Hero Duty (2 page)

‘One-million dollars is crazy.’

‘Not to me. It’s worth it to me. This is my whole life, my self-respect, what I owe the people who loved me, Mum and Pops.’

‘Jessica.’ It sounded like he didn’t know what to say. ‘Why? What’s this about?’

‘I just need you to be there for me.’ She was pathetic. Other people had friends, a partner, someone. She had to buy someone to be there for her. Her spine straightened. But she would do it. The shame of it wouldn’t kill her. ‘If I tell you, I need to know that you won’t turn away. It’s about business, but it’s also about family.’

He stared at her for a long moment. ‘I won’t go into a situation blind.’

‘One-million dollars,’ she reminded him. ‘And I promise you, I’m not asking you to do anything bad or even difficult — for you, I mean.’ Inspiration struck. ‘Think of yourself as my emotional bodyguard.’

‘I think you call those guys “counsellors”.’

She hugged her arms. ‘You’re wrong. Counsellors try to change you. That’s not what I want. I don’t want to fit in with what’s left of the family. I want to be me. One-million dollars to lend me your courage.’

‘Is your family really that frightening?’

‘Yes.’

‘One-million dollars’ worth of frightening?’ he asked, eyebrows raised.

She thought of Derek and Portia. ‘Believe it.’

‘I find it hard to. Families disagree, you know. It doesn’t mean they don’t love you or won’t be there for you — ’

The strangled sound she made was inelegant, but effective.

He broke off and studied her, frowning. ‘All right,’ he said slowly. ‘I’ll make you a deal. I’ll agree, but if when you tell me the full story you’re asking for something illegal or immoral, I walk.’

‘Thank you.’ Her knees wobbled and she leaned back against the bench.

‘You did hear my escape clause? I’ll decide what’s immoral.’

She smiled. ‘You won’t find anything.’ He raised a sceptical eyebrow. She ignored it. ‘How soon can you leave for Sydney?’

‘Whoa. First the story.’

Her giddy relief congealed into a cold lump of dread. ‘I could tell you in the car.’

‘Or you could tell me here. My granddad’s house is next door. He’s in town. We’ll sit on the veranda and talk.’ His voice and expression said it was non-negotiable.

She sighed. She’d known she’d have to share her story sooner or later. The question was, how much to share?

‘Excuse me.’ He brushed past her to the sink and turned on the cold-water tap.

She edged away from him, unsettled by her response to his closeness. She’d wanted to stand her ground. It was atypical. Usually she liked a circle of personal space between her and the world. She even hated public hugs and air kisses. However, with Brodie, closeness brought a sense of energy and security. She watched as he soaped his hands; large hands, marked by his work. Competent hands.

‘Okay, let’s go.’ He wiped his hands cursorily on a clean towel that hung on a hook beside the sink.

As she stepped from the dimness of the garage to the sunlight outside, the dogs started up again. She flinched.

‘Buddy, Holly, quiet. Let me just shut them away.’

‘No, it’s okay. I’d forgotten they were there.’ She’d been concentrating on him and on how it felt to walk beside him; a startled, hopeful feeling that she had an ally. ‘If you don’t mind introducing me to them, I’m not scared of dogs.’ She wasn’t a complete wuss. She could do this. ‘I like dogs.’

He cast her a sceptical look, then shrugged.

Okay, so the dogs she normally met were cute Maltese Terriers and Poodles, not junkyard mutts; still, she held out her hand as instructed and let the dogs smell her.

“Buddy, Holly, she’s a friend.”

Her heart jumped. She wished she were this man’s friend, but friends didn’t have to buy help. She patted the dogs’ rough heads. Buddy looked like a Mastiff cross, but mostly Mastiff. Holly was a bit shorter, more like a Rottweiler.

He opened the gate and she had a momentary attack of nerves, but walked in. The dogs nudged her amiably. She laughed, surprised. ‘They’re pussycats.’

He grinned. ‘Only when properly introduced.’

Jessica’s fingers dug into Buddy’s fur. Brodie’s amusement was fleeting, but it made him startlingly attractive. Sexy and compelling she could deal with. Likeable made him one of the stars.

Derek, her stepbrother, was one of those stars. People gravitated to him. They craved his attention and were willing to believe anything he told them. He had charisma.

Stars shone. Ordinary people like her had to remember that that light was intense enough to burn and destroy.

She wrenched her attention from Brodie and stared at the house in front of them. It was an old fibro shack, though scrupulously maintained. A new red roof topped the faded green walls. The cosy, square shape looked like a child’s drawing of ‘home’.

Around the corner she could just see a washing line and beyond that, a fence with a gate at the end of a worn path. If she strained her ears she could imagine she heard the waves on the beach below, although the sound was more likely the heavy beating of her blood. Anxiety had her every muscle tense and her palms sweating.

‘You can’t hear the sea.’

‘Pardon?’

Rats. She’d said it out loud. If there’d been any way she could have gotten Brodie Carlton’s agreement without visiting Jardin Bay, she’d have taken it. She’d have doubled her fee, except she’d known that she’d have to see him in person.

It was the first time in years that she’d been back to West Australia. These days she lived inland in Australia’s capital city, Canberra. Politicians were a small price to pay for the security of land all around her. Placid Lake Burley-Griffin didn’t count. It was the wild Indian Ocean that terrified her.

Up until she was fourteen, she’d lived in Western Australia and holidayed down south here, along the coast.

Brodie didn’t push her to repeat her muttered comment. ‘We can sit on the porch swing — if you don’t mind dog fur? They tend to nap there.’

‘That’s fine.’

The two steps up to the veranda meant she was high enough to see the sea. Deliberately, she chose the far corner of the swing seat and angled her shoulder to the view.

Buddy leapt up and put his heavy head on her lap.

The swing was a three-seater. Brodie sat and Holly leapt up on his other side. Two humans plus two dogs made things a tight fit.

Jessica happily ignored feeling squashed for the comfort of Buddy. Patting him gave her something to do with her fidgety hands.

The swing stilled as they all settled.

She waited for Brodie to question her. She didn’t need to look at him. Her skin prickled with awareness of his presence. Instead, she looked out across the neatly mown yard to the garage. A few car bodies sat in between, rusting in the sea air.

The silence stretched.

Her father had used silence as a weapon against her. If she’d tried to share her feelings, a dream, even clumsily ask a question, he’d let the silence swallow her whole. Only in the aftermath of his death had she begun to understand how deeply he’d resented her.

But this silence had a different quality. On the old veranda, on a porch swing that smelled of dog, there seemed all the time in the world. Some of her tension eased away and she found a place to start her story. ‘My father died six weeks ago.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you.’ She’d grown not comfortable, but practiced in accepting people’s condolences. ‘It was unexpected. He’d been very fit. He sailed, and he enjoyed skiing when he was in America or Europe. He had a heart attack and died in his office.’

Her stepmother hadn’t even phoned to tell her. It had been her father’s secretary who’d broken the news. A good woman who’d understood the family dynamics better than Jessica had guessed, Vera Jenkins had telephoned Jessica with the news and arranged a flight from Canberra to Sydney.

The long taxi drive from the airport to her father’s harbour mansion had been endless, and there’d been no welcome for her at the end of it. On the contrary.

Buddy’s cold nose nudged her.

She’d stopped patting him to hug herself. She glanced at Brodie to see if he’d noticed.

He had. The firm line of his mouth was gentle and the astonishing width of his shoulders, exaggerated by the overalls he wore, was angled away from the back of the porch swing and protectively towards her. ‘It’s all right to cry, Jessica.’

‘Not in public.’ Portia’s training and the boarding school she’d sent her to made the words automatic.

‘I won’t tell anyone.’

She looked away hurriedly. Kindness could destroy her. She had to get the story out without tears or getting confused. She slipped her sandals off and curled her feet under her on the chair. Sometimes the comfort of a huddle was more important than dignity.

Anchored by Brodie, the swing barely moved.

Buddy grumbled then sighed as she started patting him again. She pulled his ugly ears.

‘Tears don’t help,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m not telling you all this to make you feel sorry for me, but there’s some stuff you need to know. Stuff that explains why I need an emotional bodyguard.’ It was a good phrase. ‘When I was fourteen, my mum and Pops, her dad, died.’

‘Oh hell. Push off, Buddy.’ The dog jumped off obediently and Brodie put an arm around Jessica and pulled her across the space the dog had vacated.

She found herself tucked into the warm shelter of his body, surrounded by the smell of engine oil and clean male sweat, and by his strength.

‘You’ve had it rough,’ he rumbled.

‘I miss them.’ His sympathy elicited the confession she’d never shared with anyone. ‘Mum used to say that the measure of a person was their passion for life. She loved being surrounded by creative types. She would tackle any project, even if the result was often disastrous. Then she’d just laugh. She was so alive that I couldn’t believe it when she died.’

Couldn’t believe it and had been haunted by the guilt ever since. But her guilt was a curse she hid.

Buddy hopped up on the far side of her and pushed and squeezed till his head rested once more on her lap. She half-smiled at the dog’s determination and satisfaction with the result. She stroked between his gentle eyes. ‘Pops was the opposite of Mum. Everything he touched turned to gold. He emigrated from Poland when he was barely nineteen and he made a fortune in Australia. A fortune that just grew bigger and bigger. He loved to work and to take chances. I remember how much he laughed.’

Laughter had died with her mum and granddad.

She tried to shake off the memories of that awful time, a time when grief made every breath painful. She’d been lost…and never found. ‘A year after they died, Dad married Portia. She already had a son, Derek, three years older than me. They sold our house and bought a new one, a fancier one. There was always money enough for whatever they wanted to do. Dad became head of Numbat Corporation.’

Brodie whistled. ‘So when you’re talking about a fortune, you mean billions.’

‘Yeah.’ Deliberately she deepened her breathing, which had gone shallow.

Numbat Corporation and the fortune it had earned Pops was the bane of her life. He’d started it decades ago, naming his fledgling construction company after a cute Australian animal that had caught his eye at the zoo. Pops had been a proud new Aussie. He’d intended to change the world for the better. He’d been part of the optimistic decades when anything had been possible.

But his fortune had isolated her.

She felt the warmth of Brodie’s concern, but knew that learning of her wealth would erode it. People didn’t waste pity on the rich. She twisted in his arm to look at him. Billions of dollars changed everything. It always did. He’d dismiss her as a poor little rich girl who didn’t know when she had things easy.

‘I guess that much money intensifies everything.’

‘It does.’ She blinked at him, startled that he understood.

His mouth quirked in an unamused smile. ‘Money is power. I’ve seen what power, and the pursuit of it, does. Go on.’

‘Most people…’ She abandoned the attempt to explain her surprise and slumped back into his supportive embrace.

Sorting between her memories, between what she wanted to say and what he needed to know, her sentences came out staccato. ‘Dad and Portia were married for eleven years. Derek grew up, became an adult and joined Numbat. He and Dad got along really well. I used to be — maybe I still am — jealous of their closeness. Portia fostered it. Derek is good at sport, good looking, smart and funny. He’s a star. He reflected well on Dad.’

‘A star?’ Brodie repeated, his tone flat. Then again, he was another star: strong, competent, good looking. ‘I take it you aren’t similarly close to Portia?’

‘No.’ She shivered. Portia had never pretended friendship with her stepdaughter. Jessica had been the cuckoo in the new nest the older woman had built and furnished so lavishly. But saying that sounded unbalanced and immature, and Jessica was always careful to pre-empt criticism. ‘At fifteen, I was old enough to have lots of memories of Mum. I’d probably have resented any woman Dad replaced her with, but Portia was her polar opposite. Maybe not in looks. Mum was tall and blonde, too. But Mum was open and friendly, so enthusiastic for life. She never cared how she looked or what people thought of her. Portia has made it her life’s work to rule the Sydney social scene.’

‘That doesn’t appeal to you?’

‘Do I look like it does?’ she demanded.

‘Well…’ Amusement shaded his voice. ‘…yes.’

She pulled away to stare at him. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘Uh, no. Look at you. Blonde hair in a perfect bun, or whatever it is you call it. Lovely face, any imperfections corrected by surgery.’

‘I have not had plastic surgery.’

Buddy grumbled as she bounced in indignation.

Brodie’s arm stayed around her shoulders. ‘My mistake,’ he said easily. ‘But look at your figure and the way you’re dressed.’

‘Jeans and a shirt?’ She couldn’t believe this.

‘Expensive jeans and a shirt that fits like a glove, that makes a man want to touch the crispness of it and discover if the skin beneath is soft and warm.’

She goggled at him. ‘Portia would tell you I’m too fat.’