by Lily Malone
‘Oh you know.’ She counted out his change. ‘I’ve got a home here and a lot of protectors in this place, but outside of the Bowling Club I’m a Tully, not a Honeychurch. There’s a difference.’
‘Bullshit.’ He left the change on the bar. ‘Can I buy you a drink or is it too early?’
Jaydah cast an eye about the bar. She counted two committee members, including the club president, Tynan Kennedy’s dad. The other committee member was more of a stickler for the rules than Mr Kennedy. ‘Not yet. Maybe later.’
‘Okay.’ He took his first slurp of beer and smacked his tongue inside his mouth. ‘That’s not gonna touch the sides.’
Jaydah moved away to serve other customers, and this was their pattern over the next two hours. When she didn’t have customers she’d return to Brix’s end of the bar, almost drifting there as if she’d got caught in his tide.
They’d talked about his family. They’d avoided talking about her family. They’d been over his work, her work, kids they knew in school, who had babies, who’d won lotto (nobody), who’d had an affair (a few), and as the customers slowly stood and tucked bar stools or dining chairs under their tables and left, there were fewer patrons for Jaydah to serve, and her orbit of Brix and the bar shrunk.
When both committee members had gone, Jaydah let Brix buy her that drink. Brandy. Not too much ice.
‘So, JT,’ he said, putting a hand each side of his beer glass, tapping his index fingers up and down the bottom half. The glass was half full. It was his third.
‘So, Brix?’
‘What about you? Are you seeing anyone?’
‘Do I look like I’m seeing anyone?’ She picked up her brandy and swirled the ice, making the cubes jar and jangle before she took a sip and set the glass on the bar a touch too hard.
His eyes were patient as ever. ‘No, you don’t. Quite frankly, it pisses me off.’
‘It pisses you off that I’m not seeing anyone? How does that work?’
‘You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. You know I love you and you won’t be with me. So there’s obviously something fucking wrong with me, but that shouldn’t apply to all the other blokes who’d love you if you let them.’
And she forgot about being riled.
‘The things you say to me. How can you say those things to me?’ Her head swam as if this was her third brandy, not her first.
‘I thought we could always tell each other anything.’
She shook her head. ‘Everyone has secrets.’
‘I don’t have any secrets from you.’
I do. Big. Fat. Ugly ones. Time to change the subject. ‘So what about you?’ She picked up her drink again.
‘What about me?’
‘Are you seeing anyone?’
‘No,’ he said simply. ‘If you’d run away and get married or something, then someone else might be in with a chance with me. I figure while there’s life, there’s hope. I’m a patient man.’
‘Well, you must be getting a bit somewhere, Brix. You’re not a monk. And it’d be a damn shame—’ She bit her lip and stopped.
His lips twitched around a smile. ‘What would be a damn shame?’
‘Well, put it this way. There’s a lot of you to go to waste. Some woman somewhere should be getting lucky.’
He pushed his beer out of the way. ‘I don’t want some woman somewhere. I want you.’
The words tumbled across the bar, darted below the music. They pounded on her ribs like drumbeats in a basement nightclub.
That’s what Brix did. She could never keep him out.
He brought her pain, yet he gave her joy.
‘Can a guy get any service around here?’ Vince Scarponi scowled at her from the end of the bar and she jumped straight.
She’d been leaning with her elbows on the bar. Brix was leaning in from the other side. In the middle, their outstretched fingers twined around the curved glass bottom of her brandy balloon.
‘You two should really get a room. Seriously,’ he said. ‘Better still, you should bloody well make an honest woman out of her, Honeychurch. Do us all a favour.’ This time he smiled as he said it because Vince wasn’t a bad guy and if it had been Vince who sat beside her on the bus all those years ago and not Brix, well, maybe things might have been different …
But it was Brix who sat beside her on the bus.
CHAPTER
2
Twenty-four hours. Brix checked the clock on the bedside table of the bedroom that had always been his in the family farmhouse. Less than twenty-four bloody hours, actually.
He threw back the covers and got out of bed, pulling his jeans up his legs because it wasn’t as if he was going to sleep any time soon.
Around him, the house in which he’d been born and raised felt empty and silent. Brix padded out into the kitchen and hit the kettle to boil. He thought about Foxtel or a late night movie, but couldn’t be arsed turning on the TV.
When his mobile phone rang he jumped at the shock of it, then lurched across the kitchen countertop to reach the device, hoping it was JT and she’d changed her mind.
The number wasn’t JT’s.
‘What’s up, Abe?’ he said to his youngest brother, cradling the phone to his ear as he spooned half a sugar into a mug.
‘Hey, mate. I just left the club and Jaydah was having some trouble with a couple of blokes who looked like they didn’t want to leave. I went in there and helped her kick them out. Probably saved the pair of them a dentist bill, but anyway, I’m staying in at Ella’s place tonight and just in case the little dick-weeds come back … I thought you might want to give Jaydah a call and make sure she’s okay. I mean, I know she can look after herself, but still.’
‘Yeah. I know. Thanks, mate.’ Brix walked with the phone at his ear back to his room and grabbed his jacket. The clock showed 12.12 pm. That was a late close for the club. ‘They just left, you say?’
‘About five minutes ago, mate. And there’s something else too. I saw her old man outside the club. He thought I was you.’
‘So he didn’t cover you in kisses then and welcome you joyfully back to town?’
‘Yeah, nah. There were no kisses.’
Brix let out a sigh as he swapped the phone to the other hand to pull up his sleeve. ‘No worries, Abe. Thanks for letting me know. I appreciate it.’
‘I thought Jaydah would stay out there with you tonight, you know? You’ve got the place to yourselves.’
‘I know. Don’t think I didn’t ask her because I did.’
‘Right. Enough said on that then.’
‘Yep. Thanks for the call, Abe. I’ll head in there now.’
‘No worries, mate.’
Brix ended the call.
Twenty-four hours.
This time last night he’d been making love to JT in the backroom of the club after she’d kicked out the two Scarponis and shut the bar. They’d turned the music low. He’d heard John Cougar Mellancamp’s ‘China Girl’, then he didn’t hear anything except Jaydah telling him ‘this way, this way’, leading him through the back of the bar by the hand and they’d been giggling like school kids sneaking between tents at the Year 9 camp.
She stopped giggling about the time he got her bra off and closed his thumb over her nipple.
He could have made love to her on the old couch in the committee room at the club all night. It would have taken him about that long to get his breath back, get his heart settled again where it was supposed to be, instead of beating half out of his chest, but she’d said she had to get home, and he’d been too happy and sleepy and half out of his brain to persuade her to stay.
Then this morning he got up early to get stuff ticked off Jake’s list of jobs he had to do at the farm, and that was so he could come into town and have lunch with JT before she started her shift. He bought a couple of chicken salad rolls at the bakery and two doughnuts and drove her out to their spot on Cutters Creek. The ants got the doughnuts because he and JT couldn’t take their
mouths off anything that wasn’t the skin of a throat or the lobe of an ear, or her breast, or the inside of his thigh or—
His groan was audible in the silent house as he snatched up his keys.
So tonight, Saturday night, he’d had dinner with Abe and Taylor at the club. They’d played pool. Taylor kicked all their butts, and at some stage he’d left Abe and Taylor at the pool table and he’d gone up to the bar to see JT.
Next time he checked, Abe and Taylor were gone, and he’d said to JT: ‘Looks like Abe’s on a promise. Why don’t you come out to the farmhouse with me when you finish up? Nobody’s out there. We’d have the place to ourselves.’
And you’d think he’d invited her to break into a meth lab to shoot the drug cartel when all he’d wanted to do was to spend the night—one whole entire night—in a bed with JT in his arms.
He dreamed of being in a bed with JT. They did couches, they did picnic blankets on creekbeds. They did backseats of cars, his or hers, they didn’t care.
But they never did beds. Ever. Last night had been that chance, and she’d thrown it back in his face for the same old reason as always.
Bloody Keith Tully!
Twenty-four hours.
Less than twenty-four hours and they’d had their first fight about her dad. That had to be a record, even for them.
* * *
Vehicle headlights bumped across the Chalk Hill Bowling Club parking area, now devoid of cars, and this fierce wild thing that might have been glee gripped Jaydah’s heart.
Those thugs grew a pair. They’ve come back.
This time, goodie-two-shoes Abel wasn’t around to save their sorry arses.
This time she’d get a fight.
Her nostrils flared, filling with rain-dampened air and anticipation and her fingers clamped around the handle of her carry basket, metal shining dully silver in the light. The cool aluminium handle wasn’t the warm smooth rattan of the sticks she was used to, but her fingers weren’t fussy: they just wanted to fold around something, strike something and make it hurt the way she hurt every day.
The vehicle rolled forward, bumping where the bitumen gave way to corrugated gravel and potholes near the welcome sign. Muddy water splashed against a heavy black bull bar and over-sized tyres. In the light from powerful spotlights, rain mixed with dust to paint the white bonnet with dirty brown streaks.
Ah. I know that car.
Jaydah relaxed.
It wasn’t the thugs.
For a moment, as the puff of her breath disappeared in the night, she was almost disappointed. Then a different kind of thing gripped her heart, although it was equally wild.
This was Brix. Handsome, loyal, honest Brix.
As the white car bullocked its muddy path towards her, she opened the rear door of her Subaru and pushed her basket into the space behind the driver’s seat. Then she shut the door and stood straight, listening to the Toyota’s engine switch from drive to idle to silent as Brix stopped beside her, the motor clicking at her as it cooled.
The passenger door was shoved wide and Brix scowled at her from the driver’s side seat, tawny-headed, glorious.
‘Get in, JT. It’s raining.’
He wasn’t smiling, which was unusual. Brix wasn’t one to hold a grudge. Unlike her—she was still mad at him from earlier. To be fair though, Jaydah was pretty much mad at everyone: Abe for interrupting before she could pick up her pool cue and turn those two thugs at the bar to jelly; Brix for always asking the same damn question and expecting a different answer; and her father, well, she was mad at him just for breathing.
She’d been mad at that monster for breathing all her life.
‘JT, will you please get that gorgeous butt of yours in the car or do I have to come out there and throw you in!’
This time his mouth twitched in a half-smile and her level of pissed-off dialled down a notch.
She climbed into the passenger seat and crossed her arms, as if by crossing her arms she wouldn’t automatically soften at the smell of Brix’s shirt and Brix’s cologne, and his car that was so steeped in all things him it made her stomach hurt. Eight hours earlier they’d parked at their secret spot on Cutters Creek with doughnuts they didn’t eat; instead she’d climbed on his lap in this car and they’d spent a stolen hour—
‘So Abe called me,’ he began. ‘He said you had some trouble at the bar. A couple of blokes didn’t want to leave the pool table at closing time, Abe said.’
‘I didn’t ask him to call you. I was handling it.’
‘I know. He thought he was doing the right thing.’
‘Well, he wasn’t. I can look after myself.’
‘I know you can, JT.’
‘Well if you know I can look after myself, what are you doing here?’
‘Jesus, search me. I’m obviously driving around the Bowling Club in the middle of the night for kicks, aren’t I? I wanted to see you. I wanted to make sure you were okay.’
‘You always want to see me and I’m always okay.’
He nodded once to concede the point, and a smile—a hint of the full wide gorgeous smile she loved—ticked at the corner of his mouth. ‘Guess I can’t argue with that.’
Jaydah wriggled her back and shoulders, stretching against the seat. It had been a long shift. Last night had been a late one with Brix and it was catching up with her.
‘So, you wanna follow me back to the farm or is that still a no-go zone? No one’s out there. Jake’s in Perth and Abe’s spending the night in town with Taylor. We’ll have the farmhouse to ourselves. We can be as loud as we like—you can scream my name—’
She tried to interrupt him but he sensed it and put his finger to her lips, and his eyes held hers. She had to rely on memory because it was too dark in the car to see the deep blue colours she loved, but his amusement danced there, gentle and glinting, much like the falling rain.
‘—And then I can hold you close all night and look at you, and watch you sleep and think how beautiful you are and that I’m the luckiest man alive.’ His finger moved from her lips to her cheek, making her pulse do that rubber-ball bounce. ‘I’ll even let you borrow my toothbrush because I’m that kind of guy.’
Her theory of not going soft in his car wasn’t working so she crossed her arms harder into her chest. ‘I can’t. Thanks anyway.’
‘I’ll make you pancakes for breakfast.’
‘Sorry. It’s still no.’
He exhaled, short and sharp, and dropped his hand from her cheek. ‘Why won’t you ever just say “yes” to me, JT? You know you want to. We both want this.’
She did want to. More than he could ever know. ‘I do say yes. Sometimes.’
‘Not about this. Not about spending the night with me. Not about me coming to your place. Not about me meeting your mother.’
‘Don’t start on that again.’ That’s what they’d fought about earlier. That’s what they always fought about. Her family. Her father. Her life.
His four fingers opened out like rods of iron before they closed around the steering wheel. ‘Your old man might even stand to be in the same place as me for two seconds if you’d give me half a chance to show him I’m not that bad a bloke.’
Jaydah froze. ‘You don’t want to be in the same place as my dad. Trust me.’
‘He knows I’m in town, JT, so I’m not sure why you think it’s a state secret. When Abe rang me he said your dad was here tonight. Keith mistook Abe for me, apparently.’
‘My father knows you’re here?’ Her dread was a live thing, crawling up her skin. If her father knew Brix was in town—
She had to get home. The thought slammed the pit of her stomach and she scrambled to open the car door. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘I’m heading back home tomorrow. Not sure when I’ll be back in Chalk Hill again. Maybe Christmas. I don’t see why you have to go home. You’re not some teenager who has to climb in and out the windows so her folks don’t know what she’s up to. Come stay with me to
night. Spend the night with me.’
‘I can’t, Brix. Okay? I just can’t. My dad ...’ She squeezed her eyes shut. Her dad. Brix didn’t understand. How could he? She’d never told him. She’d never breathed a word to anyone.
She stepped out of his car, holding the door open but not looking back, taking fresh breaths of air that didn’t smell glorious like him. She couldn’t give in, no matter how tempting the idea of sleeping cuddled into Brix’s chest all night in a beautiful big bed instead of her sad single one.
He called after her. ‘You’re an adult, JT. Seriously? What can the bastard do to you?’
It wasn’t what the bastard might do to her. She’d never worried about what he might do to her.
‘Sorry. I guess I’ll see you next time you’re in town, Brix.’
‘Next time—’
She shut his car door on his words.
She heard his hurt, but she didn’t have time for it now. She had to get home. Jaydah flung herself from his car to her own, climbing in the driver’s side of her Subaru.
The keys were in the ignition. She never bothered to lock it; nothing she owned—including the car—was worth stealing. She shrugged the seatbelt across her shoulders and clicked it in with her left hand, turning the key with her right.
Nothing happened.
She tried again, willing the engine to burst into life but the car didn’t even try to start, and she bashed her palm against the inside of the door as the rain cried rivers on the glass.
There was a tap on her driver-side window. Brix stood there with his jacket collar up, shoulders hunched against the rain.
Jaydah opened the door. ‘My car won’t start.’
She tried to climb out but he waved her back. ‘No shit, Sherlock. Let me take a look at it.’
God, she loved him. With all of her worthless heart she loved him. She’d tried not to—it was easier if she didn’t—but she couldn’t help it.
He fumbled at the front of the car to find the release mechanism and then lifted the silver bonnet until it blocked her view. Before she could count to ten, he’d shut the bonnet and was moving towards her door, leaning in low.
