Holding Out for a Hero (4 page)

He spotted a pair of silver handcuffs hanging from the iron bedhead behind the pillows. So, apparently, did heaven.

It was as far removed from Penelope’s soothing pastel creation as was possible. There were no pretty bedside lamps, Monet prints or teddy bears vying for attention among a mountain of artfully arranged pillows. It had taken ten minutes just to find her bed beneath all the stuff. Rosie’s bed looked … ready.

He turned to her. “You sleep here?”

“Among other things. Not quite what you expected?”

Simon nodded. “My ex favored pastels and stuffed animals.”

Rosie laughed. “I hate to disappoint you. The only animal in this bedroom is me.”

Simon thanked his lucky stars. “Oh, really?”

She nodded. “If you’re good I may bring you back here to elaborate.”

“If I promise to be bad will you use the handcuffs?”

Rosie laughed. “Oh, you can’t handle the cuffs.”

Simon grabbed his chest dramatically. “You wound me.”

He spotted the small wooden crucifix complete with Jesus hanging on the wall above her bed; about as out of place as a hooker in convent. “Interesting,” he murmured.

Rosie grinned. “The previous owner had one in every bedroom. Iris and Daisy took them all down but I kind of liked the irony. Lucky for me they never throw anything out.”

He would
never
have guessed.

“Come on. The aunts are waiting.”

Simon followed her out of hell and down the hallway a bit further. It was lined with all kinds of bizarre objects—the singing trout looked almost normal amid the contenders: a narrow cabinet displaying coffee beans of the world, some very odd-looking masks, some sad-clown prints and a line of ducks that appeared to be flying up the wall.

Rosie turned left into another hallway and Simon kept close.

“Three more bedrooms and a bathroom,” Rosie explained. “Daisy, Iris and Cameron live in this section.”

Simon noticed a series of framed black-and-white, portrait-style prints hanging on the walls between the doorways. They were of two women, very beautiful although quite young. He realised they were twins: they both had long dark hair and wide-set eyes. One was sitting at a table, her wrists laden with thin bangles, big hoops hanging from her earlobes. Her beringed fingers cradled what he could only describe as a crystal ball. She had a faraway look in her eyes, like she knew something no one else did. A secret.

The other woman stood behind her twin, hands resting on her shoulders. She wore a sleeveless dress with a modest neckline, leaving her thin arms bare. Except they weren’t—they were covered in tattoos from wrist to shoulder. The shot was taken from too far away to see the detail but the skin art was highly visible. Her gaze was more frank, piercing even, as though she could sum you up in an instant.

“These are unusual,” he commented.

Rosie nodded and sighed, fingering a frame lightly. “I love these.”

Simon could see why. They had an allure and a mystery about them but an honesty as well. Each portrait had been taken from a slightly different angle, the background one of those innocuous backdrops from an old photographic studio, but each seemed to capture the essence of the sisters—the similarities as well as the differences.

Looking again at the women in the pictures, he saw a startling resemblance in Rosie’s own wide-eyed gaze. “Relatives?” he asked.

“My aunts.”

Simon blinked. He’d expected her to maybe admit to long-lost cousins several times removed. He looked at the picture again. “Your aunts are … circus people?”

Rosie smiled at the photo with great affection. “They were. It’s the family business.”

He looked at her incredulously. The surprises just kept coming with Rosie. And yet somehow it all seemed right.

His mother was going to have a cow.

Rosie led Simon out onto the back verandah into a plume of cigarette smoke and a cacophony of bird noise. Two frumpy grey-haired women sat at a table, a tumbler half-filled with amber-colored liquid in front of each of them and an overflowing ash-tray between them. One shuffled a pack of tarot cards. The other thumbed through a magazine. A teenage boy sat at the other end of the table playing a game on his iPhone. The dogs lifted their heads and thumped their tails against the boards in their reclined positions.

“Here they are,” the one with the cards said, looking up. “We thought you must have gotten lost.”

Rosie smiled. “Just showing Simon around.”

Two pair of eyes fell on him. Age had grayed and frizzed their formerly long dark locks and there were wrinkles around their eyes and mouths. There was meat on their bones, their bosoms ample, their laps generous, but they were unmistakably the same women from the pictures he’d just seen.

The one with the cards gave him a dreamy look while the other one, her tattoos still vibrantly colored and on full display, looked at him shrewdly.

“Simon, hey?” she said. “Well come over here so I can get a proper look at you.”

Simon walked closer and Rosie introduced them.

“Bit young for you isn’t he, Gypsy-Rose?” Daisy commented, looking him up and down.

Simon shot a glance at Rosie, who was grinning affectionately at her curmudgeonly aunt. “I believe age is irrelevant,” he said politely.

“Hmph!” Daisy grunted. “Very gallant. Speak to me when you’re sixty-two.”

“You’re a goat, aren’t you?”

Simon looked at Iris, her dreamy eyes staring up at him. Did she mean a silly goat? A randy goat? A kid? He cleared his throat. “A goat?”

Rosie rescued him. “Capricorn. Your star sign.”

“Oh, right.” He gave a half laugh. “Yes actually, I am.”

Iris nodded and presented the pack to him. “Pick a card.”

He hesitated. He didn’t believe in astrology or tarot or crystal balls—any alternative mumbo-jumbo. He believed in science and facts and hard work. Then he looked at Rosie and realized that alternative had its upside.

Rosie held her breath as Simon prevaricated. She’d not been sure how he would take the whole Forsythe extravaganza. And she was surprised to find that she actually cared that much.

Great, she was doing it again. Rushing in head first. How many times had Ella warned her about not losing her head?

“Pick one,” Daisy insisted.

“Go on,” Rosie said, injecting a teasing note into her voice to disguise how very, very much she wanted him to take a card. “Live dangerously.”

Simon looked at the three women staring at him. Even the boy had given his thumbs a temporary reprieve from RSI and was watching with interest. “Okay.” He pulled a card from the middle of the pack and stared at it blankly.

The Fool. Excellent.

He didn’t have a clue what it meant in fruit-cake land but he had to figure it wasn’t good.

He turned it around to show Iris. She looked at the card and then at him, sighing heavily as she relieved him of it.

“There’s going to be trouble,” she muttered.

Simon looked at Rosie and she gave him a lewd wink. God knew she was trouble with a capital T. With her hellfire bed and gothic dominatrix image, he should be running for the hills.

But trouble had never felt this good.

Daisy nodded slowly. “Don’t mind a spot of trouble. Pull up a seat.”

Simon sat feeling like he’d passed some kind of test. Rosie sat next to him. They were quickly enveloped in a heavy plume of smoke as Iris and Daisy stubbed out their cigarettes and each lit another one.

Hell also apparently had a waiting room. And he was sitting in it.

He coughed as he felt his bronchioles start to narrow and looked around for a distraction. Another massive wooden cabinet sat pushed against the outside wall of the house. Inside it was more state-of-the-art electronic equipment. Another wide-screen television and other associated machines. He couldn’t believe they would have such expensive gear sitting unsecured on their verandah. Weren’t they worried about it being stolen?

Rosie placed her hand on his thigh and under cover of the table she slowly moved it closer to his crotch. He clamped his hand down hard on hers, instantly forgetting all about local crime, his tendency to asthma and the hazards of passive smoking.

“You feed birds,” he said, grasping the first topic that came to mind and saw Rosie’s quick smile in his peripheral vision.

Their gazes were drawn to the hundreds of rainbow lorikeets huddled around tin plates lashed at intervals to the wires of the clothes line. They squawked and chatted and fought for position, their wings flapping indignantly, revealing the brilliant tangerine, crimsons and purples in the plumage of their breasts. The noise was incredible—like an avian rock concert.

It reminded him of the time his parents had taken him to Currumbin Bird Sanctuary as a kid. He’d held out his tin plate with everyone else and the birds had flown down and landed on the side. And on his head. And his shoulders. When one had pooped down his shirt, his mother had dragged him away in disgust. But for a few minutes he’d felt completely awed, like a normal kid for once, getting dirty and reveling in nature.

“Someone had to. They knocked down all the flowering trees that used to thrive around here to make room for these hideous apartments,” Daisy griped.

Iris nodded. “Where were they supposed to go? We planted those wattles ten years ago,” she said, pointing to the five trees lining the back fence, their silvery green foliage shimmering in the fading sun, “to help the situation, but it’s not enough now.”

“I guess that’s the price you pay for progress,” Simon mused.

“Fuck progress,” Rosie said. Simon looked at her and got that little frown between his eyes again. “I mean … scr … er … stuff progress,” she ended lamely. But then Simon smiled at her with his gorgeous geek-boy smile and she practically melted.

 Iris and Daisy exchanged a look. Even Cameron glanced up at Rosie’s inarticulate stumbling. One thing Rosie had always been was articulately vulgar.

“They’re kind of loud,” Simon said. He wondered how many complaints had flooded into council about the noise from the pampered parrots.

Iris and Daisy grinned at him and said, “Yes,” simultaneously.

He grinned back. He could tell they were fucking with progress in their own way.

Ella had arrived at Jake’s bar too late this evening to grab the usual booth and with Rosie cooking dinner for Simon at home it didn’t make sense to take up an entire table. She just wanted a couple of quiet drinks, some good music and a chance to think before meeting the new man in her friend’s life. So she’d chosen a bar stool and was consequently balancing precariously on an inadequate piece of chrome and plastic while her butt cheeks fought and lost the battle with gravity, oozing over the edge. She felt like an elephant sitting on pogo stick. How the hell she was going to get off was a total mystery.

She’d fought with Cam today. Again. He’d wagged school. Again. How was she supposed to be the authority around Hanniford High when she couldn’t even control her own brother? She was the principal, for Pete’s sake. Damn it. Why wouldn’t he let her in?

God, she was depressed.

A man sidled up to her and said, “Hi.”

Ella looked up from her wine at a tall, nice-looking guy about her age. He was wearing a suit, his tie pulled loose, and she could see his mates nudging each other in her peripheral vision. Her depression intensified.

She was a regular tropical low.

“Haven’t I seen you some place before?”

Ella groaned inwardly. She really didn’t have the patience tonight; she was probably just a dare anyway. “Yes,” she said unsmilingly. “That’s why I don’t go there anymore.”

The guy’s confident smile slipped and for a moment Ella felt a twinge of guilt but his friends’ loud guffawing in the background hardened her heart.

He turned away and slunk back to his mates, who slapped him vigorously on the back. Ella returned to her wine and realized Jake had appeared behind the bar.

“That’s the third one to crash and burn in the last twenty minutes,” she heard Pete whisper to him.

“Ella,” Jake murmured, topping up her glass of Chardonnay. “Are you torturing my customers?”

She looked at him, noticing the nearly empty beer he held in his other hand. Noticing his hands, period. Hands that knew their way around a woman’s body. Magic hands. Her abdominal muscles contracted in primal recognition. Or was it yearning?

“I try not to feed the animals.”

Jake gave a faux horrified gasp. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

The group of men broke into a chorus of loud cheers behind her as their footy team scored a goal in full Technicolor splendor on the four big-screen televisions. They punched the air and grunted like a pack of gorillas.

She raised an eyebrow at Jake. “I rest my case.”

Jake grinned and downed the dregs of his Corona. “Now, now, Ella. They’ve been working hard all day. All they want is to sit around with their friends, watch a bit of footy and maybe get laid tonight.”

Three giggling women came to the bar and called to Jake. They were blond and big-boobed and impossibly young. He grinned at them. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said to Ella before sauntering off.

His imperious command bothered her but not enough to shift her ass off the pogo stick—she preferred not to execute a move with such a degree of difficulty in front of the Barbie triplets. She rolled her eyes as one by one they held out their forearms and Jake signed them. They waggled their fingers at him and left, giggling. He sauntered back.

“Looks like you’re the only one getting laid around here tonight,” Ella said.

Jake shrugged as he inserted a slice of lime into the neck of his next Corona. “They just wanted my autograph.”

“Oh please. I saw the way they were batting their eyelids at you. You could have had all three of them at once.”

Jake laughed. “Ménages aren’t as fun as they used to be.”

Ella’s mind went blank. Ménages?
Plural?
“Poor baby,” she said derisively.

He leaned forward on his elbows. “I prefer to devote all my energy to one woman at a time.”

His eyes were twinkling. Twinkling, damn it! She could barely see her hand in front of her face in here most of the time but she could see the bloody twinkle in his ridiculously sexy eyes.

“Well, I’m sure they’d all take a number, Jake.”

Her deliberate insult missed it mark by a good mile as Jake hooted with laughter.

“Where’s Miss Rosie tonight?”

“She’s cooking her sure-thing curry for Simon.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Because it works every time?”

She nodded, depressed further by her friend’s very healthy libido. “
Every
time.”

Jake narrowed his eyes. “We’re not talking about curry now, are we?”

Ella shook her head.

“Ah. I see. Does she add some secret aphrodisiac potion to it?”

“Nah. She just makes it so bloody hot they have to go lie down.”

Jake’s laughter was drowned out by another round of loud hooting erupting around the bar. He looked at the nearest screen. The Brisbane Heroes were winning. It might have only been a pre-season game but they were coming out strong and he felt a surge of pride in his team mix with the familiar itchy-feet feeling.

The old resentment that he hadn’t been quite ready to hang up his boots also reared its ugly head. Even at an ancient thirty-six his relatively injury-free career had put him in good stead to captain the Heroes for another couple of years.

But no, he had to go and open his big mouth.

Tony Winchester’s face filled the screen. Speak of the devil. Jake’s resentment intensified. His arch nemesis sat casually in his chair joking with the two other commentators, his blond good looks disguising his black, black heart.

They’d started and ended their careers together and had spent the intervening years butting heads on and off the field. Tony Winchester was an asshole. How he could even hold his head up in public, let alone score a commentator gig, was beyond Jake.

Jake took a long swallow of his beer observing Ella rolling her eyes and placing her forehead on the bar.

“Who do you barrack for?” he asked

Ella’s head snapped up. “Oh please. I’d rather stick a red-hot poker into my eye.”

Jake laughed. “Not a fan, huh?”

Not a fan? Boy, now that was an understatement. “I hate it with a passion that consumes my entire being.”

He whistled. “What did football ever do to you?”

She felt the familiar sense of impotence and unfairness rise in her. How could she say, “It took you away”? How could he understand that although they’d barely ever spoken, Jake had been some kind of lodestone for her? Someone else in their shitty town who truly understood what it felt like to be standing on the outside.

“Nothing. I just … hate the … slavish devotion we have in this country for twelve sweaty men—”

“Thirteen,” Jake interrupted.

“Who do nothing more than kick a dumb pointy ball around a stupid bit of grass.”

“Actually it’s not quite as easy as that.”

“Jake,” she said sharply and slapped her hand down on the bar. “It’s not rocket science. They’re not trying to split the atom or find a cure for cancer. I mean, those things are worthwhile at least. But no, you take a bunch of boys who aren’t necessarily the sharpest tools in the shed, stuff their pockets full of money, ply them with gifts and alcohol, tell them their shit doesn’t stink and let them loose in public.”

Jake drank his beer in silence. Ella was in full flight and as much as he knew she was making sweeping generalisations, a lot of it couldn’t be denied. He’d witnessed more than his fair share of disgraceful behaviour by ego-tripping teammates.

Tony Winchester being a good case in point.

“Then what do they do? They drink drive, conduct sordid text affairs—”

“Ah, I think you’ll find that one’s cricket.”

“Oh, like there’s a difference. Different balls, same grubby little boys with swollen egos,” Ella snapped. She paused. “Where was I?”

“Text affairs.”

She nodded. “Right. Then there’s the party drugs. The trashing of bars and hotels, the violence both on and off the pitch—”

“The field.”

“Field. Right. The way that they’re so used to being surrounded by yes-men they don’t seem able to take no for an answer, particularly if it comes from a woman. But for some strange reason our society hero worships these guys.”

“Well, when you put it like that—”

“Jesus, Jake, there are children in Africa starving but we don’t have the money for that. People live in abject poverty all round the world but we don’t have the money for that. We have kids here in Australia who can’t read or write or add up but we don’t have the money for that. They’re trying to close my school down, for crying out loud. But never mind, there’s always money for football.”

Jake watched Ella slump over her glass and stare morosely at the contents. Well, she wasn’t kidding. It did consume her. “Finished now?” he asked quietly.

She sighed. She wished she felt better for getting it all off her chest but she didn’t. They were still shutting her school down and her brother still hated her. “Finished.”

“Jake, your damn dog’s howling,” Pete said, coming in from the back.

“You have a dog?” Ella asked, straightening.

“Kind of.”

She blinked, wondering if she’d consumed more alcohol than she thought. “You
kind of
have a dog?”

“He’s a stray who’s been hanging around. I don’t suppose you know anyone in the neighbourhood who could take him do you?”

As a matter of fact she did. She lived at stray central and Iris and Daisy were the queens. But she held back; she didn’t want to be another of Jake’s yes-women. In fact, she really didn’t want to get involved with him at all. “Why don’t you take him home?”

“No pets allowed in my building.”

No. She supposed he lived in some riverside penthouse somewhere. A place where everything was marble and leather and designer pooches that fit in handbags were fine but dirty strays did not belong.

Jake could see her prevaricating. He shot her his best I’m-too-sexy-for-this-bar smile. “I think you owe me one,” he said.

His look told her she owed him a hell of a lot more than that. In fact she owed him three.
Bastard!

“He’d be a great watch dog. Protect two vulnerable women living by themselves. He’s got a great bark and a menacing personality.”

She held his gaze for a moment, knowing that the aunts would never forgive her if she said no. She drained her glass of wine. “Show me.”

She prayed the Barbie triplets were busy drinking their fruity cocktails and no one was watching as she dismounted the pogo stick and followed Jake behind the bar and out to the alley.

“Cerberus?” Ella looked from the dog to Jake then back to the dog.

“Uh huh,” Jake confirmed, squatting to give him a pat.

The dog looked up at her and gave his tail a wag as if in apology. As if even he knew that the name was rather ambitious. She may not have been expecting three heads but she’d certainly expected a more impressive specimen. This was the most miserable-looking hound of hell she’d ever seen. She couldn’t have been more surprised had it been a Chihuahua called Satan.

“This is the watchdog with the menacing personality?”

Cerberus licked her hand and gave her one of his well-timed pathetic trembles.

Jake nodded again. “Underneath this flea-bitten exterior lurks the dark heart of a ninja dog.”

She crouched down next to Jake. “Ninja dog, huh?” she murmured scratching behind the dog’s soft, floppy ear. Cerberus angled his head to allow Ella more access and gave a shudder of ecstasy. “What do you say, boy? Want to come live at my house?”

Cerberus whined his agreement and Ella smiled. “Okay, then.”

Jake watched her as she ran her hands down the length of Cerberus’s body. “Thank you.”

Ella glanced at him. A mistake. Out of the neon gloom his features were sharp and defined. He was breathtaking. As a teenager he’d been good-looking but as an adult his attraction had matured into a lethal weapon. Their heads were close and she watched as his gaze dropped to her mouth. How often had she dreamed about Jake’s kiss? The thrill of it was still burned into her lips two years on. She could smell beer and lime on his breath and her eyes fluttered closed as the air in the alley became heavy with anticipation.

Oh God, this was bad.

She forced her trembling legs into action and stood. She cleared her throat. “Consider us even.”

Jake laughed, pushing himself upright too, a raised eyebrow calling her to account. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

Bastard
. “Come on, Cerberus. Let’s go home.”

Jake fell into step beside her and she stopped. “What are you doing?”

“I’m walking you home.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“What kind of a gentleman would I be if I let a lady walk home by herself in the dark?”

“It’s not dark yet, and anyway, I’m not alone, am I? I have the hound from hell, ninja dog with me.”

They both looked down at Cerberus, who wagged his tail and trembled at the same time.

Jake rolled his eyes at the pathetic combination and started walking again. “I insist.”

Ella refused to move. She didn’t want him to accompany her. She didn’t want to spend time with him. She’d relived those three orgasms obsessively over the last few weeks and frankly she was so horny she didn’t trust that she wouldn’t try to jump him before they even left the alley.

“I’m a big girl, Jake. I don’t need a chaperone.” If anyone needed a chaperone it was him.

Jake stopped, walked back to Ella, grabbed her arm and pulled her along. “Oh, come on, Ella.”

“What about the pub?” she asked, resisting.

“Pete can handle it.”

Ella dug her heels in. “He’s kind of young to have that sort of responsibility, isn’t he?”

Jake gave her a patient stare. “Don’t worry about Pete. He can handle himself.”

Ella reluctantly let herself be dragged along. She shook her arm free when they exited the alley and took some deep, steadying breaths of the warm March air. She congratulated herself on not slamming him against the bricks and having her way with him.

They ambled along the footpath, Cerberus between them, the techno beat from the pub gradually fading. “So what do you want to talk about?” Jake asked.