Anticipation(38)

"Don't tell me the Ferrari broke down?" she asked.

"The Bentley's better over long distances. Better suspension," he said.

She swallowed a lump of emotion. He'd wanted her to be comfortable. And he'd dusted off his suit and had his hair cut.

"Thank you," she said simply, unable to get anything else past the tightness in her throat.

She was determined not to cry today, though. She'd shed her tears on  Tuesday night. Today was about Alice, about honoring her memory. She  wasn't going to do that by standing around crying like a little kid.

"We should get going. There are roadworks on the way out of town and it might take us a while to get a clear run," Eddie said.

He held the door for her and she slid into the Bentley's sumptuous  interior. Raf might not be as showy as Eddie, but he enjoyed the finer  things in life just as much, and the Bentley was a prime example of  that.

Eddie slipped back behind the wheel and they took off.

"You want music, talk back … ?" he glanced at her as they turned out of her street.

"Whatever suits you. You're the one doing all the hard work."

"Come on, you have to put up with me. I hear that's considered cruel and unusual punishment in some quarters," he said.

She smiled. "Stop fishing for compliments, Oliveira."

His mouth tilted up on one side and he reached out to turn the radio on.  She gazed out the window and watched the suburbs slip by. As Eddie had  guessed, the roadwork choked the traffic flow on the way out of town,  but it wasn't long before they were free of the worst of it and the  Bentley had settled into a quiet, powerful cruise.

It would take them at least three hours to get to Albury-Wodonga, a  regional town that straddled the border between Victoria and New South  Wales. Blue's thoughts turned to what lay ahead. She wondered who she  could expect to see at the funeral. Sienna, obviously, but it was hard  to know who else might turn up. In the time she'd been at Alice's house,  there had been four "permanent" residents including herself and Sienna,  but Alice had offered emergency accommodation, too, and there had been  half a dozen or so other kids who had come for only a few weeks or  months. And that was just in the time that Blue was there.

As Sienna had said, Alice was one of the good ones, but at the time,  Blue hadn't appreciated Alice's brand of blunt honesty and decency. All  Blue had wanted was out, and she and Alice had clashed more than once  over what time Blue should be home, what sort of marks she was earning  at school, and what was and wasn't appropriate to wear. Typical teenage  stuff, in hindsight, but beneath every battle, every tussle of wills,  had been the friable, incendiary knowledge that Alice was not her  mother, that Blue was not loved unconditionally, and therefore that  every misstep, every challenge was dangerous. It had taken Blue a while  to work out that Alice could take whatever she dished out, but by then  Blue had been ready to move out and begin her own life.

"You want to stop for coffee?" Eddie asked, and Blue glanced across at him.

He looked like he should be in an expensive watch ad, tooling along in his expensive car in his sexy suit.

"I'm good to keep going if you are," she said.

He took his eyes from the road briefly to glance at her. "We'll keep rolling, then."

She took advantage of the protection of her sunglasses to study his  handsome face for a moment. He'd been nothing short of wonderful since  he'd arrived on her doorstep and hauled her into his arms on Tuesday.  He'd sat with her for three hours that night, not saying an unnecessary  word, just being there for her when she succumbed to tears or needed to  share a memory of Alice. The next day, he'd shifted appointments around  so they could both have today off, then found her the name of a  reputable florist in Albury so she could send flowers.

Now he was driving all these miles for her, his hands steady on the  wheel. The fact that he was doing all this after the fight they'd had  gave her hope that maybe their friendship wasn't as screwed up as she'd  feared it was. It also made her extremely grateful for the man he was.         

     



 

Eddie might not get it right all the time, but he was a deeply generous,  decent person, one of the many reasons she loved him as much as she  did.

"You should try to get some sleep before we get there," he said.

She thought about it for a moment before pressing one of the fancy  buttons on the side of the seat to send it into the reclining position.  She'd had bugger all sleep last night, lying awake thinking about the  day ahead, and it wasn't long before the steady hum of the Bentley's big  engine lulled her into a doze.

She woke when the car bumped over something hard, jerking awake with a start.

"Just a pothole," Eddie said. "Don't tell Raf."

He grinned at her, and the rush of love and desire she felt was painful in its intensity.

"Nothing happened with Reid the other night," she said suddenly. "We went out for dinner, but that was it."

There was a short, tense silence, then he nodded briefly. "Good."

It was only because she was watching him so closely that she saw the  muscle work in his jaw and the way he blinked rapidly a couple of times,  as though letting go of something that had been troubling him.

She returned her seat to the upright position and looked around. "Where are we?"

"Just hitting the outskirts of Albury. Not long now."

Her stomach dipped at his words.

"God, I hate funerals," she said, wiping suddenly clammy hands down the front of her pants.

"Because of your parents." Eddie said it as though it was a fact, and she shook her head.

"I didn't go their funeral," she said. "The social workers wouldn't let me. They said I was too young."

Eddie was silent for a beat. "You never told me that before. That must have been tough, not being able to say goodbye."

"I didn't need to say goodbye. I knew they were gone," she said.

Eddie glanced at her but didn't say anything.

Twenty minutes later they entered the city proper, passing the many  motels and take away food outlets peppering the highway on the way into  town. It took Eddie another fifteen minutes to locate the funeral home.  That left them with just over half an hour to kill before the service,  and Eddie insisted on taking her to a local café and buying her a  sandwich. They ate in a nearby park, the two of them sitting on a  peeling park bench. The sandwich was bland, but she ate it anyway,  hoping the food would help ease the tension in her belly.

When she was done, she wiped her hands on the serviette and let out a heavy sigh.

"Okay, let's do this."

She stood, and Eddie followed suit, leading the way back to the car and  retracing the route to the funeral home. The parking lot had started to  fill with cars when they arrived and they got out and joined the queue  of somberly clad people filing into the building. Eddie's hand landed on  the small of her back as they stepped inside out of the warm sunshine,  the weight very welcome, and she shot him a grateful glance as they  entered the chapel.

"Blue."

She looked to her left to see Sienna waving, gesturing for them to join  her in the pew Sienna had chosen three rows from the back. To her  surprise, Blue saw there was a little girl sitting beside her former  foster sister, her small, pointy features a miniature version of  Sienna's.

"This is Bree," Sienna said, shy pride evident in the way she ran a  gentle hand over the back of the blonde child's head. Blue guessed Bree  was two, maybe a little older.

"Hi Bree," Blue said. She glanced over her shoulder at Eddie, who was  waiting patiently behind her. "I don't know if you remember Eddie?"

"Oh, I remember Eddie," Sienna said with a hint of her old, roguish smile.

On any other day, Blue would have smiled or rolled her eyes. What had she been thinking - women always remembered Eddie.

"Good to see you, Sienna," Eddie said.

Blue studied the other woman, aware that Sienna was returning the favor.

"You look good," Blue said.

The last time she'd seen Sienna, she'd been pale and too-skinny, with  bruises up and down her arms and legs from shooting up. Today, her face  was round, her complexion healthy. Her blonde hair was long and shiny,  tied back in a ponytail, and she was dressed in a neat black skirt and a  plain black top.

"Yeah, well, having a kid kind of puts things into perspective for you,"  Sienna said. "It's not just about you any more, you know?"

Blue nodded her understanding, glad that something had come along to stop Sienna's destructive downward spiral.

"Jonah's here. And I saw Becky before," Sienna said. "And that  red-haired guy. The one who was only with us for a couple of months  before they moved him on."         

     



 

"Andrew," Blue said.

"That's him." Sienna smiled faintly. "You were always better at remembering everyone than I was."

There were a lot of people crowding into the small room, and Blue  wondered how many of them had been under Alice's protection. Eddie  stirred beside her and she glanced toward the front of the chapel and  saw that a silver-haired woman was standing there, clearly waiting for  everyone to take their seats before the service could begin.