Outback Secrets by Rachael Johns

Chapter Sixteen

Liam needed his head read. That’s what he decided as he drove out of the car park and turned into the main street towards Dolce’s end of town. The lights on all the shops made it feel as if they were driving through a silent disco and did not help the tension building in his head at all.

What had he been thinking agreeing to let Henri come with him? He didn’t need her help and last night had been torturous enough. Now in the closed confines of his ute, he was struggling to think, and struggling to keep his eyes on the road when her practically bare-naked legs were only centimetres from his. A fake relationship was proving to be all-consuming and just as infuriating as a real one could be, only without the benefit of sex. His fingers twitched around the steering wheel, but he resisted the urge to reach out and place his hand on her thigh. How many days were there until Christmas? How many days until the decorations and flashing lights all around them could be taken down? Till Henri would leave again and things could go back to normal? Liam honestly wasn’t sure how long he could keep it up. His thoughts about taking things further were getting stronger each moment they spent together. Right now, his cut lip wasn’t the only part of him throbbing.

You simply need to remember that this is all an act!

But the problem with fake was that sometimes it felt very damn real. And sometimes when she looked at him, he wasn’t so sure that she wasn’t harbouring the same illicit thoughts as him. She’d ordered Sex on the Beach for crying out loud!

Maybe he should just ask her? Come right out and lay his cards on the table. See if she wanted to turn their charade into a summer fling? But if she didn’t … how awkward would that make things between them? More to the point, why did he care?

Dammit, why was he losing his head over this? Until a week ago, he hadn’t even known she existed.

Usually, sexual attraction was simple. He met someone he thought was hot, made sure they felt the same about him and didn’t have lingering ties to anyone in town—then made his move. They enjoyed each other’s company for a night (two max) and then both moved on.

The problem with Henri was she did have ties in town, and he already felt like he knew her better than he ever allowed himself to know any of his liaisons.

He felt like maybe they were becoming friends.

Friends.Even in his head that word felt alien. He couldn’t say he’d had a proper one since leaving America. Sure, he still occasionally communicated with his childhood best friend Simon and his wife Holly, but it was mostly surface stuff. They emailed him pictures of their cute kids and liked the posts he put on the pub’s Facebook page. In the early years they’d made noises about coming to visit him, but it was a long way and they didn’t have the funds. He could have helped with that, but seeing them would have brought back too many memories of times when life was good. Watching Simon, Holly and their children together would only remind him of everything he’d lost.

‘Wow!’ Henri shrieked, jolting Liam from his thoughts as he turned into a residential street that was lit up even more than the main one, if that was possible.

He tried to ignore the tightness in his chest as he slowed the car. He should have waited a little longer until all the lights had been switched off, but as usual, with Henri around, he wasn’t thinking straight.

‘Everyone’s really gone to town this year,’ she added.

He could barely manage a nod as he surveyed either side of the road. The houses were overloaded with flashing coloured lights and front lawns littered with big blow-up decorations swaying a little in the sea breeze. The Bradys even had Santa, his sleigh and six white kangaroos on their roof. Eileen didn’t like to be outdone. Still, it was only a fraction of what you’d see this time of year in the States. And without the snow and the frost, it didn’t quite have the same effect. Thankfully.

As if reading his mind, Henri said, ‘Whenever I see lights like this, it always reminds me of the houses you see in Christmas movies. I remember watching Home Alone as a kid and being so jealous of the snow and sparkling lights and wishing we went to more effort down under, and now it seems we do. Did people go all out decorating their houses where you come from?’

‘Huh?’ He barely heard her question, the sound of his heart thumping too loud to register anything else. This was why he steered clear of Christmas decorations.

‘In Colorado, where you come from, are the houses all decked to the nines for Christmas?’

‘Yeah,’ he managed. ‘They are.’

‘So where is that?’

He glanced at her quickly and frowned. ‘Where is what?’

‘Where you come from?’ she said, her tone bemused. ‘What town?’

‘Ah … right.’ He’d never told anyone in Bunyip Bay the name of his hometown, well, almost no one. The old sergeant, O’Leary, had checked him out not long after he’d arrived because some people had apparently been asking questions. He could guess who they were. But aside from the cops, he didn’t want people to be able to google his name and the town and put two and two together, so he’d remained vague whenever anyone asked.

‘Are you all right?’ Henri touched his hand gently as he slowed the ute to a stop in front of Rex’s house.

As Liam had suspected, his most faithful patron’s house was one of the few that was not lit up like the Rockefeller Plaza at Christmas.

He switched off the engine and the headlights. ‘Silver Ridge … that’s where I come from.’

‘Sounds pretty.’

He could hear the smile in her voice as he turned to look at her.

‘It is.’ And she was too, he thought, as he met her gaze. So pretty. Vowing to focus on the task at hand, he cleared his throat. ‘Come on, let’s get this show on the road.’

They both climbed out and crept to the back of the ute. She kept watch while Liam untied all the knots.

‘This is fun,’ she said as they manoeuvred the rocking chair off the ute. ‘I feel like a reverse burglar.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Reverse burglar?’

‘Yeah. Totally. We should have worn balaclavas.’

It was hard not to laugh as an image of Henri wearing a black mask and ski suit landed in his head. She’d make the sexiest damn burglar he’d ever seen.

Neither of them said a word as they lurked up the street, doing their best to be quiet as they carried the rocking chair between them. They were almost at their destination when the clock struck midnight and, just like that, the street went perfectly black. Well, it would have been perfect if Henri didn’t choose that moment to get a serious case of the giggles.

‘Shh,’ he hissed, more amused than infuriated. She didn’t come across as the kind of girl who giggled, but the more time he spent with her the more she surprised him. ‘You’re supposed to be helping, not getting us caught.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She didn’t sound it, but she managed to curtail her laughter as they tiptoed up onto the porch, put his rocking chair alongside Dolce’s old one and retreated quickly.

‘I bet everything about Christmas is pretty different in America,’ Henri said as they made their way back to the ute, passing by a house that had three white reindeer grazing on the front lawn.

Damn Christmas, couldn’t she think of anything else to talk about?

‘Yeah.’ He forced himself to reply like a normal person. ‘Summer will never feel like … like Christmas to me, neither will prawns on the barbie or cricket in the backyard.’ And that was a good thing. ‘Is that what you guys do out on the farm?’

‘Not so much anymore—my brothers don’t like it when I score more runs than them. When Dad was alive, he used to tell them to grow up and stop being sore losers. Mum keeps things fairly traditional foodwise. Despite the heat, she still usually goes the whole shebang with ham and turkey, roast veg, Yorkshire puddings, gravy and a steamed Christmas pudding. Once we’re all stuffed silly, we flop about in the pool or head to the beach.’ She looked up at him. ‘What about you? What was Christmas like when you were growing up?’

His throat threatened to close over at the question, but he didn’t want to keep being weird or for her to think him a grump so, somehow, he managed to tell her something.

‘Well, my family wasn’t huge, so Mom would invite around anyone she knew who was going to be alone for the holiday and she’d put on this enormous meal. Sometimes we’d have up to twenty strays. It was never boring.’

‘Sounds fun. I guess you ate turkey?’

‘Of course.’ Another forced smile. ‘And also the traditional casseroles—green beans, marshmallow and yams—and more pies than anyone could ever eat. Pumpkin, pecan …’

He trailed off when he realised Henri had stopped and was staring at him like he was an alien. ‘What?’

‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought yams were sweet potatoes?’ When he nodded, she screwed up her nose. ‘Please tell me you don’t eat them mixed together with marshmallows?’

The tightness in his chest eased a little at her horror. His smile became real. ‘Don’t mock it until you’ve tried it.’

She opened her mouth, but her words were lost as a gunshot pierced the otherwise silent night.

Fuck.His stomach dropped. How could this be happening? Again?

But there was no time to question fate. Instinct kicked in and Liam dived in front of Henri, pushing her onto the ground and covering her body with his. Moments later what looked like Brad’s V8 Falcon hooned past, smoke pouring out of its exhaust.

At the realisation it was just the engine backfiring, breath gushed from his lungs and his heart rate tried to catch up with his head.

‘Sorry. Are you okay?’ he panted, gazing down at Henri, her face mere centimetres from his.

‘That scar on your shoulder isn’t because you fell from a tree, is it?’

‘No.’ He sucked in a breath. ‘It’s not.’

Silence stretched between them. In the distance he could hear waves lapping against the shore, and maybe an owl.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she asked eventually.

Did he want to talk about it?That was the last thing he ever wanted to do, but something about Henri had him wavering. He’d almost come clean to her last night. And after what had just happened, perhaps he did owe her some kind of explanation.

Rolling off her, Liam sat up, ran a hand through his hair and took a few ragged breaths.

Beside him, she slowly rose into a sitting position but didn’t say a word.

‘It was almost thirteen years ago,’ he said after a long moment’s silence. ‘My family—my parents—owned a couple of supermarkets. Gourmet grocery stores really. We sold a lot of organic stuff, local produce, baked goods from small businesses. Dad always wanted to make it feel like you’d stepped back in time when you entered one of the stores. We were all about old-fashioned service—you got your bags packed at the checkout and then someone would carry them out to your car for you.’

In the light of the moon, Liam saw a faint smile cross Henri’s face, but she still didn’t speak.

‘Anyway, one day … I got a call from Lacey, my little sister. I was at one of our stores and she was with my parents at the other. She was crying so hard I could barely make out what she was saying. Turns out there was a crazy person storming around the store.’

He took another deep breath and Henri gave him an encouraging nod.

‘I could hear shouting and screaming. I thought she said someone was threatening to shoot Mom and Dad. Even though I couldn’t believe it, I got in my car and drove over there as fast as I could. On a good day it’s a fifteen-minute drive. I made it in nine and a half. Lacey stayed on the line, and I heard gunshots. She screamed. She was hysterical.’ He’d never forget that piercing sound—it was almost worse than the sound of gunfire. ‘She didn’t have to tell me. I just knew.’

‘He killed your parents?’

Liam nodded. ‘I tried to go inside. The sheriff was there. But Silver Ridge … it’s a small town. He ordered me to wait for back-up, but I … I had to get to Lacey. I couldn’t leave her in there alone.’

That’s when he lost the battle with tears. He didn’t know if he could go on.

Henri reached out and squeezed his hand. Liam looked down at her hand wrapped around his and then back into her face. Her eyes were glistening too.

‘It was a war zone,’ he said. ‘Customers. Staff. Everyone was hiding under checkouts. Hiding wherever they could. There were kids squeezed into the tiny space under the shelves where their parents had shoved them, stock scattered all over the floor. Blood. Everywhere. So much blood … I saw Mom first, then Dad. Then Lacey.’

‘No,’ Henri gasped, and he nodded.

‘The bastard turned his gun on me. I honestly couldn’t have cared less if he killed me. But there were two more shots before he could.’

Although the night was still warm, Liam shivered, then tugged aside the collar of his shirt to reveal his scar. The reminder of what he’d lost, which he saw every day when he looked in the mirror.

Tears were now pouring down Henri’s cheeks as she gazed at it.

‘He shot me at the exact time the cops shot him. He was killed instantly. His aim wasn’t so great with me. It didn’t matter, he’d already taken almost everything I cared about.’

Not quite everything.

But Liam didn’t tell Henri about Kate. He couldn’t. It was hard to believe he’d managed to tell her what he had, but there was only so much his heart could take in one night.

‘Who was he?’ she asked.

‘Who was who?’

‘The killer?’

He sighed. ‘Some guy whose girlfriend had dumped him for a man who worked for us. Stupid thing was he got the wrong store. Nate worked with me at Monument. That bastard took five lives that day—two other employees as well as my family. And he got off lightly in the end. His punishment should have been so much more than death. He should be living out his years in some hellish prison, worrying someone might slice his throat while he sleeps.’

‘I can’t even, Liam … I don’t know what to say.’

‘There’s nothing you can say.’

They sat in silence a few minutes before Henri said, ‘What did you do … after?’

‘After all the mess was cleaned up and I’d buried my whole family?’

Her eyes widened. ‘You didn’t have anyone else? No aunts, uncles, grandparents?’

‘My dad was an only child. Mom was estranged from her family—I’ve never met any of them—and Dad’s mother died when he was nineteen. Bowel cancer. When … when the shooting happened, his father was in residential care with dementia. He went a few months later. I’m not sure how much he understood about the shooting. Maybe grief was what finished him off.’

‘Oh God,’ Henri breathed.

He knew what she was thinking. That he’d lost his immediate family and then his only living relative in a matter of months.

‘It was always the plan that I’d take over the running of the stores when Mom and Dad retired. I’d already started working on plans to expand across the state. But I could barely step foot in those two stores anymore, and after Pa’s funeral, well, there didn’t seem any point to anything.’

‘So, you sold the supermarkets and came here?’

‘Yeah … A local businessman bought our Monument store, and I sold the Silver Ridge one to a supermarket chain that planned to knock it down and build their own. The town wasn’t very happy with me—they didn’t want big business ruining their small-town charm, but I didn’t care. I had to get the hell out of America. I had citizenship here because of Mom, and the best damn thing about it …’

‘Our strict gun laws?’ she finished when his voice trailed off.

He nodded.

She squeezed his hand again. ‘I don’t blame you.’

He started trembling—the shock of having spoken about this properly for the first time in a long time taking hold. ‘Please don’t tell anyone.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Because … because in Silver Ridge I became that tragic guy from the grocery stores who lost all his loved ones in a shooting. It changed how people behaved around me. And I don’t need other people’s pity as a constant reminder of everything I’ve lost. As if I’ll ever forget. But here, here in Bunyip Bay, I’m just Liam the publican—I can live with that guy.’

Left unsaid was the fact he couldn’t live with the other guy.

‘It’s okay.’ Henri pressed her finger against his lip, just to the right of the split. It tingled beneath her touch. ‘Your secret’s safe with me. I promise.’

He felt the tension rush out of his lungs. Because he believed her.

‘You wanna go home now?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’

They stood, and as they walked in silence, Henri slipped her hand into his. She held it firmly until they got back to the ute.

‘You know,’ she said when they were back upstairs in his apartment and kicking off their shoes. ‘Your couch is nowhere near as comfortable as it looks. But … there’s really plenty of room in your bed … We could always share it?’

‘Thanks,’ he managed after serious hesitation, ‘but I’ll be fine on the couch. You take the bed. I’ll see you in the morning.’

As much as he craved the feeling of lying alongside Henri, he needed to be alone a while. Besides, if there was any night his terrors were going to return, this would be it.

He only hoped Henri was a deep sleeper.