The House On Burra Burra Lane (18 page)

‘Tomorrow would be great. Looking forward to it.’ She didn’t know if she could drum up the energy to make big decisions with Mr Morelly on what colours he wanted to paint the store, but he had plans and he wanted Sammy’s advice. Perhaps tomorrow this bewilderment about being in love would have settled into some kind of decision. Do something about it, or don’t. She couldn’t balance on a knife edge for the rest of her life.

She left the store, feeling as though she were walking through an early morning mist. What would people say if she yelled it out right now:
I’m in love with your vet! I love him
—
do you hear me?

‘Hi, Sammy.’

No peace. Eighty seven people
was
a crowd. She turned, produced her bravest smile. ‘Hello, Julia.’ She’d schooled her features so often this last week that her facial muscles no longer felt real. She wore a happy mask for Ethan, and a display of settling-in contentment for the townspeople. But it was difficult to banish the heaviness behind her eyes and it felt like the plaster of the mask was cracking, and taking her skin off with it.

‘Are you seeing Ethan today?’ Julia asked.

Was she really in love with him? Yes. No. Yes—Oh, God. What was she going to do about it? She shook her head. ‘Don’t think he’ll come over.’ The shed was done except for the concrete. She still had the fence to paint, but she didn’t want Ethan helping her with that. There was nothing needing immediate fixing. Except her heart.

‘I was hoping you could remind him not to be late tonight,’ Julia said. ‘We’ve got a date.’

‘A date for what?’

‘Can you believe it?’ Julia’s face lit up, her gaze a dewy glow. ‘I think he’s always liked me, but you know how shy he is sometimes.’ She glanced over at her friends, then back to Sammy.

Sammy frowned. Ethan was anything but shy.

‘I’ve been waiting for him to ask me out for ages.’

Numbness stilled her. ‘You’re going out with him?’ Julia was a beautiful young woman. Slick. Engaging. But too young for Ethan. She was twenty two. He must be twelve years older than her. ‘He asked you out?’ She couldn’t see them as a couple. ‘On a
date?’

‘Is that such a shock?’

Sammy stepped back. ‘Sorry.’ She forced a laugh. ‘I had my mind on something else … The house.’ He was free. She didn’t have any claim on him. ‘So, a date?’ she asked again, a freight train pounding through her chest as she waited for the answer.

‘Hot date.’ Julia managed to pout as she spoke. Something she obviously practised.

Sammy stuffed her purchases into her bag and fished around for her car keys.

‘We’re only going to Kookaburra’s though,’ Julia said. ‘There’s nowhere else around here to hang out.’

Hang out?
She found the keys, pulled them out and dropped them with a clatter on the walkway. An image of Ethan hanging out with Julia Morelly in the snug back seat of his ute nearly gagged her. She bent, fisted the keys and straightened, looking Julia in the eye. ‘This is a bit of a surprise. How long have you been … ’ Had they been touching? Flirting? Rehearsing for the next step?

‘We’re not together properly yet. But we will be, I know it. He’s always liked me.’

She wasn’t right for him.

One of the young men called out to Julia. She lifted a hand in response, then turned back to Sammy. ‘If he does come by your place, tell him seven o’clock.’

‘I will.’
She would not
. She closed her mouth, pressed her lips together.
The lips Ethan had kissed
. She’d never succumbed to envy before, but immediately she wanted to push the young girl away. Knock her to the ground. Or something more extreme. Pound her to dust. Run her over.
Had he kissed Julia?

She backed off, took a step down to the road. ‘If I see him, I’ll tell him.’

Disappointment churned inside her. She saw him at the top of the ravine, hair blowing forwards, tall and capable with a slow-fired smile. His hands full of equipment.
Had he touched Julia Morelly with those hands?

By the time Sammy drove through her gateway, rain was splattering on the ground. Her wiper blades screeched on the windscreen, unused to being worked. She got out of the car and headed for the front door.
Did Ethan want female comfort so badly he didn’t care where he got it from?
He hadn’t offered sex to Sammy—the dusty, unmethodical woman who didn’t suit diamonds. But Julia was there, waiting, arms open.

She stomped up the stairs and burst into her bedroom, the door banging against the wall. What was Ethan thinking? He was too contained for Julia, couldn’t he see that?

But he’d made the request to take Julia out. He must like her, really want her. Patricia Rutherford had made some remark about him settling down, right after Julia had said she looked like his wife. Had Patricia meant settling down with Julia? All that talk about Sammy and Ethan getting something together— had people meant to put Sammy off Ethan? To get her away from him and coerce him towards Julia? In which case, Sammy’s conclusions had been wrong. They weren’t gossiping about her, they were pushing her away. They wouldn’t let Sammy have him, she didn’t belong. Julia was hometown, homegrown, part of the community and their lives.

God, God, God. She’d spent the whole week schooling her features for nothing. This was the moment of discovery then. This was the day all her angst stopped. She wasn’t getting him, not for small, thrilling passionate moments or big-time exclamations of love. None of it. And she’d been hoping for all of it. Including the diamonds.

She closed her eyes. The immediate torture was a vision of him at the town fair, smiling at Julia at the fence. Speaking to her, thumping his hand to the rail and nodding as he smiled. As though he’d asked her out and she’d accepted and he was happy about it. And last week, in the mud—he’d pushed them back to friendship. They hadn’t spoken of the kiss in any factual terms.
I’m sorry I kissed you so passionately, Sammy
. He’d wanted to lead them away from it.
I’m sorry I hurt you with these hands, Sammy
. And she’d let him, lost in him, wanting anything of him. Heart-on-show hopeless.

She stepped out of her jeans and skinny-rib jumper and flung herself into her track pants. She slipped on a yellow T-shirt with
Slow Down
written across the front. She loved him and Julia Morelly was getting him.

She moved to the bed and lifted the eiderdown, billowing it above the mattress. It was thick and heavy and her arms ached with each slap and crack. She left it hanging lopsidedly over the edge of the mattress. She picked up a pillow, pumped it between her hands then threw it against the dark wooden headboard.

Slow down
. It was exactly the sentiment she needed. None of this made any sense. That he would take such a young, frivolous thing into his arms believing it would work. Julia was a girl, Sammy was a woman. Ethan had told her so. More than that— he’d shown her, with his mouth, his arms, and his body. She’d felt him stir against her, had known he was hardening.

But he’d dropped her, pushed her away as though she was a sword tip at his chest. He’d apologised and made amends, turning them around to friends again.

Slow down. Rationalise. Listen to the clues.

She closed her eyes. He’d wanted Sammy sexually, but he’d bungled things and now he had to straighten them out with Julia, and with the town. He hadn’t talked about their kiss because he didn’t want the town to know how he’d nearly
taken
Sammy Walker on her kitchen floor. He
had
almost done that and she would have let him—had practically begged for it, with her little moan of compliance while the wispy curls of sensuality swirled in the pit of her stomach, craving satisfaction.

She bent to tie the laces on her sneakers. Better to be outside. Outdoors. Away. Disillusionment wouldn’t pound so harshly if she was outside. Bugger the rain. Bugger everyone in this town.

She opened the secateurs and eyed the rose bush, the blooms sprinkled with diamond raindrops. The bush sprawled along the wall, covering half of the living room corner window. She reached up, snipped lengths from the top, concentrating on not getting her hands scratched. She didn’t turn when Ethan’s ute pulled up in her driveway.

Her arms were as heavy as the thick boughs of the rose bush. She couldn’t lift a hand to wave at Ethan any more than she could stop her heart bursting with envy. But she turned to him, when his boots sounded closer on the gravel path.

The first thing she saw was the look of surprise on his face as he gazed at her unruly, ridiculous hair.

‘What have you done?’ he asked.

Not only was he here, breaking her heart, he was witnessing her hair going crazy. ‘I’ve been cutting roses, what does it look like?’

He brought his gaze to her face. A sandy piece of his hair had fallen across his forehead and she wanted to lift her hand and brush it away. But Julia would be doing that. Julia’s heart would burst with pleasure as she touched him. She could only hope that the young girl appreciated what she’d get from him.

Hope. She’d allowed stupid, senseless hope to engulf all sense. She’d felt out of place in the wine bars with the boys’-only jokes as men caught her eye and offered less than subtle smiles but she knew how to handle that. It was familiar and necessary, and she’d been dressed for the part. She was nothing but drab in Ethan’s presence. Unravelled, wet and un-alluring. And there was Julia, basking in town with her manicured nails and her long shiny hair that didn’t freak out in a shower of rain. Julia would know what to do around Ethan; wouldn’t hesitate, would just take him.

Sammy ran her fingers through her hair, slicing into the wayward curls, tempting Ethan to say one more word about it. She’d manage without him. Wouldn’t be getting much help from him in the future anyway, he’d be too busy kissing Julia. And doing other things with her, like having sex. Julia was a come-get-me siren but she was sure Ethan would be a making-love person.
They didn’t fit
. Why couldn’t he see that?

‘Do you know what would give my heart a necessary burst of pleasure right this moment?’ she asked him.

Ethan didn’t know, but talk about hearts bursting with pleasure … ‘What have done to your hair?’ he asked again. She didn’t answer, but he couldn’t take his gaze off it. Curls framed her cheeks and tumbled over her shoulders. Some were tangled on top of her head now, messed up by her fingers when she’d brushed them away from her face—in annoyance, or something.

‘What tool is it you need?’ he asked, mindful, careful, because something wasn’t sitting straight between them.

She stirred, straightened her shoulders. ‘I need to take these shutters off the windows and clean them. They’re not normal screws. They’re funny bracket things.’

‘Well, it’s my lucky day. I get to make your heart burst with pleasure.’

Her cheeks flushed, but the colour drained quickly. ‘Do you have one on you?’

He nodded. ‘In the ute.’

‘Can I borrow it?’

‘Don’t normally allow women around my toolbox. Things have a nasty way of not coming home.’

She didn’t laugh. He was stuck in some mud, and it wasn’t the warm, comforting mud from last week, with an animal between them and the camaraderie of joint effort. It was cold, and he was up to his ankles in it.

‘Can I just take a look at it then? So I know what to ask for at the hardware store.’

Maybe his thighs. He glanced at her hair.

‘Stop looking at my hair. It got wet in the rain.’ She turned, her shoulders pulled in irritation, like a gruff billy goat.

‘It looks lovely, Sammy,’ he told her, hoping that would appease. It was a spray of russet glory, like the claret ash trees along Main Street in autumn.

‘It got wet, okay? Then it dried, so now it’s a mess of curls. It happens, it’s no big deal.’

Hadn’t he brushed over the awkwardness between them? He thought he’d managed well all week, considering. He didn’t think she’d recognised what was inside him. But he might have been wrong; all week sleepless wrong. ‘I thought you had straight hair.’

‘For God’s sake, Ethan. I straighten it with a tool. You can borrow it anytime you like, I’m not precious about my tools.’

It wasn’t only anger and embarrassment, there was timidity swimming in the depths of her eyes. He’d never seen that before. Had it been there all week? He couldn’t say, hadn’t looked her in the eye too deeply.

‘What are you doing here anyway?’ she asked in a clipped tone. ‘It’s after six.’

He took a breath. What had he disturbed by coming to visit her? He rubbed his chin with his knuckles. Perhaps it was just a bad day. ‘Thought I’d stop by, check your roof wasn’t leaking after the rain, it was quite heavy.’

‘My roof’s fine. Can I see that tool?’

‘No.’ That made her look at him. Whatever was out of place between them, he needed to know what it was before he could sort it out. ‘I’ll come over tomorrow and take the shutters off for you. When you’re done, I’ll put them back for you. Now will you tell me what’s wrong?’

‘I’m capable of taking the shutters off myself if I’ve got the right tool. And anyway, won’t you be too busy?’

‘With what?’

‘Julia Morelly.’

He hadn’t heard her properly, so how could he work that one out? ‘I’m not doing work for anyone else—Julia Morelly?’

‘Yes, and you won’t get very far if you’re late.’

He shifted his stance. ‘I’m a bit confused, what are you talking about?’

‘Julia, and your hot date. Seven o’clock at Kookaburra’s. And don’t look so surprised, it’s a small town, word gets around fast.’

‘And who gave you the word on this?’ he asked quietly.

‘I got it straight from Morelly’s mouth. Oops.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Sorry—I should call her sweet Julia to you, shouldn’t I?’ She bounced the secateurs in the palm of her hand.

He glanced down to check she had them fastened.

‘I think you’re making a mistake, Ethan. You need to be careful around Julia, she’s a fast mover. She could run you down with a mere shuffle of what she keeps in her wire-cupped bra.’

At the mention of bra, he grimaced. His eyes smarted as he stopped himself looking at her breasts, because the yellow top she wore was wet, and it was wet right across her breasts, showing the outline of a bra. Slow
Down,
the motto on her T-shirt said.