Safe in His Arms (17 page)

With Lon away and a little over a week until Christmas, Casey accepted extra hours at the nursery so he could get some money together. He bought a present for Lon and posted a couple of gift cards to his mother and brother for their presents. For his grandmother he bought a nice plant with his staff discount.

With a week to go until the big day, Natasha handed him a huge packet of cheap tinsel and sat him down in front of dozens of potted Rottnest Island Pines that were all about half a meter tall. “Decorate them. Make them pretty. People will buy them,” she told him. He was amazed that she was right. A little pine tree, twenty cents worth of foil tinsel, and they walked out the door. Natasha handed him one that was being thrown out because all the branches on one side had been broken during transport. “Here, Casey. Take it home and make your place pretty too.”

Casey carefully took it home on the bus and placed it in the middle of Lon’s table next to the maidenhair fern that was barely clinging to life. The local discount store provided him with red tinsel and a packet of silver baubles for two dollars, so Casey spent twenty minutes decorating the tiny tree and stringing tinsel from the poles of Lon’s annex. Then he wrapped Lon’s present in paper featuring a dancing Santa and his reindeer, and put it on the table next to the tree.

It felt almost homey.

Casey talked on the phone to Lon each night, but there wasn’t much to say. His life was just a matter of getting up and going to work each day, and counting down until Lon came home. Lon’s life was even worse. Casey could hear the exhaustion in his voice and longed to do something to relieve it.

“It’s just hot up here, mate,” Lon would reply to his concern. “It’s tiring.”

“Then I should get off this phone and let you get some sleep,” Casey would say.

Each time Lon would quickly answer, “No. Stay and talk to me. At least you aren’t barking orders at me. I like hearing your voice. The only thing better would be hearing your voice in person.”

The days flew by, and before Casey knew it, it was Christmas Eve and Lon would be home. He had to work—no rest for the wicked, his mother would say—and would miss Lon’s arrival. Being the day before Christmas, the mine workers were getting into Perth in the middle of the day instead of their usual evening arrival. Some of the others who were flying back with Lon still had to catch connecting flights to their home base—places like Sydney and Melbourne.

Casey was chomping at the bit to get home, but to his surprise, his boss had gifts for his employees. They closed the nursery and shared a drink together before Ross handed each of them a cardboard box. Oh, he hadn’t bothered to make the box nice, or even spend a couple of bucks each to buy a proper gift box from a store. No, Ross-the-boss simply scrounged around and found eight empty boxes from the rubbish bin. Casey’s box once held weed spray, but at least he didn’t get the cockroach-bait box like Natasha.

He peeped inside his box and saw a jumble of items that made him blink.

Beside him Natasha, who’d probably received the same thing last year, gushed, “Oh, wow. Gift baskets! Thanks, Ross. You’re the best.”

Then she sharply elbowed Casey in the ribs until he remembered his manners and gratefully thanked Ross as well. “Thanks, Ross.”

Inside the box—which he wasn’t sure should be called a gift basket—he could see a packet of chocolate biscuits, a bottle of canola oil, a jar of peanut butter, a box of instant custard, some jelly crystals, a bottle of lemonade, some peanuts, and a tube of toothpaste. He dug around a little further and found a tin of Christmas pudding, a chocolate bar, and two single-serve bottles of vodka. He was still blinking at the eclectic range of items when Ross made another pass and gave them each a plastic bag.

“Fantastic!” Natasha said.

“Fantastic,” Casey echoed. There was green sticking out the top of the bag—a variety of green leaves and stems, and a dash of pink flowers. Once Ross was out of earshot, he muttered, “Great. More stuff for me to kill.”

He received another dig into his ribs. “Shuddup, you whiny bastard.”

He laughed. “I know I’m being ungrateful. But shit. Can you please tell me what the hell are these plants and how to look after them?”

Natasha half laughed and half sighed. “That’s a clivia. It likes shade and not a lot of water. Those are impatiens. Plant the whole container up in a big pot and it will make a lovely display. And that, if you can’t read, is a basket of different herbs. They haven’t been selling very well, so I guess Ross decided to gift them instead.”

It was rather cool to receive a present of plants. Casey vowed he’d buy some nice pots with his next paycheck so he could properly look after them. Ross-the-boss was entrusting the lives of those green plants to his care, and he would give it a decent stab.

As soon as it was polite, Casey grabbed his stuff, made for the door, and told everyone that he didn’t want to miss his bus. It was partly true. Lon was waiting for him, and he could feel that homing beacon calling him.

The annex was unzipped and flapping in the breeze, so Casey charged in unceremoniously, dumped his gear just inside the door, and flung himself into Lon’s arms.

“Lon!”

It was amazing to feel the sense of security and rightness descend upon him as Lon’s beefy arms came around his shoulders in a warm hug. Then they were kissing, each frantically trying to push their mouths together to find the taste of the other. Hands roamed, throats hummed, senses sharpened. Finally Casey needed to breathe.

“Jesus Christ, Lon. It’s so bloody good to see you.”

Lon cupped his face and peered down with a smile of pure joy. “It’s good to see you too, Casey-love. I see that everything is in order here. Did you have fun?”

Casey kissed Lon’s mouth firmly before replying. “No. I didn’t have fun because you weren’t here, but I guess it was enjoyable to have my own space for a bit and not have to worry about making a mess at Grandma’s.”

“You’ve rather made yourself at home.”

“What? It’s only one small box.” Casey was confused. His entire life was pathetic. All he had to move from his grandmother’s cabin was a box that held his clothes and a few papers. Lon moved aside and instead nodded toward the straggly plants in the center of his table. Casey blushed at the sight of his little Christmas tree and maidenhair fern. “What’s wrong with my plants?” he cried indignantly. “I know they’re a little tragic at the moment, but I’m sure that with a little bit of loving care, they’ll be beautiful.”

Tragic was an understatement. He’d nicknamed the fern “the green stick.” And his poor Rottnest Island Pine was lopsided, despite the camouflaging decorations.

Lon laughed. “I’m sure they will. I was just teasing. I love the Christmas tree. I don’t think I’ve had one for eight years.”

Casey’s eyebrows rose at that, but he decided it was a topic that could be pursued later. He turned and grabbed his plastic bag. “And I have some more here. Ross gave us all some more plants as a present. Look. This one’s called a clivia. These are really pretty flowers and I’m going to put them in a big pot, and these are herbs to eat. Won’t that be cool? I’ll have to get a cookbook out of the library or something to learn how to cook, but we can use them, can’t we, Lon?”

The big bear looked at him indulgently. “Sure, Casey-love. We can use ’em.”

Casey pulled out the rest of the gifts he’d received, and they laughed together at the thought of receiving toothpaste as a present. Casey stowed the items away in the pantry and gathered his shower gear.

He sent Lon a saucy grin. “Are you going to come and help me wash up?”

Lon chuckled. “I like where your mind is headed, but I’ve already showered, thanks. Are you having dinner with your grandmother tonight?”

Casey pouted. “I
had
planned on having dinner with you.”

The big man chuckled again. “No—that’s fine. All I was going to say is, how about you go and have a shower, and I’ll start dinner. I’ve been to the shops this afternoon and bought some nice steak for us. I can see by my fridge that you haven’t been eating properly. You need to eat meat and veg, love, not just noodles and cereal. So go and clean up, and I’ll cook us an early dinner.”

Casey beamed his approval. “Okay. It sounds like a plan. I’ll just stick my head in at Grandma’s, dash to the shower, and then I’ll be back. I only have one question?”

“Yeah?”

“After an early dinner, that leaves us so much time to fill until bedtime. What in the world are we going to do?”

Lon growled in his direction. “Play Scrabble. Now hurry, because I can feel a seven-letter word coming on.”

And Casey scrammed.

Chapter 12

I
T
WAS
strange coming home to someone, Lon decided. There was an eagerness to get to his van that wasn’t just the usual rush to a nice clean bed to crash for twelve hours. Even though he knew Casey would be at work, he was impatient to be in the same sphere, to touch things he had touched, to smell Casey’s scent on his sheets.

Luckily for him Casey seemed to be the neat sort. Living in a van meant you really needed to put things away or else the mess would drive you crazy. Lon could see Casey’s stuff here and there, but there was no mess. However, the state of the pantry horrified him. Instant noodles, bread, and Weet-Bix. No meat or vegetables—and the two apples in the bottom of the fridge did not impress him. Casey definitely needed someone to get on his back about looking after himself.

The two plants on the table touched him, though. There was one that was nearly dead, but obviously watered and cared for. Then there was a teeny, straggly Christmas tree with cheap tinsel and six cheap baubles. But what gave him the biggest, cheesiest smile was the sight of a flat, square shape wrapped in Christmas paper, propped against the red pot of the Christmas tree. On closer inspection there was writing on the paper in black marker—
To Lon, From Casey
.

With an ugly plant and a poorly wrapped present, Casey had managed to turn his van into a home.

How could Casey do it? The guy must have so much darkness and hatred on the inside, yet he somehow brought sweetness and light to Lon’s life.

He thought about what Casey must’ve gone through in the last five years of his life. It pained him not to know exactly, but on the other hand, he didn’t know if he could handle the whole truth. The thought of someone hurting Casey in that way made him angrier than he ever thought he could be. His brother was behind bars for the deaths of three people. Lon would willingly join him for the chance to strangle the men who dared lay a hand on Casey’s fine skin.

Rape.

It was such an ugly word. Also a foreign word to think about in relation to men. Most people would automatically associate the word with women. For a man to be raped…. All Lon could think about was the pain Casey must’ve endured all these years. Yet he was loving and happy—and freakin’ horny in bed. Lon never wanted Casey to look at him and be scared.

Lon scared a lot of people. Being a big man had its advantages, but Lon didn’t want to make Casey afraid.

While Casey was off showering, Lon wrapped the present he had bought while up in Newman. A Christmas tree wasn’t the only thing Lon had gone without for eight years. He hadn’t given a present to anyone that wasn’t alcohol or cash since Ronnie was locked up. Prisoners were not allowed to receive gifts, so he put money into Ronnie’s prisoner account instead. All of his friends who needed a gift received a bottle of scotch or a six-pack of beer. So buying a present was a momentous event. His hands had shaken as he handed over the cash to Bernie for the item.

Ronnie had sent him a Christmas card from jail, and Lon’s aunt sent her usual religious-themed card as well. Lon had left them both in their envelopes. But now as he placed his gift to Casey under the tiny tree, he thought twice about it. Casey had bought tinsel and a tree to celebrate the season. Why couldn’t he at least join in? He grabbed the cards, and without thinking too much about what he was doing, hung them on the strand of red foil tinsel garland Casey had strung on one wall. Ronnie’s card was a picture of a perfectly decorated tree in front of a roaring fire, and a window sill with inches of snow piled up. Lon always sighed about that. When would they start realizing that Australia had Christmas in the middle of summer?

He spun back to the kitchen and began preparing something nice for Casey’s dinner. His mum had always prepared a special dinner for Christmas Eve. She made the table up with a tablecloth and Christmas napkins and used the nice plates and cutlery. She always said that having a baby was the greatest gift of all, and they should honor Mary as she gave birth to Jesus each Christmas Eve.

That always struck Lon as odd. His mother never treated Easter as a religious holiday. They celebrated it with Easter eggs, not once thinking about Jesus dying. But Christmas was firmly a time to remember the gift of a baby and to thank God for the gifts he’d brought the family that year.

So with happy thoughts of previous family Christmases, Lon set the table in the annex. He spread out the plastic tablecloth decorated with red poinsettias that he’d picked up while he was getting food, and placed Casey’s plants in the center of the table. He’d also bought a packet of candy canes, so he upended them in a drinking glass and added it for decoration. Candles were a really bad idea for summer, and an even worse idea for a caravan, so he dug through his boxes until he found his plug-in, caged workshop light and hung it in the corner for an ambient glow. The sun was still up and coming through the open blinds, but the annex was dark, so just a little bit of light was sufficient.