The Goodbye Ride (15 page)

Ben made a great show of swallowing his
slice. “If you ask me, darl—and you
did
ask me—I’d say your Owen’s not
after a one-nighter. I think you should have waited longer this morning. Did
you even give him a call?”

“How could I? His phone’s been with me.”
Heat flushed her cheeks.
God, the things he’d done to her using that phone…
“He has my number though. There’s no reason he couldn’t have called me if he
couldn’t make it, or if he changed his mind.”

A pelican landed on the bank not far from
them, preening at its feathers. Ben threw it a crust of his pie.

“Do pelicans even eat pie?” Liv asked.

“Pelicans eat anything.” Ben turned to give
her his full attention. “Look, Liv, I trust your judgement. You’re Luke’s
sister and you’re my best friend and you wouldn’t fall for an arsehole, so give
it time to all shake out, hey?”

“I guess so.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

Liv had no response to that. Maybe if Owen
had left her a note. Even now, if he’d just call. She’d checked her phone for
messages in the bakery.
Nothing.

After a few more minutes, Ben flicked
pastry from his leathers and patted his stomach. “We should say something, Liv.
Luke loved a good speech. Remember how he used to know that Jerry Maguire
show-me-the-money scene off by heart?”

The second Ben put
Luke
and
speech
and
Jerry Maguire
together in a sentence,
her throat clogged.

She brushed the front of her jeans, then
stood and repeated the actions on her backside. Ben stayed on the willow log
and the river rolled by, deep and brown and wide.

“Leap in any time.” She cleared her throat
and tried to centre her thoughts. How did she sum up three years without her
brother in mere words? It wasn’t possible.

“Luke. I think of you every day and I miss
you so much.”

Saying her brother’s name aloud was all it
took to make her voice crack.

“Deep breath, darl,” Ben said beside her,
but there was a catch in his voice too.

She smiled at him through the blur of
brimming tears and turned back to watch the river. “I wanted to buy the Pantah
for you, Luke—Harley Lang doesn’t want it anymore and his dad was selling
it—but someone had more money to spend than me, so we missed out. I’m sorry
about that. We wanted to bring it up here, Ben and I. We knew you’d like to see
her this one last time.”

Ben stood up beside her and their eyes met.
His fists were clenched tight against his thighs and he swallowed, Adam’s apple
sliding in his throat. Having him near gave Liv the courage to keep talking.
She put her hand out to him and Ben gripped it tight.

“Dad and Mum are doing okay. I’ll be moving
out when I can find a place. They miss you. Every single day I wish you were
here.
Every
day. I never had to explain things to you. You just knew.”

That was all she could get out, but it felt
like enough.

Ben stared across the water, eyes fixed on
something only he could see. “Goodbye, best man in the world. Goodbye, Luke, my
angel.”

The paddle steamer let out a huge toot and
they watched the boat lumber slowly from the wharf.

“Well,” Ben said, after long minutes watching
ripples slap the bank. “I guess that’s that.”

“I guess so,” Liv blinked back her tears.

They retraced their path along the river,
heading toward the town, arms linked, each locked in thought.

“I’m happy, you know?” Ben said once.

“I know. Me too.” She thought of Aunt
Margaret and shine lines and haircuts. If unloading her soul at the restaurant
last night had been a trim, today she’d been cut, coloured and blown-dry.

That was when Liv worked it out. Instantly,
the fog in her head cleared.

“When we get home I’m calling Owen myself,
Ben—bugger all this faffing about. What’s the worst that can happen? Even if he
tells me he’s going back to Antarctica or he isn’t interested, at least I’ll
know where I stand.”

“Yay team.” Ben pumped his fist.

Liv gave him a sideways look. “Seriously?
Yay team?”

“What else do you want me to say? Atta
girl! That’s the spirit!
You’re the man!
” He was laughing now, his body
shaking beside her. His mood made her giggle too.

“Alright then. Yay team!” Liv pumped her
fist with him.

A white van blocked their view of Ben’s
Honda and they had to walk right up to the van before they could see past the
bigger car. Clearing the front fender, Liv stopped so fast, Ben’s next step
almost dragged her off her feet.

“Wow,” he whistled low beside her. “Now can
I say I told you so?”

“Sure.” Liv didn’t trust herself to get
through more than that one syllable. Her throat had gone bone dry, her pulse
raced.

Ben bumped his forearm into her ribs. “I
so
told you so.”

Slotted in the park bay beside the Honda
was Luke Murphy’s shining red Ducati Pantah 650.

Liv and Ben spun, each searching the sea of
picnicking faces—families, singles, couples—searching for the only face that
mattered.

“I don’t even know what he looks like,” Ben
muttered. “Arms. Look for a guy with good arms.”

“Great arms,” Liv corrected.

And she saw him.

Owen stared at her, unsmiling, from the
deck of the pub. He was about fifty metres away, elbows resting casually on the
guard rail. Draped beside him was a black jacket and through the timber balcony
slats, a helmet gleamed at his feet.

Liv waved. She couldn’t help herself. She
almost waved herself into next week. Owen’s mouth creased into a big, broad,
answering grin.

“Is that him?” Ben whispered, following the
direction of her riveted gaze.

“It’s him.”
It’s him.

“What are you waiting for?”

Liv took two steps in Owen’s direction then
turned back. “Come and meet him.”

Ben blew her a misty-eyed kiss. “Three’s a
crowd, Darl. You go have your Hollywood moment. I hate happy endings.”

Liv dashed back to Ben and hugged him
fiercely. Her fingers dug into the leather across his back making it creak. “I
love that Luke had you in his life.”

“I loved being in his life, Liv, your
brother was the best. Now go on.”

Liv’s feet flew.

Ben watched Olivia skip across the grass,
threading her way past picnic rugs and prams, dodging a staffy pup that leapt
up, thinking she wanted to play.

He saw Owen jog down to wait at the foot of
the stairs. When she reached him, he opened his arms and swept Liv off her feet.

Ben sighed inside. He couldn’t watch for
long. Seeing other people in love only made his own emptiness worse.

The jangle of a set of keys caught his
attention.

A man in a tan sports coat,
three-quarter-length white pants and loafers, stopped near the van’s sliding
door. He had two fistfuls of shopping bags and a leather key-holder in his
teeth.

The guy saw the Ducati at the same time as
he saw Ben and muttered around his mouthful: “Yougodanithebike.” 

Ben smiled carefully. He might be a
nutter—so many of the good-looking ones were.

The van owner swapped the shopping bags in
his left hand to his right then spat the key into his left palm.

“Sorry. What I said was: you got a
nice
bike.” Only his eyes weren’t on the bike, they were wrapping around Ben.

He had a great voice, rumbly and low. A
reading poetry at two in the morning on the pillow beside him, kind of voice.

“Thanks,” Ben said, tapping his fingers on
the leather at his thigh. “Do you ride?”

Epilogue

“Didn’t you get my note?” Owen said. He hadn’t
let go of her hand since she’d run into his arms.

“What note? I looked everywhere. I thought
you’d up and left me, you bugger. I thought you’d done a runner.”

He squeezed her hand so tight it hurt.
“Idiot.”

A family approached the stairs and Owen
pulled Liv to the side to make room, leaning back against the timber slats of
the deck and dragging her into his chest.

“Do you still think all I’m after with you
is a good time? Not a long time?”

“No. I don’t. Not now.” Her entire body
felt at peace, like a cat whose fur has been rubbed the right way for hours.

“I want to tell you something, just in case
it changes your mind, Liv. And if it does change your mind and you don’t want
to be with me, I’ll understand.” He dropped a kiss in her hair.

Liv pulled back so she could meet his eyes.
Serious eyes.
Very
serious eyes.

“In the vineyard you asked me why I chose
to work in Antarctica last summer and I said it was because of the money? That
I didn’t want to work in the mines?”

Liv nodded. “I remember.”

“That wasn’t everything. I had to get out
of town because I broke a boy’s arm. Do you remember I told you about what
happened to my Granddad?”

“Someone tried to steal fuel and then
bashed him?” Liv searched Owen’s face, trying to understand the reason for the
tension written there.

“I found the kid who did it two nights
later. Granddad told me who attacked him at the hospital. It turned out we knew
the family—not well—but I’d played basketball against his older brother. I
didn’t think about it. I took a baseball bat to the kid’s house—he was only
nineteen—and I broke his elbow. It shattered like a watermelon.”

The image made Liv flinch. Instantly, Owen
released her. “I’ve scared you, haven’t I? You think I’m a thug.”

Liv snuggled closer, using her hand to push
Owen’s arm back in place at her shoulder. “I don’t think you’re a thug. But I
don’t know why you didn’t tell me the truth?”

“You’ve got all these hang-ups about
Neanderthal men. What I did to Jayden Parker was pretty damn primitive.” Owen’s
hands rubbed her back. “I thought if you got to know me first, you’d know I
wasn’t
that
man. I’m not some brute who uses his fists to get what he
wants.”

Liv thought about it for a while. She
wasn’t upset. A little shocked maybe, but not upset.

“I’m dying over here, Lovely. Please tell
me what you’re thinking?”

She kissed his jaw, bristly with stubble.
“I’ve wished so many times I could catch those dickheads who ran Luke off the
road that morning. God, I understand the motivation behind what you did,
Owen—but you stopped. And when you look back now, you’re sorry. You can pity
that boy, even though he hurt someone you love. That takes strength.”

“Thank you,” he said. He exhaled and she
felt the tension flow from him. “By the way, Liv, your dad knows about it, too.
Jack and I are on first name terms.”

She groaned. “Firemen are bigger gossips
than hairdressers.”

They laughed, and the emotional tight-rope
they’d each walked all morning, broke.

He kissed her. A soft kiss, sweet with
reunion.

“Come on,” Liv tugged his hand. “I want you
to meet Ben.”

Owen arched an eyebrow at the carpark. “It
looks like I’m not the only bloke in Mannum lining up to meet Ben.”

Liv turned toward the Ducati and the white
van. Two shopping bags sat beside the van’s closed door, one overflowing its
fruit and vegetables to the bitumen—not that either man noticed. Both were too
busy admiring the Ducati, touching its seat and fuel tank, like kids with a new
toy.

“I think you better take a ticket,” Liv
said. “Just to be safe.”

The End.

You’ve
finished!

Thank
you for reading
The Goodbye Ride.

If you
liked my novella, please consider giving it some ‘star’ love at Amazon or
Goodreads, and if you have time, post a quick review of why you liked it.

You
might like to consider recommending it to your friends, talking about it at
your book club, or sharing on Facebook, or in any blogs you follow.

Whether
you liked the book, or it wasn’t for you - I’d love to hear why.

You
can tell me at
[email protected]

Thank
you for sharing a few hours with Olivia and Owen in the beautiful Adelaide
Hills.

It’s a
lovely part of South Australia.

By this author

His Brand Of Beautiful
— Lily Malone — March 2013

When marketing strategist Tate Newell first
meets wine executive Christina Clay he has one goal in mind: tell Christina he
won
’’
t design the new brand for Clay Wines. Tell
her: Thanks but no thanks. So long, good night.

But Tate is a sucker for a damsel in
distress and when a diary mix-up leaves Christina in his debt, Tate gets more
than he bargained for.