Simmering Season Page 37

  ‘Tracy told me the two of you enjoyed a big deep and meaningful the morning after the reunion, and she told you about the baby then. I only found out about it a few hours before you, by the way. I assumed she’d told you about the father. The guy’s name is Roger and he’s a real doofus. Mike’s word, not mine. I also assumed she’d told you about us … Well, not about us as in us as there is no us which is what I should have said when … Shit, listen to me. Can I possibly make a bigger mess? If only we—’

  ‘Dan, stop. There is no we either. I am still married, remember?’

  ‘Damn it’s wet out there.’ Callum led the small army of orange inside and Maggie’s empty, early morning confessional became a busy bar again.

  ‘This conversation is over, Dan,’ Maggie whispered through clenched teeth as she rose from the intimate corner table, passing Callum as she moved to greet the soggy mob with dry towels.

  ‘Your dad’s at home, mate, and you can thank Ethne. I’ll let her fill you in on the details.’ The constable winked, smiled and slapped Dan on the back. ‘We left old Chuck refusing to be fussed over and demanding we leave him alone. Figured he was back to normal. Louie’s staying the night, despite Charlie’s protests that he was—and I’m quoting here: “No poof, so I won’t have no bloke watchin’ me sleep.” ’

  ‘Yep, I’d say that’s pretty close to normal for the old bugger, wouldn’t you, Maggie?’ Dan let out a breath he felt he’d been holding for hours.

  He watched her for a sign, hoping the Charlie-ism had hit the mark. Instead, Maggie shot the policeman a look, one Dan didn’t have a label for. Her body was relaxed, as if she was relieved too, but in her eyes was a kind of forced happiness, with hurt behind it. Why hurt? Dan didn’t know. He only knew he was desperate to patch things up with her first thing tomorrow.

  Make that today!

  He looked up from his watch. ‘You guys have earned your sleep. Well done, constable.’ He shook Callum’s hand. ‘Thanks everyone,’ he called out, scanning the drenched army drying their hair with Maggie’s towels. ‘I guess the next round is on me. Shame it’s not drinking time.’ He laughed.

  ‘You kiddin’, mate?’ Came a voice from somewhere. ‘It’s always drinkin’ time.’

  Maggie was now back in her comfort zone behind the bar and announcing, ‘Coffee’s hot in the dining room. Those of you preferring a beer, sit down and I’ll fill some jugs.’

  Like good working dogs the majority sat on command and Maggie mouthed a quick head count, took four beer jugs from the fridge and started filling them, two hands working in perfect unison with the taps. Some opted for coffee in the dining room and a few headed for home.

  Dan helped ferry full jugs and clean glasses to the thirsty search team, declining a beer for himself. With news of his dad’s safe return, he could allow exhaustion to wash over him. He’d done a bloody lousy job talking to Maggie, and as much as he wanted to continue the conversation, sleep was what Dan needed more than anything right now. At least Maggie would be his in dreams. When he woke, Dan would have to deal with his father.

  46

  Maggie

  Before leaving the pub, Dan had shaken a lot of hands, saving a final hug for Maggie, holding her long enough to whisper, ‘Forgive me, but I’m not giving up.’

  Maggie now stood under the shower struggling to replay their conversation in her head. Physically and emotionally drained, she could’ve collapsed in bed and slept for a week. Maybe then she’d wake up and discover it was all a dream.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Dan had whispered in her ear.

  For what? were the words now tugging at Maggie’s brain.

  He’d asked for her father’s forgiveness all those years ago and Joe’s carefully worded letter—the ecclesiastical declaration of forgiveness of sins—had certainly implied absolution, fulfilling his religious obligation. Sadly, the father in him could not. Joe’s battle to forgive, which had started with Mary’s death, had impacted so many lives, forcing different choices, setting new paths.

  The words What if? now held centre stage in Maggie’s head.

  She would not perpetuate past failings. If she could forgive Fiona for hurting and betraying her son, forgive Noah for almost breaking her heart when he ran off to Sydney, and forgive Brian for being … well, being Brian, then surely she could forgive Dan Ireland for doing nothing more than making her feel sixteen again.

  Noah had been away from her for a couple of days, two very difficult days for them both. When Fiona delivered him back, as promised, Maggie had expected to greet a boy angry and hurt. Instead, Noah had been worried for her, and maybe even a little more grown up. Then there was that singular moment when mother and son passed each other outside the bathroom. Noah was freshly showered at the time, his hair still wet and dripping. He hugged Maggie with strong arms, surrounding her with the soft scent of soap and said, ‘Got time for a smuddle?’

  Her son was back, different, grown, but still her boy. Surely that alone was worth forgiving Fiona.

  47

  Maggie

  Yesterday’s quiet post-search day in the pub had been hard on Maggie. With little to no sleep, the day had dragged. Dan was a no-show, putting Maggie on edge and forcing her to replay their conversation—again. Fiona was nursing sore muscles and, according to Noah, Mrs Bailey was treating her granddaughter as if she was the sole survivor of a Mount Everest expedition. By hanging out with Fiona while she convalesced, Noah was managing to milk a little grandmotherly love for himself. Mrs Bailey apparently baked the best scones—ev-ar!

  Having slept like the proverbial log last night, Maggie was now wide awake, the golden glow of sunrise a welcome change from two days of cloudy skies and rain. The day was going to be a stinker, probably with a good dash of humidity thrown into the mix. She threw on a pair of track shorts and a sports top and tiptoed downstairs, stopping in the kitchen to fill a bag with carrots and apple quarters, ready for her jog out of town. Time for a little girl talk and then a brisk walk back before the heat of the day really kicked in.

  Seeing Dan Ireland in the flesh, rather than in her dreams, standing in the hotel kitchen looking and smelling squeaky clean, made Maggie suddenly aware of her post-run appearance: her sweaty skin, her hair clamped into a chaotic mess on top of her head, and her breath short—shorter still when Dan’s gaze travelled over her body.

  He and Ethne were sipping coffee and laughing. Ethne was supposed to be having the day off after her heroic efforts during yesterday’s early morning search. And Maggie hadn’t been expecting Dan at all.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ she asked, giving Ethne her full attention in order to avoid Dan’s gaze.

  Ethne relayed the search stories currently making the rounds, having spread all the way to Saddleton Provedores. Everyone was talking about Calingarry Crossing’s feisty barmaid with the big knockers who’d helped save old Charlie Ireland from drowning by improvising with her ‘… ah … flotation devices’.

  ‘That’s funny. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready for the open.’

  ‘Maggie, I’m going out to see Dad again today, but if you and I could at least—’

  Dan followed her out of the kitchen, but she didn’t stop, calling back over her shoulder, ‘I can’t, Dan. Sorry, I have to go. I have a business to run, you know.’

  Maggie busied herself until she heard Dan tell Ethne ‘goodbye’. From upstairs, she watched as he hesitated by his car, looking back into the main bar. For a moment Maggie wanted to catch his attention from the balcony. Instead she went about preparing the hotel for the day, trying to get past the ambush in her own kitchen. Okay, so it wasn’t an ambush exactly, but it had bumped her day off its normal axis.

  Talking to Sara might have righted things a little. The pocket-sized and blissfully pregnant Sara had burst into the pub later that day, bubbling with excitement and trepidation and desperate for a bag of ice. Maggie would have liked her to stop a while so she could chat, but planning a birthday for little Jasmine, while at
the same time fighting off the woman Sara referred to as the life-draining, fun-sucking monster—Will’s mother—meant the mother-to-be had her hands full enough.

  Maggie was in the main bar, laughing at another local’s version of Charlie Ireland’s rescue—with action replay—when Dan returned to the hotel after lunch. He seemed happy, less intense. If Dan and his father could mend their bridges then something good would have come out of this storm season.

  ‘Maggie.’ He nodded, straight-faced, slipping onto a bar stool not too close to her, but not too close to Louie the Fly and his work mates either.

  ‘Dan.’ Maggie nodded back, wanting to match the deadpan lilt and expression, but the notion that she and Dan could manage to ignore one another was ridiculous. ‘Sorry about this morning,’ she said, knowing it was her brush-off that was making Dan keep his distance right now. ‘Hopefully a free beer and my telling of the latest Ethne story will make up for being rude.’

  ‘I believe a beer and an ear would be the tradition of this business you have to run.’

  ‘Hmm, I did say something like that, didn’t I?

  ‘How many versions of the rescue are we up to?’ Dan asked, positioning an extra bar stool next to his.

  ‘I know what you mean. Small towns … There’s nothing quite like them when it comes to storytelling.’

  Maggie recalled for Dan the most amusing anecdote of the day, her narration fading out as she noticed him staring dully into the empty glass.

  ‘Not funny enough?’

  ‘What you said about small towns frustrates the hell out of me. When I think about the irony. Plenty of those locals so quick to come to your aid and laugh at your jokes are the first to condemn you when you screw up.’

  ‘You didn’t screw up, Dan,’ she said, understanding his exasperation. People in small towns did come across as laid-back, open and friendly, when often it was the opposite. Old-timers, like Charlie Ireland, could be quite insular and wary, especially of newcomers. She’d seen it a thousand times. ‘People protect each other around here. You know what it’s like, Dan.’

  Dan toyed with the empty glass. ‘The good old folks around town saw things their way. Even your father blamed me for Michael’s death. And don’t worry, I’ve paid for that night. If it wasn’t punishment enough to be rejected by the entire town, I’ve let my job punish me all these years.’

  ‘You know it was an accident. A stupid, sad, tragic accident.’

  ‘No such bloody thing as an accident, Maggie.’ Dan huffed a cynical little snort. ‘It’s called a Crash Investigation Unit for a reason. Crashes happen not by accident, but by our own bad decisions. We make a mistake. We accelerate through a red light or talk on the phone. We speed to make up time and we fail to get enough sleep. When all the facts are examined, the reason for a lot of crashes can be traced back to the very first choice we make at the very beginning.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow.’

  ‘We make a choice by getting in the car with the wrong attitude. We drive after drinking, we drive tired, we drive angry, we drive fast when we don’t plan enough time to make our destination. We make mistakes and drive like bloody morons. Not content to screw up our own lives, we have to screw up somebody else’s.’ He slammed the glass down so hard it was a miracle it didn’t shatter. ‘No accidents. That’s Crash Investigation 101.’

  Maggie wrung out a cloth, lifting his glass to soak up the circle of beer underneath, but stopping when Dan’s hand wrapped around hers on the glass. ‘Sorry, Maggie. Sleep deprivation and alcohol. Also not a good decision. I’d best stop. Both the drinking and the lecture.’

  Maggie drew her hand out of his grip and looked directly at him. ‘I didn’t hear a lecture. I heard passion. I understand. You have a love–hate relationship with your work.’

  ‘I have a love–hate relationship with my life,’ Dan muttered. ‘I know so much more now. Experts will tell you that putting an old head onto young shoulders is the only way to keep kids from killing themselves on our roads today. I’m proof. If I’d known back then what I know now I would never have let Michael climb onto the back of my ute.’

  ‘Michael made his decision. I know you weren’t to blame.’

  ‘That means a lot.’

  Maggie thought about the letters she’d found in her father’s old Bible, but was this the right time? Dan was trying to re-establish a connection with Charlie. Showing him the letter now might only make him wonder how it was that Joe Lindeman could forgive him for his misdemeanours, but not his own father. The news might only complicate things, and Maggie of all people appreciated how debilitating complications could be. She’d wait, let him go where he needed to go in his own head. There’d be an appropriate time soon enough to reveal the letter her father had written and never sent. As it was, Dan’s hangdog gaze into an empty beer glass was going to be Maggie’s undoing. People were right about her; she did want to protect everyone. She sure as hell wanted to wrap her protective wings—or thighs—around Dan Ireland right now!

  ‘Penny …?’ Dan asked.

  Her face must have exploded red as she imagined sharing those thoughts.

  ‘Whoa, it’s hot today, isn’t it? I have an idea,’ Maggie said. ‘Ethne was supposed to be off, but as she intends milking all the attention and glory she’s opted to work this afternoon. What say I ask her to mind the bar? We can get out of here. Fresh air might do us both good. I sure could do with some.’

  Within a heartbeat, Dan was standing. ‘Let’s do it.’

  ‘Let me check with Ethne and change first. Here.’ She took a leather Akubra from the hat hook on the wall behind the bar. ‘You’ll need a hat. Have this one. Back in five.’

  She moved faster than she’d thought possible, throwing on shorts and a top and tucking her hair under a cap before racing back downstairs to check Ethne was okay.

  ‘I’m good, love. Your chappy said he’d be waiting by the walking track. Off you go.’

  Maggie’s eagerness to race over to the river was reminiscent of summers growing up when she’d dash home, drop her school bag off, grab her cossie, and race down to the swimming hole. Wet was the only way to stay cool some days.

  With one look at Dan standing in work boots and socks, his jeans rolled up to his lily-white knees and the-one-size-too-small Akubra bunged on his head, Maggie laughed aloud. It felt good, too.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he asked, looking even more dorky trying to hold back his own laughter.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake. Here,’ Maggie chuckled, taking her cap and swapping it for the ill-fitting Akubra. ‘You’re no cowboy, that’s for sure. Come on, let’s walk.’

  The pair grew pensive again as they moved and Maggie couldn’t stop thinking about Dan’s comment back in the bar about the night Michael died.

  ‘Dan,’ she said tentatively, ‘I like remembering how things were with you and Michael. And Nate, of course. You three did love making noise together,’ she said, trying to see a reaction, but the shadow cast by the peaked cap wouldn’t let her. ‘The stuff you guys got up to back then …’

  ‘And the stuff we didn’t and still got the blame for, like poor old Will when Amber’s father starting accusing any bloke within cooee.’

  ‘Dan, about that …’ Maggie stopped. Amber’s reputation was suddenly something precious to be protected. As much as Maggie wanted to defend her, the matter of Amber’s letter to Brian was also for another time—or maybe never. Dan didn’t need to know every little thing about Maggie’s life. She was embarrassed enough that he’d witnessed Brian in meltdown. ‘Never mind. It can wait. You were saying?’

  ‘I was saying people have to blame something or someone when the person they love is hurt. With a crash the contributing factors never vary: vehicle, environment, human. When those three factors converge at that one moment in time it’s like—’

  ‘A perfect storm,’ she muttered.

  ‘I never looked at it that way.’ They strolled in silence for a while until Dan said, ‘I though
t telling myself I was blameless for Michael’s death was the hardest thing, until I discovered something harder.’

  ‘What do you mean? What was harder?’

  Dan stopped in his tracks, waiting for Maggie to notice and turn back. ‘Looking you in the face and saying it.’

  ‘Oh Dan, I know how Michael was. Kids ute-surfed for fun all the time. No one ever expects to die from having fun.’

  Dan stared straight ahead, sighed, and adjusted the hat so it sat lower over his eyes, but this time, despite the shadow, she saw the tightening of his lips and his chin pitted and tense.

  ‘I’m a barrel of fun, aren’t I? How about we talk about something else for a bit?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Maggie agreed.

  Dan tried to lighten the mood. ‘How about some good news?’

  ‘Sure. I’m ready for some of that.’

  ‘That crusty old bastard father of mine has agreed to let me take him to Sydney so he can meet Em and Mike.’

  ‘He has? How did you manage that?’

  ‘Well, at the risk of upsetting you by talking about your dad, it was you losing the Rev, plus something you said about leaving things too late. I told him we had a second chance to get it right, but I think the grandkids might’ve sweetened the deal.’

  ‘And he agreed, just like that?’

  ‘The fall in the river didn’t kill him, but he did get the fright of his life. Doc was there this morning. Said he’s got a bit of congestion. He had a coughing episode while I was there and his heart spasmed. Doc said it wasn’t too much to worry about, but suggested some X-rays and being close to a big city hospital until the infection cleared was a good idea. So I said what about it? He agreed.’