The Girl in the Hard Hat (20 page)

‘I just think that . . .’ She licked her lips. ‘That wasn’t the deal.’

‘Well, I’m changing the deal.’ Without her consent he took her hand. Large warm fingers closed around her smaller, more finely boned ones and tugged. He turned and started walking to his vehicle, unconcerned that she was tripping over her feet as she tried to keep up with him. Warmth spread up her arm and encased her heart.

Maybe I’ll just go along with it. Just this one time.

‘Okay,’ she found herself saying. ‘But I’ll pay. Lena was telling me about this resort that she went to in Karratha –’

He grimaced. ‘I know the one.’

‘Yeah so, I thought –’

‘The thing is,’ he explained as he opened the passenger door of his vehicle so she could get in, ‘I’m not going to let you take me off to some clinical run-of-the-mill restaurant in Karratha that you could probably find just about anywhere in the world so that you can hand over your credit card and pay for my information like I’m some sort of CI to your Sergeant.’

‘CI?’ she said indignantly, turning around.

‘Confidential Informant.’ He leaned over her.

‘I know what a CI is.’ She pursed her lips together, uncomfortable with his sudden closeness.

‘It’ll be much more fun to shell prawns under the stars, don’t you think?’ He grabbed her around the waist with two hands and lifted her bodily into the ute. Wendy had never fancied herself a featherweight. In fact, with her height and stature she definitely did not consider herself one of those waif-like women who looked like they would float away with the breeze if you blew on them. But one minute she was standing on gravel and the next she was sitting in his car. He grinned at her, not a puff or a pant on his lips. The deed had been effortless and now he was offering her the seat belt.

‘Remember,’ he winked, ‘safety first.’

Oooooh!
Her fingers twitched in her lap. She could easily slap him again. With iron will she restrained herself and snatched the belt instead. She could not resort to violence
every time
he disconcerted her.

After clipping the belt in place, she turned back to give him a stern piece of her mind but found the door slammed in her face. He was walking around the car to get in his seat. Frustration bubbled up her throat.

He didn’t seem to notice. ‘You’ll love it,’ he assured her as he started the engine. ‘You haven’t experienced seafood until you’ve had a meal at the Point Samson Yacht Club.’

‘How would you know what I love? You don’t even know me,’ she said.

‘Isn’t that the point of this?’ He reversed his car out of the bay and then rolled out of the car park.

‘No.’ She folded her arms. ‘This isn’t about getting to know one another. This is about Yabber and that address I need.’

‘
Right
. Momentarily forgot.’ He inclined his head. ‘Won’t happen again. So tell me about you. What makes Wendy Hopkins tick?’

‘
Gavin
,’ she said, half laugh, half groan.

‘Wow, I love it when you say my name like that. And do I really make you tick?’

She rolled her eyes and looked heavenwards as though appealing to a higher power. ‘I feel like I’m negotiating with a two-year-old here.’

‘You can’t blame a man for trying.’

‘Oh yes you can.’ She shook her head. ‘I blame you.’

‘Just like you blame me for the fishing-boat incident?’ he asked, suddenly serious.

She sighed. ‘No, actually I don’t. I’ve kind of put two and two together since then. And while I don’t approve, I don’t hold it against you.’

He seemed to accept this. ‘I have to say, that’s good to know.’

‘I know you think taking the blame for something you didn’t do is very noble but don’t you think it just exacerbates the problem?’

He took his eyes off the road briefly to look at her. ‘You really need blood on this, don’t you?’

‘I need to make sure this site stays safe and having loose cannons walking around on the job makes me uneasy,’ she shot at him.

His fingers gripped the steering wheel hard and then relaxed. ‘Haven’t you ever done something stupid that you wish you could just undo, start over, have a second chance at?’

‘Don’t you get it?’ she sighed. ‘
This
is my second chance. And this time I don’t want to do it wrong.’

‘Oh.’ He drew out the word. ‘You’re starting to make a bit more sense. So what was your big stuff-up?’

Her mouth pulled into a line as she looked out the window at the surrounding bush. She didn’t need to tell him. But for some reason she wanted to. ‘The last job I worked on there was this guy called Adam Booth. I knew he was an alcoholic and that he was often impaired on the job. I decided to take the issue to the project manager to have him fired.’

‘And . . .’ Gavin prompted.

She looked at her hands. ‘He caught me before I managed to and hit me up with the wife-three-kids-and-a-mortgage guilt trip. He said he knew he had a problem and was on top of it. In fact, he had a sponsor and had been sober for a couple of days. He said he could only see himself getting better. Basically he begged me for a second chance.’

‘And you gave it to him,’ Gavin said softly. ‘Why do I feel like this does not have a happy ending? The mutt didn’t kill himself, did he?’

She bit her lip. ‘He might as well have. He’s a paraplegic now after falling off some scaffolding because he was half-cut a couple of weeks later. I was stupid to have believed him. You don’t recover from something like that in a matter of days. It takes months, years!’

‘That’s true.’

‘When I think about it,’ she swallowed, ‘I didn’t just put him at risk. I put everyone on the job at risk. I still haven’t forgiven myself for it. And I doubt his wife and three kids have either.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘You had good intentions. You thought you were being kind. No one can blame you for that.’

‘I can think of one person.’ Her smile was bittersweet. ‘So you see, that’s why I can’t afford to be lenient. I can’t afford to just let people get away with things this time.’ She turned back to meet his eyes. ‘It’s for their own good.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘All right. I wasn’t going to tell you, but I guess the full story might help you feel a little better about my situation. Do you want me to tell you what really happened that day Fish got fired?’

She hesitated, not wanting to admit to him exactly how damned curious she really was. But he didn’t wait for a response, seeming to sense her mood anyway.

‘Marvin, the guy who was actually there when Fish rocked up with his boat, is my new site supervisor. He replaced Yabber. I was in a meeting when Fish asked him to keep piling while he pulled the fish into his boat. This is Marvin’s first job as a site supervisor and he’s very keen to be liked. Everybody misses Yabber, he was such a character around here. Such a familiar face. I guess Marvin doubts the respect the boys have for him and wanted to lift his profile a little. Plus,’ he frowned, ‘Fish said that I was okay with it.’

‘That still doesn’t explain why you were so willing to take the blame.’

‘Well,’ Gavin shrugged, ‘I wasn’t exactly blameless, was I? To be honest, I knew that Fish was thinking about pulling a stunt like that; I just didn’t know when. And I’d told Marvin only hours earlier to trust himself and me more. So you see, he’s not dangerous or unskilled. He was just misinformed. It’s my job as his manager to make sure that doesn’t happen again and that the boys start toeing the line. You can rest easy, I’m definitely on it. Besides,’ his smile was rueful, ‘I couldn’t let him get the sack for something that was partially my fault. Marvin’s got a family and a mortgage too. What have I got?’

‘I don’t know. What have you got?’ She turned and looked at him.

His mouth twisted and for a moment she thought he seemed a little philosophical but as quickly as the expression appeared, it was gone. ‘I’m a very lucky guy. What I’ve got is freedom.’ He grinned at her. But there was a hollowness in that grin that she was beginning to recognise. Considering his championship of the family, it seemed odd that he didn’t want one of his own.

‘Not looking to settle down,’ she enquired slowly. ‘Get married? Have a family?’

‘Hold on there, Sarge.’ He glanced at her archly. ‘Are you proposing?’

‘
No
,’ came her gasp of frustration. ‘Of course not.’

‘Oh good.’ He winked at her. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I love the company of women. But I’m not into that whole commitment thing, if you know what I mean.’

‘How thoughtful of you to tell me,’ she observed cynically.

‘What is it with women and honesty? They want you to tell them the truth but when you do, they don’t like it. What’s a guy supposed to do?’

She laughed. ‘Most of them lie.’

He pulled into a dark parking lot and turned to face her. ‘You want me to lie to you, Sarge?’ Those deep brown eyes were her undoing.

All of a sudden the cabin was too small, the evening too dark and the space between them much too scarce. Gavin Jones was a dangerous man. And what was worse, he freely admitted it.

‘No.’ Her voice sounded pathetically small. So much so that she immediately straightened her shoulders and tossed her head. ‘Come on. Let’s get this over with.’

And then opening her door, she jumped out herself this time.

Wendy finally took a moment to take stock of her surroundings. Gavin had not taken her to some fancy restaurant in Karratha, that was for sure. The venue was nothing like any typical yacht club back in Perth. She squinted in the dark to make out what she could of the building, lit up from inside and by small spotlights outside. It was better described as a shack, sitting on red dirt in the middle of nowhere. An old sailing mast was shoved into the ground beside it.

‘Welcome to the Point Samson Yacht Club.’ Gavin waved his right arm before them.

As they approached the building, Wendy was able to tell that it was quite a popular little joint. The smell of fried fish and lemons filled her nostrils. She and Gavin looked around at the other guests, already tucking into platefuls of seafood, and at the people sitting in the alfresco area on wooden benches at wooden tables. They were attacking prawns, tucking into all sorts of shellfish, some she’d never seen before, and of course devouring the usual fillets of grilled or fried fish with chunky fries and overflowing salad bowls.

‘Feel like anything in particular?’ Gavin asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Wendy murmured. ‘It all looks good.’

‘Well, I’m dying for some prawns. Shall I get us a bowl?’

‘No, I’ll get it.’ She took her purse out.

‘No, you will not.’ He shook his head. ‘Go sit down outside.’

He left her before she could protest. She glanced helplessly in the direction he had indicated. There was only one table left and it was far away from the others and not under the patio roofing. Wendy didn’t mind though. How lovely to eat under the stars as he had suggested. Of course, she wasn’t going to tell him that.

Gavin wasn’t long returning. He brought with him a huge bowl of prawns, a bowl of salad and a bowl of chips.

Wendy’s mouth watered. ‘Wow! That looks like a feast.’

‘Doesn’t it?’ He chuckled and put the food down on the table between them. ‘So tell me,’ he picked a prawn out of the bowl and ripped its head off, ‘more of the story behind Wendy Hopkins.’

‘Are we back on that again?’ she groaned, munching on a chip.

‘Come on.’

‘I reckon I’ve told you enough: your turn.’

His lips twitched. ‘Once upon a time there was a handsome prince –’

‘Oh brother!’ She laughed. ‘You’re not seriously going to go down that path, are you?’

‘Okay . . . Since you aren’t impressed, maybe not.’

He’d eaten the first prawn so he shelled another. She continued to nibble on her chip.

He paused and then said slowly, ‘For the last five years I’ve been fly-in/fly-out. Doing a lot of jobs on the Pilbara and in Queensland.’

‘You don’t get lonely?’

He looked down. ‘Sometimes.’

‘What about your family? Are they in Perth?’

‘No . . . I . . . I haven’t seen them in a long time. Pretty much since I started this sort of work.’

‘Brothers or sisters?’

He shook his head. ‘Your turn.’

‘I’m from Perth. No brothers or sisters,’ she blushed, adding in a rush, ‘that I know of. My parents supported me till I finished university and then I started working fly-in/fly-out pretty much straight away.’

‘Seriously?’ He gobbled another prawn. ‘Not even a short city stint before you went bush?’

After boarding school, working away had been almost what she was used to. But she didn’t want to bring up her freaky childhood with him so she let a light smile touch her face. ‘I love the outback. Its rugged beauty, its endless expanses. To be honest I enjoy being a nomad, moving from one town to another, one job to another. One adventure to a new one.’

His eyes twinkled. ‘Me too.’

They ate in silence and for a spine-tingling few seconds she felt like they were sharing a moment. It was ridiculous really.

‘So are you liking this job at Cape Lambert?’ he asked, forking a little bit of salad onto his plate.

‘It was a rocky start but I think I’m starting to fit in . . .’