by Margaret Way
She shook her head to clear out the fog. She did deserve it. No matter the terrible things her mother had called her over the years, this was her chance to negate all of that, to prove that she was worthwhile, and vital, and deserving.
So, tea. Biscuits. Then answer questions. And at some stage that afternoon, it would end.
Malcolm Cage was bent over a form of some sort when she took her tray into the lounge room. She peeked over his shoulder as she passed to see if she could get a heads-up on any questions he might have.
Mr Cage sat back in his chair so suddenly his head knocked the tray and sent the tea sloshing over the sides of the pot.
“Oh, hell, I’m sorry. So sorry.” She bit her lip to stop any more profanities from spilling out.
“No worries,” Mr Cage said, running a hand over the back of his skull all the same.
Jodie managed to stop a total catastrophe from occurring by skidding around the couch and placing the tray onto the coffee-table before any more damage was done.
“Tea?” she asked their guest.
“White, no sugar, please,” Mr Cage said. She made Heath’s coffee without asking how. He winked at her and she relaxed a very little. Once done, she tucked her skirt beneath her and sat next to Heath on the couch.
Mr Cage put the form from his lap onto the coffee-table and she saw it was just their marriage certificate. So much for her peeking.
Mr Cage took a sip, then opened his folder, clicked his pen and looked to the two of them with his most officious expression. “Now,” he said, “it’s all quite straightforward. To be eligible for a Temporary Spouse Visa we have to establish several points. You must be legally married to your spouse. You must show that you and your spouse have a mutual commitment to a shared life as husband and wife to the exclusion of all others. You must show that you have a genuine and continuing relationship with your spouse, that you and your spouse are living together, and you must meet health and character requirements. And if all goes well, you must then be in Australia when the Temporary Spouse Visa is granted. Shall we begin?”
Heath nodded but Jodie found her nerves in such a tight knot she could barely remember how to focus, much less nod. Heath Connor Jameson, she repeated in her head, born October eighth, second of seven children, loves all things sweet …
“So,” Mr Cage said, “tell me about the first moment you knew you were in love.”
Jodie’s inner chanting stumbled to a breathless halt. She hadn’t practised her response to a question like that. Before she could faint, or collapse or do something equally dramatic in order to distract Mr Cage, Heath was talking.
“For me it was at the end of our first night together,” he said, and Jodie turned to stare at him in mute shock. “After a quick drink, we took a walk through the city. For hours. And I was trying my best to hide the fact that I was utterly starving. First date, you now, you want to be cool.”
Mr Cage nodded profusely, and then cleared his throat.
“Go on.”
“At about two a.m., this one spotted a kebab van. The speed with which she crossed the road to get to that kebab clinched it for me. With every extra ingredient she ordered I realised more and more that this was the woman I wanted to spend my life with.”
Mr Cage wrote copious notes for a few seconds after Heath had finished talking, and then he looked at Jodie expectantly. Heath had done his part, now there was nobody left to help her but herself. She took a shallow breath and flipped through every memory she had with Heath to find a moment where it might have believably happened. But rather than coming up blank, the moment rose to the surface with ease.
“It took me a little longer, I’m afraid. Perhaps eight hours longer,” she said, barely recognising her own confident voice. But it was a gift borne of years of dealing with doctors and lawyers determined to lock her mum away. “My sister Louise was staying with me, and she had a family emergency, and though we had only met the day before, and Heath had somewhere else important to be, he insisted on driving us to the airport so I could spend quality time with Lou before she went home to London. In that moment I knew he was a keeper.”
She looked to Heath, the amazement at what he had done for her that day flowing over her again. He had proposed to her then and in the shadow of his heroics she had been unable to say no. She smiled tentatively and he smiled back, and her stomach dropped away into her knees. And in that moment she knew.
She wasn’t telling tales in order to have some stranger believe in her. She loved Heath.
She hadn’t been able to resist falling for his charm, his kindness, and his desire to look out for her. And the very fact that he didn’t expect her to take care of him in return made her want to give him such care as was hers to give.
As Mr Cage wrote furiously on his notepad she slid a hand onto Heath’s knee. He placed his hand over hers. And even though they had company, and even though only their hands were touching, it felt like the most intimate moment she had ever known.
Everything was going to be okay. In fact it was going to be better than okay. It was going to be better than she had ever thought possible. Her nerve endings zinged as her mind whirled through what her future now held with this new knowledge to guide her.
She struggled to contain the pure and unexpected joy she was feeling at the possibilities. This could be real. And not only could it be real, she wanted it to be so.
“Right,” Mr Cage said. “So, moving on.”
Jodie turned back to him with a beatific smile lighting her face. Bring it on, she thought, for nothing he could ask or say could be more terrifying or enlightening as that last question.
“Okay,” Mr Cage drawled. “Next, why don’t you tell me about the website www.ahusbandinahurry.com?”
Mr Cage looked back up at her as though he had just asked what Heath’s favourite colour was. And all of Jodie’s high hopes died a death in that second, as she had no idea.
Heath felt Jodie stiffen beside him. Not now, he thought, not when we have come this far.
It was almost laughable how certain he had been he could pull this off. He wanted to be married to this woman. Every strange new day in her company he knew it. He cared for her. And though, being a straight-down-the-line Australian male, he hadn’t quite found the right time or the right way to tell her, he was willing to tell a stranger the depth of his need if that was what it took to keep her. What he hadn’t counted on was his brave little Jodie’s complete meltdown at the last post.
She was stiff and shaking all at once. Her light freckles stood out stark against her too-pale face. It seemed that the time had come for Heath to come to her rescue, whether she wanted him to or not. And it would take some fancy footwork.
Okay, he thought. Here goes nothing.
“My sister actually found that website,” Heath began. “The second she saw Jodie, she thought she looked just my type. And it turned out she was right.”
“And why would your sister have been looking at such a website?” Malcolm asked, his face showing exactly how far he believed his story, true though it was.
“I have spent a lifetime working for my family with little thought for my own future, so my sisters have often taken it upon themselves to try to set me up. And though time and again they had bombed out, with this little chook, Elena could not have been more right.”
He squeezed Jodie’s hand, and, drawing her startled gaze to his, he spoke directly to her.
“A fondness for redheads and those beautiful green eyes of hers got me to the first meeting, but the fact that she is brave, kind, loyal, tenacious and the sweetest, most selfless woman I have ever met got me to the altar. Now every time I look at her it kills me that she picked me.”
Once Heath finished his spiel, the room grew silent. Not even Malcolm’s hyperactive pen made a move. Jodie blinked, and Heath was certain she had tears in her eyes. So long as she kept herself together.
“So how about you?” Heath asked, dragging his gaze back to Malcolm, with the i
ntention of cutting the man’s uncertainty off at the knees once and for all. “Married? Got a girlfriend?”
“Engaged,” Malcolm admitted with his head now lowered again to his notebook.
“And how did you guys meet?” Come on, buddy, he begged. Go with me. Just don’t ask why Jodie was there in the first place and we’re home and hosed.
“Blind date. With her friend, actually,” Malcolm said, his mouth quirking into a smile. “The friend took Andrea along as a chaperon in case the date didn’t work out. The friend and I never stood a chance. But Andrea and I have been together ever since.”
“Well, there you go,” Heath said, slapping him on the back. “It never seems that we marry our college girlfriends these days, do we?” He gave Malcolm his most chummy grin and was relieved when Malcolm grinned back. “There we once were, two single guys looking for love in all the wrong places and then one day …” Heath left the sentence hanging for Malcolm to jump right on in.
And jump Malcolm did. “And then one day. Boom. There she is.”
Malcolm looked to Jodie with big cow eyes, and Heath had little choice but to follow suit. Jodie was watching him as though he had landed in her apartment from outer space. But on that count the kid in the expensive new suit knew what he was talking about. Boom. There she is …
“Right, now that’s clear,” Malcolm said, coming over very officious all of a sudden, and Heath could have slapped himself for losing his way in Jodie’s dazzling green eyes.
“I would like to speak to you one at a time now,” Malcolm said. “Is there somewhere you can hide out, Mr Jameson, for an hour or so while I talk to your wife?”
“Right. Sure. I think I might go for a walk.”
“That’s fine,” Malcolm said, swishing his hand as though the further away, the better.
Heath shuffled forward on the chair, readying himself to leave Jodie alone with the enemy, but she was clamping onto him so tight. So very tight. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.
“You’ll do fine,” he whispered against her ear, giving her every lick of confidence he could. “It’ll all be over before you know it.”
Heath had no choice but to pick up his unsteady legs and leave, hoping against hope Jodie’s determination would shine through.
An hour and a half later, Jodie found herself standing outside a French pastry shop in Acland Street staring blindly at the glass-fronted windows while Heath remained at the apartment answering Mr Cage’s list of much more sensible questions.
She knew his birth date. She knew his shoe size. She knew that he loved chocolate more than life itself but that he would never eat it just before bed for fear it would give him nightmares. What she hadn’t known was the moment she had fallen in love with him, until Malcolm Cage had forced her to look deep down inside herself to find out.
She loved Heath. Damn it! How had she let that happen? The stretch of time since it had occurred to her had tempered her original elation somewhat. Because it all came swimming back to her that when she loved, she loved with her heart and soul. She was ridiculously loyal to the point of putting her own interests so far down the list as to be non-existent.
And it was too soon in her project of emotional development to become so intrinsically linked with another person. It was just too soon.
She had spent so much of her life being told, “Oh, you’re Patricia Simpson’s daughter,” by her mother’s mad friends, by doctors, lawyers, social workers, that she had wondered whether she ought to officially change her name. Now this was her time to be just Jodie. Not someone’s girlfriend, or lover, or other half. A whole person by her own right. How could she do that by falling in love? Weren’t the two things mutually exclusive?
Her foot tapped against the pavement as a waitress slid a fresh, shining chocolate éclair from the back of the shelf. Her heart rate doubled as the éclair slid into a brown paper bag. And her saliva glands went into overdrive as someone else tucked the bag under their arm and paid a pittance for the pleasure they were about to imbibe.
Feeling all semblance of her will-power slip-sliding away, Jodie turned on her heel and headed on the long walk back to the apartment building, promising herself a cup of burning hot, black, unsweetened tea when she arrived.
CHAPTER TEN
THAT night, they drove back to Jamesons Run in virtual silence. Heath hummed along with the soft songs playing on the radio while Jodie revelled in the guilty pleasure of enjoying this little intimacy.
She didn’t want to talk about the interview with Malcolm Cage, and Heath made no move to either. It felt too soon. Too raw. Too fraught with the possibility that one or both of them had made some sort of glaring error that would lead to Jodie being hauled away in handcuffs. Or maybe it was the fact that things had been admitted, and, no matter how determined she was to live separately from Heath, those things were out there now.
They turned into the driveway, bumping over the now familiar cattle-grid, and Jodie felt a huge weight lift off her shoulders, as if all her trivial problems had been left back in the city. At Jamesons Run there would be no traffic jams, or road rage, or even crazy housemates coming and going at all hours of the night loaded with tequila or dodgy boyfriends or pointed questions about what the two of them got up to on the farm.
At the Run there was only peace, and quiet, and Heath.
Heath led her up the now-familiar front steps of his beautiful home, and Jodie’s heart felt abnormally light. He stopped to unlock the front door, and when he shot her a quick look his usually sparkling eyes were calm.
Jodie sent him a soft smile. He smiled back, that sexy, lopsided, just-the-one-crease smile that usually sent her untested heart racing. But after the strange day they’d had, it seemed her heart was ready for anything.
They walked in the front door, side by side, and into the lounge room to find a half-dozen pale yellow lamps glowing on every spare surface giving the large room a snug welcoming feeling and—
“Cameron!” Heath’s feet slammed to a halt as he looked from his brother to Jodie and back again. “What the heck are you doing here, mate?”
Cameron looked up from his seat on the couch, his eyes hollow. “Hey, Heath,” he said.
Heath saw the several slow seconds it took for Cameron to realise who Jodie was. Cameron stood, and Heath cringed when he saw how skinny his robust brother had become. Heath knew he had been avoiding his brother for far too long.
“You must be Jodie,” Cameron said. “Sorry to intrude. I thought I might pop by and have dinner or something.”
Pop by? Cameron lived two hours away by car. This was more than a pop by. It had been several weeks since the funeral, and wedding preparation had been a darned good excuse for not spending time with his mourning brother. There were too many issues that he really didn’t want to be thinking about, so he had gone about not thinking about them, or Cameron, to save himself the misery.
When had he become such a bastard? When had he become the sort of man to run from family the first time they really needed him? Not for money or advice, but for real help. Taking his own life by the scruff of the neck did not absolve him from taking part in his family’s lives.
“Heath,” Jodie whispered from somewhere behind him, her voice filled with uncertainty. His heart tore at the thought that even she, who had never met the guy, could see the pain in Cameron’s eyes. He held out a hand to her, halting her where she was.
“Where are the kids, Cam?” Heath asked, doing his all to keep his voice calm as he slowly eased their bags off his shoulder onto the lounge-room floor.
Cameron waved a hand in the direction of the front door. “With Elena. She insisted I not drive so I caught a cab. Cost more than I remember it used to cost. But I guess it’s been a few years since I lived out this way.”
Heath released a breath he didn’t even know he had been holding. Though he was obviously not himself, at least Cameron hadn’t done anything stupid with the girls.
Heath felt Jodie’s smal
l hand clasp gently around his forearm. “How about you stay here and have a chat while I get dinner started?” she said softly.
Heath nodded. “Thanks, Jodie. And sorry.”
Sorry my brother appeared and put a stop to … what? Something, that was for sure. Heath had known that when they got here the two of them would be finding themselves embroiled in something big. After their little chat with Malcolm Cage, Pandora’s box had been opened. But now he had to put the lid back on.
Jodie gave his arm a light squeeze, then headed into the lounge. “Sit down, Cameron. Please, don’t get up for me. I’m practically a sister now, though what you need with another when you have four already I have no idea.”
She put a hand on Cameron’s shoulder and gently pressed him back into the couch. He smiled up at her like a sick man who had been told his painkillers were on the way.
“How does steak and three veg sound?” she asked.
“Great,” Cameron said, his shoulders relaxing. “Perfect.”
“Right,” Jodie said, shooting Heath a look that told him to hurry up and take over. “I’ll make you both a nice strong pot of tea, English style, and then dinner will follow close on its heels.”
And then she was gone and Heath was left alone in the quiet room with his poor dear brother, and enough memories, guilt, and age-long recriminations to drown a grown man.
Once Jodie reached the kitchen, she leant against the sink, letting the cool of the metal ease her hot palms.
Poor Cameron. She barely knew the man but she could see he was in a bad way. All of the Jameson family were robust and strong, all tall, all ridiculously healthy, and all unfairly attractive. But at best Cameron looked terribly tattered around the edges.
Cameron. Heath’s brother. And Marissa’s husband.
The tension between the two of them was intense. And not new. Were his family aware of it? Did they know what it was all about? Because in the moment that Cameron had looked past Heath and seen her, she had understood it all.
