The Girl in the Yellow Vest (35 page)

‘Oh.’ Emily frowned. ‘I see.’

‘Don’t let me drop your mood.’ Charlotte waved a hand at her to take a seat. ‘Tell me some good news.’

Emily sat down, but her expression didn’t lift. ‘I wish I had some. I actually came to see you because I need some advice.’

‘Ask away.’

‘Well,’ Emily wrung her hands, ‘you see, I think I might be falling for this guy on site.’

‘Go on.’

‘And it’s
really
awkward.’

‘Why?’

‘Long story. Let’s just say there’s a history there. Anyway, so I’ve tried to get rid of these feelings but I’ve been seeing so much of him of late that –’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Em,’ Charlotte rolled her eyes, ‘just tell Will, already.’

Emily blushed a deep shade of red. ‘I
never
said it was
Will
.’

‘I’m sorry but it’s a little obvious.’

‘Does
he
know?’ she asked in a small voice.

Charlotte sighed. ‘Unfortunately not.’

‘And you think I should tell him?’

‘What do you stand to lose?’

‘Our friendship for a start,’ Emily protested, ‘and the fact that I’ve just come out of a long-term relationship with his best friend. He’s practically programmed to give me a wide berth in that regard.
And
on top of
all
that we work together.’ She screwed up her face. ‘How could I bring this up with him? He’d probably run a mile.’

‘You can’t be sure of that,’ Charlotte said softly. ‘Keeping quiet might just be stalling the best thing you ever had.’

‘I guess,’ said Emily, content for a moment to just stare out the window, deep in her own thoughts.

It was easy to see the younger girl’s dilemma. If
she
met a man, a completely inappropriate man, who she knew she couldn’t have due to her own history and his as well, would she tell him? Or would she hide the feelings that could only lead to heartache?

Oh crap, no.
She closed her eyes as Mark’s face suddenly filled her mind.
I’d keep my bloody mouth shut too.

Nova was singularly unapologetic for his behaviour on Saturday night. In fact, he was positively gloating on Monday afternoon.

‘Tell me,’ he rubbed his hands together, ‘did she get a kick out of
sexy
Will?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Will glared at him.

‘I did you a massive favour.’ Nova seemed surprised at his lack of understanding and shook his pointer finger. ‘Don’t think that what happened on Saturday was all a coincidence. It was all part of my master plan.’

‘Believe me,’ Will said as one goaded, ‘I’m under no illusions. What the hell did you do with my clothes?’

‘You don’t remember?’ Nova blinked. ‘We took them outside and lit them on fire.’

‘We didn’t!’ Will was horrified.

‘Okay, we didn’t.’ Nova seemed disappointed by the admission. ‘That’s what I wanted to do but you were against it. Thought it would wake the neighbours.’

‘Well, where are they?’

‘The neighbours?’

‘No, you idiot, my clothes!’

‘I think we just binned them.’

Will put his head in his hands. ‘So I’m going to have to go through the rubbish tonight.’

‘Wouldn’t bother. Just buy new ones when you go on R and R. You can borrow some of mine in the meantime.’

The last non-Barnes Inc shirt Will had seen Nova in had a picture of two leatherback turtles having sex on the front, with the caption
Slow Poke
.

‘Er, I don’t think so,’ he said rubbing his eyes and then cursing. He hated wearing contact lenses: that’s why he’d stopped. Now he had no choice but to revert. He still had his prescription for disposable lenses so it had been easy to pick up a box in Mackay before coming to work that morning. It would take at least a few weeks before the new glasses he had ordered would come in and frankly, he wanted to be able to see the shiploader when it arrived in nine days. That was going to be one big event.

‘
So
. . .’ Nova was still hell-bent on annoying him. ‘What did she think?’

‘She didn’t think anything,’ Will responded irritably. ‘Or at least if she did, she didn’t say anything about it.’

Of course, there was that one incident where she pressed herself against him at the top of the stairs.

It was probably an accident. You were in the way.

And the way she’d laced her fingers through his with all the intimacy of a long-term lover.

She was trying to get a better grip. The stairs were slippery!

He clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to grind his teeth. There was nothing there. It was all in his over-eager head. They’d had a big fight in the buffet lounge, which he was sure they still hadn’t come back from despite the fact that apologies and even a hug had been exchanged when he dropped her home that evening.

In fact, if he was to be fully honest with himself, things had been rather strained between them since the Great Barrier Reef incident.

She was so jumpy.

Every time he greeted her she would turn around, start and cough, like he’d caught her doing something she shouldn’t be. Nor would she look at him for prolonged periods when they spoke. She talked to the wall or the ceiling or the floor and occasionally at his hands or chest. But never directly to his face for more than a few seconds.

When you took eye contact out of their relationship, he discovered, it was actually a rather large minus. It was like she had erected a big electric fence around herself and every time he tried to breach it, he got zapped.

On Wednesday afternoon, he had to ask the question. ‘Em, are you still mad at me about the whole bet/Trent thing?’

‘No, I thought we sorted that out.’ Again she was looking at her clipboard rather than at him. ‘He’s your best friend too and I can understand that you wanted to take his side.’

‘I didn’t take his side,’ he said crossly.

‘No, no.’ She shook her head, still not looking at him. ‘That’s right. You wanted to protect me as a
friend
.’ She ground the word between her teeth with a sigh before taking off to talk to one of the cement-truck divers.

They were doing a concrete pour that day and only one of the trucks had arrived. It was very important that they had enough concrete and that it was all the right mix. They had to pour the slab in one go. If they ran out of concrete halfway through the pour, what was there would dry before they could fill the rest and a cold joint would form along the area they had poured to.

Dipper and a couple of his men were on stand by to help out. The older man had been rather subdued with Will of late, neither heckling him nor boasting to him. He had to wonder what had changed.

What had Emily said to him when he’d told her about the bet?

Emily walked back, throwing him the swiftest of smiles before averting her eyes again. ‘We should be right. The other trucks are only ten minutes away. He just called both drivers. I say we start.’

With a determined sigh, Will nodded. ‘Em.’ He stalled her as she moved to walk away and notify the driver.

‘Yeah.’

‘I never asked you about your date with Dipper.’
Too afraid of what I’d hear.
He swallowed. ‘How was it?’

She shrugged. ‘Good. He’s a nice guy.’

‘He didn’t say anything else about the bet?’

She looked up at that. A strange, eager expression on her face. ‘Was there anything else to say?’

‘No, it’s just that –’ He decided to bite the bullet. ‘It’s just that you’ve been acting a little weird lately.’

‘Weird?’ she squeaked. ‘Really? Me?’

‘Yeah,’ he stepped towards her, ‘is everything okay?’ His hand reached out to touch her shoulder.

‘Sure, of course, why wouldn’t it be?’ She stumbled back away from his hand so quickly that she tripped on her own feet and landed on her arse. ‘Umph!’

He put his hands under her armpits and hauled her up. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to –’

‘Why are you sorry?’ she snapped at him. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. Let go of me.’

‘I just –’ He allowed his hands to drop as she roughly extracted herself from his hold.

‘I think I need to take a break.’ She handed him the clipboard. ‘I might see if Charlotte’s free to see me this afternoon. I think I’d like to get my appointment out of the way, if you know what I mean.’

He had no idea what she meant.

*

That night he did not see her. She was ‘tired’. And the following morning he had no time to catch up with her as two things occurred simultaneously: Caesar returned to site and the bogies showed up.

Neither of these parties had been expected for at least a couple more days.

He wished he could say Caesar was the more unwelcome entity but the fact was, seeing those bogies or wheels lying on the back of two semi-trailers – one hundred and twenty tonnes each – put the fear of God into every worker on the job. ‘God’ being Caesar, of course.

You see, those wheels were supposed to be attached to the shiploader. Not arriving there on their own.

‘Are those bogies I’m seeing in the yard?’ Caesar demanded of Will when he walked unannounced into the office at ten that morning, sending papers flying and everyone around Will scrabbling for their desks.

Ann, who had been chatting in the kitchen to the planner, squeaked, ‘Sir!’ and hastily ran over.

‘Answer me!’ Caesar’s eyes burned into his face and for a second Will struggled to remember the question. Ah, yes, the bogies.

‘Er . . . yes, that would be them,’ Will replied, knowing instinctively that this was the wrong answer but not able to hit upon a way to immediately conceal the truth believably.

‘Who cut them off the shiploader without my permission?’

‘I assume someone in Brisbane before it left port.’

‘Don’t get smart with me, Boy Scout, or I’ll have you personally welding them back on.’

‘Sorry, Mark.’

‘Where is Fish?’

‘In the yard, with the bogies.’

‘Then I better go rip his throat out,’ Caesar said bleakly.

‘Is there anything I can get you, sir?’ Ann clasped her hands together.

‘A cup of coffee, two biscuits, our progress chart and the phone number of the man who cut those damned wheels off,’ Caesar snapped before starting to walk on but then stopped.

He looked back at Will, his expression seeming to grow even more harried than before – if that were possible.

‘Did Ms Templeton start work on Monday?’

‘Yes, Mark.’

‘How did she find it?’

‘Fine.’

‘
Fine
,’ Caesar growled. ‘I have always found the word to be grossly undescriptive, irritatingly unspecific and too commonly employed. Why use it at all?’ He stalked off, leaving Will feeling like he’d just been hit in the face with a brick.

Nova chuckled delightedly.

Turned out, the reason the bogies had been cut off in Brisbane was because it was found that the shiploader was too heavy to lift onto the ship with the cranes they had organised. So they’d cut them off to reduce the weight. The balance of the shiploader had been put on another ship and was even now en route to Hay Point.

Normally when the shiploader arrived it would be lifted from the ship and set on the rails that ran up and down the wharf. Now, however, they would have to set the wheels or bogies up on the rails, then land the legs of the shiploader onto the wheels. This was going to make the lift that much harder.

It was no wonder Caesar was in such a mood.

The next couple of days became all about those wheels. The shiploader in all its glory was sailing in on Tuesday and every man and his dog was going to be there. The local media, the national media, the wharf owners and most of their staff and every cringing fool at Barnes Inc (who all had their fingers crossed behind their back).

In the lead-up to D-Day, Will allowed his stress to take over and tried to focus less on what he might be doing wrong with Emily and more on what he could do right with regard to having his section of the wharf clear and cleaned up.

Trent didn’t make things easier by calling him all the time. He was the very last person he wanted to speak to right then. So at first he just let the calls go to voicemail when he saw his friend’s name on his phone screen. But then Trent managed to get his work number and was put through to Nova by mistake.