“He’ll find me.” She knew that as a fact. There was only one question in her mind. “Can I kill my own son?” Killing his father had been easy. She still remembered the wild sense of relief when she saw his lifeless body at her feet. There was no regret or remorse. He was dead. She was alive.
She had won. Frances looked into the dark eyes of the baby boy she held in her arms. “When it comes to kill or be killed, young William, you have to do what you can to survive.”
Chapter Seven
They had been driving for about an hour and a half before Denby decided to talk to Sirius. It had taken a while for her to make up her mind to do so. Not talking to him indicated she might have been scared to deal with him. She didn’t want Sirius thinking she was intimidated by him or that she was being childish. While she wasn’t happy how they parted, Denby had to make herself get over it because they were over. She had accepted that as a fact. Problem was, she still didn’t like or agree with the Committee and she was having a hard time believing Sirius was no longer part of it. To be a part of something so ravenous in venting their spleen against women had to have changed him.
Did it make him a better man who’d seen the error of his ways as he wanted her to believe, or was he a deceptive man with a hidden agenda of his own?
“So why do you hate women?” May as well put it out there. Denby wasn’t looking for an argument. She just wanted to know who this man was. Once, she had thought him sweet and loving.
But his relationship with her father had kicked that to pieces.
Sirius glanced at her for a moment before looking back at the road. “I don’t hate women.”
“Any man who joins the Jacobson losers hates women.” That was probably the thing that had wounded her the most. He stood with a group of men who were trying to erode the rights of women.
He sighed. “It’s a long story, Denby.”
“It’s a long trip, Rabid. ” Yes, she had said the Committee was rabid but it was the last name she would have called him despite how they parted. In the time she had known him he had always been sweet, even tempered and in control without being dominating. She liked that in a man. That he had taken ‘Rabid’ as a name surprised her. The Committee was rabid. That he was found to have been on it was more confusing than anything. Him taking that name? Extra confusing knowing her words had scored him so deeply.
“My name is Sirius. You know that Denby. If you’re trying to get a rise out of me call me
‘spunky’ like you used to.” He grinned. “You made all sorts of things rise when you used that word.”
She felt the heat rush to her face as she remembered those moments. Damn it. Only Sirius could make her blush. Denby needed to get back on to the subject. “If you’re not up to the truth….” She let her words trail off, waiting his response. She settled back in the lime green and black of the leather upholstered seat. Denby had to admit he had great taste when it came to stealing a car. The 1971 midnight blue, Mustang Flashback he had procured was all luxury with ass kicking muscle.
“Where did you get this?”
“I know people.”
“People with excellent taste.”
“You like it.”
“It’s okay.”
“Liar.”
“That makes two of us then.”
“You’ve changed,” Sirius observed as he overtook another car on the Bruce Highway. They had just cleared the traffic of Brisbane and were cruising along the main route to Cairns.
Denby knew she had. Life had made her ratty, harder and less likely to believe anyone, more so after what happened with Sirius. She’d trusted him like no other. Her already shaky faith had taken a major hit with his betrayal. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You used to be sweeter.”
She crossed one leg over the other and toyed with the seatbelt. “I was never sweet.”
“To me you were.”
Yeah, well, maybe. All her defenses had come down with him. She had enjoyed being with Sirius. But that had changed as all things do. “Well, life isn’t sweet.”
They rode in silence for a while. “I don’t hate women and I don’t hate you, Denby.” He sighed, his hands clenching the wheel. “I was just very, very angry at someone.”
Very, very. Denby couldn’t recall Sirius ever being angry with her. But then, they had only been together a short time. What do I really know about this man? Sex often blinded people to another’s faults because the moment of coming together blinded you to anything else. She could almost feel the sudden rush of tension in his body. “An ex-lover?” Only one of them could make you angrier than a fire ant.
“Yes.”
Denby waited for him to elaborate but Sirius was silent. “Did she cut the crotch out of your pants?”
“What?” He barked out a sudden laugh.
She remembered how Sirius had the best laugh. “She slept with your best friend?”
“No.”
“Played with a man tool like your favorite drill and broke it? Dented your car? Washed your white shirt with her red undies?” What had the woman done that made his knuckles go so white?
He chuckled. “Where do you come up with this stuff?”
Denby shrugged. “I’ve been around. I’ve seen stuff. So what did she do?”
“She aborted our baby.”
Her jaw dropped. It was the last thing Denby expected to hear. “She did what? ”
He glanced at her. “Yeah, it cut me pretty deep and I went a little crazy.”
“Did you know she was pregnant?” She had the irrational urge to hunt down that woman and beat her up for hurting her man. I mean him. He’s not mine.
“No.”
“Bitch.” There were other words Denby could have applied but it wouldn’t change the situation or make this man feel better. No wonder he was angry. While Denby wasn’t against abortion, she believed no one had the right to take away human life without discussing it with the person who helped to create it. She could see how the insidious Committee may have played on his anger.
“I thought so.”
“Well, she was wrong. Dead wrong to have done that to you.”
* * * * *
Sirius felt his hands relax on the steering wheel. He hadn’t told anyone about Penny and the abortion. The Committee hadn’t known anything more than he was an angry man who wanted abortion law reform. He understood there were circumstances where it was necessary. But in a non-violent relationship between two people who were supposedly in love, at least he thought they were, it should have been something they discussed. Telling Denby the truth made him feel less tense. That she understood assured him she wasn’t as tough as she was making out. He knew why she acted as she did. She had a dangerous father and was living outside the law of the land, not just to thwart her parent, but she passionately disagreed with what he was doing. It hadn’t surprised him she had been upset when she had found about his involvement in the Committee. He had been a part of everything she abhorred. “So, after she did it, I went a little nuts.”
“A little? You helped create a law that’s squashing women’s rights.”
He nodded, accepting his part. “I know and I feel tremendous guilt.” There was not a day that went by he didn’t. If he read a newspaper or watched television, the fallout from the Committee’s reforms smacked him in the eye.
“Is that why you’re doing the long hair, open shirt thing? Because technically, if you were doing the whole guilt thing, it’d be a hair shirt while you flayed yourself.”
He laughed out loud. That was Denby. Irreverent, politically incorrect and not about to change it.
In a world of clones she stood out as an individual who made no apologies for who she was. It took a lot of courage to do that in the world in which they lived. “I missed you.”
“I can understand that,” she murmured with a smile. “I’m interesting.”
“Yes, you are. And as for the hair? Maybe I got sick of it being neat and conforming to the rules of the Commit
tee. Maybe the only hair I like against my skin is yours.” He glanced at her briefly and saw her face go red. He knew Denby would. Any intimacy made her do that. The woman could fight the devil but sweet talk her and she went all girly. He loved that about her . “And you still blush. That’s cute.”
“Clashes dreadfully with my hair,” she said, recovering quickly. “I now sort of understand why you joined those Committee leeches but—”
“But, it was extreme.” He shrugged. “I was grief stricken. I loved her.”
* * * * *
It annoyed Denby that she was suddenly jealous of some woman she’d never met. He’d loved her. He’d probably be with her if not for the abortion. We probably would’ve never met. The thought was foreign to her, almost like the possibly of it was not fathomable. “Well, she wasn’t worth it. If you love someone, you work out stuff like fear and unplanned babies. You don’t just run away and —” Denby stopped dead. She had run from him because of anger and fear. Who the hell am I to preach? I’m no better than this Penny chick. They sat in silence for a while. Denby was thinking back over what they had and how she reacted. “Yeah, well, I was angry at you.”
“Yes, I know. I don’t blame you.”
“While I didn’t go the all Rastafarian look, I did do some dumb stuff after we split up.” Denby had fought battles she knew couldn’t be won and worked in places that scared the crap out of her, all in an effort to prove to herself she was tough and she didn’t need emotion or the Sirius’s of the world.
“Like what? Slept with wild, horny biker men?”
“No.” Hell no. She would never be that woman. She had one irritating characteristic that precluded her from doing that.
“No?”
“No. No men.” She stole a glance at Sirius. He had to know what that meant. If he knew her at all, he knew what she believed in. Possibly it was old fashioned in the world they lived in but Denby was who she was and changing her beliefs to fit in with what others wasn’t who she was as a person. Hence the reason I always get in so much trouble.
Again, he gave her a quick glance. “None?”
“None.”
“You mean—”
Was he being deliberately dense? “You know what I mean and keep your eyes on the road.”
“Only me? Ever?” His smiled smugly.
She shrugged. “Yeah, well, I’m the mate for life kind.” His broad smile made her lean over and poke him in the arm. “But don’t get all excited. It’s not like I missed you or anything.” Much. If ever. Okay so I did. It doesn’t matter now. That part of her life was over. Denby wanted to focus on doing good and not on the mess of her own life or personal shortcomings.
“I think despite what you say, you still love me.”
Typical ‘I’m man, you’re mine’ stuff. “I adore chocolate, my Blundstone boots, hot French fries
—”
He stopped her there. “See, Denby, ‘adore’ isn’t as strong as love. Love is binding. Adoration can be fleeting,” Sirius told her. “All the things you adore are not forever.”
“Whatever.” She wasn’t about to get into any deep and meaningful discussion on love, sex and forever with him.
“You still owe me a wedding.”
Now he was trying to bait her. “I’ll track down a nice north Queensland girl for you.”
“You know it really cut me when you left.”
The pain she heard in his voice surprised her. “As your being best friends with my father cut me.
Besides it’s not like I was pregnant.” Though at one stage she thought she may have been. It had been a tense time waiting for one of the sporadically, errant periods she was accustomed to and a sudden weight gain had her panicked. Half of her wanted a baby, the other? Scared. How could she bring a baby into the world as it was now?
“What?”
“Nothing.” He knew enough.
“Did you think you were? Did you want to be pregnant, Denby?”
No. Yes. I don’t know. Jeez. He makes me crazy. She had once been so caught up in him for such a short, intense moment that her emotions had been heightened at an alarming state of what she would later call her intense stupidity phase. She shifted in her seat. “How long until we get to Cairns?”
“It’s twenty-something hours from Brisbane to Cairns.”
They had been on the road for around two hours. It was going to be a long drive. “I need a pit stop.”
* * * * *
They stopped at a small roadhouse, off the main road, outside the town of Gympie. Sirius watched as Denby jumped out of the car and headed around the side of the service station, where a sign indicated restrooms. He wasn’t surprised she left the car in such a rush. There had been an awkward silence between them after the question about pregnancy had been raised. Sirius wondered what was going on in her mind. That she was angry with him was a given. He should have told her about his involvement in the Committee when he first met her. But he hadn’t. The words had stuck in his mouth when he first met her. She was so beautiful and feisty, he was hooked after their first meeting at the bus stop. While the circumstances of meeting weren’t of the fairytale variety, Sirius was thankful they had. Though, at the time when approached by her father, he had been less than enthusiastic. “Why?”
“You are questioning me?”
“Yes.”
“Who are you to do so?”
“I’m my own man and that hasn’t and won’t change.”
“Good. I have too many sycophants. As for my daughter, I want to make sure she’s okay. She can be very stubborn and independent. I’m the last person she wants checking up on her.”
“Does she need checking up on?”
“I’m her father. I worry.”
Later, Sirius would realize it had nothing to do with fatherly concern or affection. It was all to do with trying to control Denby and forcing her to conform. But, he hadn’t worked that out until it was all too late and she was gone. Her sudden, angry departure from his life had gutted him. That in itself surprised Sirius, as he had told himself, after Penny, he would never let under woman get under his skin. But then Denby had come along and she wasn’t just any woman. She was his future.
He saw it, felt it, knew it. Spending this short time with Denby, Sirius knew he had to gain back her trust and make her believe in him, and them, once more.
Sirius got out of the car and headed in the direction Denby had taken. He saw her ahead of him, stopped and standing her ground, fists clenched as if ready for a fight. As he moved closer, he could see three men had bailed her up and were blocking her way. Sirius was all ready to go in and fight them but he also suspected Denby wouldn’t necessarily appreciate that. She was strong, independent and capable. He wanted to see how she handled herself first. He owed that to her. No man should expect a woman needed his help.
“Where’s your man, little lady?” A tall man with lank, long hair and a greasy beard demanded of Denby.
Sirius wondered what she and other women had to endure in the Committee legislated world in which they were trying to survive. Being a single woman was dangerous. It wasn’t surprising so many were frightened into unwanted marriages.
A fat, squat man with a stained t-shirt straining over his beer gut leered at Denby. “Don’t you know you need a man now? It’s the law.”
Sirius heard Denby sigh and go to step around them. He moved in closer ready to assist her the minute she needed it whether she asked or not. Equality was important but bullying was wrong.
“Seems like you got no man or manners.”
“Neither do you, face ache,” Denby replied coolly.
“Tough little thing ain’t ya?”
She put her hands on hers hips. “I could kick your ass.”
“Wanna try?” The third man stepped right in front of her. He was enormous in height and girth.
So much so Denby had to lean back to look him in the eye.
“Oh yeah. And, by the way you smell like a three day old corpse, St
inky.”
Sirius knew it was time to step in. He had a feeling ‘Stinky’ was about to pound her into the ground. “Do we have a problem here gentlemen?” He used the term very loosely.
They all turned their head at once towards him. That wasn’t unusual. Bullies never acted singularly. “She yours?”
“She belongs to herself,” Sirius told them coming to a stop beside Denby. He almost felt the relief from her body wash over his.
“So she’s free to take?” Stinky growled at him.
Denby was correct. He was putrid. “She will indeed kick your ass if you try.”
“You scared of her?”
He looked from Denby to the men and back again. He saw the approval in her eyes. That made him feel good and he hadn’t felt that emotion for a long time. “Terrified.”
Denby smiled at Sirius then at the men. “Excuse me.” They all stepped aside, grumbling, but still allowing her to pass.
Sirius was leaning on the side of the building waiting for her to return from the restroom, as were the men. “Ready?” he asked as she approached him.
Stinky stepped forward. “We think you both need to be taught a lesson.”
Sirius reached into his back waistband and pulled out a handgun. “Touch her and you'll die.”
Denby smiled widely at the three men. “Run along, boys.”
“Bitch,” Stinky spat out.
“He’s pussy-whipped,” muttered the one with the beer gut, shuffling away from the Sirius and the gun.
Sirius watched them go. A gun was not something he would normally have. But these were not normal times and Denby wasn’t a normal woman. “You always get in trouble like that?”
She shrugged. “Pretty much. Where’d you get the gun?”
“It came with the car. Call it a two for one deal.” He had found it in the glove box. “Figured I might need it.”
Denby nodded. “Good call.” They were quiet as they walked back to the car.
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