What Rosie Found Next (2 page)

In the morning they would sort this mess out. There was nothing else for it – she had to go. If he was going to turn this place upside down and find anything, then it was the only way. And if there was one thing Owen Harrison was used to overcoming, it was a challenge.

When Rosie signed up for this house-sit, she envisaged waking every morning to the twittering sounds of birds performing their dawn chorus, enjoying a leisurely breakfast with only George the ginger cat for company and completely relaxing away from the city. So when she woke up to the deep, meaty pulsing of Owen’s motorbike, she was bitterly disappointed.

‘What time is it?’ she said out loud, fumbling for her iPhone. When she noticed the time fast approaching ten o’clock her anger subsided a little. She’d slept much better than she’d anticipated given Owen’s arrival in the middle of the night. After she’d left him in the kitchen, she’d gone up to her room and dragged the desk across her doorway to stop anyone coming in when she was asleep.

She yawned, stretched her arms up to the ceiling and padded over to the window where she pulled back the side of the curtain in time to see Owen’s leather-clad figure astride the bike pulling out of the driveway.

When Owen had stood at the sink last night scrubbing filth from his hands, Rosie had looked over at the pictures dotted around the room and her eyes had settled on the family portrait on the kitchen wall. She’d immediately matched one of the boys to the man who stood before her, albeit a filled-out version of the lanky teenager from the photograph whose clothes had hung off him as though they were two sizes too big and whose hair had flopped in an unruly, childlike way. And as he’d pumped a second round of soap into his palm and scrubbed at his hands again, Rosie realised his green eyes were hereditary, the same shade as Jane Harrison’s, the woman who had welcomed her to the house yesterday.

But Owen was so different to the woman who’d given birth to him. Jane, a quiet, no-nonsense woman with a flawlessly decorated house, was a woman with a together appearance – smart clothes, pleats down the front of her trousers, pearl-drop earrings – and a woman who seemed on edge, as though at any moment life could jump out of the closet and say ‘boo’. It was hard to believe she could have a great oaf of a son like Owen who seemed to enjoy being as awkward as possible.

Rosie dragged the desk from its position across the bedroom door, back to its rightful place at the side of the room, and wondered whether Owen Harrison was coming back. Somewhere between the time Owen had arrived and when she’d woken up to the sounds of his motorbike, she’d become all the more determined that she wasn’t going to be the one to leave. Her part-time job as a PR assistant at Magnolia House started in a few days, and it was the perfect opportunity to put her communications degree into practice. This house was in the perfect location to walk to work, and the house-sit had come up at exactly the right time given the lack of rental properties within commutable distance this side of Christmas.

It had taken confidence to take on a job in an area where the risk of bushfires was a part of everyday life, but Rosie had had plenty of challenges in the last eighteen months, and it was just another one to come her way. Jane Harrison had shown her the bushfire plan as casually as she’d shown her how to operate the washing machine and dishwasher; as calmly as she’d given her the rundown of the list of contacts that covered a gamut of possible emergencies from the pool water turning brown to a gas leak; as matter-of-factly as she’d told Rosie where the key to the study was should she need to use a printer. They’d talked about preparations during bushfire season, including clearing gutters and keeping the grass trimmed and watered, and Rosie had managed to dial down any panic derived from her personal history.

Downstairs, Rosie checked the kitchen for a note from Owen. Hopefully a note to say he’d gone for good. But there was nothing. When he still wasn’t home by midday, she gave up waiting and went upstairs to unpack some more. She’d been too tired when she arrived yesterday and had instead enjoyed the first night in this lovely house by relaxing with dinner and a glass of wine. Once she got dressed and dried her hair, she would email Jane and raise the issue of her son. She didn’t fancy being scared half to death again if he decided to come back, and she certainly wasn’t going to be the one to leave Magnolia Creek.

She busied herself hanging clothes on rails, dumping electronic devices in a tangle of wires onto the desk, emptying her wash bags into wide drawers in the en suite. Her bedroom was no less luxurious than the rest of the home. A king-size bed stood in the middle of the light, airy room, and fluffy fawn cushions sat atop the crisp white linen. A gentle breeze rippled through the half open window that looked out to a view of the mountain ash trees and lush ferns standing tall at the front of the house and beyond.

After a long shower, Rosie hummed as the breeze through the open window fanned away the heat from the hairdryer. She tipped her head upside down to reach the strands beneath, and when she flicked her head back up she squealed at the figure standing in the doorway.

‘Don’t you ever knock?’ she yelled, switching the hairdryer off and grabbing a T-shirt to hold across her chest. At least she’d already pulled on a pair of jeans and a bra.

Owen had the same smug look on his face as last night. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouted hello from downstairs and I knocked, twice.’

‘Well if someone doesn’t answer, it generally doesn’t mean come in!’

‘Oh okay, don’t get your knickers in a twist.’ The words played on his lips. ‘Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot last night, and it was my fault, but I wanted to talk about … arrangements. I’ll grab a coffee and a shower and then I’m all yours.’

Arrangements? Surely it was simple? He was leaving.

Lost for words, she waited for him to go and then pulled her T-shirt over her head.

Perhaps the desk should be a permanent fixture across her bedroom door.

*

Less than ten minutes later she joined Owen in the kitchen. She declined the offer of a coffee when he poured himself a cup.

‘You were too quick for me,’ he said, and at her confused expression, added, ‘I haven’t had a shower yet.’ He nodded towards the deck. ‘I was going to drink this outside first if it’s okay with you.’

‘It’s fine.’ She noticed the small scar that cut across his left eyebrow, and his dark messy hair covered the tops of his ears as though begging for a trim. When his eyes locked with hers, she scurried out onto the deck to where a newspaper sat on the table, the pages flapping gently in the wind. It was a warm afternoon with the garden now bathed in sunshine, and she’d been caught out by the changeable weather again. Melbourne’s four-seasons-in-one-day reputation had her wondering whether she’d need to rethink her jeans in favour of a cotton dress.

When she heard Owen behind her, she stiffened, glad to feel George brush against her ankle. He’d be a good distraction while they talked. But when she noticed George happily curled up on the leather sofa inside, she looked down and saw a reptile skulking across the deck. She yelped and jumped up.

Owen slurped his coffee. ‘No need to panic.’

‘It’s huge!’

‘Rosie, meet Bertie.’

‘Bertie?’

‘Bertie the blue-tongue.’

Rosie eyed the lizard. It had to be well over a foot long. She shuddered thinking about how it had slithered against her bare skin.

‘He won’t hurt you,’ Owen went on. ‘Not unless you try to pick him up.’ He tapped a foot near Bertie until the reptile turned and retreated towards the rockery at the side of the garden. Owen actually looked sympathetic rather than amused, but Rosie suspected he was trying to get on her good side so he could stay at the house a little longer.

She breathed a sigh of relief at the lizard’s departure. ‘I’m not likely to pick him up.’

‘Probably a good idea, he’d more than likely bite you. They prefer to hide away from their predators.’ He nodded towards the rocks where Bertie had found his sanctuary.

Rosie wasn’t sure which unexpected guest had frightened her the most in the last twelve hours: Bertie or Owen.

Her heart rate returning to normal, she looked over at the pool where the cleaner was chugging away, stuck in a corner. ‘Isn’t that thing supposed to move around in the water?’

Owen frowned, took another gulp of coffee and then trotted down the steps towards the pool, calling over his shoulder, ‘That
thing’s
technical name is a Kreepy Krauly, and you’ll get used to seeing it stuck in this corner.’ He plunged his forearm into the water, wrestled with the hose for a minute or two and then headed back up to the deck as the Kreepy Krauly chugged merrily around the sides of the pool once more, sucking up all the debris along the tiles. ‘Sometimes it needs a bit of encouragement to get moving.’

The Owen of last night would’ve laughed about Bertie the blue-tongue and how scared she’d been. The Owen of last night would’ve left her to fix the Kreepy Krauly. But this morning he was surprising her more and more.

He tipped his head back to get the dregs of coffee in his mug. ‘If you think you can cope with the wildlife of Magnolia Creek, I’ll take a shower and then we can talk.’

‘Sure.’ She stayed outside on the covered deck while Owen disappeared upstairs. She drew her legs up onto her chair, hugging them in close in case Bertie decided to take another wander, and only when she heard a strange buzzing coming from the kitchen did she move from her spot.

On top of the galaxy-black kitchen bench was a pager, doing a merry dance as it vibrated and tried to get her attention. She called up the stairs to Owen, but she had no idea whether he’d heard her or not. She wondered what kind of job relied on a pager, but she wasn’t about to pry and see what it said.

She reread the bushfire escape plan and checked the FireReady app on her iPad that Jane had recommended for instant updates to Magnolia Creek and the surrounding areas. There was low fire danger for today, which was a relief, and the only incident was some twenty-five kilometres away. And rather than making her jittery about fires as she’d thought it would, the app reassured her that all was fine. Jane Harrison had also told her there hadn’t been an incident here in more than twenty years. She was safe.

Seconds later Owen appeared in the kitchen and lifted up the pager. ‘Was this buzzing?’

‘Yes.’ She tore her eyes away from the towel wrapped around the bottom part of his torso, but looking at his naked top half with droplets of water still snaking their way down his chest and back was no less distracting. She tried to lose herself in the FireReady app even though she’d seen as much as she needed to.

He charged out of the kitchen but not before she saw the full tattoo on his arm, the intricacy of the design a surprise. It was a rose, roughly the size of a baby’s fist and almost like a ghost of the flower with a hint of red within the light and dark grey shading.

She was still thinking about the tattoo when Owen raced back down the stairs, yet again, wearing grey tracksuit pants and a black T-shirt with a loose hem at the bottom. ‘Can our chat wait?’

He didn’t leave her with much choice because he grabbed his keys and left. To where was anybody’s guess, and now she was stuck in limbo again. She liked to know what was happening and when. She hated having to wait for things to unfold for her.

Perhaps she should call the house-sitting agency and let them sort this mess out. She went upstairs and pulled out her house-sitting contract and leafed through the pages, scanning for clauses in her favour, but as she got to the end of the paperwork she realised that in a peculiar way – discounting their introduction in the middle of the night – she’d enjoyed interacting with Owen today. Having another person in her living space was something she wasn’t used to, hadn’t been for a long time, but it was something she’d enjoyed. And she’d certainly appreciated him scaring away the lizard and fixing the pool cleaner.

She slotted her contract back into her file. As two grown adults, surely they could sort this out between themselves.

Owen came and went the rest of the day as though the house were a youth hostel, and he was gone again the next morning. Rosie found it quite impossible to pin him down, and once again she was torn between chasing after him to force him to talk to her and phoning the agency to say she wanted out of this house-sit on the grounds that it had ‘unreasonable complications’.

So much for the adult approach.

She’d thought about contacting Jane and Michael Harrison in London, but it would feel childish to do so. No, calling them had to be a last resort if she and Owen couldn’t resolve this. Owen had certainly been pulling his weight around the house at least, feeding the cat before she’d had a chance this morning, emptying the dishwasher, replenishing juice and milk supplies – hopefully not drinking from the spout any more either.

She dragged the hose from the back of the house around to the front to water the shrubs and creepers that added to the English Tudor property’s grandeur. She watered the dancing violet and yellow flowers in the hanging baskets positioned between the downstairs mullioned windows framed in dark wood, and she sprayed the foliage framing a front door made of the same wood with iron panels running across it. George sprawled out in the sunshine as she worked and brushed against her legs every time he decided it had been quite long enough since Rosie had paid him any attention.

She went to the kitchen to pour a glass of lemonade and took it to the back deck. She opened up her iPad and tapped Adam’s name into the FaceTime app. It was early morning in Singapore, and if she was lucky she’d catch him before he got too busy. She couldn’t wait to show him this place. They’d been together for four years now and often talked about getting a place of their own. She crossed her fingers that this house-sit could open his mind to living further away from a big city. She’d never given it much thought, not until this job opportunity had come up, but now she was actually here, it was addictive and she found herself wanting the peace and tranquillity more and more.

‘Hello there.’ Adam grinned when his face appeared on her screen. He ran a hand through cropped blond hair that formed a hint of a quiff at the front. ‘I’m all yours for ten minutes and then I’m off to the first meeting of the day.’

With a roll of her eyes, Rosie smiled. Adam was fast climbing the corporate ladder, and the busier he was in his job as an investment banker, the happier he was.

‘Are you missing me?’ she asked.

‘Of course I am. And I’m sorry we couldn’t chat this past week, but it’s been full on here. How was the drive up to … where are you?’

‘Magnolia Creek. The drive was fine, less than three hours.’

‘Not bad going from Geelong. How’s your mum?’ She’d spent three days with her mum in between house-sits.

‘She’s good. She’s been taking Italian cooking lessons.’

‘Good on her.’

‘She fed me up with a lot of pasta when I was there.’

Adam drew in his breath. ‘Dangerous.’

‘I know. I’ll have to swim it off in the pool during this house-sit.’

‘You will.’ He laughed. ‘How are her plans going for renovating her house?’

‘Great. She’s all set to convert the attic space into a huge master bedroom with en suite, which obviously she can’t do until she gets rid of my things.’ Rosie knew construction wasn’t due to start for almost a year, but she needed to remind Adam that not having a permanent address wasn’t an arrangement she wanted to go on indefinitely. She wanted to feel settled, normal at last.

‘I’m sure you’re not imposing,’ he said. ‘So come on, what’s this grand house like?’

He’d changed the subject as usual, but Rosie was too relaxed today to get uptight about it. She flipped the camera on her iPad around so he could see the place for himself.

Framed by spectacular views of the fields and bushland that surrounded Magnolia Creek and stretched for miles, the garden was a real-life watercolour spread out before them. The smell was different too, although only she got to appreciate that right now. The freshly clipped lawn and floral notes pervaded Rosie’s senses and were far more powerful than any garden in the city or suburbs. She wished Adam could be here to feel the difference between a place this remote and the city.

‘You’ve certainly landed on your feet with this one,’ said Adam as she swept the iPad across the view beyond the rear of the garden, showcasing the Dandenong Ranges beyond, highlighted beneath the strength of the Australian sun. The rockery was dotted with a spray of yellow and vibrant red flowers, and in the middle of the lawn were various beds of roses. Some were pale-lemon with petals streaked with pink, others were ruby red, some an innocent white.

‘You’ll be gardening the whole time, won’t you?’ Adam laughed.

Rosie turned the camera back to her momentarily. ‘Other than keeping the grass short, watered frequently and the flowerbeds tidy, it should be easy enough to maintain.’

She shifted the camera’s focus to the pool now. The outside space, like the interior of the Harrisons’ home, was beautifully cared for. Four pots stood at intervals beside the glass pool fence, and large creamy white Gardenias stood tall, nodding in the breeze as the sunlight caught their glossy green leaves. A leaf floated down from a tree above, into the crystal clear waters turned blue by the coloured tiles beneath. The solar heating showed off by disgorging its hot flush of water with a forceful glug, disturbing the surface, but it didn’t look any less idyllic.

‘Check out the gazebo.’ She focused now on the structure at the far end of the pool past the row of baby-blue agapanthus. ‘It’s even got a beer fridge!’ It would also be a great place to enjoy the shade and give her fair skin a much needed break from the summer sun.

‘Nice. Have you been in the water yet?’

‘No, but I will do, and soon.’

After a brief tour of the inside of the house, Rosie came full circle and sat at the outside table.

‘How’s the wildlife treating you?’ Adam asked. ‘Are there many snakes, spiders?’ He’d never been one to step outside the city.

‘It’s not too bad, although I did meet Bertie.’ She told him all about the lizard who’d taken her by surprise, neglecting to tell him about the other unexpected visitor. Owen would be gone soon enough, so there was no need to give Adam cause for worry about another man hanging around.

‘Are you still planning on coming back for Christmas?’ she asked as George jumped onto her lap and settled down, purring.

‘I’ll do my best.’

They’d discussed the possibility of her flying to Singapore for Christmas, but with the new job and now the house-sit, Rosie didn’t want to leave Magnolia Creek.

‘I wish you were here,’ said Rosie.

Adam frowned. ‘We’ve been over this.’

‘I know, I know. You’re there for work. This is the way it is for now.’ She didn’t mean to sound quite so whiny, but she rarely nagged him about working away and for some reason, in this gorgeous setting with nobody to share it with, it just got to her.

‘I’d better go, Rosie. I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

‘It’s not forever, I promise.’

Rosie’s smile was weak and her voice small as she said goodbye.

She clicked out of FaceTime and reprimanded herself for sounding needy when she was perfectly able to look after herself.

In the kitchen she took out the eggs from the pantry and set about making a late breakfast. But as the water in the saucepan came to the boil, she realised she wasn’t alone in the house any more when she heard footsteps in the hallway.

She hadn’t heard Owen return.

Owen leaned around the doorjamb of the kitchen.

‘Hey,’ she said, quashing the temptation to ask, ‘Have you found somewhere to go yet?’ He swanned in as though he hadn’t given it a moment’s thought.

She carefully used a spoon to lower her eggs into the pan. She loaded two slices of bread into the toaster, but before she could ask him if he’d made alternative arrangements, he said, ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been around much.’ He at least had the good grace to look sheepish now as he came over to inspect what she was doing. ‘I’m not trying to avoid you. Give me five minutes to have a shower and I’ll be back.’ He took a bag into the laundry and she heard the washing machine whoosh into action, then he headed upstairs.

When the bread popped up, she buttered her toast soldiers and lifted out the soft-boiled eggs, placing one in the egg cup and the other on the plate. She sat at the kitchen bench to eat, and as she was tapping her spoon against the shell of the second egg to take the top off, Owen reappeared, hair glistening and still wet from the shower.

He leaned close to her. ‘That looks awesome, I’m starving. Do you mind if I pinch a couple of eggs?’ He pressed his palms together in a prayer position and Rosie couldn’t say anything else but ‘yes’.

As he moved around the kitchen preparing his own breakfast, she caught sight of the stem of his rose tattoo again and momentarily wondered whether he did have any others. She’d scanned his torso the other day when he’d answered the pager call wearing only a towel on his bottom half, but she hadn’t spotted any. The thought of his body gave her an unexpected tingle through her own.

When his eggs were cooked and the toast buttered, Owen sat at the kitchen bench on the same side as Rosie. ‘I haven’t had this for years.’ He dipped a soldier into the egg and yolk burst out of the top of the shell and ran down the sides of the china egg cup.

Rosie smiled and let him eat for a while before she said, ‘Owen, I did expect the house to be empty when I signed the house-sitting agreement.’

‘I know.’ He finished his mouthful. ‘And then I turn up, engines roaring, scaring the life out of you and stealing all your food.’

He must’ve been starving because he finished the eggs and toast in record time and then he was up, scouring the pantry for something else. She wondered where he put it all. He looked fit enough, muscular and didn’t have an ounce of unwanted fat.

He found a banana but it had gone all squidgy so he threw it in the bin. He leant against the kitchen bench, opposite Rosie this time. ‘I know this place works out well for you, Rosie, but the fact is I need to be here. Look, I’ll pay the cost for you to rent somewhere else. How does that sound?’

She was too shocked to say what she really thought, which was that his suggestion was incredibly rude. ‘You want to pay for a rental for me? Here, in Magnolia Creek?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why? Why are you so desperate to be here? Why would you want to pay for me to leave?’

‘I don’t have to answer to you.’ He spoke matter-of-factly, but Rosie didn’t miss the muscle in his jaw twinge.

‘No, you don’t.’ She sipped from a glass of water. ‘But the fact is there aren’t any places to rent around here. I’m starting a new job at Magnolia House the day after tomorrow, and I don’t want to face a big commute until I really have to.’

He puffed out his cheeks. Talk about stubborn.

‘And even if there was somewhere else to rent,’ she went on, ‘I have a contract, a contract with your parents. I’ve been house-sitting for a while and I’ve got excellent references, something I don’t want to jeopardise by abandoning this house. I have an obligation, Owen, to the house and to the pet-sitting part of the contract.’

‘Right.’

She took her plate over to the sink. ‘I’m not trying to be awkward.’ Something in the way he looked at her made her feel sorry for him, but she wasn’t going to back down. ‘You can stay for a couple of nights until you’ve sorted something else out, but then you’ll have to move on or I’ll have no choice but to contact the agency.’

He sighed.

After she’d rinsed her plate and slotted it into the dishwasher she turned to him. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but don’t you have your own place?’

‘What you mean is, do I really still live at home and rely on my parents at the ripe old age of thirty-three?’

‘That wasn’t what I said exactly.’ She felt guilty. Despite his arrogance the night they’d first met, he didn’t seem all bad now. It wasn’t his fault he’d arrived not knowing about her arrangement with his mum.

‘I was reading between the lines.’ He grinned. ‘I don’t have my own place, at least not really. I’m what you might call nomadic. I’m only here on and off, and I pay for my keep when I am and help out around the place.’

Rosie nodded towards the photo of three boys, Owen on the right-hand side. ‘Could you stay with either of your brothers?’

Owen shrugged. ‘Ben is exploring Europe as we speak, but I guess Tom’s a possibility.’

‘Does he live nearby?’

‘Near the city.’

She was relieved to hear he had possibilities and hoped he’d sort them out sooner rather than later. She looked over at the photograph again, the three siblings lined up to smile at the camera. As an only child she’d sometimes felt as though she was on the outside looking in when it came to the subject of sibling rivalry, the closeness of sisters and brothers, the adventures of childhood she suspected she’d missed out on. She scolded herself for feeling jealous of his intact family.

Shopping list in hand, Rosie left Owen scrolling through contacts on his iPhone and set off for the supermarket. Driving down Lakeside Lane she smiled at the sight of the road stretched out before her lined with purple-blue jacaranda trees in full bloom. In autumn she bet this road would become a carpet of soft blue when the trumpet-shaped flowers began to fall. She skilfully avoided the pothole she’d clunked in and out of when she’d first driven up to the house to meet Jane and Michael Harrison.