The Girl in the Yellow Vest (38 page)

‘Why?’ he pounced.

‘I don’t know,’ Zara responded stiffly. ‘Perhaps she just wanted to be certain they wouldn’t interfere with our family. Mum has always needed a lot of help even before she got Alzheimer’s.’

It was clear there was more to the story than she was letting on. Mark had to clench his fists to stop his anger from bubbling over. ‘Doesn’t your sister ever get a break? Where was your father in all this?’

‘My father?’ Zara looked away, barely muttering the words.

‘Yes, your father.’

‘His name is Dennis Mayer.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I would never call him my father.’ From the finality in her tone, he knew the conversation was over. As if to confirm his thoughts, she stood up, dusting her jeans. ‘I think I’ll head off now. I’ve got homework to do.’

Since when had Zara ever been interested in homework?

She waved a hand over her shoulder but didn’t look back as she walked off.

Damn!

He hadn’t meant to offend her. He should have known there would be no love lost between her and the man who had refused to be a part of her life. He couldn’t understand how some men could just abandon their children. Even if they were selfish with no sense of responsibility or love for their child, would not curiosity at least bring them back for visits? Augustus squawked, seemingly annoyed by his unusual lack of attention, particularly after being away for several days.

‘You know, you seem to be almost recovered now,’ he remarked. ‘Maybe it’s time we set you free again.’

Augustus immediately put his head down.

The threat gave him little satisfaction and he reflected with a grunt that perhaps he was getting soft. Or perhaps his reign of tyranny was no longer an outlet for his pain. It just left him emptier than ever. His thoughts immediately turned to Charlotte and that kiss . . .

Closing his eyes, he went back inside, cursing his own weakness.

Now standing on the wharf a few days later watching them lift the enormous shiploader painstakingly over the main road, he marvelled at how hollow this achievement was to him. Even in these final hours of glory, with the media marvelling as he proved that a man could move mountains if he dared, he felt nothing.

Sure, he had another huge piece of plant installation to add to his already overflowing resumé. So what? He’d been doing this for years and, while it had given him fleeting pleasure, it couldn’t even attempt to fill the void in his heart. The only person who had given him pure joy was Kathryn and now she was gone. He thought back to his visit to his brother-in-law and knew that he couldn’t stay in hiding forever. As Chub had said, he needed to consider the bigger picture and take a leap of faith. His hand went automatically to his pocket, where Kathryn’s list safely resided. He didn’t need to look at it to know what was next on his agenda.
Go on a date.

Such a simple order poleaxed him. Kathryn couldn’t have realised what she was asking. Should he really take this leap of faith or would it be his own undoing?

‘I need a break,’ he told Fish, whose chin was still tilted as far back as it could go, both his eyes on the shiploader dangling above them like an oversized mobile in a baby’s cradle. ‘I’m going to get a coffee,’ he announced. ‘Call me if you need me.’

He doubted they would. At this stage, there was little he could do but watch and cringe. His job had been preparation. Now it was up to those crane drivers to finish it off. He could stand there and hold his breath all day or he could go and get a little sustenance. So he went into the smoko donga and began to make himself a hot drink.

A few minutes later, the door to the empty donga swung open and his heart clenched as a familiar face appeared.

‘Oh sorry,’ Charlotte murmured. ‘I didn’t realise you were in here.’

She turned as though about to walk right back out, pulling on the rim of her hard hat.

‘Ms Templeton,’ he said quickly, unable to bear her just leaving like that. The very last thing he wanted from her was space. But how did he convey that? ‘This is not a private lunch room. Come in.’

She hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you if you were collecting your thoughts.’

He frowned at her meekness. ‘I realise you don’t like my company but I hope it would not make you ignore your own thirst.’

‘Your company . . .’ She blushed. ‘I think I owe you an apology for what you overheard me saying to Will on the Adventure Pontoon.’

He remembered.

‘A lot of things happened that day,’ she went on, ‘and I wasn’t in my right frame of mind. So I’m sorry, and on that note,’ she gave him a weak smile, ‘I should leave you in peace.’

Leave him in peace?

He put down his teaspoon with a snap. ‘I do not know what I have done to warrant this behaviour from you, Ms Templeton, but I hope you will cease and desist it.’

She blinked. ‘Behaviour. What behaviour?’

‘This.’ He flicked his hand out as though the gesture explained everything. ‘Since when have you ever cared about my peace?’

She let go of the doorknob and came towards the kitchen counter. ‘Don’t you believe in respect in the workplace, Mr Crawford?’

Finally!

‘Of course I do,’ he snapped back. ‘Just not from you.’

‘Wow.’ Her eyes widened. ‘What a high opinion you have of me.’

Belatedly realising that he wasn’t enjoying this particular spat quite as much as he usually did, he decided to turn the tables a bit. Fancying himself rather clever, he said, ‘As a matter of fact, I do have a rather high opinion of you. Despite my better judgement, I actually appreciate your brashness, lack of respect for authority and pushy nature.’

‘
Pushy!
’

‘Should I have said assertive?’ he inquired. ‘Yes, perhaps that is a much better word.’

‘I suppose you think I should take that as a compliment?’

‘Definitely,’ he nodded, pleased at last with her understanding. ‘Because as ill-thought-out as this might be, I am about to ask you on a date.’

‘
W-why?
’ she demanded, like he was some sort of idiot.

He straightened his shoulders and stood taller. ‘Didn’t I just say?’

‘There’s got to be a better reason other than the fact that I’m pushy.’

‘Assertive,’ he corrected her. ‘I changed that to assertive.’

She took her hat off her head and put it on the trestle table closest to her, threading her fingers into her hair and scrunching with all the frustration of Einstein at the brink of the Theory of Relativity. ‘Do you even hear yourself?’

‘Quite clearly.’

‘Then you must realise,’ she threw at him, ‘that I’m not going to go anywhere with a man who has just insulted the hell out of me.’

His expression hardened. ‘And nor should you,’ he said firmly. ‘
Ever
. Perhaps I should have been a little more sensitive in that regard.’

‘A little more sensitive.’ She laughed mockingly up at the ceiling. ‘A frickin’ axe through a window would be more sensitive than you, Mr Crawford.’

A muscle twitched in his cheek. ‘I apologise. It was not my intention to insult you and I will try to express myself more succinctly.’

‘What a relief.’

‘There’s actually a number of reasons I wish to go out with you, Ms Templeton. Most of them are irrational and a result of a certain weakness I have with regard to your physical attributes.’

Her eyes widened and he hastened to continue, ‘But the most pressing reason that springs to mind, is, well . . .’ He sought for concise way to sum up his emotional limbo, his visit to Chub and dead wife’s master plan. ‘It’s on my To Do list.’

‘I see. Your To Do list,’ she said through her teeth. ‘That’s so flattering.’

He studied her sarcastic expression gravely, wishing he’d approached this now from an entirely different angle. How could he have so easily forgotten everything she had been through in the past? ‘I’m sorry if my admiration is making you uncomfortable. A woman of your history probably finds this situation rather difficult.’

She blinked. ‘A woman of my history? What the hell are you talking about now?’

He licked dry lips. He really should have planned this rather than being spontaneous. He was now locked in a place he certainly did not want to be. And as he didn’t have that much experience dealing with nerves – he barely felt anything but apathy these days – he was afraid that he wasn’t handling it very well.

‘Don’t hold back now.’ Charlotte’s hands went to her hips. ‘Not when you’ve come this far, Mr Crawford.’

He took a deep breath. ‘I read your book,
Life After Rape
. In it, you did discuss the difficulties associated with future relationships after the trauma occurred. After everything you’ve been through . . .’ He trailed off as the subject seemed beyond expression even for him.

‘Wait,’ her pointer finger flicked from herself to him, ‘you think that I . . .’ She swallowed hard. ‘. . . That I was raped.’

He reached for her.

‘Don’t you
dare
touch me!’ She took a giant step back and his hands immediately dropped to his sides.

He was now fully aware that things had gone completely and horribly wrong.

‘Not,’ she squinted at him in a way that made him wish the floor would open up and swallow him, ‘that it’s any of your business, but no, I was not the one who was raped. And if I had been, I would not be sharing the details with you. I get that you’re a little confused right now because we had that kiss on the reef, which,’ she held up a finger as he started to open his mouth, ‘was, I admit, very nice and did make me contemplate for the briefest of milliseconds that maybe you and I could be good together. But anything I felt for you that day has been completely and utterly squashed by your squalid assessment of my character and this illuminating display of your own.’

‘Ms Templeton –’

‘I am
not finished
! It is not your place to speculate about my family’s history, judge me or bring up subjects you clearly know nothing about. And I certainly would not date a man just because it’s on his To Do list!’ She turned and headed for the door.

‘Ms Templeton –’

‘No,
Mark
,’ she snapped. ‘You need help! But not from me.’

She slammed the donga door behind her, leaving him gasping for breath. His heart pounded painfully in his chest as if he’d just run a marathon. He tipped his undrunk coffee down the sink. Well, he’d screwed that up royally! His leap of faith had landed him right in the centre of the road where a semi-trailer had taken him out. He allowed ten minutes to pass while he just stared into space, searching for a way to recover.

The door opened and he looked up expectantly, hoping she’d come back to talk it through again, but it was only Will.

‘Mark, we’ve just started descent alongside the conveyor. We thought you might want to be there for that.’

This was the trickiest part of the lift. The conveyor was very close to the rail and you didn’t want to accidently knock it with a million-dollar structure. It could be a rather costly error.

‘I’ll come out,’ Mark growled and put on his hat.

He walked out of the donga after Will, his eyes automatically looking towards the area that had been roped off for the media. He couldn’t see her. ‘Where’s Ms Templeton?’

Will frowned. ‘Wasn’t feeling well, so she left Em in charge of the troops and took a ute back. Shame, ’cause I have a guy here who came out specifically to see her. But Dipper will give him a ride back later when we’re through this stage of the lift.’

Mark dismissed his words as the view of the shiploader met his eyes. While he couldn’t do anything but watch for the moment, he had to be present at this precarious stage. As much as he wanted to just jump in a ute and follow her, he needed to stay to witness the momentous milestone.

An hour later they had passed the danger point and were getting ready to set the shiploader back on its wheels – a procedure that was just as hairy but for completely different reasons. Spooks’s welding team moved into readiness as the shiploader slowly descended.

Will came up to him again as he watched the team assembling its equipment.

‘Sir, just wondering if I can borrow your ute.’

He turned on the boy in annoyance. ‘Why?’

‘It’s the only one left on the wharf. One of the welders has ripped his insulated gloves. Just want to duck back to the office and get a spare pair. I won’t be long.’

‘Where’s your ute?’

‘Dipper took Dennis Mayer back to see Charlotte.’

Dennis Mayer?

Where had he heard that name before?

It seemed so bloody familiar.

‘Who is Dennis Mayer?’

Will frowned. ‘Come to think of it, I’m not exactly sure.’

And then the memory of Zara sitting by Augustus’s cage, telling him about her father resurfaced.

Or rather . . . not telling him.

The conversation had died the second this guy’s name had been mentioned. He’d never seen such a look of hurt in her eyes. A look that matched Charlotte’s when she had yelled at him that she hadn’t been raped. No: her exact words were,
I was not the one who had been raped.
Someone she knew, then? The book had felt so personal.

Like flash of blinding light, horror struck him right between the eyes. First he heard Zara’s adamant words.
I would never call him my father.

And then Charlotte’s loving dedication.
For Mum. Your courage in the face of adversity is an inspiration to me.

And in the next second, he put it all together.

‘Sir, you still haven’t answered my question.’ Will chattered annoyingly at his elbow.

‘You can’t have my ute. I’m taking it!’ He spun on his heel. ‘I need to get back to the office now!’

Will gasped. ‘But we’re about to put the shiploader down.’

‘Fish will supervise.’

‘But –’

‘Tell him for me, will you?’ He was already walking away. ‘I’ll send some gloves back when I get to the office.’

‘But, sir,’ Will called after him, ‘it’s the shiploader! We can’t . . . You can’t – just
leave
.’

‘Watch me.’