Some Girls Do (Outback Heat Book 1) (6 page)

They’d been driving west for two hours now and in that time the landscape had slowly leached to brown as they’d left behind the greenness of the coastal fringe and the blue-green hills of the Great Dividing Range. Dry stubbly paddocks, with scraggy-looking sheep huddling in the shadows of occasional gum trees, heralded their arrival into the district.

The winter sun blazing down from the vast cloudless arc of blue overhead wasn’t a very forgiving light. It hit the ground, emphasising every parched crack and fissure.

They needed rain.

Coop slowed his FJ Holden ute—the one he’d painstakingly restored to its former glory—as they entered the town limits and quickly navigated to the Weston house, pulling up outside.

Lacey looked at the house she’d lived in for eighteen years. It was one of many of its ilk in the small township of Jumbuck Springs. Built early in the last century, it was big and rambling, resting on stumps with a bullnose veranda that wrapped around the house, and a steeply pitched, tin roof.

Unlike many it had been well maintained, the paintwork fresh, the roof gleaming, the stairs sturdy. The front door was open as usual, although the screen door was firmly closed, and Lacey could see right down the central hallway to the back door that was open at the far end.

Pressure bloomed in her chest as a sense of coming home almost overwhelmed her.

“Are you sure about this?” Coop asked.

Lacey nodded. She’d never been surer of anything. She should have been stronger with her brothers earlier, made them see what
she
wanted. Jumbuck Springs was home,
this house
was her home and she was coming back whether they liked it or not.

Coop had helped her pack up her dorm room and everything was in the back of the FJ.

She was here to stay.

Lacey disembarked, determined to start her new life now she’d decided. The midday sun was warm on her skin and she pushed up the sleeves of her shirt. Winter only came at night to Jumbuck Springs.

“Shall I bring your stuff in?”

Lacey shook her head. “Not yet. Probably should say hello first.”

Several vehicles were parked in the front yard. Ethan’s sturdy, police four-wheel drive sat in the driveway. Behind it was Jarrod’s ancient dual cab. Marcus’s flashy electric blue ute with its distinctive
coach
numberplate was parked under the shade of the old poinciana tree.

“Looks like the gang’s all here,” Lacey murmured as they made their way side by side down the cement path that led directly to the broad sweep of six stairs.

Coop nodded. “Nervous?”

She glanced at him. He was looking his usual assured self in a pair of worn jeans and a navy T-shirt that hugged his biceps, chest and belly. The butterflies in her stomach quit flapping their wings. Anything seemed possible with him here.

“Promise me you’ll back me up,” she said. “That you’ll be on my side.

“Lacey.” He gave her the kind of look that told her he didn’t want to get involved in family matters. But it was too late. He was involved. Ethan had involved him whether Coop liked it or not.

“They’ll railroad me if they can and you know it. They’ll start talking about Mum and guilt me into it the way they always do and I
need
to come home again, Coop. Not forever. But for now. Please?”

He sighed. “Fine, I promise.”

“Thank you,” she smiled. “And hey, just think what it’ll mean for you with me back home again. You won’t be called on to get me out of any more jams. Your responsibility will be absolved. No more pain-in-the-ass Lacey stuff to deal with.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t mind.”

“Well now I know you’re lying, but thanks anyway.”

She didn’t deserve his graciousness but she’d take it right now, along with anything else that bolstered her for the confrontation she knew was to come.

They mounted the steps and walked straight inside—no need to knock at the Weston’s house—down the hallway, past bedrooms and the bathroom and lounge room and into the kitchen where the hallway terminated. Everyone was sitting around a huge dining table groaning with food.

Connie, Ethan’s almost-thirteen-year-old daughter, was the first to spot them. “Lacey,” she squealed, pushing her chair back along the floorboards with a noisy scrape and practically levitating across to her, her pigtails flying as she flung her arms around Lacey’s waist.

Technically, Lacey was Connie’s aunt, but she’d been eight when Connie was born and Lacey had always just been Lacey.

“Hey,” Ethan said, standing with a delighted smile, striding over to welcome them too. “Look at you little sister. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Can’t a girl come home for lunch as a surprise every now and then?” Lacey smiled and tried not to feel guilty at her delaying tactics—there was plenty of time to get into it and it felt good to be hugged by her big brother. At six-four he was a good foot taller than her and a couple inches taller than Coop, who he greeted with equal enthusiasm.

Jarrod and Marcus were next. Jarrod, with his ginger hair inherited from their mother, was pleased to see her in that usual quiet, reserved way of his, which totally belied the adage about the tempestuous nature of redheads. Marcus, ever the larrikin, tugged on her ponytail then wrapped her up in a big bear hug until her feet left the floor. He swung her around, much to Connie’s delight. “Good to see ya, Lace.”

When he finally put her down, Lacey smiled at JJ, who was waiting patiently for her turn. “Hey JJ,” Lacey said, “I didn’t see your car.”

Jemima Jane Ericson was one of Ethan’s closest pals. She’d been in Ethan’s year at school and had grown up on the same street. The three Weston boys and JJ had been a little gang of four, inseparable as kids. For as long as Lacey could remember, JJ had just always been there. Like a big sister to Lacey in many ways, and a surrogate mother to Connie whose own mother had been largely absent from her life.

“I walked from the pub.”

“Slow day?” JJ owned and ran The Stockman, one of two pubs in Jumbuck Springs. The pub had been in the family for several generations; her parents had handed the reins to her when they’d retired to the golden beaches of Noosa a few years ago.

“The staffcan handle it for a few hours.”

“Well come on then,” Ethan said, “Grab a plate and pull up a chair, plenty of roast lamb for everyone.”

Lacey didn’t need to be told twice. She was ravenous, having skipped breakfast due to nerves, and the Sunday lamb roast was a tradition in the Weston household. Her mother had cooked one every Sunday, almost right up ’til the end, and the remaining Westons had kept the tradition alive.

These days it was Connie and one of the Weston men who cooked it, depending on who was around. With a police officer, a fireman and a paramedic in the family, work often dictated their lives. Lacey was lucky to have struck a rare Sunday when they were all home.

Or potentially
un
lucky …

But it was good sitting at the table with her family again, talking and laughing. Connie led the conversation as she usually did with her lively chatter. The meal sped by as Lacey found out all about the school and the choir and about a new boy called Billy who was apparently
insufferable
because he beat her in the spelling bee and that was simply
unforgivable
.

Didn’t he know that
she
was the smartest kid in the class? And what was the point of boys anyway?

JJ winked at Lacey, but Lacey kept a very straight face as she commiserated with her niece about how terrible boys were while pointing out that her father and uncles were boys so perhaps they weren’t
all
terrible.

She refrained from telling Connie that she
would
see the point of boys before too much longer and how much fun that was going to be. She suspected Ethan
and
Jarrod and Marcus were perfectly fine with her not seeing the point in boys. Forever probably.

Lucky Connie had her. And now she’d be around to provide a little balance again.

As soon as lunch was done Connie asked to be excused so she could go play with some friends down the street, which left the adults to enjoy each other’s company and some topics that weren’t suitable for younger ears. They caught Lacey up on stories of the town and the district and what the latest scandal was, because there was always some scandal or other keeping everyone titillated.

Lacey revelled in it all, wanting to know everything, lapping up this happy family moment before the shit hit the fan. Everyone was just so relaxed and she’d
missed
this.

Sure she came home during college breaks, but it was different. Knowing she was always going back again had lent such a temporary air to it all. Like the town’s goings-on were separate to her. But not today. Today was the day she came back home to stay, and what was happening in Jumbuck Springs was part of the fabric of her life again.

Finally, the conversation swung around to her as Lacey knew it would.

“What about you Lace? How’s design school? You won one of those fancy fashion awards yet?” Marcus teased.

Lacey knew this was her opening. She glanced at Coop. His hand was resting on the back of her chair and she felt the sudden soothing stroke of his fingers between her shoulder blades.

“Actually, I kinda wanted to talk about that.”

‡

“S
o
not
just
a surprise drop in, then?” Marcus said.

Coop’s fingers kept up their steady caress. “My bags are in the car. I’m not going back.”

Ethan folded his arms. “The hell you aren’t.”

“Lacey.” Jarrod shook his head gently at her, patience personified. “We go through this every time you come home.”

“And every time you go back to Brisbane,” Marcus chimed in, clearly unconcerned about Lacey’s latest attempt to return to Jumbuck Springs.

“Yes,” she acknowledged. “Because every time you throw our dead mother at me like a missile and I give in. But not this time.”

Ethan cocked an eyebrow at Coop. “You encouraged this?”

Lacey frowned as Coop’s caress halted. What the hell? “No,” she jumped in. “He didn’t.”

“He has your bags in his car doesn’t he?”

Lacey opened her mouth to defend Coop again but he got in before her. “Maybe it’s time you all listened to what your sister wants.”

“She wants college,” Ethan said. “She
always
wanted college. She wants her own fashion label for which she
needs
college. College that our mother, who raised four kids on a
widow’s
pension, paid into a
fund
so Lacey could go off and do this and it’s her last year and she’s not quitting now.”

“I’m not quitting,” Lacey said, keeping calm in the face of opposition instead of flying off the handle into girly hysterics. That hadn’t gotten her anywhere in the past and she had to remember that her brothers felt a huge responsibility towards her. She’d been two when her father died and they’d all stepped up to be the good, exemplary male role models their mother had demanded they be for her.

It was hard for them to accept that she was all grown up.

“I’m going to defer for the rest of this year and next year and recommence the following year.”

“No.”

Ethan’s voice brooked no argument. Lacey took a breath. “You can’t stop me.” She was so proud of how calmly it came out.

“You wanna bet?” Marcus said.

Lacey sighed. “What are you going to do, Marcus? Are you going to physically stay with me twenty-four-seven and drag me to every class?”

“No, but Coop will,” he said.

Lacey glanced at Coop who looked like he’d rather take another bullet to the chest. Coop caught in the middle of all her crap again. “He’s not my damn babysitter,” Lacey snapped, her patience just about run out, “And he’s not at your beck and call. He has his own life.”

“Lacey,” Jarrod said, “we promised Mum you’d go to college. That you’d finish. On her
deathbed
. You know that. She knew how much you wanted to go to that college and she knew you’d refuse to go after she died, so she made each of us promise
out loud
that you’d see it through.”

God, here it came. The deathbed guilt trip. She remembered it well, her mother sending her out of the room that last day so she could talk to her sons. She understood the effect that had on her brothers.
She did
. And she understood why her mother had done it, but she’d been wrong and Lacey wasn’t going to let her brothers emotionally blackmail her anymore.

Do it for Mum … Mum wanted this … Mum believed in you … Mum was so proud of you.

“None of you asked me what
I
wanted.”

“You wanted
this,
” Ethan said, exasperated.

Tears stung Lacey’s eyes. “Not right after my
mother
had died, I didn’t,” she implored, looking at her brothers, trying to make them see. “I wanted time with my family and people who knew and loved me. Who knew and loved
her
. I wanted to be here in this place that
she
loved
so
much. Where every street holds a memory.”