Jax sat in the warm, lasagne- and chocolate pudding-scented kitchen, plucking at a frayed thread on one of the tablemats.
It was strange knowing that Solomon would be outside after dark, keeping a watch on the house. She wasn’t comfortable with it but knew she’d never be able to persuade either Solomon or Jack to back off, and she wouldn’t ask them to because she was concerned, for Frances. Jack would be back later, after he’d done his interview with Mr Roper. If he was here early enough he’d have dinner with them, and he’d sleep on the sofa again.
She pulled another thread. They hadn’t even kissed again since he’d turned up in town, and he was asking her to marry him. He was out of his mind.
Jax was too, for giving his suggestion even the smallest space in her head.
When she’d first met him he’d put that word ‘family’ into her mind. The word was obviously still there, especially as she now had Rosie and Frances, but it still included Jack and she thought perhaps her heart was already a little bit broken just knowing she would lose him.
At the age of seventeen her life had changed and sharpened her. Long before it ought to have. She’d given birth to Frances with only the nurse and doctor present. Her mother was sitting outside the room, waiting for this tragedy to end so she could get back to being able to hold her head up in the street again. Jax had very little knowledge of her father, he’d died when Rosie was a two-year-old, and although her paternal grandmother, for whom she’d named Frances Adelita, had done her best to keep his memory alive, Jax’s memories of him throughout the first eight years of her life had dwindled. Now, she wished with all her heart he’d lived. Perhaps he’d have been a kinder influence in her and Rosie’s lives.
A little while after Frances had gone to school for that first time, their mother had died, leaving Jax as sister, mother and provider for Rosie, and her life had changed all over again. Now it had changed for a third time, but it was good. She had Frances here with her.
She bit her lip hard, thinking about what it had taken to tell Jack about Michael and the night Frances had been conceived. The whole deal with Michael had eventually gone further than she’d thought it would. But she’d wanted to lose her virginity to him, thinking it would be cool to lose it to an older man. She’d thought she wanted it.
Still biting her lip, she concentrated on the threads she’d pulled from the tablemat. She hadn’t thought at all. She’d been sixteen, eager for life’s experiences. She was reasonably sure he’d enticed her to go the whole way and it hadn’t been enjoyable at all. Just fast and over before she knew it. But she’d told him she wanted it. She’d thought it was what she wanted. She had no-one to ask an opinion of now, except Jack, and they’d already had that conversation and she wasn’t going to make him angry about it again. Anyway, it was too intimate a conversation to have with a man. Rachel and Donna would listen and would understand, but might not be able to comprehend how Jax couldn’t see what had really happened. She didn’t want to look like a fool, but she had been. She ought to own up to it, even if only to herself.
‘Excuse me.’
She looked up and smiled at Frances. She had her child, living here with her. If this was the result of every hardship that had occurred in her younger years, then she was thankful for all of them.
‘There’s no need to be so polite,’ she said. ‘Not to me, anyway.’
Frances came into the kitchen and stopped by the bench.
‘Is everything all right?’
Frances nodded, then looked down and said nothing.
Rosie had gone back to the café to check on the girls who’d been left in charge for a few hours and who’d done exceptionally well, but had returned after she’d closed the café to help prepare dinner, which was now in the oven. She’d gone back to Davidson now, but while she’d been here Frances had seemed quiet but at ease, even answering one or two of Rosie’s flippant questions. Frances had also helped with the cooking. She’d made the chocolate pudding, without need of a recipe.
‘Did you like driving?’ Jax asked, knowing Frances had come into the kitchen for a reason, and knowing she had to fill the gaps until Frances said whatever it was that she wanted to say.
‘Yes and no. It was all a bit odd because I didn’t feel not right.’
Jax took her time, digesting whatever this might mean.
‘I had to talk about my dad.’
Jax released the hold she had on the tablemat and sat up straighter. ‘Did Jack ask you?’
Frances shook her head. ‘No. I meant, I had to talk.’
‘I see.’ She didn’t, but Frances was opening up and obviously wanted to say more. ‘If there’s something you need to know about your dad, or about Linda, or about anything, you can ask me.’
Frances looked doubtful.
‘If I don’t know the answer I’ll find it.’ She paused. ‘Do you want to get in touch with him?’ she asked tentatively.
Frances shook her head, then stopped. ‘I don’t know.’ She stuck her hands into the pockets of her shorts and, for a second, she reminded Jax of herself. Suppressing real emotion by remaining firmly detached. Shoving hands into pockets.
‘I just want you to know that I realise why I’m here,’ Frances said, her eyes still firmly on the floor, ‘and I get that you’re trying to help.’
Jax found a smile as something warmed inside her. ‘You know something, Frances? You remind me of me sometimes.’
Frances looked up and their eyes caught. ‘That’s odd too, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ Jax agreed, ‘since we don’t know each other.’ There was a chance here and she wanted to take it. ‘I love you, Frances. I always did and I always will. I know you don’t want to hear that but it’s true. And just so you know—and I really want you to know this—’ Tears were threatening and she had to blink to get rid of them. ‘I think we can be friends. I don’t expect you to think of me as your mother,’ she added. ‘I don’t expect to mean that much to you but I want you to know that I never stopped thinking about you. That I realised, after I’d given you away, that I shouldn’t have done it.’
‘You didn’t really give me away though, did you? You said my dad and your mum made you.’
‘They wanted me to. They persuaded me to and I was very young and thought it would be best for you.’ Her heart was like a weighted stone, sunk in a river. ‘I should have stood up for myself and for you. I’m sorry, Frances. I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to do that.’ Her chest was so tight now, it was nearly choking her.
‘I kind of understand,’ Frances said in a small voice. ‘I mean, I get now that you felt something for me.’
‘You were my whole world for one hour. You’ve been my hidden world for thirteen years.’ She blinked harder. ‘I’m probably doing it all wrong now, and I’m sorry about that. I’m trying but I’m getting it wrong.’
‘Not wrong,’ Frances said, sounding hesitant.
A ray of hope softened the boulder of emotion in Jax’s chest. ‘Do you think we can start again? Do you think there’s a chance we might get to know each other a bit more? I’d like that. I’d love that,’ she said, her heart swelling as all that hope engulfed it. ‘You’re my daughter. There isn’t a minute of every day that’s gone by since you were born that I didn’t acknowledge you in some way.’
‘I’d kind of like it if you didn’t do this,’ Frances said, nodding at Jax’s eyes.
‘Sorry,’ Jax sniffed hard and blinked a lot more. ‘I’m feeling overwhelmed.’
‘I feel that way all the time.’
Jax paused, getting herself under control as she heard the bemused pain behind Frances’s words. ‘I bet you do.’
‘I’m sorry I lied about the youth centre brochures.’
‘No harm done.’
‘I don’t want to make you upset.’
‘You don’t.’ Jax stood, and smiled through the torrent of emotions engulfing her. ‘You make me happy. You’re a beautiful young woman and you make me proud.’
Frances’s eyes remained fixated then suddenly the fear and wariness in them subsided a little and Jax took heart. ‘I like your dogs,’ she said. ‘And I quite like my bedroom. It’s cosy.’
‘That’s great!’ Jax reached across the table for the tissue box and pulled a handful. ‘I cried or worried about Rosie much more than with you,’ she said on a strangled but comfortable laugh, lying and hoping it wouldn’t sound that way. ‘You’re a lot easier to be with.’
‘Really? Me?’
‘Really. You.’
There was a pause while Jax got herself under control, then Frances asked a question. ‘Do you think I’ll have the same size boobs as you and Rosie?’
Jax was shocked to stillness for a moment, then her smile arrived so fast and hard that she had to sit down. ‘Possibly. Probably.’ Did she worry about this? Rosie never had, but Frances wasn’t Rosie, Frances was part Jax and Jax understood. ‘Do you get sick of boys looking at you sometimes?’ she asked. ‘Like, looking you over.’ She might have a bad haircut and she might still be teenage-gangly, but it was going to change and the signs were already there.
Frances nodded. ‘I think they’re looking for my boobs, but I don’t have any. I don’t think I want them.’
Darling child. Innocent, put-upon beautiful young girl. Hadn’t Linda spoken to her about any of these important issues? Probably not. Jax’s own mother hadn’t either. When Jax first got her period at the early age of nine, she’d thought she was going to bleed to death at school, on the toilet cubicle floor. She’d made damned sure Rosie knew everything there was to know about growing into womanhood. She’d do the same for Frances.
She sniffed again, finished with the tissues and scrunched them into a ball in her hand. ‘Shall I tell you something? When I was your age, I didn’t have boobs either. I thought I was the odd girl out. Then suddenly, about five months later, I sprouted them.’ She gave her daughter a wry look. ‘And I wished I never had.’
‘I don’t actually care about this stuff,’ Frances said, pushing her hands further into her pockets. ‘I just sometimes think about it. Since it’s going to happen.’
She meant that she hoped it happened. That she felt awkward that it hadn’t yet happened and therefore scared of how she’d handle it when it did happen.
‘I think we need a big shopping expedition,’ Jax said. ‘We need to go out and shop up a storm and buy all the silly, stupid things we don’t need but want anyway. That’ll take our minds off our troubles and our boobs.’ She flashed a smile.
Frances looked at her from beneath dark lashes. ‘I didn’t get a lot of things from Linda.’
Damn you, Linda Fellows.
‘I got what I needed, but I never had things I didn’t need but might have liked. I had a budgie and it died and I never got another one. Once, I found a lost dog and she made me let it go outside the front garden fence. It ran off and I don’t know if it ever got home or if it ever got rescued.’
Jax stilled her expression and her emotions. She kept her eyes on Frances.
‘And my dad didn’t know I was fairly good at sports. He was always out.’
Jax waited. Give the girl a chance to speak. A chance to get it all out.
‘I think I’m weird.’
Jax shook her head, heart compressed. ‘There’s nothing weird about you. Except that you now have to live with me and all my animals, and you have Rosie for an auntie. That’s got to be weird.’
Was that the shadow of a smile?
‘I don’t have to do the cleaning here, do I?’
‘Absolutely not. Except maybe some chores, but you do most of them anyway, instinctively.’ She took a long breath. ‘Did you have to do more chores than usual for Linda?’
Frances’s eyes took on a wary glaze, as though she expected a slap in the face. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
It did. ‘Why don’t I write a list of all the things that have to be done in the house and you can choose a few you would like to do. It will be a great help if you do some things, like the dishes and making your own bed. I was also wondering if you might like to help me feed the dogs each evening.’
‘Do you have a lot of regard for Winston and Kirby as well as Bella?’
Regard? Such a heavily weighted word, let alone question. ‘I have a lot of love for them, and for all the dogs and the animals that find their way to me. Just like I have love for people.’ For you, darling girl. So much love for you it hurts and I want to grab you in the biggest bear hug. A bear hug of love that Frances had obviously never felt. ‘I want you to feel welcome here. I want you to feel comfortable with me.’ And safe.
‘I kind of do. In some ways.’
Thankfulness almost choked her. ‘Are there any ways I can make it better?’
Franca shrugged—Frances! Oh, God, she couldn’t remember if she’d said Franca out loud in the last few minutes of utterly astounding female to female, woman to young woman conversation.
‘I’d like to help with the dogs sometimes,’ Frances said.
‘It’s a given.’
‘And I’d like it if perhaps Officer Donna had something to do with the phys ed thing for the SIDE schooling thing.’
Donna? ‘Yes, I’m sure that’s possible. Donna does a lot for the other teenagers out here. She takes running classes once a week.’
‘I’m good at sports,’ Frances said fast, looking directly into Jax’s eyes.
‘I know. Wendy the social worker told me.’ But not Linda. Linda hadn’t told Jax anything in that one telephone conversation they’d had.
‘Do you need the dish washcloth folded into an absolute square after I’ve used it?’
‘No.’ Jax pushed the chill that overcame her to one side. ‘I work with animals; there’s always a mess to clean up and nothing’s ever neat and precisely tidy. The café needs a firm hand cleanliness-wise or I’d have the Health and Safety Board on my back. But in the house, I just like to chill a bit. I like things tidy, but not orderly. It is our home, after all. We’re allowed to get comfortable in it.’
‘I could straighten things up. Like vases and photo frames. I like things tidy too.’
‘Then that’s one of your jobs. Thank you.’ She couldn’t have held the next words back for all the tea in China. ‘I love you, Frances, and I know that’s not what you want to hear yet, but I need to say it.’
Frances shrugged it off. ‘I don’t mind hearing it; I’m just not used to it.’
‘I understand.’
‘Can I go look at the dogs now?’
Jax glanced at the window. It was still light. ‘Okay. But stay at the fence line in front of the house where I can see you through the window.’ She smiled. ‘Dinner won’t be for another hour or so, and tonight, I’m washing up.’ What the hell had Linda put this girl through?
Frances turned and made it to the door before hesitating. She looked over her shoulder. ‘I don’t know what to call you.’
‘Jax will do.’ Mum would be amazing but out of the realm of possibility for a long time. Jax would definitely do for now.
Frances didn’t accept or decline the invitation. She walked out of the room.
Jax hauled in the biggest, most relieved and yet totally vulnerable breath she’d ever hauled in her life.
It’s going to work. You’re doing okay. Franca is going to be okay. Frances!
As Jack parked the borrowed four-wheel drive at the back of the police station, his mobile rang.
He got out of the cab at the same time as answering Jax’s call. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Jack, she spoke to me. We talked a bit about everything, without really saying much, but I think we’re going to be friends.’
He smiled, slammed the driver’s door, beeped the car locked and made his way to the rear door of the station. ‘That’s great.’ He didn’t know what to be more overjoyed at: the fact that Frances had reached out or that Jax had called to tell him.
‘I cried a bit, which I shouldn’t have done.’
‘Why not?’
‘Thank you, Jack. I think if you hadn’t befriended her this wouldn’t have happened.’
‘Nonsense. It was always going to happen. You’re a good person, a great mother.’ If only he’d had the same. But that was life. He wasn’t about to whinge. He’d done well for himself. ‘So what happened?’
‘She told me you’d had a chat with her, about her dad.’
Jack halted, realising he hadn’t spoken to her about this. ‘It frightened her, seeing that fight. She told me her dad had punched her.’ He ignored Jax’s intake of breath and carried on. He wanted her to know what he’d said to Frances, and that he wasn’t interfering or going behind her back, but that he’d only done it to help Frances, and maybe by doing that, help Jax too. ‘I asked her if she wanted to see her dad and she said she didn’t know. Then I told her a little about my youth. I wanted her to know it was possible to mend, to heal, and even be happy. I told her she could trust you.’
‘How do you thank someone for this?’ she asked.
He heard the emotion in her voice. ‘Well, you could marry them.’ He said it with a smile. What the hell had happened to Jack Maxwell in the last seven days? He’d come here ostensibly undercover, but in reality, to find this woman again, to apologise to her and to explain, and to figure out his real feelings for her and whether they were lifelong feelings.
The case he was on hadn’t gone far, with all its new entanglements, but he’d got his love for this woman sussed in under a week.
‘Solomon will be out there soon,’ he told her. ‘You’re both safe. Has Rosie gone home?’
‘She left an hour ago. Frances is on the front lawn with our dogs. We’re going to have all three inside tonight.’
‘Don’t let them take my sofa.’
‘Is there really a need for Solomon to watch out for us?’
‘It’s all to do with your safety,’ he said. ‘For those times I’m not with you.’
‘Which will be most of the time.’
He chuckled, his heart getting all fondly mussed up the way he wanted to muss up her pretty, shiny hair. So shiny he knew it would be soft as he ran his fingers through it, catching a handful and tilting her head a moment before he kissed her. ‘For Christ’s sake, marry me and put me out of my misery.’
He was delighted when she laughed. He’d made her smile, just as Frances had.
‘We haven’t even kissed yet,’ she told him. ‘I mean, not since you came here—’
‘Why don’t we fix that problem?’
He waited out the pause. They’d kissed before they entered the hotel restaurant. Only a little kiss but it had happened naturally and if he could go back in time, he’d make that kiss a deeper one.
‘You’ve made me happy, Jack. With Frances. Thank you.’
She wasn’t going to budge. Not yet. But he was getting there.
‘I’ll be over in a couple of hours,’ he told her, ‘after I’ve spoken to Roper.’
‘Thank you, Jack.’
He had to admit it sent sweetness around his chest to hear that he’d done something good for her.
She cut the call, and he let himself into the rear door of the station, securing it behind him and heading for the front office. They were mid evening shift change. Johnson and Edwards, the two who were leaving soon, were in the armoury, logging out their kit.
‘All good?’ he asked Donna as he paused in the doorway to the communal office.
‘A couple of DUIs and a busted tail-light,’ she told him as she pulled a hooded sweatshirt over her civvy clothes. ‘But the highlight was a fight in the bar at Breakers. Lizard Claws and Bob Tail workers got into a discussion with another lot of mine workers who’d blown in for a beer or five, and it didn’t go as they planned.’
‘All sorted,’ Louie said. ‘Two guys calming down in lockup.’
Jack nodded. They’d keep them a couple of hours then turf them out.
‘Where’s Davidson?’ he asked Donna.
‘Already gone home. I’m about to do the same.’
‘Good shift, people. Thank you.’
His mobile rang again. Solomon.
He turned from the communal office doorway. ‘Problem?’ he asked.
‘I’ve got a horse with colic. Can’t leave it until my vet arrives. You’ll have to do the first watch at Jax’s place.’
‘How come you can get a vet up here and we can’t?’
‘Just one of those things. Don’t ask me who it is because I’m not saying. I’ll be on shift around midnight.’
‘Leave it,’ Jack told him. ‘I’ll go over early and stay.’
‘Yeah, but you’ll be inside with Jax. I’ll be there. Midnight or just after.’
He pocketed his phone and walked into the front office.
‘I hope you’re not pulling overtime because we can’t pay for it,’ he said to Jimmy after glancing at the wall clock. It was gone five; Jimmy finished at four.
Jimmy had a plastic bucket and a brush and pan in his hands. ‘No sooner do we get rid of the bull and its buckets of poop, we get a couple of goats.’
Jack ignored the disparaging tone. ‘You were never asked to clean up the poop, Jimmy. Solomon did that.’
‘It still stank.’
‘I’ll make up for it.’ He nodded at the bucket. ‘Have you volunteered for the goat shit?’
‘Somebody’s got to do it and it’s got to be somebody who knows how the station runs.’
Jack suspected Jimmy was loving the animal goings-on. ‘What time is Mr Roper getting here?’
‘Said he didn’t need to come after all. Said he was making a detour.’
‘For what?’
‘Didn’t say.’
‘Get him on the phone.’ He didn’t have time to hang around. He had to get to Jax’s place before nightfall.
‘Mr Roper, Senior Sergeant Jack Maxwell, Mt Maria Police Department.’
‘I know who you are,’ Roper said, ‘and those goats you’ve got don’t belong to me.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I just found mine.’
‘Where?’
There was a pause. Then Roper spoke, but he must have covered the mouthpiece because it was muffled. Then Jack heard Amelia Arnold’s voice but not what she said.
‘Mr Roper? Where are you?’ Were they inside or outside? Jack couldn’t be sure but the slight echo suggested indoors.
‘Out at the museum. There’s a committee meeting going on. I’ve got my goats; I don’t need to talk to you lot now.’
He’d taken his goats to a meeting? ‘Where did you find them?’
‘On the way out here.’
Well, it was plausible. ‘Mr Roper, do you know anything about the bull that was found in town?’
‘Nothing. Neither do I care. Hang on.’
Again, he covered the mouthpiece, then Mrs Arnold spoke into the phone. ‘Amelia Arnold here, Senior Sergeant Maxwell. How can we help you?’
Jack didn’t know, but since he had her on the phone he may as well ask some questions. She’d been busy each time he’d called her over the last two days and he’d been kind of tied up himself. ‘I understand you tore a strip off the older boys after Jax fired them, and the next day your shed burned down. Do you think there’s a connection, Mrs Arnold?’
There was a pause. ‘I leave policing to the police, Sergeant.’
Jack wondered about that … ‘Do you know anything about how the bull got to town?’
‘I don’t know how it got to Mt Maria.’
That wasn’t exactly a direct answer. ‘Have you spoken to either Mr or Mrs Baxter about the bull?’
‘Why would I do that? Dear Mrs Baxter has enough on her plate with her sons without worrying about bulls.’
‘Do you have any idea who stole Mr Roper’s goats?’
‘Not a clue, Sergeant. Now is this all, because we have a meeting to finish.’
Jack was tempted to drive out to the museum and join that meeting.
A flurry of conversation in the background told him the other two Agatha Girls were there too. Then Roper raised his voice, ‘I’m not giving you the reward!’
‘You miserly old coot,’ Mrs Frith said. ‘If it hadn’t been for us you’d never have found your goats!’
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ Mrs Arnold said to Jack on the phone, ‘we have work to do. This museum is reopening in a week’s time and there’s still a lot of discussion to be had about the associated responsibilities and Mr Roper’s ideas are at odds with ours.’
‘Absolutely, Mrs Arnold. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, and managed to stop himself from adding, ‘Don’t forget I’m a police officer—one who can smell a rat’.
‘What are they up to?’ Donna asked when he put the phone down.
‘Roper’s found his goats down some track.’
‘Well that’s good. Maybe they weren’t stolen after all.’
‘They’re all out there, at the museum. Roper and the Agatha Girls.’
‘That’s where they always hang out,’ Donna said. ‘The ladies can’t stand Roper and he can’t stand them, but they have to have him on the committee because he created such a fuss when they kicked him off. We’re all glad they hold their meetings out at the museum. It keeps the arguments off High Street.’
‘Well …’ Jack rubbed his hands together, determined to keep the good feeling he’d had after his telephone call with Jax. ‘All goats are safe, buckled pram wheels sorted, the bull’s rehoused and the snake’s slithered off into the bush. It’s a win for the law. I’m going to throw a barbecue.’
‘I don’t eat meat,’ Louie said, wandering into the front office.
‘So don’t come.’ Jack managed a smile.
‘Are we having sausages?’ Jimmy asked.
‘As many as you like.’
‘You’re on, Sarge. When and what time?’
‘Monday. Knock-off time. Sixteen hundred hours.’
Donna pulled a face. ‘Me and Davidson will be out cruising around that time.’
‘I’ll give you both a doggie bag.’
The front door opened and Will walked in, a flapping chicken under each arm.
‘For Christ’s sake, don’t stand there gawping,’ he said. ‘Get me a bloody cardboard box to put these two in.’
Jimmy was off his counter stool in a flash. ‘We can’t put them in the exercise yard with the goats. I’m not going to be responsible for animals not getting along.’
‘What the hell?’ Donna said, laughing.
‘The exercise yard is fine,’ Jack said. ‘Somebody help him. Louie.’ He had a flash of pleasure when Louie puckered his face. ‘While you’re in the yard, clean up the goat shit, would you?’
‘Oh, come on!’ Louie said.
‘Just do it, mate.’
‘Where the hell did you find them?’ Jack asked as Will struggled with the flustered chooks.
‘They were wandering down the middle of the main road about ten clicks north of town. We’ve got more in the cab. Davidson’s trying to catch the lamb but it’s jumping around and frightening the crap out of the rooster.’
‘What rooster?’ Jack asked.
‘I’ll get the lamb!’ Donna rushed outside, an excited grin suffusing her face.
Jack raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Bring back the bull. All is forgiven.’
‘Baaaa,’ said Jimmy.