Bess had originally found it amusing that while she dealt with errors by moving the cursor behind the letters and hitting the back-space key, Geoff did just the opposite. He moved the cursor ahead of the offending letter and used the delete key. Now she was so used to watching him do it, she hardly noticed unless he added vocal impetus to the process.
“Right,” he said suddenly, lifting his hands away like those of a concert pianist. “We have to go back a fair bit to pick up where you and I left off the last time. Do you want to take over now, or would you prefer to stay where you are and shout your objections in my ear?”
“Oh, that, definitely,” she said, catching his mood and falling into it. “It’s a far better way to get my points across than making changes and then having to sit here and explain them all to you.” Which gained her a savage grin as he turned to meet her eyes, only inches away.
“You’re a hard taskmaster, Bess. There are times you make Ida look like a cream-puff by comparison, which is saying something, believe me.”
“So what are you going to call me? Stony? I’ll have to ask Ida if she can sing? We could tour together, call ourselves 'The Gravelettes.'“
Geoff’s voice held gravel of its own as he scoffed, “More like The Rocky Horror Show,” then ducked in an exaggerated motion as she pretended to try and knock his head off. “But you never told me you sing, Bess. Do you? In tune and all that?” He didn’t wait for a reply, just kept on speaking. “So what sort of stuff do you sing? And when are you going to sing for me? I’d quite like that, I think. I’ve never had a girl sing just for me... to me.”
“Believe it or not, I was once a singing waitress. But I haven't sung many Australian songs, Geoff, except for ‘Waltzing Matilda,’ which everybody knows.”
“They won’t in another generation,” he said with surprising bitterness. “Bloody politicians and their political correctness. Go anywhere in the world and people recognize ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and react to it with great good pleasure. Half the people here in Australia don’t know the words to ‘Advance Australia Fair,’ and don’t care anyway, but they all know ‘Waltzing Matilda,’ chapter and verse.” Then he paused and gave Bess a lop-sided smile. “Bloody hell. What brought that on,? I thought I’d climbed down off that hobby-horse years ago.”
“It’s obviously something you feel very passionate about,” she said without trying to provoke him further. She'd been able to feel his anger; it had radiated from him like the heat from a fire, almost frightening in its intensity and passion.
“Yes, well, it's my long-held philosophy that there is nothing in this world so perfect that it can’t be totally buggered up by a little political intervention.”
“I totally agree,” she said, thinking of her father's political connections. “Now, why don’t you scroll back to where we left off so we can actually get something constructive done today?”
Soon she and Geoff were back to their usual arguing and bickering like children over this word or that, this phrasing or that, and the seemingly endless differences between Australian and American spelling and word usage. Then they came to the first of their heroine Kate’s erotic adventures on Australian soil, and Bess suddenly found it difficult to breathe. It was as if the room had shrunk, become airless, and she felt her throat constrict as if she were choking.
Because this scenario was absolutely nothing like the ones she had criticized and chided him over, earlier in the book. This scenario was dynamite!
It began from the point of view of Kate's soon-to-be lover, being tended by Kate after a flogging he’d earned while protecting her from another member of the crew. And in some ways, Bess thought, it mirrored how Geoff might have felt if she had treated his sunburn rather than the other way around. He must have written it after she'd fallen asleep night before last because it was all about touch, about gentleness. Yet it also included the hero’s frankly male physical reactions, which Geoff had then subtly twisted until suddenly the reader was in the heroine’s mind, Kate’s mind, feeling not what she felt, seeing not what she saw, but totally, intimately aware; a part of what she wanted to feel and see. The touch of her lover’s fingers on her body, everywhere on her body, and in it. The feel of his breath against her breasts, against the round softness of her tummy, the furry center of her womanhood. And the touch of their bodies as they joined, still in Kate’s mind, but so physically exquisite in the writing that the reader would have no doubts, could only join and indulge in the raw power of the scenario.
Bess neared the end and found herself reacting as she knew the reader would react – assuming they could push this past whatever editor had to deal with it. Kate had retired to her narrow, primitive bed and lay there, lost in the mysteries of the love she thought she felt and the physicality that threatened to devour her. Lay there, fully clothed, as would have been the situation in that era. A callused hand, driven by Kate’s own fantasy, traveled up beneath her skirt, fingers moving in a slow, sensual dance that ended, eventually, in Kate finding physical release. And soon after, the release of sleep, much needed sleep if she was to survive the rigors of the days ahead.
Bess read through it as if in a trance, half her mind thrilling to the beauty of the writing, the sheer eroticism so brilliantly constructed. But the other half of her mind was in shock, suddenly frighteningly afraid that Geoff had somehow learned to invade her dreams, for where else could he have found this sort of overall inspiration? Certainly it hadn’t been in him a few days earlier, when his attempts at such intimate writing had been clumsy at best and masculinely inept at worst.
“Are you all right, Bess?”
Geoff's voice penetrated the fog of her thinking, but she knew somehow that the question she’d just heard was not his first. He had asked it at least once before, and she must have replied, but this time her mind had been too numbed.
“Yes. I... I’m fine,” she finally managed. Lying, because she definitely was not fine, was not even close to fine. And then she couldn’t take any more, didn’t dare stay here in this claustrophobic situation with herself, much less with Geoff. “I... you’ll have to excuse me. I must have overdone it more yesterday than I thought. I’ve got to go now. Sorry.”
She fled to her room, both her body and mind in a turmoil such as she had never imagined possible. If Geoff could decipher her dreams, maybe Mouse was right. Maybe Geoffrey Barrett was Lucifer.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Tuesday morning gave Bess the excuse she wanted to get away from the house, away from Geoff, away from the book, away from everything.
She decided she'd seek the relative asylum of the library, because if Geoff’s approach to the historic accuracy of their book did nothing else, it presented her with a valid excuse.
Every time they got into “Flower of Ballarat's” history part, umpteen levels of research emerged like soldier ants from the framework of the story, and Geoff’s approach tended to drive Bess into fits of fury.
“I thought it was my job to nit-pick,” she had cried earlier this morning, barely shifting into gear after two cups of coffee, only to find him making lists of things that still needed checking. “I swear you'd test the patience of a saint, Geoffrey Barrett. How did you ever get your other books written? You spend so much time checking out obscure references, I’m surprised you had time to write. Do you honestly think your readers care what color neckwear some totally irrelevant character wore when your fictional…fictional, damn it!... ship was attacked by pirates?”
“I care. And how do I know if it’s relevant until it’s been checked?”
Bess had no choice but to stifle her temper and apologize. She was a professional too, and she agreed with the old journalistic edict that you might use one per cent of a given set of facts, but you had to know one hundred per cent in order to use it right.
And today she was actually pleased that his research demands had given her the reason she so desperately needed to get out of the house. Absent, so to speak, from the pattern Geoff had established.
Looking at her when he thought she wouldn’t notice. Sighing to himself when he thought he’d gotten away with it.
Brow beetled, Bess trudged down St. John Street, only half aware of the passing vehicles and pedestrian traffic. Yesterday had been little short of torture for her. Her sunburn, combined with the incredible sensitivity she felt whenever Geoff so much as looked at her, was just too much to endure.
Today she had opted for cotton shorts and a light cotton tee-shirt as being the least abrasive on her still-tender skin. The shirt boasted the words SISTERS IN CRIME, an organization Bess supported with pride, even though she wrote romances. Through Sisters in Crime, she'd met a local Colorado Springs author named Denise Dietz; a woman who not only resembled Bess physically, but who had managed to successfully survive some serious angst of her own.
Hadn't Denise hooked up with an Australian for the purpose of co-authorship? Yes. Bess remembered a post Denise had sent to their Novelists Inc. authors' loop: “'Tis a collaboration made in heaven and hell.”
So how would Denise-the-mystery-author handle this present situation?
Bess could have emailed her friend, just to chat, perhaps commiserate, only she'd never memorized…or written down…Denise's email address, which included the name of one of her book characters. Ellie? Ingrid? Calliope?
Left to her own devices, Bess was about half sure she would simply grab a cab to the airport and flee. Flee Launceston, flee Tasmania, flee Geoff, flee her own confusion and torment. But that would go with her no matter where she landed, and she knew it. Furthermore, her professional ethics wouldn’t let her run. She’d taken Geoff's money, or at least accepted him paying for her trip, which was the same thing. And now she had almost two full months in which to make good her part of the bargain. Except that her part of the bargain had become iffy. The erotic scene he’d written was so much better than anything she could even imagine doing herself, she honestly felt her inclusion as imported expert on the sensual elements of their book was little more than a devilish jest.
“Maybe the whole damned thing is a joke of some kind,” she heard herself saying aloud, and looked around to see if anyone was listening. But she was starting to feel exactly that, despite the fact it didn't make much sense. Certainly she had something to offer; her knowledge of American history and speech patterns. And she had to admit that in those places where their collaboration had worked best, the writing fairly flew. It was good writing too, better than either of them could have done alone. Or was it?
That question continued to plague her during three fruitless hours in the library. She managed to find most of what Geoff had demanded, but none of her own needs were fulfilled because of the American specifications. Finally, frustrated to the point of being angry, she took stock and realized that hunger and thirst were destroying her logic.
So she marched to the nearest place she could remember that would provide a decent lunch and a blessed beer, and having got both she perched at a seat near the window, where she could watch the human traffic pass by. Which was something she usually enjoyed, until one pedestrian – this one inside the pub – managed to lurch against her table, spilling most of her beer into the remains of her nachos.
“I'm sorry,” said an unfamiliar voice from an unfamiliar face. “My fault entirely. Dicky ankle, I’m afraid. You must let me get you another beer. Draft, was it? Or something else?”
“No, please, don't bother.” Bess might as well have spoken to the wall. The tall stranger wouldn't accept no for an answer. He insisted on getting her another beer, even a new lunch.
“I was all done with my nachos, but I guess a beer would be okay,” she said, hoping this wasn't some pick-up situation. And was quietly pleased when the man brought her a new glass of beer, repeated his apology, then hobbled off to sit halfway across the tavern with his back to her.
She resumed her people-watching, sipping at the new beer as she did so and wondering what sort of draft he might have ordered for her. Not the same one she’d started with, that much was obvious. It was lighter in color than the dark Australian beers she’d come to enjoy, and it had a flavor that paled by comparison.
Ah well, more important things to worry about, she thought. Like returning to the library for another session. She tossed back the rest of the glass, took a final look out the window, and leaned down to pick up her handbag.
And was falling into the handbag, bonelessly, helplessly, when she half-heard the stranger's voice saying something about too much sun, too many beers, and her husband being on his way. “There he is now,” Bess heard, just before her ears stopped working.
~~~
“Now was that slick, or was that slick?”
His hobbling gait gone, slouched in the back of the hire car with an unconscious Bess cradled against his shoulder, the second of the Sydney standover merchants smiled in appreciation of his own talents. It was, in fact, the first time since his arrival in Launceston that he didn't feel as if a bomb was about to go off.
The driver growled approval without bothering to look over his shoulder. “Better than slick,” he finally said. “You got her out of there so smooth I doubt anyone will remember you, or her, an hour from now. Except maybe for the color of her hair. Damn, she’s a looker. Pity Coolidge is being so hard-nosed about her not being put to use while we’ve got her.”
“Since when did you start listening to Coolidge? I thought you hated his guts.”
“I do. But I got him on the cell phone while you were staging the lift, and our fee just doubled. So let’s be nice to him, for now.”
“Fine with me. What about Rossiter? Weren't we were supposed to take care of him before we got into this?”
The driver shrugged. “Don't worry, Rossiter will get his. Fact is, we’re supposed to slide by and collect him on our way to the place you organized. Where is it again? Deloraine?”
“North of there a bit. Perfect for this. Not a neighbor in sight or sound, no likelihood of visitors, council inspectors, or anything else. Just a nice, quiet little hobby farm hidden away in the bushes. Couldn’t be better.”
“For you, maybe. I’d be happier if it was right here in town somewhere. But it’s tough in a pissy little town this size. Every bastard knows every other bastard, or they're related. I’ll be glad to get back to the Smoke, I can tell you that.”
“Yair, me too. And will you slow down? We’ve got all the time in the world. She won’t come good for a couple of hours yet, and all we have to do is collect Rossiter. 'Ent that what you said?”
The driver nodded. “In the casino parking lot. No worries about being noticed. We’ll hardly have to slow down.”
“Fair enough, but what the hell are we gonna do with him? He’s a big bugger, and rough as guts.”
“If the two of us can’t handle him, big or not, we should be looking for jobs as barmaids.” Pausing for a traffic light, the driver turned and gazed at Bess. “Bloody oath,” he said, the words half growl, half sigh. “Just look at those legs, would you? Even with that sunburn, I’ll bet it would be fun to get between them.”
“The sunburn’s her problem,” said his companion, reaching for his groin in a gesture deliberately made crude by the smirk on his lips. “Here’s my problem, and the sooner we sort out Rossiter, the sooner I can get it fixed.”
“Not bloody likely,” said the driver, erasing the smirk so quickly it might not have existed. “Sorry, Davo, but this sheila’s not for you. Or me either, come to think on it. Coolidge probably wants her first.”
“Bugger that for a joke. We’d have to show him how.”
“No, Davo, at his prices he’s entitled. That’s why we’re back to plan A, with Rossiter along to keep an eye on her. We’ll get our turn with him right enough, but Coolidge wants them both kept sweet in the meantime. Seems Rossiter knows something Coolidge don’t. And the girl might, too. Anyway, it’s hands off for now, so don’t give me any problems on that score.”
There was no time for further argument as the hire car
swerved into the driveway of the casino and slowed long enough for the rumpled figure of Tom Rossiter to slide into the front passenger seat.
“She okay?” The words emerged from Rossiter's lips before he had the door closed, and the look in his pale, washed-out eyes made it clear there could be only one answer he wanted to hear.
“Right as rain,” was the reply from the back. “She’ll be out of it for at least another hour and a bit, and maybe half an hour after that, before she knows what day it is, much less what’s going on.”
“Right,” said Rossiter. “Then let’s get wherever the hell we’re going. I don’t want her to see I’m involved in this so we need to get her secured. Then we can sort out with Coolidge exactly how he wants to handle the rest.”
That remark drew a snicker from Davo, but since Rossiter didn’t know the reason for it, he merely shot a filthy glance over his shoulder and said nothing. The rest of the journey was made in silence, out along the Bass Highway, a quick swerve through Deloraine, then north along the river to the isolated hobby farm.
Bess was removed from the vehicle, carried by Tom Rossiter as lightly as if she’d been an infant, and placed on the cot in what must originally have been the farm house laundry. Tom noted with satisfaction that the small building had running water, a toilet, a door that locked from the outside, and no windows.
“She’ll be comfy enough in here,” he said, glaring around the small room as if to warn off any unseen danger. He carefully spread a car rug over the girl’s recumbent form, made sure there was a small mug of water available for her awakening, then followed the others outside and watched as the door was locked.
“So how does it play?” the chief of the Sydney crew asked, as he sprawled in the lounge room and gestured for his companion to bring some grog.
“We wait for Coolidge. He’s got some tricky scheme all worked out that should have this wrapped up in just a day or so.” Rossiter absently reached for the beer being offered to him. “Coolidge should be here pretty soon, along with Rambo. Until then we just wait.”
Finding Bess Page 16
