The House at the Bottom of the Hill (24 page)

The scenario was scaring the daylight out of his morning. More than losing her home and lifestyle, the article suggested she’d lost her childhood. This is where the monster came in and the nightmares. But what the hell did it have to do with Ethan? She’d been in shock when she’d first met Ethan on the walkway, and Dan had turned on her, thinking she was after his friend. Man, his blow must have been a tough one for her to take. He’d goaded her, pushed her. She’d dealt with it, hadn’t backed down. A witty comment, a couple of self-defence moves and a bear hug later and she was in his arms. Making love and laughing. Sighing with him.

Dan’s heart seemed to stop beating as the woman who’d given him such concern he’d hardly noticed night turning to day came through the doors of the bar, a smile on her face and a bounce in her step. ‘Got your coffee machine up and running?’ she asked, hand on the opened door.

Dan nodded, closed the lid on his laptop and slid it beneath the bar.

She breezed in, the door clunking closed behind her. ‘Good. I could do with one. Got a lot to do today.’

Whatever had happened last night, she wasn’t going to talk about it. Looked like she wasn’t even willing to remember it. ‘You had a good night’s sleep?’ he asked.

‘Mmm. Didn’t you?’ She grinned. ‘Or did you miss the sex?’

Pieces of information from the article he’d read filtered into his mind fast. Jesus. That was it: the bad thing in her past. Someone had hurt her. Is that why she’d taken self-defence classes? Alone and looking after herself, and doing a damned good job, after someone had ruined something in her life. Nobody—
nobody
— messed with his friends. Some guy, probably. He couldn’t bear the thought she’d been abused. He’d had this woman in his arms and some guy … He didn’t want to visualise it, couldn’t see how any man could have—

He took a breath deep enough to push the wrath away and settle the shock to simmer level. If the man was still around, Dan resolved to find him. And if the man had put physical pressure on his girl, in any way, Dan would want to kill him. And might even do it.

When the blood came back to his head she was halfway across the bar, heading for the staircase at the far end, inside the family restaurant area.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

‘Why don’t you show me your apartment space and I’ll tell you my new plans for the B&B.’

He’d renovated the staircase simply because it sat in full view of customers, but he’d put a locked gate across it so that kids and nosey punters couldn’t wander up the stairs.

‘New plans?’ he asked, joining her and unlocking the gate with a key he kept hidden in a small wall cupboard.

‘Yes.’

He led her up the carpeted stairs, hand on the polished wooden rail, their footsteps almost silent on the thick navy-blue carpet with plaid-patterned edges. ‘When are you planning on opening up for business?’ he asked.

‘Haven’t got that far in my plans.’

‘Like I said, I might be bringing in a couple of guys soon who could be your first customers.’

‘Who?’

‘Work guys. Plumbers and electricians.’ At the top of the stairs, he let her go before him. She made her way through the fallen partitions, weaving between plaster boards until she got to one of the windows.

Dan followed, and pulled her into his arms, moving them away from the window into a darker space beneath the rafters. It was good to have her next to him again. He’d missed her last night, no question and no argument, and he wasn’t referring to sex. He’d missed Charlotte, the person. ‘Can I say how good it is to be cuddling with you again? Thought I’d messed up last night.’

‘Did you really think I fancied Ethan?’

Dan’s hold on her loosened a little. Was she going to open up? ‘You’re a sharp shooter,’ he said, with a grin. ‘Where’d you learn that?’

She smiled and slipped from his arms. ‘From Mrs J.’ She laughed, spreading her arms and twirling around in the box-shaped area that would become bedroom number three. ‘This is going to be a huge apartment once you’ve knocked the rest of the original bedroom walls down.’

‘I like space.’

‘Three hundred and fifty square metres’ worth?’

A yearning to spill the truth rose in his chest and thickened his throat. He closed his eyes for a moment but all he saw was the B&B at the beginning of Main Street with a For Sale sign on the front lawn and a rush of customers coming in and out of Kookaburra’s.

‘By the way, the twins spoke to me about their predicament.’

Dan opened his eyes.

‘I presume you know about it?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’ He nodded. He’d think about how to tell her what he was up to with the hotel once he’d given consideration to how she could keep her B&B running. Then he’d tell her the truth, followed quickly by a plan. So fast she wouldn’t have a chance to look shocked and hurt and he wouldn’t need to feel like Brutus. ‘I think Ted’s sorting out a lawyer for them.’ He paused. ‘Guess he might not have got around to that since he’s been unwell.’

‘I’ve got the names of two lawyers. I’ll give them to you as well as to the twins. So you can keep an eye on things.’ She frowned. ‘What
is
wrong with Ted?’

Daniel shrugged. ‘It’s funny but it’s not.’ He paused for a second time. She was giving him the names of the lawyers for what reason? In case she forgot or something?

‘Ted?’ she asked, eyebrows rising.

Dan gave her the rundown on the space study and the aliens. ‘It’s relatively harmless, but we need to keep an eye on him,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘It’s good to see you smile like that, Charlotte.’ She turned and sauntered to another window, leaving his arms aching with the want of holding her again.

‘Has anyone considered it might be because Ted is bored?’ she asked, drawing a box shape in the grime on the window. ‘He runs the store and looks after the gavel but he must be bored stupid. He’s got brains. Look at that letter he wrote me.’ She added an inverted V-shape to the top of the box.

‘I wrote the letter,’ Dan reminded her.

‘You typed it. Ted dictated it. The wording is all Ted.’

‘True—but I put in more pleases and thank yous than he dictated.’

‘There’s quite a bit the people in town could do to help themselves, you know.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’ve been thinking …’ She drew four squares and a rectangle inside the box with the V-shaped roof. A house. She scrubbed it out with the palm of her hand, turned to him and wiped her hands together, cleaning them of about eighty years’ worth of dirt. ‘I’ve got a lot of information on a number of the committee members now. Like Mrs J. How she lost her husband. Lily and her knuckling down together and making do. It must be hard on them. And Mrs Tam’s all alone.’

‘Yeah, but they’re doing okay.’

‘They could do better though. What this town needs is more tourists. They also need more recreation and community entertainments. The type of things that bind them but also allow them to grow in their own way. In their own time.’

‘Well, we’re certainly doing a lot of talking this morning.’ He crossed the space but stopped before he reached her. Didn’t want her walking away from him again if he tried to take her in his arms—that would be one rejection too many in a twelve-hour period. ‘You been thinking all night, Red?’ It was good to use the nickname again; it built a walkway over the gap between them, taking them back to yesterday, before the dinner party.

She shrugged. ‘I’m just saying it needs to be their idea.’

‘You should put it to them.’

‘They wouldn’t listen to me.’ She raised her face to him. ‘I was wondering if you’d like to take Lucy.’

‘What?’

‘She follows you everywhere.’

‘She’s yours, Charlotte. You found her. You rescued her, why would you want to give her away?’

‘She’s a community soul. I’ve seen her pop in and out of every shop in Main Street.’

‘So keep her and just let her roam a bit.’

Charlotte shook her head. ‘I’ve got a lot to do with the B&B and don’t think I can give her the attention she needs. You take her.’

‘No.’ He moved towards her. This friendly little chat was scaring him and he had to get his hands on her.

‘Oh, and one last thing,’ she said, holding her hand out, palm up, to stop him. ‘I’ve decided to keep the weatherboard pink.’

Dan stilled.

‘You can tell the committee.’

‘You’re backing down?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I see sense in it. Why spoil what they already have? They want it pink, they can have it pink.’

Dan sank his weight on his hip. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I’m seeing sense.’

‘Let me talk to them about the weatherboard. I’ll bring them around to yellow. I’ll even help you paint it.’

She smiled. ‘Turn it to a mushroom colour, then hit them with honeyeater yellow.’

‘It took me seven months to go from frog-green to navy. I reckon it’ll take the same timeframe to go from pink to yellow.’

‘That would keep us busy.’

She gave him her cheeky smile. The impish one he found impossible to resist. Yeah, he could take seven months with Red. He could probably take a lot longer.

‘How are you getting on with the committee?’ she asked. ‘With your apartment plans?’

‘I’m working on a way through.’

She turned to the window. ‘Word around town is you took delivery of seven toilets and seven showers.’

‘Yeah.’ He put his arms around her, bear hugging her. ‘It was an error in the order.’ She didn’t move from him. He kissed the side of her head. ‘My handwriting, I suppose. They mistook a one for a seven.’ God, it was good to hold her.

Charlotte wished she had the courage to turn and face him. To look into his eyes as he spoke so she could gauge how she really felt about him lying to her. She clamped her lips together to stop herself asking if he was planning to send six toilets and shower units back. As she was also lying to him by keeping quiet about why she was here and not telling him that she’d never intended to stay, there was nothing she could do about it.

‘I need to ask you a favour, Daniel.’

‘Anything.’

‘Don’t talk to Ethan about what happened last night. Please.’

He didn’t move or speak for a few moments. She almost felt the pounding of his thoughts as he inhaled and exhaled slowly.

‘Why not?’

‘I made a mistake. One I can’t fix or take back.’ She had to let him know that much, but had no intention of following through with her questioning of Ethan now, and didn’t want to put another lie onto her already full agenda. In the loneliest hours of the night, those just before dawn, she’d made her decision. Leave town. O’Donnell would remain in the rivers of her history; the fear of him would always be with her, bumping its way over the many boulders of her memories. But her past was hers and she didn’t have any right to thrust it on others. ‘Can you promise me you won’t talk to Ethan and that you won’t ask me any more questions about it?’

‘That last favour is going to be hard.’ He rocked her in his arms. ‘You’re hurting for some reason, and I don’t like any friend to be hurt.’ He brushed a finger over her cheek. ‘Can’t I help you out?’

She shook her head. ‘Not with this.’ She turned into his embrace and enjoyed the heat of his body as it filtered through her. ‘You could help me with the staircase banister though. Or maybe the work guys you’re going to hire could take on some extra work for me at the B&B.’

‘Thought you were going to do a lot of the jobs yourself.’

‘Changed my mind.’ She showed him her bright-red nails. ‘Might chip one.’

‘So get Julia to do them again.’

‘I think she’ll busy with Ira for a while, don’t you?’

‘What’s going on, Charlotte?’

How could she tell him? His plans would take business from the B&B, which worried her because the little house ought to be given a chance. Its history was important.
Why, it’s practically heritage ranking, is our B&B
, Ted had said. The town was growing but progress would be suitably sedate. Daniel wouldn’t fill his hotel with a rush of guests, not at first, and neither would the B&B, even without the hotel. A quiet town like Swallow’s Fall didn’t suddenly erupt onto the tourist scene, no matter how good Ted’s photos were on the internet. It would take acceptance, patience and care from everyone to see the town prosper.

Daniel’s plans would be readily accepted, she felt sure of it. They’d need some persuasion, but he’d encourage them gently, all the time caring for his town and everyone in it. He had the love of his townspeople. She wondered if he realised how big a deal that was.

‘Will you help with the banister?’ she asked.

‘Of course I will. Whatever you want.’

He’d open the hotel all day. He’d serve breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. He’d be mad not to and there wasn’t a fool’s bone in his body. She leaned against him and let him put his arms around her. The B&B had one year in it, maximum, while he built the hotel rooms. She couldn’t see a way it could keep going after that, let alone prosper. Which created one more concern she’d be taking with her when she left: guilt. She’d spoken to a realtor this morning and was waiting on his proposal for the sale coming to her over email. She’d sign the papers for a ‘going concern’ called the House at the Bottom of the Hill, pay for the advertising and sell the B&B under false pretences.

She put her arms around Daniel’s waist and snuggled into the warmth of him.

‘That’s good,’ he murmured. ‘Have I got the real you back now?’

There wasn’t a real Charlotte, just a lost and bereft homeless woman but how comforting it would be to hold the imprint of Daniel against her in her mind for those quiet, restless nights when the dream came after she left Swallow’s Fall. Or for the moments when the void of loneliness couldn’t be shaken and all she had was the memory of being with tall, muscular Hotshot, and how it felt being up against him. Being sheltered by the strength in his shoulders and delighted by the charming smile on his mouth.

‘Are you alright?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ She tilted her face to his and ran her gaze over the planes of his face. She needed memories. Good memories, like the feel of his skin on hers, his heartbeat thumping along with hers, his body, so long and toughened with muscle, entwined with hers. The kisses from his mouth. The smiles. She’d remember his smiles forever. Each of them. The charming one she’d thought so smarmy. The boyish one she’d fallen for, and the smile of the man. The smile that sent dancing lights shivering over her body.