by Evie Snow
Stephen’s expression darkened. “Yeah. That’d probably be a good idea. They’ll probably be basket cases right now.”
“Yeah.” Jo’s breath caught as the enormity of what had happened hit her full in the chest. She tried to swallow back a massive lump of tears, but a couple escaped before she could wipe them away.
“You alright?” Stephen asked, stroking her hair back from her cheek.
She rested her head on his shoulder. “Yeah. I am now.”
* * *
Ken Blaine was held up talking to the cops and didn’t make it over to Evangeline’s Rest until late that afternoon. By then, Jo was fast asleep from a combination of exhaustion and pain medication. Stephen had stayed with her until her eyes closed and her breathing evened out. He’d liked seeing her in his bed, even if the thought of what had put her there made him psycho- furious. He’d never had a girl stay over in his room when he was a kid, and he had a gut feeling that his teenage self would approve of him having Jo there right now. He stood up and brushed Jo’s cheek with his fingers before leaving the room and quietly closing the door.
With Jo settled, Stephen, Clayton, and Scott migrated outside to the porch to have a beer and collectively brood. Angie had left to work her afternoon shift at the Evangeline’s Rest cellar door, and Rob had gone out with Stephen’s Uncle Les and Ken Blaine to see if they could find any tire tracks indicating how the bastard who shot Jo had gotten around their farm. Stephen would be out there himself, had wanted to go, but Jo had asked him to stick around.
The police had already ruled out anything premeditated, because only Scott and Amy had known that Jo was driving down with him that day. Instead, they strongly suspected it had been someone hitting Jo by accident when shooting rabbits. Stephen hoped to hell his dad or the police found something soon. He was still having trouble quelling the rage that had been with him since he’d first spotted Jo limping towards him, blood rushing down her leg.
“So you and Jo Blaine, eh?” Clayton asked Stephen after a few minutes of scowling introspection on all counts.
“Yeah. Since a week ago.” Stephen narrowed his eyes at Scott. “Someone’s been playing matchmaker.” He’d only worked out that’s what was happening when Scott had backed off so quickly in the hospital.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Scott said, feigning innocence.
Clayton gave Scott a surprised look. “Wasn’t Jo your girlfriend for years?”
“Yeah, what’s with that?” Stephen demanded, still smarting that he’d been kicked out of Jo’s hospital room so she and Scott could talk. Yeah, she’d told him they’d just talked about how to stop their respective families from getting too worked up about stuff, but Stephen didn’t see why he couldn’t have been present for that conversation.
“We’ve never been together except in this genius’s imagination.” Scott gestured to Stephen with his can of beer. “Jo and Amy Blaine are family, have been since I was ten and Jo was twelve. She’s like my sister.”
“How come we didn’t know you were friends before she came to that Christmas thing when you were kids?” Clayton asked.
Scott’s expression went blank. “You’ll have to ask Jo why. Not my story to tell.”
“If you’re in it, must have been your story too,” Stephen growled.
“Can’t. Sorry.” Scott shrugged, distracted by the sight of a car approaching the house.
Clayton followed his gaze. “Looks like Ken’s car. You think we should wake up Jo?” he asked Stephen.
“No!” Scott barked before Stephen could say anything. “I’ll go have a talk with him. Promised Jo I would. Stay here. I’ll tell him to come back later, alright?”
Before Stephen could say anything, Scott was jogging over to where Ken had pulled up and talking to him through the window. Stephen got up, fully prepared to walk over and talk to Ken himself, but Clayton put a hand on his arm, holding him back.
“Just ask later, eh?”
Stephen looked down at his brother. “Do you have any idea how I’m feeling right now?”
Clayton scowled. “If it’s half of how I’m feeling, pretty shit.”
Stephen made a low, frustrated noise. “I mean, first we end up with his girls having to move to the city after I fucked up at the party—”
“That was Jeff more than you.” Clayton and Jeff were best friends, but that didn’t mean Clayton hadn’t taken a chunk out of Jeff when it had all happened.
“—and now this!” Stephen finished. “There’s got to be a way we can stop kids from getting onto the farm. This could have been a hell of a lot worse than it was.” Just the thought of Jo being fatally wounded left him cold and sweaty despite the day’s heat.
“I’m gonna talk to all the farmers around here. We’ll get on top of it.”
“If you don’t take care of it, I will.” Sometime during the course of the day, Stephen’s easy-going façade had evaporated. He wanted a fight. He glared at Scott, who was still talking to Ken; their voices were too low to hear a damn thing, but from their body language, neither man was happy. “Screw this, I’m going over there.”
Clayton shook his head. “Just stay here and let him take care of it. From what I gathered, Jo asked him to. That’s why she wanted you to leave, right? They were apparently friends for years. So Scott probably knows Ken better than you do anyway.”
Stephen’s reply was forestalled by Ken pulling away from the house and driving off at high speed, tires kicking up gravel.
“What the hell was that about?” Stephen demanded when Scott returned to the porch.
Scott ran his hand over his hair, his expression taut. “Nothing much. Jo asked me to keep her parents away until she’s up to dealing with him.”
“Why?” The edge in Stephen’s voice matched Scott’s.
Scott’s voice was saturated in sarcasm. “Maybe because she’s been shot and she needs to sleep?”
“Just out of curiosity, mate, why’d she ask you to take care of Ken? Why not Stephen, Dad, or me?” Clayton asked, probably because he knew Stephen was about to ask in a way that would piss Scott off.
“Probably because I don’t ask so many bloody questions,” Scott snapped before downing the rest of his beer and stalking back into the house, muttering something about calling Amy and updating her on what’d happened.
Stephen stared out over the paddocks surrounding his family’s home feeling like a powder keg ready to blow.
* * *
“Clayton. Mate! Heard some woman got pegged in the leg on your place. How many times do I have to tell you flowers and chocolates work better?”
Jo cringed as a voice from the past boomed through the Hardys’ open front door and into the living room, where she lay on the couch with her head in Stephen’s lap. Stephen started running his hand gently through her hair, but she could feel him tensing at the sound of her old nemesis, Jeff Rousse.
“Watch your mouth!” Angie Hardy yelled from the kitchen, giving Jo a good idea which branch of the family tree the Hardy men had gotten their strident voices from.
“Sorry, Ange!” Jeff called back. “Bad joke. I was just talking to Clayton. Didn’t know you were there.”
“We’re all here, you idiot, so talk a bit bloody quieter,” Rob grouched from the couch next to Jo and Stephen’s. He and Stephen were watching the news, Scott was in Mike’s old room on the phone, presumably apologizing for missing the day’s photo shoot, and Clayton had gone outside the minute he’d heard a vehicle pull up in front of the house. Jo thanked god that Rachael was still in Sydney. There was such a thing as too many Hardys.
“Aw. Sorry, Rob,” Jeff called out, his voice more apologetic than Jo had ever heard it in her teens. Jo remembered he’d been Clayton Hardy’s best friend since they were kids.
“Then shut up!” Stephen bellowed before his father could get a word in.
“Yeah. Well, I would, but I came over to let you know that we’ve had a bit of trouble lately with kids shooting kangaroos on
our place. Dad found a dead roo on the edge of our north boundary fence yesterday. Looks like they shot it with a .22.”
“That right?” Rob exchanged a look with Stephen above Jo’s head. “You tell the police yet?”
“Not yet,” Jeff replied. “Was going there tomorrow. The old man just told me. Anyway, who got shot? They said she wasn’t hurt badly, but it must have been a bit of a scare.” He paused. “It wasn’t Rachael, was it? I thought she was over east still. Did she come back early?” All of a sudden, his voice sounded frantic.
“Relax. No, it wasn’t Rachael,” Clayton said calmly. “Look, mate, Jo’s trying to sleep. She’s had a rough day and you’re probably making her head pound, so quiet down.”
“Jo? Who’s Jo?”
“Jo Blaine,” Clayton said.
“Holy shit! Rabies Blaine?”
Jo cringed at the nickname Jeff had given her after she’d punched him out after he’d stolen Amy’s only Barbie doll and thrown it out their school bus window. He’d never forgiven her for publicly humiliating him and had made her life hell from that day forward. He’d gotten even worse after Stephen had stood up for Jo that same year, but Jo hadn’t cared; Stephen had been the first person to ever stand up for her. It probably hadn’t meant much to him, but it had meant everything to her.
“Yeah. Jo Blaine.” Clayton spoke over the top of Jeff, who’d asked the question a second time.
“Oh.” Jeff sounded stunned. “Shit. She alright? What’s she doing back in town?”
“Yeah, she’s alright. She’s with Stephen now.” Clayton answered only half of Jeff’s questions, no doubt because he was aware of Jo being within earshot.
“With Stephen? Jesus, she gets around, doesn’t she? Wasn’t she with Sco—”
“So, what’s up, mate? You end up buying Ewan Reid’s bull?” Clayton interrupted in an obvious attempt to circumvent the train wreck that would happen if either Stephen or Scott reacted to his idiot friend’s big mouth.
“Colin’s bull? Nah. I went over there this morning and . . .”
He and Clayton walked out of hearing range. She wouldn’t have to see him and walk any further down memory lane after all, thank god. Relaxing in relief and feeling Stephen do the same, she fought the urge to drift back to sleep.
“Want me to go out there and kill him?” Stephen asked softly, his voice rumbling through his chest as he smiled down at her.
“Hmm? No. Not worth it,” Jo mumbled.
“Yeah, you’re probably right there. Want to go to bed?”
“Yeah.” Jo looked up at him, feeling a touch of the warm fuzzies at his concerned expression.
“Want me to carry you?”
“Nooo.” Jo half sat up, fighting dizziness. “It’s a wonder you don’t have a hernia already after you carried me earlier. I’ll walk.”
“You’re worth it. And it gave me a chance to man up.” Stephen gave her a bone-melting smile and a wink. “Besides, if you’re feeling guilty, I’m sure we could talk about it later.” He waggled his eyebrows when he said talk, and Jo started laughing, gently prodding him in the stomach.
“Look, matey, when I’m well enough to talk next, you’re not going to get a word in edgewise.”
Chapter 11
Ibn the chopper pilot was going to have to get over his ridiculous Shania Twain crush, Jo thought. The volume he insisted on playing his music over the helicopter’s sound system would be considered assault in most sane countries, but no one had the nerve to complain, including Jo. Ibn was big, ornery, and Trinidadian, and when pissed off had been known to “accidentally” leave people stranded onshore in Nouakchott, Mauritania’s dusty and isolated capital city. That meant no work, no pay, and almost guaranteed food poisoning at the company’s onshore staff housing. Busted eardrums or not, no one wanted that.
Jo had left Perth only two days before, and she was already missing Stephen. The next two months were bound to be hellish. She looked out the window to the horizon, where a gray-brown sky blended seamlessly with the sea to create a hermetically sealed world containing Hedgehog, and no doubt, his latest disaster. She’d claimed two weeks sick leave while her leg healed, which meant her dreadful sidekick had gotten to work before her. It didn’t take a psychic to know that a mess was going to greet her in the next few hours. Better to think about her next conversation with Stephen, which, come hell or high water, would be as soon as she could hijack the phone box.
The past weeks together had been heaven, bullet wound and all. Not that the bullet wound had slowed them down once Jo had decided to put the incident and its emotional upheaval out of her mind. She’d had a lifetime’s worth of practice compartmentalizing stuff like this, and the experience had served her well. Instead, she’d made a point to savor every hour she spent with Stephen, who’d insisted on treating her like a fragile flower until she’d had enough, declared herself recovered, and jumped him. After that, the two of them had barely come up for air.
The only downside had been the times he’d tried to ask her questions about her relationship with her family. She’d managed to sidetrack him, but sometimes, he’d then divert the conversation to questions about her job. She hadn’t wanted to really talk about that either, preferring to share funny rig stories from when she’d enjoyed her career more.
She knew he was frustrated with being headed off at every pass. She was getting frustrated, furious at feeling helpless, and extra fearful now that she had Stephen to lose along with everything else.
No, better not think of that. Better to concentrate on the fun they’d had after they’d both worked out it’d be best to keep things light during her recovery.
Now, unfortunately, it would be another two months before she got her next fix of him, and even thinking about having to wait that long set her teeth on edge. A lot could happen in two months, as she’d learnt the few times she’d left Perth thinking she was in a relationship and returned to find out she wasn’t. No, better not think of that now. Better to suck it up, listen to Shania, and try to anticipate whatever disaster awaited her at the boxy steel rig poking up out of the North Atlantic on the horizon.
* * *
“Nice view, bro. So this is where you’ve been holed up while you let Lauren keep all your money? You never had furniture this nice when you lived with her.”
Stephen’s twin, Rachael, had never been one to beat around the bush, and right now, she was flattening metaphorical greenery every which way. She was standing by Jo’s living room window, taking in the late-afternoon view of the Swan River, which was a gray blur through a steady downpour of rain.
“Hi, Rach. How was your flight? Welcome to Hotel Stephen. Picking you up from the airport was all a part of the service,” Stephen said dryly, dumping his sister’s ten-ton case on the doormat before closing the front door and heaving Boomba into his arms to give him a pat behind the ears.
“What is that?” Rachael asked, staring at the cat and deliberately ignoring Stephen’s sarcasm.
“A cat, Rachael. I’m pretty sure you learnt about them when we were kids. You know, the things that sat on the mat in a hat.”
“Shaddup.” Rachael leveled him with a glare, her eyes shooting daggers. “I can see it’s a cat, but why is it so huge?”
Stephen looked down at Boomba, who was gazing up at him with drooling feline adoration. “Did you hear that? I’d be feeling pretty pissed right now if I were you.” The cat didn’t seem to think getting annoyed was called for and started purring. “He’s a Maine Coon cat. Biggest breed there is, I think.”
“I hope he’s not planning on sharing the couch with me tonight.”
“Nope. He and I have an exclusive relationship. So what are you gonna cook me for dinner?” Rachael was a classically trained French chef, and just the thought of her cooking was making Stephen’s mouth water.
“Nothing. I’m too tired,” Rachael said, looking around at the built-in bookcases and a series of black-and-white landscapes on the wall above one of the couches. “Hey
, these photos are Scott’s work, right?”
“Yep.”
“So . . . how are you and Jo getting on?”
“Ah, about that. We’re kind of—”
Rachael’s eyes went wide. “You’ve hooked up, haven’t you? I can’t believe this! You hooked up and no one told me?!”
“Well, aren’t you behind the eight ball,” Stephen teased. “I thought someone would have by now.”
“If you don’t put me in front of it in the next five minutes, things are going to get messy,” Rachael threatened. “You and Jo Blaine? How? When?”
“Big questions, sis. I’ll need food to answer them.” Stephen grinned. “C’mon, we’ll go down to Little Creatures and I’ll fill you in.”
Stephen told Rachael about the shooting while surrounded by the sound of hundreds of people talking in between drinking beer and eating tapas at long bench tables. The smell of roasting garlic and pepperoni wafted from the wood-fired pizza oven in the open kitchen and mixed with the smell of hops coming from the attached microbrewery.
“Did they catch who did it yet?” Rachael asked eventually.
Stephen swallowed a rush of anger that was just as acute as it had been that day. “No, but since Jeff told the cops about the trouble he’s been having with people shooting kangaroos on their place, the cops have filed it as an accident. Someone’s shooting roos or rabbits, and Jo got in the way. The stupid thing is that Dad and Clayton would have been happy if someone had volunteered to keep the rabbits down. Everyone’s been so busy lately, they’re getting out of control.”
“I say we start putting them on the menu at Evangeline’s.” Rachael’s eyes lit up the way they always did when she talked about food. “I can do a lot of magic with rabbit.”
“Not these,” Stephen said darkly. “Actually, can we not talk about rabbit? It’s putting me off my food.”
