His Brand of Beautiful (32 page)

“You always had a big mouth, Tate. It’ll be fun to shut it for you,” Callinan said. The slabs of muscle in his back clenched and he exploded forward like a grizzly bear. Christina felt the vibrations beneath her boots.

Tate side‐stepped and Callinan clutched thin air.

The ex‐cop turned, shook his head once to clear it, spat on his hands and rubbed them together. He stalked forward on the balls of his feet, and if he’d been playing before, now he was deadly serious. Two metres from Tate, he rushed again.

But Tate was cobra‐quick. He feinted right, dodged left, and caught Callinan across the back of that big bull head. He used the guard’s wild momentum to force him down hard, at the same time as he knifed a knee up into the bigger man’s gut. Air exploded from Callinan’s lungs and he sprawled face‐first to the ground.

“You got off light when they took your badge, arsehole. If it had been me I’d have thrown away the key.”

Then Tate stood, straight and proud, wiped his hands on his jeans, and stepped away from the man on the sand who rolled to his side, fighting for air.

Christina felt Tate search for her. She stumbled forward, tripping through the sand.

Then his arms wrapped her into his chest and she never wanted to leave.

“It’s all right, baby, it’s all right. Don’t be scared. It’s all over,” he crooned into her hair, over and over, breathing hard.

Even now her heart jackhammered, long after her brain told her danger had passed.

“My God.
My God
. I thought he was going to kill you.” Her whole body shuddered and she pulled away to look him over, her hands fluttering down his sides, patting at his hips, his shoulders, his face. “Did he hurt you?”

“I’m fine.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the security guard crawl from the circle of light, toward his jacket and the cars, like some huge broken spider seeking comfort in darkness.

Bram appeared behind her. “Seriously, Tate. I’m very sorry about all that. We had an incident a few months ago, you might remember? When the Premier was attacked? All our security guys are a bit toey at the moment.”

“Tate, CC, look out!” That was Lacy’s voice, raised in a scream.

And then everything happened too fast.

Christina tried to turn, tried to see what was happening… but Tate’s hold on her was tight and he was turning too, only he sought the threat in the opposite direction, and she couldn’t see... couldn’t, until her head cleared his shoulder and her heart started its roller-coaster ride again.

The security guard was on his feet, something block‐shaped coming up in his hand.

The voice in her head screamed
gun
. But it didn’t look right. Not like any gun she’d seen.

His thick arm, came up, up. Level.

Tate’s yell, deafening: “You idiot, she’s—”

And Bram’s roar: “Shoot that you dickhead and you are so fired—”

And a high‐pitched ticking in her ears, like the fastest clock in the world.

A woman’s scream. Not hers. At least, Christina didn’t think so. She smelled Old Spice and heard a man’s groan, cut‐off horribly.

And everything went quiet.

Darkness.

Everywhere.

Lily Malone

Christina woke staring into the eyes of a stranger. His fingers were on her face, smooth and probing. A bright and persistent light stabbed at the back of her eye and she tried to bat it away.

“She’s okay. Mr Lewis caught most of the shock. Give her time.”

“The baby?” Tate’s voice.

“I’m sure they’ll both be fine.” That was the stranger again. The man with the light.

“She needs rest tonight and maybe a stop at the Maree nursing station for a check‐up on the way home tomorrow. She’s been lucky. She can have Panadol if she wakes up and wants it but nothing stronger.”

And the voices and the lights left her alone.

****

Next time Christina woke, she was in their tent. Tate lay by her side, an arm over his eyes.

She thought he was asleep until his hand clenched into a fist. A lantern on low hissed soft white light, filling the space with the faint smell of gas. She couldn’t hear music but there were voices outside. Some clear and close. Others distant. She had no idea what time it was, or how long she’d been out of it.

“We sure know how to wreck a party hey?” Her lips were dry, the sound barely more than a croak.

Tate was on his elbow in a flash. “Are you okay, sweetheart? Does it hurt?”

“I’m okay.” Her throat felt like the desert floor. “Is there any water?”

“Here.”

He gave her a half‐litre plastic bottle and helped her sit. She felt better once she’d glugged a few mouthfuls.

“What happened?”

“What do you remember?”

“I remember… Ian Callinan is here. There was a fight. I thought he had a gun.” She struggled to sit. “Is the baby okay?”

He stopped her. “The baby’s fine, sweetheart.
Sshh
. It’s okay. It wasn’t a gun. He had a taser. He was aiming at me.” Tate’s voice turned hard and flat. “I walked you into the firing line and I didn’t even know. Bram Lewis jumped in front of you. In front of both of us. He took the shock. There’s a retired doctor on the Bash who examined you. He thinks Bram might have had hold of your arm when the taser barb hit, possibly. Or otherwise you plain fainted.”

“I don’t go around
fainting
at the drop of a hat.”

“It was hardly the drop of a hat, Christina.” But his lips curved into a hint of a smile.

“Is Bram okay?”

“He’s sore. You’d expect that.”

She wanted to keep Tate talking. She wanted to ease the pain she could see written all over his face. “You’re blaming yourself.”

He picked up her hand, skin rough and warm around her own. A lock of tawny hair fell over his eye and he flicked it away.

“Tate—”

“No. Me first.” He put his finger on her lips. “I told you I’d never forgive you if you came on this race and you let something happen to our baby. I said I’d never forgive you or myself as long as I breathed.”

“But it’s not your fault—”

“If that worthless piece of shit had hurt you or the baby.
My God, Christina
. I would have killed him.”

Chill gripped every cell. “Where is he now? Callinan.”

Tate’s smile was broader this time. “Relax. I didn’t hurt him.”

Thank God.

“He’s locked in a room at the back of the pub. Denton and Michael and Tom and I don’t know how many others it took to hold him.”

“What happens now?”

“Maree cops will come for him in the morning. He’ll have charges to answer.” He jerked his chin sideways. “The lawyers can figure it out. I don’t care.”

She couldn’t stop the slow trickle of tears. They slid from beneath eyelids that felt heavy as lead.

“I just want to be with you, Christina, wherever you are. Everything I’ve tried to do…anything I’ve tried to get
you
to do, I’ve fucked it up. So I won’t push. I love you.”

She squeezed his hand. The heat of his skin against her palm was the last thing she knew.

I love you, too.

“I know,” he said. Only it was like a whisper from a dream. And all she could remember later was a sense that whatever she’d said; it made Tate happy.

****

“I owe you,” Tate said to Abraham Lewis next morning as they watched the Channel 10 helicopter hover, then settle, on the spot where the Birdsville Track widened to make the turn‐off to the Mungeranie Pub.

“We all do,” Michael added.

The sandy‐haired politician laughed like it was no big deal, like he went around leaping in front of security guards wielding tasers every other day. “I never did mind storing up the favours, Tate. Especially with PR people. Who knows when I might need crisis management, hey?”

“Well, it won’t be today. Today you get to be hero,” Tate said.

“If that meathead gorilla I was dumb enough to hire had hurt either one of you, I couldn’t buy another vote for the rest of my life. A run‐in with a taser is a small price to pay.

Hell, our party leader did it just to find out what it felt like and she’s a woman, right?”

Out on the road, the helicopter blades quieted and a blonde reporter waved as she climbed out the chopper. She looked left and right as if she expected a motorcade, then ran with fierce strides toward them, notebook clutched in her hand.

Tate welcomed her once she was close enough to hear. “Jenni Gray. Good to see you.”

“You too, Tate.” They shook hands.

The reporter smiled at Bram, showing a set of perfect‐for‐television teeth. “Shadow Minister. Nice to see you again. Congratulations. I hear you’re the man of the hour.”

Lily Malone

“You can still give Christina a ride back to Adelaide in the chopper?” Tate asked, before she got sidetracked by her story.

“Yeah, we’ve got room,” Jenni said. “We’ll get a shot of the chopper delivering her to the hospital so the station looks good too. Royal Flying Doctor Service here we come.”

“CC won’t like it,” Michael said to Tate.

“She’ll do it for the baby—”

Jenni Gray interrupted, addressing the politician. “You saved a lady with a baby?”

“Apparently, yes,” Bram looked pointedly at Michael. “I was just last to know.”

“Okay then.” The reporter turned business‐like. “Let’s go see what my colleagues caught on tape.”

“We could always re‐enact it if they missed the good bit,” Bram offered.

Tate had to resist the urge to ram the notebook down both their throats.

Eva‐Jolie Newell tried to eat her tiny fist. Her mouth made sucking sounds as she butted her head against Saffah’s neck.

“That’s a dry argument, kid,” Saffah laughed, trying to distract the three‐month‐old infant with the chime of Haitian beads about her neck. It worked. The baby bashed at the clanking wood and forgot her stomach for a time.

They were in the lounge‐room of Richard and Saffah’s house—the big house—

Christina had always thought of it. She sat perched at the front of the couch, jouncing her boots on the carpet. Her father stood because he’d given up any pretense of trying to sit still. He stared out the bay window.

Usually that would offer him a peaceful view of the vineyard—vines colouring this time of year into bright reds and soft golds. Today, that view was dominated by a chunky white truck and the comings and goings of three removalist men ferrying cardboard boxes to the verandah. Tate was out there somewhere too, directing traffic.

Tate’s Elizabeth Avenue house was sold. The celebratory champagne was in Saffah’s fridge. Breastfeeding or not, Christina was determined to have herself a glass.

They had two weeks before they could move into Tate’s new house on California Road, a 1910 stone cottage much like the one at Three Oaks Lane, only instead of brick paths and an overgrown camellia bush, this cottage was surrounded by two hectares of vines. When they moved in, Christina would be five minutes from Clay Wines, but for the next two weeks, the big house was home.

“They must be getting close to finished now,” Richard said, watching his view being eaten away by a small city of beige boxes.

“Are we ready to do this, Saff?” Christina asked, feeling her pulse flip.

“I’m ready if you are.” Saffah let the baby kick the air.

“Let’s do it,” Christina said. “Before Tate comes in and wrecks the surprise.”

Saffah handed Eva to Richard. “I’ll go find my paints.”

Richard’s gruff features softened as he gazed at his granddaughter, his hair sticking up in tufts where Eva pulled at it. He turned the baby to the window. “There’s your daddy, Princess. You see him?” He yelled back over his shoulder. “Hurry it up, Saff.”

They heard the slide of steel on steel as sack‐trucks and ramps were stowed in the back of the truck.

Saffah breezed back into the lounge‐room with paint tubes and a brush in her hand.

“What colour, CC?”

“Shit, Saff. I don’t care about the colour. Maybe red.”

“I didn’t think you liked red.”

“Red is fine.” Christina unclipped the catch of the maternity bra and bared the top of her left breast.

Richard put the baby up over his shoulder and Christina made faces at her from the couch.

“Evie‐J’s smiling at me.”

“It’s wind,” Saffah responded, not unkindly, loading up her brush. “Okay. Here we go.

This could be cold.”

The brush tickled. The paint slid on smooth and finished dry and smelled faintly of vanilla and candles. It didn’t take long before Saffah stepped back to admire her handiwork.

Lily Malone

“They’re closing up the tailgate,” Richard announced from the window, bouncing Eva so hard her tiny chin bumped his shoulder blade.

The truck engine fired.

“They’re done. He’s coming,” Richard said.

Saffah squealed and grabbed up her paint tubes. “Quick, Dickie. Give CC the baby.”

“I don’t want to smudge the paint, Saff,” Christina said. Her mouth felt bone dry.

“I’ll help you. Don’t move.” Saffah carefully clipped the maternity bra catch to the strap, pulling the material out so it wouldn’t rub the paint.

Richard plonked the baby in Christina’s outstretched arms. “Good luck, sweetheart.”

His eyes were wet.

Saffah patted his cheek. “You’re such a sap, Dickie. She doesn’t need luck, Tate’s been hooked for months.”

They heard the truck’s tyres crunch gravel and the engine worked its way through the gears. Then the front door squeaked and boots scraped against the step. Saffah yanked Richard’s arm.

“No listening you two,” Christina hissed at them under her breath.

She held the baby so that Eva’s booties drummed her thighs and her fat rolls made sweet creases above and below her knees. Christina buried her nose in the puff of caramel-coloured hair and breathed the precious scent from the top of her head. There was no other smell in the world like it. The baby blogs were right.

The front door shut.

“There’s my girls.” Tate crossed to the couch, swept Eva up and she tried to grab fistfuls of his tawny hair, gurgling at him in delight. It didn’t last. Eva let out a cry, shrill and sharp and rubbed her eyes.