Heart Of The Outback, Volume 2

by Margaret Way

  “Derek,” Patricia warned, and Jodie bit her lip to stop herself. Patricia couldn’t help it. Her selfishness had been stoked for far too long to expect her to change now.

  “Patty, shush. Jodie is all grown up and married now, and it is obvious to us all that she misses her man something terrible. And since all we want is for her to be happy, we will do all we can to make it so.”

  “Sure. Of course, darling. That’s all we want.”

  Jodie gave Derek a grateful smile, which she managed to slide by Patricia. “Okay, thanks, Derek. I could do with a lie-down.”

  “And a cup of tea?”

  “Sure. That would be nice.”

  “And a piece of cake? It’s sugar-free.”

  She readied herself to say no as she had for so very many years. But at that moment, with all the sugar from her binge having been expelled from her system through nervous energy, a piece of cake sounded really nice. Even sugar-free cake.

  “Sure, Derek. A piece of cake would go down well.”

  Jodie shuffled her bags higher onto her shoulder and trudged down the hall to the spare room with its small, lumpy single bed. Derek had money for trips, but somehow this spare bed had never been upgraded. Priorities. His priorities were about making Patricia happy.

  Being here, in London, Jodie finally knew what her priorities were. Tomorrow she would ring the embassy, she would book herself a flight, and if she had to grapple with the flight attendant to get herself on that plane, she would.

  Appearances be damned, because she was a girl no longer displaced. She was a girl who wanted nothing more than to go home.

  Jodie was roused from her open-eyed rest on the lumpiest bed in the world when a knock came at the front door. Derek was taking a nap and Patricia was … well, Patricia, so Jodie dragged her weary bones from her bed and shuffled down the hall to answer it.

  Jodie opened the door to her mother’s humble flat to find …“Heath!”

  Her heart rocketed thunderously in her chest. Of all the people she would have expected to be face to face with in that moment, Heath would have ranked a few places below both Santa and Elvis.

  But there he was, decked out in jeans and a deep red jumper and an old brown leather jacket and a really old scarf that looked as though it had been in storage for a number of years. To cap off the bizarre picture of him wearing all his clothes at once, the rain pelted down in a sheet of molten silver at his back. Against such a perfectly English backdrop he looked even more tanned, even more gorgeous, and even more.

  “Heath,” she repeated as she stepped out onto the balcony and half closed the door behind her. “What are you doing here?”

  A wry grin creased his beautiful face. “Well, that’s not exactly the welcome I was hoping for. True, it’s the one I was expecting, but not the one I was hoping for.”

  Jodie just stared at him, still trying to reconcile the fact that he was there, in London, at her mother’s home, just a few hours after she herself had arrived.

  “Can I come in?” Heath asked, and only then did Jodie notice he was shivering.

  “Of course,” she said, reaching out and taking him by one wet arm and pulling him inside. She ran her hand up his arm and hooked her hand under the strap of his bag and slid it to a patch of floor against the wall.

  Heath shook his head, a spray of raindrops flickering the walls leaving his sun-streaked hair standing up in boyish spikes. He looked down at her then, and she noticed the dark smudges beneath his eyes. She would have put money on the fact that he’d had as little sleep since they’d parted as she had.

  “You have no idea how petrified I was to come home and find you not there, Jodie,” he said at long last, his deep voice rumbling in the small musty hallway.

  “I left you a note,” she said, but she knew that wouldn’t have been nearly enough. If she had been in his position, if she had come home to find him gone, she would have felt torn apart. And the fact that he was there, covered in raindrops, must mean that he had felt the very same way.

  “Mum needed me,” she explained again, redoubling the information she had put in her letter. “I had to come.”

  He reached out and ran a hand over her waves. “I know you did, sweetheart. I know how important your family is to you. I feel the same way about mine.”

  His hand moved down to cup her cheek, his skin feeling cool against her hot cheek. It was all she could do not to lean into him and purr.

  “But I hope you understand that I had to come too,” he said. And then he took a firm hold on her chin and bent down and laid a soft, warm kiss upon her lips, so that she could be in no doubt of his meaning. She leant into his kiss like a leaf turning to find the sun, and her eyes clenched shut tight as she gave in to the impossible sensation of having the man of her dreams back at her side.

  He pulled away first, just far enough so he could look into her eyes, and to make sure she was looking at him too.

  “After spending one night away, the boys on the Run couldn’t stand the sight of me moping. They insisted I go back home. When I got there, you were already gone. And there was your note, on the hall table where we had always left notes as kids.”

  “I rang Elena, desperate for a way to track you down. She suggested it.”

  “Really?” he asked, and Jodie heard the surprise in his voice.

  “I knew it,” she said, poking him in the chest. “You said she was happy about us, but you know she doesn’t like me.”

  “It’s not that she doesn’t like you, sweetheart. She was just afraid that in marrying you I would only end up hurt in the end. But if she told you about leaving a note on the table, I would suggest that maybe now she has come around to my way of thinking after all.”

  “You must have come awfully fast after getting the note,” she said, not quite sure how to ask the other question: Why did you come so quickly?

  “My brother Caleb works part-time on the phones for Qantas, so I rang him and insisted he get me on the next plane to London. He did, on the provision he could come with me. I left him at a hotel across the street from mine in …”

  Heath pulled out a receipt for a room at a sophisticated hotel in Kensington. Jodie knew it, had walked past once or twice but had never been inside. Not even to use the bathrooms, which she had heard were opulent enough themselves.

  “Who is it?” Patricia called out suddenly from the kitchenette.

  Jodie took Heath by the hand, needing his warm strength to get her through what could very well be a traumatic occurrence. He pulled back, spinning her until she faced him.

  “I’m really glad to see you, Jodie,” he said.

  “I’m glad to see you too,” she admitted.

  “Are you?”

  She swallowed down her fear of rejection, of not being good enough. He had taken a leap coming here, and now it was her turn to show him how much that meant to her.

  “The thought of not seeing you again, for a day, a week, for ever … That’s the one thing that almost stopped me from coming.”

  His beautiful blue eyes had grown dark and unfathomable, and she hoped she hadn’t scared him back to the other side of the world with the depth of her need for him. But he only squeezed her hand tighter still.

  “That was worth a twenty-hour flight in a seat that could barely fit a five-foot kid, much less six feet two inches of not terribly flexible grown man,” he said, his heartbreaking eyes lighting from within.

  Boy, did Jodie want to kiss him right then. Really kiss him. Throw herself into his arms and kiss him until she passed out.

  “Jodie!” Patricia called out. “Was anybody there?” Patricia, the one person in the world who would put a stop to her fun. Well, not this time.

  “Mum, I’m going out. I’ll be back later.” She grabbed Heath’s bag and dragged him out into the cold wet night.

  “Where are we going?” Heath asked, but he didn’t really much care. He was so happy to be with her again, she could take him wherever she pleased.

 
“To your hotel,” she said, pulling at his arm until he thought it might yank all the way off.

  When they reached the end of the balcony, and had hit the stairs running, Heath pulled her to a stop, spinning her until her back rested against the old red brick of the stairwell to find she was shivering from top to toe.

  Her jeans and fitted pink tracksuit top were perfect for inside a heated flat, but out in the wet December air she must have been freezing. Her nose was already pink, and her eyes bright with moisture from the cold.

  “What about your mum?” he asked, moving in just a little closer. He ached to wrap her up so tight she couldn’t feel any sensation of cold or wet. “Is she okay?”

  Her intense eyes dulled ever so slightly as she gave a small shrug. “She’s mad as a snake. And unfixable. She will continue to be that way with me there or without me there, so I have decided that I would rather be not there. I would rather be with you.”

  She lowered her fine chin, looking up at him from beneath auburn eyelashes, just in case he didn’t catch her drift. He caught it just fine. In fact certain parts of his anatomy were in absolute accord and willed him to just shut up and do as she said.

  But there were things that had to be sorted out first. Falling into bed, no matter how very satisfying that would be, wouldn’t solve things, wouldn’t straighten out the continual emotional messes the two of them kept landing in. Their one divine night together had only proved that.

  “Jodie, sweetheart. Stop. Just for a moment. We have plenty of time. A week at least. That’s how far ahead I am paid up at the hotel, but if you think you would prefer to spend more time there, with me, and the king-sized bed, and the Jacuzzi and room service, that would be fine by me too.”

  All signs of flirtation disappeared in a blink of her fine green eyes. “A week? At that hotel?”

  He nodded, taking her hands and drawing her a little closer again so he could rub some warmth into her now-shaking arms.

  “But Christmas is only a couple of days away.”

  “Tell me about it. I thought inner-city Melbourne hotel prices could be steep, but you try finding a decent hotel, with a honeymoon suite, in London, this close to the silly season.”

  Her wide eyes flickered back and forth between his as the words “honeymoon suite” sank in. And he couldn’t help but smile when he saw her tuck those words away to focus on other, less-confronting issues.

  “But what about your family?” she asked. “Elena told me that everyone is coming to the Run for Christmas.”

  He shrugged. “They always do. And no doubt they still will. But I won’t be there.” “But … what … how … why?”

  Unable to stop himself any longer, he pulled her hips away from the wall so he could fully wrap his arms around her small waist until he felt as if he were hugging himself. “Jodie, I plan on being with the most important member of my family for Christmas. You, my sweet, stubborn bride, are it.” “I am?”

  “Yes, wife, you are.”

  Heath lifted her left hand and kissed her knuckle just below her wedding ring. The ring with the intertwined flowers indicative of their very different beginnings. The ring that symbolised the union of their two very different sensibilities, personalities, and souls. The ring that he hoped so very much would remain on that pale, tapered finger until the end of time.

  “They’ll all hate me for taking you away from them,” she said, obviously still not quite believing what she was hearing. Well, he would just have to tell her again and again and again until he cracked through that time-hardened shell of self-doubt.

  “Sweetheart, they’ll love you for taking me away. For too many years I have been the cantankerous big brother working too hard, living out his life at the old family farm while they got on with making their own families.” “They’ll love me?” she said. “And they’re not the only ones.”

  “They’re not?”

  “Mmm. Mandy and Lisa are missing you like crazy. When I rang them to find your mum’s address and to tell them I was coming here to get you, they made sure I brought a tub of Vegemite for you.”

  “Vegemite? I hate Vegemite.”

  “Really? Okay, so maybe Mandy and Lisa don’t love you as much as they enjoy torturing you.”

  “Right.” She bit at her inner lip for a few seconds before bucking up and asking the one question Heath had been waiting for, counting on, needing, to push him over the edge once and for all. “Anyone else?”

  “Well, even your crazy mother loves you enough to want you home to celebrate her birthday. And Derek loved you enough to set you free in the first place.”

  “Mmm, I guess. Though I’m not sure I am ready to give them the benefit of the doubt as yet.”

  As they stared into one another’s eyes she began to shiver in earnest, her slight body trembling in his arms. He ran his hands up and down her back, and she let him do so without protest and he wondered whether she was really as cold as she was making out.

  “And there’s someone else,” he said, realising he didn’t care about her motives for snuggling up to him as he was enjoying the fact of it so very much. “I’m sure of it; I just can’t think who …”

  Unable to stand the waiting any longer, Jodie finally gave into her impatience and slapped him on the chest. “Spit it out, Heath, or I might divorce you and stay here after all.”

  “Oh, that’s right, it’s me. I love you.”

  And no matter how flippant the delivery of the words, the sparkling eyes and grin that accompanied them, Jodie was completely floored. Her hand went lax against his chest before curling tightly into a hunk of red wool.

  Heath loved her.

  No matter how hard her belted self-esteem and her niggling subconscious tried to find a way to twist his words, they could not.

  Heath loved her!

  And she loved him. So much her heart felt as if it were about to burst. Especially because she knew that her love for him didn’t take away any of the regard she had for herself—it was good for her, nurtured her, and made her a better person.

  “There’s more I need to say.”

  More than the fact that he loved her? Jodie wasn’t sure she could handle more.

  “A few weeks ago,” he began, “I had a scare when a close friend of mine passed away. I realised in that moment that my life was passing me by with no one to witness it. I had no particular someone to miss me when I’m gone. But since being with you, I have come to realise that it’s about having someone to share your life. I want you, Jodie, to share my life for evermore as I want to share yours. And I was kind of hoping you might feel the same way.”

  And she realised that, though the words had been living inside her, filling her, warming her for days, weeks even, she had never once said them out aloud. And rather than the thought incapacitating her, the words leapt to the tip of her tongue and onwards.

  “Heath, I love you so much it hurts. I love you so much I think of little else when you’re not with me. I love you so much that somehow in the back of my mind I believed that even by coming here and breaking the terms of my visa my love would be strong enough to keep us together.”

  “Yours and mine,” he said, sneaking in close enough to kiss her on the tip of her nose.

  “But what if I can’t go home?” she asked. Home. Jamesons Run—the place in the world where she felt more like herself than any other.

  Heath moved away, too far for her comfort, but only far enough to reach inside his jacket pocket. He pulled out a crumpled letter, which had been opened and returned to its envelope. She knew, without even looking at the return address, what it was.

  “My Temporary Spouse Visa,” she whispered.

  “Your Temporary Spouse Visa,” he said.

  “I got it?”

  “You got it.”

  “Oh. Oh, my. Oh, how wonderful. Oh, no! Didn’t Mr Cage say that I had to be in Australia when I received it? Don’t tell me how badly I have ruined everything!”

  “Well, if you shut up and le
t me get a word in for once I can tell you how badly you’ve ruined everything.”

  Jodie bit her lip and looked up into Heath’s beautiful blue eyes and wished with all her might that it weren’t irrevocably badly.

  “Since so many people back home love you so very much,” Heath said, “and even though you did your best to wreck your big chance, you haven’t even managed to ruin a thing. When I called Mandy, and explained what you had gone and done, she called Scott. And Scott called his pal Malcolm Cage. Any time you wish to come back into the country after our honeymoon is fine with the Australian Department of Immigration.”

  “Scott? Scott did this for us?”

  “That he did. For a funny little bloke, he sure came through for you in the end. He loves you in his own way too.”

  “Ha! Mandy can barely look him in the eye, but I always knew there was more to him than a fondness for mesh and leather,” she said, all but under her breath. And she knew she couldn’t wait to get back home to give the little guy a great big hug. But first she had another guy whom she wanted to hug and kiss a whole lot more.

  “Did you really say honeymoon suite?” she asked, tucking the letter back into Heath’s jacket.

  “With a Jacuzzi built for two.”

  “But didn’t you say Caleb is here too?”

  “Yep. In his own room, at a budget hotel across the street, which he is paying for out of his own pocket. I’ve decided that now I am a married man with marriage-type concerns of my own, my extended family might have to start looking out for themselves a little bit more.”

  “I like the sound of that very much,” she said, snuggling closer and closer, wrapping herself in his scent and the feel of his warm body so very close to hers.

  “Jodie?”

  Jodie fair leapt out of her skin when she saw her mother’s head poke around the corner of the staircase. “Mum! What are you doing here?”