‘You don’t have to make any fast decisions,’ Bob said. ‘There’s room here for as long as you need it.’
Relief streaked through her and she tried really hard to say thank you, but the stupid tears came back. She shoved a piece of matchstick in her mouth.
The back door slammed.
Jade gasped, then coughed violently on pastry. She gulped tea.
‘I thought you’d locked it?’ Helen’s voice wavered.
‘I did,’ Bob said.
‘Uncle Bob?’ Lachlan’s voice called from the kitchen.
They all slumped.
Bob managed, ‘Sunroom,’ and Lachlan appeared in his socked feet, wearing grimy work gear. ‘You gave us a hell of a fright, Lachie! Why didn’t you ring the bell?’ Bob demanded.
‘Because I’ve got a key …’ He glanced around the room and suddenly his ears boiled red. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I should have thought.’
Milo broke the taut silence. ‘Moo.’ He offered Lachlan his precious cow.
‘Thanks, squirt.’ Lachlan accepted it before sitting down next to Jade. ‘How are you?’
‘Rattled,’ Helen said.
‘How about you and I go into the kitchen and give Milo something to eat?’ Bob said to Helen. He retrieved the cow, caught Helen gently by the elbow and steered her out of the room.
Jade’s eyes were still streaming from her coughing fit and her wildly seesawing emotions. She wiped her eyes and sucked in a long steadying breath, and immediately coughed again. ‘Oh, my God! You reek!’
‘Oh hell.’ Lachlan pulled off his socks and deposited them outside the room before sniffing his feet and returning to the couch. ‘Sorry. I should have gone home and had a shower first, but I wanted to see you. I would have come earlier, but I got a late start because of the police interview and—shit. Sorry. None of it matters. How are you?’
‘Weird. I keep crying.’
‘That’s pretty normal after a big fright. Do you need to see a doctor?’
‘No. I just want the police to catch the bastards.’ She risked looking at him. There was no sign of the tight anger of a week earlier, just sympathy etched around his eyes. Her resentment towards him softened. ‘I’m really sorry they involved you.’
‘I can get a new bin.’
‘You know what I mean. It’s a warning to stay away from me.’ She twisted the tissue in her fingers. ‘Maybe you were right. Maybe if I’d sent a text instead, this wouldn’t have happened.’
Lachlan winced. ‘I know I said you should have told him, but I didn’t get it. I do now. Sorry. No matter how you did it, I think he’d have done something. I can’t stop thinking that if you’d broken up with him in person, he’d probably have hurt you.’
‘Six months ago I would have told you he wouldn’t hurt me,’ she said, ‘even though he shook me once when Milo was six weeks old. I was so desperate to be a family that every time he did something that didn’t fit the story I needed to believe, I made up excuses for him. I didn’t want to believe the signs that he only cares for himself. Or that you and Bob, and now even Helen, take more notice of Milo than he does. Even when you said you wanted to date, I tricked myself into thinking that Corey could still be part of Milo’s life. But last night changed everything. Corey doesn’t care about Milo and me. But he doesn’t want anyone else to care about us either.’ She pressed her lips together, trying not to cry. ‘It makes me too difficult to be around.’
He slid his hands into hers. ‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘You say that now, but next time it won’t just be setting your bin on fire.’
‘The police will catch them before anything else happens. Besides, I have a personal protection order.’
A hysterical laugh burst out of her. ‘So do I, but it means squat. People like Corey don’t live by the rules. He’ll be holed up somewhere and then, when we least expect it, he’ll ride in one night and do some real damage. I don’t want you or Helen or Bob to get hurt.’
‘You have the right to live the way you want to live, Jade.’
‘Yeah.’ But theory bore little resemblance to her reality. ‘Did you honestly expect that dating me would be this hard?’
The dart of something in his eyes confirmed the answer she already knew.
Tara and Jon sat opposite Fiza and Amal at the Tingledale kitchen table. When Fiza had called and Tara had told her Amal was a suspect, there had been a long silence on the line.
‘I telephoned you to say I was sorry to learn about the break-in. I did not telephone you to accuse my son!’
The words had slammed down the line, their ferocity jostling Tara. ‘I’m sorry, Fiza. We’re heartsick, but the evidence points towards him.’
‘I will get Amal from school. We will come and talk to you.’
‘I don’t think that’s—’
‘Please, Tara. I beg you. Talk to him before you involve the police.’
‘I’m not happy about it,’ Jon had said when Tara had raised it. ‘It’s best to leave everything to the police.’
But Jon hadn’t heard first-hand about the night Fiza’s and Amal’s lives had changed forever. He hadn’t felt the grief for a dead husband and a lost way of life. Nor had he seen the flash of a lioness in Fiza’s eyes when she spoke of still needing to fight for her child even though they were twelve thousand kilometres from the warzone they’d fled. And then there was the uncomfortable brick in Tara’s belly that the police were determined to pin something on Amal. She couldn’t work out if it was because Amal was involved with a group of boys or if there was racism at play.
What would you do to protect your family? Fiza’s lilting question wouldn’t leave
