Yesterday’s quiet post-search day in the pub had been hard on Maggie. With little to no sleep, the day had dragged. Dan was a no-show, putting Maggie on edge and forcing her to replay their conversation—again. Fiona was nursing sore muscles and, according to Noah, Mrs Bailey was treating her granddaughter as if she was the sole survivor of a Mount Everest expedition. By hanging out with Fiona while she convalesced, Noah was managing to milk a little grandmotherly love for himself. Mrs Bailey apparently baked the best scones—ev-ar!
Having slept like the proverbial log last night, Maggie was now wide awake, the golden glow of sunrise a welcome change from two days of cloudy skies and rain. The day was going to be a stinker, probably with a good dash of humidity thrown into the mix. She threw on a pair of track shorts and a sports top and tiptoed downstairs, stopping in the kitchen to fill a bag with carrots and apple quarters, ready for her jog out of town. Time for a little girl talk and then a brisk walk back before the heat of the day really kicked in.
Seeing Dan Ireland in the flesh, rather than in her dreams, standing in the hotel kitchen looking and smelling squeaky clean, made Maggie suddenly aware of her post-run appearance: her sweaty skin, her hair clamped into a chaotic mess on top of her head, and her breath short—shorter still when Dan’s gaze travelled over her body.
He and Ethne were sipping coffee and laughing. Ethne was supposed to be having the day off after her heroic efforts during yesterday’s early morning search. And Maggie hadn’t been expecting Dan at all.
‘What’s so funny?’ she asked, giving Ethne her full attention in order to avoid Dan’s gaze.
Ethne relayed the search stories currently making the rounds, having spread all the way to Saddleton Provedores. Everyone was talking about Calingarry Crossing’s feisty barmaid with the big knockers who’d helped save old Charlie Ireland from drowning by improvising with her ‘… ah … flotation devices’.
‘That’s funny. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready for the open.’
‘Maggie, I’m going out to see Dad again today, but if you and I could at least—’
Dan followed her out of the kitchen, but she didn’t stop, calling back over her shoulder, ‘I can’t, Dan. Sorry, I have to go. I have a business to run, you know.’
Maggie busied herself until she heard Dan tell Ethne ‘goodbye’. From upstairs, she watched as he hesitated by his car, looking back into the main bar. For a moment Maggie wanted to catch his attention from the balcony. Instead she went about preparing the hotel for the day, trying to get past the ambush in her own kitchen. Okay, so it wasn’t an ambush exactly, but it had bumped her day off its normal axis.
Talking to Sara might have righted things a little. The pocket-sized and blissfully pregnant Sara had burst into the pub later that day, bubbling with excitement and trepidation and desperate for a bag of ice. Maggie would have liked her to stop a while so she could chat, but planning a birthday for little Jasmine, while at the same time fighting off the woman Sara referred to as the life-draining, fun-sucking monster—Will’s mother—meant the mother-to-be had her hands full enough.
Maggie was in the main bar, laughing at another local’s version of Charlie Ireland’s rescue—with action replay—when Dan returned to the hotel after lunch. He seemed happy, less intense. If Dan and his father could mend their bridges then something good would have come out of this storm season.
‘Maggie.’ He nodded, straight-faced, slipping onto a bar stool not too close to her, but not too close to Louie the Fly and his work mates either.
‘Dan.’ Maggie nodded back, wanting to match the deadpan lilt and expression, but the notion that she and Dan could manage to ignore one another was ridiculous. ‘Sorry about this morning,’ she said, knowing it was her brush-off that was making Dan keep his distance right now. ‘Hopefully a free beer and my telling of the latest Ethne story will make up for being rude.’
‘I believe a beer and an ear would be the tradition of this business you have to run.’
‘Hmm, I did say something like that, didn’t I?
‘How many versions of the rescue are we up to?’ Dan asked, positioning an extra bar stool next to his.
‘I know what you mean. Small towns … There’s nothing quite like them when it comes to storytelling.’
Maggie recalled for Dan the most amusing anecdote of the day, her narration fading out as she noticed him staring dully into the empty glass.
‘Not funny enough?’
‘What you said about small towns frustrates the hell out of me. When I think about the irony. Plenty of those locals so quick to come to your aid and laugh at your jokes are the first to condemn you when you screw up.’
‘You didn’t screw up, Dan,’ she said, understanding his exasperation. People in small towns did come across as laid-back, open and friendly, when often it was the opposite. Old-timers, like Charlie Ireland, could be quite insular and wary, especially of newcomers. She’d seen it a thousand times. ‘People protect each other around here. You know what it’s like, Dan.’
Dan toyed with the empty glass. ‘The good old folks around town saw things their way. Even your father blamed me for Michael’s death. And don’t worry, I’ve paid for that night. If it wasn’t punishment enough to be rejected by the entire town, I’ve let my job punish me all these years.’
‘You know it was an accident. A stupid, sad, tragic accident.’
‘No such bloody thing as an accident, Maggie.’ Dan huffed a cynical little snort. ‘It’s called a Crash Investigation Unit for a reason. Crashes happen not by accident, but by our own bad decisions. We make a mistake. We accelerate through a red light or talk on the phone. We speed to make up time and we fail to get enough sleep. When all the facts are examined, the reason for a lot of crashes can be traced back to the very first choice we make at the very beginning.’
‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘We make a choice by getting in the car with the wrong attitude. We drive after drinking, we drive tired, we drive angry, we drive fast when we don’t plan enough time to make our destination. We make mistakes and drive like bloody morons. Not content to screw up our own lives, we have to screw up somebody else’s.’ He slammed the glass down so hard it was a miracle it didn’t shatter. ‘No accidents. That’s Crash Investigation 101.’
Maggie wrung out a cloth, lifting his glass to soak up the circle of beer underneath, but stopping when Dan’s hand wrapped around hers on the glass. ‘Sorry, Maggie. Sleep deprivation and alcohol. Also not a good decision. I’d best stop. Both the drinking and the lecture.’
Maggie drew her hand out of his grip and looked directly at him. ‘I didn’t hear a lecture. I heard passion. I understand. You have a love–hate relationship with your work.’
‘I have a love–hate relationship with my life,’ Dan muttered. ‘I know so much more now. Experts will tell you that putting an old head onto young shoulders is the only way to keep kids from killing themselves on our roads today. I’m proof. If I’d known back then what I know now I would never have let Michael climb onto the back of my ute.’
‘Michael made his decision. I know you weren’t to blame.’
‘That means a lot.’
Maggie thought about the letters she’d found in her father’s old Bible, but was this the right time? Dan was trying to re-establish a connection with Charlie. Showing him the letter now might only make him wonder how it was that Joe Lindeman could forgive him for his misdemeanours, but not his own father. The news might only complicate things, and Maggie of all people appreciated how debilitating complications could be. She’d wait, let him go where he needed to go in his own head. There’d be an appropriate time soon enough to reveal the letter her father had written and never sent. As it was, Dan’s hangdog gaze into an empty beer glass was going to be Maggie’s undoing. People were right about her; she did want to protect everyone. She sure as hell wanted to wrap her protective wings—or thighs—around Dan Ireland right now!
‘Penny …?’ Dan asked.
Her face must have exploded red as she imagined sharing those thoughts.
‘Whoa, it’s hot today, isn’t it? I have an idea,’ Maggie said. ‘Ethne was supposed to be off, but as she intends milking all the attention and glory she’s opted to work this afternoon. What say I ask her to mind the bar? We can get out of here. Fresh air might do us both good. I sure could do with some.’
Within a heartbeat, Dan was standing. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘Let me check with Ethne and change first. Here.’ She took a leather Akubra from the hat hook on the wall behind the bar. ‘You’ll need a hat. Have this one. Back in five.’
She moved faster than she’d thought possible, throwing on shorts and a top and tucking her hair under a cap before racing back downstairs to check Ethne was okay.
‘I’m good, love. Your chappy said he’d be waiting by the walking track. Off you go.’
Maggie’s eagerness to race over to the river was reminiscent of summers growing up when she’d dash home, drop her school bag off, grab her cossie, and race down to the swimming hole. Wet was the only way to stay cool some days.
With one look at Dan standing in work boots and socks, his jeans rolled up to his lily-white knees and the-one-size-too-small Akubra bunged on his head, Maggie laughed aloud. It felt good, too.
‘What’s so funny?’ he asked, looking even more dorky trying to hold back his own laughter.
‘Oh, for goodness sake. Here,’ Maggie chuckled, taking her cap and swapping it for the ill-fitting Akubra. ‘You’re no cowboy, that’s for sure. Come on, let’s walk.’
The pair grew pensive again as they moved and Maggie couldn’t stop thinking about Dan’s comment back in the bar about the night Michael died.
‘Dan,’ she said tentatively, ‘I like remembering how things were with you and Michael. And Nate, of course. You three did love making noise together,’ she said, trying to see a reaction, but the shadow cast by the peaked cap wouldn’t let her. ‘The stuff you guys got up to back then …’
‘And the stuff we didn’t and still got the blame for, like poor old Will when Amber’s father starting accusing any bloke within cooee.’
‘Dan, about that …’ Maggie stopped. Amber’s reputation was suddenly something precious to be protected. As much as Maggie wanted to defend her, the matter of Amber’s letter to Brian was also for another time—or maybe never. Dan didn’t need to know every little thing about Maggie’s life. She was embarrassed enough that he’d witnessed Brian in meltdown. ‘Never mind. It can wait. You were saying?’
‘I was saying people have to blame something or someone when the person they love is hurt. With a crash the contributing factors never vary: vehicle, environment, human. When those three factors converge at that one moment in time it’s like—’
‘A perfect storm,’ she muttered.
‘I never looked at it that way.’ They strolled in silence for a while until Dan said, ‘I thought telling myself I was blameless for Michael’s death was the hardest thing, until I discovered something harder.’
‘What do you mean? What was harder?’
Dan stopped in his tracks, waiting for Maggie to notice and turn back. ‘Looking you in the face and saying it.’
‘Oh Dan, I know how Michael was. Kids ute-surfed for fun all the time. No one ever expects to die from having fun.’
Dan stared straight ahead, sighed, and adjusted the hat so it sat lower over his eyes, but this time, despite the shadow, she saw the tightening of his lips and his chin pitted and tense.
‘I’m a barrel of fun, aren’t I? How about we talk about something else for a bit?’
‘Good idea,’ Maggie agreed.
Dan tried to lighten the mood. ‘How about some good news?’
‘Sure. I’m ready for some of that.’
‘That crusty old bastard father of mine has agreed to let me take him to Sydney so he can meet Em and Mike.’
‘He has? How did you manage that?’
‘Well, at the risk of upsetting you by talking about your dad, it was you losing the Rev, plus something you said about leaving things too late. I told him we had a second chance to get it right, but I think the grandkids might’ve sweetened the deal.’
‘And he agreed, just like that?’
‘The fall in the river didn’t kill him, but he did get the fright of his life. Doc was there this morning. Said he’s got a bit of congestion. He had a coughing episode while I was there and his heart spasmed. Doc said it wasn’t too much to worry about, but suggested some X-rays and being close to a big city hospital until the infection cleared was a good idea. So I said what about it? He agreed.’
‘So, you’ll be going soon?’
‘Doc suggested a couple of days before making the trip, just to be on the safe side.’
‘A couple of days,’ she repeated, her voice flattening, along with her mood. The heat wasn’t helping.
‘You okay?’
‘Feeling the heat.’
The swimming hole was a lot less crowded than Maggie had expected and she had to admit the water looked inviting. She’d thought the sandy area—the closest thing to a beach in Calingarry Crossing—would be swarming with people trying to cool down, but things had changed since Maggie was a girl when very few luxuries, like air-conditioning, made it to Calingarry Crossing. Nowadays, even though many of the houses looked much the same on the outside, air-con, spa baths and gaming consoles drove people inside to escape this sort of insufferable heat, the simple pleasure of rope swings and natural swimming holes lost.
A small group of teenagers played in the water. The six of them had swum the fifty metres out to the pontoon in the middle of the river and the boys were taking turns to dive bomb, splashing the two girls sunbaking in bikinis and making them squeal.
‘Remember being young like that?’ Maggie asked, possibly more forlornly than she’d wanted to sound.
Dan laugh. ‘Geez, you make us sound ancient. How about we get our gear off and show these kids how to do it?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Skinny dip. That’s what I used to get up to.’
‘While I did no such thing.’
She would have loved to, but Maggie Lindeman was never that bold and some things didn’t change. Instead, she slipped her shoes off and wandered over to the edge to let the water lap over her toes as it had during childhood summers. The memory persuaded Maggie out further and she was surprised by how cool the water felt the deeper she trod. Bending down and cupping her hands, she splashed water on her face and the back of her neck, instantly cooling her temperature a notch or two. She was grateful for that, given Dan had waded in and was now staring at her, pushing her temperature up again.
‘Is that helping?’ he asked.
‘A bit,’ she said, smiling on the inside.
‘Then this should cool you down a lot more.’ With that, Dan initiated his attack, filling cupped hands with river water and launching three quick sprays at her, securing direct hits each time.
‘Are you crazy? Stop it!’ Maggie squealed, sounding like the girls on the pontoon.
Launching into her own attack, she kicked water wildly, no thought about whether she was hitting her target or not. Spray after blinding spray she kicked. When her laughter made the smallest kick impossible, she collapsed on the spot, no longer caring that she was up to her waist in the river, laughing and panting.
The pair had attracted an audience, all six pontoon dwellers standing up and staring at the old fogies frolicking about on the shore. Maggie’s cheesecloth top, now glued to her skin, showed off her favourite aubergine-coloured bra, making her breasts purple and perky.
‘Let’s get out of here.’ Dan took her hand.
‘If you expect me to go strolling back into town looking like this—’
‘No, I don’t. That’s why you have to come with me. I assume it’s still accessible.’
‘What?’
‘This way.’
He led her to the end of the bush pathway, stepped in front of her and trailblazed his way through the overgrown tunnel of scrub, dragging Maggie by the hand as she instinctively waved her free hand over her head, trying not to think about spiders and other creepy-crawlies.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked breathily as they came into a small clearing.
‘There.’ He pointed to a fallen log on the river bank.
The massive tree lay where it had toppled, possibly victim of a flooded river many, many years ago. Despite the solid-looking roots, the gum tree had been too tall and heavy, the sandy footings unable to support the weight. Maggie didn’t know what sort of gum it was, just that it had once been big and strong, until a flood washed by, stripping out its foundations.
‘It’s still alive.’ The childish exclamation sent a flush of extra warmth to her already hot face. With a few roots still clinging and partially buried in the side of the bank, along its length the massive trunk sprouted spasmodic leafy-green shoots.
‘I hoped it would be. Amazing, eh? Kind of glad it’s hung on all this time. I remember the year it came down. Figured the thing would die.’
‘Why didn’t I know about this spot?’
‘Nobody did but me, which is how I liked it. I’d come to this place when I wanted to escape. Only one person I’ve ever wanted to share it with.’
Maggie refused to take the bait. ‘What did you do here?’
‘Think. Dream. Wish. Smoke pot.’ He winked.
Maggie wasn’t going to ask him what he wished for. The squeeze of his hand on hers was answer enough.
‘Come on.’ He jumped up onto the trunk and motioned for her to follow.
‘Forget it,’ she said, snatching her hand back. ‘I’m not walking out on that. I’ll fall.’
‘No you won’t. And it’s not deep.’
‘Yes, I will. Didn’t I mention at the reunion I was lousy on the balance beam?’
Dan laughed. ‘I’ll protect you. I won’t let you fall. Trust me.’ He stretched out his hand, urging her to take it.
A voice in her head spoke. Just do it, Maggie.
Brian had accused her of not being adventurous any more. He’d teased her and called her names like uptight, scaredy cat, wimp, then done his funny chicken walk.
Just do it.
‘Come on, Maggie.’
She took his hand and part-jumped while Dan pulled her up, allowing her time to steady herself on the trunk before inching forward.
‘What now?’ she said, pausing, concentration clamping her jaw tight.
‘Over there.’
Maggie trusted herself to look slowly up from her feet. They’d walked out from the bank, about halfway along the tree trunk and beyond a particularly dense clump of she-oaks. To her left was a small quarter-moon patch of sand.
The fallen tree was a bridge.
‘Keep coming. Take it slow.’
Every few steps they ducked, tunnelling through low-hung branches until they were in the clearing, a very secluded sandy shore.
‘There, you did it,’ Dan said as he settled on the ground, propping his back against the tree. ‘Imagine what Mrs Whoseywhats—what was her name? The sergeant major who took PE class? Imagine what she’d say.’
‘Ha!’ Maggie’s legs shook so violently, she almost fell on the sand next to him. ‘When the teachers were trying to convince me that learning to walk the balance beam would come in handy one day, I’m sure they never considered this scenario.’
‘I have a confession to make, Maggie.’
He shifted his body so he faced her and took one of her hands from her lap, sandwiching it between his own. ‘I used to consider this scenario a lot. All of it. You didn’t?’
‘Dan … I … I’m not sure about anything. I’m not sure what I’m doing here.’
‘If you want me to take you back to the pub, tell me now.’
When she didn’t answer, he let go of her hand and Maggie found herself staring, surprised by her physical reaction. The spot where that hand had rested seconds before seemed suddenly cold and exposed. Something as simple as a warm hand had had her feeling something she hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Connected.
A fusion of fear and excitement fired through her, the kind that trembled a body from the inside out, like when you’re about to do something you know is wrong. Maggie had been adventurous once, and sitting here with Dan she yearned to be young and brave again, thirteen again, a matchstick in her hand, sneaking out in the dark to light her first-ever firecracker—the Catherine wheel her father had fixed on the old outhouse door. She knew playing with fire was wrong and that her father would be mad as hell, but such things were every kid’s rite of passage come Cracker Night. She hadn’t thought twice about the dangers then, driven by the need to take a risk, do something crazy, break out of her own protective cocoon.
‘Dan …?’ she breathed his name, the words Say goodbye banging about her brain while Don’t go pounded in her heart. She was on her knees beside him. One trembling hand found its way to the scar on the side of his face and she traced the line from his ear to the cleft in his chin, not daring to look him in the eye. ‘This is wrong.’ Disappointment flashed over Dan’s face, then he smiled and a whoosh shot through her body like that spinning firecracker in her backyard, the one that had hurled sparks into the night sky, threatening to tell the whole world, not just her dad, how close she’d come to getting burned. Now she was that crazy girl again and someone was handing her one more matchstick.
Their mouths locked, the force of their kiss passionate enough to break teeth. Had she not been so desperately ripping the shirt from his body like a crazed woman, she might have worried that it had. With Dan disrobed, the desire to feel skin on skin forced her arms into the air in a silent command which he obeyed, peeling her top up and over her head, flinging it. She kissed his mouth, his face, his eyes. Then her lips traced the line of his scar from one ear, over his chin and down his neck. He tasted salty and sweet all at once, the synthesis of bare skin and sweat a heady concoction. It sent a ripple of warmth through her, the kind she’d long ago forgotten from those early days of her marriage to …
‘Brian!’ She pulled away gasping for breath and saw the surprise on Dan’s face. ‘Oh no, I … That wasn’t what I …’ she whispered into cupped hands. ‘Oh, what am I doing?’
‘Maggie, please don’t cry. We don’t have to … if you’re not sure …’
Concern carved Dan’s words, shaping them into something soft and beautiful, something she wanted to take away, like a tiny memento, and keep somewhere safe so when she was down or desperate for its warm hug, she could take it from her secret hiding place, put it under her pillow at night to remember today.
‘I’m not crying, Dan.’ She surrendered her hands to her lap, her gaze fixed on fingers twisting into knots, unsure if she was strong enough to look him in the eye. But then she heard the echo of her father’s last words: You are strong. It was important to let Dan see she wasn’t crying, she wasn’t a foolish young girl. Maggie was all grown up with a son and a husband—a husband she didn’t love and who clearly no longer loved her. She hadn’t been able to admit to that until Dan’s kiss revived that untamable tremble. The taste of his mouth had shut down the last skerrick of common sense and reawakened every sleeping speck of sensibility.
‘Are you sure about this, Dan?’
‘Maggie, I’ve done nothing but think about this and you.’
‘But maybe we should …’ Should what? she thought. ‘Chill. Maybe we need to chill.’
‘Chill?’ Dan chuckled.
‘Noah’s word, not mine. He’s forever telling me to chill, so …’
‘You’re right.’ Dan leapt to his feet and for a split second disappointment jabbed at her chest. ‘We need to stay cool about this. Come on, take my hand and I’ll help you up.’
‘But …’ Dan dragged Maggie to her feet, hitching her body against one hip, one arm pinning her there as he part-carried, part-dragged her along the sandy bank. ‘Dan? Dan, don’t you dare.’
She giggled and squealed like a teenager and just when Maggie didn’t think he could take any more of her breath away, Dan plunged them both into the cold river, taking Maggie under with him. She surfaced, breathless and laughing, threatening revenge. Soon they were playing in the river like teenagers, touching, teasing each other, splashing, squealing. When the laughter stopped, limbs in a tangle beneath the water, they sank down, spluttering back to the surface and laughing again.
‘Maybe I’m not as young as I think I am. I’m having trouble here. My jeans, they’re like lead.’
Maggie giggled. ‘Then let’s get to the bank before we drown each other.’
They lay side by side on the sand, shirtless and panting, Dan on his stomach, one arm draped possessively across Maggie’s purple bra. There they fell asleep, under the protection of Dan’s tree that refused to give up.