Blood Ties

by JD Nixon

  I trudged up the stairs wearily as I rang the clinic to let the psychiatrist know she could pick up her car from my house. It had been such a long day. I hadn’t had much sleep the night before and I was fast running out of puff. I hadn’t even had a chance to think about getting my chickens out of the lockup, and wondered if the Sarge would really start eating them if I didn’t move them out fast enough.

  In the lounge room, I kissed Dad on the forehead and flopped on to the lounge, closing my eyes. “What a day!”

  “Tired, love?”

  “Beyond tired, Dad. Beyond exhausted. Getting perilously close to expiration. I swear I will never move from this lounge again.”

  “Jakey rang. He’s coming over tonight,” he told me with a sly smile.

  I sat up immediately. “Oh goodie! I better go have a shower.” I jumped to my feet and hustled my butt to the bathroom with the sound of Dad’s chuckles ringing in my ears.

  Chapter 5

  As I stood under the shower, I thought about Jake. There was a reason I called him my honey-boy – he had honey-brown skin, wavy golden hair, incredible amber eyes and was as sweet as honey. Like all the Bycrafts he was very good-looking and kept himself in top shape. He was mostly even-tempered and good-natured and was smart, the only one in his extensive extended family so far to work out that crime doesn’t pay, not that he was an angel by any means.

  In my eyes, he was almost perfect and had only one flaw, but it was a biggie – he was a Bycraft. And he was a loyal Bycraft. We’d had a million arguments over his awful family, but he would defend them with his life. Deep in my heart, although I loved him intensely, I acknowledged that we had no long-term future together because of his family.

  I loathed the Bycrafts; it was as simple as that. In fact, there hadn’t even been a word coined yet to describe the level of hatred I had for the Bycrafts. I would never marry into his family of demons. I would rather die than become a Bycraft. My father would rather kill me than let me become a Bycraft. If I married a Bycraft he wouldn’t go to my wedding. I suspect that he would never speak to me again. He had been upset and furious when I’d started going out with Jake in the first place.

  But all that was something to worry about in the future. I certainly had no thoughts of getting married yet, even though I’d turned twenty-seven on Christmas Eve last year. Jake, a year older than me, wasn’t thinking of getting married either. But that was because he was already married.

  He’d married when he was twenty to Chantelle Lebutt (Sharnee and Dorrie’s sister), and permanently separated from her after nearly two years of unstable and hot-blooded wedded ‘bliss’, with a great deal of wild sex, shouting, threatening and cheating on both sides. He’d never got around to divorcing Chantelle and when I asked him about it one day, he muttered some unconvincing answer that left me wondering if he was using his marital status to distance himself from women, including me. Nobody could expect him to get married if he was already married, could they?

  I think he also felt some obligation towards Chantelle, a less-than-charming woman who’d boasted about having ‘Property of Jakey’ tattooed on her arse during the first flush of married love. I bet she’d regretted that once or twice afterwards. In the six years since they’d separated, she’d had four kids to four different fathers and stacked on fifty kilograms, all of which she blamed on Jake for walking out on her. Her four kids’ fathers were Jake’s older brothers Red, Karl, and Rick, and his younger brother, Denny. Jake didn’t seem to mind though. It was that kind of family. They shared.

  He was the only Bycraft who hadn’t impregnated any women growing up. This was due to his fanatical use of birth control from the moment he was first sexually active at school, even during his time with his wife. The rumour was that they’d broken up because he wouldn’t get Chantelle pregnant so she could collect the government’s baby bonus to go on a holiday to the Gold Coast with her sister Dorrie. He really was the smart one in the family.

  When she’d tried to blame the first of her kids on him, despite the fact that they’d separated eleven months previously, he’d demanded a DNA test straight away. She had baulked at that and hadn’t tried it on again. Any other women over the years who’d insisted that he was the father of her child received the same treatment. He was almost obsessive about ensuring that he didn’t become a father. It was psychological – probably something to do with the fact that his own father had spent most of Jake’s life in jail, and his mother wasn’t exactly the patient, faithful, maternal type. It hadn’t been a great childhood. But all that was okay with me too, because I wasn’t ready to become a mother yet and I would never forgive myself if I was responsible for bringing yet another Bycraft brat into the world. God knows there were enough of the little monsters running around already.

  I dried myself off and dressed in a short skirt and body-hugging t-shirt, leaving my hair loose. I sprayed myself sparingly with my favourite perfume, a ruinously pricey delicate floral scent that Jake had bought me for my last birthday and which I was trying to make do for the entire year. I then added that glamorous final touch as I did with all my outfits – my hunting knife. I probably didn’t need too, reasonably sure that I was safe when Jake was near me, but old habits die hard and I’d been wearing it for so long that I virtually felt naked when I was unarmed.

  I went to the kitchen and prepared the prawns for dinner, ripping off their heads and shelling them, grateful that the Sarge had remembered to bring them in from the car. The familiar sound of Jake’s pride and joy, his distinctive gold-coloured double-cabined ute driving into the yard drifted up the side of the house through the open kitchen windows. For Christmas last year I’d bought him a personalised number plate for it that read: JAKEY-B. He loved it.

  Before long I heard him come in the front door to spend a few minutes chatting to Dad. I was engrossed in the recipe, carefully chopping home-grown red chillies, coriander and mint, when strong, brown arms snaked around my waist, hands moving up to caress my breasts, and hot lips pressed themselves against my neck. I threw down my knife carelessly and leaned back against my honey-boy, eyes closed in bliss, surrendering myself to his magical wandering hands.

  “Hello, Tessie, my darling. You smell fantastic. I love that perfume. What’s for dinner?”

  “Hello, Jakey. A prawn stir fry,” I said turning, sliding my arms up around his neck and kissing him properly.

  He looked down at me with his gorgeous eyes. “Sounds delicious. What about dessert?”

  “I’m for dessert,” I smiled up at him.

  “My favourite,” he smiled back. He had a beautiful smile. He ran his hands through my hair, then down my back to rest on my butt, pulling my hips close against his. “I missed you. I’ve been thinking about you all week.” He often worked week-long shifts, so we didn’t see each regularly.

  “Me too,” I said, although in truth I’d been too busy to think about him except for five minutes lying in bed before I fell asleep each night. He pushed me up against the bench and we kissed slowly and deeply for a while, a lot of tongue involved, hands getting very naughty, nice foreplay. I was burning for him already.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said a voice from the doorway. “I didn’t realise you had company.” We sprang apart, surprised. The Sarge stood at the door, a bottle of white wine in each hand, his eyes coolly assessing Jake, flicking over me, then over the dinner preparations before returning to me. He held up the bottles. “I thought I’d buy some wine to go with the prawns,” he said and walked past us to put the bottles in the fridge.

  I adjusted my clothing and smoothed down my hair. I wasn’t a person to be easily embarrassed, but I could feel my cheeks pinken as I thanked him and introduced the two men.

  Jake looked him up and down. “So you’re the man my Tessie’s been running around with all day?” he asked as he shook the Sarge’s hand heartily. He turned to me with a mischievous grin. “I’ve had twenty-eight phone calls so far today from people telling me that my girlfriend’s been
out and about with another man.” His mobile trilled from his pocket. He retrieved it and looked at the screen, pulling a face. “Make that twenty-nine. That’s Valerie. I’m not answering.”

  I smirked to myself. Valerie Bycraft was Jake’s aunt-by-marriage and one of the acknowledged premier busybodies of Little Town. “She’s late with the news. The Sarge and I have been back for ages. That will be killing her, not being the first to tell you.”

  He laughed and kissed my forehead. “I’m off for a shower, babe. I’ve got time, haven’t I?” He was still in his prison officer uniform – white polo shirt with the department’s logo on the pocket, black cargo pants, black boots and black logoed cap – coming straight here from work, and although he looked great in that, he looked even better in his jeans.

  “Sure you have, honey-boy,” I replied and went back to work, humming to myself happily, thinking about sex, lots and lots of sex tonight. I couldn’t wait. Sex, sex, sex. Plenty of hot, sweaty, spectacular sex with my gorgeous man. It was just what I needed.

  “Can I help with anything?” asked a quiet voice behind me. Startled, my eyes flew up. I’d forgotten about the Sarge the second that Jake had left the room. Oh crap! Sex while my new boss was in the room directly across the hall – probably overhearing everything. I shied at the thought, and then knew it just wasn’t going to happen tonight. Not while he was staying here. My whole evening was ruined in one second.

  “No, thanks,” I said in a sulky voice, deveining the prawns with a mountain of attitude.

  “Can I pour you a glass of wine at least?” he persisted. I looked up at him again and relented in my bad temper. It wasn’t his fault he had to stay with me, and I was the one who’d offered the hospitality in the first place. I remembered my manners.

  “Thank you, Sarge. That would be lovely.”

  He smiled slightly. “My pleasure.” He paused a beat. “Tess.”

  I smiled back. “And maybe you could chop some veggies for the stir fry? Only if you don’t mind?”

  “Of course.” I directed him to our scant collection of unchipped wine glasses and he poured us both a glass before chopping mushrooms, red capsicum, snowpeas and shallots as efficiently as he seemed to do everything. He was a man used to looking after himself, that was obvious. I wondered again about his relationship status. Single? Divorced? Gay? He didn’t wear a wedding ring, so I presumed he wasn’t currently married, but otherwise it was impossible to tell.

  “This wine is wonderful, Sarge,” I marvelled after a few sips. “I feel as though the grapes are bursting on my tongue. What is it?” I wasn’t much of a drinker and didn’t know anything about wine, but the wine he’d chosen was simply glorious.

  Pleased, he gave me a brief rundown of him approaching Abe at the tiny bottle shop attached to the pub, seeking a good wine to match the seafood. He commented on how helpful Abe had been in hunting down the perfect wine for dinner, a crisp sauvignon blanc from the Margaret River region in the country’s west.

  “Abe would have loved that,” I told him happily. He didn’t get much opportunity to find a connoisseur in Little Town. And by connoisseur, I meant anybody who had the remotest interest in whether the flavour of the wine matched the flavour of the food, and wasn’t just after an alcohol buzz. It appeared as though we had something of a gentleman on our hands in Finn Maguire.

  Jake burst back into the kitchen, hair damp and looking insanely wonderful. He cast sharp eyes over the two of us, took a huge gulp of my wine, grimaced comically, snatched a snowpea from the pile of prepared vegetables earning him a frown from the Sarge, and went to the fridge for a beer. He popped the lid and took a long swig, leaning his cute butt against the kitchen bench and draping his arm around my shoulders.

  “You from the city, Finn?” he asked pleasantly.

  “Yes,” the Sarge replied minimally, busy chopping.

  “What brings you to Dullsville?”

  The Sarge glanced up at him briefly. “Personal reasons.” That was probably meant to shut Jake up, but it piqued my interest straight away.

  “You ever lived in the country before?”

  A brief derisive laugh. “No.”

  “So why now?”

  “Personal reasons,” he repeated.

  “Jakey, do you know that the Sarge told me he was going to eat my chickens one by one if I didn’t move them from the lockup?” I pouted indignantly, glaring over at my new boss.

  Jake laughed out loud, “Good for you, mate. The way Tessie goes on about those bloody chickens, you’d think they were her kids.”

  “They are my girls. He threatened to eat Miss Chooky first!” I insisted, poking Jake in his well-muscled side, becoming heated again as I remembered.

  He leaned down to kiss me and laughed even louder. “Good, I hate that chicken! And she hates men. Watch out, Finn, that’s all I can say. She’ll get her revenge.”

  “Miss Chooky or Tess?” asked the Sarge in a cool voice.

  Jake laughed again. “Who knows? Probably both. My advice is to watch your back.”

  I rolled my eyes and loosened up the hokkein noodles in some warm water.

  “I’ll deal with either as they come. I’m not sure that Tess has been well-supervised at work recently,” the Sarge said and paused, his eyes sliding over to me. “And maybe her hens also need a rooster.”

  Jake almost burst a kidney laughing at that. I was ready to bust some kidneys myself too, but I wouldn’t be laughing while I did it. I didn’t appreciate the implication that I needed a man to rule over me, even if the Sarge was joking. That was if he was joking – it was hard to tell from his straight face.

  “She hasn’t been supervised at all,” agreed Jake, twirling my hair around his fingers. I begged him with my eyes to not say another word, but he pressed on. “Des was worse than useless, leaving Tessie to do everything. It wasn’t fair. She can’t run a two-person station by herself. She’s exhausted.” He looked at me so lovingly as he said it though that I didn’t kick him like I wanted to. Instead I put my arm around his waist and leaned against him. He kissed the top of my head.

  “Tess?” asked my new boss.

  “He’s the one complaining, not me,” I said, and let Jake go, busying myself with frying the prawns, vegetables, noodles and adding the sauces at the right time. When I finished I busied myself further by getting out the bowls, chopsticks and cutlery, serving dinner, pouring the Sarge and me more wine and Dad and Jake some beer.

  Over dinner, which we ate casually at the kitchen table, Jake asked me about the encounter with Martin. I gave the Sarge a resigned look.

  “See what it’s like living in the country? There are no secrets in this place.”

  “Was he violent again?” asked Dad quietly.

  “No,” I assured, frowning as I struggled with the chopsticks to pick up the last few noodles in my bowl. I gave up and picked them up with my fingers instead, popping them into my mouth and licking my fingers clean afterwards. Yum! I caught the Sarge’s eyes on me and flushed slightly, ashamed of my bad table manners. I hurriedly answered. “Martin was more emotional than anything else. I was glad he wasn’t violent because I didn’t have my cuffs or my spray on me. Luckily there were some plastic restraints in the glove box. The Sarge brought him down and gave the director a right reaming at the clinic about their security afterwards.” I added dryly, “I think the director might even listen this time. At least he paid attention to the Sarge.”

  Jake took my hand and squeezed. “Must be nice to know you finally have a partner who’s willing to help?”

  I glanced over at the Sarge and nodded. “Oh yeah, that’s a good feeling.”

  Jake continued indignantly. “Do you know that lazy former boss of hers left her to go out to the secret bikie retreat to serve a Council order? By herself? I went ballistic when I heard about it.” Jake wasn’t a big fan of Des. “My little girl copper alone with a bunch of bikies.”

  He got an ungentle elbow in the side for that sexist comment. “Jakey, I
’ve explained to you a hundred times that Des wasn’t even at the station when the Council worker came in and asked one of us to serve the order for him because he was too scared to,” I reminded him, but not really wanting to stick up for Des. It had been quite a threatening experience. “He was at Foxy’s place, investigating an alleged break-in.”

  Jake and Dad both gave elaborate eye rolls.

  “Right,” drawled Jake sarcastically. “The only person in town Des ever bothered personally visiting when they reported a crime. And in fact, weren’t you specifically told not to ever investigate any reported break-ins at Foxy’s house, but refer them to Des immediately?”

  “Yes,” I admitted reluctantly. I was a loyal kind of person and didn’t like to bad-mouth a boss, even when he’d been as bad as Des.

  “So while he was banging Foxy, you were left with the dangerous work?” Jake was building up a head of steam.

  “It wasn’t that bad,” I lied, smiling at him and gently squeezing his hand. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

  In fact I had been severely harassed by the six or so bikies present at the time. They’d made inappropriate sexual comments and told me in vulgar detail what they were planning on doing to me. I stared them down and tried not to react to them, but kept my distance and had my hand ready to reach for my gun the whole time I was there. The worst part had been when I left and had to turn my back on them as I walked down the long path back to the patrol car. There was no way I was going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me turn around to check on them, but I could feel their eyes on me the whole way, their crude catcalls ringing in my ears.