Licence to Dream (21 page)

‘I could, if you really want me to. But I'd charge you for it. My time is worth money.’

His grin was slow and reluctant. ‘I'm sure you would. And yet, you look like the fairy on top of the Christmas tree. Where on earth did you learn to service cars?’

‘From my Grandpop. He believed that everyone should know how to look after their own possessions – including cars. The first time he bought one, when he was a young man, he pulled it to pieces to see how it worked and then put it together again. He did most of his own maintenance and repairs right until the year before he died.’

‘You sound to have been close to him.’

‘Very close indeed. I was always Grandpop's little helper. I miss him very much.’ Her smile wavered. She still found it hard to talk about him without tears coming into her eyes. ‘I'll go and get the rest of the stuff in.’

As she was finishing Tina began barking and yelping at two men who’d arrived in a small truck.

When they knocked on the door, Ben clicked his fingers and ordered the dog to sit. Tina looked disappointed, but did as she told her, easing down by his side and looking up at him adoringly.

‘Are you trying to take over my dog, too?’ Meriel asked.

‘Dogs and small children always like me,’ he said smugly. ‘They say animals can tell what a person’s like.’

‘What about snakes and bats and cockroaches. Do they adore you too?’ She went to open the door.

‘We got a message to contact a Mr Ben Elless about a demolition job.’

‘You’d better come inside. He’s hurt his ankle.’

 Within minutes a brisk business conference was under way, a price had been agreed and the men had left to start the retrieval-demolition job on the remains of the shack.

It wasn't until they had gone that she remembered the sawn-off beams and went to fetch the one she’d kept. It seemed to get heavier each time she picked it up.

Ben didn't say a word as he took it from her and examined it.

She waited impatiently. ‘I'll go and tell the men to stop work, shall I? We probably need to get the police in to investigate.’

‘Drive me over. I want to see it for myself before we tell anyone.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I'm sure!’ Grim-faced, he picked up his walking stick and limped out towards his car. She picked up the keys and followed.

At the block they found the men walking round the half-ruined house, talking and gesticulating.

‘Something up, mate?’

‘I thought I should inspect it for myself before you got started.’ Ben used the walking stick to help him limp across to the edge of the pile of rubble.

Meriel stood beside him, staring in amazement at the roofline. ‘More of the roof has fallen down since yesterday.’

Ben turned to her. ‘You’re quite sure of that? I was in no state to remember clearly what it was like.’

‘I’m positive. The rest of the building seemed pretty solid, so I don’t see why it should have fallen. I tested it out carefully before I went inside. Someone must have been here since then and pulled more of the roof down deliberately. The sawn-off beams were over there, where the new fall happened.’

One of the men came over. ‘You should have left it all for us, y’know. Demolition's dangerous when you don't know what you're doing.’

Meriel saw Ben stiffen. ‘What do you mean? We haven't been back here since the accident.’

‘Well, someone has.’ The man pointed to the part of the roof Meriel had just been talking about. ‘And they didn't bloody know what they were doing, trying to pull it down like that.’

‘Must have been vandals,’ Ben said quickly as Meriel opened her mouth. You'd better get started, mate, before they come back.’

‘Yeah, that old jarrah's very popular. Good strong wood, better than the pine they use these days.’

‘I’d pay extra to have the place watched tonight. Know anyone who’d do it?’

One man grinned at him. ‘Me, as long as it’s cash in hand. I’ll bring my dog over and we can sleep in the back of my ute in hot weather like this.’

‘Done.’

They shook hands.

Ben turned to Meriel, his face expressionless. ‘Would you drive me home now, please?’

When they got back to the car, she scowled at him. ‘Why did you cut me off short? We should have investigated, seen if we could find the sawn-off beams.’

‘Because I didn't want any rumours starting.’

‘But you might have been killed!’

‘I don’t think that was intended. Not for the sake of a piece of land. No, I think someone just wants me to leave. If I don’t have somewhere to live, they make it much harder for me to stay.’

She went to hold his arm for a moment and hug it close. ‘They might not have intended to kill you, but they nearly did. I can’t ignore that, even if you can. Come on, let’s go home.’

For the rest of the afternoon and early evening the small truck groaned backwards and forwards between the shack and Meriel's house. A surprising amount of furniture had proved salvageable and was gradually unloaded into the spare rooms, including a brand-new computer which needed only a new monitor to replace the one that had been smashed. There was some new office furniture that had been in the front part of the house and had come through almost unscathed, except for a few scratches and dents from flying debris.

‘That’s not temporary equipment,’ she commented.

‘I was setting up for a long project. It’s good that we haven’t lost everything. Saves us some money.’

She looked at him sideways.
We
and
us
again. Was he including her already? Was it possible to slip so easily into being a pair? He’d done it easily – but then, he’d had more experience of that than she had.

‘Your bed was crushed flat,’ one of the men said cheerfully. ‘Good thing you weren’t lying in it, mate.’

By the end of the following day, all the contents of the shack had been retrieved or discarded, the fallen timbers had been sorted out into usable and rubbish, and thuds from the next block marked the demise of the rest of the house.

Meriel was taking in some washing when the two men brought a pile of the timber round and started dumping the pieces at the side of the house. She rushed across to them. ‘Hey! What do you think you're doing?’

‘Ben told us to bring the timber round here.’

‘Well, you’re not dumping it on my lawn!’

‘Got to put it somewhere, lady,’ one of them said, in the tones of an intelligent person reasoning with a moron.

‘Not there you don't,
mate.
Just stop what you're doing while I find out what this is all about, then I’ll tell you where to pile the stuff.’

The men shrugged. ‘Better sort it out quickly. There are several more loads to come tomorrow.’

She stormed into the house and erupted into the family room. ‘Just what do you mean by turning my front lawn into a salvage yard, Elless?’

‘Oh, hell, I forgot to tell you. Don't blow a fuse. We can sort this out.’

‘We certainly can – as soon as you get that wood off my lawn.’

He looked at her admiringly. ‘Did anyone ever tell you how magnificently your eyes flash when you're angry.’

‘I'm not angry, I'm furious, and if you don't get that wood moved, I'll make a bonfire of it.’ She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘I believe wood ash is good for the soil.’

He struggled to his feet. ‘I'll have to come out and talk to the men. Look, I'm sorry. I'm so used to steaming ahead and getting the practical things done that I didn't think.’

‘You certainly didn't. And what on earth do you want with a pile of second-hand timber, anyway?’

‘Character.’

She stared at him. ‘What?’

‘The beams and posts in my uncle's shack are jarrah and so are the floors. That wood will still be good in another hundred years and it’ll polish up beautifully once it’s been sanded down. It’s very West Australian, jarrah is. And it’s good to recycle scarce resources, don’t you think?’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I'm not organising all this well, am I? I get started on design ideas and forget where I am. Dammit, I could do with a site foreman and general factotum. I can't hobble very far and I was in the thick of some calculations and – ’

She looked at him, head on one side. ‘How much would you pay me to do it? As long as it’s only part-time, that is.’

His face lit up. ‘Whatever you think reasonable. Hourly rates, whatever you think right?’

She stuck out her hand and they shook. Smiling, she went to put on some sunscreen lotion and a shady hat. Fine businessman he was! He hadn't even found out how much she wanted to be paid. Then she frowned. He
should
have asked! Surely he couldn’t be that impractical?

Later she looked out of the window at the piles of timber set neatly to one side of the house beyond the cultivated patch of ground and wondered if she was doing the right thing helping him out. Every step she took seemed to bind them more firmly together.

It scared her.

It pleased her, too.

It felt
right
.

At ten o’clock she stood up. ‘I’m going to bed now.’

He’d looked at her questioningly.

‘Could you use the bathroom before you go to your own room?’

He gave her a long steady scrutiny, then nodded as if accepting her decision before hauling himself to his feet.

She watched him go, chewing one corner of her lower lip. She wasn’t ready yet to sleep with a fully-conscious Ben, even if he wasn’t in a fit state to do much about their feelings. And she was still a bit worried that he was taking risks, wished he’d called in the police, wished . . . Oh, she didn’t know what she wished.

When he’d finished, she said good night, made sure she was wearing a nightdress that didn’t reveal all and climbed into her bed. But when she looked at the space beside her, she suddenly wished he was there.

How stupid could you get? She hardly knew the man.

* * * *

In the middle of the night, Tina leaped off the bed and started rushing to and fro, barking frenziedly. Meriel woke with a start and went to investigate, heart pounding. When she opened the bedroom door, Tina made straight for the kitchen door, still barking. Meriel put on the outside lights and peered out, hearing Ben come hobbling along the corridor to join her.

‘Can you see anything?’ he whispered, putting his arm round her. ‘Ought we to let her out?’

She leaned against him, glad he was there. ‘No way! If someone’s there they might hurt her. It’s enough that she barks, surely?’

‘Normally I’d go out to investigate.’

‘That’d be stupid. You don’t know how many people are out there.’ She turned back but could see no movement outside.

Tina stopped barking and lay down near the French window, head on paws.

Ben looked at Meriel. ‘Whatever was upsetting her seems to have gone away.’

‘Well, if I find footprints outside in the morning, I’m going into town tomorrow to see the police about intruders.’

‘They won’t be able to do much about it.’

‘I’m still telling them.’

In the morning she got up early, went to investigate and found new tyre marks where someone had parked by the side of the main road near her gate. They must have walked on to the block from there. What had they wanted?

When she went to investigate the piles of lumber she smelled kerosene and one corner of the pile of wood stank of it.

She turned round to see Ben standing on one corner of the veranda watching her, so went across to tell him what she’d found. His expression became grim as he listened and, for all her protests, he moved slowly and painfully across to look at the pile of wood himself.

‘We’d better hose this down,’ he said quietly.

‘I’ll do that after breakfast. I wonder why they didn’t light it?’

‘I must have been right: they just want to frighten us away.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Developers. Must be.’

‘Well, that settles it. I’m definitely going to the police this morning.’

‘Couldn’t you wait?’

‘No.’

* * * *

The police listened to her story and promised to keep an eye on her place.

‘I do have a friend living with me,’ she added, feigning embarrassment, ‘but he’s hurt his foot. He couldn’t do much to help me if – if anyone tried to break in.’

‘It’s a bit lonely for a woman out there,’ the officer said. ‘You may have taken on more than you can chew.’

‘I’m sure this vandalism is only temporary. When they see you officers turning up a few times every day, they’ll stop doing it.’

She wasn’t so sure about that.

* * * *

The following day the weather changed suddenly and a southerly wind made the temperature plummet, which Ben said happened sometimes in summer. Meriel shivered and went to find something warmer to wear if she was going to work outside.

Once the demolition men had finished dumping reusable material from the old house, she went into the kitchen to start making the evening meal. Ben limped in to join her. ‘Can I help you with anything?’

‘You could peel the potatoes.’

 He sat down on a stool near the kitchen bench and set to work. ‘I could get very used to domesticity again.’ He beamed at her.

That touched her deeply. In fact, she was coming to realise she had stereotyped Ben, no doubt because of his startling good looks. He wasn’t a Romeo, he was a homebody and family man. The more she got to know him, the more she liked him as well as being attracted to him. Very dangerous for an independent woman, that combination.

* * * *

When it was time to go to bed, Ben looked across the table at her, his head slightly to one side, a question in his eyes if not on his lips.

‘Will you be all right on your own tonight?’ she asked at last.

He gave her a wry smile. ‘Yes, of course. Will you?’

She nodded.

‘I’m glad you’ve got Tina in the bedroom with you.’

‘Why? Do you think they’ll come back tonight?’

‘I doubt it, but it’s still good to have a dog.’ He levered himself to his feet. ‘I’ll just use the bathroom.’

She watched him limp out, nearly followed to ask him to spend the night in her bedroom, but lost courage at the last minute and cleared the table instead.