Australian Affairs: Wed: Second Chance with Her Soldier / The Firefighter to Heal Her Heart / Wedding at Sunday Creek

Damn it, they were at it already. Joe gave a carefully exaggerated shrug. Whatever. He’d had enough of war at home and abroad. On this visit he was determined to remain peaceful.

He turned his attention to his son. ‘So how are you, Jacko?’

The boy squirmed and held out his arms. ‘Down,’ he demanded. ‘I want Man.’

With an anxious smile, Ellie released him.

The little boy rushed at Joe’s legs and looked up at him with big blue eyes and a grin of triumph.

What now? Joe thought awkwardly. He reached down and took his son’s tiny plump hand and gave it a shake. ‘Pleased to meet you, Jacko.’

He deliberately avoided noting Ellie’s reaction.

* * *

They drove down to the river flats with their son strapped into the toddler seat between them, and Ellie tried not to mind that Jacko seemed to be obsessed with Joe.

The whole way, the little boy kept giggling and making eyes at the tall dark figure beside him, and he squealed with delight when Joe pulled faces.

A man’s presence at Karinya was a novelty, of course, and Ellie knew that Jacko had been starved of masculine company. He was always intrigued by any male visitor.

Problem was that today Ellie was almost as intrigued as her son, especially when she watched Joe take off on the trail bike through the rain and the mud. He looked so spectacularly athletic and fit and so totally at home on the back of a motorbike, rounding up the herd, ducking and weaving through patches of scrub.

He certainly hadn’t lost his touch.

‘Show-off,’ she muttered with a reluctant grim smile as he jumped the bike over a pile of fallen timber and then skilfully edged the stragglers forward into the mob, heading them up the slope towards the open gate where she was parked.

‘Joe!’ Jacko cried, bouncing in his car seat and pointing through the windscreen. He clapped his hands. ‘Look, Mummy! Joe!’

‘Yeah, he looks good, all right,’ Ellie had to admit. In terms of skill and getting the job done quickly, Joe might never have been away.

And that felt dangerous.

Out of the blue, she found herself remembering their wedding day and the short ceremony in the register office in Townsville. She and Joe had decided they didn’t want to go through awkward explanations about her pregnancy to their families, and neither of them had wanted the fuss of a big family wedding.

They’d both agreed they could deal with their families later. On that day, all they’d wanted was to commit to each other. Their elopement had seemed soooo romantic.

But it had also been reckless, Ellie thought now as she saw how brightly her son’s eyes shone as he watched Joe.

‘Don’t be too impressed, sweetheart. Take Mummy’s word; it’s simply not worth it. That man will only break your heart.’

Jacko merely chortled.

* * *

It was dark by the time Joe came into the kitchen, having showered and changed into dry clothes. Outside, the rain still pelted down, drumming on the roof and streaming over the edge of the guttering, but Ellie had closed the French windows leading onto the veranda and the kitchen was bright and cosy.

She tried not to notice how red-hot attractive Joe looked in a simple white T-shirt and blue jeans, with his dark hair damp from the shower, his bright eyes an unforgettable piercing blue. The man was still unlawfully sexy.

But Joe seemed to have acquired a lone wolf aura now. In addition to his imperfect nose that had been broken in a punch-up when he was seventeen, there was a hard don’t-mess-with-me look in his eyes that made her wonder what he’d been through over the past four years.

Almost certainly, he’d been required to kill people, and she couldn’t quite get her head around that. How had that changed him?

The Army had kept the Commandos’ deployments short and frequent in a bid to minimise post-traumatic stress, but no soldier returned from war unscarred. These days, everyone knew that. For Ellie, there was the extra, heavily weighing knowledge that their unhappy marriage had pushed Joe in the Army’s direction.

And now, here they were, standing in the same room, but she was painfully aware of the wide, unbridgeable chasm that gaped open between them.

She turned and lifted the lid on the slow cooker, giving its contents a stir, wishing she was more on top of this situation.

‘That smells amazing,’ said Joe.

She felt a small flush of satisfaction. She’d actually set their dinner simmering earlier in the day, hoping it would fill the kitchen with enticing aromas, but she responded to Joe’s compliment with a casual shrug and tried not to look too pleased. ‘It’s just a Spanish chicken dish.’

‘Spanish?’ Joe raised a quizzical eyebrow.

No doubt he was remembering her previously limited range of menus. ‘I’ve broadened my recipe repertoire.’

Joe almost smiled, but then he seemed to change his mind. Sinking his hands into his jeans pockets, he looked around the kitchen, taking in the table set with red and white gingham mats and the sparkling white cupboards and timber bench tops. ‘You’ve also been decorating.’

Ellie nodded. ‘Before I became pregnant with Jacko I painted just about every wall and cupboard in the house.’

‘The nesting instinct?’

‘Something like that.’

Joe frowned at this, his eyes taking on an ambiguous gleam as he stared hard at the cupboards. His Adam’s apple jerked in his throat. ‘It looks great,’ he said gruffly.

But Ellie felt suddenly upset. It felt wrong to be showing off her homemaker skills when she had absolutely no plans to share this home with him.

‘Where’s Jacko?’ he asked, abruptly changing the subject

‘Watching TV. Nina’s recorded his favourite programmes, and he’s happy to watch them over and over. It helps him to wind down at the end of the day.’

This was met by a slow nod but, instead of wandering off to check out his son, Joe continued to stand in the middle of the kitchen with his hands in his pockets, his gaze thoughtful.

‘He doesn’t watch a lot of TV,’ Ellie felt compelled to explain. ‘I...I usually read him story books as well.’

‘I’m sure he loves that.’ Joe’s blue eyes blazed. ‘Chill, Ellie. I’m not here to judge you. I’m sure you’re a great mum. Fantastic.’

Her smile wobbled uncertainly. Why would this compliment make her want to cry?

They should try to relax. She should offer Joe a pre-dinner beer or a glass of wine.

But, before she could suggest this, he said, ‘So, I guess this is as good a time as any for me to sign those divorce papers?’

Ellie’s stomach dropped as if she’d fallen from the top of a mountain. ‘Well...um...yes,’ she said, but she had to grip the bench behind her before her knees gave way. ‘You could sign now...or after dinner.’

‘It’s probably best to get it over with and out of the way.’

‘I guess.’ Her reply was barely a whisper. It was ridiculous. She’d been waiting for this moment for so long. They’d arranged an out of court settlement and their future plans were clear—she would keep on with the lease at Karinya, and Joe had full access to Jacko, although she wasn’t sure how often he planned to see his son.

This settlement was what she wanted, of course, and yet she felt suddenly bereft, as if a great hole had opened up in her life, almost as if someone had died.

What on earth was the matter with her? Joe’s signature would provide her with her ticket of leave.

Freedom beckoned.

The feeling of loss was nothing more than a temporary lapse, an aberration brought on by the unscheduled spot of cattle work that she and Joe had shared this afternoon. Rounding up the herd by the river had felt too dangerously like the good old days when they’d still been in love.

‘Ellie?’ Joe was standing stiffly to attention now, his eyes alert but cool, watching her intently. ‘You’re OK about this, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, of course. I’m totally fine.’ She spoke quickly, not quite meeting his gaze, and then she drew a deep, fortifying breath, hoping it would stop the trembling in her knees. ‘The papers are in the study.’

‘Ellie.’

The unexpected gentleness in his voice brought her spinning around. ‘Yes?’

‘I wish...’

‘What?’ She almost snapped this question.

What do you wish? Tell me quickly, Joe.

Did he wish they didn’t have to do this? Was he asking for another chance to save their marriage?

‘I wish you didn’t look so pale and upset.’

Her attempt to laugh came out as a hiccup. Horrified, she seized on the handiest weapon—anger. It was the weapon she’d used so often with this man, firing holes into the bedrock of their marriage. ‘If I’m upset, Joe, it’s because this is a weird situation.’

‘But we agreed.’ He seemed angry, too, but his anger was annoyingly cold and controlled. ‘It’s what you want, isn’t it?’

‘Sure, we agreed, and yes, it’s what I want. But it’s still weird. How many people agree to a divorce and then put it on hold for four years?’

‘You know why we did that—so you’d be looked after financially if I was killed.’

‘Yes, I know, and that was generous of you. Just the same, it hasn’t been a picnic here.’ Suddenly, Ellie could feel the long months of tension giving way inside her, rushing to the surface, hot and explosive. ‘While you were away being the hero in Afghanistan, you were distracted by everything over there. But I was here, supposed to be divorced, but surrounded by all of this.’

Flinging her arm dramatically, she gestured to the homestead and the paddocks beyond. ‘Every day, I was left with the remnants of our lives together. A constant reminder of everything that went wrong.’

‘So why did you stay?’ Joe asked coolly.

Ellie gasped, momentarily caught out. ‘I’m surprised you have to ask,’ she said quickly to cover her confusion.

He shrugged a cool, questioning eyebrow.

And Ellie looked away. She’d asked herself the same question often enough. She knew exactly why she’d stayed. Even now, she could hear her dad’s voice from all those years ago. If you start something, Ellie, you’ve got to see it through.

Her dad had told her this just before her thirteenth birthday. She’d been promised a horse for her birthday and he’d been building proper stables instead of the old two-sided tin shelter they’d had until then.

Ellie had helped him by holding hammers or the long pieces of timber and she’d handed up nails and screws. While they worked her dad had reminded her that owning a horse was a long-term project.

‘You can’t take up a responsibility like a horse and then lose interest,’ he’d said. ‘I’ve known people like that. They never stick at anything, always have to be trying something different, and they end up unhappy and wondering what went wrong.’

Tragically, her father had never finished those stables. He’d also he’d been mending a windmill and he’d fallen and died three days before Ellie’s birthday. In the bleak months that followed, Ellie’s mum had sold their farm and moved into town, and the horse that should have been Ellie’s had gone to another girl in her class at school.

In a matter of months, Ellie lost everything—her darling father, her beloved farm, her dreams of owning a horse. And the bittersweet irony of her father’s words had been seared into her brain.

If you start something, you’ve got to see it through.

Years later, with a failed marriage and failed attempts at parenthood weighing her down, she’d been determined that she wouldn’t let go of Karinya as well.

‘So why did you stay here?’ Joe repeated.

With her arms folded protectively over her chest, Ellie told him. ‘I love this place, Joe. I’m proud of it, and I’ve worked hard to improve it. It was hard enough giving up half a dream without giving up Karinya as well.’

Joe’s only reaction was to stand very still, watching her with a stern, unreadable gaze. If Ellie hadn’t been studying him with equal care, she might have missed the fleeting shadow that dimmed his bright blue eyes, or the telltale muscle twitching in his jaw.

But she did see these signs, and they made something unravel inside her.

Damn you, Joe. Tell me what you’re thinking.

Painful seconds ticked by, but neither of them moved nor spoke. Ellie almost reached out and said, Do we need to talk about this?

But it wasn’t an easy question to ask when it was Joe who’d originally suggested their divorce. He’d never shown any sign of backing down, so now her stubborn pride kept her silent.

Eventually, he said quietly, ‘So, about this signing?’

Depressed but resolute, Ellie pointed to the doorway to the study. ‘The papers are in here.’

As she reached the study, she didn’t look back to check that Joe was following her. Skirting the big old silky oak desk that they’d bought at an antique shop in Charters Towers, she marched straight to the shelves Joe had erected all those years ago and she lifted down a well-thumbed Manila folder.

She sensed Joe behind her but she didn’t look at him as she turned and placed the folder on the desk. In silence she opened it to reveal the sheaf of papers that she’d lodged with the courts.

‘I guess you’ll want to read these through,’ she said, eyes downcast.

‘There’s no need. Geoffrey Bligh has sent me a copy. I know what it says.’

‘Oh? All right.’ Ellie opened a drawer and selected a black pen. ‘So, I’ve served you with the papers, and all you need to do now is sign to acknowledge that you accept them.’ She still couldn’t look him in the eye.

She was trembling inside and she took a deep breath.

‘There,’ she said dully, setting the appropriate sheet of paper on the desk and then stepping away to make room for Joe.

His face was stonily grim as he approached the desk, but he showed no sign of hesitation as he picked up the pen.

As he leaned over the desk, Ellie watched the neat dark line of his hair across the back of his neck and she saw a vein pulsing just below his ear. She noticed how strong his hand looked as he gripped the pen.

Unhelpfully, she remembered his hand, those fingers touching her when they made love. It seemed so long ago and yet it was so unforgettable.

There’d been a time in their marriage when they’d been so good at sex.

Joe scrawled his spiky signature, then set the pen down and stood staring fiercely at the page now decorated with his handwriting.

It was over.

In the morning he would take this final piece of paper with him to their solicitor but, to all intents and purposes, they were officially and irrevocably divorced.

And now they had to eat dinner together. Ellie feared the Spanish chicken would taste like dust in her mouth.

CHAPTER THREE

IT SHOULD HAVE been cosy eating Ellie’s delicious meal in the homestead kitchen to the accompaniment of the steadily falling rain. But Joe had dined in Kabul when a car bomb exploded just outside and he’d felt more relaxed then than he did now with his ex.

It shouldn’t be this way.

All their tensions were supposed to be behind them now. They were no longer man and wife. Their marriage was over, both in reality and on paper. It was like signing a peace treaty. No more disputes. Everything was settled.

They were free. Just friends. No added expectations.

And yet Ellie had barely touched the food she’d taken so much trouble to prepare. Joe supposed she wished he was gone—completely out of her hair.

As long as he hung around this place, they would both be besieged by this edgy awareness of each other that kept them on tenterhooks.

Ellie was meticulously shredding the tender chicken on her plate with her fork. ‘So what are your plans now?’ she asked in the carefully polite tone people used when they were making an effort to maintain a semblance of normality. ‘Are you staying in the Army?’

Joe shook his head. ‘I have a job lined up—with a government team in the Southern Ocean—patrolling for poachers and illegal fishermen.’

‘The Southern Ocean?’ Ellie couldn’t have looked more surprised or upset if he’d announced he was going to mine asteroids in outer space. ‘So...so Jacko won’t see you at all?’

Annoyed by this, Joe shrugged. ‘If you plan to stay out here, it wouldn’t matter what sort of work I did—I still wouldn’t be able to see the boy very often.’

‘There’s an Army base in Townsville.’

This was a surprise. He’d expected Ellie to be pleased that he’d be well away from her. ‘As I said, I’m leaving the Army.’

Ellie’s eyes widened. ‘I thought you loved it. I thought it was supposed to be what you’d always wanted.’

‘It was,’ Joe said simply. For possibly the first time in his life, he’d felt a true sense of belonging with his fellow Commandos. He’d grown up as the youngest in his family, but he’d always been the little nuisance tag-along, hanging around his four older brothers, never quite big enough to keep up, never quite fitting in.

In the Army he’d truly discovered a ‘band of brothers’, united by the challenge and threat of active service. But everything about the Army would be different now, and he couldn’t bear the thought of a desk job.

Ellie dipped her fork into a pile of savoury rice, but she didn’t lift it to her mouth. ‘I can’t see you in a boat, rolling around in the Southern Ocean. You’ve always been a man of the land. You have all the bush skills and knowledge.’

It was true that Joe loved the bush, and he’d especially loved starting his own cattle business here at Karinya. But what was the point of rehashing ancient history?

‘I guess I feel like a change,’ he said with a shrug.

‘When do you have to start this new job?’

‘In a few weeks. Mid-January.’

‘That soon?’

He shrugged again. He was pleased he had an approaching deadline. Given the mess of his private life, he needed a plan, somewhere definite to go with new horizons.

‘Will you mind—’ Ellie began, but then she swallowed and looked away. ‘Will it bother you that you won’t see much of Jacko?’

Joe inhaled a sharp, instinctively protective breath. He was trying really hard not to think too much about his son, about all the milestones he’d already missed and those he would miss in the future—the day-to-day adventure of watching a small human being come to terms with the world. ‘Maybe I’ll be more use to him later on, when he’s older.’

It was clearly the wrong thing to say.

Ellie’s jaw jutted. She looked tenser than ever. Awkward seconds ticked by. Joe wished he didn’t have to try so damn hard, even now, after they’d broken up.

‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘I haven’t asked how you are now. Are you keeping well?’

‘I am well, actually. I think having Jacko has made a big difference, both mentally and physically. I must admit I’m a lot calmer these days. And I think all the hard outdoor work here has paid off as well.’ She touched her stomach. ‘Internally, things...um...seem to have settled down.’

‘That’s fantastic.’ He knew how she’d suffered and he was genuinely pleased for her. ‘So, do you have plans?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Are you planning to move on from here?’ Joe steeled himself. If there was a new man in her life, this was her chance to say so.

But her jaw dropped so hard Joe almost heard it crack.

‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’

‘Not at all.’

‘You really think I could willingly leave Karinya?’

‘Well, it’s got to be tough for you out here on your own. You need help.’

‘I hire help if I need it—fencing contractors, ringers, jillaroos...’

The relief he felt was ridiculous. He covered it with a casual shrug. ‘I’ve heard it’s hard to find workers these days. Everyone’s heading for the mines.’

‘I’ve managed.’

Joe couldn’t resist prying. ‘I suppose you might have a boyfriend lined up already?’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake.’ Ellie was angry now.

And, although he knew it was foolish, he couldn’t help having one last dig. ‘I thought your mother might have had a victory. What was the name of that guy she picked out for you? The potato farmer near Hay? Orlando?’

‘Roland,’ Ellie said tightly. ‘And he grows all sorts of vegetables—lettuce, pumpkins, tomatoes, corn—much more than potatoes. He’s making a fortune, apparently.’

‘Quite a catch,’ Joe said, more coldly than he’d meant to.

‘Yes, and a gentleman, too.’ Ellie narrowed her eyes at Joe. ‘Do you really want me to give up this lease? Are you worried about the money?’

‘No,’ he snapped tersely. He couldn’t deny he was impressed by Ellie’s tenacity, even if it suggested that she was prepared to work much harder at the cattle business than she had at their marriage. ‘I just think it’s too big a property for a woman to run on her own, especially for a woman with a small child to care for as well.’

‘Nina will be back after Christmas. She’s great with Jacko.’

Joe recognised a brick wall when he ran into it and he let the subject drop. He suspected Ellie was as relieved as he was when the meal was finally over.

* * *

With the aid of night vision goggles, Joe made his way through a remote Afghan village, moving with the stealth of a panther on the prowl. In every dark alley and around every corner the threat of danger lurked and Joe was on high alert, listening for the slightest movement or sound.

As forward scout, his responsibilities weighed heavily. Five Australian soldiers depended on his skills, trusting that he wouldn’t lead them blindly into an ambush.

As he edged around another corner, a sudden crash shattered the silence. Joe’s night vision vanished. He was plunged into darkness.

Adrenaline exploded in his vitals. How had he lost his goggles? Or—hell—had worse happened? Had he been blinded?

He couldn’t even find his damn rifle.

To add to the confusion, a persistent drumming sounded above and around him.

What the hell had happened?

Even more bizarrely, when Joe stepped forward he felt carpet beneath his feet. His bare feet. What was going on? Where was he?

Panic flared. Had he gone raving mad? Where were his boots? His weapon?

Totally disoriented, he blinked, and at last his vision cleared slightly. He could just make out the dimmest of details, and he seemed to be naked apart from boxer shorts and, yes, his feet were bare and they were definitely sinking into soft carpet.

He had absolutely no idea where the hell he was, or how he’d got there.

Then he heard a small child’s cry and his stomach lurched. As a Commando, in close contact with the enemy, his greatest fear was that he might inadvertently bring harm to Afghan children.

It was still difficult to see as he made his way through the pitch-black night, moving towards the child’s cry, bumping into a bookcase.

A bookcase?

A doorway.

Ahead, down a passage, he saw a faint glow—it illuminated painted tongue-and-groove timber walls. Walls that were strangely familiar.

Karinya.

Hell, yeah. Of course.

A soft oath broke from him. He’d woken from a particularly vivid dream and he was back in North Queensland and, while he couldn’t explain the crashing sound, the crying child was...

Jacko.

His son.

Joe’s heart skidded as he scorched into Jacko’s room. In the glow of a night light, he saw the toddler huddled and frightened on the floor in the wreckage of his cot. Without hesitation, Joe dived and swept the boy into his arms.

Jacko was shaking but, in Joe’s arms, he nestled against his bare chest, a warm ball sobbing, seeking protection and clearly trusting Joe to provide it.

‘Shh.’ Joe pressed his lips to the boy’s soft hair and caught the amazing smell of shampoo, probably baby shampoo. ‘You’re OK. I’ve got you.’

I’m your father.

The boy felt so little and warm in Joe’s arms. And so scared. A fierce wave of emotion came sweeping through Joe—a surge of painful yearning—an urge to protect this warm, precious miniature man, to keep him safe at all costs.