Little Girl Lost (6 page)

A sign flashed past. Pete was coming into Coorah Creek. He’d been doing this run for a long time, and the Creek was one of his favourite places. But today, his mind was too far away to appreciate the town.

He was going to be a father.

He’d had a few days now to get used to the idea. He’d even gone with Linda to a doctor’s appointment. He’d listened carefully to everything the doctor said about what was ahead of them, but he was still struggling to put himself in the picture the doctor’s words had painted.

Linda was bubbling over with plans; talking about buying things for the baby and setting up a nursery. There hadn’t been any mention of marriage, but he knew Linda was thinking about that too. Marriage and setting up a home together. All the things she had dreamed about since she was a little girl. All the things a family could want. All the things he didn’t want. At least, not now. And not with Linda.

He was feeling trapped. He didn’t want to feel that way, but he did. He liked to think he was a good man with a proper sense of right and wrong. He’d do the right thing by Linda and the baby, but he wasn’t entirely sure exactly what the right thing was. Support, both emotional and financial was definitely right. Although their relationship had never been that serious, he didn’t question that the baby was his. Linda wouldn’t lie about something like that. However, he had to wonder if it was right to marry and set up a home if his heart wasn’t in it? He liked Linda a lot. But love? No. He wasn’t in love with her. Had it not been for the baby, he would have ended their relationship by now.

Pete ran his fingers through his hair. If there was an answer to these questions and all the others that were running around his mind, he had no idea where to find them.

He drove slowly through the town and out the other side, heading for the mine.

By the time he turned in at the mine gates, Pete had driven all thoughts of Linda and the baby from his mind. At least, that’s what he told himself. He turned his rig and began backing up to the loading dock at the big storage shed. He’d done this a hundred times before, placing the rear doors of the trailer against the raised loading bay, so the pallets and drums could easily be rolled out.

‘Hey, Pete,’ a voice called from just outside his window. ‘You’re gonna miss it, buddy. More right hand down.’

Feeling a surge of embarrassment, Pete pulled forward a few metres and tried again, this time keeping his head squarely in the game.

In a couple of minutes, the rear of his rig was pressed hard against the wooden rail at the edge of the loading bay. The mine workers had been through this procedure as many times as Pete. They had the back open and were already starting to unload. Pete stood back and left them to it. There were drums of grease and oil for the huge mine machines and spare parts, the use of which he couldn’t even begin to guess. An operation this big took a lot of support.

One of the huge mine trucks drove slowly past, to pull up beside the refuelling bullet. The door opened and, to Pete’s surprise, a woman got out. He’d never seen a woman driver at the mine before. And she was quite some woman. She was slender and shapely despite her heavy-duty work wear and bright protective vest. Her hair was caught up in a clip at the back of her neck, with just a few wavy tendrils escaping. Pete could imagine that when she let it loose, it would cascade down her back like a red wave.

‘Don’t even bother, mate.’

One of the mine workers had seen the direction of his gaze.

‘She keeps herself to herself that one. Most of the blokes have tried, but she’s not interested.’

Pete shrugged and said nothing. He couldn’t be interested in someone like that now. He was going to have to stop thinking about other women altogether. His relationship with Linda didn’t stand any chance at all if he kept on thinking or acting like a single man still searching for The One. He was only now beginning to realise that marrying Linda meant he was giving up on falling in love and having the same sort of relationship his parents had. He didn’t want to do that. But he was going to have to. He owed it to Linda and their baby to try to build a strong, happy family.

When he left the mine, he turned north, back towards Coorah Creek. He had some boxes for the store and some kegs for the pub. He figured he might grab a meal at the pub before heading north back to base.

The main street was almost deserted as Pete drove slowly through. As always, there were a few cars parked outside the pub. Pete swerved off the road and parked his truck along the newly built kerb outside the store. He killed the engine and jumped to the ground. As he approached the door, he remembered that the storekeeper, Ken Travers, hadn’t been looking well the last few times he’d been here. Of late, his wife Gina had been the one to meet Pete and supervise the unloading of the boxes of supplies. They had a young daughter too, a blonde girl. He hadn’t seen her for a while and assumed she was away at school. Or maybe she would have started college by now. It was such a shame to see something like illness strike a nice family like that. Still, all a person could do was take whatever life threw at them and do the best they could with it. He was beginning to understand that now.

Pete walked into the store, and almost collided with a ladder set against the shelves just inside the door. He caught himself and placed a hand on the ladder, to steady it, in case there was someone up there.

There certainly was. That someone was high enough up that ladder to leave Pete staring at her bare legs, for there was no doubt that the owner of those legs was female. Very female. The legs were not very long, but they were very shapely. They curved down to a pair of the prettiest bare feet he’d ever seen. The toenails of those feet were painted bright red.

He couldn’t help himself; he let his eyes run slowly up those legs again to a pair of cut-off jeans shorts, filled out in the nicest possible way. The girl on the ladder was reaching for something on the highest shelf, and her top had ridden up to expose a few centimetres of skin on her lower back. Soft, silky skin. Not tanned like a lot of women were. Pete saw enough brown out the window of his truck when he was driving. This skin was creamy white and so smooth. It was like a drink of water in the desert. He wanted to run his fingers over that skin. Press his lips to it and taste it.

Pete didn’t believe in love at first sight. But lust! That was a different matter and right now he was feeling decidedly lustful.

He dragged his eyes away from that silky skin and forced his gaze upwards. He needed to see the face of this woman who in just a few seconds had set his heart – and other parts of him – on fire.

She had twisted her body to look down at him. He took a moment to appreciate the curve of her breasts, and then looked past the blonde plait hanging over one shoulder to her face.

A pair of amber eyes, flecked with gold, widened as they looked down at him.

God! All his lustful thoughts vanished in an instant as a wave of shame swept over him. He jumped back from the ladder as if hit by an electric shock. It was the child, Sarah. Slowly she climbed down the ladder and turned to face him.

‘Hello … Pete.’ She’d called him Uncle Pete once, but no more, it seemed.

‘Umm. Hi, Sarah.’

A welcoming smile lit her face, and Pete felt the earth shift ever so slightly on its axis.

Sarah could hardly believe she was looking at Pete, the truck driver her younger self had hero-worshipped. He was older now, of course, but he was very handsome. She had obviously had good taste when she was a child. Sarah felt her heart lift a little as she looked at him. She hadn’t seen him in more than four years. A lot had changed in four years. She should have grown out of that childhood crush on a man who was far too old for her. She had dated quite a few men since she’d last seen Pete, but apparently that didn’t matter. She felt that same old feeling starting to return. Maybe it was just because she was feeling particularly vulnerable at the moment. Maybe she was looking too fondly at the past, because the future seemed very bleak, but it appeared from the lifting of her heart that he was still her knight in shining armour.

For a few long seconds they simply stared at each other. Pete was the first to drop his gaze. If she didn’t know better, she would have suspected he was blushing under his tan.

She could see new lines around his eyes and on his forehead that hadn’t been there when she left for college. The outback was hard on faces. But in her knight’s case, the lines merely added to his good looks. His eyes were still the dark chocolate she remembered. His hair was cropped very short. It looked spiky but she knew that it wouldn’t be. She would have loved to reach up and run her hand over the top of his head to check. But she couldn’t do it. For starters, she wasn’t a child any more, and for some strange reason her hands were shaking.

‘It’s good to see you again,’ she said, noting that the words came out almost without trembling.

‘I didn’t know you were back. Um. How are you?’

‘I’m fine thanks,’ she said. ‘And you. You look … well.’

‘Umm. Yes.’ Pete turned his head to look around the empty store. Almost as if he was seeking help. ‘Are your parents here? I have a delivery to unload.’

Some of the joy went out of the moment.

‘No. Mum had to take Dad to Toowoomba for treatment. He’s gone on the mine plane with the FIFO workers.’

She saw the immediate understanding and sympathy on his face. ‘I’m really sorry your dad’s crook,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

They were standing there, not certain what to say next, when the door swung open, almost hitting Pete. Sarah looked at her customer. It was Trish from the pub. The sharp blue eyes looked from Sarah to Pete and back again. Sarah had a feeling the older woman had a better idea of what was going on than either she or Pete did.

‘I saw the truck,’ Trish said briskly. ‘We have some beer kegs coming. I just wanted to check you have them on board.’

‘Yes, I do. I’ll be over with them as soon as I’ve dropped off the boxes for here,’ Pete said swiftly. He glanced at his watch. Sarah knew it was coming up for six o’clock. She would be closing the store soon.

‘I’d better start unloading now.’ Pete turned and left, not quite at a run, but pretty smartly. Sarah couldn’t help but wonder if it was her or Trish Warren he was so eager to escape from.

Trish watched him go and then turned to Sarah. Her eyes were sparkling. ‘He is such a lovely man, isn’t he? So handsome too.’ A look of speculation crossed her face.

Sarah sighed. This she had not missed while she was away.

‘We are all so pleased to have you home, dear,’ Trish continued.

The look on Trish’s face told Sarah exactly who she meant by ‘we’. Sarah looked through the glass window to the road train parked outside. Pete was busy unloading the supplies her father had ordered. She watched him heft the heavy boxes of canned goods as if they were filled with feathers.

The door opened and a customer came in. Followed quickly by another. Sarah had to turn to serving, but she kept one eye on Pete as he carried several loads through to her storeroom. She was still busy when he finished and vanished with just a lift of his hand to her. Through the window she could see him beginning to unload kegs of beer from the second trailer. She guessed he would stay and have a meal at the pub before setting out on a night run back to the Isa. For a few seconds she toyed with the idea of going over to the pub herself when she had closed the store. But the plane from Toowoomba was due to land any moment. Her parents would be home soon. Her mother would be tired and her father probably ill from his treatment. They needed her. She had come home to help them, not renew an old flame.

When she finally ushered out the last customer, she locked the door and headed back towards the house. Pete would be back on his next run in a week. That was what he did. Some things didn’t change … and she was pretty sure she didn’t want them to.

The police station was locked. Tia stood in the lengthening shadows staring at the building. She was too late and she was now technically in trouble. She was supposed to have shown her licence to the cop before close of business today. But she’d spent too long wondering whether to run or to stay and now the door was closed against her.

That probably didn’t leave her much choice. The cop was sure to start checking into her background now. She couldn’t be sure there were no outstanding warrants for her arrest. And if Delaney charged her for even a small offence, it would start something she had no control over. Something that could only end in trouble for her. It might even bring trouble to this little town, and she wouldn’t want that.

Common sense told her she had to run, but something was stopping her.

She had picked Coorah Creek almost at random because it was a long way from anywhere, and because the mine had jobs going for which they were offering all the training she’d need. There probably weren’t that many people who would be happy to live way out here. But for Tia’s purpose, it had seemed the perfect place to hide. The mere fact that it was such an unexpected and unlikely place for her had, in fact, made it exactly the right place. But she was starting to feel differently. It was funny how cooking a meal and talking to a girl in a shop could start changing things. Turning a hiding place into … not quite a home yet … but maybe one day.

She had made a mistake missing this deadline. She had to find that cop, show him her licence. But she had to do more than that. Everything about her behaviour until now would have just made him even more suspicious. She had to start acting like a normal human being and not some criminal on the run. She had to start doing that tonight, or her own paranoia might ruin this chance to start over again. If she lost this chance, she might never get another. She glanced at her watch. Seven o’clock. Maybe it wasn’t too late yet.

Taking a deep breath, she walked up the stairs to the door of the station. There was a notice attached to the door with a phone number for emergencies if the station was unattended. She wasn’t sure that was quite the right thing to do. This wasn’t exactly an emergency. She glanced about and saw that the police car was sitting in a carport next to the station. That implied the cop had walked home, not driven. She went back down the stairs and walked to the corner of the station where she saw a concrete path running around the back of the building. Tentatively she followed it. As she turned the corner, she saw the house. It was like a million other outback homes. A sprawling wooden structure, it was about a metre above the ground, the wooden stumps leaving room for air and snakes to pass underneath. The stumps were, of course, topped with tin protectors. There would be no termites getting into this home. It was painted green but, like every other building in town, the paint was fading rapidly under the harsh sun. It was a big house. Big enough for a family.

That stopped her in her tracks. It hadn’t occurred to her that the cop would have a family. For some reason, she hated that idea. She didn’t want to explore why she wanted him to be single.

There was a light on at the back of the house. Trying not to feel like a criminal, she walked around the building and climbed the stairs to the back door. She peered through the window into the lighted kitchen. It was very tidy with no signs of a meal being prepared. And it was devoid of life. She knocked without hope of an answer, and then turned away.

It was then she noticed the big corrugated iron shed at the far side of the yard. It had a roller door at one end, presumably so it could be used as a garage. The lights were on and the door was open, but from this angle she couldn’t see inside. But a cop wouldn’t go out and leave a shed door open like that, would he?

Before she could change her mind, Tia began walking towards the shed. As she did, she heard the music and recognised it instantly. Really? She smiled. Suddenly the cop seemed less threatening. Almost human, in fact. This she had to see. She didn’t exactly sneak up to the doorway, but she didn’t go out of her way to announce her presence.

The cop had shed his uniform and was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a T-shirt; both of which look like they were overdue an encounter with a washing machine. His back was to her as he bent over a wood lathe that was sending showers of sawdust into the air. His sweat had made the shirt cling to his body in a way that showed off his shoulders in a most appealing fashion. The big safety goggles he was wearing didn’t exactly add to the image but nor were they enough to detract from it.

From an iPod dock sitting on a bench, the Beatles asked her to ‘Let It Be’, but she just couldn’t. The song was fading. At that moment, the lathe spun to a stop and the shed was suddenly quiet.

Tia coughed. Loudly.

If she was hoping to startle him, she was sadly disappointed. He lifted his head and turned. As he did, he slowly pulled the goggles off his head. He moved to the bench to dispose of his goggles and render John, Paul, George and Ringo silent before they had truly begun to ask for ‘Help’.

‘You’re a Beatles fan?’ Tia asked, not even trying to hide her amusement. ‘Hardly what I expected for a police sergeant.’

‘When I’m in civvies, I’m not the sergeant. I’m Max Delaney and, yes, I’m a Beatles fan. Isn’t everybody?’ His mouth twitched into a hint of a smile.

Tia was disarmed. She didn’t know what to say. Instead she reached into the back pocket of her jeans and drew out the small rectangle of plastic.

‘I guess I’m too late to show this to the sergeant as required?’ she asked.

Max reached out a hand to take it. ‘In your case, I will make an exception.’

Tia looked away while he studied her licence. She didn’t want her face to betray her uncertainty. Instead, she looked at the contents of the shed. After a few moments, she began to really see what she was looking at.

Furniture. Handmade furniture. A beautifully built squatters chair, stained a lovely dark brown, sat next to a table with the grain of the wood seeming almost liquid in the evening sunlight streaming through the open doors. A bench held hand-carved toys to delight any child. There was a mirror with an elaborate carved wooden frame. Ah. So that was how he’d known she was behind him. Tia picked up a beautiful wooden bowl, with elegant curved sides that served to highlight and accentuate a flaw in the wood. It was quite lovely.

Still holding the bowl, she turned back towards Max. He wasn’t looking at her licence. He was looking at her.

‘Did you make this?’ she asked.

He nodded.

‘It’s just … beautiful.’

‘Thank you.’

Tia cast her eyes around the shed, and noticed the piles of timber. Most of it was old and weathered, with the remains of paint peeling away. Other larger pieces had old nails protruding from them, and evidence of joins.

‘You make this …’ Tia indicated the furniture and the toys ‘… from that?’

‘I do.’

‘Where do you get it?’

‘Almost anywhere there’s old timber or old houses. Some of it comes from the disused houses near the railway station.’

‘Oh, Sergeant,’ Tia raised a teasing eyebrow, ‘You’re not stealing this timber are you?’

He smiled. Tia’s heart did a little skip. He looked so good when he smiled. And she couldn’t remember the last time someone had smiled at her like that. With friendship and humour and a degree of admiration.

‘Well, ma’am, I’m an honest cop, but you know how things are,’ he said in a thick accent, directing the humour at himself. ‘Actually,’ he continued in his normal voice, ‘the houses belong to the mine. I did a deal with Chris Powell – your boss. He lets me take all the timber I need in exchange for keeping a bit of an eye on the place. Which I would be doing anyway, so I think I got a bargain.’

‘It’s amazing that something this beautiful should come from something that has been abandoned and left to rot.’

‘Just because something has been abandoned, there’s no reason to write it off as rubbish,’ Max said as he gently took the bowl from her hands. His long fingers caressed the curved surface. ‘I believe in second chances. Sometimes, hidden underneath the roughness and ugliness of the surface, there’s great beauty and strength waiting to be set free.’

Tia felt a lump in her throat. He could almost be talking about her. With great reverence, Max placed the bowl back on the workbench. When he turned to her, his eyes and hers met and a silence settled over them both. Those few words had formed a connection between them. They both knew it.

‘I was about to grab some dinner,’ Max said at last. ‘There’s a huge bowl of home-made chicken curry in my fridge. I’d be very happy to share it with you.’

Tia stepped back.

‘Umm. No. I mean … Thanks, but no.’ She didn’t want to go inside his home. That was getting too close. Far too close.

‘Then I had better give you this.’ He held out her licence and she took it, trying not to look like she was grabbing it. ‘If you’re living here now, you need to change the address on that.’

‘I know. Thanks.’

She turned and took a couple of swift steps towards the door before she caught herself. She was doing it again. Running away. She wasn’t ready to get too close to the cop … to Max. Not the sort of closeness that involved the two of them eating at the big kitchen table, with the Beatles no doubt playing in the background, but that didn’t mean there were no other possibilities.

She turned slowly back to face him. ‘Actually. I haven’t eaten. I was thinking of getting a burger across the road at the pub …’

She let the sentence hang in mid-air and was rewarded by a broad smile.

‘That sounds good. They do a good steak there, as well. I need to wash up first though.’

‘I’ll see you there.’ This time when she turned to go, Tia was not running away.

Trish had her eyes on Max the moment he walked through the door. He’d expected the smirk on her face as he slid onto a bar stool next to Tia. He’d been in Coorah Creek nearly five years and, in all that time, he’d never had dinner with a woman in the pub. Not like this. Not a date, if that was what this was. But on this occasion he didn’t care what Trish thought; or what she told the town. They could read anything they liked into this. All he was looking for was a chance to have dinner with this woman who had occupied his thoughts far too much since the day he had first laid eyes on her. Then maybe he’d find a way to put her into a proper place in his mind and move on.

Or maybe not. He glanced sideways at her and once again caught the hint of colour under her shirt. That tattoo! He really wanted to get a good look at it. He wondered what it might show and where it might lead.

A beer glass sat in front of Tia, dripping moisture slowly down to the bar mat beneath it. A second glass sat in front of the stool Max now occupied. Neither had been touched. Max reached for his drink. Tia took hers and held his eyes for a long moment. Her eyes were the brilliant green of emeralds and he felt as if he could lose himself in them. Slowly she raised her glass and tipped it gently towards him in salute. He followed suit and they both drank.

He knew he had to speak first. Their encounter on the road had taught him that. Tia wasn’t the chatty sort. But when she did speak … oh boy! Her voice had been exactly as he expected. Low and controlled and sexy. It was exactly right for her and he knew that he was going to spend many hours awake, remembering the way she had called him Sergeant. Now he wanted to hear her speak his name.

He searched for a safe topic of conversation, suddenly feeling a bit awkward, like a teenager on his first date. He knew nothing about her and he wanted to know it all.

‘So,’ he said when the glasses were back on the bar, ‘that’s some bike you have. Tell me about it.’

It wasn’t the right thing to say. He saw it in an instant. A veil came down over those lovely green eyes.

‘I figured by now you would have run the reggo,’ she said warily.

Max shook his head. ‘I had no reason to. And remember,’ he indicated his jeans and short-sleeved shirt, ‘I’m out of uniform. I’m just interested in the bike. You don’t see many like that out here. In fact, it’s the first hog I’ve ever seen. What year is it?’

He saw her hesitate as she reached for the answer.

‘I’ve only had it for about a year, I don’t know much about its history,’ she said in a tone that suggested she wasn’t interested in taking that topic any further.

That was interesting. Harley owners were usually keen to talk about their precious bikes. They could and would tell you in a heartbeat everything about the bike from the size of the engine to the air pressure in the tyres. He fought back the policeman’s instinct that was telling him something wasn’t quite right. Not tonight, he told himself. Tonight I am not a police officer. Tonight I am just Max Delaney having dinner with a woman I very much want to get to know better.

They sat in silence for a moment, each taking another long drink of beer as the tension between them thickened.

‘So, can I get you some food?’ Trish appeared in front of them like some sort of lifesaver. ‘We’ve got my famous lamb casserole on tonight. The steaks are good too, as always. And there’s home-made lasagne, Ellen’s recipe.’

‘Do you know Jack North?’ Max asked Tia. ‘He does a bit of work at the mine. General maintenance. He looks after the airstrip and the plane and fills in here as barman sometimes. He’s a good bloke and his wife Ellen is the best cook in Coorah Creek. She used to cook at the Mineside before they had their baby. Now she cooks here sometimes.’

Tia shook her head.

‘Ellen and Jack are away east,’ Trish continued. ‘Taking their new baby to visit the grandparents, which is nice. They’ve got two older kids as well. They are Ellen’s kids really but Jack treats them as his own. I do miss Ellen and the kids. I like being around babies. It makes me feel young. But even though I cooked the lasagne, it’s still Ellen’s recipe. And it’s still very good.’

Max and Tia shared a subtle look. Trish was a talker; there was no doubt about that. Max was used to her, but for Tia it was still a novelty. She had yet to learn that the thing to do was simply let Trish talk. She usually didn’t expect an answer. Except to the questions about food, of course.