Hayley pulled on her sneakers and grabbed an apple as she went through the kitchen, heading out to get the mail. It wasn’t as easy as walking a few steps out the front door; checking the mail out here involved a pretty decent hike. Usually she checked it whenever she drove past in the car, but she hadn’t left the house for the last few days.
The sound of her footsteps on the dirt driveway was a rhythmic backbeat to the birds calling to each other high up in the branches of the gum trees overhead. She took a deep breath in and savoured the clean, bush smell—a mix of eucalyptus, wattle, dried leaves and earth.
When Hayley reached the letterbox, she found herself only a little bit out of breath. She was getting fitter. Amongst her mail—bills mostly—was a slightly bent and grubby envelope that had nothing written on it. Curious, she ripped it open and found a handwritten invoice for the quote on her chook pen.
‘Really?’ she wondered aloud. Surely that couldn’t be right? Reaching for her phone in her back pocket, she quickly dialled the number on the invoice.
‘Weaver.’ The abrupt answer caught her off guard and she had to think for a moment why she was calling.
‘Hi, Jason. It’s Hayley. I’ve just received your quote.’
‘Good.’
‘I’m just checking. Is this for the entire job? The chook pen plus the fencing?’
‘Yes.’
‘It just doesn’t seem…well, enough.’
‘You want me to charge you more?’ he asked slowly.
‘Well, no…unless you made a mistake or something. I just wasn’t expecting it to be this…reasonable.’
‘I can charge you more if it makes you feel better,’ he said, and for the briefest of moments Hayley thought there was something that sounded a lot like humour in his tone.
‘No, that’s fine,’ she said hastily. ‘I just wanted to double-check you’d quoted for it all. But that’s all good. I’m happy for you to go ahead whenever you have time.’
‘I’ll be there in the next day or two.’
‘Great, see you th—’ The phone clicked in her ear. ‘Then,’ she finished, giving an annoyed huff.
He was a prickly one, that was for sure. And she’d noticed he avoided eye contact. Normally that would be a sign of dishonesty in a person, but Jason didn’t seem shifty, and Hayley was usually good at reading people. No, there was something hanging over Jason, something she thought must be related to the trauma of losing a limb. There was loneliness and anger in him—not so much violent anger, more an anger at the world. And sadness. She felt that roll off him in waves. She didn’t think he’d be an easy person to get to know; he’d built a substantial wall around himself and it wouldn’t be easy to breach.
Hayley was just putting on the jug, still blurry-eyed after a restless sleep, when a car pulled up outside early the next morning. She blinked and peered through the window. Ever since Errol had been dropped off at her gate, she was suspicious of unannounced early morning visitors, and she hurried to the door, hesitating only briefly before heading outside in her pyjamas.
‘Jason. Hi,’ she said, awkwardly crossing her arms as she realised how uncomfortable it was to find yourself talking to your builder without a bra. ‘I didn’t know you were starting today.’
‘I finished the other job earlier than I expected,’ he said, walking around the back of his vehicle to lift out a heavy toolbox. ‘I’ve got a truck delivering supplies later this morning.’
‘Oh. Okay. Well, if you need anything…’
‘I won’t,’ he said, heading around the back of the house.
‘Right,’ Hayley said as he vanished from sight. ‘Good talk,’ she added, heading back into the kitchen. As she passed the hallway mirror, she caught a glimpse of her hair and gave a fatalistic sigh. She looked like a damn scarecrow. No wonder the poor guy didn’t feel like hanging around for a conversation. Oh well, she thought. It was his own fault for turning up unannounced and before her morning coffee.
Hayley finished hanging out her washing and carried the empty basket back inside. All morning the place had been a hive of activity. A truck had arrived an hour or so after Jason and dropped off a load of timber, then another ute had pulled up and unloaded wire and bags of cement. Engines revved and men shouted over top of it all. This was not her usual quiet little haven.
As she settled down with her computer out beneath the tree in the yard, things had more or less settled back down. Breathing a sigh of relief, Hayley opened a new document and began to type.
Chance Delaware strode into the room…
The annoying blink of the cursor taunted Hayley as she stared blankly at the screen. This was getting beyond a joke. It had been weeks now since she’d been able to write about Chance. Chance was her thing. Chance was what sold books. What if moving from the city had somehow messed up her writing mojo? What if she couldn’t write Chance’s stories anymore?
‘Don’t be so bloody ridiculous,’ she muttered aloud.
A loud banging started nearby and Hayley tipped her head back and growled. This was getting her nowhere. Bringing up her web browser she typed in How to overcome writers block and started reading through the list of suggestions. Surely with modern technology someone would have found a way to overcome it by now? Then she brightened suddenly—maybe there was an app for it?
#Go for a walk.
Okay, she could do that…only not down the back paddock, that was definitely off the list of walking tracks for a while.
#Eliminate distractions.
Yeah, right. Where did she even start with that one? Between the guy making enough noise to be building a skyscraper behind her and the weird things that had been going on around here lately, distractions pretty much made up her entire environment at the moment.
#Do something to get your blood flowing.
Instantly an unexpected image of Luke popped up in her mind and she caught herself nodding in appreciation. That would get the blood flowing.
#Change your environment…
Now that was so crazy it just might work. She could pack her laptop and go for a drive to find somewhere else to work for the day. Maybe a change of scenery would bring Chance back.
When she had everything she needed, she glanced at the plate of Anzac biscuits she’d baked in an attempt to distract herself from her writer’s block. It hadn’t worked. But seeing as she was about to let Jason know she was going out for a while, she decided on impulse to take him a couple of biscuits and a glass of cold water.
She took a short cut through the hedges in the garden and out the back gate. Jason was working with his back to her, and Hayley stopped, staring at the unexpected sight. He’d removed his shirt and was thumping a large metal thing over the top of a fence post being hammered into the ground. Each time he lifted the contraption his muscles flexed and Hayley found her gaze following the movement. She hadn’t taken much notice of his body in their earlier encounters; she knew he was reasonably fit-looking, but his faded T-shirts and dirty jeans had given little warning of the muscular physique beneath. He finished driving in the fence post and threw down the metal instrument, turning and catching her staring at him.
Swallowing down the awkwardness of the moment, Hayley fixed a smile on her face and moved across to where he was working. ‘I just thought I’d bring you something to eat. I wasn’t sure if you had a morning tea break or not.’
‘I brought my own,’ he said, indicating the small esky sitting in the shade of a nearby orange tree.
‘Oh. I’ll take them back inside,’ she said feebly.
‘No, it’s okay. I’ll eat them. Since you’ve already brought them out,’ he added almost gruffly.
‘You’ve done a lot.’ She dragged her eyes away from his naked torso. Not naked. Uncovered, she corrected quickly. Good grief, up close she could actually see the small rivulets of sweat running down his chest.
‘Yeah, once you get going it flows pretty well,’ he said, reaching for a biscuit off the plate she held. ‘The biggest hold-up is usually waiting on materials, but we got that all delivered this morning, so it’s just a matter of getting it up.’
Don’t even go there, she warned her overactive mind, which was somehow operating at gutter level at the present moment. ‘Well, good job,’ she said with a decisive nod. ‘I’m heading out for a while. Do you have my number in case you need me?’
‘Yeah. From when you called the other day,’ he said, biting into another Anzac biscuit. ‘These are pretty good,’ he said between mouthfuls.
‘Thanks. I’ll just leave them here,’ she said, placing the plate on the top of his esky. ‘I wasn’t sure if you needed a drink or not,’ she said, holding the glass and wondering where to put it. He solved the problem for her, taking it and downing its entire contents in one long chug before handing it back.
Right. ‘I’ll get going then. See you later.’ She did an abrupt turn and headed back to the house, depositing the glass in the sink and grabbing her car keys.
Maybe she had been celibate too long. It had been a long time since she’d been with a man, and when she said man, she meant her husband.
At first she hadn’t realised how far she and Paul had drifted. She’d been so busy, and for that she did take some of the blame. But in all fairness, she didn’t think Paul’s attitude had helped. He hadn’t bothered hiding his growing resentment of her career success. He resented the fact she could make her living staying at home. It didn’t seem to matter that she still had to do housework and shopping, as well as fit in all the other time-consuming chores that arose like taking cars to the mechanic or sitting on a phone to sort out anything Paul was too busy to do. Looking back, she realised he had been jealous, maybe not of her writing career but the fact she’d made the decision to follow her dreams. He’d hated his job, and for years she’d told him to leave and find something new, but his cautious, practical nature had stopped him. It was ironic that when he had decided to follow her advice it had been to have an affair. When she’d suggested finding something new, she hadn’t meant a new woman.
Being with a man wasn’t something Hayley had really missed for the last twelve months or so since she’d been on her own. Her life had been turned upside down, so it was little wonder she hadn’t had time to think about sex until now. No, not until now, she corrected herself angrily. She wasn’t thinking of having sex, and certainly not with someone she’d just hired to build her a chook pen. Good grief, imagine if that got out? Still, it might make finding a tradesman a lot easier in the future. She gave herself a mental slap and told herself to behave.