She needed to be in Sydney to capitalize on her success, and this place was too far away. The North Coast’s a hell of a lot farther away than here.”
Lyle had a point, but suddenly the solution became crystal clear.
“Cassia’s getting a name for herself now. Her next exhibition opens in a few weeks. Alan Roeden, her agent, seems to think it will be a sell-out, like the last one, and her new stuff is incredible. Coastal Renaissance to Urban Nemesis. That’s the exhibition. Her City Phase.”
“My point exactly—City Phase. So you’re going to try and talk her into a tree change, are you? Do you think she’ll be in it? A move from a city the size of Sydney to a hick country property is a big change.”
“I don’t know how things are going to work out, Lyle,” he said. “I just know I’m going to have to play it very carefully, but now at least I shall be able to pick the time and the place to explain what really happened. I might just wait until we get the judge’s verdict though. Then I can lay it all on the line. And explain the whole sorry mess. Keep your fingers crossed for me.”
“Good luck.”
Jake looked at his brother, and Lyle held his gaze.
Enough said.
***
Cassia turned off the welder and rotated her shoulders, stretching the contracted muscles. The skeletons were finally finished. Standing back, she ran a critical eye over the massive horses dominating the room. The project was on target. She had two weeks left to clad them, and most of the driftwood was already sorted in piles around the room, sanded, and ready to use. There was no way she could have done it without Jake. He must have collected every scrap of driftwood that had washed up onto the beach. She really should thank him—
No!
It still took a massive effort not to think about him. Cassia knew she had to maintain the distance she had created between them before she had made her foolish phone call and had allowed her curiosity and desire—she’d admit it to herself, but no one else was going to know about it—to get the better of her. Until she’d made the one stupid mistake, she had managed to maintain her distance.
She wouldn’t open herself up to the pain again. She wouldn’t care; she wouldn’t trust him and wouldn’t be the pawn in whatever game Jake and his brother were playing. All she could do was build barricades and retreat behind them. Show nothing and know eventually if she worked hard enough she would end the bleak emptiness inside her.
Work. Work will help. She picked up the first piece of driftwood, running her hands over the smooth, sanded timber as the thoughts crowded into her mind.
There seemed to be some unwritten law of nature that said if Cassia Brown loved you, you left. It had started with her mother. Hundreds of kids’ parents got divorced, but hundreds of kids’ mothers didn’t pick themselves up and disappear to the other side of the world, refusing to acknowledge their child even existed. Cassia liked to think she had pretty much survived her mother leaving. Her father cared for her all the time she was growing up. Th
ey’d been a team. The tears pricked her eyes as she thought how proud he would be of her. How much he would have loved to see her exhibitions.
I could do with a bit of your help now, Dad.
It was his skill and dedication as a tradesman that had taught her how to use a welder, a chainsaw, and the myriad of other gadgets that had populated his old shed at the bottom of the garden. If it hadn’t been for her father, her sculptures wouldn’t exist. She had everything to thank him for, and she would give anything to have her father with her now. He was always looking out for other people. Fifty-five-year-olds weren’t supposed to die rescuing someone from a rip current. Fathers were supposed to be heroes—live heroes, not posthumous ones.
Cassia twirled the lamp stand to let the light fall on the bravery medal welded into the base. It was one sculpture she wouldn’t be parting with. She ran her fingers over the etched words: Bravery in hazardous circumstances.
Putting other people first. Totally unselfish, and totally devastating for the one left behind.
Why, Dad? What about me?
Love hurt, and she was tired of hurting.
CHAPTER SIX
Four weeks later, Jake pushed open the heavy black glass doors of the upmarket Sydney gallery. The long corridor of the restored factory stretched before him, and he walked toward the lights and the subdued chatter at the far end. Once inside the spacious exhibition room, he stopped and turned slowly around, taking in the high ceilings, white walls, and carefully controlled lighting. It all appeared a little sterile and soulless after Cassia’s haphazard and ramshackle studio. He scanned the room, looking for her, smiling with quiet satisfaction as his eyes lit on her. She was in animated discussion with a young couple, the flash of her bright pink nail polish pinpointing the different metals she had used in her steel heart. She appeared so at ease in her world, and warmth surged through him, filling his chest with pride.
Her tight, black asymmetrical dress showed the glorious translucency of one bare shoulder. A pair of bright fuchsia shoes showcased long legs that looked as though they went on forever and shapely calves. Tendrils of hair escaped around her face from a crazy knot highlighting the intricate earrings that were sculptures in their own right.
