Winter Beginnings Read online

  He hated thinking it because he didn’t mean to belittle her job, but he knew the daily tasks he’d assigned her weren’t taxing enough to cause this. Which left a few other possible culprits, the most likely being depression. The idea had first come to him over a week ago, and he hadn’t been able to shake it. The more he’d thought about it, the more it seemed like he’d discovered her secret.

  He’d never met someone with the condition, but he’d heard about the warning signs. A couple of afternoons of research on the internet and he thought he knew enough to broach the subject. He wasn’t sure what he could do to help, but a frank conversation was his starting point.

  ‘Let me just start by saying,’ he began, his stomach contracting with nerves, ‘that I’m here for you. No matter what. In whatever capacity you want me to be.’

  Alice’s brows drew together. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It may feel like the end of the world but … it’s not. I could … I don’t know, share this with you or something.’ Not wanting to presume that she was battling this alone, he hastened to add, ‘Unless you’ve already got someone for that.’

  She eased away from him, her gaze searching his face for answers he was evidently failing to provide.

  ‘You don’t have to hide it from me; I can see it.’ Everyone can see it, he added to himself. She was days away from collapsing on the job. She clearly wasn’t sleeping, and this decline would soon hit rock bottom. She needed help. He wanted to be the one who saw that she got it.

  He put his other hand on her shoulder and squeezed. ‘I care about you. And honestly, it feels like this is always on my mind. I’m sorry to corner you like this but I just couldn’t watch from afar anym—’

  He’d been interrupted, but it took him a second to realise why. She’d moved. Forward. She’d stretched up on her toes and stopped his lips from closing. With her mouth.

  For a seemingly endless moment, his bottom lip was captured between hers. Then she drew away so sharply that he stumbled. Blinking quickly, he shot out a hand to steady himself, balancing it against the nearest shelf, bumping half a dozen carefully stacked boxes.

  ‘You didn’t kiss me back,’ Alice said, her voice altered almost beyond recognition.

  ‘What? Why would I kiss you back?’ His thoughts a fraction behind his words, he held up his hand in apology. ‘Not that you’re not—but … What are you doing?’

  ‘What am I doing? What did you say all that for if you’re not—’

  ‘I thought you were depressed!’

  ‘Depressed?’ Her voice plummeted in volume. ‘I’m not depressed.’

  ‘Then what—’

  Suddenly the volume was back, edged with temper and humiliation. ‘Move!’ She shoved past him, knocking him off balance. She disappeared through the doorway flooded with light and was gone by the time he followed.

  Her jacket was missing from its hook and her bag gone from its regular spot.

  Dean really hated it when people got behind the wheel when they were emotional. It wasn’t safe, and there were people he loved out there on those roads. He dropped into a customer chair and glowered at the front door. This, of course, meant that Ethan got hit with the full force of his mood when he walked in a moment later, toolbelt and warehouse plans in hand.

  ‘Woah,’ Ethan said, raising an arm as if to shield himself. ‘What did I do? Is this about the paint colour? I asked you four times to pick it yourself and I still showed you the swatch when you didn’t.’

  Dean blinked hard then shook his head. ‘You didn’t do anything.’

  ‘Not true. I worked my arse off today, but I can’t say the same for tomorrow. I’m running out of things to do in there, mate.’ He pointed his thumb in the direction of the warehouse as he rounded the desk and helped himself to Alice’s empty seat. ‘Ro’s going to crack it when he gets here—all I’ve got for him to do is look on the floor for nails and screws.’

  ‘Right.’ Dean pushed his hand over his face and struggled to properly join the conversation. The way Alice had looked in the soft light kept superimposing itself over Ethan lounging on her desk chair, like a double negative on camera film. He wanted to be in the moment, but it was difficult when the previous moment was still storming through his bloodstream, adrenaline and confusion marching out of step with one another.

  When, exactly, in the short time that they’d worked together, had Alice decided that it was a good idea to put her mouth on his? Even with the gift of hindsight he still couldn’t recognise enough moments to quantify the decision. She was hardly chomping at the bit to spend more time with him—and he had to coax her to talk about herself. So had it been impulse? Had the things he’d said in the storeroom—which, thinking on it now, could perhaps have been misleading—put the idea in her head, or had it already been there?

  Dean stood. There were no answers to his questions here, and obsessing about it wasn’t going to give him any more information. All that was certain was that Alice had kissed Dean; his first kiss in close to three years, however clumsy and unexpected, and she’d bolted out the door faster than Dean had been able to clear his head. Now there would be damage control, awkward exchanges and explanations. Unless of course he wanted to kiss her again, in which case there would be different kinds of awkward exchanges, flirtation and …

  Ben.

  Alice’s son opened the reception door and shuffled in, scuffing his shoes on the linoleum and fiddling with a frayed shoulder strap on his school backpack. Nina and Rowan were steps behind him in their noticeably newer uniforms.

  ‘Hey kids,’ he said, at the exact moment his brother said the same. ‘How was school?’

  ‘So fun!’ Nina crowed, elbowing through the boys and running forward. Her bag bounced on her back and her hair glistened with dozens of tiny raindrops. She charged into her father’s arms. He caught her, laughing, and squished her against his chest until she giggled.

  Drawing back so she could see his face, Nina said, ‘I got a red fruit roll-up!’

  ‘You had two red fruit roll-ups today? What did you do, trade your sandwich?’

  She grinned. ‘No, just one roll-up!’

  ‘So the highlight of your entire day was that you got your favourite colour roll-up in your lunchbox?’

  ‘Yes!’

  Dean laughed and lowered her to her feet. ‘Well, that makes the whole day worth it. Maybe you’ll get one tomorrow too.’

  She squealed, hugged him around the waist then ran around the desk and pitched herself at Ethan, who made a sharp, pained sound as she collided with him.

  Dean turned to hug Rowan, then smiled at Ben, who’d remained by the door and was looking for his mother.

  ‘I think your mum decided to pick you up today—she mustn’t have seen you. I’ll give her a call.’

  Ben straightened. ‘But I thought you were going to drive the Cadillac.’

  Another memory elbowed alongside the one of Alice in the storeroom: Ben, eyes as round as coins, watching the lobster-red Cadillac XLR-V two-seat open-air roadster rolling into the garage yesterday afternoon, and Dean promising Ben could come along for the after-service test drive today. Ben had spoken in whispers until Alice had taken him home, as if a loud word would change Dean’s mind.

  Which Dean wouldn’t do. This was hardly the moment to be asking Alice for a bit of patience, but he wanted to keep his promise. He nodded, smiled slightly, and said, ‘Okay. Let me see what I can do.’

  Stepping into his office and closing the door for privacy, Dean tugged his mobile from his pocket and thumbed through the contacts for Alice’s number.

  She answered after two rings, and he was ready to interrupt her.

  ‘Look—’ she began.

  ‘Are you driving or parked?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Driving or—’

  ‘Parked!’

  ‘Okay. Ben slipped past you. He’s at the garage.’

  She swore quietly before saying, ‘Can you ask him to wait out front?’ />
  ‘Listen, I promised him a test drive in the Caddy and I’m not too keen on breaking his heart. I reckon he’s waited all day for it. Howsabout I drop him off home around five o’clock?’

  A beat of silence, then, ‘Is he okay with that?’

  Dean opened the door, stuck his head out and called Ben’s name. ‘Your mum can pick you up now or I can drop you off after a drive in the Caddy.’

  ‘Caddy!’

  Dean pushed away from the doorjamb, closed the door again and smiled. ‘You hear that?’

  ‘Nicely put.’

  A flicker of concern nudged his heart into a slow trot. ‘I didn’t mean to make him choose. I just didn’t want to break my promise.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘He’s got a key?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Now that the responsible adult part of the conversation was out of the way, he bumped the topic onto more dangerous ground. ‘About that kiss …’

  ‘I have to go.’ She might have considered hanging up, but manners kept her on the line for just a little longer. ‘Thanks for giving Ben a lift. Bye.’

  The call ended.

  No doubt about it, tomorrow was going to be awkward as arse.

  Chapter 15

  When Ben was talking about cars, he barely took a breath between sentences. For the last forty minutes he’d been gushing about the roadster. ‘Do you need a special licence to drive a car that doesn’t have a roof?’ he asked. The long-awaited drive was over and Dean was giving him a lift home.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘How good were the seats? I was so warm!’

  ‘The steering wheel’s heated too.’

  ‘No way! That’s awesome.’

  Never mind the luxury, the high-performance Magnetic Ride Control and the incredible torque—the car had won Ben over by keeping his butt warm. Dean laughed and turned the headlights on. Darkness fell faster this time of year and with the near-constant rain they’d been having, the sky was so often full of grey thunderclouds. It was only a little before five but already the roads were shrouded in thickening shadow.

  ‘So you’re getting on fine now with Ro and Neenz?’ Dean asked. In the seat beside him, Ben’s answer was a noncommittal shrug. ‘What, you’re not?’

  ‘Yeah, and Rowan’s friends are cool.’

  ‘And Nina’s?’

  ‘She doesn’t have any friends.’

  Dean checked over his shoulder and concentrated on overtaking a car-and-trailer combo coasting thirty k’s under the speed limit. ‘You mean any who you like?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t have any. At all.’ He patted an irregular beat on his knees and watched the other car move past his window. ‘I mean, she might, but I only see her by herself.’

  They drove in silence for a few minutes, Dean trying to process what he’d just learned and Ben unaware that he’d rocked Dean’s foundations. When Ben next spoke, it wasn’t to console or explain, it was to offer directions.

  ‘Just past that weird tree. Yeah, that road. We have a yellow letterbox.’

  But there was no car in the carport at the house with the yellow letterbox. The curtains were drawn and the front light was on, something Dean did when he wasn’t expecting to return when the sun was up.

  ‘Where’s your mum?’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘You know what she’s doing?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Ben reached for the button of his seatbelt and hesitated when Dean moved to stop him.

  ‘Now hang on a second. Do you know when she’s coming back?’

  ‘Late.’

  ‘How late?’

  ‘I’ll be in bed.’

  ‘What are you having for dinner?’

  Ben lifted and dropped his shoulder. ‘I dunno, whatever’s there. Mum leaves me stuff.’

  ‘You sound used to this. Your mum go out a lot?’

  ‘Yeah. It sucks.’

  ‘What are you going to do tonight?’ Dean couldn’t believe he’d got this far with Ben when he was asking so many questions, but the kid seemed patient enough to answer them.

  ‘TV. Maybe homework.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Listen, what do you think about having dinner at my place with me, Rowan and Nina? There might be a few more people too, I can never be sure, they come and go, but we’re having spaghetti and watching a movie.’

  Ben turned in his seat, his eyes bright with interest and disbelief. ‘Really? I’m in!’

  ‘Call your mum and ask if that’s okay.’

  ‘It’s okay—’

  ‘Benjamin, I’m not taking you to my house without your mum okaying it. Cops have a term for that.’

  ‘I’ll text her.’

  ‘Tell you what, because I’m not sure I trust that you actually will, why don’t you go inside, check that nothing’s on or open or what have you, and I’ll call her.’

  Ben shoved the passenger door open and toppled out. He left his backpack on the floor of the car, doubtlessly thinking this meant Dean couldn’t leave. He ran along the driveway, thundered up the verandah steps and clumsily let himself into the house with a key he’d buried deep in his jacket pocket.

  Dean pulled out his phone, went to his most recent call and dialled Alice’s number again. It rang out and clicked over to voicemail.

  He cleared his throat and said, ‘Alice, Dean again. We’re at the house, you’re not, and I’ve invited Ben to dinner. Call me back and let me know if that’s okay. He’s pretty keen. Not that I’m trying to … you know. Make you feel like you have to say yes, or anything. So … we’re just going to sit in the driveway until I hear back from you. It’ll be Ro, Neenz and I. Maybe Ethan and Sam. Uh … maybe Cal and Liv too, who knows. I can drop Ben back here.’ When he recognised that he was rambling he hung up without saying goodbye. Then he stared at the lit screen until Ben barrelled outside wearing jeans and a hooded jumper, and carrying a bottle of soft drink and a packet of salt and vinegar potato chips.

  ‘Mum says it’s good manners,’ he explained, responding to Dean’s quizzical expression. ‘Thanks for having me.’

  ‘I haven’t heard back from your mum yet. Everything locked?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Off?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Got your key?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Okay. Now we wait.’

  But his phone didn’t ring. It buzzed. The text message simply read OK. Dean stared at it for a moment, asking himself why he was surprised she’d decided not to speak to him considering how things were at the moment, then tossed his phone into the centre console. ‘We’re on. Let’s roll.’

  Ben whooped, and Dean left the empty house behind them.

  Chapter 16

  There were too many ways to tell time in the reception of Foster’s Garage; the disc rotor clock, the time on the bottom right of the computer monitor, the desk phone display. Not failing to mention the constant string of customers, each of whom came in announcing the booking time of their service.

  Alice should have dealt with Dean yesterday—immediately following that disastrous knocking together of mouths. If she were being pedantic, it hadn’t been a kiss at all. At the very least, he hadn’t kissed her back, so it didn’t count.

  She didn’t want to overthink that aspect of her situation; her boss failing to respond when she happened to be pressing her mouth to his was the least of her problems. Apparently, she was not only leagues away from being someone Dean Foster would lock lips with, but she was showing signs of being a depressive.

  It could all be cleared up in moments if she only confessed to working two jobs, but she didn’t want to admit that things were financially dire, nor did she want to have to work through endless sticky questions about priorities, fatigue, work performance and budgeting. It hadn’t been so long ago that she’d promised herself that she’d do better, and even confide in the man who had become both boss and friend, but she didn’t want to lay herself bare like that now. Not when she’d already risked her job by … Alice pres
sed her thumb and index finger to her eyelids and sighed.

  She hadn’t kissed anybody in years and now her instincts were clearly rusty from disuse. What must he think of her, accosting his mouth in the storeroom like that?

  Depressed. Wow.

  She’d thought she’d been holding herself together pretty well, but evidently not.

  If Dean had been around twelve years ago when she’d walked out on her now ex-husband, who’d promptly walked into the one-bedroom flat of his girlfriend, then maybe life would be different. But as things stood, Alice was doing the best she could, and if it meant people thought she was depressed or inexplicably tired, she was going to have to live with that. Better those assumptions than knowing she was broke, wired and hardly getting to spend any time with her son.

  She was doing okay—besides the aspects of her life that resembled a train wreck. A completely kissable level of okay, despite yesterday’s evidence to the contrary.

  It had been building slowly. After watching him resolve things with their kids and seeing how good he was with Ben every afternoon, her heart had made a little room for him. When he’d stripped his wet shirt off, her body had ached. Then there were the countless little things he did for her and his staff throughout the day, and the boundlessness of his love and compassion for his family and friends. Dean appeared every bit the good guy. So she’d kissed him.

  Sort of.

  And now the man was a ghost. It was past ten o’clock and Dean hadn’t shown up for work. Danny said he’d gone to pick up a bunch of parts, despite having an enthusiastic high school graduate on call for such tasks, and Alice was forced to mull over her situation alone while shuffling the team’s schedules around to compensate for the boss’s absence.

  She jumped when Ethan banged through the door, coming in from the warehouse. He was on his mobile and his voice was strained.

  ‘I’ll just split myself in three then, shall I?’ he said. And then to Alice, ‘Damn it, Alice, are you trying to melt my skin off?’

  The heater was on a toasty twenty-three degrees, the only reason she’d dared to shrug out of her heavy jacket. Of course it was stifling for him—he was stalking around getting hot under the collar—but she was sitting still, only moving to fidget and answer the phone. She crossed her arms to tell him this was her domain.