by Ros Baxter
‘Yes,’ Lou said, grabbing her bag. ‘Great idea. I’ll call Sharni.’
A couple of hours later, the news had begun to seep out. People made their way to the Queen’s Arms, slapping Gary on the back and kissing Lou; their treason was forgotten, they were forgiven. Clean Gas was gone.
Two glasses of wine under her belt, Lou was feeling warm and satisfied when Bo, Piper and Gage ambled in. Piper ran up to Lou, who was standing with Gary and a couple of council members. ‘Is it true?’ she cried.
Lou nodded and accepted the huge hug Piper thrust upon her. When she disentangled herself, Gage was standing in front of her. His arm was covered in dressings and his face was bruised, but apart from that, he looked perfect, although it was impossible to read what he was thinking as he stood stony-faced in front of her.
‘I heard you got out today,’ she said, kicking herself for making it sound like he’d been in jail. That’s what it’d felt like while she’d been trying to do the deal.
‘I heard you’ve been visiting,’ he said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Just not coming to say hi.’
‘I didn’t think you’d want to see me,’ she said, trying not to sound petulant. ‘Which is completely fair enough, of course,’ she added quickly.
Gage ran a hand through his hair. He was dressed in blue jeans, a white T-shirt and brown boots. His hair was so long it looked like it needed a ponytail and his eyes were so scrumptiously green they needed a warning label. ‘Louise Samuels,’ he sighed, giving her a wry smile. ‘I’m hard pressed to think of a time I didn’t want to see you. Even though you make me crazier than anyone I ever knew.’ Her tummy turned cartwheels as he moved closer to the bar. ‘Drink?’
‘I shouldn’t,’ she said, nursing the dregs of her second wine. ‘Bad things happen when I drink too much.’
‘Bad things?’ He was standing very close to her and the warm invitation in his voice took her back to the ladies’ at this very establishment.
‘Well, things, at least,’ she conceded.
He laughed that wicked, tummy-scraping laugh. ‘In that case, I’ll make it a double,’ he chuckled, looking at her glass. ‘Wine?’
‘Make it a vodka.’ She was going to need it to get through what she had to say to him.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Obviously those things you’re so worried about aren’t too bad then.’
She wanted to be able to laugh and smile and make light with him, but she couldn’t. Not while a hot brick of guilt sat heavy and judgemental inside her. She needed to unburden herself to him; tell him what she had done and why. Most of all, she needed to say sorry. ‘Will you come for a walk with me?’ she asked, raising her eyes shyly to his.
‘Why, Lou,’ he said, feigning shock with wide eyes, ‘I haven’t even had a drink yet. A guy needs a little romancing.’
Lou was getting flustered with all this flirting. He was supposed to be mad with her. She was supposed to be able to be contrite, apologise, tell him how she was feeling. ‘I …’ she began, staring down at the floor.
But when she looked up again, he was grinning at her and holding out his hand. ‘Let’s go out the front for a bit,’ he suggested. ‘Get some privacy.’
She nodded and followed him out, watching how his arse still looked outrageously fine in those blue jeans. Damn it, she was a complete goner when it came to this man.
When they emerged into the early evening, Gage gestured to the little picnic table set up on the grass out the front. ‘Private, but not too private,’ he suggested. ‘After all, I’m not sure you can be trusted. Even without the drink.’
She settled herself down opposite him, her heart shrivelling a little in her chest as she watched him wince as he sat.
‘Is it really true?’ His face was more serious now than it had been inside. ‘Clean Gas has gone? And there’s some deal being done that might save us all?’
Lou nodded. ‘It never should have to happen that way,’ she said, staring at the old table and starting to pick some peeling paint from it. ‘I should never have helped them get a foothold here. I …’ She flicked her gaze up to try to assess what Gage was making of this little speech, but his face was inscrutable as he watched her very closely. ‘I thought I knew how to make things right, for everyone. You see, there was a problem, with council, and –’
‘Lou,’ Gage interrupted, closing his hands over hers to still them at their picking. ‘I know. Sharni told me.’
‘She told you?’ Lou was shocked at the breach of confidence, but as she thought about it, she knew why she would have done it. Sharni was done with the walls between Lou and Gage. She only wanted them both to be happy.
Gage nodded. ‘Now don’t go getting all hot with her. It’s not like that. She came to visit me, in the hospital, and I … Well …’ Gage rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I have to say I was pretty sore with you. She just wanted me to understand.’
‘And? Do you?’ Lou dared not hope.
‘I think you’d do anything to protect your dad, and I think you have this overdeveloped sense of responsibility, for everyone really. Including this town, which I know has given you more than your fair share of grief.’ He looked at her, hard and hot. ‘Sometimes I try to understand why; why you’re like that.’ He shrugged. ‘And then I think maybe I don’t have to look so far. You said it, that night, twenty years ago. We’re the same, you and me. We never really got to be kids; we always had to take charge. So we still do it, all the time.’ He laughed. ‘I’m sure it makes Piper crazy.’
Lou’s skin was prickly with excitement. He wasn’t angry with her any more.
But then his eyes narrowed and his face shut down. ‘I may not act like it, Lou, but I really do get it. All of it. Including why you can’t stay here. You were right, what you said that night; if it was Piper, I’d never be able to come back here. I’d never forget.’ He released her hands and put his down on his lap, and she felt the loss like a new grief. ‘I guess we’re the same like that too.’ A change came over him again – his cheeks flushed and his hands returned to the table, one of them making a fist. ‘But damn it, Lou, I wish things were different. I wish you could stay here with me, or I wish I could go to wherever you are. I know we can’t, but I can’t help it. I’d sell my soul for a chance to see if we could work.’
His words brought tears to Lou’s eyes. She closed them quickly, not wanting to break down in front of him. It had been such an emotional week, Gage and Skye in hospital, Lou wondering if she could make things right with the town, wondering if he would ever forgive her. And now he was sitting here in front of her, the same Gage he had always been – so frank, so honest, so entirely open to her. Telling her how much he wanted her.
‘I’m staying,’ she said, in a quiet voice. ‘At least for a while, for Mum …’
‘You’re staying?’ He smiled at her then, a smile so wide and white and utterly brilliant she considered lying down on the picnic table and telling him to take her now. How did this man function with that kind of beauty? How did women not throw themselves on the street in front of him, every day, begging him to have his way with them?
‘I’m staying.’ Then she frowned a little. ‘For the time being,’ she amended. ‘While Mum –’
‘Of course,’ he said, looking like he was unable to wipe the grin from his face. Then the smile slipped a little. ‘But what about …?’
‘Hannah?’ The familiar needle of pain jabbed her as she said the name, but somehow it didn’t sting as badly as it usually did. She had been talking about her little sister a bit, over the last few days.
‘Wow,’ he breathed. ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard you say her name in twenty years.’
‘I need to say it a whole lot more,’ Lou said softly. ‘It’s time.’
He nodded. ‘I can help,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how, but I can help.’
She nodded back at him. ‘You help. You help, just by being,’ she said, this time not trying to blink back the tears that sprang to her eyes. Her sister. Her
beautiful little sister who had been so much more to her than a sister.
Gage squeezed her hand. ‘Oh, darlin’.’
She sniffed. ‘It might take some time. Until it feels okay.’
‘I know,’ he said, standing carefully and coming over to sit beside her and wrap his arms around her. ‘Fuck,’ he said, his nose buried in her hair. ‘I can’t believe it.’ He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, he smiled even wider. ‘You’re really real.’
His smile was contagious, and an answering smile of her own broke through the tears.
‘Get your bag, Louise Samuels,’ he said, standing and holding out a hand. ‘We’re getting out of here.’
Lou didn’t hesitate. She took his hand, and held it all the way back into the bar to retrieve her bag, heedless of the stares of almost everyone in the crowded room, especially from Piper and Sharni, who had been chatting with Bo and Gary as they entered and whose eyes were both standing out on stalks. Lou noticed Bo give Piper a none-too-subtle elbow in the ribs and she tried to assemble a casual face as they drew level.
‘Dad, can you get Pip home?’ Gage asked, looking like a man in a hurry. ‘Lou and I have some business to finalise.’
Bo nodded and grinned.
As Lou reached under the nearest bar stool and grabbed her bag, the mood of the little group changed. When she stood up, Matt was standing in their midst.
‘Evening, guys,’ he said, his mouth twisting into a bitter smile. ‘Celebrating something?’
Sharni was the quickest off the mark, her green eyes flashing as she gave him her sunniest smile. ‘We sure are, honey,’ she said, punching him affectionately on the arm. A little too hard, by the quick wince Lou noticed before Matt reapplied his happy face. ‘Lou and her father defeating the forces of darkness and Stone Mountain living to fight another day.’
‘Oh, Sharni,’ Matt chuckled, reaching over to chuck her under the chin. ‘You always were a total sap for this place.’
As he said the words, another body pressed into their circle: the warm, engaging Sergeant Mick Brooks. ‘Why, Sharni Pie,’ the cop said, ignoring everyone else and zeroing in. ‘If you do not look like an absolute goddess tonight.’
Piper giggled and blushed, Sharni beamed at him, and Matt scowled. Lou just stood there enjoying every second.
‘Well now, Sharni,’ Matt said, his voice dripping with fake goodwill. ‘Didn’t take you long to go and get yourself a new admirer.’ He turned to Mick. ‘You’re on a safe bet there, mate,’ he said, nudging him. ‘Y’know at school they called her Sharni Easy-as-Pie?’
Lou barely registered what happened next as Matt lay sprawled on the ground, a trickle of blood running from his nose, and a stream of very bad words running from his mouth.
Mick looked at Gage. ‘Why did you do that, brother?’ he lamented good-naturedly. He completely ignored the injured man on the ground and gestured to Sharni. ‘That was my job. Now I gotta find some other way to play the hero and get her attention.’
‘Sorry.’ Gage shrugged, smiling at him. ‘It’s been coming a long time. I thought I could safely call dibs.’
‘Fair cop,’ Mick sighed, bending down to pick Matt up. ‘Well, Ms Sharni, I wish I could stay and have a drink, but now I have to go and process this fool for disturbing the peace.’
‘Me?’ Matt was only half up and still looked very groggy. ‘I was just assaulted.’
Mick looked around at the little group, scratching his head. ‘Can’t say I saw that, buddy,’ he said, sounding genuinely regretful. He stepped back a little and called out loudly to the assembled patrons, ‘Anyone just see an assault?’
There was a loud chorus of disagreement.
‘Sorry, fella,’ Mick clucked, man-handling Matt out the door. ‘Looks like we just have to deal with the breach of peace.’ He turned back to the others. ‘Later.’
Matt protested loudly all the way out the door about the corrupt policing he’d been subjected to since he’d been back in Stone Mountain.
When he was gone, Sharni looked starstruck, Bo looked very pleased and Gage was rubbing his fist.
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Lou said, taking his hand to examine it. ‘He could have hit you back; and you’re just out of the hospital.’ She dropped his hand, satisfied there was no damage, and paused. ‘But I’m glad you did.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Sharni said, and the little group raised their glasses in a toast to Gage.
Lou and Gage were lying on a blanket under a stand of eucalypts on a slight rise at the northern end of the waterhole, looking at what felt like more stars than Lou had ever seen. Except maybe one other time, twenty years before.
Gage leaned down and kissed her, and the warm outdoorsy smell of him wrapped around her and filled her up. It was a light kiss – so fleeting and delicate she wasn’t sure it had really happened, and she was very sure she needed a whole lot more than that to sate the fire that was raging out of control across her skin. She placed her hands on his shoulders and made to pull him down to her.
‘Lou,’ he said, stopping her. ‘I want you to know, I know this doesn’t mean …’ He stopped, his face closing down. ‘I mean, I know this is just for now. I know you’re staying a while because of your mum, not –’
Lou put a finger to his lips. ‘No,’ she said, trying to communicate with her eyes what she felt even though it was so terribly hard to explain. ‘No, Gage, this isn’t about Skye. Yeah, I want to be with her, whatever time she has. But I want this too. I want you.’
He frowned. ‘I don’t know what that means,’ he said, rolling down to lie next to her and prop himself on one elbow, staring at her face. ‘I mean, I hear you. But what about Sydney, and –’
‘I don’t know,’ Lou said, wriggling onto her side so she could meet his eyes. ‘It seems the eco project here might need some support, in the early stages. And then … I don’t know. But I do know this.’ She leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to his mouth, as light and teasing as the one he had given her. ‘I’ll never run away from you again.’
And then she didn’t say anything more, because Gage kissed her so hard and long, and with such barely restrained ferocity, that the whole galaxy of stars above her head merged into one blaze of delicious light. He tasted like hay and maple syrup, smoky-sweet. And his lips melted every last piece of her into an elastic wire of pure desire, stretched so taut it might snap and recoil on them at any moment.
She met his fierceness with some pent-up need of her own, pressing her lips against his and running her tongue over his as he invaded her mouth. His insistent tongue made her weak and wanton and left her in no doubt about what he wanted to do to her. His hips pressed into her, and he was long and hard inside those tight jeans. She wriggled against him and tried not to think about how good it was going to be – how good it had been that day on the mountain. If she did, she might explode before they even got there.
She tore at his shirt, trying hard to be careful with a bandage that still decorated his chest, wondering momentarily if this was a good idea given his still-fragile state, before he growled at her to stop thinking and take her dress off. But her limbs were so molten she couldn’t compute how to manage the manoeuvre, so he clucked his tongue and whipped it over her head, flinging it as far away as he could manage. ‘Bugger off, evil thing,’ he shouted at it.
Now she was freed from the restriction of the dress, Gage turned things up another notch, trailing his tongue over every inch of exposed skin, before flirting with the edge of her blue silk bra. ‘I hate this,’ he said, pulling at it with an obstinate look on his face.
She smiled. ‘But it’s so pretty.’
‘I hate it,’ he repeated in a low growl.
Lou was so mad for him – so desperate to get to the place they were heading – that she reached her arms behind her and unhooked the bra, flinging it in the direction of the dress. Gage made it worth her while, lavishing sumptuous attention on first one breast then the other, trailing fingers dow
n to tease her through the matching blue silk underpants. ‘This is going to be nothing like the mountain,’ he whispered, fluttering kisses over her belly and shooting flames right through her. ‘Tonight I’m going to take my time with you.’
He skimmed fingers across the top of the underwear, pressing a little harder as they skated across that one delicious spot. But then his fingers would return to worrying at the elastic sides while making frustrated noises in the back of his throat.
‘Let me guess,’ she said finally, breathing out in a heavy whoosh as her frustrations at his pace boiled over. ‘You don’t like them either.’
‘Fast learner. And it’s not that I don’t like them. They’d be perfectly fine, hanging out over there with your dress and bra.’
Lou smiled an invitation at him, and he hooked long fingers into the elastic and whipped the knickers off. ‘Geronimo,’ he called as the underwear sailed over to meet its friends.
The cool mountain air danced on Lou’s skin as she lay naked before him. Gage was propped up on one elbow, taking her in.
‘Holy fuck,’ he breathed. ‘You just get better and better. How the hell did I manage this at seventeen without embarrassing myself?’
‘Pretty damn well as I recall.’ Lou smiled up at him, her love for him burning hot and hard in her chest as she looked at him, long dark hair falling over one eye, the line of his jaw set with determined focus. There was something so erotic about watching him admiring her, naked in the moonlight. ‘But …’ She gestured at his clothes. ‘You do know those are going to have to go, right?’
Gage stood quickly and discarded his jeans and shirt. She watched as he worked, revelling in the sight as his body was exposed to her, piece by piece. Goddamn if the man was not the finest thing she had ever seen. She had no idea how a guy like that had come to have feelings for a girl like her, but she wasn’t about to jinx it by asking the universe to explain. She was just going to lie here and be extremely glad he did.
