An Endless Summer(119)

A voice called from the crowd. I closed my eyes, my heart plummeting as the faceless voice slammed me back into reality, into a living nightmare.

“Four hundred?” the auctioneer asked, blinking. “It’s a cheeky low bid, sir, but nevertheless I’ll take it. Where we at? Where we at? Who wants the rope?” he called.

Mr. Brewster raised his hand to the sky. “Four fifty!”

The suspense was terrible; it was a blur of faceless calls and clichéd shouts from the auctioneer that had my mind whirring in a blind panic until I heard the unmistakable voice of Jeff McGee.

“Six hundred!” He raised his hand.

My head snapped up to attention. Sean shifted beside me, too, as we both tensed at the new bidder – the McGees.

“I have your six hundred, sir. Where we at, people, where we at?” He turned towards Mr Brewster who glowered at the McGees and sternly nodded, raising his hand.

“Six hundred and fifty,” he called.

“Thank you, sir, I like your style,” the auctioneer crooned.

Toby squeezed Tess’s shoulders. Her colour had drained from her face and her eyes were as wide as saucers as her dad raised his arm again.

Mr McGee: “Six sixty.”

Mr Brewster: “Six seventy.”

Mr McGee: “Six eighty.”

Mr Brewster: “Six ninety!”

An anxious Jeff McGee raised his hand one more time. “Six nine five.”

That’s when I saw it; the look from Jenny McGee as she squeezed Jeff’s arm and they met each other’s eyes.

They were at their limit.

No-no-no-no-no.

I bit my lip, my eyes blurring as dread swept over me. I looked at Sean – his jaw pulsed with tension as he watched the auction. I turned to see Chris looking grim as we waited for Mr Brewster to make a decision. He muttered urgently to his wife and an agent who had approached, no doubt encouraging them to push on.

I hadn’t realised I was holding my breath until it came out in a long shudder when Mr Brewster raised his hand. “Seven hundred.”

The crowd murmured and all eyes were on the McGees.

Jeff looked stone-faced, straight and stoic, like he could take on the world. I would have believed he could if it wasn’t for the sad, defeated eyes of Jenny McGee, who looked upon her husband.

It felt like an eternity as another agent approached the McGees, whispering and trying all their best lines to convince them to go just one more.

I was frozen, my heart the only movement as it drummed in my ears. My eyes never wavered from the McGees until … Mr McGee lowered his head and shook it. No.

They were out.

I felt my world fall away. I had had my heart set on the McGees buying the Onslow, keeping it in the family, so to speak. With them as owners, nothing would have changed; it would still have been run as a hotel and would have held the same people and memories as before.

But now Mr Brewster nodded in triumph and the auctioneer called for the crowd’s attention. I could see the cogs turning in Brewster’s head as he pictured his new mansion for himself and his awful wife. I couldn’t believe it had come to this. My heart ached.

“Seven hundred and fifty.”

What the frack?

Everyone looked around them, dumbfounded as to where the call had come from. Even the auctioneer seemed a bit jilted until he finally located the arm raised high.

On the edge of the crowd, an arm was raised in the air from the grey-suited businessman.

The Sydney buyers.

“No!” My chin trembled.

It was one thing to think of the Brewsters getting their claws into my home, but for the rich city buyers to come in and turn it into a bed and breakfast? To tear down its walls, to strip it of all its history and turn it into something that didn’t belong in our community? I couldn’t bear it.

I broke away from Sean’s hold and pushed through the crowd of stunned onlookers before the tears fell. It was too much; too much to take. I ripped the bar room door open to see my parents, holding each other’s hands. They looked just as stunned as I did. I stormed past them towards the restaurant staircase.

My dad reached out to me. “Honey—”

“Don’t!” I shrugged him off and ran for the staircase, my staircase, for what would be the very last time.





Chapter Fifty-Eight



“The Brewsters didn’t get it.”

I lifted my head from where it was buried in my knees, my face stained with tears and my cheeks flushed from crying so hard my chest ached. I didn’t know why I had come up to the balcony. What had drawn me there? Maybe because it was where it had all begun.

My blurry vision settled on my dad who stood between the open French doors. If I’d had any energy, I probably would have screamed at him. Was he happy? Were Mum and Dad pleased with the money that would now line their pockets as they began their ‘new chapter’? Were they happy with the deal they had made with the Devil to make it so?