Marriage & the Mermaid (Hapless Heroes) (24 page)

Ouch.

Moore toyed with the idea of hanging around to see what would happen when she went back to Wilson and the shit hit the fan, but he knew he wouldn’t. He’d done enough for this evening. Though she was cranky now, Wynne Malone had all the motivation she needed to hand Dalrymple to him on a platter.

Now he must simply wait.

Chapter Twenty–Eight

B
az sat on the beach looking at the ocean, his clothes wet, his eyes sore, his throat aching. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. Must have come down the stairs, but it wasn’t clear to him. Nothing was clear, really. Well, one thing.

The unbelievable thing.

That his mother had killed herself because of him. That seemed to be burned into his mind like a cattle brand. Unbearably agonizing at first, then later settling into a throbbing ache.

Moonlight shone across the water, tipping the waves in silver, and it was beautiful. But he had no tears left for beauty. No emotions to draw on. He could only stare at it, listening to the dull roar of the surf, feeling the discomfort of his wet clothes and the sharp tang of salt of the wind.

His eyes blinked occasionally, but apart from that he was still and silent. Non–functioning.

After a time, he wasn’t sure how long, he heard sounds behind him.

Then, “Baz? Is that you? We need to talk about Venus, who isn’t in the pantry and I don’t know where she is. I’ve seen how her hands got purple,” Wynne ranted on without drawing breath, “and I think it’s about time you told me what the hell is going on.”

Waves crashed nearby, filling the sudden silence. Then Baz opened his mouth to reply, swallowed to wet his throat. “Yes,” he croaked. Then louder, “Yes.”

She came around in front of him and after a couple of seconds she crouched. “You’re all wet.” Then she looked at his face. “Baz? Are you okay?”

“No.” He looked into her concerned eyes with no sensation of… anything really. He wasn’t thinking ahead or behind. Wasn’t feeling. He just… was.

“Has something happened?” she asked, and tentatively touched his arm.

“Yes.”

“It is your dad? I saw him dozing by the pool. Did he…Oh, God Baz! He’s not —”

“No.”

She caught her breath. “Then…”

Baz blinked, taking in the expectancy on her face, the concern. “He said something.” Baz tried to shrug. Failed. “It made me cry.” In another life he knew he would feel humiliated to admit that. But there wasn’t any place in him to hide any more. Humiliation was irrelevant.

Wynne shook her head, clearly out of her depth.

Baz would have felt sorry for her, but he wasn’t capable of that either. “It was about…” A sharp stab of pain. So he wasn’t completely numb. “… the past.”

“Was it about your mother?”

He blinked again. “Yes.”

“Carlos told me she left twenty years ago.” Her hand on his arm squeezed. “If you want to talk about it, Baz…”

He simply stared at her. She’d guessed that it was about his mother. And she would listen if he wanted to talk. “Wynne, will you marry me?” he asked.

She bit her lip and her eyes grew wide and serious. She looked about ten years old. “Ask me again when you’re feeling better,” she said at last, then she tugged on his arm. “I think we need to get you some dry clothes and a stiff drink.”

“I’m not cold,” he said, but he let himself be hauled to his feet.

“Well I need a whisky,” she said, and laughed. “Even if you don’t.”

“I’ll have one,” Baz said, and he ambled ahead of Wynne who shepherded him up the beach stairs and along the rose path towards the house.

“Good man. You’re doing well,” she said when he’d bumbled up the stairs and onto the back veranda. She stepped ahead of him then and opened the back door.

Baz paused in the doorway to look at her. “You’re a kind person, Wynne,” he said. “You’d never hate your children, would you?”

She looked up into his eyes and shook her head. “No mother hates her child, Baz,” she said softly. “I’m sure what children
do
can drive a mother crazy, but who they are is a part of you. You can’t help but love them.”

He clutched at her hand then, so hard that it probably hurt her. “Is that true?” he said. “Is there no way a mother could hate her son enough to kill herself?”

Wynne’s pretty mouth fell open and he watched as her bottom lip began to tremble. Then fat tears brimmed her eyelashes and slid down her cheeks. “Is that what he told you?” she whispered.

Baz nodded, unable to speak.

“It’s not true.”

He clutched her hand even tighter. “How do you know? How can you be sure?”

“Your father is a confused old man, Baz. And he can be mean. Look at how rude he was to Venus at lunch. Did you do something to make him angry? Did you give him a reason to hurt you?”

Baz simply stared at her. Could his father have made it all up simply to hurt him?

“He might even believe it,” Wynne said. “But I
know
it’s not true.” She squeezed Baz’s hand back. “Your mother loved you, Baz. Carlos told me about her. She was beautiful inside and out. There’s no way she didn’t love her only child.”

Baz felt his throat tightening. “I knew that,” he whispered.

“Of course you did.” She smiled a watery smile, then tiny little thing that she was, a full head shorter than Baz even in heels, she pulled him into her arms and hugged him and the dam that he’d thought was empty burst its banks again.

This time it felt good to cry and Wynne stroked his head and made soothing noises while he sobbed his heart out. Finally that outpouring settled into sobs, and eventually sniffs.

When he’d quietened down enough to hear her, Wynne said, “That’s the second time tonight my shoulder’s had a drenching.” He heard the smile in her voice and knew she was trying to distract him. “Venus had a sob about the policeman who came looking for her. Constable Moore.”

Baz pulled back and wiped at his cheeks, feeling the first threads of embarrassment at what Wynne had just witnessed. “I missed some excitement?”

“Don’t worry. I sent him packing.”

Baz had to smile, although it made his cheeks feel odd and stretched. He could easily imagine tiny Wynne giving the tall cop his marching orders.

“That’s better,” she said and took his hand, giving it squeeze. “You’re pretty gorgeous when you smile, Mr Wilson.”

“Even with red eyes?”

She tilted her head and pretended to inspect them. “Yes, I think that reddish–brown color – shall we call it rust? – really suits you.”

“Don’t get used to it,” he said. “I’m averaging one crying jag every decade. You won’t see this again for a while.”

Her smile became self–conscious. “If I’m around to see it.”

“I hope you will be.” Baz squeezed her hand back but said nothing more. She’d made it clear that his marriage proposal had been too impulsive for serious consideration. So he’d need to work up to it next time. More romance. And an absence of crying would be good.

Before the silence could get uncomfortable, Wynne said, “Do you want me to wake up your dad and bring him in?”

Baz could have said,
To hell with the old bastard,
but he was too raw for insensitivity, even his own. “Have you eaten?” he asked instead.

She shook her head.

“Neither have I, and presumably neither has dad.”

Wynne’s chin came up then, a sign Baz was beginning to recognize as signaling a decision on her part. “I’ll retrieve Ted while you get changed and make food,” she said. “I’m starving.”

“Good plan.” Baz wasn’t hungry in the slightest, but it would be helpful to have something to do, apart from drink. “We’ll have scrambled eggs and whisky.”

She grinned. “I knew I got dressed up for something.”

Baz glanced at her dress then, realizing for the first time that it was expensive – a shimmery, slinky fabric that covered her from neck to knee but showed off enough curves to be seriously sexy. Too much makeup again, but he was starting to find that endearing. “I like you in blue, Miss Malone,” he said.

She held his gaze and Baz was sure she was going to make some reply, but instead she just smiled and patted his arm. “I’ll get your dad.” Then she slipped past him and across the veranda. He watched her click–click down the stairs and along the path towards the pool. Then he closed his eyes and identified the warmth in his solar plexus as a kernel of happiness, a sudden awareness that he wasn’t alone on the planet — there was someone who cared enough about him to look at his problems and work out how to help.

Pathetic though it was, Baz felt like crying about that too. Crying for the loneliness he hadn’t even known he’d been experiencing. Crying for the bright new future Wynne had lain out in front of him. Crying, because he wasn’t sure he actually deserved it.

But he was damned well going to pursue it.

And nothing – not Venus, his father, Randolph Budjenski, or anyone else on the planet was going to stop him!

Friday

Chapter Twenty–Nine

I
don’t know about the slick down ‘do’,” Rand said, frowning at his reflection in Oscar’s boudoir mirror. “I look like from Macaulay Culkin in
Richie Rich.”

“Nonsense,” Oscar lisped, sashaying out of the walk in robe with a pair of black patent leather shoes in one hand. He stopped beside the oval mirror. “You look like Leonardo rising up from the ocean in
The Beach.
“ He nodded, and a strand of perfectly dyed raven hair slid over one waxed eyebrow. “Sultry, sexy and irresistible.”

Oscar’s latest, Rodrigo, rolled out of bed and stalked over to the mirror to stand naked beside his much–older lover. “But Randal is wearing a suit —”

“Armani. It’s not just a suit, my love,” Oscar corrected absently, and patted the Mexican’s tush.

“And that’s Ran
dolph,”
Rand added, only to be totally ignored as Rodrigo went on.

“ — and Leonardo was magnificently bare–chested in The Beach.” He eyed Rand critically. “There is no comparison.”

“Exactly what I was saying,” Rand said, taking the shoes out of Oscar’s hand.

“Plus your dick is smaller than Leonardo’s.”

Oscar put his hand over his mouth to stifle a smile, and at least had the good grace to cast Rand an apologetic glance before turning the oval mirror towards Rodrigo and saying, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who has the biggest dick of all?”

Rand sat down on the edge of the bed to put on the shoes, letting them have their moment. He’d dragged them out of bed early to help him. He owed them that, at least.

He heard the Mexican say, “The bull in your bed. Rodrigo of course,” and Rand glanced up to find the olive–skinned ex model with a cheeky smile that was melting Oscar’s middle–aged heart.

Rand just kept lacing the shoes. He’d seen bigger dicks on hermaphrodites, but this was Oscar’s fantasy, and what the old queen wanted…

“No–one’s is bigger,” Oscar whispered, then he patted Rodrigo’s tush again before nodding at the ensuite.

Rodrigo smiled back and said, “I run a bath.”

“Ten minutes,” Oscar promised.

Rand knotted the laces and came back to stand in front of the mirror.

“He’s gorgeous,” Oscar sighed, gazing at the closed bathroom door. “Isn’t he?”

“You know I’m straight, Osc.” Rand said, then he saw disappointment on the old man’s face. “But, yeah, a looker. And the size of that dick!” Rand shook his head in mock admiration.

Oscar grinned and leant in to whisper conspiratorially, “He was a virgin when I found him you know.”

“A virgin?” Rand couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his voice.

“Well, he’d had
women,
“ Oscar sniffed, with the sort of delicate shudder only large gay men can pull off. “But I was his first true lover.”

Rand tilted his chin up so Oscar could straighten his tie. “Well, no wonder,” Rand said. “Your sophistication is irresistible, Oscar. You’ll probably turn me one day,” telling the old queen what he wanted to hear.

“Os
car!
“ Rodrigo called from the bathroom and Rand and Oscar grinned at each other. The Mexican had obviously been eavesdropping.

“Coming, my horny bull,” Oscar called back, then he grabbed a set off keys off the Edwardian dresser and put them into Randolph’s hand. “Baby blue BMW in the car park behind the Baroque Gardens.” He started counting off on his fingers, “Italian leather wallet in the glove box, briefcase in the boot with the ‘insurance’ you wanted inside it, casual clothes on the back seat if you need to change.” He dropped his hands. “Have I covered everything?”

Rand grinned. “How do you do it?”

“Trade secret,” Oscar whispered back, then added, “The owner of the car is a married man on a weekend wildlife safari –”

“With the boys from the Baroque?” Rand wanted to whistle. “I hope he’s got a blow up cushion to sit on next week.”

“You wicked boy,” Oscar said, but he grinned. “They’ve got him locked in and probably tied up so he won’t need his car until Sunday afternoon. That gives you two nights for your little adventure.”

“I’ll be back by tomorrow,” Rand said, hoping he would, and thankful Oscar didn’t want details. The old queen had been Rand’s fairy godmother ever since the night Rand had blundered in on a domestic situation between Oscar and a drugged up knife–wielding predecessor of Rodrigo’s. The old fool liked young men with ‘a certain edge’ as he called it, and Rand had taken a serious cut getting Oscar away from that psycho, but Rand didn’t mind Rodrigo. The Mexican was arrogant but harmless.

“Take it through a carwash before you put it back,” Oscar reminded him.

“Sure,” Rand leant up and kissed Oscar on the cheek. “I owe you,” he said.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Oscar replied as he always did. “Just keep fattening up that rascal boy Possum. I want him nice and meaty before I come over to eat him.”

Rand shook his head. Thank God Poss never heard Oscar’s teasing. The kid would get even more paranoid than he already was. “You really are a wicked old queen.”

Oscar turned towards the ensuite. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall!” he called, and waved goodbye to Rand who let himself out of the apartment and a minute later, out of the renovated old warehouse onto a paved footpath in the trendy end of the Valley.