Winds of Change (Hearts of the Outback Book 4)

by Susanne Bellamy

  When the water was deep enough to cover most of her body, she turned off the taps and stepped in. Closing her eyes, she slid under the water up to her shoulders and let the music soothe her.

  Her thoughts drifted with the changing songs until Willa realised her bath water was cool and her fingers were like prunes. She pushed to her feet and reached for a towel.

  What had broken into her thoughts? Was it her phone?

  She dried her hands, reached for her mobile, stopped the music then checked for missed calls. A text had arrived from her parents. A sigh of relief escaped as she read:

  Maureen stable. Staying in Mackay for a few days. Love you. Mum xx

  With the towel wrapped around her Willa collected the wine glass, bottle, and her phone and stepped over her discarded clothes. Her stomach was protesting the eight-hour gap since lunch in the mess tent. Tidying up could wait.

  The first thing she spotted in the pantry was a packet of pasta. Quickly she threw together a sauce with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and a splash of wine. Mum wouldn’t be here to share the rest of the bottle, and Willa doubted she’d feel like drinking alone.

  While the sauce simmered, she pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and a soft T-shirt and took her script into the kitchen. As she stirred the sauce she read over the next day’s scene.

  Action scenes usually gave her a buzz, especially when she did her own stunts, but tomorrow’s shoot revolved around an attack on the enemy base. Skimming the pages, she sighed. Guns—explosions—fire—more guns. In her LA series, she never had to handle a gun. Being the team leader there meant mainly office, or cafés and bar scenes and lots of views of the Pacific Ocean. If Charlie hadn’t coaxed her with the promise of time to spend with her parents, she doubted she’d have accepted the role of Jackie Ronson.

  She flipped through the scene a second time and sighed. Prop guns and numerous close-up shots were scheduled in the morning. And that meant Jax would be working with the cast. Avoiding him would take a degree of ingenuity she didn’t feel up to planning tonight.

  The timer pinged, drawing her attention back to her empty stomach. She tasted the sauce, drained the pasta, and tipped the lot into an oversized bowl. Stifling a yawn she figured if she was very lucky she might finish it before she fell asleep.

  Carrying her dinner into the lounge, she turned off lights as she passed and flicked on the television. A travel and cooking show filmed in Vietnam was part way through. Forking up mouthfuls of tomato and mushroom pasta, she watched with bleary eyes, too tired and emotionally drained to bother with switching channels.

  The show ended, Willa stabbed the last piece of pasta and dropped the fork into the bowl. She put it on the side table, and stretched her arms high above her head.

  Through the sliding door, a flicker of movement outside caught her eye and she froze in mid-stretch.

  A bush. It’s just a branch moving in the breeze.

  Except the night was still.

  After Sarah’s accident and the theories tossed around by the men, Willa’s imagination fired up. Was that sound a creaking board under the foot of an attacker? If she were the intended target, catching her home alone without her bodyguard would offer easy opportunity.

  She reached for her phone, but it was still on the kitchen bench.

  As casually as possible, she picked up her empty bowl and left the lounge room, thankful she’d turned off the kitchen lights. If anyone was outside watching her, she now had the advantage. Tiptoeing into the kitchen, she set the bowl on the nearest bench and felt her way to the sink.

  Slick with sauce, her mother’s heavy saucepan rested on the draining board. Willa wrapped both hands around the handle and hefted it shoulder high. In the absence of a golf club or a baseball bat, it was a reasonable weapon.

  Unless the intruder had a gun, in which case—

  Willa’s heart thudded so hard she barely heard the scrape of the sliding doors over the pounding in her ears. Where was her phone? One shaking hand patted the bench, knowing she’d left it there but coming up short.

  Should she bolt through the back door and run to the neighbour’s home or would she run into the intruder?

  A soft footfall sounded from the tiled hallway. Willa edged along the wall, and raised the saucepan high. Holding her breath, she waited, cursing her poor night vision.

  “Put it down, Willa. It’s me, Jax.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Jax turned on the light and removed the saucepan from Willa’s white-knuckled grip. Finding the sliding door unlocked and Willa apparently asleep in the armchair, he’d been firing up to deliver a scathing comment about poor security.

  But her pale face and wide eyes stopped him in his tracks. “Are you okay?”

  “What the hell do you mean breaking into my house like that?” Her breathing was shaky and she sounded on edge. “I could have killed you.”

  “With pasta sauce? Your cooking isn’t that bad.” He picked up a blob of sauce from her shoulder and licked his fingers. “Mmm, pretty good, actually. Pity you’ve eaten it all.”

  “Jackson Heathwood, you scared the shit out of me. It’s not funny.” She thumped his chest.

  A hint of colour was returning to her cheeks before she turned her back on him and began filling the sink with water and dirty plates.

  He hadn’t meant to frighten her but the message in the note had worried him. He considered Caleb’s request to keep her ignorant of its existence sensible; why add to her concerns with the vague threat it contained? But after she’d put obstacles in his way all day, he’d begun to reconsider if ignorance was wise. Especially after she’d given him the slip and driven off with Laurie.

  “Security issues are my concern. When were you going to tell me your parents are away?”

  She turned her head and glared at him. “How did you know they’re gone?”

  “It could be that their car is missing from the carport. Or it might be the text your mother sent me fifteen minutes ago.”

  Willa’s eyes grew wide. “Mum texted you? Why?”

  “Because she’s worried about you. When Caleb’s mother rang and told her about Sarah’s accident, she put two and two together and messaged me to keep you safe.” He’d maintained a good relationship with Willa’s mother over the years. She kept him up to date on key events in Willa’s life. If Willa had her way, he’d never have known her parents were in Mackay.

  “She had no right to involve you. As if I’m a child who can’t be left to fend for herself.”

  Stiff shoulders and a dismissive sniff decided him.

  “Willa, look at me.”

  Water sloshed over the edge of the sink as she scrubbed the saucepan, her back determinedly shutting him out.

  He moved in behind her and slid his hands down her arms and pulled the plug.

  “What are you doing? Go away, you arrogant b—”

  He turned her to face him. Wet hands landed on his chest and she thumped him again. But now, with the counter behind, she couldn’t escape, no matter how much she pushed.

  “Damn it, Willa, for once in your life, listen to me.”

  She stopped pushing but her hands stayed on his chest as she tipped her head back to look him in the eye. “If I let you talk now will you leave me alone?”

  Not a snowflake’s chance, babe.

  “I’ll let you decide after you hear me out.”

  Now that she’d stopped trying to escape, he considered how to break the news gently. Unusually for him, he hadn’t prepared for this eventuality and the words wouldn’t come.

  There was no easy way, not when her life might be at risk.

  “Brodie got an anonymous note threatening to harm you.”

  “What?” For the second time that night, Willa paled. Her mouth opened and closed but words failed her.

  “Detective Richards was against telling you. So was I at first.”

  In his arms, she stiffened. “Didn’t you think I had a right to know someone wants me—out of the way?”r />
  “I’ve told you now. And the note doesn’t say that.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It implies that someone wants to halt production and is threatening to harm you to achieve that end. Do you see now why I have to stay close?”

  Willa bent her head, and the subtle fragrance of pine warmed by her skin filled his senses. She was beautiful and frightened, and suddenly Jax wanted to keep her a whole lot closer than standing toe-to-toe allowed. As close as those nights they had camped out under the stars down by the river. When skin to skin had given all the warmth they needed.

  He cupped her cheek, marvelling at how soft she was, and the flare of heat beneath his palm.

  Then Willa looked up with her lustrous eyes. “Stay with me, Jax.”

  He drew in a deep breath and held it, wanting to hold onto this moment forever. Was she thinking of how good they’d been together too?

  “Two minutes ago you couldn’t wait to be rid of me. Will you do what I tell you, when I tell you to?”

  She nodded. “If you’ll do one thing for me.”

  Her voice was husky.

  “Sure.”

  “Tell me, why did you leave me behind?”

  Whatever Willa had expected, it wasn’t the frown that furrowed Jax’s forehead, or the anger in his eyes. He let her go and leaned against the refrigerator, folding his arms across his chest. His biceps bulged and he seemed bigger and angrier than when he’d been conscripted to work on the film with her.

  “What did you expect me to do?” Beneath his words, she sensed darkness and a whole sea of regret. Was he sorry he’d left her behind?

  “I expected you to pick me up at the bus stop like we arranged. I was all ready to leave with you, Jax. I was prepared to give up my dreams for you because I loved you. More than life itself.”

  “You had a funny way of showing it.”

  “I don’t understand you. You’re talking in riddles.”

  “Your note was perfectly clear. Tell me, what part did I misinterpret?”

  “What note?”

  Jax’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared, a sure sign he was working to control his temper. Teaching Jax techniques of breathing and focus learned in her high school drama course had helped him overcome his anger and a small part of her noted how well he applied those lessons now. In some ways, they had been such opposites; he needed self-discipline and she needed to relax and kick back. Precious gifts they’d given each other.

  “I never sent you a note, Jax. I turned up before sunrise and waited for you. For over an hour I waited and when my father drove up, I realised you’d never intended to take me with you.”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t remember slipping it under my door. I never figured you for a coward but that note was the pits. You couldn’t even tell me to my face that I wasn’t good enough. What was that summer to you? Slumming it with the biker boy?”

  Slumming it? A tenuous memory stirred and she tried to catch it, even while her anger with Jax threatened to boil over.

  “How dare you belittle what we had? You were everything to me. I didn’t care what you were but I knew you could be anything you wanted. I believed in you and—” Wanting to lash out and hurt him as he had hurt her, she settled for poking his chest. He was the only person who could drive her to lose control, although back when they were going out, it had been in other ways. Ways that memory would never dim.

  An elusive memory slipped through her mind again. It was important, if only she could remember why.

  Focus. What did he say that set me off?

  Pressing a hand to her head she tried to pin it down. “Slumming it? Why did you say that?”

  “I didn’t. They were your father’s words.”

  As though a curtain was ripped away, she was taken back to their last day. And that barbeque. Her dad waving the tongs in the air as he told Willa to go inside the house and gave Jax his marching orders.

  A terrible, overwhelming sense of loss threatened to swamp Willa. Could it be? “What did the note say?”

  “That following your dream was more important than me and you wouldn’t be leaving town with me. I think that sums it up.”

  She shook her head. “I wrote nothing. How could you believe—”

  “Your words, Willa. Following your dream was what you told everyone you were doing.”

  Drawn by the strength of that memory, Willa walked to the French doors leading onto the back yard. She pressed her hands and nose against the panes and peered into the darkness, seeing in her mind that last afternoon playing out before her like a reel from a movie. The movie of her life.

  She slowed the speed and watched her father telling Jax to leave, saw herself racing through the house to catch him as he stormed down the driveway. And her mother following and hugging her and remarking on a blob of onion inside the front door.

  Why had she never thought about her mother’s odd comment until now?

  “How did my father know I’d be at that bus stop? Why did he turn up at six a.m.? He should have still been on night shift at the mine.”

  “Willa? Are you telling me you think your father had something to do with that note?” Jax’s hands fisted at his sides and tension thrummed through him as he stopped beside her.

  “I never wrote you a note, Jax. But somebody who wanted to keep us apart did.”

  And that betrayal was the deepest cut of all.

  Jax had been an angry young man when they started dating but it wasn’t a patch on the anger building in him now. For ten years it had simmered deep inside, unresolved, driving him to excel and prove Willa’s father wrong. Prove her wrong for dumping him.

  But she hadn’t.

  “Ten years, Willa. He stole ten years from us.”

  “You don’t know that. Not for sure.”

  “But I think you do.”

  She turned to him, eyes glistening with tears. Where was her anger? Didn’t she feel it throbbing through her as it did through him?

  “He’s my father. If he did write that note, it was for love of me.”

  “You call that love?”

  “Does it matter any more?”

  “How can you say that? We had something special together. We had plans.”

  “You had plans, Jax, and they didn’t allow for me to pursue mine, but I would have given them up for you. Now—” She raised her shoulders. It wasn’t a shrug exactly. More like a giving up. In all the time Jax had known Willa, he’d never seen her defeated by anything.

  She shook her head and folded her arms over her stomach. “We’ve both moved on with our lives. We’re different people.”

  “Not different. We’ve matured, and maybe we have a clearer idea of what we want from life. Willa—”

  “Don’t say it. Don’t even think it.”

  “You don’t know what I was going to say.”

  She arched an eyebrow and his heart sank. He’d never been good at hiding his feelings from Willa.

  “Two things, Jax. One, I’m an actress. I read body language at professor level these days.”

  “You were good at it before. So, what do you think you read in mine?”

  “Hope. The same as when you told me you’d been accepted into the army and asked me to go with you.”

  Hope for what? That they could start over? Had she really picked up on that tiny kernel he was barely aware of himself?

  “And two?”

  “Us together—why would you think it could work any better now than when we were young?”

  “We could try.”

  “And when you’ve recovered from whatever injury caused you to limp sometimes and yes, I’ve noticed that, and I’ve finished making the miniseries, what then? I have a career that will take me back to the States and I can’t see you giving up your career to follow me. Can you, Jax?”

  There it was in a nutshell. Beneath her creative side, Willa had always been a realist. She cut through to the heart of problems and offered solutions while he reacted firs
t and thought about it afterwards. The army had taught him to control that tendency but Willa was right. Their lives were too different, on two distant continents.

  But they had now, if Willa would accept it. It would never be enough but they could part with better memories than last time.

  “One more thing, Jax.”

  How to ask her? “What?”

  “Kiss me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sunlight woke Willa, slanting across her closed eyes like a red veil. Familiar warmth against her back and the weight of a muscular arm across her waist brought a smile to her face. How long was it since she’d let go of her self-control and just lived? Happiness filled her and she wriggled around to face Jax.

  In repose, the faint lines around his eyes disappeared but his face had become more angular, chiselled into hard planes by experiences she couldn’t begin to guess at. And his lips—dear God, what he had done with them last night.

  Longing to repeat the experience, she willed him to wake.

  Light as a butterfly, she ran a finger down the ridge of his nose—and yelped as he took her finger between his strong white teeth.

  “You were foxing.”

  “What did you expect, wriggling your bum against me like that?”

  “Was I?” She’d loved paying the forfeit Jax had demanded when they were young. Teasing him until his efforts at self-control snapped and he made love to her again.

  “Hmm, so you still like playing games, do you?”

  And before she could react, he rolled her onto her back and held both arms above her head with one of his. “If I remember rightly you used to be ticklish right about—here.”

  His free hand went unerringly to a spot just south of her belly button filled with more nerve endings than she believed could exist in one place.

  “No, Jax, don’t, stop, please!”