Ringer (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Miranda

“Mum says you
have to pack up and move back into the house.”

Moira stood in the open doorway to my room,
catching her breath, having delivered her message on the run.

“What?”

My heart thundered. Had someone seen me
leave Ringer’s room in the early hours this morning, or even worse, had he said
something? Did he want me away from him after I as good as attacked him in his
sleep?

Maybe they found out I went to the
Commercial last night?

Had Bluey found out about the car I
borrowed off Mel, did they know about the barroom brawl? All these wild
scenarios played in my head; I felt sick to my stomach.

“W-Why?” I asked, sitting down on the edge
of my bed.

“I don’t know, Mum just got off the phone
and asked me to tell you to move out.”

Oh God!

She knew about the Commercial; it was
probably one of the local gossips telling her that I was hanging out with some
young troublemaker on parole who had roughed up Tom Hilton last night. The very
reason why I hated small towns.

“I wouldn’t mess her around either, she
seems like she is in a real flap,” Moira added helpfully, as she spun out of
the doorway and jogged back to the house.

Oh great, this was just great.

***

My new focus of clearing out my gear from
the shearers’ huts at least distracted me from the worry of what had happened
last night, kind of, sort of, okay … so not really at all. As if I hadn’t had
enough to worry about with the nervous anxiety of seeing Ringer in the light of
day, worried how he would treat me, if he would speak to me, now I had to face
off with my manic mother about lying to her last night. It was all too much,
too complicated, and as I zipped up the last zipper on my case and lugged my
belongings back to the house, I took in a calming deep breath and readied
myself to face the music.

I juggled my belongings, struggling to open
the screen door, and making my way into the house, I dumped the heaviest of the
bags inside the door.

“Oh, Miranda, honey, can you put those in
your room, please?”
my mum called out as she
frantically wiped down the kitchen bench. Okay, so this is not what I had
expected, and witnessing my mum in a cleaning frenzy could only mean one thing.

“Are we expecting
someone?” I asked.

Mum sighed, rubbing the
back of her hand across her brow.

“Max just called and
said a few of his friends are going to drop in on their way to Geraldine, and
asked if they could camp here for the night?”

“Is Max with them?”
Hope lined my voice.

“No, he has to work,”
Mum said, dunking her mop into a soapy bucket.

So that had been the
phone call and the reason behind Mum’s panic, and then the penny dropped.

“So his friends will be
staying in the shearers’ huts?” I asked innocently.

“Well, they’re
certainly not staying in the house,” Mum said, all wide eyed.

“Of course not, we
could all be murdered in our beds,” I quipped.

“Just put your things
away, please. They’ll be here for lunch, as if I don’t have enough to do.” Poor
Mum attacked the kitchen floor, which already looked spotless to me; in fact,
the entire house was pristine as always, and yet Mum would dust, polish and
scrub every inch of it knowing we had company. I gladly picked up my bags and
took them to my room, a sense of relief sweeping over me knowing that all this
chaos had nothing to do with me, for once. And just as I went to walk down the
hall …

“Oh, Miranda,” called
Mum.

I turned to see her
smiling. “Your father wanted to tell you, but he’s fixed your car; try and act
surprised, okay?”

Yep! Things were
definitely looking up.

***

The one real thing in
my favour was knowing all too well that when Bluey Sheehan said he was leaving
at a particular time, you could always add a sound four hours on top of that.
The Sheehans were late for everything. So in an effort to escape my mother’s
shouted demands for housework assistance, I gauged the time, and set off to
sneak out the laundry door, descending the steps, leaving my mother’s shrill
voice behind me. I cut across the paddock in the exact same direction I had
come only mere hours before, climbing over several barbed fences including the
very one where Ringer had snared his jeans. I smiled at the memory until my
thoughts drifted to his bedroom. I didn’t want to think about how I had acted,
how I had tasted him in the most intimate of ways. And the most disturbing
thing of all was, even after how the night had ended, the thought of Ringer
still excited me. I don’t know exactly when I had gone from hating him to …
not
hating him. Maybe it was when he saved my boots from getting wet? Or how ridiculous
he looked in my cardigan to prove a point, or his taunting insinuations in the
shower block? Or maybe it was the way something dark pressed inside me when I
saw Jenny’s hand on his thigh at the Commercial? Who knew? All I knew was it
was enough to send me into his arms last night, it was enough for me to
remember vividly what his mouth, touch and skin felt like against me. But
probably the most telling sign of all was I would do it all over again, but
with a different ending. That was the only thing I regretted. The part where I
left. I now know that if I could have another chance, I would want to stay. I
wanted Ringer. Possibly for more than just sex.

I seemed to regret so
many things in my short, wicked little life, and one of them was staring right
at me: Mel’s Land Cruiser. If I learnt anything from last night, I could see
that even after all this time I still acted on impulse, and that is where all
my troubles stemmed from. I opened the driver’s door with a pained screech
before sliding into the interior, the keys still in the ignition from last
night, the perks of living in the middle of nowhere. Stilling for a moment, I
grabbed the steering wheel with a deep sigh. I should never have borrowed Mel’s
car, and of all the places to go, to the very one place where all my troubles
had unravelled four years ago.

“What must you think of
me, Mel?” I whispered, recalling the innocent blue eyes of my trusting friend
as she made me promise I wouldn’t drink and drive. Instead, I had been too hell
bent on worrying about my own selfish distractions to concern myself with how
leaving Mel in a cloud of dust would make her feel. I sat in her car, clenching
the wheel with a white-knuckled intensity as I let the full brunt of guilt wash
over me. I didn’t move for the longest time; the only thing that snapped me
from my reflection was the distant, high-pitched whine of a dirt bike. I
blinked, sending a watery trail down my cheeks. I sniffed, wiping them away,
and glanced into the rear-view mirror of the car. Sure enough, there it was, a
long line of dust approaching my way.

My eyes welled with the
flow of unshed tears, seeing Mel come to a stop next to the car. She killed the
thrumming sounds of the bike, before flicking out the stand and pulling off her
helmet, blinding me with an astonished smile when she noticed me in the car.

“Ha! Looks like great
minds think alike.” She laughed.

It was all I needed to
make my move. I pushed open my door and quick-stepped a determined line around
the front of the car. Mel’s smile slowly faded catching the sight of my
bloodshot eyes before I wrapped my arms around her in a bone-jarring hug. My
shoulders vibrated with the heaves of my sobs, as I let the weight that had
been lodged in my chest release into the arms of my friend.

“Miranda, what’s
wrong?” Mel’s panicked voice was muffled by my hair. She pulled away, clasping
my cheeks, trying to look at me. “Good God, what is it? Are you okay? Is it the
car?” Mel’s eyes were wide, catatonic almost with fear.

Through my blubbering I
managed a head shake, my chin trembling as I looked her, really looked at her.
“I’m so sorry, Mel.”

Mel’s brows narrowed in
confusion. “What for?”

I shrugged. “For
everything: for what happened, for leaving you, for asking so much of you and
never thinking about anyone else but myself.”

Mel smiled. “Is that
why you’re crying?” Her shoulders sagged in relief. “Seriously, is that all?”

My mouth gaped. “What
do you mean, is that all?”

Mel sighed. “I am
guessing this is all a rather delayed reaction,” she said with a wry smile. “It
was a long, long time ago, Miranda. We were just young and dumb and in true
fashion, young and dumb people make mistakes.”

“Then why am I still
making them?” I said quietly.

I could feel Mel’s eyes
on me. “Are we still talking about the car?” she mused.

I straightened my back,
shaking off the probing question. “I should never have asked for it, I honestly
don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Well, you obviously
weren’t.” Mel raised her brow. “The question is what, or who, were you thinking
about?”

Escaping Ringer.

Oh, the irony: in order
to escape him, I had run straight into him.

I changed the subject,
or at least tried to keep it in line. “Do you think you can forgive me?’

Mel thought long and
hard, which surprised me. I didn’t think she would be into making me suffer as
it wasn’t in her nature, but perhaps that was what I was so used to taking
advantage of.

She crossed her arms
and tilted her head. “I’ll forgive you under one condition,” she said.

“Anything,” I replied
without pause.

“Tell me all about
Ringer.”

My mouth gaped open as
I was genuinely stunned by the question.

How did she know
about him? How did she even know his name? And what made her think I had
anything to do with him?

I tried for cool and
casual. “What about him?”

Mel shrugged. “It’s not
every day I overhear my dad threatening grievous bodily harm if he so much as
lays a finger on Miranda Henry.”

“Whaaat?” I breathed
out.

Mel chuckled. “So if he
has gone against that threat, he must be pretty keen.”

I could feel my cheeks
flush crimson as I broke away from her knowing eyes.

I heard Mel gasp. “Oh,
my God! He so has. Wow! He is either very brave, or very …”

“Stupid?” I said,
lifting my eyes to meet hers.

“Well, I was going to
say smitten.”

“Oh.”

Mel got off the dirt
bike, handing me the helmet, but pulled it back at the last second.

“You have my full
forgiveness, after you tell me everything.”

I swallowed.
“Everything?”

“Everything!”

And so I did; well, a
sugar-coated version, to say the least.

***

I had never realised how much of a weight I
carried around from the unresolved guilt for so many years. Knowing that Mel
harboured no ill feeling towards me, and my stupid actions, made me feel
decidedly lighter. And now knowing what Ringer must have endured at the hands
of his visit to Bluey had me thinking.

Had that been the reason he rejected me?

Or, like he said, I would only hate him in
the morning. Is that what he thought? I guess I hadn’t given much of a reason
for him to think anything else. I had been such a bitch to him.
But, did he
actually hate me?

I had to let him know the truth. I had to
tell him that I didn’t hate him, not at all. That in the light of day, I didn’t
feel any regret, and if anything, if he wanted, well, I kind of wanted to do it
again.

My heart thundered at the thought, the
realisation that what I felt was something deeper than just using him for my
own selfish needs. I had been selfish for far too long and it only ended up in
trouble. And maybe where I was headed was for trouble? But I knew that I had to
find out, I had to know if, in the light of day, did Ringer regret last night?
I had to know. Only then would the last of the weight be lifted from me, and
only then would I be able to decide.

Should I stay? Or should I go?

***

I heard the sound of deep voices echo down
the hall. It drew me from my bed and I paused, standing near my opened door.

I heard the shrill laughter of my mother
and I knew that was strange. Moira, no doubt, was elsewhere in the house,
remaining in the shadows. I made my way out of the room and into the kitchen
area.

“Oh, Miranda, honey, come meet Max’s
friends from Onslow.” My mum was all flushed and smiles as she stood before
four men all seated around the kitchen island. The one nearest stood, towering
over me, and offered his bear-like hand.