Set In Stone Page 11

  Skye laughed a can-you-imagine tinkle. ‘I’m sure he was kidding, Bo, honey,’ she said, oozing adoration all over him. ‘It’s your place, after all.’

  ‘It’s more his place than it ever was mine,’ Bo said, bringing Skye’s hand to his face and rubbing it against his cheek in a gesture so affectionate, and so like the one Gage had used on Lou after the reunion, that she almost stopped breathing. ‘Anyway.’ He lowered Skye’s hand again, still gripping it like it held the answer to all the perplexing questions of the universe. ‘Best thing he ever did.’ He started up the stairs again. ‘Coming in for lunch, Louise?’

  ‘Ah …’ Lou tried to remember what she had been about to do when the shock of Bo Mark II had descended on her. She blinked while her brain caught up. ‘Thanks, but I need to head into town to see Dad.’ Bo and Skye hit the veranda and turned back to her. She motioned to the groceries. ‘Would you mind unpacking those for me? I need to grab a few things before I leave.’ She motioned to the guesthouse.

  ‘No problem.’ Bo grinned, wrapping an arm around Skye. Lou considered them, standing on the veranda like the lord and lady of the manor. Her mother had a distinctly cat-thatgot-the-cream look on her face. They made a handsome couple. ‘Would you mind letting Gage and Pip know I’m making lunch?’ Bo waved at the stables. ‘I saw Gage heading that way earlier. And I have no doubt my girl’s down there somewhere too.’ It was impossible to miss the affection in Bo’s voice as he talked about Piper. Even from her vantage point on the drive, Lou saw the way his face creased in a smile.

  ‘Sure,’ she agreed, the world starting to right itself again under her feet. She hesitated. ‘It’s great to see you, Mis–’ She stopped herself. ‘Bo.’ She took them in again, arm in arm on the veranda, and tried to imagine what it would have been like, for her and for Gage, if that was how they had been, when they were growing up. ‘You look great.’

  ‘Thanks, Louise.’ He gave her another handsome-preacher smile, and the full force of it hit Lou like a gust of wind. Wow. Had some ancestor of the Westins mated with a god?

  Lou turned around and made for the stables, a little annoyed that she had to seek Gage out as instructed. He was disruptive to her equilibrium and she had been kind of hoping to escape without seeing him.

  Except part of her always hoped to see him. An errant, seventeen-year-old-girl part; a part that just needed to grow up. She had missed him this morning with her late wake-up, and as she reached the stable door she wondered what time his day had started.

  Lou heard a noise inside the stables as she pushed at the door gently and peeked in. Horses freaked her out a little, and she was always careful to go quietly and slowly around them; something about their size and wildness. She had no doubt horses seemed pretty big even when you were a Stone Mountain giant, but when you were as small as she was, they were like unpredictable creatures from a fairy tale. She held her breath as she peeked into the darkness.

  But it wasn’t Gage she saw.

  Piper was pressed against one of the stalls, in a frozen moment so preoccupying that Lou’s entrance went unnoticed. She wasn’t alone. A dark head obscured her face, and her white singlet top was rucked up around her collarbones, a big hand at her breasts, another hand hidden behind her body.

  Lou’s brain whizzed with confusion. Who was this boy? He was tall and long; at least as tall as Gage, but rangier. He had the big-boned rawness of a young man who hadn’t yet grown into his skin, like a Great Dane puppy. He wore tight black jeans and steel-capped boots. He sported a full bushranger beard and it made him look much older than Piper. Piper’s hands were inside his tight black T-shirt that peeped out from underneath a dark denim jacket. Lou stood at the door, petrified by surprise, and she could hear the unmistakeable sounds of low moaning. They were having a really good time.

  Like she was stepping on land mines, Lou slowly, carefully, withdrew herself, shutting the door quietly but not all the way, lest she alert them to her presence. As she turned around, blowing her breath out with relief, she bumped against another body.

  ‘Gage,’ she breathed, not exactly sure what to do but knowing that she couldn’t betray what was going on inside to Piper’s father.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Gage’s voice was hard and low. He was dressed in his usual uniform, except he was wearing a broad, cowboy-style hat and carrying a shotgun. She could hardly make out his eyes under the hat, but it made his jaw look even squarer and more determined. Lou tried not to swoon and blinked several times to make sure she wasn’t having some misplaced cowboy fantasy.

  ‘Nothing,’ Lou squeaked, trying to edge him away from the stable door.

  ‘Hmm,’ Gage said shortly, looking like he didn’t believe her for a moment. ‘Whose bike is that?’ He motioned to the flame trees and the wild black thing sprawled under them.

  ‘It’s not yours?’

  Gage’s jaw set. ‘I’m looking for Pip, have you seen her?’

  ‘No.’ Lou’s brain scrambled hard, Wile E. Coyote running in midair after having fallen off the cliff. She moved her body between Gage and the stable door. ‘Er, no, don’t think so.’

  Gage stepped closer and tipped his hat back, examining her face. His proximity addled her mind the way it always did, filling up her senses with the smell and sounds of him. He pointed to the stables and frowned. ‘She’s not in there?’

  Lou studied the ground and shook her head. ‘Uh-uh.’

  A soft sigh escaped the stable like a balloon slipping from a child’s fingers.

  Gage scowled and grasped Lou’s shoulders, picking her up a little like he had at the reunion and moving her roughly to the side. Then he kicked the door open and stepped into the stables.

  ‘Get away from her,’ he barked at the young man as he broke away from Piper. Lou slid in behind him, murmuring a quiet ‘Gage’ to try to pull him back from wherever it was he had landed.

  ‘Dad!’ Piper hurried towards her father, flushed and dishevelled, straightening her top. Released from the clench with Piper, it was clear the boy was older than Lou had first imagined. In fact, he wasn’t a boy at all – he was probably in his mid-twenties. He was handsome, in a smooth, trendy way. He wore a black biker-style beanie with the words Chick Magnet written on it and his hair looked to be slicked into the kind of quiff that Lou recognised from the Sydney scene, but there was also a strength behind his swagger, something in the way he moved that suggested an ease in his body, a facility and power. He seemed unperturbed to be facing down Piper’s father and his big gun.

  ‘Hey.’ He grinned, running his hand across his mouth as though to emphasise what he’d just been doing with it. There was something about him – something casual and deliberate and cocky – that unsettled Lou as she watched the unfolding scene. ‘You must be Piper’s old man.’ He grinned nastily. ‘I’ve heard so much about you.’

  A horse whinnied piteously in one of the stalls.

  ‘Well,’ Gage drawled slowly, and something about the slow, lazy way he rolled it out made the hairs on Lou’s arms stand on end. ‘You’ve got one up on me, son, because I have no idea who you must be.’

  ‘Dad, this is my friend, Ja–’ Piper’s voice was higher and breathier than normal.

  ‘Friends call at the house,’ Gage barked. ‘Friends introduce themselves. Friends –’ He stopped like he was gathering his thoughts. ‘Friends fall into roughly the same age bracket.’ He stalked closer to the young man, who was standing still, but with a slight grin still playing around his lips. ‘Friends don’t put their hands up your shirt.’ He placed the shotgun on a nearby bale of hay and moved closer to the visitor, grabbing him by the front of his probably very expensive jacket.

  Lou held her breath, and tried to work out the right way to intervene – a way that would not see Gage knock this interloper’s lights out.

  But Gage had other plans. He used one hand to flick the beanie off the boy’s head, which had the effect, finally, of wiping the irritating smirk off his face. Then Gage put his foot on the hat
. ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you take your hat off when you’re talking to a lady?’

  The smirk returned, and Lou was unnerved by the newcomer’s steel in the face of Gage’s closeness and fury. Maybe he didn’t realise, like Lou and Piper did, just how good a fighter Gage was. ‘We weren’t doing much talking.’

  Several of the stalled horses started to whinny and stamp. Instinct told Lou to step forwards and place a restraining hand on Gage’s shoulder, but he shook it off. Though not before she felt his muscles tense swiftly under her fingers.

  ‘Get out,’ Gage hissed, tightening his fists on the stiff fabric of the younger man’s jacket and pushing his face closer to the smirk.

  ‘Dad,’ Piper sobbed, trying to grab his arm.

  Gage turned his face slightly to Lou. ‘Can you take her out please?’

  Piper seemed to dig in at her father’s words. Her arms clenched at her sides and her feet stood firm in the dirt of the stables. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘Or what?’ The young man raised his hands, palms up, like he was being perfectly reasonable, then looked at the forgotten shotgun. ‘You going to shoot me or something?’

  Gage inclined his head to the side, like he was genuinely considering the question. ‘Or something,’ he said, flicking a glance at Piper. He moved over to the secure box fixed to the stable wall, opened it and locked his weapon inside, each movement slow and deliberate. Then he turned back to Piper’s friend. ‘Trust me, mate, I don’t need a weapon to make you use some manners.’ His voice was so low, gravelly and menacing that Lou wondered if he was going to throw caution to the wind and start beating the hell out of the boy right in front of them. ‘Although I’d really rather not teach you the lesson with ladies present.’

  The boy pushed Gage’s hands away from his chest and ambled towards the stable doors like he was completely unmoved by the encounter.

  ‘Where I come from, we call them women,’ he said slyly as he passed Gage.

  Gage’s arm shot out and grabbed a handful of denim jacket then slammed the boy against the stable wall. Piper squealed and Lou wrapped her arms around her, trying to drag her away.

  Gage put his face very close to the newcomer’s again, his eyes narrowed to slits, his lips pulled back in a snarl. ‘Where I come from, we call them girls.’ Then he drew his fist back and Lou could see it shaking with the effort of controlling his rage.

  ‘You really don’t want to fight me,’ the young man purred, looking quizzically at Gage’s raised fist. ‘I got youth on my side.’ He winked and Lou closed her eyes, sure Gage was going to beat him to a pulp. She had seen Gage fight. He had been known for quick fists and an even quicker temper back in the day. Not for twenty years, but there were some things you never forgot.

  ‘Yeah?’ Gage laughed out loud. ‘And you think that’s a good thing?’ His voice was so low and deadly that Lou tightened her hold on Piper.

  The young man shrugged as well as he could. ‘Not a bad thing.’

  Gage slowly dropped his hands from the young man’s collar, and made a show of brushing him off. He grinned wolfishly at the young bushranger. ‘You know what I got on my side?’

  The boy swallowed hard, like something about the mad glint in Gage’s eyes had finally penetrated his swagger, and shook his head.

  Gage smirked. ‘I got a rage.’ He pointed at his chest. ‘When it comes to her –’ He motioned towards Piper. ‘I got a rage so big and so deep –’ He made a fist with one hand then opened it and studied it as though he almost didn’t understand himself what he might do. ‘I could kill you just for looking at her the wrong way.’

  ‘Jack.’ Piper’s voice was steady but pleading. ‘I think you should go.’

  The newcomer turned to Piper, and made a show of moving past Gage like he wasn’t perturbed by his words. ‘I didn’t start this, baby,’ he said, his voice shifting gear to drip warmth and innocence in her direction.

  Gage glanced towards the gun cabinet, looking as though he was tempted to find it and point it at the intruder. ‘But if you don’t go now, I’ll finish it,’ he said, his voice heavy with promise.

  The newcomer moved slowly to the door, stopping alongside Lou and Piper. He reached out a hand to Piper’s tearstained face. Instinctively, Lou pulled the girl away from him. There was something so cool and reckless in him. Gage had overreacted, sure. It was clear he had never seen Piper with a guy before – let alone a much older one sneaking around his property. But she got why the encounter had disturbed him so much. It had felt very much like Jack had some whole other agenda going on, an agenda that involved disturbing Gage, and using his daughter as the ammunition to do it. The newcomer – Jack – made for the door, exiting quickly and closing it behind him. ‘Nutter,’ he threw over his shoulder at Gage as he left.

  The three of them stood there as though frozen in some kind of dream sequence, listening to the motorbike engine roar to life outside. Piper was the first to move. She wriggled free of Lou’s arms and turned to her father.

  ‘How could you?’ Her face was streaked with tears and huge red spots flamed on each cheek. She ran from the barn in a flurry of long, dark hair and wracking sobs.

  When she was gone, Gage stumbled over to Lou, his shoulders drooping, his face unreadable. He stopped in front of her and gave her a sheepish, knowing look. ‘Now what did I do wrong?’ His green eyes appealed to her and she wanted to reach out her arms to him.

  ‘Oh, Gage.’ Lou couldn’t quite catch her breath. Gage’s eyes were bright with the effects of the encounter, but otherwise he was his usual, unreadable self.

  ‘Should I go after her?’

  Lou knew nothing about parenting a seventeen-year-old girl, although she did know something about being one. ‘I’d give her some time,’ she said finally. ‘Let you both calm down a little.’ She shrugged. ‘But what would I know?’

  Gage nodded. ‘Mmm. I need to ride,’ he said gruffly, turning towards the stalls. He opened the closest one and disappeared inside.

  Lou heard him murmuring quietly for a couple of moments, and she tried to process what had just gone on. She had no doubt Gage had wanted to seriously hurt the stranger who had been pawing his daughter. And she had been sure he had been going to. Before she could unpack how she felt about that, Gage was leading the animal out. It was a huge white stallion, and it looked like it was still a little freaked out by recent events. It pawed the ground as it nuzzled Gage’s shoulder. Its bit and reins were in place, and Gage had a big brown saddle across one arm.

  ‘You coming?’ He started work to fit the saddle, tightening ropes and buckles efficiently.

  ‘Riding?’ Lou’s toes tingled as she considered Gage’s question. She shook her head. ‘You know I can’t ride.’

  Gage vaulted into the saddle and held out a hand to Lou. ‘Lucky I can then,’ he said, a vulnerable edge in his voice.

  Lou looked at the tanned hand held out to her. The fingers were strong and pretty all at once, and a red scratch decorated the back of one, all the way across the knuckles. Clever hands, capable hands.

  ‘Please,’ he said, his voice breaking a little.

  And she was lost.

  Gage rode the horse hard, and after the initial shock of the jarring rhythm, Lou’s body adjusted. It helped that she felt so safe with him. It didn’t matter that he crashed out of those stables like the devil was on his tail. It didn’t matter that she could feel how tense his muscles were as she held tight around his lean waist. It didn’t matter that he seemed to be going very fast across uneven ground.

  None of it mattered because she could feel how in tune Gage was with the animal they were riding. He used the most minimal gestures on the reins to control the horse, and as they rode, she had the strangest sense that both Gage and the creature were working out their angst as they pushed harder, longer and further. Lou thought about his face back in the stables, as he’d said, ‘I have a rage in me.’ She shivered as she recalled how the truth of it had been written on his face
.

  Lou’s blood rushed in her ears as she held on. She pressed her tummy and cheek against his back, acutely conscious of the bump and jar of her pelvis against his buttocks. Her skin was so sensitised with the proximity of him, and the speed and exhilaration of the ride, that even the breeze seemed to sting against it as they raced on.

  They started in the lowlands, skirting the property and the scrubby bush that ringed it, and then they pushed up, onto the mountain itself. They followed the track for a while, and Gage continued to press the animal hard until the track became patchier and they had to pick their way. As the horse slowed, Gage’s breathing slowed too. The muscles under her hands had begun to unclench and she swore she could hear the humming of his blood as she pressed her cheek against his back. The land, the ride – all of it soothed Gage. By the time he pulled the horse off onto a smaller track, pleasure was rising off him in great waves. And as he dismounted and guided the horse through the sparse gums in this place, Lou saw why.

  They had emerged into a natural clearing on the side of Stone Mountain overlooking the property below. It was the middle of the day, and while the sun shone hot and hard overhead, the towering gums that ringed the clearing transformed it into a natural shade circle, fringed by drooping leaves and carpeted with mulchy green forest detritus, like some kind of fairy ring. She gasped, realising she had never been here before.

  While the little clearing was beautiful, it was not the highlight of the place. Laid out before them, stark in its lines and lavish in its colours, was Sunset Downs. The drought had parched the surrounding land brown, but careful irrigation meant the property was a patchwork of greens, golds and darker hues; an oasis in the desert. The cattle paddocks stretched out wild and rough, interspersed with smaller, neater squares Lou assumed to be the grain growing zones. The waterhole winked silvery perfect in the centre, and from this vantage point the symmetry and order of the place, contrasted with the lush chaos of the bush around it, was breathtaking. It was as though some finicky god had carved out a paintbox amid the raucous loveliness of the bush.