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Justin winced and shook his head. ‘I won’t say no to a hair of the dog, though.’
Clint reached into the fridge for a beer, then glanced at the clock on the microwave. It was barely 9:00 a.m. Concern had him frowning but he passed the bottle to his brother. They moved out to the balcony—still haunted by the ghost of Romy’s recent visit. Being alone out here was no longer the refuge it once was.
‘Spit it out,’ Clint growled.
Justin lifted red-flecked eyes. ‘It’s about Romy…’
Thump, thump, thump…The pulsing was hard and fast in his chest. ‘What about her?’
‘I…’ Justin swore and slumped down onto the nearest seat, taking a big swig of beer. ‘I hit on her.’
The thumping stopped. For near on five painful seconds. When it returned, Clint forced it to be slow and steady. The same heartbeat he regulated when his finger was hovering over the hair-trigger. But it was a battle he almost lost.
Justin met his eyes but couldn’t hold them. He pushed up off his seat and crossed to the balustrade. ‘I was drunk, mate. I wasn’t thinking.’
Silence was Clint’s only option. If he spoke he’d say too much. Justin babbled on, filling the tense vacuum.
‘She looked hot, Clint. She was playing up to every man there. Even you.’
Breathe…breathe…‘What did you do, exactly?’
Justin swung around to look at him. Suspicion and disbelief in his eyes. ‘She really hasn’t told you?’
‘She didn’t. No. Did you expect her to?’
He swore again. ‘I’m sure she’s just picking her moment.’
Clint kept his voice even. ‘I’m sure she’s not. She likes to fight her own battles.’
‘Tell me about it. She nearly broke my shoulder when I touched her.’
Clint would normally have grinned at his brother’s petulant complaint, and the image of Romy strongarming all six feet of him. He pressed his lips together. ‘Why are you telling me?’
Justin sighed, waved his hands dramatically. ‘Harassment laws. She’s our employee.’
Something I should have thought about last night. And the night they’d stood out here on the balcony.
‘Then shouldn’t you be apologising to her right now instead of confessing your sins to me?’ Clint suggested, and then his chest tightened almost painfully. No. He didn’t want Justin anywhere near Romy’s place.
His brother rolled his eyes and Clint was reminded of a much younger version, the excitable young Justin he didn’t see a lot of any more. He frowned. Time had changed them both.
‘She’s a woman.’ Justin shrugged. ‘She’ll find some insidious way to get her revenge. Warn every chick in the district off me. Put salt in the sugar shaker. Start spreading rumours.’
Clint stared. Shook his head. ‘You really are still sixteen, aren’t you?’
‘Mate, I give her two days before she starts turning everyone against me.’
Clint reached over and confiscated the beer bottle from his hands. ‘You’re paranoid. Take the day to dry out. If you hit on her last night, then you’re going to have to wear the consequences like a man, even if that means drinking your coffee salted.’
Justin stood to go. At the door, Clint stopped him. ‘Oh, and, mate…?’
Justin turned back, a satisfied smile on his face. It faded as he took in his big brother’s expression.
‘Touch her again and I’ll do a hell of a lot worse than break your shoulder.’
Romy had nearly forgotten what Leighton’s scowl looked like. But this one was a pearler and it was all for her.
He’d been a changed boy since coming to WildSprings. Happier, more open…huggier. Not today. Today he was a tiny black thundercloud glaring at her whenever she made eye contact, his heart well and truly plastered on his sleeve. His breakfast entirely untouched.
‘Leighton, if you’re done eating, scrape your eggs into the compost and put the plate on the sink, please.’ Given everything that had gone on these past few days, her own mood wasn’t the best.
He slid off his seat like a blob of the green slime he’d used to love to play with, mumbling, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ One hundred and ten percent surly.
Her hands stilled on what she was doing. She took a small breath. ‘That’s “Yes, Mum” to you, mister.’
His glare compounded. ‘Soldiers say ma’am. It’s polite.’
She straightened uncomfortably. ‘Last time I checked you weren’t a soldier.’
‘I’m gonna be.’ His defiant glare was magnified by the lenses in his small round glasses.
Don’t bite. Don’t bite…
She kept her voice painfully level. ‘What happened to being a scientist?’
A hint of uncertainty flashed across those freckled cheeks. ‘Science is for geeks.’
Romy turned and looked him square in the eye. She’d worked long and hard to instil a sense of pride in her son for his special talents with wildlife, astronomy, computers—all things geeky.
We don’t get to choose our gifts. Leighton running his abilities down worried her. Was he getting this from school?
‘Is that right?’ she said, carefully neutral.
‘I’m going to be an artilleryman.’
Her heart began to pound, high in her throat. ‘You want to shoot guns for a living?’
‘Every soldier needs to be good with a gun. It’s for survival. Clint is a soldier.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘And my granddad was a soldier.’
She gripped the benchtop behind her, breathless. Who told him that?
‘And I’m gonna be a soldier, too,’ Leighton finished on a very defiant stare.
A hint of acid rose in Romy’s throat and she sagged against the edge of the bench. Damn you, Clint McLeish. He’s only a child…
She pulled herself back up. ‘Not for another ten years you’re not. Until then, the only orders you’ll be taking are from me, young man.’
‘Nuh-uh!’ Those small grey eyes burned with defiance.
Romy had a sudden memory of challenging the Colonel, her pint-size body stiff, arguing about things she couldn’t possibly have understood. Her lips thinned. ‘What has gotten into you, Leighton Carvell? You never speak this rudely to anyone!’
His eyes watered dangerously behind his glasses and his little round face boiled red with rage and then paled just as dramatically. He blinked back the tears. ‘Why doesn’t Clint come around any more?’
That took her by surprise. She stared at him, her anger dissolving instantly. ‘It’s only been three days, L. He’s probably…busy.’
‘He was supposed to take me on a bushwalk. He promised. Now he won’t come because of you.’
Oh, God, she’d let Clint get too close…Stupid, stupid! ‘Who says he won’t?’
Leighton’s baleful stare grew cautious. ‘You went on a date and now he won’t come.’
It sounded so ludicrous Romy wanted to laugh. But it was embarrassingly close to the truth. ‘No. We did not go on a date. We went to a work thing together. And I don’t know why he hasn’t been around since then. It’s a coincidence.’
Great, now you’re lying to your own son.
Then again, it took two to tango—the wide, circling part of tango in their case. She knew why she was keeping her distance. How could she be with him and not have her heart very obviously on her sleeve? But if Clint had wanted to see her…he was right next door.
She sighed. ‘I’ll see if I can get in touch, ask him about the walk. Maybe he’s planning it already?’
A battle twisted Leighton’s face. He wanted to be ecstatic, but he also tried to be cool about it, and he was still so mad. The result was a pinched half-grimace that helped Romy remember exactly how it felt to be a young child growing up conflicted. Confused. Disappointed.
She’d never wanted him to feel that. She knelt in front of him and held her arms out. ‘Okay, L?’
He didn’t rush into them, but he didn’t walk off either. He let himself lean forwards as her arms closed around him and then he rested his cheek on her shoulder and mumbled something that might have been ‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘Grab your school bag. I’ll drop you down to the bus.’ She patted his bottom and gave him a gentle push in the direction of the stairs. He needed space and some friends around him right now, much more than he needed his trembling wreck of a mother. He’d have a heap of confusing emotions to work through.
And so did she.
Part of her wanted to slap Clint for talking about the military in front of Leighton. The very last thing in this world she wanted was for her precious angel to start getting interested in the same kind of lifestyle that had made her life a living hell. Another part of her knew her son was his own person, not hers to dictate to. Hadn’t that been what she fought against her whole, short childhood? He wouldn’t be the first boy to develop a fixation for toy guns and soldiers.
She frowned, realising that he had demonstrated this interest before. Back in third grade, when he’d asked about joining the junior orienteering team, she’d persuaded him to join the astronomy club instead. Simply because orienteering involved mapping and compass work and treks through the bush.
Like an army cadet programme.
She snatched her keys off the bench and limped through the screen door on her nearly healed ankle just as Leighton came bounding down the stairs. She glanced at his now-rosy cheeks and chewed her lip. How long had she been unconsciously guiding him away from any interest remotely like military activity? He’d done it, subjugated his preference for hers and joined astronomy. Because she wanted him to. What kind of a mother did that make her?
The Colonel’s daughter?
Romy kept her arm high, waving Leighton off, until the bus trundled right off into the distance. She’d make it up to him tonight, try and put their relationship back together as it used to be. She’d promised him a mother-son movie night with special treats and a kid’s action-adventure flick. He loved those.
She frowned again.
He loved those. Lord, how many clues was she missing?
She ducked her head and walked the hundred metres from the bus stop to WildSprings’s admin centre, to her broom closet of an office. She had some invoices to sign off and a vehicle registration to run past her police contact at Central.
She finished detailing the vehicle type and plate number and addressed the email. Then she turned her attention, reluctantly, to a pile of invoices sitting in her in-tray from Friday. Testament to how distracted she’d been that day about her big night out with Clint.
Not with Clint…Even now her subconscious was pulling them together. After everything that had happened at the fundraiser and everything they’d said in the car afterwards. She had never shared the details of Leighton’s conception with anyone. Including her father. That was a private shame just for her. Even at seventeen she’d been responsible enough to accept her actions and live with them. Lying in the bed she’d made—literally. It was blind luck she’d ended up with a child and not something more life threatening for her poor judgement.
It had taken the Colonel several months to catch on to her pregnancy. She’d hidden the early symptoms well during her final weeks of school and, having been lean all her life, she hadn’t shown until her fourth month. But once he’d realised…
But his anger then hadn’t been a patch on his rage when her military hospital robe had exposed her tattoo. Her obscenity. He seemed more appalled by that than by the life growing inside her. In the end, it was the cost—and not the certain pain—which made the Colonel back down from the threat of having it burned right off her skin.
Dr Pax won no favours from her father after he admired the quality of the tattoo artwork but he won a shy smile from a tear-streaked Romy. And she’d trusted him enough to return privately for the essential prenatal care she otherwise wouldn’t have sought out. She’d really liked Dr Pax.
Romy’s head snapped up.
She’d really liked Dr Pax. He was kind and gentle but disciplined, too. And he was a military doctor. Which meant he’d been through the system. Yet come out the other side a decent human being. Someone she’d genuinely respected. Someone who’s authority she had no difficulty accepting. The breath puffed out of her and Romy sat back in her chair and stared at the roof, poleaxed.
Dr Pax…Clint. That made two-thirds of the military men she’d ever met compassionate, kind and gentle. Men she didn’t have trouble liking. A clear majority.
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