Set In Stone Read online

  Set in Stone

  ROS BAXTER

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au

  About the Author

  Ros writes fresh, funny, genre-busting fiction. She digs feisty heroines, good friends, quirky families, heroes to make you sigh and tingle, and a dash of fantasy from time to time.

  Ros lives in Brisbane, Australia, with her husband Blair, four small but very opinionated children, a neurotic dog and nine billion germs.

  You can email Ros at [email protected] or find her at www.facebook.com/RosBaxterInk, on Twitter @RosBaxter, or www.rosbaxterink.com.

  To The Class of 1990,

  North Rockhampton State High School,

  for throwing the best 20 year school reunion ever.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Chapter 1: Last plane out of Sydney

  Chapter 2: Stuck in the middle with you

  Chapter 3: Mamma mia

  Chapter 4: Flame trees

  Chapter 5: Living and working on the land

  Chapter 6: Killing me softly

  Chapter 7: Listen to your heart

  Chapter 8: True colours

  Chapter 9: The heat is on

  Chapter 10: Heartache tonight

  Chapter 11: Hungry heart

  Chapter 12: Dumb things

  Chapter 13: I guess that’s why they call it the blues

  Chapter 14: What’s love got to do with it?

  Chapter 15: Thunderstruck

  Chapter 16: Human touch

  Chapter 17: Right here, right now

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter

  1

  Last plane out of Sydney

  Lou stepped out of the cab, unsteady on her teetering heels. She turned to Sharni, and a low buzz of irritation zapped her as she realised that even in these pointlessly high heels, she still had to look up at her best friend, even though Sharni was, as ever, wearing sensible, flat cowboy boots. Cowgirl boots. In the city, Lou cultivated short friends.

  A sixty-something man sporting the same put-upon air he’d worn for the last thirty years leaned out the taxi window, and gestured at the Queen’s Arms. ‘Be careful in there, girls,’ he warned, working hard to pull his lips back into a smile, but coming off looking even more worried. ‘Dunno why they picked that place for the reunion. All kindsa stuff goes on in there on Friday nights. And then, with the drought …’ He shrugged as though to suggest lack of rain could drive people nuts.

  ‘No worries, Mr Robinson,’ Sharni called, waving at him and treating him to one of her Geena Davis grins. ‘I’ll try to keep her out of trouble.’ She smacked Lou firmly on the bottom and Mr Robinson’s eyes widened as he shook his head, indicated carefully, and pulled away from Stone Mountain’s very own Gomorrah.

  Lou scowled at Sharni before flipping open her compact and considering herself in it. Same straight dark hair. Same blue eyes, long nose, pointy chin, only her severe grey glasses were missing – Sharni had convinced her that contacts were the only option for this evening. Nothing about her face betrayed the way her stomach churned. ‘We aren’t thirteen any more. We don’t need to take advice from Mr Robinson.’

  ‘He’ll always be Ros Robinson’s dad. And I’ll always be Dessie Pie’s daughter. And he’ll always lean on Dad’s counter at the co-op, get his copy of the Stone Mountain Tribune and tell Dad he saw me smoking behind the netball sheds.’

  Lou leaned around to ping Sharni’s bra strap. ‘You’re thirty-seven, for God’s sake. You can smoke wherever you like.’

  Sharni rolled her eyes. ‘It was a metaphor, Lou,’ she grumbled. ‘I haven’t smoked since Year Ten. Picked a worse vice, didn’t I? Should have a national campaign against marrying cheating arseholes. No screening test for that kinda stupid.’

  This was Lou’s cue. She dragged in a deep breath of warm Stone Mountain air as she prepped for her speech. She knew it would be the last pure oxygen she’d have for a while. She could already smell the familiar scents of home pumping out through the door to the pub. Beer, beef, Rexona and cigarette smoke. Stone Mountain didn’t go in for all that no-smoking hoopla, despite the new regulations – Lou liked to call it The Land That Time Forgot. She put her hands firmly on her best friend’s shoulders and pulled her around to face her. ‘Now, chiquita,’ she said, blinking rapidly to combat the irritating effect of the false eyelashes Sharni had also insisted she wear. ‘Remember, we had a deal. We only left the comfort and safety of Sydney –’

  ‘And the shiatsu,’ Sharni reminded her.

  ‘Yep, exactly,’ Lou said, still grasping Sharni’s shoulders lest her oldest friend do something rash before Lou could finish her speech. ‘We only left the comfort and safety and shiatsu practitioners of the coolest city in the world –’

  ‘Well … the coolest city in Australia.’

  ‘We only left the comfort and safety and shiatsu practitioners of the coolest city in Australia,’ Lou conceded, ‘because we had a deal.’ Her heart thumped in her chest as she said the words. The deal was important. She hadn’t been home in twenty years, because of that night. And she was only back now because of the deal – the only thing stopping Lou Samuels from fleeing in terror.

  Well, the deal, and the fact that she absolutely could not be alone on this particular anniversary. She had to be with someone who understood, with Sharni – and Sharni had been determined to come to this reunion. She hadn’t asked Lou to come – she would never have done that – but just as Lou needed to be with Sharni, there was no way she was going to throw Sharni to the wolves (one wolf in particular). She could handle coming here. It was only one night. It had been a long time since she had let memories of home get to her. She had been positive they couldn’t touch her any more. Well, almost all the memories. And almost positive. Till she got here.

  Sharni nodded, her long red curls bouncing off her Amazonian shoulders. ‘Check,’ she said, attempting to twist out of Lou’s grasp and bolt for the door, from where they could hear Jimmy Barnes screaming about the last plane out of Sydney. Lou knew just how Barnesy felt.

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Lou stamped her foot. ‘We’re not going in yet. I think we should recap the deal first.’

  ‘Really?’ Sharni whined, looking longingly at the door.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Lou said, holding her best friend’s shoulders fast and trying not to feel as though the world was sliding out from under her. ‘These things are dangerous. High school reunions. I’ve read about it. Nostalgia. Alcohol.’

  ‘Jimmy Barnes,’ Sharni sniffed as the song started to wind down.

  ‘Exactly,’ Lou said. ‘It’s a heady cocktail. Anything could happen.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sharni sighed. ‘Go for it, lawyer girl.’

  Lou steadied herself on her brand-new red stilettos and held up her index finger. She felt ridiculous, trying to be serious lawyer Lou in the tight black dress that had seemed like such a good idea in the dressing room today, with Sharni screaming at her that she had to rock her smokin’ bod at the reunion. ‘One hour,’ she said, wishing they’d been able to get a plane out later in the evening. That would have been the safest bet. ‘In, out. Shake your impressive new booty in front of your shithead ex and then we get the hell out of there. Go find a nice meat-free Caesar salad somewhere, get an early night before we blow this popsicle stand in the morning. No excessive drinking. No dancing with dirty boys. No beef. No fighting with Shazza Maclean.’

  Sharni’s face went red at the last rule. ‘She’s such a –’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Lou made the zipper motion on her lips. ‘I don’t care what she is. You’ll just come off second best. Especially now you weigh about fifty kilograms less than her.’

  Sharni nodded at the truth of it and then surprised Lou by leaning forwards an
d pressing a kiss on her cheek. ‘I get it, darl,’ she said, and Lou saw in her face that she really did. No-one knew better than Sharni how hard this trip was for Lou. But Lou was damned if she was going to let Sharni banish her demons all alone. ‘We’ll be good.’

  Lou nodded back, her heart squeezing uncomfortably in her chest as she watched Sharni square her shoulders and toss her hair back over them. She was a tall streak of damn fine, and filled out those jeans like she hadn’t since Year Twelve. Matt Finlay was going to feel some bitter regret tonight, which was the whole point. Lou tucked her arm through Sharni’s and crossed her fingers behind her back.

  ‘We are grown-ups,’ Lou reminded Sharni, and maybe even herself as well. ‘We are evolved. We are …’ She paused, thinking of all that she and Sharni were now, all the things that separated them from Stone Mountain. ‘We are vegetarians.’

  Sharni nodded, taking a deep sniff of the air. ‘Shame those steaks smell so good,’ she said wistfully.

  Lou shook her head. ‘It was your idea, remember? Well, you and your shiatsu guy. Bad toxins. Meat makes you fat.’

  ‘And is murder,’ Sharni agreed, still sniffing the air greedily.

  ‘Exactly,’ Lou said, trying hard to ignore the barbecue smells.

  ‘No drinking, no meat, no dancing, no fighting,’ Sharni intoned, in that flat, hopeless voice she’d used as a kid when trying to learn her multiplication tables for the Friday quiz. As they walked through the door to a chorus of screams from five girls draped over the bar, Lou wished she hadn’t thought of those multiplication tables.

  Sharni had never passed a single quiz.

  It was midnight, and as Lou reached for another toothpick to try to dislodge a stubborn piece of gristle from the medium-rare Cattleman’s Best from her teeth, another tequila seemed like an inspired idea. It was sure to help her stop looking around, wondering if he was going to show. And it was sure as shit the only thing stopping her from running from this place, howling in pain and fury. Tequila was a miracle drug. One night every year, tequila could make her forget, hopefully she’d forget long enough tonight to get through this and drag Sharni home in one piece.

  She leaned forwards. ‘Whose shout is it, B-Jo?’

  Billi Johnson, whose hair had stayed the same improbable shade of blonde since Year Nine, shook her head. ‘No far-kin’ idea, darl,’ she screeched over the latest Shannon Noll hit. Billi wrapped a glitter-dusted arm around Lou’s shoulders. ‘We should go dance.’

  Lou nodded uncertainly, then held up a hand in the universal gesture of hang on a tick. ‘I’ve just gotta wee first,’ she said, standing up delicately from her stool. She had learned the hard way that her usual vault from sitting to standing was perilous in a mad-tight dress and wild heels. And without her glasses. And having discarded her contacts. And after eight tequilas. Or was it nine?

  Billi laughed. ‘G’arn then,’ she said. ‘I’ll be waiting. I’ll request Acca Dacca, eh?’ The buxom blonde stood up and jiggled her impressive bosom as she did a passable version of ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’.

  Lou walked gingerly down the long corridor towards the toilets. She badly needed to avail herself of them, but she also realised as she began the trek that she hadn’t seen Sharni for at least thirty minutes. Some time after the third tequila, they’d made a new deal. Just like Roosevelt. A revised deal, at least. The deal was that they would keep an eye on each other. Lou swallowed hard as she realised she’d reneged. This was bad.

  Lou took a deal very seriously; after all, she specialised in mergers. Not for nothing did they call her the Deal-Making Diva back at Forster and Klein. She decided to make the world’s quickest pit stop before heading out for some reconnaissance. It was time to bring this ordeal to a close.

  Of course, that was before she ran into Joanne Madison at the vanity. ‘Oh. My. Gawd. Louise Samuels.’

  Joanne had lost none of her talent for stating the obvious. Nor had she lost that famous raptor-like stare, the one she would use to sweep you on arrival at school, and loudly announce any changes of note to passersby.

  Nice perm, Louise. Your mum do it?

  Did you finally start wearing a bra, four eyes? What the hell for?

  Is that a zit or a boil?

  Still the same Joanne. Except for one thing. No longer was she the tanned, long-limbed creature of light and beauty that stalked the playground, holding lesser mortals up to her more-than-human standards. It wasn’t that she was fat, or prematurely grey, or used-up, as one might have secretly hoped in one’s dreams, if one was exactly as shitty a person as Lou clearly was. She just looked … normal. Like some nice, normal, mother-of-three you might see at the supermarket, smiling benignly over a carton of cereal and making pleasant small talk with the cashier.

  ‘The very same,’ Lou said, forcing the corners of her mouth into a smile and stepping into the arms Joanne thrust towards her. She caught the stale whiff of cigarettes and Red Door. ‘You look great.’

  That was what everyone had been saying all night. At first it had kinda been bullshit – there were a wide variety of ways people could fall into their thirties, and not all of them were pretty. But after a while, it had been true. People did look great. At least, it was great to see them. Even the ones who’d been small, or hopeless, or downright mean. Lou was surprised by just how good it was to see some of them. So maybe she could stretch herself to extend a little kindness to Joanne Madison.

  ‘Oh ta, sweetie,’ Joanne slurred. ‘I’m kinda hammered actually.’ Then she waved her hand at Lou. ‘You look good,’ she said. ‘Like, totally beautiful. Lucky you lost those hideous glasses. Hey, y’know what I remember most about you?’

  Oh God. Did Lou really want to know?

  But Joanne didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You were such a sweetie,’ she said. ‘Always smiling, always helping other kids out. Even the freaks.’

  Lou thought maybe she’d remembered this girl all wrong, as Joanne sniffed and pulled a Zippo out of her handbag. ‘Especially the freaks, right?’ She tapped a cigarette out of an enormous box. ‘Speaking of, how is Podge these days?’

  Dark red fury clouded Lou’s vision as she stared at the person she had pegged as a nice, ordinary woman a few seconds ago. She shook her head, pretending not to know who Joanne meant. ‘Um …’

  ‘Sharni Pie.’ Joanne laughed. ‘You know, “Sharni Loves Her Pie”.’ Joanne made quote marks with her fingers. ‘You guys were so tight. D’ya still see her?’

  All the things Lou had ever wanted to say to Joanne welled up slick and potent in her mouth. But as they did, the swing doors crashed open and a short woman with a red mohawk and purple Doc Martens barrelled in. ‘Jo,’ she screeched. ‘Hurry up, ya dumb mole. I just got here and they’re playing “The Flame”.’

  Memories of hundreds of school discos flashed through Lou’s brain. ‘The Flame’. It was always played as the night wore on and people started to couple off, needing an excuse to get close.

  Red Mohawk turned to consider Lou as she dragged Joanne out. ‘Louise Samuels,’ she muttered. ‘Remember me?’

  Lou peered at the woman closely. She’d discovered over the course of the evening that it took a special kind of stare to see the seventeen-year-old through the sedimentary layers of the last twenty years. It was a bit like looking at those magic eye pictures that had been so big in the early nineties: you had to kind of look through the face to see what was behind the layers of life experience, or maybe disillusion. But even trying her very hardest, Lou was drawing a total blank on Red Mohawk.

  ‘Sure,’ she bluffed. ‘How you doing?’

  Red Mohawk wasn’t having it. ‘Nah, you don’t,’ she grunted in Lou’s face. ‘You don’t remember at all.’ She narrowed her eyes in challenge. ‘What’s m’name then?’

  Lou thought hard. Go for something generic. Something common in Stone Mountain. And hope for the best. ‘Cindy,’ she said, smiling at Mohawk in a way she thought of as winningly.

  The woman scowled hard and s
hoved Lou against the door as she spat, ‘Sharon Maclean’ into her face.

  Dear God. Lou almost fainted on the spot. Shazza Maclean. The toughest girl in school, and Sharni’s nemesis. Exactly how many fights had those two had over the years?

  And worse, Lou considered, how many of them had been over the so-so-so-not-worth-it Matt Finlay? Matt, who Sharni had chased unceasingly through five years of high school until she shed the layers of puppy fat in their senior year and Matt had noticed her. Matt, who Sharni had finally gotten to agree to marry her three years after they left school. Matt, who was a total babe and a total dickhead and a total letch all rolled into one.

  Every time Lou thought about Matt Finlay, she wanted to kick something.

  That damned boy had stolen seventeen years of her best friend’s life.

  Lou had to find Sharni. Now.

  Shazza Maclean looked every bit as focused and even more terrifying than she had twenty years ago. And if she saw Sharni before Lou did, there was bound to be trouble. Especially since Lou and Sharni had thrown their survival pact out the window the minute they had entered the Queen’s Arms, moseyed over to the bar and smelled the barbecue.

  No drinking, no meat, no dancing, no fighting.

  Lou ran her tongue over her teeth and tasted tequila and Cattleman’s Best. It was hard for anyone to be in this town more than ten minutes and not need a drink. It was about fifty million times harder for Lou Samuels. And everyone here knew why.

  She left the ladies’ to search the cavernous bar for Sharni. She froze when she found her, vibrant red curls bouncing with abandon as she swayed to the old rock ballad on the dancefloor, pressed up against some guy who was probably feeling pretty damn lucky right about now.

  There went no dancing as well.

  Lou peered into the crowd, trying to work out who Sharni was partnering. She didn’t really mind the dancing that much. After all, Sharni had always been a natural dancer; and now that she’d emerged from the chrysalis of the body forged by seventeen years of unhappy marriage into a magnificent red-haired Amazonian butterfly, she sure cut a figure out there. And what better way to make Matt Finlay sick with jealousy and his own stupidity than to shake her fine booty in front of him, at the very same reunion where he expected to play the starring role as the returned football hero? All Sharni Pie had ever wanted was Matt, babies, and to paint; and in the end, the selfish shit had denied her all of them. He’d moved her to the big smoke (which was the only thing Lou had to thank him for) with promises of fun and glamour (neither of which Sharni particularly cared about); dropped her into a secretarial job (on the basis art wouldn’t get her anywhere); and just like he had for most of high school, proceeded to ignore her as he built his business. Then he’d cheated on her with the girl next door, literally – the daughter of the sweet older couple who lived next door; a girl whose entire body would fit neatly into one of Sharni’s cowgirl boots. And who, as Sharni said, thought Jackson Pollock was a boxer. Yep, Matt had committed the heinous crime of not only cheating on his wife with a teenager, but with a teenager who didn’t care a single whit about art. And he had still thought Sharni would come back for more.