A Man for Clair: Secret of the Widow Mulvane (Mystery loves Romance Book 2)

by G. S. Bailey

  “What do I think? I think let’s go get your stuff—that’s what I think.”

  Clair giggled. “You do?”

  “Shit, yeah!”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about it these past few days, and it’s about time I got off my arse and did something with all these college courses. I’ve done two small business management courses and a bookkeeping course.”

  “Definitely time to get off your arse, then,” David agreed. “Hey, you can do bookkeeping?”

  “Forget it. Bookkeeping sucks,” Clair shot back at him. “Do you do your own?”

  “Yeah, I try. Mandy helps.”

  “Hmm… I haven’t seen any other florists in town.”

  “No, there isn’t. Except the flowers at Woolworths,” David informed. “What shop for rent?”

  “The little square one two streets over, just down from that fish pub.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s been vacant for ages.”

  “So, it should be cheap,” Clair surmised.

  “You should be able to get it cheap. They’ll probably jump at getting any sort of rent for it.”

  “Oh, right. So, ask how much then say ‘no—can’t afford that’ and offer them less?”

  “Yep. I would,” David confirmed. “Are you really going to move down here?”

  He had sought Clair’s eyes with that question.

  “I don’t want to leave,” she replied openly. It was simple and true.

  He kissed her. She had never been kissed anywhere near as much as she was being kissed right then. The guy really liked smooching, she noticed, happily. “Don’t stop,” she said to him. “If you want to be my boyfriend, I need lots of kisses, always.”

  “I can do that,” he said.

  Clair’s cramps eased by the next morning and could be kept under control with the help of the pain killers she lived on at that time of the month. She and David met with the real estate agent and had a look in the shop and at the flat upstairs. The shop had a single counter along one wall and shelves around the others. She could picture a basic set-up for displaying flowers and bouquets. It could be made functional with a good clean-up and some paint. David eagerly offered to help with that. The flat was a single bedroom with an all-in lounge, dining and kitchen. It had a toilet and bathroom in one and a laundry attached to the outside of the building at the back.

  “More paint!” Clair said to David. “Would I be allowed to paint up here too?” she asked the woman estate agent.

  “The owners would probably pay for the paint if you did the work,” she answered.

  There was an application form to fill out. The rent was so cheap that Clair wouldn’t have felt right about trying to have it reduced. It was little more than she was paying for a dingy flat where she was.

  “I’ll call you in an hour,” the woman said in parting. She was going to check Clair’s rental references and contact the owners.

  Clair turned to David from the passenger seat of his work utility. She grinned gleefully. “Well?”

  “Well, awesome!” David offered.

  “But am I being silly? I feel like I’m off the rails and crashing through the forest… I’m never this impetuous.”

  “Well, I want you here, so don’t ask me,” David said. “I’ll agree with whatever gets you into that little flat where I can visit you and play with your strings.”

  Clair laughed. “I’ll knit a jumper with strings on it, just for you.”

  “You can knit?”

  She frowned mock indignation. “And sew, and cook, and drive a mower!”

  “Yeah—I’ll be driving a mower when this rain clears. What’s the plan, though, Clair? They’re going to call you back any minute and offer you the lease… What then?”

  “Then I go home and pack my stuff, I suppose. I don’t have much to move. I guess I get one of those removal companies to pick it up and bring it here.”

  “And that’s it? Work, friends, family?”

  “I don’t see my family much, anyway, and it’s only a few hours on a plane for Christmas or whatever. And my friends are mostly the people I work with… I just need to call in and say goodbye. That’s no big deal.”

  They were holding hands, absently intertwining fingers as they spoke.

  “Would you come home with me and help me pack up?” she asked.

  “I’m there,” David responded immediately. “We could drive to Canberra and fly from there. That’s the easiest trip into Sydney or Brisbane.”

  “What about my car?”

  “It’s a Budget?”

  “Yes—Budget.”

  “They have depots everywhere. We could drive it to Canberra, drop it there, and get Mandy to pick us up on the way back.”

  “Um… when?” Clair asked. She just wanted to be moved into that shop. If she could have clicked her fingers and have it done, she would have.

  “Let’s go and check flights on-line,” David said, driving off. “We should be able to find a removalist as well.”

  They were back at the real estate agency within an hour. Clair’s lease started that afternoon. The owners were thrilled to have a tenant after three years waiting. They had an account at the local hardware for paint and were happy to have the entire building repainted inside and out if Clair would agree to do the work.

  She was with her boyfriend. He took charge. “We’ll do that,” he said to the estate agent, checking the notes about brands of paint and colour ranges they could choose from. The owners would just need to okay the actual choice of colours.

  They found a flight for the following morning. There was a removalist company that could pick up Clair’s furniture immediately, but it would be on a truck with other delivery points, and she would be waiting a week for it to reach Everly Cove.

  “Are you sure we can pack your stuff in one day?” David was asking in bed that night.

  “Half a day… Two hours!” Clair assured him. “My place is tiny, and the fridge is already empty and shut down.”

  Chapter 19

  David had no idea what he was doing with Clair. He had coached himself not to fall for her. He had been up for that. He had been well and truly on top of his stupid tendency to let the rotation of the planet come to a halt whenever some girl kissed him back. He had fought the urge to think beyond two weeks in Heaven.

  I’ll just do this, enjoy it, think myself lucky, and move on. He had nailed it. And then she says ‘oh, but I saw this little shop for rent’.

  What?

  And then it’s ‘oh, and lets be boyfriend/girlfriend too’.

  And with that, David’s plan was blown away. It was completely dismantled. He had a strong tendency to become attached to a new woman. He always ended up tossing and turning that first night, thinking he had found the ideal partner in life based on a single physical connection and perhaps a few common interests or a shared joke or two at a bar. He always ended up thinking back, realizing that if he had just stopped for a moment at the beginning and thought rationally, he would never have ended up with the likes of Cassie, anyway.

  David churned through that as the sun peeped through the trees and caressed the lovely facial features of his sleeping travel partner.

  She’s different, though. This is the total opposite to all of that. We were trying not to be together, and it’s happening, anyway. She said ‘no strings’ and I said ‘no strings’, and there’s frigging strings everywhere.

  Since Clair had casually referred to him as only having rebound sex the other night, he had been working that over in his mind. And he had found a flaw in that thinking.

  Nope—rebound sex is something you go to the pub looking for. But we met by chance when I wasn’t looking at all. And rebound sex is what you do with someone else when you’re thinking about your ex. But I haven’t been thinking about Cassie. Not one bit!

  David drove while Clair slept. They had departed at four AM for the five hour drive to the capital city.

  David had taken control of the practical aspect
s of Clair’s move. He had done this before. He had helped plenty of friends move around town or interstate. He was thrilled to be given the reins by the exceptionally beautiful woman he had become absolutely mesmerised by.

  Her hand was resting there, and he took it within his own and held it as he drove. She stirred soon enough and he released it, but he took it and held it again when she had finished fixing her hair in the mirror on her sun-visor.

  She yawned. “I’m hungry.”

  “Me too.”

  They found a roadhouse and a truck-driver’s breakfast menu. The last several hours of their morning drive whizzed by, and they found parking and checked out the War Memorial and Parliament House, taking lots of photos for Clair’s elderly neighbour, whom she would miss.

  Canberra was an immaculately clean and organized looking city from the window view of a plane climbing into the sky above it. Clair had the window seat, but David was leaning across her. He picked off a kiss while he was there.

  “This still feels out-of-control crazy,” she told him.

  “Like I said, don’t ask me. I’ll do whatever you say.”

  “What—just now or always?” she tried playfully.

  “Well, always, but only when it comes to certain things,” he gave her.

  “Like?”

  He kissed her again. “Kisses and stuff.”

  “Oh! Okay, I can work with that.”

  He kissed her again, tenderly yet deeply. They were alone in the bank of three seats, but the people across the aisle were looking over. It was an elderly couple, smiling. “Sorry,” David said, and the woman gave him a never-mind gesture, the man giving a thumbs-up.

  Lunch was served, after which the early morning run swamped David. He slept until the plane landed in Brisbane at 2PM. They hired a car at the airport and were at Clair’s parents’ house by three.

  The hugs there were done with minimal contact. Clair’s news was welcomed encouragingly. Her father commented that it would be nice to have someone to visit in his old home town. There was coffee and a slice of fruit cake, then they were on the highway headed south out of Brisbane in fairly heavy traffic.

  “It’s always like that,” Clair explained apologetically. “They were so young when they had me… I’ve always felt like the mistake they made.”

  “You don’t look like any kind of mistake,” David said, squeezing. They were holding hands again.

  “I know! I look good.” Clair brushed off his compliment as unnecessary. “I make guys literally drool.”

  “Yeah—we have to check your strip-joint out while we’re here. I’ve got some spare cash to hand out,” David shot back in the same vein.

  “Well, you can come with me, but you’re not getting any lap dances.”

  “Oh, why?”

  “I won’t allow it. Sorry!”

  “Oh, you won’t?”

  “Nope. If you want another one you have to get it off me. And I don’t take cash.”

  “Hmm… Visa?” David tried.

  She shot him a mock frown.

  “Well, how do I get one?” he complained.

  “Same way as last time.”

  David thought about that, trying to work out what he did the other night to deserve a lap-dance.

  “Do you mean I have to sing?” he asked as they crawled in the traffic.

  She shrugged and nodded a bit. “Yeah—singing works.”

  “And boss you around?” He remembered calling her woman and telling her to cook.

  She did another frown. “You got away with that, Tarzan.”

  He smiled. “Would have been cool watching you strip on stage, though.”

  She shrugged again. “I’ve got videos.”

  “Shit! Really?”

  She nodded. “Yep—when I was learning, the other girls helped me, and we used to video each other to learn from. I’ve got a bunch of stuff I had transferred from VHS to digital. There’s a bit of more recent stuff from show nights.”

  “Show nights?”

  “Yeah—theme nights—dress-up.”

  “Awesome!” David declared enthusiastically. He needed to see all of that.

  “Yeah, it’s nice to have something… I don’t really have photos.”

  “No, me either. There wouldn’t be half a dozen photos of me in existence. Mum’s got some baby and school photos somewhere, but that’s about it.”

  “Well, we’ll have to fix that. I think some karaoke footage would be a good start. You’re really good at it.”

  David laughed. The idea had never occurred to him before, but he liked it.

  “Okay—cool,” he said, leaning across for a kiss while they waited at traffic lights.

  They had gotten off the expressway, and after another twenty minutes crawling through busy streets, they arrived at Clair’s apartment. It was as David had expected, given Clair’s description. It was a run-down little building between a couple of old weatherboard houses. The area looked in danger of being bulldozed and rebuilt with more of the towering apartment buildings in the near distance. They were two or three blocks in depth and all vying for ocean views. It was late afternoon, and their shadows were cast over Clair’s humble little abode with a big, orange sun setting beyond them.

  “This is nice,” David commented. The inside of the apartment defied the run-down look of the building. It was simple, tidy, and it smelled nice.

  Clair was kissing him. She had turned and leaned into him for a cuddle. “We should go and get the work thing done and pick up some take-away on the way back. I’ve got nothing in the fridge, and I’m going to pack the cupboards and give that to my neighbour.”

  David was eyeing off the bedroom.

  “You can have a sleep first if you want,” she said.

  “An hour would be good.”

  She led him and pushed him back on her bed. He had on boots, and she tugged them off for him and stepped out of her own shoes before lying down beside him. There were silk flowers in wall-pots and vases, and candles and animal figurines. There was a doll on the dresser, and the mirror there was decorated with ribbons. There was a teddy-bear that Clair had claimed from the bed and put on a high-back wooden chair. The room was beautifully scented.

  It was a girl’s room, and David felt privileged to have been invited in. He dozed off and woke alone nearly two hours later. Clair came from the bathroom having discarded her dress and put on jeans and a jumper. It was cool out.

  David went with her to the club where she worked. He hung back just inside the door while she spoke with a bald, middle aged man behind the bar, who turned out to be the owner and manager. After getting a one-arm hug over the bar, she went into the back, and came out ten minutes later dabbing at tears, with a small gym-bag in her hand.

  “That’s done,” she said as they sat back in the car. She was still teary eyed.

  “Some good friends, yeah?” David offered warmly.

  She nodded. “Yes…”

  That evening was spent packing. It was late-night Thursday shopping, and they found a store with boxes, masking tape and nylon zip-bags for storage. They had everything except the bed ready for the removalist before crashing out after midnight. The morning was then spent cleaning the small apartment, and after the removalist had been loaded up, Clair hugged her elderly neighbour and cried again. After tearing herself from the clutch of the old woman, it was only a matter of stopping in at the real estate agent to cancel her lease and hand in the keys.

  Just on dusk that evening, they were landing in Canberra where they had a motel room booked. The original plan was to have Amanda meet them, but Clair had decided she wanted to buy a cheap car, and Canberra was an ideal place to shop for one.

  “So, do you know what sort you want?” David asked her. The cab had dropped them on a street with no less than six car-yards that they could see.

  “Small, automatic, and I’ve got seven thousand dollars… Oh, and air-conditioned.”

  “Okay. That’s a good search criteria. There’s
not a lot of difference between makes of car these days. They’re all pretty much the same at the lower end of the market… I say we walk through what we can see here and pick the one that matches your list, with the lowest kilometres travelled.”

  “Yeah, but it has to be a nice colour,” Clair said, snuggling up.

  “Well, that went without saying,” David replied, chuckling. “We’ll have a look for rust too.”

  They had fun with it. They found about ten cars that suited. Clair picked a red one with a light-grey interior. It was sound and had a good service history. David was happy with it for her.

  “Well, it’s your car,” he said when they approached with the keys in hand. “It’s quiet from here back to the motel, and it’s all highway from there.”

  Clair drove back to the motel to get their things then all the way to Ruxby where they stopped for a late lunch at the garage/café she had found on her way to Everly Cove. She was sleepy after the meal, so David drove on to The Cove where the wind was howling in from the south-east and the rain was pelting down.

  David was a bit disappointed that night when Clair chose not to sleep with him. It wasn’t as if they discussed it or anything. He had been watching a Friday night rugby game, and she had been chatting with Amanda in Amanda’s room. Brent was on duty and returning to his home that night after his shift, so Amanda was sleeping alone.

  She went to bed early, and Clair came out to say goodnight while the game still had half an hour to play. She kissed David’s cheek and left him. She could have gotten into either his bed or the one in the spare room. She chose the latter and all but closed the door.

  David took it as though their fledgling relationship had reached a settling point. They had spent a week together, day and night. A platform had been built for something long-term, or even permanent. Though, let’s not get too carried away, he reminded himself as he lay there staring at the moon shadows on his bedroom wall. They had come through the blaze of excitement that usually initiated a relationship, and now it was time to settle down a bit and see what next. It was time to retreat to their corners and proceed calmly.

  Clair would be staying for the week while they painted her new home and waited for her furniture. She may well spend all week sleeping in her own room, or perhaps there would be a chance to get hold of her again, David considered.