Sexy as Sin (Sinful, Montana Book 3) Page 11

  He wasn’t going easy. He was in the doorway, in fact, hanging on to both sides of the jamb. “Wait, what? I’m not a good enough boyfriend? That about the size of it? No other girl’s ever said so. Why is that? Oh, wait. Because they were actually exciting enough to make me care. You know why I never loved you enough or . . . or brought you flowers, or whatever the hell you wanted? Because you’re not exciting. You’re like a . . . a mate, that’s what. You surf, you cook, and you’re always down for sex, but you work so hard at it, it’s a bit pathetic. Made me laugh, really. Also, you’ve got frizzy ginger hair and ginger eyelashes, you never tan, and you don’t wear enough makeup. You barely even have tits! Know what you are?” He’d forgotten the anger. Instead, he was looking delighted, like he’d discovered a secret. “You’re basically a bloke. Nobody’s going to be rolling in early from the pub to get some of that.” He nodded again. “That’s it. You’re a bloke.”

  Willow unfroze. Or something. “Out,” she said again, but the breath she’d hauled in was unsteady, and there was red in her cheeks like she’d been slapped. “Get . . . out.”

  Brett had never wanted to hit somebody more in his life. He didn’t get the chance. Willow already had Gordy shoved out into the hall. “Go have a three-way! With somebody exciting!” she shouted after him, then slammed the door, turned, and leaned against it. Bare feet planted, her dress still not quite right, her hair half out of its knot and falling in corkscrew tendrils. “If he tries to come back in,” she told Brett, “hit him with a crutch. Or better yet, I will. Wanker. He always wanted not to use a condom. I’m lucky I’m not diseased.”

  “That’s my plan,” he said. “The crutch.” There were sounds of a scuffle outside, raised voices, and Willow didn’t move. “He’s likely to get arrested out there. Hospitals don’t mess around. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

  “He’ll love it.” She was still breathing hard, her color was still high, and she was still braced against the door. “He can wear his Che Guevara T-shirt and talk about his time in the cells.”

  Brett smiled, and, finally, she did, too. The noise outside lessened, and she stood away from the door at last, felt for her hair, then gave it up, and asked, “You OK? What time is it?” She wasn’t looking at him, and then she was.

  “One-thirty. And yeah, I’m fine.” He probably wasn’t fine. He was dizzy, in fact, and feeling suddenly sick. Really sick. She had an arm around him, which would have been just wonderful if he hadn’t been so close to keeling over. Which was when the door opened and a nurse came in. Fast. Followed by a security guard with a shaved head and about three hundred pounds of muscle.

  Some men saved the day and got the girl. Others got helped back into bed by two women, neither of whom appeared dazzled by his heroism, and had their water glass tenderly held for them by a girl who’d got her poise back along with her sense of humor.

  The words had hurt, and she’d shaken them off. Or she didn’t want to show him the pain. That was more like it.

  She also wasn’t entangled anymore, so that was good. But he should say something. He should tell her . . . he should . . .

  He hadn’t been heroic, no, but maybe, he thought hazily as he let a double dose of something much too strong overtake him . . .

  Start again. Start from here.

  He’d tell her. In a minute. He’d open his eyes, and . . .

  He’d tell her.

  Willow let herself into the dark flat as quietly as she could, but Azra came out anyway, still tying her dressing gown closed.

  “Oh, good,” she said in Arabic. “It’s just you.” Her round, normally cheerful face looked troubled. “Did Gordy find you?”

  “Yeah.” Willow headed into the kitchen, chucked her dirty dishes into the dishwasher, and closed it again. Every movement felt like walking through treacle, and her body didn’t seem to be her own. Her normal reserve of energy just wasn’t there, like a car running on petrol fumes. She also felt dangerously close to crying, which wasn’t good at all.

  Sleep, she told herself. She’d sleep, and she’d wake up cheerful again. Gordy was just another man, and what he’d said was nothing she didn’t already know.

  Azra turned on the kettle. “Cup of mint tea,” she declared, pulling down a mug and dropping a bag into it. “On second thought . . .” She pulled down another cup. “One for me. I was worried, when I texted you and you didn’t answer. I shouldn’t have told him where you were. I wanted to send him off for good, but it wasn’t my choice to make. He made me so angry, banging around in here like he had a right to, but that’s no excuse.”

  “No worries,” Willow said. The kettle hissed to boiling point, and she leaned against the dishwasher, watched Azra pour the hot water, and tried again to rise above. “I sent him off myself. It wasn’t pretty, though.”

  Azra glanced at her too shrewdly. “When I first got here,” she said, “I thought Aussie men were fun. So different from home. So easygoing, so quick to laugh, so slow to temper. Then I realized that they’re easygoing because they don’t care much. There must be some men in the middle. Where are they?”

  “Yeah.” Willow picked up her mug. “That’s about it. Sorry about Gordy. I’d say we should look into better locks for the windows, but you’re right. He doesn’t care enough to come around again. All cats are gray in the dark, hey. He’ll find another gray cat. And I’m off to bed.”

  Azra gave her a quick, hard cuddle. “Find a man who wants to look at you in the light, then,” she said. “Do something fun on your day off tomorrow, maybe. I’d offer to do it with you, but we’re in the middle of that project, my boss actually asked my opinion today, I can’t surf, and you hate to shop, so there you are.” She picked up her own tea and headed out of the kitchen. “Laylah sa’idah, love. Sleep well.”

  Willow didn’t. Too tired to sleep, maybe, although she’d been fathoms deep for hours on the narrow hospital bed. In Brett’s arms. She turned the pillow over, trying to find a cool spot, and tried to go to her happy place. Imagining the waves cresting, breaking, and rolling into shore in an endless rhythm, the hiss and roar of them, the clean-salt smell of the sea. Stroking through the cool water beyond the breakers, nothing to hear but your breath in your ears, nothing to see but the sea and the sky beyond, alone with the water.

  It didn’t work, and she knew why. It was the shark, its dark shape lurking below and behind you, ready to strike, because you’d lowered your guard. You’d ventured alone and unprotected into the deep, where the wild things were, and all they wanted was to find you defenseless. To strike you, and to cut you deep. To slice you to the bone.

  Finally, the hot tears behind her eyes couldn’t be denied any longer. One of them trickled down into the cotton of the pillowcase, and the rest of them followed. She held the pillow in both hands, buried her face in it, and let them come. And at last, she slept.

  She woke at six, her head as muzzy as if it were stuffed with cotton wool. Three cups of tea, and she was on the motorway and headed north. The only place she wanted to go, and the only person she wanted to see.

  Besides Brett. She still wanted to see him. But she couldn’t stand the idea that he was tolerating her, that he was a captive audience, happy to have her bring him food and offer him a distraction, his temporary companionship. And most of all, that he’d heard.

  You’re always down for sex, but you work so hard at it, it’s a bit pathetic. Made me laugh, really.

  The words sat there, in her head and in her heart, weighing her down. She needed distance, so she drove. Leaving the coast, entering the traffic on Brisbane’s outer fringes, then exiting the motorway and taking the familiar turns into Ellen Grove. A left at the pub, and a right at the huge, spreading Moreton Bay fig, growing for centuries, its thick gray-brown buttresses supported by more than a dozen aerial roots that had become trunks of their own. In the evening, the flying foxes would come in, darkening the dusky sky like shadows, dropping into the trees to feed and chatter, a group of old ladies talking in the
shops.

  Up the street, then, lined with Illawarra flame trees, their orange-and-red flowers in full exuberant display, and around the corner to the homely single-story yellow-brick house with its covered porch brightened by hanging baskets of flowers, its roof of green tin that made the rain sound like a friend, and the jacaranda in the front garden, its lacy green leaves and deep-purple flowers looking like home.

  Aunt Fiona was in the back garden, kneeling beside a flowerbed in the shade of the mandarin and lemon trees, wielding a digger with gusto. Sleeveless checked blouse and navy shorts, her brown hair hidden under a straw hat, with three black-and-white-speckled Plymouth Rock hens keeping her company, digging along with her like loyal acolytes. The two black Australorps chuckled together under the lacebark in the corner, its glorious pink flowers a shining contrast to the green of the palms and the yellow-white of frangipani.

  Fiona didn’t see Willow until she touched her on the shoulder, and then, she jumped. After that, though, she jumped to her feet with the agility of a still-lithe body, wrenched off her gloves, took Willow by the shoulders, and gave her a cuddle. “Darling. What a lovely surprise.”

  “I didn’t ring,” Willow said. “Hope that’s all right. I’ve brought my washing and put it in the machine, and I thought, if you were out here, I’d give you a hand. Day off.”

  Fiona studied her, and if Azra’s gaze was penetrating, hers was more so, her deep-blue eyes assessing. Her face was as made-up as Willow’s—in other words, not at all—and the lines around her eyes spoke of a life spent out of doors, and spent smiling, too. “Of course you don’t have to ring before you come home. Why ever would you? And I’d love a hand. We’ve had so much rain, the weeds have decided this is their opportunity to form an army and take over. On the other hand, the fruit’s gone mad, what with the rain and my bees, so it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. I hope you’ll take some mandarins and bananas home with you. Maybe you can think of something brilliant to do with them.”

  “I’ve been experimenting,” Willow said, collecting a digger of her own and a pair of gloves against the venomous nasties that lurked in Queensland gardens, then starting in on some particularly enthusiastic crabgrass spoiling the look of the three-tiered rock water feature, with its adornment of pink rock orchids and purple coral peas, a honey bee or two bumbling contentedly around them. “With ice blocks. People have been loving them, even when the function’s posh. Combos of fruit and veggies, mostly. Mandarins are easy. Bananas . . . I could do that with yoghurt and chocolate, maybe. Pour a bit of melted chocolate down into the middle at the last, so they freeze like that, with a lovely surprise at the core. More of a sweet. Could work.”

  “There you are,” Fiona said comfortably. “Brilliant as ever. Sounds like the next big thing to me. Organic, healthful, and delicious. Sign me up.”

  “I brought you a few,” Willow said, feeling, suddenly, a little shy. “Popped them into the freezer for you and Uncle Colin to try. I’m still working on the green ones, some different ideas. You could tell me what you think.”

  “Of course, if I can help.”

  They dug for a while in silence, and Willow inhaled the smell of rich, turned earth, gently relocated a wriggling pink worm, felt the sweat begin to dampen the spot between her shoulder blades, and let the morning warmth soak into her like a hot bath. At last, she said, “I used to wonder why you didn’t listen to music out here, as much time as you spend. Or audiobooks, as much as you read.”

  “Mm,” Fiona said without looking up. “At first because headphones are a barrier, and I had sons. When do two great rough boys talk to their mum? When she’s busy doing something. Weeding, cooking, folding the washing. And I wanted them to talk, especially Jace. Rafe, too, of course, but I was never so worried about Rafe. He wears his heart out there to see. Jace, though . . . not so much. And after that?” She stopped a minute, crouched comfortably on her haunches, one gloved hand on a thigh, and considered. “I got so I enjoyed it. Not the silence. The sounds. The wind in the palms, and the contented noises that chooks make, the way they all come running when somebody finds a spider. The birds.” She smiled at Willow. “It’s the sound of life, isn’t it? The sound of the world’s heart beating. Whatever frustration I’m feeling when I come out here, I don’t have it when I go back inside.”

  Willow’s own heart constricted, and she swallowed past the lump in her throat. After a moment, Fiona said, “And then, of course, I had you, and I needed to be there more than ever. Folding the washing, or whatever it was, someplace where you could find me.”

  “It was too much.” Willow had never said it. Now, she had to. “You were almost done, and here I came. Not even your blood. Your husband’s sister’s daughter. You didn’t even know me, really. I never thanked you, and I should have.”

  Fiona’s face changed. “No, my darling. Never. You were my pleasure. You still are. Maybe I should have told you how glad I was to have a daughter at last, but it was . . . tricky, wasn’t it? You’d had a mum already. You had your own loyalties, and your memories, too. I didn’t want you to feel that you had to forget her. But I should have said something all the same.”

  There the tears were again, the second time in hours. Willow never cried. Not for years. When her parents had died, the numbness and shock had been too deep for tears, and after that, tears had been something she hadn’t wanted to show, even to herself. A weakness. But here they were behind her eyes anyway. She took a deep, ragged breath and tried to force them back, but they wouldn’t go.

  Fiona set down her trowel, stripped off her gloves, and came to kneel beside Willow. “Oi,” she said softly. “It’s a hard one, eh.”

  Willow nodded, nothing but a jerk, and just like that, her aunt’s arms, strong and wiry and brown, were around her, her hand smoothing over her back like something from a long-forgotten time. Another hard breath, and the tears came. Not gently this time. Rough and painful, her body jerking with them.

  Her aunt held her through every broken sob, every abortive attempt to cut it off. Her hand never stopped moving, and she said not a word. When the tears had finally run their course and Willow sat back, gasping for breath, trying to wipe her face, Fiona stood, went into the back of the house, and came back with a tea towel and two glasses of water.

  “I’d say you needed that,” she said. “Clean up, and we’ll have a chat.”

  “Sorry,” Willow said, mopping up the messy remnants, then drinking down the water in great gulps.

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” Fiona said, back to brisk again. “You drove a long way to have a cry. I’m glad you came to me for it. And, darling . . .” She sat back and looked Willow in the eye, her normally cheerful face serious. “Anytime you need a mum, I want you to remember that you have one. You have me.”

  There the tears were again, like she’d been storing up a supply. When she finished the next bout of weeping, which was fortunately shorter, she said, “I’m like a camel. But instead of a hump, it’s some sort of reservoir. All this bloody crying.”

  Fiona laughed. “Tears are a woman’s rain, I always think. Washing the dust off, letting the feelings grow. And whatever men say, they don’t hate seeing them. Or they do, but they love being the one who holds you through it. Satisfies something deep inside them, something they don’t get to do every day. They can’t slay your dragons, maybe, but they can hold you when you cry. Sometimes, they even let you hold them. That’s when you know you’ve got trust.” She smiled, sunny again. “I had a reservoir as well, it seems. Of wise Mum-thoughts for you.”

  “Ah,” Willow said. The ache was still there inside, but it wasn’t quite so knotted and hard anymore. She could start peeling off the ends, untangling the strands. “That’s why I came. I think I need some wise Mum-thoughts.”

  “About men,” Fiona guessed, and at Willow’s nod, she smiled again. “That’s usually what it is, by the time it makes us cry. I’ll do my best, though I’ve mainly known one, of course, and Colin isn’t exactly a
verage. I have two sons as well, so that’ll help.”

  “Who also aren’t average,” Willow said.

  “Well, I like to think not,” Fiona said. “But then, an average man isn’t good enough for you, so there you are. Cup of tea while I do my best to dispense wisdom?”

  “No. I’d rather weed. Easier to talk.”

  Fiona nodded and went for her gloves. “Then I’ll help over here, and you can tell me.” She squatted down to her work again and said, “So. Somebody said something cruel, I’m thinking. Or did something.”

  Willow’s hands stilled in the act of pulling out a dandelion. “How do you know that?”

  “I realized I haven’t only known one man. Just one awesome one.”

  “Right.” Willow steeled herself against the words. “Am I like a man, then? The way I act, the way I am? Am I blokey?” And, yeah, it still hurt.

  Fiona laughed, then stopped herself, took a look at Willow’s face, and laughed again. “Sorry, darling, but that’s so stupid, I can’t help myself. Of course not. I have two sons. Trust me. You are not blokey. Nothing like. You’re a woman all the way. But tell me more. In what way are you meant to be blokey? I need a good laugh.”

  The jagged, hard-edged knot was unraveling fast now, and Willow was smiling, too. Reluctantly, but she was. Also digging, pulling up weeds by the roots, and tossing them. Pity you couldn’t toss away hurtful words that easily, but maybe you could try. “Ginger hair. Not enough makeup. Too much jolly-hockey-sticks, I reckon, and not enough drama. A better surfer than he is. There, I admitted it. Flat-chested, also. That was mentioned.”

  “You are not flat-chested.” Fiona had stopped laughing. “You’re fine-boned and delicate and strong. You’re lovely. Your hair is beautiful, so is your skin, and so is every bit of your gorgeous self. Let’s ring Rafe right now.” She had her phone out of her pocket. “We’ll ask him.”

  “Wait,” Willow said. “No. Of course he’ll say I’m beautiful. He’s Rafe.”