Last Bridge Before Home

by Lily Malone

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m pretty good,’ Brix said, smiling at them. ‘But I think we should unpack the car first and get you settled, and I think I should have a shower. Otherwise it might not be a fair game.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be fair?’ Jaz said, intrigued.

  Brix sniffed at his armpit. ‘Because I might put you off. I smell bad!’

  Her mum giggled. It was a short, sharp sound buried in the back of her throat, a huh huh huh like an old engine, cranking up.

  Jaydah stared at her mum. When was the last time she’d heard that sound?

  Eventually, she realised the answer.

  Forever. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard her mum laugh.

  * * *

  Brix poured detergent into the sink and splashed the water until the bubbles rose. There weren’t enough dishes to bother running the dishwasher and to be honest he didn’t mind taking a little time out of mind to do something that would require as few brain cells from him as washing up a few cups. Getting out of his mind right now felt like a pretty damn good idea.

  Settling Rosalie and Jaz had been a nightmare for Jaydah. She was still out in the caravan with them. Rosalie worried Keith would come crashing through the van door and kill them in their sleep. Jasmine said it was too dark.

  A camping light fixed Jaz’s fears but he couldn’t do much to help JT with Rosalie, except reassure her that he was there and he’d protect them.

  ‘The police issued him a restraining order this morning, Mum,’ Jaydah had said. ‘He’s not allowed near us. He would go to jail. He doesn’t even know where Brix works or where he lives.’

  ‘Your father will not worry about a piece of paper with words that mean nothing,’ Rosalie said.

  There was a soft scratch as the back door closed, and then the shush-hush of socks on the old cottage floorboards and a tremor in the kitchen cabinets as the floors vibrated with her steps, but he didn’t turn his head for fear of what JT might see in his eyes. Right now, all she’d see would be doubt and fear.

  Could he really do this? Be the man in a household of terrified women and not muck everything up by saying or doing the wrong thing?

  What if something he said caused a rift between Jaydah and her mum? What if he said or did something that meant Jasmine might never trust him?

  What if Jasmine and Rosalie hated it here and that meant Jaydah wouldn’t stay?

  He felt Jaydah behind him but still he didn’t turn, and the water sloshed around the slippery cups.

  Her hands snuck around his waist and she pressed her chest into his back, pulling herself as tight into him as she could, laying her cheek between his shoulder blades.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Brix.’

  ‘You’re sorry? What for?’

  She sighed, bone-tired and wistful. He felt the puff of it through his shirt. ‘I’ve got you into my mess.’

  ‘I was always into you and your mess. Now it’s just a bit more in my face. I’ll cope.’

  He squared his shoulders. He damn well would. He would cope because that’s how he rolled.

  ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘You’re so good to me.’

  He turned to find her river-deep eyes staring up. Her arms slipped higher, circling his shoulders and neck.

  ‘Is everything alright out there?’ He indicated towards the back of the house with his chin, as his hands stopped short of leaving soap bubbles in the curve of JT’s waist. Frothy white bubbles wouldn’t be ideal for his mum’s newly restored old wedding dress.

  He wiped his hands on his jeans.

  ‘I think so. For now. The nightlight helped Jaz settle. Thank you. It was a good idea.’

  ‘She must be knackered. It’s been a big day.’

  ‘Hmm.’ A murmur of assent into his chest.

  His body stirred as she snuggled in. How could it not? This was JT and the times she’d snuggled in to him he could count on one hand. JT was about the fleeting, the wild and the free. She was the last autumn leaf hanging by a thread … then she’d be gone.

  This was his wedding night. She was his wife.

  His wife!

  She was all firm skin and toned belly, lithe muscle, and her hair—where it trailed a dark cloud across his arms—smelled both spicy and sweet, like brandy in a Christmas pudding.

  The nudge of her breasts was heaven, but he’d be nuts to read more into it. For one thing, she must be exhausted. For another there was a caravan parked outside the back door with her mother and her sister sleeping inside, and this might be his wedding night but nothing about the day had been conventional and he didn’t think she’d want to start with the traditions right now …

  One of her hands dropped from his neck, slid down his side to rest on his hip. It edged beneath the waist of his jeans and she teased her fingers along the front of the waistband.

  Maybe she does want to start with the traditions right now.

  She blew warm breath through his tee-shirt onto his skin. He groaned, and broke the sound off like he had to hide it. He did have to hide it.

  What if Jasmine came inside? Or Rosalie?

  ‘Jaydah,’ he warned, straightening, hands on her arms as he gently pushed her to create some distance between them.

  Her fingers released the button of his fly and then tugged at his zip.

  All his efforts to create space had done was give her hands room to work magic.

  And JT’s hands had always worked magic.

  ‘Why aren’t you wearing underwear, Brix?’ she murmured.

  Her hand brushed him like it was an accident, then it closed with a grip that wasn’t accidental at all.

  ‘I didn’t bother after I had a shower.’

  ‘Always thinking ahead.’ She slipped her fingers to the base of his balls, scratching her nails gently there.

  ‘JT,’ he groaned as her thumb circled and swooped.

  She lifted her head and he pressed kisses along her jaw, caught her soft moan as his tongue stole that first silky taste of the inside of his wife’s mouth.

  His wife!

  She had him rock hard and wanting. Both of them drugged with it, kisses slow and lazy, yet ready to fire up and fly.

  ‘I locked the back door.’ She hitched up the skirt of her wedding dress with her free hand.

  ‘Jesus, JT. If your mum needs the bathroom she’ll have to tap on the windows. It’ll be Rosalie who posts a pic of my naked butt for Facebook, not the bloody ranger.’

  She chuckled, the sound deep and throaty before she cut it short and whispered, ‘Don’t think about them. I need you inside me, Brix. This day’s been amazing and terrible and I’m so scared of tomorrow. I want it all to go away except for you and me and now.’

  ‘You find me the nearest threshold—’

  ‘No thresholds.’ She tugged the white dress higher with one hand while the other sprang him free from his jeans. His head was thick and feverish and racing ten places at once. It was a struggle just to remember his name.

  ‘Come to bed, JT.’

  ‘No thresholds. No beds.’ She peppered his neck and jaw with kisses through the words. ‘Just you and me. Just like this.’ She sucked his bottom lip into her mouth and let go. ‘Please, Brix.’

  It ended him.

  The kiss turned frantic: a smash of lips, tongue and teeth, with Jaydah’s hair a black slash trailing between them.

  She pushed again at his jeans, fingers flying, and he helped her get them down around his thighs, then supported her as she climbed up to meet him, fingers digging into his shoulders as she poised above him.

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ It was a gasp and a hiss. ‘Why?’

  ‘Condom. I don’t have one.’

  ‘We don’t need one,’ she said, with her forehead pressed to his, her arms holding him close and her eyes huge.

  This was new. This was big. They’d never talked about kids, ever.

  ‘Stop thinking so hard,’ she said. ‘We’re married now.’

/>   ‘But a baby, JT?’ He waited for her answer while his heart ran a marathon and his body screamed for relief.

  ‘I would love to have our baby. Having your baby would be the most amazing thing. We’d have something that’s ours. Just ours.’ She peppered his lips with kisses, his jaw, his throat. ‘Don’t wait. Please don’t make me wait. I can’t wait.’

  ‘I never could say no to you.’

  So for the first time in his life, unprotected, skin on skin, he centred her above him and as he entered Jaydah’s heat, it was different. Better. Like his soul was flying to meet the bright white light in her heart. Or was it her soul flying to his heart?

  She closed her eyes and her head tipped back.

  He withdrew—small mewling growls of impatience spilling from her throat as he made her wait, wait, till she opened her eyes and begged him to hurry, hurry—and he let go and pushed into her with one powerful stroke, and did it again, again.

  He lost himself in the depths of Jaydah, the scent of Jaydah, in how much he loved her today and how much he’d loved her all his life, and they were married, they were safe, they might be making a baby right now, their son or daughter … and it made his love for her so bright in his head it was like catching stars.

  When she said she was coming it was both a plea and a groan, and it was fast, so fast. She shuddered around him, nails digging into his shoulders, and he held on, held on, held—and couldn’t hold on a heartbeat more.

  He was utterly boneless and spent.

  ‘Jesus,’ he breathed into her neck as he stroked his hand through her hair. ‘I think I just had a religious experience.’

  Her lips curved in the most beautiful smile there’d ever been. ‘How about I unlock the back door so Mum and Jaz can get in if they need to, and then you can carry me over the threshold into bed and we’ll see if I can help you find religion again.’

  Thresholds be buggered. He couldn’t carry her anywhere. He could hardly stand.

  CHAPTER

  18

  ‘Are you awake?’ she whispered, voice small in the half light of not-quite-morning.

  ‘I think so. Or I’m dreaming.’

  Her arm snuck around his waist and she pressed into his back.

  ‘You feel real,’ he said.

  He rolled onto his back, getting one arm beneath her as she snuggled into his side with her cheek on his chest. His bed felt smaller with her in it, the indent of his body in the mattress spread out of shape, the corner of his pillow hooked beneath hers.

  It didn’t even smell like his bed anymore.

  His dreams had run riot in the night. Crazy, fitful things vivid as a movie, none of which he could now remember, but what he could remember was that each time he’d fallen out of a dream he’d reached across warm sheets to make sure JT was there. It was only after he’d found her with his fingertips that he could fall back into sleep and more dreams.

  ‘I love you,’ she said.

  ‘I’m glad.’ He ran his hand up her arm, over the curve of her shoulder. ‘You’re stuck with me now. I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘I won’t ever be able to thank you for what you’ve done for me.’

  He laughed. ‘I don’t feel hard done by, JT.’ He felt so good he could move mountains.

  He shifted so he could see her, a pale glimmer on the sheets. It had been warm in the house overnight because everything had been shut up for the day and it was warmer with another body in his bed. He remembered pulling the doona up just before they finally fell asleep but he’d kicked it off in the night.

  ‘So why are you all snuggly this morning? Are you cold?’

  She lifted her head to look at him. ‘No.’

  ‘Are you feeling guilty about something?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘About what?’

  ‘I dunno. Not telling me about Jaz maybe?’

  She lay in the same position, warm beside him, but it was as if she’d slipped away. He wished he hadn’t said anything. He’d been joking really and now his big mouth had stripped the dream-like quality away.

  ‘I’m sorry, okay? Don’t listen to me. Let’s go back.’ He picked up her hand and kissed her fingers. ‘Only, you aren’t usually snuggly, JT. You’re like a cat, you know? Cats only want to be cuddled if they’re in the mood. Otherwise, they don’t want a bar of you unless you’re the one about to open their tin of cat food. All I meant was, you’re being cuddly, and being cuddly isn’t really like you. I’m not complaining.’

  ‘I’m snuggly because I’m happy,’ she said. ‘I’m happy here with you. I think it was the light in the window that woke me and then I thought about where I was, and now I’m crying because I’m so happy here with you. Do you know? I never even had a window in that house.’

  He squeezed her shoulder.

  ‘I never had a cuddly toy like a teddy bear or anything like that. I never had anything soft. Sometimes I feel so hard inside I think I’ve forgotten how to be soft at all.’

  ‘You’re soft, JT.’ He touched her cheek, then slid his finger down her throat. He traced her ear and gently flicked the fleshy lobe. ‘Trust me on that. You’re beautiful.’

  ‘I woke up and I saw light around the edge of the window, and the bed feels so big.’

  He said, ‘I was thinking it feels small. Like a den. Like a cave just for us.’

  She flung an arm wide. The flap as her hand hit the side of the mattress rang loud. ‘I can’t smell white rice. I can’t smell it, Brix. I can’t smell how frightened I am anymore. I can’t smell the stink of fear on me, all I smell is you. And you smell so good I want to be close to you. I want to feel you. I can’t get close enough. That’s why I’m snuggly.’

  He thought about that as they lay lazy in the shifting light. What did fear smell like? How could fear be a smell, anyway? It wasn’t as if you could smell fear like you could smell burned toast, or the stink of an ant when you squashed it on your fingers.

  ‘And here’s me waking up thinking how my bed smells different too,’ he said quietly. ‘My sheets smell of you. I smell of you.’

  She pressed three slow kisses to his skin and lay still and he knew he’d said the right thing.

  Finally.

  * * *

  ‘I do feel guilty about Jaz,’ Jaydah said a little later.

  It was getting brighter beyond the window. She couldn’t take her eyes away from the crack of light. If she did, her vision spun with a bright white right-angle, the shape of the light that lined the blind.

  ‘You could have told me anytime in these last fifteen years that you had a twin sister, JT, but it’s okay. It was your choice to keep the secret and you did what you thought was best. I respect that. She was your priority. Protecting her and your mum.’

  It wasn’t quite what she’d meant when she said she felt guilty. Her guilt over Jaz was about more than just not telling Brix about her sister. The monster’s snake voice filled her mind: you were oky-then, you got all the oxygen; and she had to steel herself to kick his words from her head. They weren’t her reality anymore.

  I’m out of there. He can’t touch me.

  ‘What happened to Jaz wasn’t anything to do with genetics, just so you know. She just took too long being born,’ she said. He didn’t answer, so she added, to make it perfectly clear: ‘So if we have a baby, there’s no greater chance that we’d have a child like Jaz than for any other couple.’

  ‘We’ve never made love without protection before. We never talked about kids. Are you sure you’re ready for a baby?’

  ‘Does it worry you? Are you ready?’

  ‘It’s a bit late to ask me that now!’

  ‘A boy or a girl, do you care?’

  ‘As long as it’s healthy, I don’t care.’

  She drew away from him, propping herself on her elbow to look at him. ‘Why wouldn’t our baby be healthy?’

  ‘Stop it right now. I said healthy because everyone says healthy. Don’t read anything more into it than that. I’d love our baby no matter
what, end of story.’

  She snuck one hand between their bodies, splaying her palm across her stomach. ‘I could be pregnant now.’

  ‘You could be. I don’t know if it’s quite that easy, but you could be.’

  ‘Imagine that.’

  ‘You better believe I’m imagining.’

  She lay back into the mattress beside him, pressing her palm into the flat of her tummy, thinking about it. A baby. Their baby. Something she and Brix made that nobody could ever take away.

  Ours.

  The word rang in her head, high and free, as if blown from a flute.

  Hers.

  A little person she would have forever to love, a part of them both, no matter what the future threw at her next. No matter if Brix stayed or—

  ‘The thing is, JT …’ The mattress rocked and Brix rolled on his side to look at her and his hand came to cover her own, his index finger tracing the skin below her belly button. ‘I would have thought a baby would be the last thing on your mind. You’ve got so much on your plate with moving here, Jaz, your mum. Maybe it would be smarter to wait.’

  ‘I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to be smart about it. Anyway, the odds aren’t great that I’d get pregnant first go.’ She tossed her loose hair as she laughed, deliberately letting it trail across his chest, watching the fire of desire for her light his eyes.

  * * *

  ‘What time is it?’ she asked a little later again.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Can’t you look at the clock?’

  ‘I could, but I’d have to move and I’m very comfortable.’ He traced the curve of her arm before sneaking his thumb across her nipple, making her shiver.

  She bit him gently. ‘Mum will be up soon. She’s an early riser. We all are.’

  The pillows shifted as Brix raised his head to look at the clock on a shelf built into the bed. ‘It’s five thirty-four. She doesn’t get up that early, does she? We’ll have to tell her to sleep in.’

  ‘My dad always had to have his first cup of coffee early enough that it had time to go down before he started training.’

  ‘Training for what?’