by Stella Quinn
She turned and studied his face in the low light. ‘This building must mean a lot to you.’
‘You have no idea.’
Her words came out unfiltered by the caution she usually had clamped tightly in place. ‘I’d like to hear. Tell me.’
Josh turned to her and then cocked his head. ‘You know, you blow a little hot and cold, Vera. I can’t quite see my way through it.’
She deserved that. And he deserved better, but after the long days she’d had in Queanbeyan, facing court, the ugly scene with Aaron in the restroom, the endless meetings with Sue, her willpower to resist him had puffed out. ‘I know,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so all over the place. I have a reason, but it’s a long and ugly story, and it’s … shameful. I’m ashamed.’
‘I’m not here to judge you, Vera. I like you. I don’t know why, sometimes,’ he said, with that easy smile on his face which took the sting from his words and made them almost, god help her, affectionate. ‘And call it my highly tuned male intuition, but I think you like me too. Sometimes. When you’re not busy giving me the brush-off.’
She lifted her face to the night. Cool, a hint of rain, and everything silent but for the hum from a streetlamp, and Jane Doe’s snuffling as she lay at Josh’s feet. Her busy day ahead seemed distant, like chores waiting for some other person. Not her. Not the Vera standing here in the moonlight with a thoughtful, handsome man by her side.
All the jobs she had lined up, the worries she had to shoulder … perhaps now, in the quiet of this November evening, was the time to be honest. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Pizza three hours ago. What did you have in mind?’
‘I could rustle up a slice of cake, if you like. Maybe we could talk if you’re not too tired.’
Josh reached down and found her hand. ‘I’m very partial to cake.’
She felt the warmth of his hand seep into the chill of hers. God help her, she was very partial to him.
‘So where have you been these last couple of days to not hear about the arsonist?’
‘I had to go to Queanbeyan.’
‘Queanbeyan? Was this something to do with the old life you’re trying to leave behind?’
She snorted. ‘Trying is the right word. Turns out, my old life is gripping on to me tooth and nail. It’s been a shattering couple of days, truth be told.’
They left the park behind them as they wandered to the north end of Dandaloo Drive, past the cinema and the retro store.
‘Mind if we detour on the way? I’ll drop Jane back to her pups.’
‘Sure.’ She was enjoying the walk. Her thoughts had been a scramble all day, but trudging along, with the world all quiet around them, was soothing her. She was in no hurry to stop wandering.
She stood on the footpath under the wrought-iron railings of the majestic old pub while Josh took the dog inside, and then he was back, and somehow her hand was in his again. The moon was on the wane, and low enough in the sky to throw a shimmer of moonlight across the blackness of the lake.
Josh cocked his head. ‘Want to take the scenic route? We can walk along the lakefront and cut back to Cuddy Street up there by the dock.’
She nodded. ‘I’d like that.’
Gravel crunched under their feet as they picked their way along the foreshore, and now and then a fish plopped, sending ripples through the dark water.
‘We grew up around this lake,’ Josh said.
‘You and Hannah?’
‘Oh, there was a great crew of us. Most have left the area. Unless your interests lie in tourism or farming, the jobs can be few and far between out here for youngsters. A handful are still around. Kylie, that’s Hannah’s bestie, and a few others that pop in from time to time.’
‘It seems an idyllic place to grow up.’
He grinned. ‘Skinny-dipping at midnight on summer nights. Bonfires, camping over the far side of the lake in the national park. Tom used to ride to school on a horse, some days.’
‘Okay, the horse part doesn’t sound quite so idyllic.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘They grow on you, trust me.’
His words played on her mind as she stepped over an old log. Trust me. Aaron had flung phrases like that around like they were ping-pong balls: lightweight little bits of plastic that he’d bought in a two-dollar shop and valued not at all. Could two men be any different?
When Josh said trust me, it mattered.
‘When I was at the clinic with the cat,’ she began, ‘your sister mentioned something about trouble with council. I wasn’t really paying attention … then, or when you asked me for help.’
‘Some time ago, we had an offer for our building, sent via a lawyer. It was a sizeable chunk of money. The block has views of the lake from some of the upstairs windows, and two street frontages, a yard out back. We said no.’
‘And that wasn’t the end of it?’
‘The lawyer pestered Hannah for weeks—this all happened before I moved here. But Hannah kept saying no, and the lawyer kept making offers. We’d never sell it. Not only because it’s where the clinic is, and Hannah’s spent every cent of her business profits kitting out the ground floor to be a modern surgery. But that building is a family heirloom. The Codys have owned it and run a business out of it since Hanrahan was a gold rush town in the 1880s. We’d never part with it.’
She didn’t have a building to show for family, and heritage, and history. But she had Jill’s books, her mother’s jewellery, and most important of all, she had their recipes and their love of food. She could understand the Cody siblings’ refusal to sell.
‘Then, the lawyer goes quiet. Han was pleased; thought they’d found some other property owner to harass. But then the “concerned citizen” letters started arriving at council … the nuisance complaints that threatened our business licence.’
‘Like what? What did they say?’
‘Oh, they varied. One was about chicken farming in an urban area, which was clear-cut rubbish. Another was about inadequate ID on dog collars, can you believe.’
‘And now a fire.’
Josh shook his head. ‘It’s mental. All of it. It’s not as though our building is the only one in Hanrahan. There’s a strip of Federation buildings on all four sides of the park, some of them have been on the market for years. Why us? Why be so damned persistent?’
She sighed. ‘I wish I knew of something that would answer your questions. I’m so sorry, Josh.’
They left the lakeshore behind them and turned up Cuddy Street. Jack squeezed her arm. ‘Your turn. Want to tell me what was so urgent that you took off without saying anything?’
‘I’ll tell you, I will, but let’s get inside. It’s going to take me a while to get through it.’
The cat was mewling its discontent by the time they arrived at her apartment, and she hurried into the laundry to spoon out a saucer full of fish mush. Mrs Butler had fed her last night, but she’d hoped to have been home earlier than this. The cat’s grey fur brushed her fingers as she began hoovering up her meal, and Vera gave her a quick stroke before leaving her to it.
‘Have a seat,’ she said to Josh as she returned to the living room and headed into the kitchenette to review the contents of her fridge. Did she even have any cake?
There was wine. That was a food group, wasn’t it? She pulled out a bottle of Yarra Valley chardonnay and waggled it in Josh’s direction. ‘Fancy a glass?’
‘Love one.’
He moved over to the counter and took a sip from the glass she handed him. ‘Nice. You didn’t buy this at the local bottlo.’
Vera poured herself an I-went-to-court-and-will-drink-whatever-the-hell-I-want serve of the delicate white. ‘Graeme’s broadening my palate. Last week it was a South Australian pinot noir. He slides them into my handbag with little love notes.’
Josh took another sip. ‘The man knows his beverages.’
She grinned and instantly felt better for it. God, how long had it been since she’d just … laugh
ed? Had a silly conversation and relaxed? ‘Don’t tell him. His ego barely fits behind the counter of The Billy Button Café as it is.’
‘It’ll be our secret.’
She cleared her throat. That was a segue prompt if ever she’d heard one. ‘Speaking of secrets, Josh, I meant it when I said I’d tell you why I’ve been so … hot and cold.’
He set down his glass and then took hers and placed it on the bench so he could take her hands in his. ‘It’s safe to tell me, Vera. I promise.’
She braced herself. ‘Okay. I drove to Queanbeyan after the fire had settled down. I had to. I was in court the next morning.’
‘A law court.’
‘Yep.’
Damn it. She pulled her hands away and turned to rummage through the pantry until she could trust herself to get the words out without crumpling to her knees. Packets of rice and pink salt and pasta stared up at her from inside the cupboard. Her trusty soldiers. It would be a lot easier to share her shame with them.
She found a tin of crackers, plucked a brie and grapes from the fridge, fussed with them a little on a platter and then moved to the sofa. She met his eyes as he sat down beside her. ‘You want the short story or the long?’
He stretched out and crossed his ankles. ‘Better make it the long one.’
‘My aunt used to live at an aged care facility in the outskirts of Queanbeyan. She was there a total of four and a half years.’
‘This is Jill, who’s at Connolly House now?’
‘Yep. She’s … fading away. Quicker than I’d hoped. That fall she had last week—she’s not improving.’
‘I’m sorry, Vera.’
She realised she’d shredded a grape into pulp and set it aside on a napkin. ‘When she was living at Acacia View, I would visit, and after a while, I started noticing … stuff.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
‘Unwashed hair. Her bedding or clothing not being changed. Staff never the same so you couldn’t be sure there was anyone there who my aunt could recognise.’
‘That’s terrible. Could your aunt not care for herself at all?’
‘At first, yes. She could shower, watch TV, play cards with the other residents. But she has vascular dementia and problems with her heart and the decline has been steep.’
And crippling to watch. Vera sighed. ‘As her ability to communicate with me deteriorated, I became more and more concerned. So I started looking out for other people there visiting relatives and I talked to them. Turned out I wasn’t the only one with concerns. I spoke to the facility manager and asked for something to be done.’
‘And, what, they did nothing?’
‘They brushed me off. Sure, my aunt’s room would be given a spring-clean, she’d be in a different nightie the next time I visited, but the change never lasted. I was upset about it. I mean, this place and her medical bills were sucking her and me dry financially, yet they couldn’t even roster enough staff on duty so someone could brush her hair.’
‘That’s awful.’
‘So I decided to take my concern public.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You know I was a journalist before I moved here and became a cook?’
Josh nodded. ‘Yep. Quite a career change.’
She shrugged. ‘You do what you must.’
‘So true. You know, before I came back to Hanrahan, I wasn’t a vet.’
She smiled. ‘Josh Cody. The town’s prodigal son, who knocked up the high school science teacher, chucked in his uni scholarship and left town. Worked construction, came back fifteen years later with a daughter and a vet degree. His little sister Hannah let him buy into her vet practice. How’d I do?’
A cracker in his hand snapped in two, showering crumbs all over her sofa. ‘I see small-town gossip is alive and well.’
‘In my defence, I’m not gossiping, I’m just boxing up blueberry and limoncello cheesecakes. It’s the Hanrahan residents who like to overshare everything.’
‘I can imagine. So you decided to do a story on the aged care facility. Newspaper journalism, right?’
‘The South Coast Morning Herald. Not a huge paper, but syndicated, so stories we wrote could go national if the interest was there.’
‘Sounds ambitious.’
Yes, ambition had played its part. Her own, in particular, and that’s what made her guilt so unbearable. She had hated seeing her aunt’s living conditions, but at the same time, she had been congratulating herself on what a boost this exposé would give her career.
She dragged her mind back to her story. ‘The first article was well received. My, um, boss received a lot of feedback from readers, so I got the go ahead to do more. That’s when I started writing about the Acacia View Aged Care Facility in detail. That’s when it all went bad.’
‘Bad how? I’m not hearing anything so far that explains why you’d be appearing in court.’
‘One day I found my aunt on the floor of her room, a big bruise on her face. She’d fallen, and no-one could tell me when she’d last been checked on. She could have been lying there on the floor for hours. So … I planted a hidden camera in her room.’
‘Oh.’
‘Uh-huh. And I wrote another article describing how I’d found her on the floor.’
Josh winced. ‘That can’t have gone down well with management.’
‘It was never published.’ Here it was. The Big Bad Wolf of a thing that had taken over her life. ‘My … er … boss saw an opportunity. He pulled my article in return for a lucrative advertising contract with the Acacia View owners. When I called him on it, he sacked me.’
‘Surely that’s unfair dismissal.’
‘It didn’t end there. He told the manager of the facility about the camera, and they decided to prosecute. That’s what I’m facing in court, a charge for installing a surveillance device which is, apparently, illegal.’
She sucked in a breath. Best to get this part out all in one go. ‘So, I was jobless, my aunt’s bed at the facility was suddenly no longer available, and my resumé turned out to be worse than useless, because no-one would give me a job. I sold my apartment to pay my legal bills and Jill’s care costs.’
‘Vera, I’m so sorry.’
She took a sip of the wine and let the cool of it slide down her throat. ‘So, that’s what I’m currently fighting in court.’
Josh picked up her hand from where it lay on the couch. He ran calloused fingers over hers. ‘What are your chances of fighting the charges?’
She sucked in a breath. ‘When I’m feeling brave? Maybe I’d say I had a good chance. But mostly, I don’t feel so brave. When my, um, boss let me down—threw me under the bus, in fact—it took my confidence, Josh. I can’t trust my judgement anymore.’ It hurt to think it, but she’d thought of little else for months. ‘Maybe I really do deserve to go to prison.’
Silence ticked along in the room when she stopped talking, measured by the dull click of the hands of her old clock. What did he think about her now he knew the ugly truth? Did he regret being here?
God knows, if the gossip she’d heard over the cake slices was true, Josh had fielded enough drama of his own in his day. Why would he want to rock his newfound peace by being associated with her?
‘I’m sorry you’re having to go through this, Vera.’
He hadn’t drawn his hand away from hers. Instead, he’d curved his upwards, so his fingers curled over hers.
‘You aren’t … horrified?’
His mouth quirked. ‘Sweetheart, I used to work construction in Sydney. I’ve seen more vice than you’ve served pots of tea.’
She felt a little bud of hope uncurl within her breast. ‘I was so worried that you’d think—’
‘I’d think what?’
She bit her lip. ‘That I was too much trouble. That you’d had enough of being the subject of gossip.’
He smiled then, and there was more wicked in it than sweetness. ‘I love a little trouble now and then.’
CHAPTER
30
He’d had women in his life. Too many, his sister would have said, especially back in high school. His affair with Beth had survived a baby and the crash-and-burn of his university scholarship, but then waned over time into friendship; and he’d gone out in Sydney every now and then, but never with any real intent. Never with his heart in a flutter and his thoughts all torn up like confetti, like they were now.
Never with a woman whose inhibitions were so at odds with how she kissed.
Maybe he’d got it wrong that day on the trail. Maybe he’d imagined her response to suit himself, because he needed her to want him as much as he wanted her. But she was looking at him now with need in her eyes and he wanted—he really wanted—to believe it was him that she needed.
He tucked a curl of her hair behind her ear, letting his hand linger on the soft velvet of the skin he found there. Only one way to find out, and here, in the soft light of the fringed lamp, with nothing but the low purr of a sleeping cat to disturb them, was the perfect time.
He slid his hand down to her shoulder and nudged her towards him. ‘Speaking of trouble, you want to kiss me?’
‘I shouldn’t.’
He leaned in until he was a breath away. ‘Because you’re not sure how you feel about me?’
He knew damn well what he was feeling: weak-kneed, starry-eyed … with visions of him and Vera building something real together. Something that looked like a family, with his daughter, and a cavalcade of pets, and lazy Sundays holding hands.
She breathed in, a long shuddering breath that sucked a piece of his soul in with it. ‘I’m feeling plenty. And that’s exactly why I shouldn’t kiss you. My life’s a mess, Josh. The sort of mess that could end up in prison.’
‘When bad stuff happens, we get through it, Vera. Day by day.’
She smiled, a sad little curl of her lips that made him want to gather her into a hug and hold her until all that sadness faded away.
He touched his lips to hers, lingered there until the warmth built. ‘I can hope with you. I can worry with you. I can mind your cat while you make licence plates in Old Wentworth Gaol.’
