Give Me Strength (7 page)

It would be an adjustment, but I wasn’t prepared
to give up before I’d reached the first hurdle. Last night had been
a good practice run that admittedly hadn’t gone as planned, but it
wasn’t like I was being hired to party and socialise on the
weekends. I would be
working
.

Straightening in my chair, I smiled at Mac. “I’m
more than okay with it.” Approval shone in her eyes at my response,
and when she smiled back I told her I was looking forward to
it.

“Good, because we’ve got singles to be recorded
and released, albums to be made, artwork and photo shoots to
organise, publicity appearances at events, and interviews to
arrange with TV and radio shows. Also, we start work on their first
music video today. Can you start tomorrow?”

“Sure,” I agreed, and hearing a playful growl,
our heads turned towards the dogs. In my inattention, Rufus had
wrenched his bandage off and both dogs were proceeding to chew on
it, taking great delight in tearing the thick threads apart.

“Great.” Mac clapped happily. “I’ll introduce
you to the rest of the band tomorrow then.” She turned to Henry,
the pleased expression disappearing in favour of an irritated
frown. “Have you heard from Sandwich?”

“Um…Sandwich?” I echoed.

“Evie,” she told me.

My eyebrows flew up. “You call Evie
Sandwich
?”

Henry just shrugged as Mac picked up her phone,
her fingers a blur as she typed out a message. “Yeah, for her name:
Jamieson. Jam. Jam sandwich. Now it’s just Sandwich. Don’t worry,
you’ll get used to it.”

Henry tugged his own phone from the front pocket
of his jeans and started typing out a message as well, so I asked
to use the bathroom.

Mac waved her hand. “Sure,” she replied and
directed me to the upstairs location.

I wound my way up the staircase, stepped inside,
and shut the door behind me.

***

“Hey, Travis,” I heard
Mac call out as I unbuttoned my pants. “What are you doing here?
Didn’t you have to drop Casey at the airport this morning?”

I paused, my hands frozen on my button because
every word Mac uttered sent a tingle of awareness down the length
of my spine.

“I was supposed to but I had company. Mitch
stopped by early this morning to pick him up and drop him off,”
came the deep rumble of a voice that was so familiar my heart
skipped a beat.

What the hell? I
knew
that voice. It was
both rough and soothing, sending me straight back to last night
when Travis, with one arm wrapped around my waist keeping me close,
had used the other to unlock his front door, all the while
murmuring suggestive words in my ear that had me shivering with
desire.

I shook my head. I must have heard wrong.
Shrugging it off, I undid the zip on my pants, pausing when Mac
spoke again.

“Company?” I heard her snort. “You are such a
manwhore.”

He laughed and I
knew
that laugh. Travis
had arched my body over the bed, flicking his tongue down the
length of my stomach, dipping playfully into my belly button and
letting out a throaty chuckle when I’d squirmed breathlessly.

My knees buckled and I sank down on the closed
lid of the toilet seat, my eyes darting about the enclosed confines
like they were on crack—or looking for an escape hatch.

“So where is your
company
now?” I heard
Henry ask.

Good question, Henry.
I covered my face
with my hands, fighting a hysterical laugh because his
company
was currently sitting on the toilet in the throes of
a panic attack. I couldn’t go out there looking like utter rubbish.
My only course of action was to wait it out. I hunched over on
myself, disbelief making my face hot.

“She left me,” he replied.

I heard Mac snort. “Of course she did, you sorry
ass. All the good ones do.”

After waiting out a few moments of muffled
conversation, I heard Mac call out, “Quinn? Come and meet my
brother.”

Brother?

I gave the toilet roll an incredulous stare.

Travis was Mac’s
brother?

My hands shook as I tore off a few sheets of
toilet paper and dabbed at the sheen of sweat breaking out on my
brow.

“Won’t be a minute,” I shouted.

It was now or never. I had no choice but to go
back out there. Hiding out in the toilet for the next however long
Travis planned on hanging around would not be a good look for
me.

I stood, inhaled deeply, and reached for the
handle of the door.

“I have to get going anyway, Mac. I’ll meet
Quinn another day,” I heard Travis call from somewhere inside the
duplex. The sound of a phone ringing cut through the silence, and I
heard him answer.

“Yeah?”

I stood frozen, my hand hovering over the door
handle.

“Can’t today, Tim. Tell the AFP to set the
meeting up for tomorrow morning okay? Did they say what it was
about?” The sound was echoing down the hallway, moving its way
towards the front door. His voice trailed off as the door opened
and closed with an audible click. Shaky with relief at avoiding an
awkward encounter, I removed my hand from the door handle and
instead moved to the basin. I flicked on the tap and cold water
gushed over my hands, soothing away the abuse my nerves had
suffered today.

When I wound my way back out onto the outdoor
deck, Mac was sitting there by herself, chatting on the phone.

She held up a finger to indicate she would only
be a minute, so I watched the dogs for a moment. Rufus appeared
thrilled to have a playmate. Both he and Peter had moved on from
chewing the bandage to eating what looked like someone’s brand new
shoe. This Peter character was utterly adorable, but he obviously
knew it; he was going to teach my dog bad habits. If Rufus came
home thinking shit like that would fly in my house, he would have
another thing coming.

“Are you okay?”

I turned. Mac had hung up the phone and was
eyeing me curiously.

No, I was definitely not okay. I couldn’t
believe the day I’d had today. I needed to go home and have a nice
hot shower, an icy cool wine, and find my bed. The problem with
that was that I knew the dreams I’d be having tonight, and they
would be hot.

I smiled at Mac because after everything I had a
job. A great one. “Of course.”

Mac remained sceptical, arching her brow at me.
“Okay. You just looked a little pale there for a moment, but now
your cheeks are all flushed.”

“I’m fine, really. So tell me…” I began and
resumed my seat, the curiosity to hear more about Travis
overwhelming me. “You said you had a brother? That must be
nice.”

Mac froze from collecting her bits of paper on
the table and looked at me. “You think? I have three of them. All
older.” She shuddered theatrically.

Travis times three? My eyebrows flew up.

“First there’s Mitch, the eldest at thirty. He’s
a detective with the Sydney Police. Travis, who was just here
earlier, is twenty-eight, and Jared, who’s dating Evie, is
twenty-six. I’m the youngest at twenty-four.”

Forgetting my curiosity for the moment, I
imagined how nice it must have been to have three older brothers
looking out for you. Tears burned my eyes and I averted them,
hiding the sharp burst of pain. “All older, huh?” I murmured
wistfully. “Must be nice to have that.”

Mac finished fussing with her papers and folded
her arms. “You know, it has its moments, but yeah, it’s nice, and
if I hear you spreading that shit around, I’ll call you a liar.”
She winked at me to soften the words, but I was pretty sure she
meant them.

Clearing my throat, I asked, “So what do uh…
Travis and Jared do?”

“They own a consulting business together. Evie’s
older brother Coby is a partner as well, and so is Casey, a guy
that Travis went to uni with.”

Considering the size and location of the loft I
was in last night—all retro red brick interior feature walls,
modern leather couches and a high-tech kitchen—I could only
conclude the consulting they did was a lucrative business. Places
like that came with a mortgage I was sure would pay off the
national debt.

“What sort of consulting do they do?” I asked,
sitting back in my seat, imagining engineering or investment
banking.

“They consult on kidnapping and hostage cases
mostly and are slowly building a security division that Jared is
taking over. Travis has a degree in psychology and both have
associate degrees in policing practice.”

“
What do you do?”

“
I’m a consultant,” he said with a wave of
his hand as though it wasn’t important. “What about you?”

Travis might have been seriously sexy in bed,
smart, and some kind of tough guy, but he was obviously someone who
wasn’t keen on talking about what he did for a living. “It’s not
dangerous work, is it?”

“It is,” she replied and rattled off all their
injuries, which included Casey rolling his car, Jared being knifed,
and Travis getting shot. I flinched yet she continued on. “Travis
and Casey handle most of the custody cases that escalate into
unsafe situations.” A small furrow marred her perfect brow, and she
gazed off in the distance, her eyes unseeing. “I’m starting to
think the job is getting to Travis though.”

My heart gave a lurch, which was odd because I
barely knew him. To say it didn’t sound like an easy job to do was
an understatement, but I said it anyway.

Her eyes softened. “I know. Every week he sees
abused children and that must be really hard.”

My hands shook. Seeing it must be hard? Oh God,
try living with it: the anxiety and fear, the pain, locking your
door at night yet still unable to sleep, the feeling of being
utterly alone and never seeing a way out.

Mac continued, “I think he needs—”

Breathless, I stood up and banged the table,
knocking Mac’s half empty bottle of water and cutting her off. It
tipped, spilling everywhere.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Tears burned from both my
clumsy and emotional behaviour. “I’ll just get a cloth,” I blurted
out and ran inside.

“Quinn!” Mac called. “It’s just water.”

I grabbed a cloth from the kitchen sink and
paused to take a deep shaky breath, trying to push the memories
away.

“Quinn?”

Flustered, I spun around, wringing the bit of
material in my hands.

“Is everything okay?”

“Sorry,” I offered. “I’m not usually so…” I was
going to say clumsy, but that was a lie. “I guess I’m just a bit
nervous about starting the new role.”

“Well being nervous is good, right? Means you
care about doing a good job.” She tilted her head. “Why don’t I
show you the office? Then we can talk all the boring stuff, like
paperwork, and get your employment forms drawn up.”

Mac ushered me into the back office and pointed
to a huge black and white photo mounted on a board that took up
half the wall. “That’s Jamieson,” she said. I could hear the pride
in her voice, and it thrilled me to know this was something I was
about to become a part of.

The photo was of the band playing on stage.
“Evie...” she pointed “...who you sort of met this morning. She’s
mostly the lead singer but is amazing on the guitar too when she
gets it out. Henry, as you know, is lead guitarist, but he can play
bass as well, and sometimes he sings. I met them both when we were
living in Melbourne. We all went to university together. That’s
Frog…” she pointed to the bass player “…and that’s Cooper.” She
pointed to the keyboardist. “They’re pretty tight, and be wary...
They’re letches.” She chuckled but it died off when she pointed at
the drummer. “That’s Jake,” she said and her lips pressed flat.
Then I thought I heard her mutter, “the asshole,” but I couldn’t be
sure, so I leaned forward to get a closer look. He was shirtless,
with a wide chest and powerful shoulders. His hair was a buzz cut
and tattoos covered his entire left arm, his right shoulder, and
one around his torso. He looked serious and intense, absorbed in
the action of pounding the drums.

Mac sat down at the desk and ushered me over.
She tapped on the keyboard and called up the schedule. She ran over
the next two weeks with me, handed me a pile of employment papers
and a contract. “Check it carefully,” she warned. “We have a
confidentiality clause in there you need to know back to
front.”

She handed over an iPad and an iPhone. “Here.
That phone is for business calls. When you have to go out, you’ll
need to divert the office phone to the iPhone, okay?” I nodded and
she continued. “It’s all synced to this computer and my iPhone and
iPad as well. You’ll now be in charge of keeping the schedule
updated. Here...” she handed me another large envelope. “This is
original signed paperwork that needs to go to Jettison Records.
That needs to be delivered first thing in the morning, so why don’t
you do that and then come here and get yourself acquainted in the
office first. Then you can meet us on set for the music video at
lunch time and meet the rest of the band.”