Читать книгу The Men In Uniform Collection - Barbara McMahon - Страница 18

ROMY shifted uncomfortably for the sixteenth time. Her kitchen chairs were certainly not built for long-term occupation. She flexed her aching back and did a couple of quick stretches to give her a moment away from her laptop. The longer she stared, the less meaningful the images became. A jumbled montage of maps and highlighted points. She pushed all the paper maps away, too.

‘Whatcha doing?’ Leighton crash-landed in the chair next to hers, peering over her shoulder.

‘Trying to figure out who hit that kangaroo.’ She’d told her son all about it, hoping to win his interest back over to wildlife appreciation. It hadn’t worked. He was still fixated with Clint and all things military.

‘Why? Isn’t it too late now?’

‘Maybe I can stop them doing it again. A chance to educate someone.’ Much as she’d like to wring their irresponsible neck. She rubbed her knotted shoulder.

Leighton’s sharp eyes missed nothing. ‘Is it hard work?’

She blew out a breath and then smiled at the worry in his eyes. The protectiveness. Every day, more and more a young man. ‘I just feel like I’m missing something. Like it’s…right there…’ She tapped her forehead, then shook it.

‘Do you want to read it out loud?’

She always made Leighton read words he didn’t understand aloud, to help with comprehension. After the tension they’d had between them this week she was just happy to be having a normal conversation with him. Grab it while you can—even if it means putting work off for a while.

She smiled. ‘Can you spare a few minutes?’

He scooted in closer. ‘Sure. It’s better than math homework.’

If she was half the smooth operator she believed she was, she’d find a way to sneak in a mathematical principle or two while she was at it. She stretched out one of the maps. ‘Okay. So this is WildSprings.’ She pointed to the west of the map. ‘This is the admissions area where I work. This is our house…and Clint’s…and over here’s where I’m spending a lot of time.’

‘Is that the fence you keep fixing?’

‘That’s the one.’ She glanced at his eager, interested face. ‘So, knowing that, can you show me where Frog Swamp is?’

He pointed immediately to a point just south of their house. She smiled. ‘And what’s the fastest way from our place to Clint’s?’

Bright eyes turned up to her. ‘On foot or by car?’

She smiled. Oh, clever boy. ‘Foot.’

He stared hard at the map. ‘Is this the gully? The one we walked up to get to the roosting site? Which means Clint’s house is…there?’

Romy glanced at the map, somewhat surprised he’d found it. ‘Well done. Yes, it is.’ Now on with her only semihypothetical problem. ‘And this is where we found the kangaroo.’ She pointed to a spot about halfway between the roosting site and the part of the fence that was fast becoming her second home.

His little brows folded in and he shoved his glasses more firmly onto his nose. Her heart squeezed. It had been a long time since she’d seen him so…engaged. She frowned.

‘Go on, Mum…’

She cleared her throat. ‘We were heading east from the roosting site when we found the roo. So, assuming the yahoos got in through the breach in the fence over here—’ she pointed to the east of WildSprings ‘—we should have passed them after they hit the roo. But we didn’t see them, so where did they go?’

Leighton stared at the map, his little eyes darting all over it. ‘Could they have hidden anywhere?’

Adorable. He was taking this so seriously. Romy did the same, focusing on keeping the smile from her face. ‘Not likely. Clint and I would both have noticed tracks running off the road.’

She sat back and watched her son computing. His little fingers mimicked hers, tracing back and forth over the features of the map, nearly hunched over in concentration trying to solve the puzzle. After an eternity he sat straight and looked at her.

‘Do they have to be coming in the hole in the fence?’

Ah, good boy. Question the variables. The kid was a natural scientist. ‘I guess they could have come through WildSprings’s main entrance—’

‘No. I mean…can’t they be going out through the fence?’

Cold ice washed through Romy as she stared at her brilliant, brilliant son. It was so sensationally obvious.

It wasn’t a shortcut in; it was a shortcut out.

Her eyes narrowed. Breaking in was just petty vandalism. Idiots out hooning or showing off for their girlfriends. Someone secretly leaving the exclusive property felt a whole lot more sinister. Romy swivelled the map back towards her and let her eyes run from the breach in the fence, past the roo strike site to the roost site. Then back again.

Her eyes widened and she kissed the ginger head beside her. ‘Leighton, you’re a genius! Time for bed.’

His wail was almost comic. ‘But I helped you!’

‘Yes, you did. But until you invent a tool to bend time, then it’s still eight o’clock. Bedtime. Scoot.’

The bright, eager shine in his eyes dulled to a rebellious storm cloud. A storm cloud rapidly preparing to break open. Romy felt the familiar tightening in her chest, the kick in her pulse. It wasn’t the same feeling she used to experience with her father but it was a close cousin. Not fear that she couldn’t control Leighton, but fear that she might. And not in a good way.

She took a breath and tried to channel Clint. Firm but fair. ‘Twenty minutes of reading once you’re in your pyjamas. Then lights out.’

The storm didn’t clear, but it didn’t break. He skulked to the base of the stairs.

‘And, Leighton?’ she went on as his foot hit the first tread. ‘Thank you. You’ve really, really helped.’

He didn’t let her off the hook, but his back grew a tad straighter and his footfalls were lighter as he sprinted up the stairs.

Some of the tension drained from her body. But not all of it.

She spun the laptop towards herself and fired up her wireless email. The boys from Customs wouldn’t get it until the morning but alerting them to a possible issue required due diligence. Better that they have WildSprings on their radar than not.

She was two-thirds of the way through detailing the recent incident when her laptop pinged to let her know it had finished loading her incoming mail. She glanced down to see who the new mail was from. There were two. Darren from Police, and Carly from Chicago.

She flicked open Darren’s first and stared, disbelieving, at the screen. She took a quick trip from relief to disappointment and then finally confusion.

The 4WD that hit the roo was registered to Clint’s brother. Not some intruder up to no good in the park. Justin. But why hadn’t he spoken up? They had a system for reporting wildlife injuries in WildSprings. It wasn’t as if it was a criminal offence.

Romy shook her head. She’d be seeing terrorists in the shadows next. Just as well she hadn’t sent off her email full of conspiracy theories to Customs. That could have been embarrassing.

She deleted the email she’d spent half an hour composing and then opened Carly’s email and started to read.

Her stomach dropped clean away.

‘Romy? What’s going on? Your message sounded urgent.’

She trembled from more than the cool night air. Adrenaline. Anxiety. How on earth was she going to start this conversation? Knowing what it would do to him.

Thanks for coming, Clint. Oh, by the way, your brother is officially a criminal. Coffee?

He frowned and took her hands. ‘You’re shaking. Here, sit down.’

She pulled them free of his warmth. Letting it soak in was not going to make this any easier. Look how he reacted last time, not prepared for one second to hear a word against his brother. She crossed her arms across her body and stepped past him, towards the door. ‘Can we talk outside, Clint? Leighton’s asleep.’

He frowned. ‘Sure. Are we planning on getting noisy?’

That was almost a certainty.

‘If this is about the other day—’

‘It’s not,’ she whispered, low and shaky. ‘At least, not directly. Please, come outside.’

On his parents’ little back porch she paced up and down, ordering her thoughts. He watched her closely but didn’t speak. Scenarios played out in high-speed in her mind. Different ways this could go. All of them ended in Clint getting hurt.

She finally blurted the easiest part of the story, just for somewhere to start. ‘Justin killed that kangaroo.’

His whole body tensed. His lips thinned. ‘Romy…’

‘Hear me out.’ Both her hands shot up and she stepped towards him. ‘I found the vehicle that night at the fundraiser when I twisted my ankle. It was Justin’s. I just got confirmation from Licensing an hour ago.’

Clint’s jaw clamped as he turned away in the half shadows of the porch light. ‘You’re still on his case?’

‘I never was on his case, Clint.’ Her heart thundered. She straightened her back as though it would make the slightest difference against six-four of angry man. This was all so horribly familiar. But she had to keep going. ‘But I am now.’

‘Romy, he regrets it. He told me—’

‘Will you listen! This has nothing to do with being felt up by your brother. I didn’t even know it was your brother I was looking for when I had the plate number analysed. I was just doing my job.’

Clint looked sideways at her, his eyes narrowed.

The man that had the power to make her feel so good could also make her feel bad with one bitter look. She took a steadying breath. It didn’t help. ‘He hit the kangaroo and then didn’t report it.’

A curse tumbled off his lips. ‘So sue him, Romy. If he hit the roo, then I’ll be giving him a long lecture about responsibility. It’s unfortunate but hardly a federal offence.’

If. Even now he had so little faith in her. She steeled herself to continue. To hurt him the way she knew she had to. ‘Clint, there’s more…’

‘Oh, I’ll bet there is. You’re nothing if not zealous in your pursuit of justice.’

The acid tone served its purpose. She felt the burning judgement as it spattered her. Her throat tightened and she clamped her lips, losing courage.

‘No, don’t stop now, Romy. Spit it all out. What else has my evil, damaged little brother done to offend?’

The sarcasm sliced her like tumbling scalpels. She wanted to hurl it at him now—the truth about Justin—but she knew she’d only get moments once she started. And hurting Clint was hurting her, doubly. Her chest collapsed in. This could only go one way. She was ripping out both their hearts.

‘I’m…I’m worried about the cockatoos. The breach in the fence…’ Tremors gave her a weak kind of vibrato. ‘I think Justin’s connected. The customs memo—’

‘Stop!’

He rounded on her then, his eyes a roaring furnace. The blazing fury in his expression burned her. He advanced and she stumbled over her own feet back into the corner, dipping her head instinctively. It was an ingrained survival technique, but she disgusted herself with her cowardice.

Clint froze. For long, cold, silent seconds. Then he stumbled away from her, her name a curse on his lips.

She fought the sting of tears. Not again. Not this time. She lifted her chin and met his wide, horrified gaze with critically dry eyes. Her blood thundered in her ears, her pulse throbbing in her temple, her throat, her mouth. The devastation on his face was nearly her undoing. But he had to know…And he was listening at last.

Her chest throbbed. ‘He was expelled from the US on drug charges, Clint. Serious ones. He has a criminal record.’

She watched the emotions play over his features, features she’d come to care for so deeply. The horror, the sorrow, the acceptance. Then he dropped his eyes.

‘I know.’

She almost missed his soft confession as an owl screeched in the darkness nearby. She sucked in a lungful of icy, aching air. Stared at him for endless moments until finally able to speak, raw and strained. ‘Then why have I torn my heart out to work out how to tell you?’

He sank down on the swing chair. ‘He had to come home. It was part of his conditions. That he live with me. Here.’

Romy sagged. Far from trouble. Under the watchful eye of his highly awarded, ex-military brother.

Clint went on. ‘He wanted a chance to prove himself. To make a fresh start.’

She dropped her head. ‘I can understand that.’

‘I think we all can.’

More silence. ‘You think I’m taking that chance away from him.’

‘Aren’t you?’

Romy’s heart lurched painfully. You’d think she’d have developed some immunity to condemnation after her childhood. ‘I’m not doing this to catch Justin out. I’m doing it to protect you.’

He lifted unreadable eyes to hers. ‘Why?’

‘Because he’s going to betray you.’ She stared at him steadily. ‘And because you love him.’

And because I love you.

Romy’s whole body reeled as the words clattered unspoken through her brain. She grabbed at the balustrade and clung to it, trying desperately to look as though she was doing nothing more than collecting her thoughts when in reality she was struggling to breathe. She forced her lungs to inflate. Once. Twice.

Oh, God, no…

‘Would you do something for me, Romy?’ His flat, lifeless voice brought her head back around. ‘If I asked you to…would you drop your investigation? Would you trust me to deal with this my own way?’

Her blood thundered past her ears in torrents and her stomach squeezed into a ball. Everything she’d ever believed in hung suspended in front of her, right next to everything she’d ever wanted. And she couldn’t have both. One would make her a traitor to the principles she held most dear. The other would effectively betray Clint.

She looked at the agony in his eyes and her heart answered for her, though it stretched to snapping point. Her conscience lowered its eyes. ‘If it was in my power. Yes, I would.’ There was no doubt that he’d put his brother’s misdeeds to rights. Stop Justin before he did anything to harm anyone more than he already had. But that meant…

‘But I can’t stay if that happens.’ The fracture in her voice echoed the one in her heart and salty tears seeped into her throat through the microscopic fissures. ‘I have to think about Leighton. He’s all I’ve got.’ He could take whatever risks he wanted to with his business but she was not risking her son.

Clint’s eyes fluttered shut. He nodded, his voice thick. ‘You should go. Take him far away from here. From me.’

She just nodded. Unable to speak a word for the rigidness in her throat. Knowing what was coming. And what she had to tell him.

Don’t ask…don’t ask…

He lifted tortured eyes and an invisible sword suspended perilously, aimed at her chest. ‘I know what this will mean to you so I wouldn’t ask lightly. He’s my little brother, Romy. My Leighton.’ He took her icy hands in his. ‘So I am asking. Will you trust me to deal with this in my own way? Will you let it go?’

For me.

If she said yes she would have to take Leighton away from WildSprings. And if she said no Clint would never forgive her. Her breath shuddered. The Colonel’s cruel laughter filled her brain, tight and hysterical.

Either way she was going to lose Clint.

Nausea washed through her in thick waves. As it happened, it was entirely irrelevant. She clenched the timber balustrade behind her for courage. Then she took a breath and fell forwards onto the invisible sword.

‘I’ve already emailed Customs.’

Clint closed his eyes. Dropped his head as though he couldn’t tolerate its weight a second longer. As though he’d expected her betrayal. ‘Of course you have.’

Panic started to flare deep in her chest. Her voice cracked. ‘I had to do what was right—’

‘I know.’

His quiet words ended it all. Awful, irreparable stillness fell between them. What else could she say? What else could she expect? They were brothers. And betraying the one that meant nothing to her had betrayed the one that meant everything.

Her voice, when she finally spoke, was deadened with pain she hoped he couldn’t hear. ‘What do you want me to do?’ she whispered.

The night crickets swelled in volume. His dead eyes lifted to lock on hers…and her heart broke.

‘You should still go.’

Romy’s chest felt as hollow and ancient as the caverns Clint liked to explore. As though everything in it had been suspended in time, waiting for the right man to shine his light and reveal its wonders. As short as it had lasted, it had felt spectacular.

Stupid of her not to have considered what would happen when he climbed on through and out of the cavern.

She swallowed the ache, let it scab over into numbness. ‘You still want me to leave?’

He shook his head from side to side slowly, sadly. ‘Yes.’

Her voice thickened with unrealised tears. ‘Because I exposed your brother?’

‘Because you had to.’ He lifted gleaming green pools and met her pain head-on. ‘I don’t want to put you in that position, Romy. Having to choose between me or your values. I’ve been in that position and I knew what it does to you, long-term.’

Her stomach clenched.

‘I can’t guarantee we won’t be in this position again. My life’s pivotal moments are framed by bad decisions.’ He spoke more to the night than to her. ‘Justin’s near-drowning. Not stopping the LT from killing that kid. Dogging on him to Command. Letting my dad leave, alone…’

‘You have a flaming star on your wall, Clint.’

He turned hard eyes on her. ‘Do you have any idea what I got that for?’

Romy took in the ugly way he held his body. Like it no longer fit him.

‘I was shot three times just as my unit was bugging out of a village hot zone. I tied myself to the front of the Humvee and I just kept firing as we reversed at high speed back into the desert.’

‘What’s unworthy about that? It sounds extraordinary.’

‘I strapped myself in with the rifle straps of my dead buddies so I wouldn’t be left behind if I passed out. To die at the hands of—’ He lurched out of his seat and crossed the porch. ‘To die alone.’

The numbness wasn’t working. Wasn’t doing its job. Pain for him leaked through and pooled deep in her chest. ‘That just makes you human, Clint.’

He swung back to her. ‘I’m supposed to be superhuman, Romy. Protector of the realm. I’m supposed to look out for others, not myself. I failed Justin, I failed that kid in the desert and now I’m failing you.’

‘How?’

‘I have an opportunity to be there for Justin. To make up for what happened to him when I was too busy hitting on some teenagers to watch for his safety. To make up for the slow start he got on education and how behind he was when our mother dragged him halfway around the world. I owe him that.’

Anxiety shook her voice. The stakes were just too high. ‘Justin’s made his own choices, Clint. As a child and as an adult. We all make choices and have to live with the outcome.’ She glanced inside as though her outcome would come trotting down the stairs any second.

‘He’s my little brother, Romy. And he’s in trouble. If it was Leighton wouldn’t you do everything in your power to help him? Regardless of what path he’d taken?’

Leighton. The idea of her baby in trouble…

She sighed, knowing that Clint had no more choice than she did about who he put first in his life. ‘Yes. I would.’ Then she remembered something. ‘But you told me yourself that part of every boy’s journey is to stand on his own feet. Make his own mistakes. That I can’t protect Leighton from everything.’

‘It’s not the same.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Gut-deep sorrow sapped her courage. ‘Maybe it’s time for Justin to grow up.’

Hard as that would be for Clint to allow. Hard as that would be for her when it was Leighton’s turn. Clint was a classic example of what happens when you can’t let go. He was just too close to see it.

His eyes darkened. He pushed himself to his feet. ‘I should go.’

This was it. The last time she’d see him. Anxiety surged up like a flock of birds exploding to flight. ‘You’re going to warn Justin?’

‘I have to, Romy. Please understand.’

‘I meant what I said, Clint. I can’t keep Leighton here, near danger.’

He swallowed hard. ‘I meant what I said, too.’

Talons tore through her. ‘That I should go.’

‘That you both should. Go somewhere that you can be happy. Where my darkness won’t engulf you.’

Romy had lost too much in her life to let this break her. She stiffened her back, faced him and spoke between strangled breaths. ‘You love Justin that much?’

Clint turned tortured eyes back to her.

She pushed. ‘Enough that letting us go is easier than letting him go?’

Neither one of them pretended there wasn’t something between them. ‘It has to be. It’s not about me.’

‘What if he’s not worth it?’

‘He’s my brother.’

And there it was. She’d been in his life mere weeks. What chance did she have against the boy Clint had spent a lifetime trying to atone for. Against family.

Romy stepped back and let him walk away.

Clint hated that this would be the memory he took with him for the rest of his life. The pain etched into the lines of her face, the confusion, the betrayal. He steeled himself against her scent as he stepped past her but it unravelled around his feet and tangled him, slowing him, wanting him to stay.

Almost as much as he did.

At the last moment, he turned and leaned into her warmth, pressing his icy lips to the furnace of her hair. Lingering. Knowing there would be no more kisses. No more sweet, natural Romy scent. She didn’t want even that, pulling away violently and stumbling to the screen door.

And then she was gone. Inside, back to her family. He turned to go and find his. All that was left of it.

As he crossed to his ute, he forced the dark shadow down deep, where others lived and multiplied at will. What was more pain in his already bleak life? Getting his life together was a crazy fantasy. Men like him didn’t get happy ever afters. He hadn’t earned it.

The package—woman and child—would go to some other guy. Someone with more goodness in him. His journey looked a little different. But if he could salvage something for his brother, make good on years of separation and loss…That was a start, wasn’t it? Worth something? But he couldn’t do that with Romy around with her big, silent, all-seeing eyes reminding him every day of the monumental task that was going to be.

It would be easier alone. And eventually it wouldn’t hurt this much.

If he was lucky.

Clint yanked hard on the door to his truck just as a word, high-pitched and desperate, screeched through the night.

‘Leighton!’

It hung impotently in the air as he sprinted back towards the house and the wailing woman within.

‘He’s gone! His bed’s empty.’

Romy burst out of the house and practically fell into his arms, her whole body trembling. Instinct forced him straight into field mode. He pushed her back and locked his eyes onto hers. ‘Gone how? We were sitting at the doorway.’

‘The window. He climbed down the outside of the house…’ She spun around to scan the thick, endless darkness behind them and then called his name, loudly and desperately into the silence of night. ‘Oh, God, what if he heard us fighting?’

‘Then he’s only a few minutes away.’ The calm logic was nothing like the clenched fist of fear deep in his belly. He marshalled it in.

‘I have to find him.’ She turned and bolted back into the house and Clint stayed close behind her. Young boys and the Australian bush at night were not a good fit. His thumping heart went straight into a familiar rhythm. The rhythm of combat, the rhythm his mind was trained to work with. Beats that directed his thoughts, helped stop him from losing it.

With Romy falling apart he couldn’t afford to.

But damn it, he was not going to stand by and do nothing while another child was in danger. His brother would have to wait.

He dogged her heels as Romy emptied the contents of her large rucksack onto the kitchen table. First-aid kit, water, torch, jellybeans for sugar, PDA. She hauled the GPS out, set it to track, tipped her head up to the ceiling and closed her eyes. It took a moment, but finally the unit returned a signal.

‘You track Leighton?’

Wide, terrified eyes turned in his direction. ‘I don’t have time for another lecture in obsessive parenting. I need to find my son.’

The unit started to ping, strong and relatively close. She turned the tracker towards the door and the pitch intensified.

‘What’s the source?’

‘His backpack.’

Clever. Obsessive parenting clearly had its advantages. Finding Leighton just got a whole heap easier. No less dangerous but hopefully faster. She scooped everything back into her rucksack, slung it over her shoulder and sprinted towards the door.

‘Romy, wait!’ He barely managed to grasp her arm as she darted past him.

She tried to shrug off his iron grip. ‘Go look for Justin, Clint. Leave me to find my son.’ Her chest heaved with poorly repressed anger.

‘It’s dangerous out there for you, too, Romy.’

Her eyes seemed to soften and her body shifted slightly, alert but no longer—

The thought wasn’t even finished and she broke free of his grip and ran. Man, the woman was fast when she needed to be. She was off the porch and halfway across the clearing towards the trees before he even got close to catching up to her. Did she even know where she was going? He kept his eye locked on the blue of her sweater. In seconds, it was swallowed up by the deep, dark green of the night forest.

He kicked into gear behind her.

Running full pelt through the darkened bush felt strangely familiar. It reminded him of any number of secret missions in conflict hot spots, as though no time at all had passed since he’d been in active combat. He called on his training to regulate his pounding heart and lighten his footfalls so he could hear the bush ahead of him, follow his ears. Track his prey.

Crack. Over to the right.

He set off again, springing lightly on well-trained feet, dodging bushes and trip hazards in an effort to catch up with Romy. A big part of him feared for her. She wasn’t used to moving through this bush and definitely not at speed. And her ankle was still not healed. There was every chance she’d hurt herself.

He kicked himself for caring. She’d turned his brother in without a moment’s hesitation…

The pursuit ran on. Then, out of nowhere, a flash of movement caught his eye. She’d stopped running and limped towards him over to his right, shaking and gasping.

‘This is not getting Leighton found, Clint!’ Forming the words between laboured breaths was obvious torture for her. She favoured her injured ankle.

Clint toughened his heart against her drawn features, the brightness of her eyes. ‘We should call for backup.’ He couldn’t bring himself to say words like emergency services or ambulance. A vision of another young boy he’d failed to save flashed in his mind. And another one, cold and blue from the water in a dam so close to here.

‘You’re my backup, McLeish. Help me or get out of my way.’

Choose. Justin or Leighton.

A grown man who’d made his own decisions in life or an eight-year-old boy who was desperately in need of guidance. Of a father. Of help.

Choose. Family or…

Clint’s heart started thumping hard.

Somewhere in the past few weeks he’d started to think of Leighton as family. Of Romy as being his. The idea of both mother and son stumbling through the bush in the pitch darkness risking injury or worse brought a bitter, acrid taste to Clint’s mouth. Romy knew a heap about surveillance but he was willing to bet she knew nothing about tracking.

His expression must have answered for him because a whimper of air pushed out of her. ‘Let me go,’ she begged. ‘Let me find Leighton.’

‘No.’

She stood impaled.

‘Not without help,’ he said. ‘I’m coming with you.’