His heart skipped a hopeful beat at her words. Could it be possible they hadn’t actually had sex? He had to know.
‘I’m … really sorry, Lauren, but my memory’s pretty hazy about last night. Did we …?’
‘I should probably be offended that you can’t remember it.’ She giggled and began toying with the flesh at his ear. He summoned all his self-control not to tap her hand away, raise his voice and demand she tell him the truth. Instead, he smiled the smile he’d been told, on many occasions, was a danger to womankind.
‘Well?’
‘You passed out before we got that far,’ she laughed, then added something else. But Flynn didn’t take in these last words. He was too busy thanking the Lord for small mercies, promising he’d never touch another drop as long as he lived. But the reprieve didn’t last long. Lauren dipped her head and touched her hot, wet lips to his parched ones. A quick worker, she slid her tongue inside his mouth barely before he’d registered her kiss. Where, in other circumstances, his first thoughts might be of his morning breath, in this instance his only concern was how to escape her clutches. Hell, he’d be happy if he had bad breath and it scared her off.
He placed his hands on her bare shoulders and pushed her upwards, looking away when her perky breasts thrust themselves into his line of vision.
‘Sorry Lauren, with the ram sale not far away, I really can’t afford to have a Sunday off. Work to be done, sheep to check on.’
‘Damn sheep.’ Her lower lip practically touched her chest, but she rolled over and scrounged around on the floor for her discarded clothes. If there was one thing a country girl understood, it was that nothing, no one, came before the farm.
Seizing the opportunity, Flynn scrabbled off the couch, located his shirt and boots and yanked them both on in record time. He knew he should stop and apologise to Lauren. He should explain he hadn’t meant to lead her on, that he hadn’t been thinking straight. But whatever way he put it, she’d be offended and upset. And the honest truth was that he just didn’t have the mental energy to deal with this right now. Not on top of everything else.
So without so much as a kiss on the cheek, he thanked Lauren for letting him stay, and fled.
After crying herself to sleep, Ellie slept more soundly than she had in a long time. Maybe it was the emotion of the day before, maybe it was the jet lag, maybe it was the quiet of the country, but in the morning, it was only the sound of the kettle whistling that roused her. It was a noise she hadn’t heard in as long as she could remember. In her other life no one bothered with the time it took to boil a kettle. It was either Starbucks or the staff-room machine, which percolated good, strong coffee twenty-four hours a day. It took a second for her to recognise the sound, and then she realised it meant Mat was already up and trying to fend for herself.
Ellie sprang into action. Her hand was on the door handle when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. That was no fancy nightie she saw, it was a wedding dress.
Her
wedding dress. A shiver ran over her skin and a despondent feeling returned to her chest. With what felt like a brick weighing her down, it was an effort to walk even the few steps back to the bed. She sat and stretched behind her to the row of miniscule buttons. If she kept on like this, she was in danger of returning to that dark place she’d gone to when she first left Flynn and gave up everything that mattered to her. A place so gloomy it had taken all her willpower to drag herself out. She never wanted to go there again. Besides, she was in Hope for Matilda, not to revisit past demons.
‘Come on,’ she said, urging her wobbly fingers to steady and coordinate. She’d done them up with only relative difficulty; surely the undoing would be easy in comparison. More twisting, more tugging, but it seemed the only thing likely to come undone was her arm socket.
‘Argh!’ What was meant to be a silent plea between gritted teeth came out loud and angry. She took a deep breath, concentrated, but as the first pearl slipped from its silken prison, there came a hesitant knock on the bedroom door. Ellie froze.
‘Yes?’ She managed only just to get the word past the lump in her throat.
‘Can I help you?’ came the response. Ellie frowned at Matilda’s turn of phrase, hoping her godmother hadn’t looked in on her while she’d slept and seen her outfit. The thought chilled her.
‘No,’ she said, a lot harsher than she intended. ‘I’m here to help you. What the hell do you think you’re doing wandering around without me? Don’t do anything else. I’ll be out in just a moment.’
She focused her attention back on the dress but the damn buttons refused to budge. Generally calm in the face of a problem, Ellie’s pulse raced and the muscles in her neck twitched. Stupid
tears prickled at the corners of her eyes. As she saw it, she had two choices. Open the door and, despite the shame and embarrassment she’d feel, ask for help, or …
She took another deep breath, positioned her hands at the back of her neck, one on either side of the dress, and yanked. Hard. Tiny pops rippled as the pearls shot around the room. Ellie shimmied out of the dress, scrunched it into a ball and shoved it on top of a stack of old
Cosmo
magazines at the bottom of the wardrobe. It felt wrong to treat something that had once been so special to her with such disregard, and for a second she hesitated, thought about pulling it out and trying to fix the creases she’d just inflicted. But Matilda’s voice sounded through the door again, more anxious than before.
‘Ellie? What was that? Are you sure you’re okay in there?’
She bit down on her lip, turned and lifted the lid on her suitcase. There wasn’t time to get sentimental. ‘I’m fine,’ she managed, scrambling around for jeans and a top.
When she finally opened the door and saw the look of worry in the other woman’s eyes, she knew that she hadn’t been able to hide the truth from Matilda.
‘You want to talk about it?’
‘Nope.’ Ellie reached out to take Matilda’s arm. ‘I want to get some caffeine into my veins, get you settled on the verandah swing and get stuck into those awnings you left half done.’
Matilda shuffled alongside Ellie into the kitchen. ‘Don’t think you can change the subject on me, missy. I’ve let it lie for ten years but it’s time. I can see coming back here, to me, to this town, to your room …’ Matilda paused and looked deep into Ellie’s eyes. Ellie knew she was thinking about the dress. ‘It’s messing with your mind. Therapy is expensive but talking to an old friend is priceless.’
Ellie went to the bench, opened a cupboard and grabbed two large ceramic mugs. Perhaps Mat was right. Perhaps she should
talk about why she’d done the unforgivable, why she’d left Flynn standing at the front of a church with the whole town as witness. But Matilda was the only person who’d been there who still believed in her, who could still look her in the eye and not make her feel like the scum of the earth. Hell, she could barely look in the mirror and achieve that feat herself.
No, she wasn’t ready to talk, not yet. She turned to the fridge to focus her energies on breakfast and then remembered. No milk. Dammit, she just didn’t do black coffee, especially not at the crack of dawn. But another thought followed quickly on the heels of that one. As much as the idea of leaving the house terrified her, it was still early for a Sunday. She was less likely to run into anyone at this time of day, and going for milk and bread – the basic supplies that would get them through the weekend – would postpone the inevitable talk.
‘I’m just going to pop up to the Shell and get us some milk. Want any munchies?’
Matilda frowned and sighed. ‘I’m not one to pass up a chocolate bar, but don’t think this gets you off the hook. We will talk. It’s well past time.’
‘I know.’ Ellie tried to sound nonchalant, as if the idea of raking up the past wasn’t uncomfortable or painful. ‘But I barely function, never mind do deep and meaningful without my morning coffee.’ She leaned over and kissed Mat on the cheek, then grabbed the car keys and was out of there before her godmother had the chance for further protests.
She smiled with relief as she pulled into the service station. A couple of trucks were parked and their drivers stood between them chomping on greasy breakfast tucker. The thought of eating that kind of food this early turned Ellie’s stomach, but she guessed it helped combat the chill of winter mornings. She shivered. She’d
been in such a hurry to leave the house she hadn’t thought about a jumper or a jacket, never mind actually put one on.
Rubbing her arms, she strode towards the shop, dodging a crusty old ute at the petrol bowsers and ignoring the chill that ran through her as she noticed it was a Hope Junction numberplate. She’d forgotten this about small towns in WA, that you could tell where a car was from by the first letters on the numberplate. She was far from the anonymity of Sydney, and this car belonged to a local.
Get a grip
, she told herself firmly.
But that was easier said than done. Her encounter with Lauren had reinforced her fears. The reception she would get from townsfolk was likely to be frosty at best, downright nasty at worst. She pushed open the door of the shop, trying to recall what it was she’d come for and crashed head on into a man carrying a paper and a Coffee Chill. His purchases clattered to the floor and without glancing at each other, they both dove to collect them. Their heads knocked, their hands brushed, and laughter at the silliness of the situation tumbled from their mouths. Ellie felt instantly at ease.
Until they both stood up and the man’s warm chuckle died on his lips as he registered who she was.
Chapter Five
Ellie reached out to grab the door for support.
Flynn
.
She wasn’t sure if she said his name aloud or not. Nothing in her wildest imagination could have prepared her for this. It were as if a million different things were going on in her body. Adrenalin had set off a chain of reactions inside her – her hands got sweaty, her heart was beating so fast and loud it felt like it would break out of her chest at any moment, and her knees felt incapable of holding her up much longer. Their overexertion probably accounted for the beads of perspiration bursting out across her forehead. But her mind and eyes were feasting on the sight before her, of which her memory had done no justice at all.
The grown-up Flynn was a hundred times more gorgeous than the teenage one – and that was saying something. Not that she’d expected otherwise, but he’d filled out in all the right places, grown into his long, lanky body and become a strapping, commanding
presence. Light stubble dusted his jawline and his golden hair was longer than she recalled. And mussed up slightly. It suited him. Yet despite his overbearing good looks, one thing stood out as very different. His lips drew a flat line across his face where once a huge, mischievous grin held prime position. She’d fallen in love with that smile before anything else, and now it was nowhere to be seen.
‘Cat got your tongue?’
Ellie snapped out of her trance and realised not only was she practically drooling, open-mouthed like a codfish, but also that she hadn’t registered Flynn speaking. To her. She tried to reply but something obstructed her words. Like one of those awful dreams where there’s a serial killer chasing you and your legs won’t function. She had so much she wanted –
needed –
to say to Flynn, and yet her mouth refused to cooperate.
‘Ah, never mind,’ Flynn said bitterly. His eyes narrowed and he shook his head as he walked past, clutching his paper and drink hard against his chest while stepping as near to the doorframe as possible. She could only guess he wanted to avoid the possibility of brushing against her. Her heart crumbled at this thought, but still she couldn’t find the wherewithal to speak. If only she could turn back time and at least find out what he’d said. But then, if she had such powers, she’d turn back time a lot further and erase a lot of other stupid mistakes.
Almost in slow motion, she turned around, but Flynn was already pounding the pavement away from her. He didn’t look back. Shivers scuttled down her spine like a thousand nasty, eight-legged beasts. And she started to shake. Uncontrollably. The room spun.
She took hold of herself and tried to moderate her breathing. She was no doctor, but even she knew breathing at such a rate was dangerous. Was this what a panic attack felt like? One of the actresses on
Lake Street
suffered from them, apparently, but Ellie had never bought into the hype.
‘Excuse me, miss? Are you okay?’
She registered that someone somewhere was speaking to her, but a sudden, stabbing pain in her chest throttled any reply. She pressed her hand against her breast hoping the pressure would somehow ease the pain, that if the discomfort eased then so would the dizziness, the shakes and the feeling the room was closing in around her. But it was no good. No longer able to keep a firm grip on the door, her knees gave way and she tumbled onto the hard concrete.
‘That’s it, I’m calling an ambulance,’ said the voice.
‘Damn straight, looks like she’s having a heart attack,’ came another voice. ‘Don’t want no celebrities dying in my shop. Maybe we should get her a blanket or something?’
No!
She didn’t want a blanket. She brought her knees up to her chest and rocked back and forth against the door.
I just want to go
, she would have yelled, but her tongue had grown thick and immobile.
I just want to go back to Sydney, where I’m not some kind of freak show, and live my life the best I can
.
Her legs had lost all their strength. She tried to move so she wasn’t hunched like a sobbing cripple in the doorway, but the gods were laughing at her. Somewhere a flash went off, but before she had time to comprehend what that meant, sirens pierced the air, egging on her horrendous headache.
‘In here,’ she heard someone say. Then two women in green uniforms were looking over her. One of them crouched down and lifted Ellie’s hand, rubbing her wrist, presumably to take her pulse. The other ambulance officer began firing questions at the owner and his employee. Still stunned that this was actually happening, Ellie took a moment to react, but when she heard the word hospital, something inside her snapped back into place.