Wanted: Outback Wife

‘It went okay,’ Jodie said, playing down mightily how much better than okay her night with Heath Jameson had been. After escaping The Cave, she and Heath had walked for hours, following their feet up boulevards and down side streets, as they’d enjoyed the balmy spring night.

And they had talked. The subject of Jodie’s disinclination for and Heath’s love of chocolate had kept them going for an hour all on its own. They had never even found the dessert Heath had been hankering for; instead, hours later they had settled for a kebab when a take-away van had loomed in their meandering path.

‘Come on, Lou, what happened with Ivy? Tell me.’

Louise half nodded and half shook her head. ‘It was awkward to say the least. I thought I would be upset, or angry. But I just felt numb.’

‘Did you talk to your dad?’

Louise shook her head. ‘I’m livid enough at her, but I’m nowhere near ready to tackle the mistrust I feel for him. He didn’t just lie to me; he lied to so many of us. If I didn’t have you here, now, and this place…’

Jodie leant over and gave Louise a one-armed squeeze. ‘I’m glad you’re here too,’ Jodie said. ‘Truly. And stay as long as you like. No worries. You might even fall in love with the place as I have.’

Louise smiled at her, her blue-grey eyes so familiar. So much like Patricia’s. For one blinding moment, Jodie missed her mum, and wondered where she was. She hadn’t heard from her in a few weeks since she and her new husband Derek had started travelling, but if they hit trouble surely he would let her know and ask her to come home and…

No. That wasn’t her place now.

‘No worries?’ Louise repeated. ‘There was a definite Australian accent there.’

‘Really?’ Jodie liked that idea very much.

‘Absolutely. And you’ve got the whole relaxed Aussie thing going on as well. I’m wondering if it comes to you all through the sun rays.’

Jodie laughed. ‘I think it must. Back home I was a right Londoner. Cool, grey, and with all the vigour of a wet winter’s day.’

Jodie’s mind shot once again to her night with Heath. He was the perfect embodiment of all the things she loved about Australia—warmth, ease, leisure—the antithesis of bleak, wet, bustling London. Was that why she had been so instantly drawn to him? So ready to know him outside the loaded atmosphere of The Cave, to pretend that it was a real date?

Louise sighed. ‘Listening to you talk with your lovely half-Australian accent, home seems so far away it almost feels unreal.’

Jodie knew just what she meant. She loved the fact that her life here felt unreal. Unreality was bliss. Jodie reached out and took her by the hand. ‘Do you understand now why I have to do whatever I can to stay?’

Louise’s cool blue-grey eyes filled with an even mix of sadness and understanding. She sighed and Jodie knew everything between them was going to be okay. ‘I am actually a little jealous of you, you know. I wish I was in your shoes, with my future a blank canvas before me. Nothing tying me down. Nothing drawing me home.’

‘But you are. You are just like me. Simply choose to stay. For real. Stay for ever.’

A ray of sun seemed to break through the dark cloud hanging over Louise’s head. ‘Ha! Wouldn’t that shock the pants off the whole lot of them? Max, my cousin, would have a conniption fit if he heard that I, the perennial good girl, ran away from home never to return. Well, I guess he’s not really my cousin now, if you come to think about it. But, oh, I would still love to see the look on his face—’

A noise at the front door called their attention. Mandy and Lisa spilled inside carrying their regular Sunday-morning French sticks and Brie.

‘Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in,’ Mandy said as she threw the brown paper bags onto the counter. ‘When you didn’t come back out of the bathroom last night, we thought you had fallen in. You took off with the hot farmer, didn’t you?’

‘Well, actually yes, I did,’ Jodie said, glancing at Louise, who had managed to drag herself away from her deep dark thoughts about her non-cousin Max and was now watching her with renewed interest.

‘Now, Jodie, you made no mention of a hot farmer.’ By the smile in her eyes Jodie knew that her understanding out-weighed her sadness. Jodie could have hugged her.

‘I had to tell the others you’d fallen ill,’ Lisa said, not nearly as impressed with Jodie’s antics as Mandy. ‘With megalomania. And since none of them even knew what the word meant we figured you had made the right decision to leave. So, when’s the big day?’

Jodie flapped a hand at her unmoved friend. ‘Don’t be silly. Heath is the last one I would choose.’

Mandy stopped with a hunk of cheese halfway to her mouth and Jodie knew she had laid it on too thick.

‘Okay, maybe not the last one. Scott from across the hall would beat him to that title by a whisker.’

‘Time is marching on. And if hot farm boy is only good for a one-night-on-the-town fling,’ Mandy said, ‘who the heck is going to be the lucky Mr Jodie Simpson?’

Jodie struggled to remember any of the candidates she had met before Heath had walked in the door, but they were mostly a blur.

It didn’t help that she still felt Heath all around her. The scent of his aftershave lingered on her hair as the night before he had used her wrap as a prop when he’d been doing an impersonation of one of his four sisters. She could still taste sweet chilli sauce on her tongue from the kebab they had shared. And every time she closed her eyes, she could see Heath’s crinkly eyes and smiling, tanned face imprinted there.

‘Umm, maybe Barnaby, the visual merchandiser,’ she said, plucking a name from the furthest recesses of her mind. ‘He would be willing to marry me for rent-free accommodation here. Apparently his favourite gay bar is just around the corner.’

‘So why didn’t you run away with him?’ Louise asked, and Jodie no longer felt like hugging her clever sister.

Mandy grinned at Louise. ‘She makes a good point.’

‘I…I’d had enough by the time Heath came along. If I had to ask one more guy to tell me about himself, I was going to drown myself in a whole bottle of red wine.’

‘Oh, balderdash,’ Lisa said. ‘You fell over when I brought Heath to your table, Jodes.’

‘My foot had fallen asleep,’ she argued.

‘Please! No part of a woman’s body could possibly sleep through that. He was gorgeous.’ This time Lisa got the full-stare treatment from all three girls. ‘Well, he was.’

Jodie raked both hands through her hair. ‘Okay. Fine. He was gorgeous. But he comes from a family of seven. After growing up in the middle of London with my crazy mother my only known relative, I’ve only just discovered I have a half-sister.’

Jodie glanced at Louise, who smiled warmly back. Okay, so hugging was back on the family agenda.

‘Besides which,’ Jodie continued, ‘he lives on a farm, and I live here. And I want to stay here. And he wants…’ She wasn’t really sure what he wanted. They had never really discussed it; they had both had too much of a nice time specifically not talking specifics.

‘What does he want?’ Lisa asked.

‘What he deserves is the real deal.’

Mandy shook her head in utter confusion, while Lisa looked at her with too much understanding for Jodie’s comfort.

‘So what next?’ Lisa asked, kindly pinning the attention elsewhere. ‘Do we tell Barnaby the gay visual merchandiser the happy news?’

Somehow Jodie couldn’t rouse any excitement for the idea. ‘Maybe not just yet.’

‘Right. That’s the spirit!’ Mandy ran to the desk in the corner and clicked on the Internet connection. ‘Let’s first see what new men the night has brought us.’

Though it was the last thing she wanted to do, Jodie moved to look over Mandy’s shoulder. And, oh, what choices she had! A lawyer with three teenaged children, a baker looking for a morning person, and a guy who had been on the dole for eight years while he ran a campaign to legalise marijuana in his ‘spare time’.

Time was running out. The calendar above the computer with its bright red crosses showed how little time she did have until The Day She Had To Leave. That decided it for her—she would choose by the end of that day.

Barnaby, Scott, or Heath.

For Heath was still on the maybe list whether she admitted it to the girls or not.

After driving her home the night before, he had walked her to the front door of her apartment building. Shadows and moonlight had slanted across his strong face as they had stood facing one another beneath the ivy-trellised alcove. Her skin still tingled from the feel of his smooth cheek against hers as he had kissed her goodnight.

‘Can I see you again?’ he had asked, his deep voice washing over her.

Jodie’s cheeks flushed pink as she remembered the moment the romantic young girl she had once been before life had beaten her down, the young girl who had spent many a night wishing on the first star, had risen up and answered him with, ‘I would like that.’

The phone rang and, saved by the bell, Jodie leapt for it so fast the phone flew out of her hand. It took some world-class juggling to make sure it didn’t fall.

‘Who-yello!’ she said when she pulled it to her ear.

‘Jodie.’

She knew that voice in an instant. Heath. The deep vibrations tickled through her hand, down her arm and into her stomach.

‘Oh,’ she gasped. ‘Hi. Hang on a sec, will you?’

She shoved a hand over the mouthpiece and climbed over the back of the couch. ‘It’s for me. I’ll take it while I’m having a bath. Two birds with one stone and all that. So save me some Brie. Right? Okay.’

She ran into the bathroom, cringing at the mixed looks of bewilderment and perception on her friends’ faces.

‘Heath. I’m back,’ she said once she had closed the door and heard the girls’ voices start up in conversation.

‘And bathing, I hear.’

‘Oh, no,’ she said, feeling her cheeks pink. ‘Not yet. Fully clothed over here.’

‘Pity,’ he said, taking his time to let the word go.

‘I wasn’t expecting to hear from you again. So soon,’ she added belatedly.

‘Well, I do have to be home again in four hours,’ Heath said, ‘so I thought it best to spend my short time here wisely. Asking you to have morning tea with me feels like the wisest move I’ve made in a long time. A kind of reciprocation for the two-a.m. kebab.’

To block out her conversation, Jodie sat on the edge of the bath and turned on the old taps before pouring in excessive amounts of strawberry bath bubbles. She breathed in deep through her nose as she tried to decide what to do.

On the up side, she and Heath got on well. Ridiculously well. And that was important. What use would it be wasting two years of her life living with someone who drove her around the bend?

But on the down side, Heath Jameson was also charming and way too attractive for comfort. And for that exact reason she ought not to take it any further. She wanted a two-year husband, not a boyfriend. These next two years would be instrumental in her continued self-discovery, and she could not possibly achieve that if her time was spent with someone to whom she felt connected. For Jodie was a woman who had never learnt how to sever connections, no matter how self-destructive they might be.

‘So?’ he finally asked when she had stalled too long. ‘Are you up for it? Has the kebab digested enough that it’s time for a refill?’

Jodie slid her back further down the wall until her knees were level with her nose. Her stomach did feel empty, hollow, and tingling, but that was only half the reason she gave in and said, ‘Yeah, I’m up for it.’

She gave in because she had to let him off the hook face to face. He was worthy of that.

‘Great. I’ll pick you up in fifteen,’ he said.

He was gone before Jodie had the chance to explain to him that she would meet him downstairs. There was no way she was going to let the girls know that she was seeing him again. It was bad enough that she knew that she was fast becoming enchanted by the guy. If they had any inkling, they might just try to talk her out of letting him go.

Fourteen minutes later, bathed and dressed in track pants, a white T-shirt and sneakers, Jodie sidled out into the kitchen.

‘Brunch is ready,’ Louise said, waving a French stick and a round of Brie at her.

‘Not for me.’ She placed the phone casually back on the cradle.

Lisa took one look at her garb and lifted two shocked eyebrows. ‘Going jogging, are we?’

‘A walk, at least. I’m feeling the need to exercise away all those bread rolls and red wine I’ve ingested over the last two weeks.’

‘Bread doesn’t make you fat,’ Mandy insisted, biting down onto a piece of bread smothered in soft cheese. ‘It’s all in your head. Think thin and you’ll be thin. Jogging is for suckers.’

They all turned to glare at naturally stick-thin Mandy who had no idea how good she had it.

‘Well, this sucker will be back in a while.’ With a quick wave over her shoulder, Jodie slipped out the door and ran down the three flights of stairs just as Heath reached the front alcove where they had said their moonlight goodbyes only hours before.

‘Hi! Don’t! I’m here!’ she cried out, so that he wouldn’t reach for the doorbell. The poor guy flinched.

‘So you are,’ he said. ‘And all in a rush to see me.’

Jodie opened her mouth to negate that idea, but then realised it was probably easier to let it lie. ‘Hungry, remember?’ she said.

Tugging a cute pink cardigan over her T-shirt to dress up her outfit just a tad, she took the opportunity to find out if he really was as attractive as she had remembered him. Lo and behold, in the harsh light of day, Heath Jameson—in chinos and blue and cream Hawaiian shirt that set off his eyes, his tan, and his general gorgeousness beautifully—was pure masculine heaven. Ouch!

‘Ready?’ he asked, and then he smiled, his face coming over all warm and encouraging, and Jodie had to abstain from leaning against him just to soak up some of that Australian warmth that Louise had begun to notice in her.

‘So, where are you taking me?’ she asked.

‘To heights of gastronomic pleasure the likes of which you have never seen.’

Heath drove from Jodie’s apartment back towards his beach-side St Kilda hotel, stealing glances at the woman in the passenger seat of his car.

He had spent a good portion of his morning wondering if his great first impression of Jodie had been falsely remembered. In the light of their secret tryst out into the Melbourne night, her side-splitting tales of her time at the hands of her meddling housemates, and with the addition of a truly fantastic kebab to finish off the night, he thought perhaps he had been so hoping for it to be perfect that he had indeed willed it to be the best blind date any guy had ever known.

But as Jodie had leapt through the doorway like a whirl-wind of nervous energy just now, madly pulling her auburn waves into a quick pony-tail, flapping that bright pink cardigan at him like a flag at a bull, her wide green eyes wild with panic as he reached for the doorbell—obviously because she didn’t want her roommates to know what she was up to—he knew his concerns had been unfounded.

She was bright. Complicated. Nervous as an unbroken colt. Utterly lovely. And she smelled so good he had to remind himself to breathe out as well as in.

Last night he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it, some lingering sweetness that played with his senses. But this morning it came to him like the subtle scent of grass after a storm. Strawberries.

As he pulled his car into a park on the St Kilda Esplanade, just near a row of white-sailed market stalls, he shot a look her way.

Something in her demeanour had him thinking she was preparing to give him the brush-off, but he wasn’t having any of it. He was struck by her. Truly struck. And a risk was not a risk if the path to your goal was clear.

And since he didn’t believe a word of her claim that she hated desserts as much as she said she did, he took her to the one place in Melbourne that would tempt her to change her mind.

If anything could.

CHAPTER FOUR

WITHIN minutes, the French pastry shops on Acland Street in St Kilda loomed. Jodie had heard rumours of such a place and had quite purposely never been down this road.

Ten-foot-high windows each showcased a dozen shelves packed with melting moments, glimmering fruit tarts, decadent éclairs and every sweet delight a person could crave. Like someone trapped in the desert for ten years, Jodie was drawn towards the mirage, her tastebuds going into overdrive as long-ago memories tickled at her senses.

The feel of pastry melting on her tongue. Sherbet crackling against her lips. And chocolate. Oh, the heavenly melting sensation that was chocolate.

The truth was, Jodie loved desserts, but her mother was diabetic, and corruptibly so. Patricia was so lacking in will-power Jodie had once found her passed out on the kitchen table with an empty bottle of chocolate syrup beside her. Since that day, Jodie had doggedly trained herself to live without the taste of sugar.

‘Come on, order something sweet,’ Heath offered. ‘Anything you like. It’s on me.’

Jodie perused the glassed-in rows of cakes and was stoic. Even though Patricia was nowhere in sight, it was a testament to her own continuing will-power, her very difference from her imprudent mother, that she do without.

‘Tea, black, no sugar, and a savoury scroll.’

‘Come on! This place is the Mecca for dessert lovers. It’s legendary. You can’t possibly be telling me that there is nothing sweet here that can tempt you.’

Oh, yeah. There sure was. Which was why she was being a good strong girl and ordering something not decadent in the least. ‘Sorry. I am a tea and scroll kind of girl.’

His eyes narrowed and she realised her words had held a tinge of bitterness she had not meant to reveal. She smiled inanely and moved inside to the counter where she placed her order.

‘Add two chocolate croissants and a tall black to the order. Three sugars and a small jug of milk on the side. Ta,’ Heath said from somewhere behind her, his breath washing over the back of her hair. ‘Don’t panic, both croissants are for me. One’s for the road.’

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