The Ripple Effect (22 page)

Shay pulled away, hot, flustered. He bent to pick up the small suitcase standing at her feet.

“Thanks,” Joelle said quickly. As he straightened he saw the flush on her cheeks. He’d embarrassed her by pawing at her body. He stepped back quickly to allow her entry.

“Come in. I’ve got your room all ready.” Joelle closed the door behind her and they were momentarily trapped together in the tiny foyer. His words tumbled out in a confused torrent. “It’s not very big—but then none of the rooms are in terraces. Only two bedrooms in this one. I’ll show you upstairs now and you can get settled.” As he spoke, Shay rushed up the stairs as fast as he could manage while clutching a suitcase.

Joelle followed silently but he didn’t dare look at her face in case the expression she wore was of disgust. “You know where the bathroom is, don’t you, from before? Downstairs, I’m afraid.” He added a self-conscious sounding laugh and wished he hadn’t. She’d think he was a blithering, blathering idiot.

“It’s a lovely room,” she said as she reached the doorway behind him.

He placed her case on the floor by the bed and straightened. Turned to face her. Her gaze was flitting about the room taking in the moulded ceiling, neatly made bed, polished floorboards and sheepskin rug. He went across and drew the heavy cream coloured curtains, blocking the red neon glare from the sign across the road, which screamed ‘Bottle Shop.’

“I’ll be downstairs. Come down when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now,” she said. “I’m not tired. I’m hungry, though.”

A grin expanded across his face under the effects of that lovely smile. The jittery nerves stopped can-canning across his entire body, blood stopped pounding in his ears. Almost as though a switch had been flicked, his heart-rate slowed to normal.

“So am I,” he said. “Let’s get dinner started. The chicken’s been marinating for about forty five minutes just the way you ordered.”

“Good work,” Joelle replied. She turned and began descending the stairs.

He watched her moving in front of him with suddenly unbelieving eyes. She was in his house, the living breathing woman. His sister. This wonderful girl. “I can’t believe you’re really…I still can’t believe I’ve found you,” Shay said.

She stopped and turned to look up at him from three steps lower. Her hair shone gold in the dim light. “I can’t believe you found me,” she replied softly, her voice husky. “I can’t believe you spent your whole life with that one thought in your head. Me.”

Her eyes locked on his and Shay lost all sense of time as he gazed into the blue depths. She was so trusting and willing to love, so vulnerable and precious. He mustn’t allow any hint to emerge of the animal lust that invaded his body at the most inappropriate moments. She’d be horrified and rightly so. He was horrified at having such thoughts. He must be on constant guard or something might happen that would ruin their fledgling relationship. They were strangers, in reality, and he must remember that. Brother and sister they may be but when they first laid eyes on each other, it was as male and female. Potential mates.

“Get a move on, woman,” he ordered gruffly. “To the kitchen.”

“Yessir.” she shot back and laughing, jumped the last few steps in one bound.

Shay followed slowly, gathering his wits, deliberately clearing his mind of lustful thoughts and replacing them with just one.
Sister. Sister. Sister.

Joelle had nipped into the bathroom to wash. He heard the taps running and water splashing. He went to the stereo and slipped a CD of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons into the player. She joined him at the kitchen bench where vegetables sat washed and waiting to go into the wok.

“No country music?” she asked.

“You said you don’t like it.”

“I don’t but you do.”

“You’re my guest,” he said.

“I’m your sister,” she replied. “Would you play this for Lisa?”

“No.”

“Well…”

“Lisa likes Barry Manilow and Kenny G,” said Shay.

“Right.” Joelle nodded solemnly. “Do you have any of their CDs?”

“No.”

“Good. I thought for a moment I’d have to disown you.”

Laughing, Shay opened the fridge. “Glass of wine to get us going?” he asked.

“Yes, please but I can’t guarantee chopping straight after the first one.”

“Red or white?”

“White, please.” Excellent.

Joelle picked up the sharp knife and began slicing an onion. This was wonderful. They got on so well together, she and Shay. He must be handy in the kitchen judging by the equipment he owned.

“Rice or noodles?” he asked.

“Rice.”

Shay filled a saucepan with water and placed it on the gas burner. Joelle started on a carrot. Shay produced the dish of marinating chicken pieces.

“Have you had any replies from the ads?” she asked.

“No. I’d tell you straight away if I had. What about the letters?” He leaned against the bench and watched her as she sliced the carrot into thin strips.

“No. Same. Do you think we ever will?”

“I’ve no idea. But someone must have known Emily.”

“Maybe it’s too long ago.” Joelle put the knife down and sipped at her wine. Crisp, not too dry, just a hint of sweetness. Her eyes met his over the rim of the glass. His look made something quiver deep inside her. It was as though he reached right inside and invaded her completely. Body and soul. He seemed to know all about her, she was stripped bare, vulnerable and open. Acquiescent. She liked that feeling. She wanted him to know her, intimately.

Intimacy? With Shay? God, he’d be horrified. Already had been when she kissed him. Heat rose slowly and unstoppably from her belly to her face. A bead of sweat trickled down between her breasts under her t-shirt. Her armpits were clammy and hot. Still he held her gaze.

She wanted to kiss him. Desperately. Her limbs froze, her breathing almost stopped, paralysed. Insane.

“Water’s boiling,” he said and turned away to open a cupboard for the rice.

Joelle returned her glass to the bench top with a shaky hand. Six hours in a car tomorrow. How would she survive it? Then again on Tuesday coming home?

Shay woke her at six-fifteen. Despite the turmoil in her head the previous evening she’d fallen asleep relatively easily. Maybe the several glasses of wine helped. Maybe she was simply tired. Whatever it was, Joelle absorbed the sounds into her dream. Her father with a strange voice was trying to get her out of bed and ready for school. She knew she didn’t have to go to school any more but he kept insisting, tapping on the door and telling her to wake up.

“Sleep well?” came Shay’s voice when she stirred and blinked her eyes open, adjusting to the different room, different bed, different traffic sounds outside, different light.

“I was having a dream,” she mumbled.

“Good one?” He sounded very chirpy. Joelle heaved herself to a sitting position and yawned. She focussed her sleep-filled eyes on him standing in her doorway already dressed. Jeans and a t-shirt printed with a cartoon animal.

“Some kids had lost their cat. They were walking down the street calling for it and I went out to help. It’s name was Grandma. They were walking down the street calling out Grandma and then I was in bed and Dad was telling me to get up for school.”

She began to laugh as Shay said through his own laughter, “Do you always have such weird dreams?”

“No…sometimes. I don’t know. I probably don’t remember them.” She realised the light, pink satiny fabric of her pyjama top would be giving him a good eyeful of unrestrained breasts. One spaghetti thin shoulder strap had slipped down and her hair would be the usual morning mess. A real brother wouldn’t even notice and she wouldn’t care if he did. But Shay…he stood there staring at her, taking it all in. She pulled the sheet up.

He finally turned to go, changed his mind. “I’m making tea. Do you want toast or eggs? Cereal?”

“Tea and cereal will do, thanks. I’ll have a shower.”

“I’d like to be on the road by seven,” he said.

“Don’t worry. I don’t take long to get ready.”

He grinned. “Sorry.”

Joelle said, “If you keep standing there watching I’ll never be ready by seven.”

“Sorry.” He grimaced and pulled the door closed. She heard his feet thudding down the stairs and smiled as she swung bare legs out of the bed.

“We can stop for coffee in Maitland,” suggested Shay two hours later. The run out of the city had been relatively quick with most of the early commuter traffic heading in the opposite direction. Now they were bowling along the freeway towards Newcastle.

“Yes, please,” said Joelle. “I haven’t been up that way before. I mean I’ve been north past Newcastle but never inland.”

“I’ve driven it so many times I could do it in my sleep.”

“Please don’t.”

Shay laughed. With her beside him he didn’t care how boring the road or how long the trip. “Stop, revive, survive,” he intoned.

“Exactly.”

“That’s why we’re stopping in Maitland,” he said. “You have been this way, though, in reverse.” He glanced at her as he spoke to see her reaction.

Joelle frowned. “No.”

“Yes, when Olive brought you to Sydney.”

“Oh, yes.” The frown remained in place as she struggled with that fact. “I still can’t get my head around it properly. That I’m not who I thought I was.”

“You’ll always be you. Names are just labels.” He wondered if it were true as he spoke. Did he believe that himself?

Joelle pondered the concept. “They don’t know your real name, do they?” she said suddenly. Shay swallowed. He hadn’t really properly addressed that issue. His name was Shay Brookes and despite his teasing grumbles to Amy about his first name, he’d never considered being called anything else.

“It doesn’t worry me. I always knew my mother’s surname was Grayson but Shay is my name.”

“What if we discover one day that Emily had named you something else—Rupert, for example?” said Joelle with an innocent smile.

“Rupert?” Shay grimaced.

“I like that name,” she said. “I’m going to call my first son Rupert.”

“Poor kid.”

Joelle laughed. “What about Nigel? Yuk. You might be called Nigel or Kevin.”

“I’ll stick with Shay, thank you.”

“What’s she like? Olive,” asked Joelle a few minutes later.

“Tough as old boots on the outside, soft as mush on the inside.”

Joelle smiled. “That’s why she called me Claire. It’s such a pretty name.”

“It’s French like Joelle. It’s a pretty name, too.” Shay kept his eyes on the road, but he could tell by the sudden quiet that the oblique reference to her mother had cast a shadow over the conversation that had flowed casually and naturally since breakfast.

They’d swapped the cars over, parking the Golf in the street and the Beetle in Shay’s lock-up garage accessed by the narrow lane at the rear of the row of terraces. Shay had loaded their two cases in the car, checked the house was secure and with Joelle chatting comfortably by his side, set off for Birrigai.

The talk had ranged far and wide, from Sydney living to foreign travel to music, movies, food and now, names. He’d deliberately kept from asking if she’d made any attempt at reconciliation, figuring she’d mention it herself if it happened. She hadn’t and it was obvious that she wasn’t going to.

“How’s Mel?” he asked, to cover the awkwardness. His own, if not hers.

“Fine. She’s doing well at the shop.”

“Surprised?”

“A bit.”

“Has she mentioned anything more about the father?”

“Not really. I think she loves him, whoever it is, but they seem to have had an irreconcilable split.”

“Is there such a thing?” asked Shay without thinking. “I wonder. Most problems can be sorted out if people talk honestly with each other.”
Damn
. The words just slipped out. She’d think he was deliberately poking at her and criticising when in reality he’d give anything to effect a reconciliation.

“Sometimes,” said Joelle tightly. “There’s a complete breakdown of trust.”

“I know.” Shay hesitated knowing he was treading warily through a minefield of his own making. “That’s where forgiveness comes in. And listening to the other person.”

That came out all wrong. Joelle erupted. “Don’t you think I’m listening to my—to William and Natalie? Believe me, I listened, and it came through loud and clear. You were there, you heard.”

“Yes but I also heard the regret and the plea for forgiveness. Everyone makes mistakes, Joelle.” His voice rose in frustration, as much at his own inadequacy as at her stubbornness.

She hissed air in between what sounded like clenched teeth and Shay turned his head quickly to snatch a glance at her. Gone was the giggling, teasing girl. Joelle’s eyes had narrowed and she spoke in a tight, hard voice when she said, “You think I’m the one in the wrong, don’t you? I don’t believe this. You think I’m the one who should be apologising to them.”

“No, what they did was a mistake but you have to look at why, why they acted the way they did,” Shay insisted. “They loved you; they didn’t think anyone would claim you.”

“But they knew about you,” cried Joelle.

“I suppose, yes,” Shay admitted. “But they don’t deserve to be punished for loving you too much.”

“They kept me from you.”

“Yes. But I found you.” He tried a tiny smile but as a mood lightener, it had no effect.

“So you think it doesn’t matter they tried to stop you seeing me?” She was almost shouting now. “You’re on their side. How can you possibly be on their side against me?”

“No I’m not, I’m not on anyone’s side.” Shay desperately tried to hold on, stay calm, not be drawn into what was escalating into a ridiculous, pointless argument. “There are no ‘sides’. That’s crazy,” he muttered.

“It’s easy for you, you know who you are.”

“No,” he broke in loudly, patience stretched to breaking point. “No. I don’t know who I am because like you I don’t know who my father is. I just deal with it without becoming hysterical.”

Shay flexed his fingers on the steering wheel and glared through the windscreen at the freeway rushing beneath the car. Joelle crossed her arms and stared out her side window. When he glanced across all he could see was a flurry of gold blonde hair and a firmly turned back.