Holding Out for a Hero (20 page)

Rosie whistled. “Wow. Gutsy.”

Ella nodded. “But his evidence was disallowed because Jake refused to name the first woman.”

Rosie leaned forward. “What happened to Tony Winchester?”

“He pleaded to some watered-down charge, got a good behavior bond. He’s some hot-shot NRL commentator now.”

“And the Heroes sacked Jake,” Daisy said, completing the story.

Ella looked at her. “It sure would have been handy to know.”

Daisy shrugged again as she lit a rollie. “You spend your life as a circus freak being judged and misunderstood by everyone outside of that world you soon learn not to judge others.”

“I’m not talking about judging him,” Ella said testily. “A heads up would have been nice.”

“It’s Jake’s story to tell,” Iris said, intervening in her quiet yet commanding way.

Ella felt her exasperation boil over. She opened her mouth to protest but knew it was futile. Daisy and Iris had always kept their own counsel; it was just their way. Even if asked directly they were cautious in their opinions but otherwise they accepted the way things were. Like Rosie turning into Ita Buttrose. And Ella’s inept attempts at raising Cam.

And after coming from a small town where nobody could keep their mouths shut and everything you did and said and everywhere you went was gossiped about and judged, Daisy’s and Iris’s quiet support had been a welcome relief for Ella. It was a bit rich to chafe against it now.

“I know,” Ella sighed. “I’m sorry.”

There was a moment’s silence where Ella stared morosely into her drink, Rosie drummed her fingers on the table and the aunts smoked.

Daisy squinted at Ella through the haze. “Something arrived for you today,” she said, jerking her head sideways to indicate the television cabinet.

Ella turned, her gaze falling on the long, cylindrical package, knowing instantly what it was. She leaped up, pleased for the distraction, tearing open the lid. Nestled in tissue paper inside was a bronzed glittery kewpie doll head. She pulled it out, revealing the full fairy perched atop its bamboo stick.

Ella smiled as the golden, glitter-encrusted bodice caught the rays of the slanting afternoon sun. She twisted it around, the bright golden wings and yellow tulle tutu sparkling as if they’d been impregnated with drops of diamond dust.

It was perfectly, awfully, garish. “I love it,” Ella said, and beamed.

“It’s from old Uncle Clem,” Daisy said. “They got a new batch in and he didn’t think you had a gold one yet.” Uncle Clem was in his eighties, dentally challenged and partially deaf from running the dodgems his entire life, but his memory was rock solid.

Ella sat, twirling her gift, remembering the first one that Rosie had given her almost two decades before. She felt absurdly like crying. She looked at Daisy and Iris. “What am I going to do?” she asked.

Daisy looked at her directly through a curling nicotine wisp. “You askin’?”

Ella nodded. “I’m asking.”

Daisy crushed out her cigarette and reached for another. “There’s two sides to every story,” she said.

It was Ella’s turn to belt on Jake’s door, which she did with relish. There was no reply after a minute so she belted again, feeling her earlier anger at his desertion return.

“I know you’re skulking around in there, Jake,” she yelled, giving the wide, fancy, frosted glass and metal piece of art another bash. “Answer the damn door.”

The door swung open and Jake stood before her. He was wearing jeans and nothing else, his feet bare, a Corona in hand. He hadn’t shaved and it didn’t look like he’d slept either. She should have been repulsed. She wasn’t.

Jake took a swig of his beer. “I do not skulk.”

Ella glared at him. “We need to talk.”

Jake swallowed his mouthful and concentrated on its bitter flavor against his tongue. She was wearing that cream peasant blouse from their first training session and treacherous thoughts of how sweet she tasted roared to life.

He leaned a shoulder against his door frame. “Nope. That’s one of the advantages of having quit.”

The belligerence in his voice stung. Ella held on to the slender thread of her patience. Luckily she’d had plenty of practice with hundreds of sullen teenagers. “Do you think I can come in and we could discuss it?”

Jake straightened. “I have company.”

A well of disgust bubbled up and any feelings she’d been harboring for him shattered inside her chest.

“You’re having sex?” she asked incredulously. “You have got to be kidding me.” Ella was aware her voice was getting higher but she didn’t care. How dare he answer the door with his post-coital beer, nearly naked and fresh out of bed with another woman when he should be at Hanniford.

“Jesus, Jake, surely you can keep it your pants for a couple of hours each afternoon?”

“Jake? Who’s there?”

Ella tensed and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. She didn’t want to come face to face with Jake’s latest. She didn’t want to see that I’ve-just-been-in-bed-with-a-sex-god look she knew would be on the woman’s face. But mostly Ella didn’t want to see her, because she wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t scratch the bitch’s eyes out. Shit!

Since when had she given a rat’s ass about who Jake slept with?

Shit, shit, shit.

Jake’s gaze fell to her bottom lip, moist from the ministrations of her teeth. Working closely but keeping himself distant the last six months after one night in her bed had been damn near impossible. Having her on his doorstep in that smokin’ blouse wasn’t helping.

God knew he wanted to suck that lip into his mouth so badly he could barely see straight. His gaze drifted up. She was watching him. He didn’t take his eyes off it as he called, “Wrong number,” over his shoulder.

Trish Jones appeared from behind Jake with a puzzled expression and Ella almost bit her lip. He was bonking Trish? She’d always wondered if there was something between them. Had they been lovers? Were they lovers still?

“Ella! Hi, did Pete send you to talk some sense into Jake too?” Trish smiled then gave Jake a playful slap on the arm. “Jake, don’t leave the poor girl standing on the doorstep.” She grabbed Ella’s arm and ushered her inside. “Go and put a shirt on,” she ordered.

Jake stood in the doorway for a moment longer watching the two women who, apart from his aunt, had been pivotal in his life. Ella’s hips swayed in her long brown skirt and he could see her bra strap as Trish led her away. Her ponytail swished from side to side with each swing of her hips.

Fuck
.

He was in serious trouble. Both of them here, ganging up on him, Trish and their history, Ella and all their stuff—both modern and ancient.

And that damn blouse.

Ella followed Trish through Jake’s open-plan apartment. It was the epitome of rich, single man. Soaring ceilings with exposed ducting gave it an industrial feel and sleek chrome fixtures added to it. A staircase with wire railings and metal treads more at home in a factory than an apartment twisted up to a mezzanine level. Black leather couches, smoky glass tables and gun-metal grey rugs sparsely furnished the cavernous space. Ella winced. She knew it would be like this. About as far removed from kitsch central as you could get.

Trish led her straight to the massive kitchen and opened the stainless steel fridge door. As much as she liked Miranda’s mother, a tiny part of Ella hated that she knew her way around Jake’s apartment so easily. That she could open the fridge door like she’d done it a thousand times before.

“You look like you could use a drink,” Trish said.

Already well lubricated with sherry, Ella didn’t argue as the other woman pulled out a bottle of white wine and placed it on the black marble top of the central island. She opened a cupboard, produced a glass that twinkled in the chrome down lights and poured a generous slug of Chardonnay.

“C’mon,” Trish said handing Ella the glass. “We’re on the deck.”

They passed a theater area with black leather recliners and a TV screen that could have been right at home at an Imax, before stepping onto the deck. The railing consisted of smoky glass panels topped with tensile wire. There was more smoky glass for the table surrounded by ten aluminum chairs. A welcome wall of greenery cheered up one high grey boundary wall and attracted Ella like a bee to a flower. Hibiscus plants in a long terracotta planter had been trained into a low hedge and centered strategically. A large potted red chili plant butted against the hedge at the end closest to the railing and at the opposite end a dwarf lemon tree groaned with bright yellow fruit. She guessed that was a smart investment for someone who drank as much Corona as Jake.

Several small shelves had been erected haphazardly on the wall above the hedge and were cluttered with pretty pots full of flowers: pansies and sweet peas, geraniums and fuchsias. Two massive staghorns hung higher on the wall and dark ivy crept decoratively over the spaces in between. It was the only corner of Jake’s apartment that looked like it hadn’t been decorated by the Australian Metalworkers Union. Ella fingered a red chili and admired its organic beauty.

“You like my handiwork?” Trish laughed. “Miranda and I keep buying him plants. And of course tending them, otherwise they’d be dead. This place is so bloody austere, don’t you think? All chrome and glass. I feel like I’m in a factory.”

Well that figured. The only part of Jake’s place that felt human and it belonged to Trish. “Yes, it’s very … masculine.”

Trish laughed. “That’s one word for it. I prefer too much money not enough give-a-shit.”

Ella laughed with her as she moved to the railing and took a sip of her wine. The sweeping view over the river was breathtaking and it would no doubt have delighted her at any other time but the words she wanted to say to Jake were churning over and over in her head and she’d hoped not to have an audience when she did it. Especially if it was Trish. Her relationship with Jake was making Ella crazy and she really, really wanted to hate the diminutive ex-cheerleader. But Trish Jones was just too damn nice to justify such a potent emotion.

“Let’s get this over with.”

Ella turned at Jake’s announcement. He had thrown on a black button-up shirt shot with a fine silver stripe. It blended effortlessly with his black and chrome furnishings and she disliked it on sight. He hadn’t bothered with the buttons and the river breeze tugged at its tails and his tattoo played peek-a-boo.

Okay, the shirt had its good points.

Jake pulled up a chair. “So is this going to be good cop, bad cop?”

Ella watched as he took another swig of his beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. He placed the bottle on the table and it made a harsh tapping noise. He was looking at her belligerently and she couldn’t stand how he could be so unaffected when she was fighting for the life of her school, for her kids—and when that damn tattoo was lighting a fire in her knickers that was threatening to burn for the term of her natural life.

She turned to Trish. “You wanna be good cop?”

Trish shook her head. “Nope.”

Ella put her hand on her hip and turned back to him. “Looks like it’s just bad cop, bad cop.”

Jake sighed as Trish pulled up a chair beside him and Ella followed suit, sitting opposite. “Look, I can save you the trouble. Nothing you can say, either of you, will change my mind.”

Ella wanted to dump his beer over his head. “You can’t just quit, Jake. Not now.”

“Yes, I can. I did.”

“Jake,” Trish chided. “Miranda’s going to be very disappointed in you.”

“Well, Miranda’s going to have to get used to being disappointed. It’s a big, bad world out there.”

Trish raised an eyebrow. ‘You think
I
don’t know that?”

“You know why it has to be this way, Trish.”

Ella watched them, not quite understanding but growing impatient. She wanted to cut to the chase. Deal with the situation she’d created and get Jake back on the field.

“I know what happened all those years ago,” she said, earning a startled look from both Trish and Jake. “I’ve been Googling.” She shrugged. “And I’m sorry I went behind your back and called the paper and stirred it all up again.”

Jake closed his eyes and expelled a breath as his past rushed out, swirling around him in all its vivid, sullied glory. He stared at his beer sullenly. Somehow the fact that Ella’s loathing of sport had kept her ignorant to his sordid decline had been refreshing. It had meant something that she didn’t know. Almost twenty years later the shame still clung and a part of him hadn’t wanted her privy to all the murky details. He wasn’t sure if he could bear to see the judgment in her eyes.

Ella frowned. Jake suddenly looked decidedly worse than when he’d opened the door to her ten minutes ago: pale and every one of his thirty-eight years. She thought her being aware of the situation would make things better.

“I can’t undo it, Jake. I would, if I could. But I can’t. And those boys, the team, shouldn’t be punished for a mistake I made. Please come back and finish the job.”

Ella watched, her heart pounding, as Jake drained his beer and set it gently back on the table with grim resignation. He didn’t speak for a while and Ella thought she might just blow a blood vessel as her pulse boomed through her head.

“I can’t,” he said, glancing at Trish. “I need to lie low while this thing blows over. I can’t be out there.”

Ella looked from Jake to Trish and back to Jake. “I don’t understand.”

He sighed. “It took a long while for the media furor to die down two years ago. There was a lot of pressure on me to name the mystery woman and that is not an option. She’s been through enough without the media beaming her nightmare into every living room in Australia.”

Ella nodded slowly. “And by bowing out you’re hoping it’ll remain a non-story.”

Jake nodded wearily. “Give the woman a cigar.”

What could Ella say to that? He was protecting a woman who had been sexually assaulted from being abused all over again by the media. It was decent and honorable and right. Hanniford’s fate seemed petty by comparison.

“Pete will manage,” Jake added.

Ella nodded. “Of course. I’m sorry …”

Trish stood, the chair moving back with a harsh metallic scrape. “This is utterly ridiculous.” She looked down at Jake. “I’m tired of this. It’s time, Jake.”

Jake looked up into Trish’s fierce face. “No.”

Trish nodded. “Yes. If John bloody Wells figures it out, then too bad.”

Ella frowned. “Who is John Wells?”

“A journo,” Jake muttered. “A very clever, very persistent journo. He’s almost connected the dots. He just doesn’t realise it.”

“Then so be it,” Trish said. “Miranda’s older now and I’m not the same scared little mouse I was back then. It was a long time ago. Maybe it’s time I got to tell my side of the story and hang the confidentiality agreement.”

Jake shut his eyes as Trish turned to Ella. “Jake is protecting me. Tony Winchester raped me.”

For a moment after the startling announcement, Ella didn’t know what to say, what to think. “Oh, Trish … I’m so—so sorry. That’s awful, just … terrible.” The words seemed hopelessly inadequate for the ordeal Trish must have been through.

The photo on the back of yesterday’s paper flashed through her mind: Jake in the foreground, her and Trish behind him. If this John Wells character was as determined and clever as Jake seemed to think, no wonder Jake had gone ballistic.

“Jake …” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry. I really ballsed it up, didn’t I? Especially after all you’ve gone through to protect Trish—”

Jake’s harsh laugh cut her off. “Don’t put me on a pedestal, Ella. Eighteen years ago, Tony Winchester raped Trish while I stood by and did nothing.”

Jake’s bitter words fell into the space between them like boulders into a shallow pond. Ella gasped.

“Jake,” Trish chided.

Jake shrugged. “As good as.”

Ella looked from Jake to Trish and back to Jake. It couldn’t be true, surely? The Jake who’d voluntarily coached her team to a finals spot? Had spent a small fortune on uniforms and equipment? Had taught Cam some respect? Taken in Pete and Cerberus? Had defended her honor against Roger frigging Hillman?
Her
Jake?

“No, Jake,” Trish said, grasping his shoulder. “How many times do I have to say this? By the time you heard me screaming, it was already done.”

Jake picked up his empty bottle and absently rolled it between his palms, staring at the lemon wedge. “If I’d been more sober I would have realised what was going on.”

Trish squeezed his shoulder. “He was my boyfriend, Jake. How could you have known?”

He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have let those goons stop me from breaking the door down.”

Ella could see guilt, remorse and shame warring for top billing in his green gaze as a picture of what must have happened that night started to form in her brain. “Oh, Jake,” she whispered.

Jake looked away as pity and something else warred in her gaze. Was it distaste? Reproach? There wasn’t any look she could give him that hadn’t stared back at him from the mirror for the longest time. But it still scratched deep into the murky swamp of his guilt pulling at the crust, lifting the ugly scab a little, making it bleed all over again.