Out of Bounds (11 page)

He glanced up when he heard the slight
‘chink’ of her mug as she set it down. “Better now?”

No drama, no intrusive questions, no
condemnation. She could almost have hugged him for it.

“I feel so stupid. Of course they were here
helping you. I saw all the stuff piled into the big bin
outside.”

“Even the old carpet?” His grin shone
wicked.

Her jaw dropped as she stared into the dining
room...back down the hall. “Oh. My. God! How could I miss that? The
timber floor is amazing.”

“You were pretty distracted. And you were
upset about more than just finding people here.” It was a
statement, not a question. His blue eyes were enquiring but still
kind.

She sighed, unwilling to tell him most of it,
but knowing he deserved at least something. Pulling out the
farthest chair, she sat, twisting handfuls of her T-shirt between
her fingers as she tried to work out what to say. “Um—this is so
difficult.”

She stayed silent for a few more moments,
attempting to marshal her thoughts into coherent order.

“Gran was not just my Gran,” she stammered.
“So today was a doubly awful day for me. She was my Mom as well
since I was fifteen.” She glanced over at him, wondering if that
made sense. She worried at her bottom lip with her teeth and then
continued. “My parents were killed in a road smash. They collided
with a fully loaded cattle truck and trailer, and you don’t walk
away from something that big.”

Her voice sounded far from steady, so she
stopped again, hoping for more composure.

Anton reached across the table and covered
her hand with his. There was comfort there much more than threat.
She managed to keep her hand still, and he sat for at least thirty
seconds before asking, “Were you with them?”

She shook her head. “They were coming to
collect me from a friend’s birthday party. A sleepover. It was
broad daylight—middle of the morning. I felt so guilty. They were
in the car because of me, and I was the one who didn’t die.” She
closed her eyes as the old desolation swamped her yet again.

She heard him mutter a soft curse. “You can’t
think that way. I hope you don’t still feel like that?”

She shrugged, looked up at him, then away
again. “Sometimes.”

He surprised her then by saying “I drive
myself hard because I’m the only child my mother has. I want
success for her more than for me. Equally stupid, isn’t it.”

Jetta looked up and found his blue eyes very
watchful. “Paul and Ben aren’t your brothers then?

He shook his head. “Business partners. We’re
Barker Haviland Mosely.” His beautiful mouth twisted into a
lopsided grin. “The other way of looking at it,” he said, “is that
I want to thumb my nose at my absent father, who wasn’t man enough
to stick around. There’s a definite element of ‘stuff you Dad, I
don’t need you’ in everything I’ve ever tried to do.”

His hand still sat warmly over hers, and to
her surprise, Jetta turned her own over and gave his a squeeze.

“I can understand that,” she said, releasing
it again.

Hoping she’d offered him enough by way of
apology she sprang to her feet. “Hey—I did you some mood boards. I
left them in the hall when I came home and heard voices.”

She trotted down the hallway to retrieve the
big flat package.

“Barker Haviland Mosely,” she murmured as she
padded back. “I should have twigged. You won a ‘House of the Year’
design this time around.”

“Best under $750,000. Not the Supreme Award,
though.” Anton started to shuffle his paperwork into a pile.

“Next time.” She ripped at the paper she’d
taped around the boards and set the pile down. Anton had cleared
away the plates and bottles from the dining table. It now sat in
its rightful place. Gran’s sideboard had been relocated to the end
wall, under a vivid orange and red abstract she’d never seen
before.

She swung around to inspect the sitting room.
No more fusty velvet or tizzy lamps! Anton’s long grey suede sofa
ranged along one pristine white wall. The giant-pile rug softened
the centre of the room. His TV still appeared huge, but he’d
arranged several of the old, randomly spaced hall watercolors into
tight groups either side of it. The two spiky yuccas stood guard by
the glass doors.

“Amazing,” she said. “Where did you get the
extra chairs?”

“From your junk room. I had a scavenge under
some old loose covers and that’s what was hidden.”

Jetta shook her head in admiration. Plain
beige linen. Gran had covered it up with Sanderson roses many years
ago.

“Pretty slick. You could have done your own
boards.”

“No—these are great,” he said, spreading hers
out. “Although I didn’t picture the apartments ever looking like
this.” He indicated the option with French blue walls, navy carpet,
and floral tapestry brocade with a mix-and-match stripe and
check.

“And some nice, wealthy, nearly retired lady
probably wouldn’t consider this,” Jetta said, pointing at the white
walled, charcoal tiled version with black and white geometric
fabric options. “I’ve also done you a ‘naturals’ scheme—which I can
tell you right now is what most people will want.”

Anton ran a long finger over the small square
of nubby cream carpet and grinned.

“And this one, which is still very neutral
but has colored accents.” She slid it onto the top of the stack,
watching his eyes as they ran over the magazine clippings of bright
cushions, flowers, ceramics, a vibrant painting. “Same
exactly—apart from the accessories.”

He sent her one of his bone melting smiles.
“You’re good, but you need to sign them. If you’re back from New
York in time the work’s yours.”

“Thank you cousin,” she said without thinking.

Anton disappeared soon afterward, looking a
lot tidier, and calling over his shoulder, “Expect me when you see
me.” Jetta presumed he was seeing Claire. She was welcome to
him.

Once he’d gone, she checked the rest of the
house.

The bathroom had gained an electric
toothbrush, a second tube of toothpaste, and extra towels. She
flinched at the evidence of masculine occupation. Panic waves began
to lap around her ankles.

The spare room was wonderfully clear. Only
his drawing board and a stack of plastic chairs lurked there.

The front bedroom had that big, big bed, and
the sleek desk and chests she’d seen at the other house. He’d
pulled the old brown roller blinds halfway down against the setting
sun, making the atmosphere mysterious and sexy.

She sniffed. His lemony cologne hung in the
air, bringing back memories of Saturday, and his arm against hers
as she told him how nasty his apartments were.

The panic waves lapped higher.

She spied his toolbox in the corner and
thought of the big new latch she’d bought. She simply had to have
that control. There was no way she’d be able to sleep, knowing he
could walk right into her room like he had earlier...like Uncle
Graham had on the evenings her parents went out, when they’d
trusted him to look after her.

She trembled, calling herself a wuss, a
scaredy-cat, a nutcase.

But surely knowing she was unreachable would
help her relax?

She picked up the toolbox and carried it back
to her room. Half an hour later, she nodded with satisfaction. The
latch was ugly, slightly crooked, and stiff to work, but it was
on.

Then she noticed the little TV on the corner
stand had been replaced by Gran’s bigger sitting room set. Anton
had been in here, messing with her stuff, invading her privacy! The
shivers of shock and consternation started all over again. How dare
he do that without asking?

She stared across at the ugly latch again,
and waited until calmness stole over her and her heart rate
decreased.

Against all expectations, she slept deeply on
Monday night—exhausted from the terrible day, and grief and worry
and trepidation. She didn’t hear Anton come back. But she certainly
heard the demolition crew when they arrived at number seventeen
early next morning.

A noisy truck, men’s loud voices far too
close, and metallic clanking and thumping yanked her out of her
peaceful sleep before her alarm sounded. She shot from the bed,
parted the curtains, and glared across at them.

Anton said the men would be working inside
number seventeen on Tuesday, but when she came home, she found a
big chunk of the side fence missing, the old timber palings stacked
up beside her bedroom, and a door rather roughly installed through
the outside wall of Gran’s old spare bedroom/site office.

“I knew you wouldn’t want everyone tramping
through the house,” Anton said, as if he’d done her a favor.

Privately she agreed. If extra people had to
access the site office, she had no wish to see them or their muddy
boots, but she wasn’t about to look grateful for his
thoughtfulness.

By Wednesday knockoff time, the old
terracotta roof tiles had disappeared from seventeen. She presumed
that meant the timber flooring had been retrieved. The best windows
had certainly gone. She kept well clear, not wanting too vivid a
picture of number fifteen’s eventual fate. If it ever came to that,
of course...

On Thursday morning, an evil yellow digger
arrived on a truck and proceeded to bash its bucket into what
remained. Seventeen put up no fight at all. There was bare land
when she arrived home from work that day. A bright orange netting
fence strung with ‘Keep Out—Construction Site’ notices had been
erected across the road frontage.

And by then, she was almost used to him. He
was always up and dressed by the time she woke, so that took care
of any awkwardness in the mornings. She’d find him in one of his
superb suits if he was heading into the city; in jeans if he was
aiming to be on site next door.

His evenings were a mystery to her—he never
mentioned Claire, and he spent hours tapping away on his laptop at
the kitchen table. And being charming to her if she was home. Her
guard was dropping fast.

By ten on Thursday night, she was in bed with
a new magazine, guiltily keeping half an eye on her larger TV.
She’d pushed the latch safely across.

She’d survived four whole days living with a
man...

Sometime after midnight, a noise scratched at
the edges of her sleep. An eerie crackling. Snapping and popping,
somewhere far too close.

She woke enough to register the flickering
orange light through her curtains must be flames. The stink of
smoke confirmed it a nanosecond later.

Number seventeen was on fire!

Her sleep-addled brain took a little longer
to tell her number seventeen no longer existed. And at that exact
moment, the glass in her window cracked and exploded with the heat,
and the hungry flames roared up her curtains and rushed across the
ceiling.

Get out, get out, get out!

She lurched from her bed and staggered across
the room, blinded by the invading smoke. She groped in the murk,
cannoned into the end of the unaccustomed larger bed, and almost
pitched to the floor. Somehow, she stayed upright, grabbing,
grasping, feeling things cascade from the edge of her lowboy as her
frantic fingers scrabbled along in the eerie light. Her throat
closed up with fear. The blood beat a furious tattoo there,
pounding, choking, stifling. Her heart thumped as loud and fast as
a kettledrum. Sudden tears welled from her eyes, stinging in the
acrid air. Please God, where was the door?

At last the handle. She wrenched it down, but
the door refused to budge. Stuck fast. Immovable. A hateful barrier
to her freedom.

The latch. The latch.

She fumbled and found it. Wrenched at the
metal, but her hands were drenched with perspiration from the
stomach-curdling fear pouring through her. No chance of a proper
grip on the bolt. Her desperate fingers couldn’t slide it
aside.

Panic flooded every vein. “Anton! Anton!
Fire!”

Please God—make him hear.

She screamed and pounded, and tugged again on
the slippery bolt. Time raced by.

“Anton! Help me!”

She coughed and gagged, and in the nick of
time an old school-day rule blossomed in her smoke drugged mind.
‘Bend low for air’
it reminded her.

She dropped to the floor, gasping for oxygen,
really choking now. At least it was a little better down there. A
fraction cooler. Slightly lighter. She lay down and pounded her
heels on the door like a two year old in full desperate tantrum
mode.

“Anton!” she screamed, again and again. “Help
me!”

If he yelled anything back, she didn’t hear
him, but suddenly the door shuddered against her heels, and she
sensed he’d thrown his weight against it. The sound of splitting
timber cracked out over the voracious roaring of the flames.

Jetta scrambled sideways and buried her head
in her hands, praying he’d be successful, praying he’d save her.
The door gave several more almighty shakes and then crashed open
against her legs.

Long arms reached down and dragged her into
the hallway, dumping her on the hard timber floor like a sack of
garbage. Then his huge shadow reached out and slammed the door shut
again as he tried to confine the fire to one room.

Thank God, thank God
, she thought as
he swept her up against him in a crushing hug. His strength felt
wonderful all around her, but far too soon he pushed her into the
site office, wrenched a chair away from under the door handle,
flung the hastily installed door wide to the air, and threw her out
into the night.

“Get the garden hose on it if you can,” he yelled.
“I’ll get my phone.” He slammed the door again, leaving her
wheezing and petrified for his safety.

“Vandalism?” Anton asked. “Arson?”

“Or maybe someone flicked a cigarette butt
away and didn’t look where it landed,” one of the firemen said.
“Could have been smoldering for hours. Not a great idea stacking
timber right against the house.”