Winter Beginnings Read online

  There was a toolbelt strapped around Ethan’s waist, no-nonsense steelcaps on his big feet, and there was a fresh cut on his arm. Blood was smeared where he’d rubbed it. He was probably the tallest man Alice had ever seen—if he wasn’t seven foot, he was close, and he was all angles and strong features just like his brother.

  Ethan dropped a folder onto the desk and tugged his jumper off with his free hand. Alice saw a hard stomach, a chest dusted with dark hair and the flash of a nipple, then his navy T-shirt fell down.

  Now blessed with having seen both Foster men’s naked chests, Alice was able to compare. Although Ethan was muscular and lean, seemingly always glistening with sweat and wood dust, she preferred Dean’s more solid build. It hinted at stability and strength.

  Because there was always a slick of oil on Dean’s forearm or grease under his nails, she’d expected him to smell dirty, like oil or petrol, but in the brief moment that she’d been within a breath of him, she’d thought of libraries and old books. It wasn’t the obvious association to make with a mechanic, but to her mind it suited him. When she’d visited some of the grand state libraries she’d felt the same thrill of promise and stories untold, of vast knowledge, quiet reflection and reverence. Dean so often made her think of closed books, old chapters and new pages.

  Free of his jumper, Ethan dropped onto one of the customer chairs. ‘Look, I’m not trying to screw you around when I say I can’t get there,’ he said into his phone. ‘I’m here, I’m supposed to be somewhere else—it’s a mad day.’ He waited, listened. ‘Take a few pictures on your phone and send them to me.’ Another pause. ‘You have a what phone? You Luddite, get one of the Gen Ys or Gen Nows or whatever to do it then. I’ll approve subject to that. Okay, cheers. Bye.’

  Ethan ended the call and opened his mouth to say something to Alice, but was interrupted by his ringtone. He closed his eyes, took a steadying breath and answered. ‘How exactly do you run this place when you’re not even here?’

  The frayed threads of Alice’s concentration knitted themselves together. She slouched forward in her seat, effectively hiding her face behind her computer screen, and listened.

  ‘Don’t you pay that Hicks kid to run errands?’ Clearly not caring too much about the answer, Ethan moved the phone away from his ear and pressed a button. Dean’s voice charged out of the tiny speaker as Ethan set his mobile down on the seat beside him and started unlacing his boots.

  ‘—clear my head. Listen, I was thinking about what you said yesterday.’

  ‘About running out of things to do unless I get some more instructions?’

  ‘Well, I have some instructions. Requests, actually.’ There was a beat of silence that seemed louder than the words—as if Dean was steeling himself to continue. ‘I’ve marked out an area in the garage that I thought we could fix up.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Ethan grabbed the phone, pushed to his feet and shuffled over to the door to the garage. His laces whipped and snapped around his feet, then he stopped and everything was quiet.

  ‘You see where I mean?’ Dean asked, sounding subdued.

  ‘Yeah.’ Ethan stared at something Alice couldn’t see from where she sat, but she noticed his expression harden and darken.

  ‘You got the time?’

  ‘I’ll make the time.’

  ‘I thought we could change the space. Let a little light in and all that.’

  ‘Done.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Alice was both moved and confused. Something huge was happening, she could tell by the expression on Ethan’s face and the difference in his posture, but the cryptic conversation had been a code between brothers. The only thing she could make sense of was the sudden change in Ethan’s priorities.

  When he hung up, looking dazed and distant, Alice gave him a moment before interrupting his thoughts. ‘Do you have any appointments you’d like me to move?’

  Ethan stared at Alice’s face for so long that she doubted he was really seeing her. Eventually, he reanimated. ‘Uh, yeah. Yes, please.’

  ‘Tell me what you’ve got.’ She readied a pen over a pad of paper, then scribbled down a list of names as he recited them. The last name was Sammy-girl. Beside it, Alice wrote ‘dinner, 7 pm.’

  When she held her hand out to him, palm up, his brow creased with confusion.

  She said, ‘Are all of these people in your contacts list?’

  ‘Oh.’ He handed over his phone and thanked her, still sounding distant and burdened.

  ‘Take a walk or something.’

  He nodded, then suddenly dropped out of sight. She leaned around her computer screen and watched him tie his laces, then he shot up, pushed his fingers through his hair, and strode out the front door, no doubt in the direction of his ute and tools.

  When she was sure Ethan wouldn’t see her, Alice hurried around the desk to look into the garage. Amongst the sawdust containers, stacked oil bins, car hoists and busy mechanics, was a small area sectioned off with orange bunting. It was an empty stretch of wall on the far side of the garage. Unremarkable to Alice’s eyes, but clearly significant to the brothers.

  She smiled when Danny noticed her, then returned to her desk to make a bunch of calls.

  Chapter 17

  They came without being summoned, ready for the long haul and the mess associated with stirring up the past. Dean hadn’t meant to change their plans, he hadn’t even thought to involve anyone but Ethan, but looking at his friends gathered around the broken wall, he realised he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

  This should have been done a long time ago. Aside from the warehouse, Dean hadn’t made a significant change to the structure of this garage in decades, but he couldn’t regret that now. Had he done something sooner, he would have missed out on this moment. This dirty, sweaty, unplanned moment that was fast becoming something he would never forget.

  Sam hadn’t changed out of her work clothes because they were perfect for the job; she wore steelcaps and a long-sleeve high-vis shirt, and kept herself busy loading broken wood into the wheelbarrow she’d borrowed from her parents’ business and pushed up the street. Apparently with Liv in it.

  Olivia was no longer acting delicate and was back to her tough, roll-with-the-punches self, sleeves shoved up and all, but because she was pregnant she was on light duties. She was sweeping and removing small debris, keeping the area as dust-free as possible so everyone could breathe easy—when they weren’t gasping with laughter at her jokes.

  Caleb was wearing his favourite battered project shirt and assembling the modular window system on a cleared bit of floor nearby. He’d hesitated in the garage doorway at first, still wearing his nice jeans and collared shirt from the pub, project clothes in hand, and asked if it was a brothers thing. Dean had said it was, and put him to work.

  Then the women had turned up and it had become so much more.

  Ethan stood in front of the void, the breeze pushing his curls back from his face. He was using a power nailer to secure the timber frame he’d built. Dean wasn’t sure that Ethan was very aware of his surroundings at the moment—his brother seemed vaguely grateful that the debris kept being cleared, enabling him to work quickly, but he appeared to have channelled all of his concentration into the task at hand. A task, Dean knew, that was exorcising the last of the demons that had driven Ethan from town as a teenager.

  Dean checked his watch, cast a glance at the wall that would soon be a window—creating a view his father hadn’t seen the night he’d died—and turned away. The kids would be arriving soon and he had a number of things to achieve before more bodies filled up the already overcrowded space. Danny, Marty and Geoff were keeping to themselves on the opposite side of the garage, and Dean had only had minutes with Alice, who’d come over to pass around drinks and pastries that she’d bought across the road. Dean had thanked her, reached for his wallet and utterly spoiled the mood. She hadn’t come back.

  She’d been quiet when he’d arrived early this afternoon. He suspected
a potent mixture of regret, embarrassment and shyness ruled her now, but she’d remained professional. He wanted to talk to her about it, if not drag her back into the storeroom and promote their almost-kiss into a fully-fledged one, but he hadn’t counted on the crowd, so he’d been forced to wait.

  The trick was not waiting too long. She’d already had almost twenty-four hours to think about it, which to his mind was the female equivalent of a man’s week-long contemplation. There was precious little time left before her pride closed the door she had nudged ajar.

  He stepped into the reception area, ready to share a smile with her, but she didn’t look his way.

  ‘I haven’t seen you much today.’ He was stating the obvious but he needed to start somewhere. ‘Do you have plans tonight? I could make us some dinner.’

  Alice’s fingers stilled over the paperwork she’d been filing. ‘Thanks, but—’

  ‘Whatever Ben said about my cooking, he was lying. He ate all of it. I can make something else he likes.’

  ‘He had a great time,’ she replied, setting the pages down on the desk and swinging in her chair to face him. ‘But I can’t tonight.’

  ‘Can’t or don’t want to?’

  ‘Can’t.’

  He nodded. ‘Another late night for you, then?’ Dean had dropped Ben off at nine o’clock last night and she still hadn’t been home. ‘You dating or something?’

  ‘You think I’d kiss you if I was dating someone?’

  Dean raised a finger and stepped closer. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you about that.’

  ‘I would never have guessed.’

  ‘Today’s been a bit odd. I haven’t been avoiding you—I had a number of things to do that couldn’t wait.’

  She crossed her arms by way of disagreeing with him.

  He said, ‘Come to dinner, we can talk properly.’

  Alice shook her head. ‘I said I can’t.’

  ‘You’ve already got plans? Will Ben be with you?’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’

  Dean scowled and glanced at the clock. Any minute their privacy would be interrupted, and so far their conversation had resolved nothing. ‘I’m sorry, but I thought you kissing me entitled me to a few questions.’

  ‘Nope, it doesn’t.’ Alice’s voice was friendly, but flippant. She turned her seat back to the computer and began clicking on the mouse.

  Before Dean could insist they continue this conversation, Ben, Rowan and Nina stepped through the front door, their noses and cheeks flushed from the cold.

  Ro and Neenz ran to Dean, flung their arms around him and immediately began a download of their day. Ro talked about his friends and Nina talked about something she had done herself, which brought to mind what Ben had told him yesterday. Dean still hadn’t decided how to tackle that issue. Ben walked over to Alice, hugged her, and begun gushing about how he’d done on a surprise test.

  The sun reflected off the windshield of a truck turning into the warehouse driveway.

  Dean stared at it, unprepared, then he started moving very fast.

  ‘Alice, I need a favour.’ His voice was clipped with urgency. ‘Kids, go out to the garage, everybody’s there.’

  They hurried to the door and tumbled through it, squealing and laughing as they squashed past Liv, who was trying to edge inside.

  ‘Liv!’ Dean stumbled towards her, forgetting for a moment that he was mid-conversation with Alice. ‘I need you to keep everyone in there. Especially Ethan. Don’t let him leave the garage, you understand?’

  Blindsided but quick on her feet, Liv nodded and hurried back out to the group. As the door closed behind her, he heard her say, ‘Who wants to hear a story?’

  Dean rounded on Alice. ‘Please don’t leave yet, I need your help. There’s a white box in my office, second drawer. Would you get it for me? Don’t show it to anyone and help Liv keep everyone away from the warehouse.’ He waited a beat. ‘Please, Alice.’

  He shouldered through the door to the warehouse, not waiting for a response. There wasn’t time to explain, or to wait to see if he’d support him; there was only the truck, and the six-foot-high letters on the side that he hadn’t anticipated.

  If he didn’t get that truck into the warehouse and out of sight, everything he’d worked towards would be for nothing. Months of secrecy would be wasted.

  * * *

  Alice gave in to her curiosity and opened the white box. She couldn’t say what she’d been expecting, but hundreds of business cards hadn’t been on her shortlist. They were bound together with a clear strip of plastic, so she carefully nudged a finger’s width of them out from the bundle, then plucked one free.

  She read it three times before she understood. Then she smiled.

  Dean was in the warehouse for over twenty minutes, and his fears that anyone would leave the garage were baseless—everyone was so single-minded about lifting the window assembly up into the framework that Alice doubted they’d even noticed Dean’s absence. Regardless, she waited in the reception area, ready to intercept anyone should they find a reason to come this way.

  When the warehouse roller door rumbled open and the truck reversed onto the street, Alice hoped that no-one looked out and saw it, because she wanted this surprise for Dean as much as she could remember wanting anything recently. He’d been so vague about the purpose of the new space, but now, after seeing the words on the side of the truck and reading the business cards, Alice finally knew his reasons.

  The sound of hammering stopped. There were a few shouts and laughs, then a panicked voice that Alice guessed to be Liv’s. Ethan had finished and was clearly heading this way. Short of throwing herself under his feet, Alice had no idea how she was going to head him off.

  She was thinking of feigning chest pains when Dean burst through the warehouse door, his grin wider than Alice’s palm. Before she could speak he strode towards her, wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her into the air. He laughed against her throat, her hair curtaining their faces, then turned in a dizzying circle and set her down.

  ‘It’s finally done,’ he whispered. And she was undone.

  Her careful, unassuming heart shed its reservations, overrode its fear and fell at his feet. It turned out she liked Dean Foster a great deal more than she’d planned to.

  She didn’t understand the story behind this big gesture, but she could guess what it would mean to Ethan, and she thought she might be seeing a fraction of what it meant to Dean.

  When he let go and stepped back, she held the box of cards up to him. He took it with one hand, put the other against her cheek, and moved close again. His lips pressed against the skin near her mouth, long enough for his warm breath to roll along her jaw and down her throat, then he drew away.

  They smiled at each other.

  ‘Ethan’s finished,’ she said, wishing she had more words and fewer feelings. She was overcome with thoughts and needs that hadn’t visited her body in years, but now wasn’t the time to explore them.

  ‘You want to stay for a few more minutes?’ he asked. ‘I’m going to do the big reveal.’

  She nodded, and was delighted to have been asked.

  The door to the garage opened and Dean took a step back, putting more distance between them than she wanted. Ethan strode in, pushing sweat-damp hair away from his face, looking exhausted but pleased. ‘It’s not beautiful yet, but it’s airtight.’

  Alice crossed the reception area and lifted her jacket from the hook by the door. As the brothers talked about the materials they needed to finish the job, she rounded the desk, shut down her computer and lifted her handbag onto her shoulder.

  Dean looked at her then back at Ethan. ‘I reckon we’re done for the day.’

  ‘I don’t know about this “we” business—where’ve you been?’ Ethan pointed at his brother. ‘You’re sweating, but I can’t for the life of me think why.’

  ‘I was working on something.’

  Ethan grunted, but didn’t comment further.
‘Yeah, we’re done. Let’s get some food before Liv starts eating some of the tyres lying around here.’

  Dean extended his arm, gesturing that Alice should walk ahead of him. When they were all back in the garage, Dean was approached by his three mechanics. Geoff wiped his hands on a clean scrap of fabric, darkening the material with every rub. ‘We can close up tonight if you want to head on home,’ he said casually.

  He knew, Alice thought. They all knew, and they were giving Dean the freedom to reveal the warehouse without worrying about the garage. Standing a few steps behind Dean, Alice smiled at the three then turned to find her son.

  ‘Ben, we’re—wow.’

  Ben hurried forward, wood dust all over his pants and shoes and a smear of blood on his shirt from a grazed hand.

  ‘I told him not to play with the off-cuts!’ Sam sang out, piling tools into the wheelbarrow. ‘I told them all not to play with the off-cuts!’

  Rowan and Nina giggled, dirtier than Ben and clearly happy about it. They were taking turns smacking their palms against each other, the impact thrusting small clouds of dust into the air.

  ‘Dinner at my place,’ Dean announced. He turned to Geoff, Marty and Danny. ‘You guys too, if you’re free after close.’

  They thanked him, promised to check with their wives and girlfriends, then drifted back to their various workstations.

  ‘It’s not raining,’ Ethan added. ‘We could do a barbeque.’

  ‘I’m in!’ Liv said, thrusting her hand into the air. ‘When? Now?’

  Dean laughed. ‘Let’s get going. Who’s getting bread and drinks?’

  Ethan dropped his arm around Sam’s shoulder and kissed her hair. ‘We will.’ They began to gather their things.

  ‘It’s our turn to get the meat,’ Cal said to Liv, rolling his pub clothes into a tight scroll.

  ‘Good—Mama wants a T-bone.’