Page 27 of Blackout

Twelve

‘Harley,’ Zach whispered, gently waking me. ‘I have to go into work for a few hours, I’ll be back later.’

‘Hmm,’ I murmured when Zach kissed my forehead goodbye, not registering anything he had told me.

I woke up more than a little confused. I must have fallen asleep in the truck. I guess Zach hadn’t been the only one who was tired as fuck. I breathed in – his scent was all around me – and I knew exactly where I was, but I was unsure how I got here.

Undressed and in Zach’s bed, and I hadn’t stirred once. I didn’t know it was possible for me to relax that much. The part of the bed where Zach had slept was now empty as he’d gone to work, so I rolled over to it, catching the hint of bourbon and cedar as I stretched out.

Then I remembered Zach’s warm lips on my forehead. He had whispered he was going into work. I was relieved he’d let me stay here and hadn’t dragged me out of bed to go with him. After last night, I could do with a little me time. The same way Zach could do with a little alone time.

Zach could have put me in one of the spare rooms he had in his house, but he didn’t, and that made me feel warm and fuzzy from my skin through to my bones. He’d laid me down right next to him, and I was only a little freaked out at how comfortable I felt right now. I wasn’t used to this level of comfort, but I could get used to it and wake up here every morning right next to him and be the happiest woman in the world.

I got up, went through the motions, made the bed, showered and stared at my shoulder in the mirror before I dressed in comfortable clothes. There was no bruise, just a dull ache. I wished I could have found my words last night to tell Connor I wasn’t interested in any business he thought he had with me before I told him to fuck off. But the memory of Zach as he’d stood right behind Connor last night made my heart skip a beat.

I would never want to piss Zach off intentionally, which Connor must have done by the way Zach spoke to him. Zach had stood up for me against his own brother, so I must not be the only one who thought Connor was an arsehole. We both had our reasons, and we had both come to the same conclusion about Connor. I guess both of us had dealt with a bad experience when it came to him.

I dragged my thoughts away from last night and focused on the here and now. I moved to the kitchen with the need to scratch an itch only a baker knew how to soothe. A job I thought I would enjoy as I’d worked alongside my grandfather, the best in the business. Only because I’d wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps, to carry on the family tradition and be well compensated. But in the last five years, it had turned into my family relying on me to singlehandedly keep the business afloat. I didn’t want to do that anymore. If I had learnt anything from being here and not at work, it was that there was more to life. Now more than ever I needed a balance. I know my Groundhog Day started ten years ago and I’d been going along with it because that was my way of coping with the upheaval in my life. But there had to be a better way to live and a better way to cope with everything that came my way.

It had been three days since I’d left and three days since I had been under the pump to perform, to be perfect, to bake my little heart out and then, at the end of the day, balance the books. With a bit of time away from the pressure, I felt I could bake at a casual pace, and a smile spread on my face.

I found a small radio in this relaxing kitchen and turned it on. The station played a mixture of country and pop. I smiled to myself at what I heard, it was good stuff, and I let the rhythm from the speakers fill the kitchen. I made scrambled eggs for breakfast as I danced around in search of ingredients to make a few of my favourite easy recipes: bread, muffins and pastry for apple pie.

Once breakfast was eaten, I went in search of something to make for dinner. I found a chest freezer full of goodies in the laundry. I reached for mince in the hope there was enough food in the pantry to make spaghetti. I was surprised to find the pantry was well stocked with everything I needed, and I wondered how much this man let loose and cooked for himself.

I spent the first part of the day engrossed in baked goods. Secretly, I hoped that Zach would walk in at any moment and smell what I could smell right now. The bread was first on my list to be made, as it took the longest amount of time. It needed to be given time to rise.

Next was the pastry that would be the base for my apple pie. I threw all the dry ingredients into a bowl and stirred like crazy until it resembled what I wanted it to look like. I added egg and water then worked the mixture into a dough and before too long, it was a mound wrapped up in the fridge.

My bread had risen to perfection, and it was time to get it ready to bake. I kneaded the dough and let it stand again. While I waited for my bread dough, I made muffins, and banana muffins were my favourite. They were quick and easy, and with the over-ripe bananas on the kitchen bench, I couldn’t let them go to waste or pass up the opportunity to make this favourite.

Once the muffins were golden on top, the bread was ready to be placed in the oven. While the muffins cooled on their rack and I waited for my bread, I got to work on my spaghetti sauce. I fried the mince, cut the onion, and added the garlic, the tomatoes, the tin soup and a few secret ingredients that would make the taste pop.

By the time I had the spaghetti sauce brought down to a simmer, the bread was ready to come out of the oven. I turned it out on to the wire rack alongside the muffins to cool and got to work on the apples for my pie. They needed to be cut thinly and evenly for my recipe to work, and as my pastry wasn’t quite ready, I placed the apples in the fridge for later.

I cleaned up the mess I’d made in the kitchen while I sang along to the radio. ‘Now what’s a girl to do?’ I asked myself. No way did I want to stay inside all day.

With my goodies baked and my spaghetti sauce on the stove, no word from Zach and an afternoon to kill, I went in search of something to do. I could sit down and teach myself to play the guitar I’d found at the other end of Zach’s house, or I could go for a swim in the pool in his backyard or sunbake on the lounge by the pool to try and tan my pasty-white skin.

I could choose a book from the study and curl up on the lounge or I could relax on the sand down by the river, but I didn’t do any of that. I decided to go for a walk instead. It would clear my head. I knew the exercise and fresh air would do me good.

I stepped out of the glass kitchen doors to find it was a beautiful sunny day, and Abby was curled in a ball with the sun on her. She looked up as I slid the door closed, curiosity on her cute little face.

‘I’m off to explore,’ I told the canine next to me. ‘Want to go for a walk?’ She got to her feet and turned in a circle a couple of times. I guessed that meant yes.

Abby and I walked through the backyard and down to a stretch of river that was sandy and clear of bush and scrub where access to the water was easy. We walked along the sandy edge of the river in one direction for as long as we could before we had no other choice but to turn around.

Walking back the way we came, past the path leading to Zach’s backyard, we continued for as long as we could until there was another choice to be made: Go back the way we came to Zach’s house or continue up a path away from the river that led into the unknown. I turned and took in the view around me, and as I wasn’t ready to go back just yet, I chose the unknown.

It was a dirt track that Abby and I walked up. The bush got thicker around us as we walked away from the river. Abby and I continued up the path until we reached a cleared piece of land just like Zach’s, and I thought to myself that this must be the neighbour he’d told me about.

I stopped at the end of the dirt track and looked around at what seemed to be the next-door neighbour’s yard. I glanced towards the house and wondered if I was about to trespass and if someone was about to warn me off with an axe in tow. It seemed too quiet here, so somehow, I didn’t think so.

I moved away from the cover of the thick scrub and stepped further into the yard and closer to the bungalow. The place looked abandoned, like it had been built, and then nothing else had happened. It didn’t even look like anyone had moved in.

Now the little bungalow had started to fall apart. Such a shame, I thought to myself. This place could be someone’s piece of paradise. Or at least the piece of paradise I now seemed to be in search of. ‘Was that really what I wanted?’ I asked myself. I didn’t even know, but I wanted to find out.

Thirteen