The Goodbye Ride

by Lily Malone

  “Granddad’s fine. He’s tough as old boots.”

  This time, Owen did reach for her arm. Leaning over the bench, he took her wrist lightly in one hand, plucked the camellia from her fingers and tucked it into the vase. His touch triggered thrills all over her skin and she had to lean into the bench with her thighs so her legs wouldn’t tremble.

  “Come for a ride on the Duke with me, Liv.” His voice was soft, husky, and his charcoal gaze held hers. “Now. Tonight. Get your stuff.”

  She stared at the polished surfaces of her mother’s kitchen, trying to remember where she’d left her handbag, phone, lipstick. Stuff. “What stuff?”

  “You’ve got a riding jacket? Leathers? A helmet? You can’t ride like that.”

  She looked down at the tracksuit. “Oh. Okay. Sure. Hang on. I’ll be quick.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Liv raced to her mother’s junk room. That too was immaculate. In the cupboard labelled ‘Olivia’, she dragged out leathers, gloves and helmet, before hurrying to her bedroom to rip off the tracksuit. She pulled on a singlet and a rolled-neck top, then the jacket—all black. The leathers were stiff. Either she’d put on a few pounds since she’d last worn them or they’d shrunk. The pants clung to her thighs like black to night.

  “Everything okay in there, Olivia?” Owen called.

  There was no time to change into her trusty jeans now, Liv thought, staring at the imposter in her mirror—at a girl with eyes too-bright and cheeks too-pink.

  “Live a little, Liv,” she hissed at her inner Catwoman, wrapping the pink scarf around her neck and snatching up the helmet before she could change her mind.

  When she emerged from the hall, she forgot her wish for jeans.

  Owen’s eyes lingered the length of her body, loitered on the return journey, and the wide sweep of his mouth broke into a lop-sided grin. He flicked the remote at the television, cut Graham Norton and the statuettes off mid-note, and returned to his slow appraisal.

  “Wow.”

  The blaze of pure male appreciation made her heart dive through her ribs with a single, ragged, thump.

  Liv tried to will the hot blush from her throat—hell—tried to will that blush from everywhere. Her core temperature must have climbed ten degrees.

  “You’ve been stuck on Antarctica too long. A penguin would look hot to you.”

  “No penguin I ever saw looked that good.”

  He pushed off the bench and moved close. So close she could smell the heady scent of leather and didn’t know if it was his, or hers. Saliva pooled on her tongue, rich with the taste of how much she wanted him.

  “God, Liv. If we don’t go for this ride right now…”

  “If we don’t go…” Her lips popped apart and she heard his muffled groan against her hair. She was so sure he’d draw her closer. She ached to be in his arms—but with one hand on her shoulder, he held her away.

  “I want that ride, Lovely. I’ve been thinking about how it would feel to have you pressed up against me all day.”

  Liv tilted her head back so she could see his eyes. “Luke used to call me that. Lovely. You’re the only other person who’s ever said it.”

  “It’s true. You put those beautiful eyes together with this stubborn little chin...” the hand on her shoulder moved and his finger grazed her jaw, brushed her lips: “and this mouth.”

  Owen’s hands, his words, they worked on her brain and her body like a drug and she felt her eyes start to drift closed, knew she swayed nearer.

  “Fresh air, Liv,” Owen said on a jagged breath. “That’s what we both need. Let’s go.” He took her hand and led her up her parents’ hall, then waited while she locked the door.

  The fresh air slapped them both sober. Freeway noise drifted over the town and the night was lush with dew and cuttingly cold. From the main street, music played. A Bon Jovi cover.

  Liv found her boots, pulled on her helmet and snapped the visor in place. Last, she tugged on her gloves. Owen mounted the Ducati and switched on the ignition. If she’d been worried about the neighbours earlier, she cringed doubly now—at this rate none of them would sleep for a week. Even on idle, that v-twin roar was loud.

  She swung her leg over the bike. The padded seat cushioned her thighs and she searched for the footrests, resting her hands lightly either side of Owen’s waist. Owen reached back and wrapped her arms around his waist until her tummy pressed hard into the small of his back and her breasts crushed his shoulder blades. Leather met leather. Thigh met thigh. Soft curves met hard, lean muscle.

  They accelerated into the night. Owen rode through the roundabout out to the Freeway and picked up speed up the long stretch of hill. Freight trucks crawled like bloated snails and the Ducati streamed past, houses and streetlights blurring behind them in orange and yellow ribbons.

  She’d forgotten how thrilling it was to ride a bike fast at night. She’d forgotten the rush, the roar; the vibrations that throbbed right through her.

  Liv moved when Owen moved. She leaned in and out of corners with him, concentrating on becoming one with him on the back of the bike.

  He took the exit at Eagle On The Hill, looped back on the bridge above the Freeway and made the bike climb to a dimly lit lookout. Below them, Adelaide’s lights winked like ten thousand stars.

  When he turned off the engine and they pulled off their helmets, it was as if the night held its breath. Even the silence was turbo-charged.

  “I don’t want to move.” Indeed, her lower body didn’t want to let him go. Somehow, she was sure his leathers had imprinted on hers.

  Laughter rumbled through his body. “Come on, Liv. You have to see this view.”

  Liv climbed from the bike. There was a stone retaining wall protecting a dizzying drop into thin air and Owen led her toward it. He had been a pace in front, but he turned to her, the expression on his face inscrutable.

  “Can I kiss you, Olivia?”

  She didn’t answer him. She wasn’t sure she could speak. Her eyes lit on his mouth. She took two paces toward him, the second faster than the first, lifted her face and fused her lips to his.

  All her pent-up joy from the wild ride went into that kiss.

  For long, delicious seconds, that single touch connected them. Then Owen’s hands cupped her jaw, her lips parted beneath his and he gave a sharp, guttural groan as she tasted his tongue.

  Whether she was the one to melt into him, or it was Owen who imposed his body on hers, Liv didn’t know. Nor did she care. His hands had gripped her arse by then, pulling her into the erection that strained between them. Her fingers wound in the short spikes of his hair, damp and tufted with sweat from his helmet.

  Where their bodies touched, leather slipped and held, gripped and slid.

  The kiss went on and on—two mouths fucking—and when Owen ended it, Liv touched her lips with her fingers. Plump they were. Swollen. And her mouth wasn’t the only part of her body that felt that way.

  “You are an unbelievable kisser,” she breathed.

  He chuckled in a deep, rumbling way that warmed her toes, and pulled her close, stroking her hair and tucking her head to his chest, holding her tight as their breathing quietened.

  Liv lifted her head, gazing out at the lights. “I wish we didn’t have a vineyard to finish pruning tomorrow. I could stay up here all night with this view.” And with you. As bold as the suit and his kiss made her feel, she wasn’t bold enough to say it aloud.

  “I could stay here all night with you,” Owen said, his certainty shredding the last of her defences.

  There was no longer any room in her head for doubt. Not tonight. She didn’t want to think about tomorrow.

  He tipped her mouth to his and pressed his lips to hers, less insistent than the first kiss but every bit as sweet, and somehow, more piercing.

  “At this rate, we might be staying here all night anyway,” he said, adjusting the bike leathers at his groin, his teeth a gleam of white in the night. “I can’t get on a bike rig
ht now.”

  Slipping her hands around his arse, pressing herself even closer, she giggled—a happy bubble of sound that flew from her lips.

  “Witch,” he groaned into her hair as her hips swayed against him. “That’s not helping.”

  “Don’t blame me. Blame the suit.”

  ****

  Aunt Margaret and Mark were both awake when Owen walked into his aunt’s house just after eleven. The slow combustion fires in the kitchen and lounge burned low and it felt like he’d walked into a furnace.

  He unzipped his jacket in the hall, yanked it off.

  “What? She kicked you out already?” Mark crowed when Owen was still three steps away from the lounge-room door.

  He reached the opening in time to see his aunt drop her Soduku to her lap, look up from where she half-filled her rocker, and wink at him. “Hi, Owen love. Had a good time?”

  His cousin grinned.

  “Jesus you two,” Owen said, shaking his head, but smiling anyway.

  “Sorry, love. We’re just interested, aren’t we, Mark?” Aunt Margaret had a big voice for a woman whose feet didn’t touch the floor.

  Mark held his palm up and called to Owen: “Mum will want to do a reading next, see what Olivia’s shine lines say.”

  Margaret slapped at Mark’s moon boot with her Soduku book.

  “Thanks to you carrying on about Vanessa being my girlfriend this arvo, I was lucky Liv even let me in her door.”

  “Ah. Sorry ’bout that, mate.” Mark didn’t look sorry at all.

  Aunt Margaret, playing peacemaker, changed the subject. “So how is Granddad? Is Nance coming up to see him?”

  Owen shrugged. “Mum said if she came up every time a nurse said Granddad had a turn, she’d be up and down from Mount Gambier like a yo-yo. You know how she is.”

  Even when he’d had to come up to Adelaide for the mediation session with the Parker family, Grace Carson cited the four-hour drive as two hours too far. His father hadn’t come either. Mack Carson didn’t think Owen had anything to apologise for. You shoulda hit the little shit harder. Broke the other elbow. Make sure as hell he never got up.

  “At least she’s consistent,” Margaret said, with a twist to her lip. “Least with my big sister you always know where you stand. I’ll go in to see him tomorrow morning. I rang a few hours ago and they said he’s settled now.”

  “Did Granddad like the bike?” Mark asked.

  “It was too late by the time I got there. I can show him the Duke when he’s feeling better.”

  “Not if you sell it to your little bit of fluff and go spend another season humping polar bears in the snow.”

  “Polar bears live in the Arctic, genius,” Owen said.

  “Penguins then.”

  Owen picked his glove out of his helmet and threw it at his cousin.

  “Steady on you two. You’ll break something.” Aunt Margaret crossed her legs in the chair, yoga style.

  Owen knew that look. His aunt had something weighing on her mind and it was about to be unloaded.

  “So the two of you got a lot done today, Owen?”

  “I guess so. Liv has one of those electronic pruners and she knows her way round with it.”

  “And you’re sure she doesn’t expect me to pay her for her time?”

  Mark interjected: “She is getting paid for her time, Mum. Owen’s giving her the bike, remember?”

  “Not giving it. She’s buying it,” Owen said.

  “For fifteen hundred bucks less than you paid.”

  “I don’t want people thinking I’m taking advantage,” his aunt said.

  “You’re not the one they’ll think is taking advantage,” Mark said, already ducking for cover.

  Owen threw the second leather glove harder and had the satisfaction of seeing it whack Mark in the back of the head. “Dickhead.”

  He pushed off the door frame and strode down the hall.

  “Owen?” Aunt Margaret called after him.

  He stopped. “Yeah?”

  “That human resource fellow from the employment agency rang again.”

  “Do I have to call him back?”

  “He said to tell you he needs an answer. They don’t have many places left.”

  “Okay. Ta.”

  He was sweating. Right now, a dose of ice and snow would feel good; Arctic, Antarctic, or otherwise. Owen dumped his jacket in the spare bedroom, stripped off his jeans, and headed for the shower.

  Under the water, questions filled his head.

  Am I taking advantage of Olivia?

  He ruled that out pretty quick.

  Should I do another season at Wilson?

  That was harder to answer.

  Last year the Parker family wanted him out of Mount Gambier. They said their son didn’t need to be reminded of the past every time he saw Owen at the supermarket, in the pub, or crossing the street.

  “Jayden wants to turn a new leaf,” Mrs Parker promised Owen at mediation, clutching a cup of black tea so forcefully, the skin under her arms trembled.

  “He’s a good kid. He never meant to hurt Old Pop Carson—he was tripping out. He’d been hanging out with the wrong crowd…”

  Owen turned and let water rain on his back. He’d heard all those excuses before. He’d heard them first-hand the night he’d tracked Jayden Parker to that flea-pit rental on the west side of Gambier and broken the kid’s elbow with a baseball bat.

  “I didn’t mean it, man. I was tripping off my fucking dial. I’m sorry. I’m fucking sorry, okay?”

  When he wasn’t the one brandishing the weapon, Parker crumpled faster than a paper bag, tears mixed with the snot clogging his face.

  Owen twisted the cold water tap further to the right and dunked his head beneath the spray.

  He’d got about as far out of Mount Gambier as it was possible to get on account of Jayden Parker last year, and he was in no real hurry to do it again. Right now, spending time in the Adelaide Hills seemed like a pretty damn good idea.

  Spending time with Liv.

  Chapter 7

  When the radio buzzed at six-thirty Sunday morning Liv was already awake, trying to determine whether her ride with Owen—that scorching kiss—had been real or a dream. Finally, she rolled to the side, batted at the sleep button and, when she couldn’t delay the moment any longer, opened her eyes.

  Riding leathers darkened the only chair in the room and at the sight of them, a sweet little thrill sailed through her ribs. Real.

  She dressed with a smile on her face.

  The camellias had dropped more petals on the kitchen bench and Liv herded them into a dustpan and tapped them into the bin. After a cup of tea and two slices of toast with marmalade, she tackled the cup and plate slopes of Dish Mountain. An hour later, she shut and locked the front door behind her.

  Clear skies had held during the night. The air felt washed clean, the sky a bright foaming blue, and a layer of frost sprinkled the garden like icing sugar. Even the radio Gods were in on the winter wonderland gig—U2’s song A Beautiful Day burst from the speakers and Liv sang as she drove out Old Balhannah Road, drumming the steering wheel with her thumbs.

  Three days she’d known Owen. Three of the most exciting days in her life.

  As she turned into the driveway, she wished she dared ask Owen whether he intended to stay around. But sometimes, not knowing an answer was better than hearing an answer you didn’t want.

  That’s philosophical for you, Liv.

  Owen was waiting near the shed, absently rubbing the head and ears of the Border Collie on his boot. Lucky dog. The other dog chased her tail in the long grass off to the side.

  “Morning, Lovely,” he called, as she switched off the engine then emerged from the car.

  “Hi.” It was almost a whisper, so clogged did that single syllable feel in her throat. She tried it again, louder. “Hi.”

  Owen jiggled his canine companion from his toe and met Liv halfway across the space, planting a fast, but fierce kiss
on her mouth before he lifted his head and his eyes swept her up and down. “You look just as hot in denim.”

  Her hand closed around the smooth muscle of his bicep and the part of her brain coherent enough for thought registered that once again he wore a tee-shirt on a five-degree morning.

  “Cool it, you guys! You’ll put me off my Weet-bix.”

  Liv’s head snapped toward the house where Mark limped out of the front door. A small, beaming woman with a face of happy wrinkles followed close behind.

  “Come and meet my aunt,” Owen said, looping his arm around Liv’s shoulders, covering her in his blanket of sunshine.

  ****

  A woman’s strangled scream of pain cut across the hypnotic snip of secateurs and a horror movie of severed fingers, stitches and hospitals, flashed through Liv’s head.

  “What?”

  From out to her right, Owen echoed her call: “What’s happened, Aunt M?”

  Two rows over from Liv, Owen’s aunt stood bent double, wringing her hands. “I’ve been stung by a bee.”

  Compared to a severed thumb, that didn’t sound so bad.

  “You what?” Owen demanded, louder this time.

  “It’s a bee. It’s a bloody bee,” she wailed. “I’m allergic, Owen. I swell up like a balloon. Please, love, I’ve got anti-histamines up at the house. Mark knows where they are.”

  “You don’t stop breathing or anything do you?” Owen called, hanging secateurs and loppers over the trellis wire.

  “Just hurry,” his aunt waved her hand at him. “The doctor said I have to take the anti-histamines quick.”

  “Shit, hold on then. Look after her, Liv.” Owen set off for the cottage at a flat-out run.

  Liv shrugged out of the Felco pack and laid the pruner at her feet. “What can I do?”

  “Just come here, love, please. Make sure I don’t faint.”

  Faint? Liv’s nonchalance fast dissolved.

  Squeezing through a hole under the canopy, dodging over black plastic irrigation pipe so she didn’t trip and land flat on her face, she tried to remember what first aid she knew for anaphylactic shock. “Make sure you flick out the sting, Margaret. Don’t pinch it or you’ll only inject more poison.” Big help.