Two Against the Odds (8 page)

Larry flicked through the stapled sheets, pausing to check a figure here and there, reading over the summation. “I see the total tax payment is $21,390. Plus penalties of $10,000.”

Rafe nodded, pressing a hand to his stomach. There was no way she could pay that.

Larry narrowed his eyes at Rafe. “Is this comprehensive? You haven't left anything out?”

“On my honor,” Rafe said, moving his hand to cover his heart. “As well as the two paintings the IRS brought to our attention, I found records of thirty-eight lesser works she hadn't declared.”

Larry smiled broadly. “Good man! I knew you would come through.” He sobered, tapping Rafe's report with his pen. “Of course I'll be checking this thoroughly.”

“Get out your fine-tooth comb,” Rafe said. “It's legit.”

“In that case, congratulations. No more black marks,” Larry said. “
And
you'll be eligible for a bonus.”

Rafe shut his eyes briefly, relief washing over him. In its wake came a sense of hope. The end of this job was in sight.

Smiling, Rafe backed out of Larry's office. “Thanks, boss.”

With a black coffee and a half-eaten hamburger at his elbow, Rafe sat in his cubicle and started to review the file for his next audit, a take-out fish-and-chip restaurant.

He was finding it difficult to concentrate. He was worried, too, for Lexie's sake. How would she pay? She was living off two-minute noodles for cripes' sake. And she was counting on winning the Archibald to get the money to pay her taxes. To his inexpert
eye her painting seemed pretty good but how realistic was she being?

He caught himself with a shake of his head. Lexie was just an auditee. Not his problem.

The main thing was, he'd kept his job. With a possible bonus.

He could buy a boat.

He threw down his pen and got to his feet. He paced a few steps away from his cubicle, thinking furiously. Why wait another year? He could live on the boat if he had to.

He dropped back into his chair and quickly pulled up a boat brokering website he had bookmarked. There were three used Steber 47 fishing boats for sale in the greater metropolitan area. He was jotting down phone numbers and addresses when Chris strolled in from lunch sipping from a coffee take-out cup.

“How was your jaunt to the seaside?” Chris put his cup on his desk and removed his glasses to polish them on the hem of his shirt.

Rafe hesitated. He and Chris were the same age and shared a love of fishing and boutique beer. Even though they were friends, Rafe was wary of saying too much about Summerside, especially at the office.

“I went there to work,” he said. “Not have fun.”

“Who said anything about fun?” Chris said, putting his glasses back on. “You were going down there
to nail some artist chick for tax evasion. How did that pan out?”

“She's going to have to pay penalties. As expected.”
Actually, I did nail the blonde.

Chris nodded to the computer screen. “Still drooling over the Steber, huh?”

“I'm going to go look at a couple this weekend,” Rafe said. “Want to come?”

“Can't. Laura's mum is looking after Jordon so Laura and I can go away for the weekend. First time alone since the birth.” Chris glanced at his watch. “Better get back to work. You'll have to come over for dinner soon. Maybe we'll fix you up with one of Laura's friends.”

“Yeah, sure.”

He wished he'd taken a photo of Lexie or something. Just to remember her by.

Hang on. He quickly did an internet search for Lexie Thatcher. She had a website displaying her paintings. He clicked through the pages. It didn't look as if she'd updated it for a while— He stopped. There was a photo of her next to one of her seascapes at some gallery. He clicked on it to enlarge it. For some minutes he just looked at her face. And remembered.

 

I
T WAS
good
Rafe was gone, Lexie told herself as she prepared for another day in front of her easel. She'd gotten a lot done in the weeks since he'd left.

Yet, without that fabulous sex she wasn't sleeping as soundly as before. It didn't help that she was putting in long hours at the easel.

This new version of Sienna's portrait was taking longer than she'd anticipated because the DNA structure was so intricate and the area to be covered was large. She wasn't a fast painter and she often painted a section out and started over. So even though she still had a couple of months until the Archibald Prize deadline, she would need every minute.

Rafe's business card was tucked into the corner of the notice board in her studio. There was no reason to call him, not until she got her tax assessment. But she thought about him every day.

“Lexie!” Hetty knocked on the open door. She wore a long blue flowing dress and white clogs. She was holding a white plastic bag. “Are you busy?”

“When I'm in my studio I'm always busy.” Lexie despaired of ever convincing her family that what she did was work. She carried on arranging her brushes and oils, deciding which colors to squeeze onto her palette.

“I won't stay long,” Hetty said, sweeping in with a rustle of plastic. “I brought you some lemons from our tree.” She put the bag on the long trestle table where Lexie framed her larger paintings. “Are you okay? You look pale. You should at least get out for a walk, sweetheart. You never see the sun.”

“I'm fine. Thanks for the lemons.” Lexie mixed
more of the bronze color for the sugar hexagons. “Have you heard anything from Jack and Sienna in Bali?”

“No, but I got an email from Oliver.” Hetty placed the bag of fruit among the odds and ends of canvases and frames. “He's snorkeling on the coral reef every day.”

“That'll give Jack and Sienna plenty of time to themselves,” Lexie said.

Hetty peered at the painting. “Is that lace?”

“No, it's a DNA double helix.” When Hetty still looked perplexed Lexie gestured with her paintbrush. “Genetics, reproduction, biological clock…?”

“Oh, I see.” Hetty hoisted herself onto a high wooden stool and propped her clogs on the rungs. “Have you heard from Rafe?”

“No,” Lexie replied, trying not to express her impatience that her mother was still here. “I don't expect to until I get my tax invoice.”

“I don't understand how you can be so calm about that.”

“Getting upset isn't going to do any good.” Lexie wiped her brush with a turpentine-soaked rag and dipped it in another color before resuming her detailed work. “If I win the Archibald then all that energy I spent worrying would have been wasted.”

“No, I meant how can you be so calm about not seeing the man? I thought you two hit it off. Now he's just…gone.”

Lexie's hand jerked, leaving a blotch of paint on the canvas. She reached for a toothpick to scrape it off. “How's everything with you and Dad?”

“That's why I was hoping Rafe would be here. He gave me such good advice I wanted to ask him what to do about the other woman.”

“What can a young man who's practically a stranger tell you about your marriage? Anyway, what other woman? It was obvious at the reception that Susan Dwyer is just Dad's mentor.” Lexie threw the toothpick in a bin. “You and he need to fit in with each other's interests. Why don't you ask him to come to one of your meditation retreats?”

“He wouldn't go.” Hetty dismissed that with a wave. “He thinks we're a cult or some such foolishness.”

“Tell him how important it is to you,” she said. “Make him understand that your marriage is at a critical point.”

Hetty gazed unhappily at her fingers as she twisted her chunky silver rings. “What if he doesn't love me enough to do that for me?”

“It doesn't seem like a lot to ask,” Lexie said gently, “after all the years you've had together.”

Hetty was silent a moment. “I wonder sometimes if we have anything together anymore.” She slid off the stool and gave Lexie a hug. “I'll see you soon. Take care of yourself.”

She left and Lexie went back to her painting. This
malaise, or whatever she was feeling, would pass. But Hetty's parting words lingered. Lexie and Rafe had certainly shared something.

An obsession with each other's bodies.

“W
HAT SEEMS
to be the problem?” Dr. Natalie Higgins lifted her stethoscope to listen to Lexie's chest. Natalie's straight brown hair was pulled back from her heart-shaped face with a thin black headband, making her look even younger than her thirty-something years.

“I'm tired all the time,” Lexie said. “I can hardly drag myself out of bed in the morning.”

When Rafe had been around, both her energy and her creativity had been flowing full throttle. He'd been gone for four weeks now and she'd become increasingly lethargic.

Natalie lowered her stethoscope. “Rest your arm on the desk, please.”

Lexie planted her forearm next to a framed photo of Natalie's smiling two-year-old daughter. “How's Millie?” she asked, nodding at the picture. Lexie remembered when Natalie had married Deepra, the local pathologist, five years ago. She'd rejoiced with her GP when Natalie had gotten pregnant and had followed Millie's progress through every stage.

“She's toilet trained,” Natalie said proudly as she
strapped the blood pressure cuff onto Lexie's arm. “One day she just decided she'd had enough of diapers and within a week she was using the toilet.”

“That's great,” Lexie said. “She's so cute.”

“Your heart sounds fine. Your blood pressure's good,” Natalie said, hanging up the cuff. “I'll order some blood work. You might be low on iron. Are you run-down for any reason?”

“I've been working hard for months to get a portrait finished for the Archibald.”

Natalie wrote out a lab request for blood tests. “Is that stressful?”

“Yes,” Lexie admitted. “I'm happy with what I'm doing now but it's touch and go whether I'll get it done in time. The deadline is in ten days.”

“How are your periods? Are they regular? Flow not too heavy?” Natalie started scanning through Lexie's records on the computer.

“Um. I think so. I can't remember.”

Natalie's hands stilled on the keys. “Could you be pregnant?”

“No, no. I have an IUD. Dr. Klein put it in a couple of years ago.”

Natalie slanted her a glance. “You've been seeing me for six years. Hang on while I finish looking at your notes.” She clicked back through computer pages.

Lexie waited patiently. Sienna worked here now, too, and Lexie saw her if she had something simple
like a sinus infection, but she didn't feel comfortable getting undressed in front of her sister-in-law.

“It's been longer than a couple of years,” Natalie said. “More like ten. IUDs should be replaced every five years or so. Would you like me to do that now?”

“Ten years,” Lexie murmured. How had the time gone so quickly? “Sure, might as well while I'm here.”

“IUDs aren't generally inserted in women who haven't had a baby.” Natalie rose and opened a cabinet full of medical supplies to look for an IUD. “Have you had a child?”

The room was silent but for the quiet clink of metal as Natalie readied her instruments.

“N-no.”

“Was there a reason you went with an IUD?” Natalie asked, tearing into the packaging.

“I—I didn't want to have to worry about remembering to take a pill,” Lexie went on. “Dr. Klein said it would be fine.”

“You haven't had any problems with it?”

“No.”

“Okay. Undress from the waist down and hop up on the bed beneath the sheet.” Natalie drew the curtains. “Let me know when you're ready.”

On the wall next to the bed was a poster depicting the cross-section of a woman twelve weeks' pregnant. Lexie studied it as she undressed even though she
knew by heart that at that stage of development the toes and fingers were formed, the fingernails were beginning to grow and, although the mother couldn't feel it, the baby was kicking his tiny legs and clenching and unclenching his fists.

She set her folded clothes on the chair and lay beneath the sheet. “I'm ready.”

Natalie pulled back the curtain, her manner brisk. She drew on a pair of gloves, got Lexie to position her legs. “I'm going to do an internal examination. It might feel a bit uncomfortable. Just try to relax.” After a few minutes of gentle probing she said, “Have you felt the strings of your IUD lately?”

“I don't take much notice of it. Sometimes they get stuck inside.”

“When did you say your last period was?”

“I can't remember. It's been a while. I must be due for one.”

“That's odd.” Natalie tilted her face up to the ceiling as she gently probed farther.

Lexie breathed slow, calming breaths, taking herself to the bottom of the still pond.

“I can't locate the strings at all.” Natalie pulled the gooseneck lamp down and inserted the speculum. She worked in silence for a few more minutes. Then she removed the instrument, pushed away the lamp and pulled off her disposable gloves.

“What is it?” Lexie said. “Is everything all right?”

Natalie moved to the supply cabinet and dropped
her instruments in disinfectant. “Your IUD must have fallen out. It can happen without a woman even noticing.”

Lexie propped herself up on her elbows. “H-how long?”

“It's impossible to tell.” Natalie returned to the bedside and folded her small hands over her dark pants. “But by the looks of things, I'd say at least four weeks.”

Lexie flopped back down and closed her eyes. “I—I've been sexually active.”

“I thought you might have,” Natalie said.

Lexie's eyes snapped open. She gripped the sheet between her fingers, crushing it. “What do you mean?”

“You're pregnant.”

Her mouth opened but no sound came out. Then she groaned. Of all the stupid things—

“I take it this isn't a happy discovery.” Natalie reached for Lexie's hand. “Are you in a relationship?”

Lexie shook her head.
What was she going to do?

“Do you know who the father is?” Natalie probed gently.

“Yes.” She clenched her teeth as Rafe's image flashed before her. “But he's only twenty-six. He's got plans for his life that don't include children. He doesn't even
like
kids.”

“You'll need to tell him,” Natalie counseled, still holding Lexie's hand. “But if you don't want to carry the baby to term you have the option to—”

“No.” Lexie lurched to a sitting position, tugging her hand free. “I will not abort this baby.”

Natalie's brown eyes widened slightly. “I can see you feel strongly. Is there anything you want to talk about? As a doctor or—” her voice softened “—as a friend.”

Lexie leaned back on the pillow. “No. But thank you.”

“There's also adoption,” Natalie suggested. “You wouldn't have any trouble finding a good home for your child.”

“I couldn't give my baby away.” Just the thought of someone else bringing up her little boy or girl was enough to bring tears to her eyes. But then, tears were always close to the surface these days. At least now she knew the cause was probably hormones.

“Many women nowadays bring up children on their own,” Natalie said. “I've gathered from things you've told me in the past that you love children. Maybe you can come to see this in a positive light.”

“I do love children but—” She just didn't deserve to have one. “It's…complicated.” Lexie hiccupped on a sob.

Natalie patted her hand and rose to draw the curtain. “Everything will work out. You'll see.”

Lexie managed a smile.

But she knew in her heart that Natalie was wrong.

 

R
AFE'S RUBBER-SOLED SHOES
sounded dully on the wooden wharf at Mordialloc's tidal inlet, half an hour up the coast road from Summerside. Palm trees cast long thin shadows. Waves lapped at the pilings and the smell of salt and diesel came up from the oily water below.

A heat wave had thrown them back into summer and above the water the air shimmered. His shirt was sticking to him as he wiped his forehead, searching out the fishing boat for sale.

Ah, there it was, at the end of the pontoon. The For Sale sign was propped in the port of the main cabin. The vessel was fifty feet long, painted white with an aqua-blue stripe below the gunnel, and a flying bridge.

It looked perfect, big enough to handle a weekend charter chasing tuna and mackerel on the open ocean. But small enough to take day fishers out on the bay to catch flathead and snapper. He could see himself sitting on his deck at the end of the day with a beer, watching the sun set over the water. At night, the waves lapping at the hull would lull him to sleep.

He figured he needed to work at the tax office another year. He would run fishing charters on weekends and build his business up before he was ready to take the plunge and fish full-time.

A stocky, weathered man wearing a navy fisherman's cap over his gray hair came out of the cabin onto the deck. His faded blue T-shirt hung untucked. “G'day, mate. You looking for something?”

“Are you the owner?” Rafe walked down the narrow pontoon between berths and extended a hand. “I called this morning. Rafe Ellersley.”

“Dom Costopolous.” He shook Rafe's hand then gestured to the mounting block on the wharf. “Come >aboard. Welcome.”

Rafe climbed up and over the rail onto the large flat back deck. He noted the coolers, hoses for washing, the twin diesel engines, then glanced back to Dom, who regarded him with piercing black eyes.

“What do you think?” Dom said. “She's a beautiful boat.”

Rafe kept his poker face in place. Thank goodness Dom couldn't see how fast his heart was beating. Over the past two weekends he'd looked at three other boats. This one was fifteen years old and a bit worn, but it was in the best condition, by far. With a new paint job and covers on the seating, it would be just fine.

“Can I take a look inside?”

“Of course.” Dom smiled and gestured. “Be my guest.”

They stepped over the threshold into the main cabin. Rafe took in the eating area, the galley and a
settee. Off to his left were tucked a couple of bunks. “How many does it sleep?”

“Eight comfortably. Ten in a pinch.” He opened a narrow door. “In here's the head, complete with a shower. The handle on the toilet is a bit sticky but it works. Everything works.” Wheezing a little, he moved on. “More bunks up forward. Back here's the captain's cabin. Come, now we go to the flying bridge.”

Dom led the way back outside and up the gangway to the control center of the boat. There was radar, depth sounder, fish finder…everything Rafe was looking for.

“Did you use it as a fishing charter?” Rafe asked.

“Yep.” Dom took a blue handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his nose. “I'm too old now to fish. I want to sit in my backyard and drink wine and play with my grandchildren. My sons, they're not interested.” He shrugged, palms upraised. “What are you going to do?”

“How old are the engines?” Rafe asked. “Is the servicing up-to-date?”

“Practically brand new,” Dom told him. “Two years ago I replaced both of them. I've got all the service records. I'll show you later. Right now we'll take her for a spin. Okay?”

Rafe grinned. “You bet.”

With the turn of a key, Dom started the powerful
engines. Rafe felt the throb of the motor right through his breastbone.

“You want to cast off?” Dom said.

“Sure.” Rafe descended to the deck, sliding both hands down the handrails, his shoes barely touching the rungs of the gangway. He leaped onto the dock, lifted the thick looped lines off the bollards and sprang aboard as Dom slowly pulled away.

Back on the flying bridge Dom was chewing a toothpick between his back molars. “It's not easy to get a permanent berth in the marina, eh? If you buy the boat, you can take over the lease.”

Rafe nodded noncommittally as Dom chugged slowly through the marina's narrow waterway lined with sailboats and fishing boats. They passed beneath the bridge into the mouth of Mordialloc harbor.

On the depth sounder Dom pointed out the shifting bar of sand at the entrance. “You gotta look out for the current on the ebbing tide.” He pushed the throttle forward, increasing speed as they headed into open water. “You buy my boat, I'll show you the best fishing spots in the whole bay.”

Rafe just smiled and shrugged. He'd believe that if it happened. But if the old geezer was on the level…

When they were clear of small craft traffic Dom glanced at Rafe. “You wanna take the wheel, see how she handles?”

Standing with his feet planted wide, Rafe opened
the boat right up. He could feel the thrum of the motor. The wind blew his hair off his face. Gulls wheeled up and away from them. His grin spread till his cheeks felt sore. So much for a poker face. He turned the boat in a wide circle, the hull bouncing over the choppy waves. On the shore people were sunbathing and swimming in the shallows.

After a good twenty minutes putting the boat through its paces, Dom guided the fishing vessel into the marina and up to the dock. Rafe jumped off and hauled on the lines, pulling the boat in close before tying it off on the bollards.

Back on board, Dom brought all the documentation associated with the vessel to the table in the main cabin. “You look,” he said, showing Rafe the engine specifications and maintenance records. “Then we talk.”

Rafe studied the papers. Everything seemed to be in order. He glanced up at the older man. “It's more than I wanted to pay. Are you willing to negotiate?”

Dom gave an elaborate shrug. “Maybe I can drop a little. But not much.”

Despite his easygoing nature, the fisherman drove a hard bargain. Rafe had to be cagey, too. He'd been to the bank and they were willing to lend him only so much money. He'd cashed in his term deposits to raise the money for the down payment.

After going back and forth, Rafe finally said, “I
want the boat.” He named a figure. “That is what I can spend.”