No Ocean Deep

by Cate Swannell

  A rock and a piece of paper. Jo reached out and wrapped her open hand around Cadie’s fist.

  “Damn,” Cadie muttered. “Two out of three?” she asked hopefully.

  “Sorry, love.” Jo pulled her close and wrapped her up with long strong arms, then handed her the phone. “I’ll be right here with you.”

  Cadie crawled between the taller woman’s legs and nestled against Jo’s bulk. She sighed and took a deep breath.

  “Here goes,” she muttered, as she punched in the number for Naomi’s Washington apartment.

  It was 4 o’clock on Sunday afternoon in DC, and the Wizards were taking their usual beating. This time, though, it was at the hands of the Chicago Bulls, a situation that, for once, gave the senator from Illinois a modicum of pleasure. The Bulls were 11 points up with a quarter to play and Naomi was lounging in her recliner, a bowl of peanuts balanced on one arm, and a lukewarm beer in her other hand.

  “Pass the ball, you goddamn moron,” she growled, pinging a peanut at the large-screen television on the wall. “Jesus Christ, pass it!”

  Naomi was edgy. She had muttered and ranted to herself for most of her waking moments since she had tried to contact Cadie. Most of her day had been spent sitting near the phone, getting ready for her conversation with her wayward partner, going over and over what she would say in her mind. A casual observer would have taken in some very interesting facts about the politician. Her appearance, for one. She was disheveled, the casual clothes she wore weren’t particularly clean, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

  The luxurious apartment was a mess. Old newspapers, clothes and dirty dishes were dotted about and the senator’s chair was surrounded by little piles of more of the same. The maid usually came once a week, but after two weeks of trying to deal with Naomi’s crap and bad temper, she’d quit. Not that the senator had really noticed the chaos as her mind became more and more focused on just one thing.

  Cadie's going to come back to me, she brooded as the Bulls turned the ball over and gave up an easy lay-up. She drained the last of the warm beer, crumpled the can and dropped it on the floor to the side of the chair. She's going to come back to me, or... or...

  The truth was the senator didn’t yet have a plan for what she would do if words couldn't persuade her partner to come back home.

  But I will come up with something, she thought grimly. Because nobody walks out on me. And as for that goddamned Australian - nobody takes my property before I'm well and truly finished with it.

  The phone rang.

  Cadie bit her lip as she waited for the line to connect. Jo had her wrapped up safe and warm and she burrowed in closer, unwilling to brave this phone call alone. Electronic beeps echoed the numbers she had dialed and then there was one ring before the line was picked up.

  "Hello?"

  Damn, she must have been sitting on the phone, Cadie thought, instinctively wincing at the ragged sound to the senator's deep voice.

  "Hello Naomi," she answered quietly.

  "Arcadia." There was an awkward silence while both women waited for the other to start the conversation.

  "You asked me to call, urgently," Cadie eventually said, wanting to get this little chat over and done with. "Are you okay?"

  The senator snorted.

  "Of course I'm all right. I just want to know when you're coming home."

  Well, straight to the point then, Cadie thought wryly. She knew Jo was close enough to hear Naomi's half of the conversation and she looked up into concerned blue eyes.

  "I'll be flying back into Madison in about five weeks' time," she said cautiously. "There are a lot of loose ends I need to sort out with the agency and the bank accounts for the business. And I still have to go through all the stuff you sent from the Chicago house to Mom and Dad’s place."

  Stony silence from the other end of the connection.

  "Don't let her freak you out," Jo whispered against her right ear, and Cadie snuggled even closer.

  "When are you going to stop this nonsense?" came the low growl from Washington. "You can't honestly believe that you have a future with that Australian bitch."

  Cadie decided to ignore the insult to her lover, instead opting to push to the heart of the matter.

  "Leave Jo out of this, Naomi," she said quickly. "This has nothing to do with her and everything to do with you and me."

  "Bullshit," was the quick-fire response. "We were just fine until she interfered."

  Cadie sighed. This was a crucial point if Naomi was ever going to understand why she had left her. But she knew just how pig-headed the senator could be when it came to facing her responsibilities.

  "Naomi, listen to me," she said quietly. "I would have left you anyway." She let the statement hang out there, giving it a chance to sink into her ex-partner's brain. "I was thinking about it before we came to Australia, and the fact is, it was only a matter of time."

  More silence. Cadie felt Jo's arms tightening around her, followed by the soft touch of a reassuring kiss against her temple.

  "That's not true," Naomi finally said.

  "It is true. There was a lot wrong with our relationship before Jo came along, Naomi. And you need to understand that I am not your partner any more. I'm sorry if that hurts, and I'm sorry if it damages your career. But I can't squeeze myself back into that box you made for me. And I can't change how I feel about Jo, and how I don't feel about you anymore."

  Jo felt her lover shaking. It was the first time Cadie had managed to articulate her exact feelings to Naomi and Jo knew it was taking a lot of effort to keep herself together. Hang in there, love, she projected, squeezing the blonde a little tighter.

  Cadie waited for Naomi's response, wondering if any of this was sinking in. What she got was a complete surprise.

  "Come home. Please. I need you." The voice was raw and tired and contained a touch of something that Cadie didn’t think she'd ever heard before from the older woman.

  Jo winced and held her breath. There's a moment of truth buried in here somewhere, she thought. Naomi's playing the pity card. Let's hope Cadie sees it for what it is. She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against the blonde head.

  Cynthia Jones hadn't raised a fool for a daughter, but she had raised a tender heart and for several long seconds Cadie just absorbed the shock of hearing Naomi beg for anything.

  But then her brain kicked back into gear and she took a deep breath.

  "I'm sorry, Naomi, but I'm not buying it. You've never needed me for anything a maid or secretary couldn’t do just as well." She paused, wondering at the anger that was welling up in her. "It just took me far too long to see that."

  She could almost hear Naomi’s teeth grinding.

  “Is that your last word?”

  Cadie exhaled a long, slow breath.

  “Yes, it is.”

  There was a click, and then a disconnected signal. Cadie dropped the phone from her ear and tilted her head back to look up at Jo.

  “She hung up on me,” she murmured, not surprised by Naomi’s abrupt response to the conversation. Jo kissed her softly, comfortingly.

  “Blessing in disguise, sweetheart,” the taller woman said quietly. “She didn’t seem any saner than the last time I saw her.”

  “Mmmmmm,” Cadie said noncommittally. She preferred not to speculate too much on the state of her ex-partner’s state of mind.

  Naomi replaced the phone’s handset slowly and let her gaze wander back to the television, where the Bulls had surrendered their lead and were in the process of folding, like a cheap accordion, in the dying minutes of the game. For some reason it was that, rather than the last words of her partner which drove a wedge into the small crack in Naomi’s temper.

  She picked the phone up and hurled it at the screen, snarling as it bounced impotently off the glass.

  “How could you lose it, you incompetent MORONS!” she yelled. “How could you …” Frustration clenched and unclenched her fists, rage wanting to escape, but not knowing
how. “How could you … how could SHE LEAVE ME!!” she screamed at the ceiling. Her throat hurt.

  “Where’s the phone?” she muttered, the germ of an idea beginning to form in her mind. She slid out of the chair and scrabbled forwards on her knees, picking up the scattered pieces of the phone. Once they were reassembled, she dialed Toby and Jason’s number. It rang repeatedly. “Come on, come on, goddamn it.”

  “This is Toby,” came a breathless response eventually.

  “It’s me,” Naomi said bluntly. “Who do we know in Customs?”

  Chapter Three

  “So I guess it’s my turn, huh?” Jo said quietly as they continued to snuggle, the cell phone lying between them.

  “Well, it’s still pretty early,” Cadie replied, patting Jo’s chest comfortingly. “Maybe you should wait a little while yet.”

  Jo chuckled softly.

  “Honey, for one thing they’re an hour ahead of us, so it’s after 8am down there. And Dad will have been out in the paddock for about three hours already.” She glanced down at the blonde and kissed her softly. “They’ll be up and about, don’t worry.”

  “Okay,” Cadie replied. She let her eyes drift closed and just floated in the warm nest created by Jo’s arms. Then a thought occurred to her and she was very much awake again. “Jo-Jo?”

  “Mmmmmm?”

  “They do know you’re gay, right?”

  What a good question, the skipper thought glumly.

  “We’ve only ever talked about it once,” she replied. “And that wasn’t so much a talk as a shouting match.” She felt Cadie’s arms tighten around her. “I told them after Phil died,” she said. Cadie remembered Jo telling her about the childhood friend who had killed himself when his father found out he was gay. “Mum fell apart and Dad yelled an awful lot. And a month later I left home.” Jo swallowed around the lump in her throat. “So, to answer your question… they know that I thought I was gay when I was 17. Whether they think it was just something I grew out of or not, is a very good question.”

  Cadie felt the tension in the long body next to her and she slid her hand under Jo’s t-shirt. With gentle fingertips she began a soothing pattern of caresses across the firm stomach. The effect was almost immediate as her lover’s eyes closed and the tautness began to bleed away.

  “So I’m going to come as a bit of a shock, then,” she said, smiling as Jo’s eyes flew open and then focused intently on her.

  “They take us together or not at all, love,” Jo answered, setting her jaw stubbornly.

  Cadie smiled.

  “Thank you. But sweetheart it might not come to that. My guess is they’re going to be so glad to hear from you that they’re not gonna care too much who you show up with.”

  A fierce blue gaze held her and Cadie felt the tension returning to the muscles under her fingertips.

  “I want them to care, Cadie. You’re my partner. They’re going to accept you and treat you with respect or we’re going to be out of there.” Growing anxiety and belligerence washed off Jo in waves and Cadie knew she had to do something about it.

  Can’t let her call them when she’s feeling this uptight, she thought. Quickly she straddled her lover’s hips, placing her hands on the taller woman’s shoulders and leaning forward till they were just inches apart.

  “Jo, breathe,” she said gently. “Think about this from their perspective for a moment. How many times have they heard from you in the last 15 years?”

  Jo swallowed and tried to concentrate on the calm green eyes in front of her.

  “Five… maybe six times,” she muttered.

  “Okay… so basically, they don’t really know you at all, right?” Jo nodded slowly. “All they remember is the 17-year-old you were. So you’re starting with a clean slate in many ways. They haven’t got a clue what to expect.”

  “They have tendency to talk to me like I’m still 17,” Jo said. “And that’s the last thing I want.”

  Cadie cupped Jo’s cheek with her hand, soothing away the anxiety with a slow caress of her thumb.

  “So take things gently with them,” she said. “If you call them anticipating a confrontation, chances are you’ll get one.”

  That brought a wry smile from her lover.

  “Honey and vinegar, huh?”

  Cadie grinned.

  “Exactly.” She kissed the corner of Jo’s mouth teasingly. “And the bottom line is, sweetheart, you don’t know them any better than they know you. You could be in for a pleasant surprise.”

  Jo shrugged.

  “I doubt that, but I guess you’re right,” she replied. She sighed and picked the cell phone up, nibbling at her bottom lip nervously.

  “Want me to leave you alone for a bit?” Cadie asked.

  “No way,” Jo insisted quickly, drawing a grin from her lover. “I’m going to need cuddling, one way or another.”

  “I can do that,” Cadie said confidently. She slid back a little, then leaned forward till her cheek rested on Jo’s breast. “Go ahead, sweetheart, I’ll be right here.”

  Jo took a deep breath as she keyed through the cell phone’s directory listing until she came to her the entry for her parent’s home number.

  “Okay, here goes,” she muttered, pushing dial.

  Several rings later, Cadie stirred, lifting her head to look up at Jo.

  "They're not home?" she whispered.

  Jo smiled.

  "It's a big place sweetheart... ah, here we go."

  A breathless voice came on the other end of the line.

  "Hello?"

  Jo swallowed at the familiar, yet barely remembered tones.

  "Um, hi Mum," she said.

  There was a pause while Maggie digested those three words.

  "J-Jossandra? Oh, Josie, is that really you?"

  "Yeah, Mum, it's me," Jo replied, unaware of the tiny smile that touched the corners of her mouth. "Did I catch you away from the house?" she asked, desperate for any kind of small talk.

  "I was just down at the cottage changing the bed linen," Maggie said, trying to catch her breath. "Your father put up one of those bells on the outside of the house though, so I can hear the phone."

  Cadie watched, fascinated at the play of emotions across her lover's face as Jo and her mother felt their way through the first stages of the long overdue phone call. Suddenly Cadie could see the teenager in Jo's angular features.

  If she was standing up, she'd be shuffling her feet, Cadie thought with a smile. I'm glad she got up the courage to do this. She needs more family around her. The blonde snuggled close again, resting her cheek on Jo's breast as she listened to the conversation.

  "So how are things down on the farm, Mum?" Jo asked.

  "Oh not so bad, love. Not so bad." Jo could hear her mother dragging one of the wooden kitchen chairs across the floor and her exhalation as she sat down.

  I can see that kitchen, she thought wistfully. I bet it hasn’t changed a bit.

  "The drought's been pretty bad and money's a bit of worry, but there's nothing new in that," her mother said.

  Jo frowned. Maybe now I can start helping them with that, she thought.

  "How's Dad?" she asked.

  Maggie sighed.

  "He's all right," her mother said softly. "We're all getting older, though, Josie," she laughed, trying to make light of things. "He hired a new jackaroo a few months ago, and that's taken some of the load off him a bit."

  "That's good," Jo replied.

  "Tell me about you," Maggie said. "It's been forever since we talked. Are you still up in the islands?"

  "Yeah," Jo answered. "Quite a lot's happened lately, actually." She looked down into sparkling green eyes and grinned.

  "Oh really? Good things, I hope."

  "Some of them very good, yes," Jo said quietly. "Do you remember Ron Cheswick, the guy who owned the charter company?"

  "Oh yes," Maggie replied.

  "Well, he died about a month ago."

  "That doesn't sound like a good t
hing, love. I'm sorry to hear that."

  Cadie slid further up until she was tucked just under Jo's chin.

  "Yeah, he was a good bloke," Jo murmured, grateful to have the solid warmth of Cadie in her arms. "Um, the good news from that was that he left me the company."

  There was a gasp and another lengthy silence as her mother absorbed that news.

  "Josie, that's fantastic," Maggie finally responded. "What a great opportunity for you. That must be a dream come true."

  "So far, so good," Jo said. "Um, there's something else too," she ventured. "I've... um... met someone."

  Maggie was having trouble taking in the last few minutes. Hearing from her wandering daughter hard on the heels of her conversation with David the night before had been shock enough. But then to get more momentous news out of Jossandra in five minutes than she'd heard in five years was making her head reel.

  She pushed her grey hair off her face and tried to focus on what her daughter was saying.

  "You met someone?" Someone? What does that mean? Memories of arguments with the rebellious teenager Jo had been resurfaced and Maggie's heart started pounding. She's not that kid anymore. So don’t let those memories influence your response to her now. She’s an adult. Treat her like one, and accept what’s coming. "Someone special, love?"

  There was a pause and it occurred to Maggie that the 'someone special' might be in fairly close proximity. She smiled, suddenly delighted that her independent offspring had found love.

  "Yes, someone very special." Another pause. "She's right here, actually."

  Ahhh. Maggie closed her eyes and tried to still the doubts and fears that welled up. So it wasn’t just a phase. She spent half a second wrestling a generation’s worth of prejudice. I don’t care, she decided. Once she recognized the phone call for what it was – a real chance to get to know her daughter again – acceptance came easily. She’s my daughter and she’s talking to me, at last. And she’s happy, by the sound of it.