Outback Secrets, page 24
‘Just watch me. And try to enjoy yourself in the process.’
And honestly, it was hard not to while her arms were looped around his neck and his face so damn close that all she could think about was kissing him.
Somehow she resisted, as he bundled her into the Hilux. Less than two minutes later, they turned into the car park down by the beach.
‘Geez,’ he breathed, his eyes scanning for a parking spot. ‘I’ve never seen it so packed down here. People weren’t kidding when they said this was the Bay’s biggest event of the year. I didn’t even know this many people lived in here.’
Henri laughed. ‘There’ll be some tourists as well, but haven’t you ever been to the Christmas Tree before?’
He shook his head. ‘Haven’t had any reason to until now.’
They found a spot not too far from the main event and Henri waited for Liam to come around to her side to help her out. He paused to grab a backpack from the tray and slip it over his shoulders, then he lifted Henri out, so they could join the hordes of people flocking over the dunes towards the sound of Christmas carols already being played by the only band in town.
‘How’s the ankle?’ asked Frankie as she and Logan came up beside them.
‘Getting a lot better,’ Henri replied.
Frankie winked. ‘At least you’ve got your knight in shining armour to take care of you.’
‘Yeah, I’m pretty lucky,’ Henri agreed as she met Liam’s gaze.
‘I reckon I’m the lucky one,’ he said, and she didn’t know whether he was just saying that for the benefit of their audience or whether he meant it. It was getting harder and harder to tell what was real and what was fake.
‘Are you taking photos for the paper?’ she asked Logan, nodding towards the camera hanging around his neck.
‘Yep.’
‘That’s great.’ Henri was surprised he was able to with his deteriorating eyesight. Then again, Frankie said he wanted to do as much as he could while it was still possible.
He lowered his voice slightly. ‘It got me out of playing Santa Claus at least.’
‘Who’s SC this year?’ When she was little, the role had always been played by Bob Emerald, a local farmer, but when he died about four years ago, others had started taking turns.
‘Ryan,’ Logan replied.
Henri raised an eyebrow—not only was he about five decades too young for the role, he didn’t have an ounce of padding anywhere on his body.
Frankie smirked. ‘I think the last few years Santa has sent his hot grandsons to Bunyip Bay rather than come himself, but I’m not complaining.’
‘Who would?’ Henri said as they crested the dunes and looked down on the already crowded beach.
‘Where do you wanna sit?’ Liam asked as Frankie and Logan headed over to the small marquee to find Ruby, who was in charge of organising the evening’s proceedings.
Henri scanned the sea of people, picnic blankets, fold-up chairs and hundreds of blue eskies for a familiar face.
Before she could reply, her mother’s voice pierced the air. ‘Yoohoo, over here!’
‘Sorry, but Mum will kill us if we don’t sit with them,’ Henri said, nodding towards where she stood about ten metres away, waving her hands in the air like a lunatic. The rest of her family were either sitting on the sand surrounding their matriarch or playing not too far away.
Liam started towards them. ‘It’s fine. I like your family.’
‘They’re okay in small doses.’
He chuckled as he lowered her into a fold-up chair that Tilley vacated as they arrived. Greetings were exchanged—all Henri’s nieces and nephews came up to say hello before scattering again to join their friends—and then Liam tugged the bag off his back. She watched as he pulled out a picnic rug, spread it across the sand, and then proceeded to conjure even more, as if he’d borrowed Mary Poppins’s magic bag for the occasion. In addition to the rug there was an array of delicious-looking snacks.
‘Wow,’ Henri exclaimed as he held up a bottle of beer and popped the top. ‘You’ve really thought of everything.’
‘Actually, Macca did,’ he confessed as he passed it to her. ‘I asked him to put together a few things and, as usual, he excelled himself.’
‘I think I’m falling in love with Macca,’ Henri said with a sigh.
‘I might be jealous if I wasn’t already in love with him myself.’
Everyone laughed and then settled into conversation. Well, half the adults were able to chat; the others had to have one eye on the water at all times, making sure the kids didn’t get wet before the arrival of the guy in red. As Henri relaxed and sipped her beer, she realised that the Christmas Tree was probably much more enjoyable for those without kids than those with them. She lost track of how many times one of her nieces and nephews wanted to know, ‘How long till Santa gets here now?’
She almost snapped that he wouldn’t arrive at all if they asked again, but to their credit, her sister, brothers and in-laws had much more patience. At the sound of a baby screaming, Henri looked over to where poor Faith and Monty were sitting with Mabel—how her tiny lungs could make that much noise was a mystery!—and a little boy struggling in his dad’s arms as he pointed towards the water.
‘Soon, Clance,’ she heard Monty say as he glanced towards the dunes, clearly as eager as the kids for the gift-giving to kick off. Clancy was likely too young to know or care about Santa, but the unwritten rules were no swimming until after the official proceedings.
Stella’s daughter Heidi, with her thick-rimmed glasses, blonde pigtails and a smile that looked far too big for her face, tried to help Monty placate his son, but Clancy was having none of it.
‘Thanks for trying, Heidi,’ Faith said, reaching across to squeeze the little girl’s hand. ‘He’ll be okay.’
Defeated, Heidi climbed into Adam’s lap. He was sitting next to Stella, who was waving a paper fan against her face and gulping a bottle of water as if it was vodka.
Henri felt a weird pang in her chest—was she jealous of them? Of Faith and Stella? No, she didn’t want what they had. She didn’t want kids and a husband, but she had to admit that sometimes she did get lonely, especially late at night or on weekends when she was far from home and working with practical strangers. The companionship and always having someone to talk to, to come home to, must be nice. Cecil was a fabulous listener, but sometimes it’d be sweet to have someone who actually talked back.
At the sound of laughter, Henri’s attention returned to her own family.
‘That’s hilarious,’ James said, thumping Liam on the back. ‘Tell us another one.’
Henri looked from her fake boyfriend to her brother-in-law—what on earth had she missed?
‘Well,’ Liam began, ‘an Aussie walked into an American bar, ordered two beers—one for himself and one for his four-legged friend …’
He went on to explain that the bartender poured the drinks, said it was the ugliest dog he’d ever seen and then asked the breed. The Aussie replied, ‘It’s a long-nosed, short-eared, long-bodied, short-legged water hound. Best bloody fighter I’ve ever had.’
‘The barman laughed his ass off, then challenged the Aussie’s hound to fight his prized bulldog that had apparently never lost a fight. A thousand dollars my dog can beat yours. Of course, the funny-looking hound tore the bulldog apart, and as the bartender parted with his cash, he shook his head. What breed did you say it was again?’
When Liam delivered the punchline—‘a long-nosed, short-eared, long-bodied, short-legged water hound, but in Darwin we just called them crocodiles’—Henri snorted and joined in as the rest of her family laughed once again.
‘Where do you find all these?’ Tilley asked.
Liam shrugged. ‘Ever since I bought the pub, I’ve been collecting them.’
‘I don’t remember the last time I laughed so hard,’ her mum said, grinning broadly at him before offering one of her homemade yo-yos.
‘Thanks, Mrs Forward.’
‘I told you, it’s Fiona,’ she reprimanded, still smiling and slightly blushing as she shook her head.
‘Sorry.’ He grinned as he lifted the biscuit to his mouth. ‘Thanks, Fiona.’
Oh God. Mum really liked him. For her, feeding people was a sign of affection. And Henri couldn’t blame her mother, or the rest of her family—Liam was very likeable indeed.
Guilt crept into her heart, but before it could really take hold, an emergency siren sounded and chaos erupted. Shrieking kids dashed towards the sound and parents scrambled up off the sand after them. Henri couldn’t see from where she was sitting but knew from past experience that the local fire engine had just entered the car park.
Sure enough, minutes later there was a deep ‘ho-ho-ho’ as Ryan Forrester, aka Santa Claus, appeared, a large red sack over his shoulder and a couple of volunteer firies escorting him. Someone wolf-whistled and Henri laughed as she spotted Grant snapping photos on his phone. Predictably, Eileen Brady scowled at him.
‘Do you want me to carry you over?’ Liam asked as Ryan made his way towards the tinsel-covered marquee, waving and ‘ho-hohoing’ to the kids who parted like the Red Sea as he passed by.
‘Maybe you can just support me while I walk?’
But Liam was having none of it. As he lifted her into his arms again, her mother grabbed the fold-up chair she’d been sitting on and followed after them to join the crowd that was now gathered on the sand in front of the marquee where Ryan sat on a tinsel-covered lifeguard’s chair, two enormous towers of presents piled on either side of him.
Ruby used a microphone to address the animated crowd. ‘Welcome, everyone, to our annual Christmas Tree.’ The noise hushed. ‘I know you’re all very excited to see Santa Claus, but I need you to sit as quietly and patiently as possible while you wait for Mrs O’Neil to call out your name.’
She gave a few more housekeeping instructions, then turned to her assistant. ‘You ready?’
Susan O’Neil nodded but as she opened her mouth to read out the first name, Ruby held up a hand. ‘Hang on. Where’s Logan? He’s supposed to be taking photos.’
She glanced towards Drew and Mike, who were standing at opposite sides of the marquee looking very official in their uniforms. When they both shrugged, she tried Frankie, who was right at the back next to Henri and Liam.
‘Um?’ Frankie glanced around frantically.
‘He’s here,’ yelled someone across the other side of the crowd.
‘Sorry! Coming!’ Logan shouted and wound his way through the kids to the front.
Ruby glared at him and then gave the nod to Susan to begin.
‘I’ll kill him later,’ Frankie muttered under her breath.
‘What’s going on?’ Henri asked.
Frankie dropped down beside her and spoke quietly so that only Henri and possibly Liam could hear. ‘He’s on the scent of the mysterious benefactor. He was hoping with so many locals in one place, he could talk to a few more people. Did you hear he or she has struck again?’
‘No?’ Henri had been focused on very little but the sex machine kneeling beside her.
Frankie nodded. ‘You know Jim Nash? His house was infested with termites and he couldn’t afford the treatment to get rid of them. Well, on Friday, one of Phil McDonald’s guys just turned up. Told Jim someone had dropped an envelope into Phil’s mailbox with cash for the exact amount and a typed note saying what it was for.’
‘Wow. Hard to track cash, I guess.’
‘Yes, but the benefactor doesn’t always give cash. For the really big amounts, it’s always an anonymous cheque from a bank in Geraldton. Logan’s tried to get the staff to tell him who comes in for the cheques, but of course they won’t.’
‘So, is that what he’s trying to find out now? Who banks in Geraldton? That has to be half the town.’ Although why anyone went into an actual bank when you could do everything online these days, Henri had no clue.
Frankie nodded.
‘Who did Jim tell about his problem?’ Henri whispered, finding this conversation marginally more interesting than the repetitive giving and receiving of presents.
Frankie rolled her eyes and sniggered. ‘Literally everyone. He was in the supermarket and the doctor’s surgery the day he got the quote, complaining about how expensive it was.’
‘And the pub,’ Liam said, confirming he’d been listening. ‘He was mouthing off about it the other night. I gave him a free beer and burger to shut him up.’
‘So, Logan’s really going to try and out this person?’ Henri asked.
‘No, although he agrees with his boss it would make a good story and I think it’s really annoying him not knowing—journalists can’t stand unanswered questions—but he’s decided that if he can pitch a story about all the things the benefactor has done, focusing on the people and groups who’ve received donations, maybe his boss will be happy with that.’
‘You reckon that’ll work?’ Liam asked.
Frankie shrugged. ‘Who knows? But I’m hoping so. I get Logan needs to keep his boss happy, but I don’t really want to upset the apple cart here just before we leave.’
Laughter rippled through the crowd and Henri looked back to the front to see Faith and Monty trying to get Clancy to stay on Ryan’s lap long enough for a photo. The poor toddler looked terrified, and she guessed this would be a story told in their family for years to come.
She slipped her hand into Liam’s and leaned closer to him. ‘Thanks for coming with me, or rather bringing me here.’
He squeezed her hand and met her gaze. ‘You’re welcome. I hope you’re having fun.’
‘I am.’
There was another half-hour of present-giving and at least a dozen kids bursting into tears as soon as they got close to Santa Claus, and then the official part of the event was over and everyone dispersed to various parts of the beach.
Henri was surprised when Stella’s daughter ran up to them and threw her arms around Liam, almost whacking Henri with the bright pink fishing net Santa had given her in the process.
‘Hey there, Heidi girl,’ he said, gently yanking one of her pigtails. ‘How you doing?’
She pulled back and held up the net as if it were a trophy. ‘Liam, come help me use my new toy.’
‘That doesn’t look like a toy. That looks like a serious crab-catcher.’
Heidi giggled as Liam pushed to his feet and looked to Henri. ‘Will you be okay? I won’t be long. Do you want me to take you back to the picnic rug first?’
‘I’m fine here. You two enjoy yourselves.’ Henri waved them off, bemused.
She was alone all of five seconds before Grant dropped onto the sand beside her. ‘Hey there. Mind some company?’
‘Of course not. Ryan did a fab job playing Santa by the way.’
‘I reckon. Sexiest damn Santa Claus I’ve ever seen,’ he said with a wink.
Henri couldn’t argue with that, and although on one level Grant’s cheerful, bouncy personality irritated the hell out of her, she found herself warming to him. ‘Do you miss the city?’
‘Not so much. There’s actually more happening here than I imagined, but I’d have moved to Timbuktu to be with Ryan.’
‘How’d you guys meet?’
‘Mutual friends,’ he said, and then told her the story of how it had been hate at first sight. ‘He thought I was a show pony and I thought he was a country bumpkin, but we couldn’t fight the chemistry.’ Grant nodded towards the water. ‘You know how it is?’
Henri followed his gaze to where Liam was holding Heidi’s hand as she scrambled over the rocks.
She nodded. Oh yeah, she knew how it was.
She’d been trying to fight that chemistry since the day she’d proposed their charade. Normally she didn’t like losing anything, but this was one duel she was glad she’d conceded.
‘There must be more than chemistry for you to have moved all this way for Ryan?’
Grant nodded. ‘Of course. Once we started talking, getting to know each other, we found heaps in common. He truly is my best friend in every sense.’
‘Really?’ On the surface Henri couldn’t see what the flamboyant drama teacher and the rugged but handsome farm boy had in common at all.
‘We both have similar values, our sense of humour is almost identical, we like the same movies and music, we both care about health and fitness—although whereas I favour running, Ryan prefers footy training. I guess most importantly we’re on the same page about what we want for the future. We value family above all else and want lots of kids.’
Henri nodded—it was impossible not to feel warm and gooey inside listening to Grant talk about Ryan.
‘What about you and Liam?’
‘Huh?’
‘He’s really good with kids …’ Grant gestured towards Liam and Heidi. ‘Do you guys think you’ll have any?’
At that moment, Ryan—no longer wearing his Santa outfit—dropped down onto the sand beside them.
‘Steady on,’ he said, wrapping an arm around Grant. ‘Liam and Henri are still in that blissful, can’t-keep-their-hands-off-each-other stage—children are probably the last thing on their minds right now.’
‘Sorry.’ Grant gave a sheepish smile. ‘I forget not everyone’s as clucky as we are.’
Henri smiled back. She reckoned these guys were proof that you could still be in that touchy-feely, can’t-get-enough-of-each-other stage and want to procreate. The two weren’t mutually exclusive, but neither did they always go hand in hand.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind, but I meant it when I said I don’t want kids, and Liam doesn’t either.’
Grant looked as if he couldn’t even comprehend such a thing, but Ryan grinned and said, ‘Perfect match, then.’
‘How did you guys go in Perth meeting the surrogate?’ she asked.
Grins to rival Heidi’s spread on both their faces.
‘Really good,’ Ryan said, taking hold of Grant’s hand.
‘Lizzie is the most sublime being, and she’s agreed to have a baby for us,’ Grant finished.
‘Wow. That’s fantastic. Congratulations.’
‘Thanks,’ they said in unison as Stella Burton came up beside them.
