Heart Of The Outback, Volume 2

by Margaret Way

  Jodie knew he was saying he no longer needed to look, as he had found her. Her untried heart did a somersault in her chest. She slapped it down. He wasn’t saying that he fancied her. He was only saying that marriage was the biggest risk he could think to take. But what was he risking? His heart? Doubtful. His fortune? Ha! He was a farmer, for goodness” sake. Maybe it was a mid-life crisis and he was merely looking for a way to shake things up in his life. Well, she sure was no angel to live with so if that was the case he would get a shake-up beyond his wildest dreams.

  But no. No. No! Just because she might be exactly what he was looking for didn’t mean that the reverse was true. In that moment she wished Heath were a eunuch. A eunuch with Heath’s kindness but maybe a little less charm, buck teeth, a lisp, hair sprouting from his ears, decidedly non-blue eyes, a nice big house around the corner from her apartment, and he spent more time away on business than he did at home. As this way she would have found her man. Someone nice, unassuming and unaffecting with whom to share a home and a marriage certificate for the next two years.

  But he was so clearly none of those things. He was completely affecting, so affecting she forgot herself around him, and the whole point of this exercise was not to forget herself, but to find herself. So she had no choice but to disentangle this fish from her net and let him go.

  “You have your own reasons to want to marry,” he said into the growing silence. “I am thinking visa issues?”

  Jodie nodded.

  “How long do you have?”

  “Fifty-four days,” Jodie said without even having to think about it. “I have time.” Not much, but enough.

  He blinked up at her, holding her gaze effortlessly. “Being a consummate Aussie bloke, I haven’t had much practice at this sort of thing, but what I am trying to say, badly I’m sure, is that you don’t need time. I am healthy. I am an Australian citizen. I am financially independent. I have no diseases. I like you and I think you like me too. And I think that liking one another is a pretty good base from which to launch a life together.”

  Diseases? What the heck did diseases have to do with it unless …? Oh. Jodie swallowed hard before she became for ever lost in the sort of life together Heath was imagining.

  “Heath, I’m afraid that you have me all wrong. I apologise for not clearing this all up sooner.” Before you liked me, and before I felt this potent attraction to so very many things about you.

  “My plan is to marry so that in two years” time I will end up with a Permanent Visa. That is the end point for me. Then the man I have married and I will split. Divorce. Go our separate ways.”

  He watched her, his expression unchanging, so that she had no idea what was going on behind those bottomless blue eyes.

  “I can’t give anyone the promise of a proper life together, whether he and I like each other or not,” she said. “I just can’t. And at this point in my life, I don’t want to. I know I’m asking a lot, but I have to be strong about this—two years is all I intend to give.”

  “May I ask why you feel you need an end point?” Heath asked.

  Okay. So she owed him that much at least. “I’ve been in a … relationship with someone for several years whereby I was in charge of every facet of their life. Without me to look out for their every whim, craving, and concern, they would not have survived. That is a responsibility I do not wish to take on again. I realise that may sound selfish but—”

  “No,” he said. “I see your point.” And though she expected to see a cold, hard flint in his eye at the extent of her selfishness, there was none. But she felt there was a “but” coming, and she wasn’t wrong.

  “But I don’t need someone to look out for my every whim, craving or concern, Jodie. I’m a big boy and I’ve been doing all that for myself for more years than I can count.”

  The more he spoke, the more she sank deeper and deeper into those eyes, and into a wish to believe that he was right and she was wrong.

  Why hadn’t she met him some other time? A year before. Five years before. Why couldn’t he have been some London guy who one day when she was out getting groceries came along and swept her off her feet, giving her a ray of sunshine in her hard grey life back home?

  But no. Everything about him was so Australian. He would wilt in such a place as London. Or perhaps he would stand out all the more, a beacon of warmth that women would flock to. Back in London she would not have stood a chance with such a guy.

  But now? Here? The fates had decreed that if she wanted him, she could have him. As a two-year husband. Acquaintances only? No way. She wasn’t sure she could trust herself to keep such a deal much less enforce such rules upon him. If that was what she wanted she should never have looked past Barnaby the visual merchandiser. So no. Heath Jameson, lovely and charming and gorgeous as he was, was now officially off the list.

  Ready to tell him exactly that, Jodie started when her mobile phone buzzed and beeped at her hip. With an apologetic glance at Heath, she checked to find a message from Lisa.

  “Come home. Quick. Lou’s had bad news.” Jodie was on her feet in a heartbeat. “I have to go. Now.” Heath tucked his napkin beneath his plate and joined her on his feet. “What’s happened?”

  “I’m not sure. But something’s wrong with my sister.” She looked up the teeming sidewalk, realising it was a long walk back to her apartment. When she looked back at Heath, he was already moving around the table to herd her along.

  “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

  After the endless drive in which Jodie had not been able to get through to Louise’s mobile, or the home phone, she leapt from the car before it had barely stopped.

  She shot a quick, “Thanks,” over her shoulder to Heath before unlocking the front door, shooting up three flights of stairs and barging into the apartment where she found Lisa whispering into the cordless phone, Mandy sitting on the couch, wringing her hands and not quite knowing where to look, while Louise sat at the hall table with her luggage packed beside her.

  Louise’s face was pale and her eyes puffy. All of Jodie’s carer instincts flooded to the fore and she slid to her knees in front of her sister, feeling her temperature, taking her pulse, and checking her eyes for a response before she even realised she had been doing so.

  “What’s going on?” Jodie asked, moving her fretting hands to take hold of Louise’s cold fists.

  “Just after you left I had an awful call from my dad.” “Is it another heart attack? Is he okay?”

  Louise shook her head. “No. Nothing like that. But the money’s gone. All of it.”

  Jodie fought hard to keep up. “What money?”

  “Dad went to pay a tax bill and found the restaurant account empty. Someone’s taken it. Stephanie, the manager of the Bella Lucia at Knightsbridge, would normally help look after such things but she has had to go back to America urgently. I’m all he has.”

  Lisa hung up the phone, the beep ringing loud in the heavy air. “I’ve organised a car and driver to pick you up when you get to Heathrow, Lou.”

  Louise nodded her thanks.

  Heathrow? Oh, no, not Heathrow.

  “Surely there is someone else. Someone already there.” Jodie frantically searched for a name Louise had mentioned. Anybody else who could help so Louise didn’t have to leave her so soon.

  “What about Max?” Louise had talked a lot about her cousin Max, though more often in derision than devotion.

  Louise shook her head and Jodie saw the glitter of diamond-bright tears in her pale grey eyes. “Dad would never go to Max. The reasons are complicated.”

  Jodie heard the front door close softly.

  Lisa’s face turned to stone, while Mandy’s mouth dropped open in surprise. Jodie didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know that Heath was in the doorway. But she did anyway.

  He took one look at her, then headed straight for the kitchen. Jodie heard cupboards open and close and the tap go on, then off, and then Heath was there with a glass of water. He g
ave it to her, and she gave it to Louise.

  Louise had a sip, then let the glass loll to the side and Heath reached out to catch it. Louise barely noticed. Her eyes were glazed and far away and Jodie could feel herself losing the battle.

  Her eyes finally focussed on Jodie. “Thank you so much for having me, Jodie. I can’t tell you how much I have needed this and you. But now it’s time to go home. They’ve booked me a flight that leaves this afternoon. Dad … my dad needs me.”

  But I need you, Jodie wanted to scream.

  She had never felt so much as if she needed someone in her life. Knowing that her mother wasn’t her only blood tie in the world, and knowing that Louise was sane, and sensible, and well adjusted, gave her hope that genetically she had such a chance as well. Now that Louise was going away, Jodie suddenly felt weak and frightened and alone.

  But Jodie also knew how hard it was for a child to say no to such a plea from a parent, no matter how fraught the relationship.

  Suddenly feeling as if the precipice she had been balancing on had finally dropped away from beneath her knees, Jodie blurted out, “I’ll come with you.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mandy move before Lisa’s hand clamped down on her shoulder keeping her in place.

  “My return ticket is open-ended,” Jodie continued. “Give me an hour to pack, and call the airline, and I’ll come back home with you.”

  Louise snapped out of her trance and shot a glance over Jodie’s shoulder and Jodie remembered Heath was still there. “No,” Lou said, her voice now firm, “you won’t.”

  Jodie shot a frustrated glance at Heath to find him leaning against the entryway wall watching her, his expression careful. She could see he was clinging to every word she was saying. But she couldn’t deal with that now. He would have to get in line.

  “My visa’s about to run out anyway,” Jodie said, focussing fully on Louise. “Maybe it’s a sign. There’s so much more I want to know, and say …”

  Louise pulled Jodie into her slim arms. “We have years to get to all that. But right now you have the chance to stay in this fabulous part of the world. If I was in your shoes I would focus on that goal with all my might. I, on the other hand, have too much unfinished business at home. We’ll see each other again. There or here. I look forward to the day we can get together, you, Patricia and me.”

  The thought of her mum’s reaction to Louise showing up frightened Jodie to bits. Would Patricia fall apart and need Jodie to pick her up again as she had a hundred times before when things had become too hard? But at the same time the idea of the three of them sitting down to lunch was so like a dream come true it physically hurt.

  “Promise?” Jodie said, fighting to stave back tears now herself.

  “With all my heart.”

  No longer able to feel her limbs, Jodie struggled to stand. “You at least have to let me drive you to the airport.”

  “No,” Heath said, his deep voice catching them all unawares. “Please allow me.”

  “Thanks, but no,” Jodie shot at him.

  “You pointed out your car to me last night, remember,” he said, his expression showing he didn’t believe Rusty would get around the block, much less to the airport.

  Jodie bristled, ready to tell the guy exactly where he could put his car when Heath reached down and took a hold of Louise’s heavy designer luggage as though it were light grocery bags.

  “If we take my car,” he said, “you guys can sit in the back and talk on the way.”

  Heath smiled, and Jodie’s breaking heart clenched with such fierce and sudden attraction she wasn’t sure it knew what it was thinking. She took two deep breaths, then nodded. “That would be much appreciated.”

  When Lisa finally let her off her leash, Mandy ran to Louise, wrapping her in a tight hug. “We’ll miss you, Lou. Come back and stay with us any time.”

  Lisa moved in more slowly and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Our door is always open.”

  “Thank you, guys,” Louise said, “so very much.”

  “Come on, sis,” Jodie said, throwing an arm over her taller sister’s shoulders and giving them a squeeze. “Let’s blow this joint.”

  Two hours later, Jodie stood with her nose up against the airport window. When she could no longer see Louise’s plane winging its way back to London, she thought her legs might finally give way. A wave of warmth hit her from behind and she turned to find Heath, one hand resting an inch behind her back, just in case.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asked, his voice kind.

  She nodded and when he put his arm around her shoulder her head sank against him in relief. She was too emotionally drained to stop herself.

  His dusty black Jeep was parked on the top level of the airport car park, an expanse of ugly grey concrete where heavy hot winds whipped about their faces. It was dry, characterless, the view nondescript, could have been a car park in any city in the world, and it represented the feeling in Jodie’s heart perfectly.

  “You’ll see each other again,” Heath said, his deep voice rumbling through his chest and hers.

  Jodie nodded, lifting her heavy head away from the comfort of his chest. “I know. But it still hurts.”

  He dropped his arm to reach into his pocket for his keys and Jodie felt strangely bereft. In self-protection she moved a good foot away from him, and even though it was a warm day she hugged her arms around herself to stave off a shiver.

  Heath twirled the keys on the chain but didn’t unlock the car. “Are you really having second thoughts about staying here?”

  Her emotions warred inside her, but her mind was made up. “Lou was right. I would kick myself later on if I didn’t give it my every effort to stay.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve had all day,” he said.

  Jodie looked up to find him watching her with a warm, half bedazzled expression in his heavenly, sock-it-to-me, feel-them-all-the-way-to-your-toes blue eyes.

  He leaned his lanky form against the car. “So let’s say we do this thing,” he said. “You and me.”

  She could have asked what thing, but she knew what he meant. She knew it with every fibre of her being. His lazy question shouldn’t have been so completely overwhelming considering how they had met, and considering the way they had been flirting with the idea in every conversation they had had to date. But still Jodie felt her heart growing beautifully large in her tight chest.

  Heath stuck the key in the door, and then took both of her hands in his. She could feel the pulse beating hard and strong in his thumbs. He was just as overwhelmed as she, but he didn’t falter. He smiled down at her, his beautiful blue eyes thawing every last cool, aloof, closed-off place inside her until she was putty in his hands.

  “Jodie Simpson,” he said, “will you marry me?”

  As all remaining breath drained completely from her, she gripped his hands tight and made the tough decision.

  In the beginning she’d thought that a two-year deal would be an incentive to any number of guys. But without those guys banging on her door, she would have to settle for something different, for reasons more subtle.

  Barnaby the visual merchandiser would give her away in a second. Scott would send her around the bend. If she wanted to do this, to find a guy whom the immigration authorities would actually believe that she had fallen madly in love with and married within a month of meeting, Heath was the one.

  And all the other stuff, the fact that he lived beyond the black stump and she loved the urban jungle, the fact that she was after a two-year deal and he was after the real deal, yet after two years she would say goodbye, all that stuff would have to be dealt with as they went along.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice coming out way stronger than she felt. “I will.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JODIE stood before a celebrant at Melbourne Town Hall, repeating Heath Connor Jameson, over and over in her mind.

  She wore no veil, and no typical wedding dress, just a butter-yellow st
rapless sundress that swished about her knees as she walked. Her hair was curled and pinned loosely at the base of her neck, and she wore a pair of tiny yellow daffodil-shaped studs—the first she had ever made.

  Lisa and Mandy stood as witnesses as agreed, but she hadn’t counted on Heath inviting his whole family: brothers, sisters, in-laws, toddlers, and even a couple of distant aunts had come along for the big show. All Jodie kept thinking was that if she and the man at her side had managed to misunderstand one another on the details of their wedding day, what else would she have to fight him on further down the line?

  When they had agreed on a simple civil ceremony in the city, she had pictured the two of them, Lisa and Mandy, and a few drinks with local friends at The Cave afterward. But all this family made the wedding feel real.

  Jodie had never been one of those little girls who dreamt of her wedding day. At thirteen her father had left in the middle of the night. The next day her mother had screamed the house down at Jodie’s crying, because it was unlikely “that man” was her real father anyway. That night Patricia had gone into psychiatric care for the first time. And Jodie’s life from that moment on had been “real” enough.

  A Jameson baby hiccuped somewhere behind her and she had to sniff in a great stream of air through her nose to stop from passing out.

  “Breathe,” Lisa whispered beside her. She did as she was told and filled her tight lungs.

  The celebrant cleared her throat and Jodie looked up to find her looking back at her expectantly. Lisa gave her a nudge and took the small bouquet of daffodils and mouthed the words, “I do.”

  Jodie felt the words come out of her own mouth, but only through the haze of surprise that she of all people had found herself in this position—a child of divorce, of uncertain paternity, of an imprudent mother whose genes ought never to be propagated further.